Steam Deck Unofficial Controller Scheme Help Guide

An unofficial well-thought out controller scheme for the Steam Deck.

You will find this Layout while on Steam Deck > Controller Layout under Avorion > Community Layouts > Unofficial Steam Deck Layout for Avorion

By Snowfious

About

Hello everyone,

after receiving my personal Deck I started tinkering with things, such as Controller Schemes with games that are not completely officially supported by the devs. As you know, Avorion is a Keyboard and Mouse game, as it should be. So no taking away from that. However, the Steam Deck is a great piece of technology, and the freedom you have with the Controller Layouts are very vast. Therefore you can really tinker and do some awesome things with certain combos of key presses and the like. Please continue below for more help and tips of the Controller Scheme I have come up with for the Steam Deck. While not entirely complicated, it can get a tad confusing.

I have based the Layout off of Nerdbeard (V)'s design, Crappy bindings; that is from the Steam Controller and went from there. Thanks for the great layout (or crappy hehe) Nerdbeard!

Disclaimer

In order for everything to work correctly, you will have to edit some PC keybinds for everything to work.

Also, this is a work in progress. While mostly complete I would say, there's some room for improvement or left over keybinds. What you see from below is ten hours and more with these key-layouts and it plays well.

TLDR

Some keybinds may not make sense, but if interested, continue below for a breakdown. As well as the hidden keys that the pic cannot show.

Changing some PC Keybinds

Go to Settings > Controls > Key Bindings > Scroll down to Building Mode > Now change the following.

Toggle Mirror Plane X > Change to " [ "
Toggle Mirror Plane Y > Change to " \ " (Not key from the question mark, the key below the backspace key)
Toggle Mirror Plane Z > Change to " ] "

It's important to completely change the keys instead of adding to the 2nd keybind. This is because some of the scheme buttons will mess with the default keybinds from the above. Such as Shift and such. There is a downside if you end up playing the game from Steam Deck and using a Keyboard or Mouse, as the defaults won't be there so you'll have to re-add the defaults again. This especially becomes problematic when using the SD as a controller to play Avorion on your PC through Remote Play. You will have to rebind the keys on your PC for things to work correctly with this Layout. Neat stuff actually, more on that below!

Why? It'll make more sense below.

Walk-through the Keybinds

This game has Mode Shift for more keybinds with a Controller.

Please Note: If you don't see an explanation for a certain button, it is because it is explained in the pic from above.

Bumpers

• Left Bumper (L1):
  Are the Mode-Shifts for Left Joystick; A, B, X, Y; Left/Right Trackpad; Directional Pad
  
  
• Right Bumper (R1):
  R1 = F Key: Simple interact button, for more fine-tuning (Hold-F) see below.
  R1 Double Press = Scroll Wheel Down
  R1 Long Press = Scroll Wheel Up
  The double and long press is mainly when you're building and you are using the Space Key on the Left Trackpad (see Below). Since scrolling gets weird when using the Left Trackpad Mode Shift (see Below) when building. Note: The mouse cursor has to be inside the building window to work correctly.

Trackpads

• Left Trackpad:
  Numbers = What this is, is a Radial Menu to easily use the 1-9/0. I have kept it 1-6 to keep it simple. Feel free to add more if you use more keys.
  
  
• Just Touching:
  Space Key = for much easier building
  
  
• Left Trackpad (Mode Shift):
  Scroll Wheel = Up and Down. The scroll wheel for zooming in and out. Really fast sensitivity. Can alter in settings to be slower.

Joysticks

• L3 (Click) = Space Key: It is set to toggle, so when using L3 to move your ship, you can use your boost. No need to click and hold the click. Click again to toggle off.
  
  
• Left Joystick (Mode Shift):
  L-up = Q Key
  L-Left = Z Key
  L-Down = E Key
  L-Right = X Key
  
  (Depending on how you would want the ship to move up and down, you can inverse it. Just swap Q and E)
  
  
• L3 Click (Mode Shift) = F Key: You have to hold the click. This makes it easier to tractor beam to stations when near for docking.

Back Buttons

• Left two Buttons:
  L4 = Shift Key: To move/see mouse while flying. As well as for building.
  L4 Double Press = " \ " Key: Toggle Mirror Plane Y for Building
  L5 = Z Key: Simple way to rotate ship left instead of using Mode Shift (See Above).
  L5 = " [ " Key: Toggle Mirror Plane X for Building
  
  
• Right two Buttons:
  R4 = Alt Key
  R4 Double Press = G Key: to toggle building parts instead of using Left Trackpad Touch (See Above). As well as fire missiles.
  R5 = X Key: Rotate RIght
  R5 = " ] " Key: Toggle Mirror Plane Z

DPad

• Dpad:
  Up = Scroll Wheel Up: More fine-tuning zooming in vs L-Trackpad Zooming.
  Down = Scroll Wheel Down: More fine-tuning zooming out vs L-Trackpad Zooming.
  
  
• Dpad Mode Shift:
  Up = I Key
  Left = Backspace Key
  Down = P Key
  RIght = T Key

Buttons

• Buttons:
  A = Space Key: This is also for more fine-tuning with the booster. Quick and simple, vs toggling it (See Above).
  
  
• Buttons (Mode Shift):
  A = N Key: Local Strategy Map
  B = M Key: Galaxy Map
  X = Delete Key: Deleting the stuff
  Y = Keypad 5: for the fun Camera view. Click again to turn off.
  
  
  
  
  
  

Other Steam Deck things you can do In-Game

Using the Gyro Behavior

This feature is actually quite neat for this game (and probably other space-flying games). From the layout from above Gyro is disabled. So feel free to turn it on to experiment or try the game with Gyro.

The Gyro feature works quite well on the Steam Deck. When turning this feature on, Valve defaults the activation to just touching the Right-Trackpad. Then move your deck around. It actually causes turning to be far easier than using the combos of "X" or "Z" key and others for moving.

Note: depending on how you like to fly when using controllers or your mouse; whether default or Inverted can really change the way Gyro works or even disorientates yourself (did for me when experimenting). This is especially the case if you change the Gyro key to the Left-Trackpad.

Also you can have Gyro turned on in general so no button press/touch is needed to work.

Using the Steam Deck as a big Controller for Avorion on your actual PC

Valve has confirmed it on their FAQ page that you can use the Steam Deck as a controller through Remote-Play. I have confirmed it works pretty well for Avorion.

To set up, you will hit the down arrow next to the Play button and pick your actual PC to play the game. The game will stream from "your" main PC, to the Steam Deck.

• Recommended settings for Remote Play

Go into your Steam Deck settings > Remote Play > (If you haven't already, add your PC, depending on your network, this could be automatically discovered. Was the case for me.) Change Video to "Fast" > change other settings if you want too. I changed the Framerate Limit to 120 FPS for my PC. If it's on 60, your main PC will be 60. Tell me if I'm wrong in the comments, but since the Deck is 60 FPS (screen, not HDMI to TV/Monitor), it shouldn't effect the deck if you put to 120.

What I noticed is the commands or input you use on the Controller of the Steam Deck, the latency is VERY low (still noticeable if you have super low latency monitors, and using wired keyboard and mouse), and is completely separate from the video signal. I have the Video quality on Fast because I'm not looking at the Deck all that much. So depending on the strength and location you are away from your Wifi Hub, you will see the video lag (literally stops). Did so for me. But it does not effect the Controls since that is very low bandwidth anyway and is almost instant. Whereas the video has to decode and such. So keep this in mind.

One minor issue I noticed. And this is specific to my main PC setup since I'm a Linux user on my Desktop as well. This issue could be a Wayland issue. Since lots of mouse issues still can happen on Wayland vs X11. Have not tested on X11 or Windows. So may not be an issue for you.

The issue is the Mouse on the Desktop does not move. You will see an invisible mouse move around. It shows up on the Deck, but not the main PC. So to do precise movements, you'll have to look on your Steam Deck to know where you're moving the mouse. The other way around is not the case. Moving the Mouse on main PC you will see the Mouse move on the Steam Deck. But that's probably because it's being streamed and mirrored.

Also, you'll have to change the keybinds from above on the main game on your PC for everything to work.

Anyway. Playing the game on your main PC and using the Steam Deck as a controller is quite an interesting endeavor and pretty fun. Especially with the Gyro feature on. Makes the game more immersive. Give it a try!!!