Can we create short little 'scripts' for a steam controller button press? Saving in one game is awful

[Baltar777]

Hey guys, im playing this rough around the edges game - Insomnia: The Ark. They took quicksaving out in a recent patch, for some reason, but the process to manually save is just tiresome.. you need to pause, get your cursor to the 'save' button, then move your cursor to the 'save' slot, then, select 'save' at the save slot... its just an annoying little timesink that i would like to rid myself of.

So my question is - is there a way to make a script that will pull up menu - go to save button - go to new save on the list of saves on screen - and select save? I would just love to be able to tap a bumper button instead of having to tiresomely go through the process by hand constantly.

thanks for any insight or help! take care!

[cammelspit]

I don't think we will ever get simple macro or 'script' support. I would think this might be considered cheating in the right game with the right person behind the config. Not that it wouldn't be welcome, I could think of a bunch of neat stuff I would do with such a feature. So you do get my +1 on this, only I seriously doubt anything even similar will ever happen.

Now, as far as how you describe what you need, you can probably do that already if you REALLY want to spend the time doing it. you can make a button press buttons at once, or you can make it punch out a sequence if you set the button to a lowish turbo fire and use mouse positions, it should be doable. I have done similar in a couple of games. You would have to HOLD the button you want to save with but it might just do what you want, albeit in a slightly awkward manner.

[Baltar777]

Wow, thanks for the quick and thorough response... i might mess around with some activators and stuff like you recommended later, in the mood to do some gaming right now, but ya.. its just unfortunate cause the game is super interesting - i mean, its a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mess, but a kinda beautiful mess... but due to its nature and how punishing it is... I need to save scum in this game. Like lockpicks are in limited supply, mines blow up in your face if you fail the defuse, some even just go to instant game over so wanted to savescum my way through just cause it is a real diamond in the rough kinda game.

thanks for taking the time to reply - and yeah, thinking about it, i can definitely see how it could be abused and so was maybe left on the cutting room floor, but ill try and see if i can make a workaround when im not in the 'i wanna play now' kind of mood lol

again, thank you for being so quick, i didnt check the thread cause i figured it would take forever to get a response and you were basically there immediately, lol, thanks :)

[Canadian Gamer]

If you can do it all without mouse input then it should be possible, I think. Just a bunch of inputs with various delays.

[cammelspit]

@Huirricane Jesus
That may be true to some degree for some things but there are severe limitations to that idea, chief among them being how you can't repeat button presses without great annoyance and a good chunk of games can't handle the input speed.

@Baiter777
In case you were wondering what Mr. Jesus means, I will explain. When you select multiple things for an activator to output, say letter m-o-n-e-y simultaneously, it's technically not actually simultaneously. What happens is those letters are pressed very VERY quickly when you hit the button that triggers the activator. So, if I make a button press T-M-O-N-E-Y-Enter while I'm playing quake3, it will literally press T for the chat, type the work money, and then hit enter to send it. This sometimes works on games but it's iffy for many reasons. Mostly the issue is many, if not most, games these days have an absolute minimum threshold where they will reject input if it comes by too fast, probably an anti-cheating thing but I couldn't say for sure. Another issue is if you want to use a word with repeating letters or a whole sentence because you normally can't repeatedly set a key on a multi-key bind. You can, however, make a second activator and keep it going. If I wanted to type hello instead I would do it like this. Bind T-H-E-L on the first activator and bind L-O-Enter on a second activator. Assuming the game accept the input without thinking you are scripting or hacking, all is good. If not, using the turbo fire rotation trick WILL work as you can adjust the speed at which it rotates to be under that threshold the game allows. Does this make any sense?

Anyways, you can ONLY do this trick with KB and Gamepad command AFAIK so it's usefulness for you specific purpose would need to be proven.

Also, NP dude, I enjoy strange and uncommon requests because it gets me thinking on how one could accomplish the same effect with the tools Valve has given us.

[Baltar777]

Originally posted by cammelspit:

@Huirricane Jesus
That may be true to some degree for some things but there are severe limitations to that idea, chief among them being how you can't repeat button presses without great annoyance and a good chunk of games can't handle the input speed.

@Baiter777
In case you were wondering what Mr. Jesus means, I will explain. When you select multiple things for an activator to output, say letter m-o-n-e-y simultaneously, it's technically not actually simultaneously. What happens is those letters are pressed very VERY quickly when you hit the button that triggers the activator. So, if I make a button press T-M-O-N-E-Y-Enter while I'm playing quake3, it will literally press T for the chat, type the work money, and then hit enter to send it. This sometimes works on games but it's iffy for many reasons. Mostly the issue is many, if not most, games these days have an absolute minimum threshold where they will reject input if it comes by too fast, probably an anti-cheating thing but I couldn't say for sure. Another issue is if you want to use a word with repeating letters or a whole sentence because you normally can't repeatedly set a key on a multi-key bind. You can, however, make a second activator and keep it going. If I wanted to type hello instead I would do it like this. Bind T-H-E-L on the first activator and bind L-O-Enter on a second activator. Assuming the game accept the input without thinking you are scripting or hacking, all is good. If not, using the turbo fire rotation trick WILL work as you can adjust the speed at which it rotates to be under that threshold the game allows. Does this make any sense?

Anyways, you can ONLY do this trick with KB and Gamepad command AFAIK so it's usefulness for you specific purpose would need to be proven.

Also, NP dude, I enjoy strange and uncommon requests because it gets me thinking on how one could accomplish the same effect with the tools Valve has given us.

Unfortunately, its all mouse clicks - keyboard presses dont do anything in the pause menu - BUT - i did find an 'outside source' as a fix.

Found Auto Mouse Clicker, it only records mouse clicks, so i have to 'pause' myself (which isnt a problem for me) then i set the script to select Save w/ the mouse, then go to the empty save slot, and save, with the mouse and set it to F7 - then i set my Left Grip to F7 and SHAZAM! Totally works.

Thanks for all the advice and help, guys. But got it running in a way im willing to accept. Its no 'quicksave' but its a hell of a lot better than dragging around pressing those buttons every 2 minutes lol.

Thanks again for all the help!

[cammelspit]

Lol, that sounds exactly like something I would do. If I am so motivated I will almost always find a way to brute force make it work even if I take way longer than it's worth to figure it out. Glad it's working for you!

Good Luck and Happy Gaming!

[Baltar777]

Originally posted by cammelspit:

Lol, that sounds exactly like something I would do. If I am so motivated I will almost always find a way to brute force make it work even if I take way longer than it's worth to figure it out. Glad it's working for you!

Good Luck and Happy Gaming!

i appreciate it and thanks for the help!

yeah, especially when a game is legit good or atleast interesting enough to warrant the work. Like i had to put in prolly 10 hours of work to get fallout 4 vr working right.. was cool as hell though, sunk tons of time into that.

I played like 4 hours of Insomnia the way i was and i was just like, saving like this.. this is utterly killing the mood having to annoyingly click these boxes everytime i want to lockpick something and potentially lose all my lockpicks cause the minigame is too difficult for my character, etc.

When you make a game this brutal, you gotta savescum.. it is what it is. Like Dark Souls is brutal, but its designed in a way where dying isnt a massive resource loss of something that costs legit cash in game to buy (lockpicks are an absurd amount of money in this game... no way youre carrying like 20 in your pocket like most games, youre rocking with like 2-4 of em)... so its a difficult minigame already + lose my 2 lockpicks?

Naa, i consider the 'loading' of the savescum save to be the punishment for failure enough that i dont need the game punishing me with a vital resource loss on a whim. Just not a way to play this game without constantly getting ♥♥♥♥♥♥... so, for me, i savescum, and im proud to admit that if the game brutally punishes for mistakes, especially small ones like screwing up a mini game thats not well explained in the first place lol.

So, needed a way to get this damn thing working in a way i could play. totally will use your steam controller tips in the future, but ya, was just like - i just need like a 5 second recording of the save process that doesnt require me dragging all over and found a mouse program that worked just right, so hooray lol