Factorio Forums

I only have a couple of hundred hours in Factorio so I'm a n00b, but so far, there is only ONE issue that I'm really struggling with.
Wasn't sure if this should go in the Ideas and Suggestions forum...

The f key to pickup items.

In order to be effective, you must be able to chord this on the keyboard (direction + pickup/drop key), and having the keys next to each other is not conducive to this.
No matter how I try, I can't teach my stupid fingers to do this consistently. For example d + f to run right while picking up items.

In most other games that use wasd, the arrow keys are also usually hard coded for secondary directional movement (or there are secondary keybind options), and I find myself trying that in Factorio when running on belts.. which, of course doesn't work.
This would totally solve my problem, but I haven't found way to do this. To be clear, I don't want to remap movement to arrows ONLY, but to map arrows in addition to wasd.

I'd prefer not to use mods if possible, I'm happy with all the other default keybindings, and I don't know if secondary keybinding is planned.

Anyone else struggling with this? How do you handle simple chording?
This is killing me.

try using your thumb? change the key bound to 'Pick up items on the ground'?

I'm using a mouse button to pick up items. Nowadays I could not imagine playing any game with a mouse with less then 7 buttons. I'm right handed with the mouse in my right hand, why should I do everything with the left hand on the keyboard?
Also on my mouse: rotate entity and cancel build / pipette (same button, works great)

Currently I have the inventory and close window on F. Somehow I established using my thumb for F, while walking to the right.
I also use a razer orbweaver instead of the keyboard. it has a 4-way controll pad and two buttons on the thumb, which makes at least 6 easy accessible functions instead of just the space bar. I use it to select the quickbar slots.

gsezz wrote:I'm using a mouse button to pick up items. Nowadays I could not imagine playing any game with a mouse with less then 7 buttons. I'm right handed with the mouse in my right hand, why should I do everything with the left hand on the keyboard?
Also on my mouse: rotate entity and cancel build / pipette (same button, works great)

Currently I have the inventory and close window on F. Somehow I established using my thumb for F, while walking to the right.
I also use a razer orbweaver instead of the keyboard. it has a 4-way controll pad and two buttons on the thumb, which makes at least 6 easy accessible functions instead of just the space bar. I use it to select the quickbar slots.

I haven't used less than a 5 button mouse for a LONG time.

Using a mousebutton for pickup sounds like a great solution. Unfortunately, by default, Factorio does not recognize any of the mouse buttons on my Logitech G400s.
I use a Mac, so the Logitech driver/software sucks- but I'll definitely mess around with it and see if I can get it to work.

In the meantime, I've mapped pickup to the left command key which is just about perfect- It's directly under my left thumb. In Factorio > Options > Controls, it shows up as KEY106 on the Mac when bound.

Thanks for the reply.