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Curious to see how well it translates to controllers. I know there is limited support on the Steam Deck, but I'm guessing it's still subpar to traditional mouse

Curious to see how well it translates to controllers. I know there is limited support on the Steam Deck, but I'm guessing it's still subpar to traditional mouse/keyboard controls. From the link: Factorio was developed for 10 years with only keyboard and mouse in mind, so making sure the game is fully playable with controllers was no easy task. Playing with a controller is slightly slower, and will take some getting used to (just as it does when playing with keyboard and mouse for the first time). After becoming familiar with it, I find it very comfortable. I recommend everyone to play through the first levels of our tutorial campaign, as it's a great way to get acquainted with playing Factorio with a controller.

bradhe 4y ago
I bet touch adds a dimension to it. Touch-and-drag for belts, picking from inventory with touch...
- capableweb 4y ago
  Sounds like a hassle. Good controller support would beat touch controller in both ergonomics and speed every day. I hope the Controller support been improved with this launch as I tried to play Factorio on my Steam Deck before but felt like it was just "emulated mouse" support basically which isn't nearly nice enough. I feel like Tropico-series did a good implementation of top-down+strategy controller for their games.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  A fair amount of Switch games don’t use touch.
  - BudaDude 4y ago
    Honestly I forget it's even there. For the most part, only mobile games ported to the Switch use it.
    - oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
      And many first party games, of course. It's not a great experience, though - on the OG switch, at least, the screen is really low quality.
      - bobthepanda 4y ago
        I feel like a lot of games optimize their UI for TVs, but at that size scaled down the touch targets would be too small to not fat-finger.
        oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
        Switch games can actually target handheld mode vs. tv mode and give you a better experience to solve that problem. Few of them do, unfortunately, IME.
- hbn 4y ago
  Switch games need to have non-touch control options cause it's also meant to be played docked
- bioemerl 4y ago
  Unfortunately the steam deck touch calibration is kind of bad. Mine is all over the place at times, and on kb/mouse designs it can be hard to be accurate enough.
dom96 4y ago
Yeah... I hope the Nintendo Switch port is brought to Steam Deck too. I gave Factorio a quick go a few days ago and it was painful to play (at least with the default key config)
- goda90 4y ago
  The blog post says they will focus on making controller play better on Switch, then make that generic for PC(which implies Steam Deck as well). The PC/Steam Deck version supports mods, which is better than Switch anyway.
  - stingraycharles 4y ago
    Do you happen to know what the status of the Steam Deck ecosystem is? I would be in the market to get a more powerful version of the Switch, which the Steam Deck would be, but it seems to be discontinued.
    - goda90 4y ago
      The Steam Deck is not discontinued. It's actually quite new, with the first shipments going out to normal customers at the beginning of this year, and more and more going out now. I got mine in June. Valve made a reservation process that required an old enough Steam account and $5 refundable reservation to avoid scalpers. Regarding the ecosystem, the Steam Deck is a x86 PC. It comes with SteamOS, which is an open Arch Linux based distribution. You are free to install other operating systems like Windows on it. The out of the box Steam experience is quite good, with lots of games on the Verified list[0], and they play really well. People also install non-Steam games and software, including console emulators, and there are growing communities around that. [0]https://www.steamdeck.com/en/verified https://www.steamdeck.com/en/verified
    - neoberg 4y ago
      Found the time traveler.
    - havblue 4y ago
      Steam deck can be a bit of work doing things like getting epic games to run, file transfers, and setting up the controls for games that aren't fully supported. Many games work flawlessly like they're on switch, though. It depends on whether occasional issues that force you to tinker are fun or not. Elden Ring plays well. I don't plan on using my switch OLED until the next Zelda comes out.
LinusU 4y ago
I have >400 hours logged in Factorio, and almost all of that is on my laptop with an external Steam Controller. I think it works great, and play that way even when I'm home with access to keyboard and mouse. The touch controls on the Steam Controller are excellent though, so I'm not sure how good it will be on the Switch which uses joysticks...
- shakna 4y ago
  > The touch controls on the Steam Controller are excellent though, so I'm not sure how good it will be on the Switch which uses joysticks... Whilst lots of games ignore it, the Switch screen is a touchscreen.
  - sgarman 4y ago
    You kinda have to ignore it if you want your game to be playable docked.
    - stingraycharles 4y ago
      I happen to be one of those switch users who almost exclusively use it docked. Initially I thought the concept was great, but the screen is just too small for my eyes on all the strategy games I play, I always defer to my iPad on holidays.
      - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
        I actually purchased multiple docks, the nice thing about the switch to me is being able to quickly move it to another room as needs arise.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - shakna 4y ago
      Plenty of games have multiple sets of controls. A handful of Switch games make use of both, to great effect. Like Cozy Grove. You don't have to completely ignore it, to allow for one playing style.
Groxx 4y ago
Hopefully it'll support touch too... touch to drag out paths and move inventory things around is a wonderful experience in many games, and I'm always sad to see most Switch games not even support tapping on-screen buttons.
sulam 4y ago
I have a Steam Deck, and while it's playable, I'm not going to be setting any speed records with it. It's really kind of painfully difficult to things that I have down to muscle memory on a keyboard. Just as an example, copying recipes from one assembler to 20 more takes me 1-2s on keyboard. On the Deck the default controller layout doesn't even allow for doing it once. Early game tricks like holding z and using your mouse to drop individual pieces of coal across all of your miners and smelters in a row isn't a thing as far as I can work out. In fact I essentially had to fully load all my smelters rather than distribute it because I couldn't figure out how to split stacks. I'm sure a lot of this is familiarity, and if I force myself I will get more efficient with the Steam Deck, but I doubt I'd ever find it superior or even equivalent to keyboard and mouse.
- solardev 4y ago
  Here's hoping they'll backport some of the Switch controls to the Steam Deck
rubyist5eva 4y ago
One game that I didn't think would work well on a controller was Rimworld but it's actually really great, and I love playing Rimworld from the couch. Hopefully the same amount of care for controller controls goes into Factorio.

bradhe 4y ago

I bet touch adds a dimension to it. Touch-and-drag for belts, picking from inventory with touch...

capableweb 4y ago
Sounds like a hassle. Good controller support would beat touch controller in both ergonomics and speed every day. I hope the Controller support been improved with this launch as I tried to play Factorio on my Steam Deck before but felt like it was just "emulated mouse" support basically which isn't nearly nice enough. I feel like Tropico-series did a good implementation of top-down+strategy controller for their games.
bobthepanda 4y ago
A fair amount of Switch games don’t use touch.
- BudaDude 4y ago
  Honestly I forget it's even there. For the most part, only mobile games ported to the Switch use it.
  - oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
    And many first party games, of course. It's not a great experience, though - on the OG switch, at least, the screen is really low quality.
    - bobthepanda 4y ago
      I feel like a lot of games optimize their UI for TVs, but at that size scaled down the touch targets would be too small to not fat-finger.
      - oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
        Switch games can actually target handheld mode vs. tv mode and give you a better experience to solve that problem. Few of them do, unfortunately, IME.
hbn 4y ago
Switch games need to have non-touch control options cause it's also meant to be played docked
bioemerl 4y ago
Unfortunately the steam deck touch calibration is kind of bad. Mine is all over the place at times, and on kb/mouse designs it can be hard to be accurate enough.

dom96 4y ago

Yeah... I hope the Nintendo Switch port is brought to Steam Deck too. I gave Factorio a quick go a few days ago and it was painful to play (at least with the default key config)

goda90 4y ago
The blog post says they will focus on making controller play better on Switch, then make that generic for PC(which implies Steam Deck as well). The PC/Steam Deck version supports mods, which is better than Switch anyway.
- stingraycharles 4y ago
  Do you happen to know what the status of the Steam Deck ecosystem is? I would be in the market to get a more powerful version of the Switch, which the Steam Deck would be, but it seems to be discontinued.
  - goda90 4y ago
    The Steam Deck is not discontinued. It's actually quite new, with the first shipments going out to normal customers at the beginning of this year, and more and more going out now. I got mine in June. Valve made a reservation process that required an old enough Steam account and $5 refundable reservation to avoid scalpers. Regarding the ecosystem, the Steam Deck is a x86 PC. It comes with SteamOS, which is an open Arch Linux based distribution. You are free to install other operating systems like Windows on it. The out of the box Steam experience is quite good, with lots of games on the Verified list[0], and they play really well. People also install non-Steam games and software, including console emulators, and there are growing communities around that. [0]https://www.steamdeck.com/en/verified https://www.steamdeck.com/en/verified
  - neoberg 4y ago
    Found the time traveler.
  - havblue 4y ago
    Steam deck can be a bit of work doing things like getting epic games to run, file transfers, and setting up the controls for games that aren't fully supported. Many games work flawlessly like they're on switch, though. It depends on whether occasional issues that force you to tinker are fun or not. Elden Ring plays well. I don't plan on using my switch OLED until the next Zelda comes out.

LinusU 4y ago

I have >400 hours logged in Factorio, and almost all of that is on my laptop with an external Steam Controller. I think it works great, and play that way even when I'm home with access to keyboard and mouse. The touch controls on the Steam Controller are excellent though, so I'm not sure how good it will be on the Switch which uses joysticks...

shakna 4y ago
> The touch controls on the Steam Controller are excellent though, so I'm not sure how good it will be on the Switch which uses joysticks... Whilst lots of games ignore it, the Switch screen is a touchscreen.
- sgarman 4y ago
  You kinda have to ignore it if you want your game to be playable docked.
  - stingraycharles 4y ago
    I happen to be one of those switch users who almost exclusively use it docked. Initially I thought the concept was great, but the screen is just too small for my eyes on all the strategy games I play, I always defer to my iPad on holidays.
    - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
      I actually purchased multiple docks, the nice thing about the switch to me is being able to quickly move it to another room as needs arise.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - shakna 4y ago
    Plenty of games have multiple sets of controls. A handful of Switch games make use of both, to great effect. Like Cozy Grove. You don't have to completely ignore it, to allow for one playing style.

Groxx 4y ago

Hopefully it'll support touch too... touch to drag out paths and move inventory things around is a wonderful experience in many games, and I'm always sad to see most Switch games not even support tapping on-screen buttons.

sulam 4y ago

I have a Steam Deck, and while it's playable, I'm not going to be setting any speed records with it. It's really kind of painfully difficult to things that I have down to muscle memory on a keyboard. Just as an example, copying recipes from one assembler to 20 more takes me 1-2s on keyboard. On the Deck the default controller layout doesn't even allow for doing it once. Early game tricks like holding z and using your mouse to drop individual pieces of coal across all of your miners and smelters in a row isn't a thing as far as I can work out. In fact I essentially had to fully load all my smelters rather than distribute it because I couldn't figure out how to split stacks. I'm sure a lot of this is familiarity, and if I force myself I will get more efficient with the Steam Deck, but I doubt I'd ever find it superior or even equivalent to keyboard and mouse.

solardev 4y ago
Here's hoping they'll backport some of the Switch controls to the Steam Deck

rubyist5eva 4y ago

One game that I didn't think would work well on a controller was Rimworld but it's actually really great, and I love playing Rimworld from the couch. Hopefully the same amount of care for controller controls goes into Factorio.