Questions?

EVA works, as do many of the third-party Elite:Dangerous tools, using Frontier's "Companion App" web interface. This was originally designed for Frontier's own iOS companion app. To use this interface, you need to tell Frontier's servers who you are so that they can send back the right CMDR data; to do this, you must log in using your Frontier account.

So how do you know you can trust EVA with your account details?

The "Marketing" Answer

EVA does not use your Frontier account details for any purpose except logging in to Frontier's servers. Specifically, your email address is not transmitted outside the app at any time, except to Frontier Developments over an encrypted channel. Your password will be stored using the secure storage facilities provided by either iOS or Android, if and only if you request it to be stored using EVA's settings.

You can choose to use EVA without providing any account details at all, but you will be limited to using it as a trade computer. In other words, if you choose not to tell Frontier's servers who you are, they will not be able to give you any information back.

The "Practical" Answer

The only way to be absolutely 100% certain that a piece of software is not doing things you don't want is to only use software you downloaded from inside your own skull on a computer which has never been connected to any outside source whatsoever. This is true for all software, from all sources, and I know it's not reassuring.

Governments, banks, major corporations and even intelligence agencies have both software and servers hacked with regularity. Even on this level there is no 100% certain guarantee of safety. If you're asking how safe it is to use private account details in a third-party tool, you're right to do so.

So what can I say to reassure you?

Ask yourself what "the thief" would stand to gain from stealing your Elite login. There's no credit card details stored at Frontier, and if someone else were to start playing with your account you would see very quickly that your game details had changed, contact Frontier to report the theft, and change the password back.

Ask yourself what "the thief" would stand to lose, if caught. EVA is only available through the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Both of these require a full registration, including postal address. Apple requires business details to be validated too. If EVA were found to be stealing account details deliberately, it would be the work of minutes for investigators to find me. EVA is written by a registered software development company, with interests in other areas beyond Elite:Dangerous, including contract development within the games industry; I would stand to lose my reputation, company and livelihood. EVA is a paid-for application; this means that both Apple and Google have my company bank details too. Between Apple, Google, the UK government, Companies House, HMRC and the bank, someone somewhere would be able to track me down quickly enough if EVA were doing anything illegal.

Ask yourself if you would take that kind of risk, for that level of reward, if you were in my position.

There certainly is!

EVA Manual

EVA is not able to fully work if you have an XBox account for Elite:Dangerous. This is because of limitations on Frontier's servers, which see XBox accounts as entirely different to PC/Mac accounts. As a result, they aren't able to provide the details that EVA needs - your location, your profile and the current station's market.

EVA is still able to work as a trade computer, but will need to have the database of systems, stations and prices updated occasionally (using the Nav tab).

At the time of writing, the Playstation edition of Elite:Dangerous has only just been released. It is currently not known whether EVA will be able to work fully with the Playstation version, but I would assume that it will be restricted in the same way as the XBox version is.

The first time you run EVA, you will need to enter your Frontier account details if you play Elite:Dangerous on PC or Mac. This allows EVA to talk to Frontier's servers to get your profile information.

Enter your account email address and password into the boxes and tap "Login". If this is the first time you've logged in, you'll next need to enter an authentication code, just like you did for Elite:Dangerous itself. This will be emailed to you by Frontier, and usually arrives within a few seconds.

Next, type the authentication code into the "Auth Code" box in EVA, and tap "Authenticate".

Important!

Wait for the authentication code to arrive without cancelling or logging in again. Each authentication code is valid for only the exact login attempt that requested it, so if you try to log in a second time then any authentication code sent for the first login will no longer be accepted.

Yes, EVA can be used with multiple accounts!

If you open the settings page in EVA, you will have two logout options.

Quick

A quick logout just closes the session with Frontier's servers, allowing you to log in with a different account. Remember that you will need to authenticate each account the first time you use it with EVA.

Full

A full logout also removes the authentication details, so Frontier's servers will ask you for authentication if you log in with this account again.

If you own more than one ship in Elite:Dangerous, EVA is able to show you the details of each ship. There is a small catch, though.

The information received from Frontier only gives details of your current ship. This means that EVA is only able to show details of other ships if you have flown that ship while EVA has been running. EVA remembers your ship details and will use those if you ask to see the modules and loadout of one of your other ships.

The locations of all of your ships are always shown correctly.

EVA works entirely standalone - all you need is an account with Frontier.

If you are playing Elite:Dangerous on a PC or Mac, you can help EVA out by installing EDProxy by westokyo . This is a free tool which broadcasts your current location to anything that's listening on your local network. EVA uses this information to get updates on your location much more quickly than it can by asking Frontier's servers. It can be very helpful if you are doing many system to system jumps in a row, because the information received from Frontier can be out of date and can skip some systems.

EVA is able to send your travel logs to EDSM (the Elite:Dangerous Star Map), and prices to EDDB (Elite:Dangerous Database), so you don't need separate tools to do these jobs.

1. Go to EVA's trade tab and find the system or station that you want to use the the center of your search. Normally this will be your current location, so tap the map marker icon.
2. Enter a maximum range in light years for your search in the box on the left labelled "Ly".
3. Select List mode
4. Choose the commodity you're interested in from the drop-down list of commodities.
5. Tap Search.

1. Go to EVA's trade tab and find the system or station that you want to use the the center of your search. Normally this will be your current location, so tap the map marker icon.
2. Select List mode
3. Choose the system or station you want to find a trade to. The system name will show an auto-complete list once you've typed in 4 or more letters.
4. Choose the commodity you're interested in from the drop-down list of commodities, or set it to "Any Commodity" to show all possible trades.
5. Tap Search.

1. Go to EVA's trade tab and find the system or station that you want to use the the center of your search. Normally this will be your current location, so tap the map marker icon.
2. Enter a maximum range in light years for your search in the box on the left labelled "Ly".
3. Select List mode
4. Choose the commodity you're interested in from the drop-down list of commodities.
5. Choose whether you want to buy or sell the commodity.
6. Tap Search.

1. Go to EVA's trade tab and find the system or station that you want to use the the center of your search. Normally this will be your current location, so tap the map marker icon.
2. Enter a maximum range in light years for your search in the box on the left labelled "Ly".
3. Select Trade mode
4. Choose the length of the trade route
5. Set any other conditions - longest jump range, smallest profit, whether you are willing to transfer between stations in the same system without any cargo, if you want to go to surface stations and whether you need a large docking pad.
6. Press Search.

EVA will take notes for you in various ways.

System Notes

If you want to store a quick note for a particular star system:

1. Go to the Nav tab and find the system you're interested in. 
2. Use the map marker button to automatically get the system you're currently in, or
3. Type part of a system name in and search, then double-tap on the system name in the list of results.
4. Type your notes into the Notes box.

EVA will read these notes back to you each time you re-enter this system, if this option isn't switched off in the settings. They will also be sent to EDSM if you have given EVA your EDSM API key in settings.

EDSM (https://www.edsm.net/) is the Elite:Dangerous Star Map. It keeps track of your progress across the galaxy, but needs to be told where you are by a program like EVA. If you create a free account with EDSM, you will be given an "API Key", which EVA can use to communicate with EDSM.

EVA and EDSM can exchange records about your location, and any notes you take for specific star systems. It has many other fun features, like a public map of where CMDRs are right now, sharing a map of your flights with others, and showing your current ranks.

EVA can take some time to update prices after you dock at a station. There are two reasons for this, one of which is easily fixed and partly helps to fix the other.

The first problem is finding out that you've docked. Remember that EVA gets no realtime data from Elite:Dangerous itself, it relies on getting information from Frontier's servers and it has to ask for it. You can set EVA to check automatically every 30 seconds but no more often than that, to avoid overloading Frontier. This can be one source of delay.

This sounds as though it would be easily fixed by installing and running EDProxy on your PC or Mac. This gives immediate notification whenever you enter a new star system. Unfortunately it doesn't give notification when you dock, although there may be options in the future to help that.

In the meantime, the workaround is very easy; all you need to do is tap the "Refresh" button soon after you dock.

The second problem is that even after you do this, sometimes the prices don't update immediately. The issue here is that sometimes Frontier's servers are a little way behind the current state of the game. In fact, sometimes the information reported by Frontier actually goes backwards to a previous system! EVA filters all this out, but there is nothing EVA can do to force Frontier to update their server state.

Updates in Elite:Dangerous 2.2 have made it potentially easier to get realtime updates, once EDProxy has been updated to match. When this happens, EVA will get updated to react to docking too.

When you log in to EVA for the first time, it will need to be authenticated by Frontier. This is to make sure your account details are kept safe.

Frontier will email you with a five-letter code which you need to type into EVA before Frontier will send out any more information. Each authentication code is only usable once, and matches only one login attempt. This means that if you log in twice without authenticating, the first authentication code you receive will no longer work. The codes can take a few minutes to arrive, so if you log in again during that time then you must wait for the second code to arrive.

If you want to make sure that you're using the right code, the easiest way is to just wait a couple of minutes to check that a second code doesn't arrive.