Steam Deck tweaks? (ie controler setup)

[F😈CK HOPE]

I installed Factorio (which is the greatest game ever, and which I owned before it was even on Steam) on my Steam Deck, and it's....not the best to play it that way.

I wasn't shocked and I didn't over think it, but then today I found out that they're a Nintendo Switch edition of Factorio, which means a version already optimized for controller use. It seems like porting that control scheme to the PC version shouldn't be a massive amount of work, right? And the Factorio team (remember when it was a one man shop?) is known for supporting the community, so is this something we can look forward to?

[brian_va]

They said the switch was the current focus, deck will come at some point. They don't really do projected dates, so hopefully sooner than later

[F😈CK HOPE]

That makes sense, since Switch sales are new revenue and improving the Steam/PC version is not

Great to know this is already in the pipe, thanks!

[DaBa]

Sadly, Switch controls aren't very good. They are playable, but barely. Having to control the game without a mouse and keyboard feels just as bad as it did on the Deck. Actually, having to use the analogue stick as a mouse substitute is WAY worse than the Deck's trackpads, which already didn't work very well as a mouse substitute in Factorio.

But that's the tip of the iceberg, there's even more:

- Doing just about anything takes significantly longer.

- Building things early game where you don't have bots to build whole blueprints for you not only takes ages, but it's an absolute chore.

- Some of the things we would consider basic stuff simply doesn't work or works really poorly due to the control scheme, things like z dropping items on buildings quickly, quickly grabbing resources from a bunch of smelters, evenly distributing items between assemblers or smelters, basically anything that involves quick and precise mouse movements and hotkeys.

- You cannot move with the inventory open. Why?

- Even something as basic as moving stacks of things from one inventory to another takes a few seconds and a lot of inputs.

- Shortcuts are not intuitive and convoluted, since there aren't enough buttons on a controller, you have to use button combinations. So you'll be spending a lot of time looking for an action that would normally just be a keyboard key that is easy to remember, but on the Switch it's, for example, a right shoulder button + an arbitrary controller button. And there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to them, so learning all of them and making that muscle memory it going to take A LOT of time and pain.

- And guess what, even with all of that there are still shortcuts missing, there just aren't enough buttons on the Switch to support all of that.

FYI I am not blaming the devs for this, they did the best they could with the Switch version, it's just not enough. Factorio is just not meant to be played with a controller, it's a game in which you will spend more than 90% of your time moving your mouse around and clicking specific spots on your screen and using dozens of shortcuts. And for that to work well and not feel horrible you need a mouse and a keyboard.

[brian_va]

yeah, i kinda figured usability would be very subjective. i'm sure someone out there has become fairly efficient at playing with the limited controls. it may even take someone who doesn't know how to play (or have the ability) using keyboard and mouse for the controls to sink in.

perhaps the touchpads on the deck will allow for more keybinding possibilities (the steam controller using the touchpad, triggers and buttons in different combos allowed for more keybindings) but remembering what does what could become an issue.

[F😈CK HOPE]

Originally posted by DaBa:

Sadly, Switch controls aren't very good.

That's a really informative post, thanks! Even though it's not good new, clearly.

I will say there are a lot more total button combinations on the deck than a switch, but your comments are all in line with my experience trying to play on the deck

[DaBa]

Originally posted by brian_va:

yeah, i kinda figured usability would be very subjective. i'm sure someone out there has become fairly efficient at playing with the limited controls. it may even take someone who doesn't know how to play (or have the ability) using keyboard and mouse for the controls to sink in.

perhaps the touchpads on the deck will allow for more keybinding possibilities (the steam controller using the touchpad, triggers and buttons in different combos allowed for more keybindings) but remembering what does what could become an issue.

There are already Switch version speedruns being submitted. Watching one of them and then comparing it side by side to the PC version is probably the best comparison you can get. Right now speedrunners are probably the ones most proficient with the control scheme.

[DaBa]

Originally posted by F😈CK HOPE:

Originally posted by DaBa:

Sadly, Switch controls aren't very good.

That's a really informative post, thanks! Even though it's not good new, clearly.

I will say there are a lot more total button combinations on the deck than a switch, but your comments are all in line with my experience trying to play on the deck

Yeah, I know the deck has more buttons so more combination possibilities. But as I described, not having enough keybinds isn't the biggest problem, nor the only one. I'd even say with some effort you can probably make a better control scheme on the Deck right now than whatever you have available on the Switch. Trackpads are really nice to have too, they aren't ideal but still much better than an analogue stick as a mouse substitute.

[brian_va]

Originally posted by DaBa:

Originally posted by brian_va:

yeah, i kinda figured usability would be very subjective. i'm sure someone out there has become fairly efficient at playing with the limited controls. it may even take someone who doesn't know how to play (or have the ability) using keyboard and mouse for the controls to sink in.

perhaps the touchpads on the deck will allow for more keybinding possibilities (the steam controller using the touchpad, triggers and buttons in different combos allowed for more keybindings) but remembering what does what could become an issue.

There are already Switch version speedruns being submitted. Watching one of them and then comparing it side by side to the PC version is probably the best comparison you can get. Right now speedrunners are probably the ones most proficient with the control scheme.

yeah, thats fair. hadn't even considered there were switch videos, let alone speedruns out, but i guess i really shouldn't be surprised.