Nintendo Switch version feedback

[FuryoftheStars]

Even computers can have this issue. Should be noted that FPS/UPS with the build running vs placing the blueprint are not the same. Different mechanics happening there.

You should really break up your blueprint into smaller chunks.

I know computers also have this issue, and by the blueprint running perfectly I mean it actually running perfectly fine in testing, and it just lags out if I want to place it over itself, but all of this is besides the point... I've never needed to breakdown this base on PC, and yes I could do it for the switch, but a native solution such as the one proposed would be appreciated. It's also something that wouldn't be "weird" for Factorio, you can already do it somewhat on pc by tapping the arrow keys

That's fine, if the devs want to do it I don't care, I'm just letting you know. And a PC has better specs than a switch, so hence why it may work fine on a PC and thus why you've never needed to break one down, yet.

[Melodi-of-Crystals]

Two parts, Relating to the above, I'm facing the same problem when pasting a BP from anywhere other than the map. If I'm zoomed in far enough to see the entities instead of just the colored grid, my FPS tanks. And that happens even with blueprints that fit within one chunk sometimes, just because there's enough components in it.


Part two is, the only blueprints I've been able. To get/use are the ones I've made myself. Without a way to copy/paste blueprints in or in some other way import them into the game file, it's incredibly taxing to create any sort of repeatable blueprint aside from basic smelting arrays. For myself especially as a newer player, having to learn how to develop blueprints and pin them to the grid so that they line up with each other has been a steeper learning curve then I've been willing to overcome nearly.

If there were a way to create a library for blueprints to be shared in, or some other way to send blueprints into an accounts saved blueprints so that Nintendo's players had another option besides manually rebuilding any blueprint from scratch, that would be amazing.

I know that's not going to happen so in the meantime I will keep an eye out for alternatives then joining random games and searching the game file for blueprints.

[FuryoftheStars]

Part two is, the only blueprints I've been able. To get/use are the ones I've made myself. Without a way to copy/paste blueprints in or in some other way import them into the game file, it's incredibly taxing to create any sort of repeatable blueprint aside from basic smelting arrays. For myself especially as a newer player, having to learn how to develop blueprints and pin them to the grid so that they line up with each other has been a steeper learning curve then I've been willing to overcome nearly.

If there were a way to create a library for blueprints to be shared in, or some other way to send blueprints into an accounts saved blueprints so that Nintendo's players had another option besides manually rebuilding any blueprint from scratch, that would be amazing.

I know that's not going to happen so in the meantime I will keep an eye out for alternatives then joining random games and searching the game file for blueprints.

Does the Switch have a usb port for a thumb drive or something? If there's a way to share save game files, you can use the internal storage of the save game to transfer. Posting from phone, so don't remember exact wording, but when you're in the blueprints menu, there are "My blueprints" and "Game blueprints" tabs at the top. I believe the "Game blueprints" is local to the save file itself. So you can copy into it the blueprints you want, save to the thumb drive, then transfer to the switch, load, copy over to "My blueprints".

Certainly not ideal and would be better if there was another way, but it could work.

Oh, and is Steam on Switch/are you using the Steam version of the game? There is an option in game to sync your blueprints with Steam cloud. Make a backup, first, as Steam cloud sync is error prone!

[Melodi-of-Crystals]

Part two is, the only blueprints I've been able. To get/use are the ones I've made myself. Without a way to copy/paste blueprints in or in some other way import them into the game file, it's incredibly taxing to create any sort of repeatable blueprint aside from basic smelting arrays. For myself especially as a newer player, having to learn how to develop blueprints and pin them to the grid so that they line up with each other has been a steeper learning curve then I've been willing to overcome nearly.

If there were a way to create a library for blueprints to be shared in, or some other way to send blueprints into an accounts saved blueprints so that Nintendo's players had another option besides manually rebuilding any blueprint from scratch, that would be amazing.

I know that's not going to happen so in the meantime I will keep an eye out for alternatives then joining random games and searching the game file for blueprints.

Does the Switch have a usb port for a thumb drive or something? If there's a way to share save game files, you can use the internal storage of the save game to transfer. Posting from phone, so don't remember exact wording, but when you're in the blueprints menu, there are "My blueprints" and "Game blueprints" tabs at the top. I believe the "Game blueprints" is local to the save file itself. So you can copy into it the blueprints you want, save to the thumb drive, then transfer to the switch, load, copy over to "My blueprints".

Certainly not ideal and would be better if there was another way, but it could work.

Oh, and is Steam on Switch/are you using the Steam version of the game? There is an option in game to sync your blueprints with Steam cloud. Make a backup, first, as Steam cloud sync is error prone!

As much as I love your idea, unfortunately the way switch stores it saves means that unless I had a unlocked / hacked version of the switch, All of the save files are inaccessible that way. Admittedly there is the option of using a full USB keyboard to manually type in the entirety of a blueprint from the internet into the switch's clipboard. But I don't believe there's a single person on the face of the planet willing to do that.

Unfortunately the steam version and the switch version of the game are separate and the switch version does not link to your steam account, meaning that some external system to add blueprints to your Nintendo account would be necessary. Not really feasible.


Currently the only way for a Nintendo switch players to gain existing blueprints without recreating them manually or typing them in laboriously, is to have someone on a PC put those blueprints in a multiplayer game's blueprint library and then the Nintendo player join them and copy it from there to their personal library.

[ObsidianGauntlet]

This thread looks to be the best place for me to provide my feedback about the game on Switch
Nintendo Switch version 1.1.76 (build 60350, arm64-ns)

I've launched a rocket, gotten a Spidertron and thoroughly enjoyed the game and wanted to give some feedback to help make this masterpiece even better.

First up a Super duper minor issue; The default keybind for Copy was SL, an inaccessible button when joycons are attached to the Switch.
Solved because rebinding keybinds is simple, and also because Copy is accessible in Quick Panel.

Now for the main event: you can't see the Components portion of Blueprints menu.

When creating blueprints and when editing them, the Components menu is inaccessible. There is no scrollbar displaying on the affected window and I havn't been able to scroll it.
You can move the window by grabbing the top or bottom of it with touch interface or joystick cursor but cannot drag the window to make it bigger and there's not enough screen space to capitalize on that anyway.

.

[Melodi-of-Crystals]

This thread looks to be the best place for me to provide my feedback about the game on Switch
Nintendo Switch version 1.1.76 (build 60350, arm64-ns)

I've launched a rocket, gotten a Spidertron and thoroughly enjoyed the game and wanted to give some feedback to help make this masterpiece even better.

First up a Super duper minor issue; The default keybind for Copy was SL, an inaccessible button when joycons are attached to the Switch.
Solved because rebinding keybinds is simple, and also because Copy is accessible in Quick Panel.

Now for the main event: you can't see the Components portion of Blueprints menu.

When creating blueprints and when editing them, the Components menu is inaccessible. There is no scrollbar displaying on the affected window and I havn't been able to scroll it.
You can move the window by grabbing the top or bottom of it with touch interface or joystick cursor but cannot drag the window to make it bigger and there's not enough screen space to capitalize on that anyway.

.

You can reach that section by changing the scale of the UI in the settings. It does show up in smaller BPs but there is a limit to UI scaling, and some BPs are just too big for our screens.

[Gummiente27]

The empty description box is wasting a bunch of space, filter options could probably be in two columns.

[Melodi-of-Crystals]

They should make. The BP edit screen have a max size so the components section always fits in the bottom, or give it a second tab where you can edit the description on the switch. That or give us a way to zoom on the BP display so we can edit from inside there. I know their trying for parity but there's already some examples of changes to accommodate the switch version.

[Twinsen]

First up a Super duper minor issue; The default keybind for Copy was SL, an inaccessible button when joycons are attached to the Switch.
Solved because rebinding keybinds is simple, and also because Copy is accessible in Quick Panel.

This is intended, optional quality of life shortcuts are bound to the side buttons for power users who play with detached Joy-Con controllers. Even though they currently cause a lot of confusion: they exist on both left and right Joy-Con but they map to a particular one; they don't exist on Switch Pro controller, etc.

you can't see the Components portion of Blueprints menu.

Thanks for the detailed report, this is indeed an issue that I wasn't aware of and should be resolved, I will look into fixing it for the next update.

[Melodi-of-Crystals]

First up a Super duper minor issue; The default keybind for Copy was SL, an inaccessible button when joycons are attached to the Switch.
Solved because rebinding keybinds is simple, and also because Copy is accessible in Quick Panel.

I've noticed this issue as well, I've managed to fix it by combining RL or ZL with something else for the extra functions I want to reach like the train management page and such. What I do wish for is that the quick menu on L have a permanently empty space in the center for when I accidently press the button. You have no idea how many times I've managed to accidently overwrite whatever I'm holding with a blueprint that's just going to lag me out in detailed view.

Also. WHY ARE BLUEPRINTS SO LAGGY? I have one that's nearly crashed my game in detailed view, that works fine in map view

[Astrolink127]

I must admit, I do like the Nintendo switch version Me and some of my friends have had a hoot playing it however, the one gripe that I have with the game is the fact that I can’t download any mods and I understand that it’s definitely hard to find a way to port mods on a Nintendo switch but I have been really looking forward to playing the space exploration mod for the longest time but overall a positive experience

[Gummiente27]

I must admit, I do like the Nintendo switch version Me and some of my friends have had a hoot playing it however, the one gripe that I have with the game is the fact that I can’t download any mods and I understand that it’s definitely hard to find a way to port mods on a Nintendo switch but I have been really looking forward to playing the space exploration mod for the longest time but overall a positive experience

Iirc there was a discussion about that in the announcement thread.
Each mod would need to be tested to be deemed safe for kids, abiding nintendo rules etc.
It could also slow down the game.

[Astrolink127]

I must admit, I do like the Nintendo switch version Me and some of my friends have had a hoot playing it however, the one gripe that I have with the game is the fact that I can’t download any mods and I understand that it’s definitely hard to find a way to port mods on a Nintendo switch but I have been really looking forward to playing the space exploration mod for the longest time but overall a positive experience

Iirc there was a discussion about that in the announcement thread.
Each mod would need to be tested to be deemed safe for kids, abiding nintendo rules etc.
It could also slow down the game.

That makes sense but what was the outcome and when will it be available if it will ever be?

[Loewchen]

That makes sense but what was the outcome and when will it be available if it will ever be?

There are no statements of developers suggesting mod support for the switch in the future. Even if some kind of mod support would be implemented the technical limitations of only 4GB of total memory and the weakish processor would not allow to run mods like Space Exploration anyway.

[Astrolink127]

That makes sense but what was the outcome and when will it be available if it will ever be?

There are no statements of developers suggesting mod support for the switch in the future. Even if some kind of mod support would be implemented the technical limitations of only 4GB of total memory and the weakish processor would not allow to run mods like Space Exploration anyway.

True

[Astrolink127]

I must admit, I do like the Nintendo switch version Me and some of my friends have had a hoot playing it however, the one gripe that I have with the game is the fact that I can’t download any mods and I understand that it’s definitely hard to find a way to port mods on a Nintendo switch but I have been really looking forward to playing the space exploration mod for the longest time but overall a positive experience

Iirc there was a discussion about that in the announcement thread.
Each mod would need to be tested to be deemed safe for kids, abiding nintendo rules etc.
It could also slow down the game.

That makes sense but what was the outcome and when will it be available if it will ever be?

I found the thread that you were talking about and yeah, I see that the developer say it’s because of technical limitations and appropriate mods

[Melodi-of-Crystals]

There are no statements of developers suggesting mod support for the switch in the future. Even if some kind of mod support would be implemented the technical limitations of only 4GB of total memory and the weakish processor would not allow to run mods like Space Exploration anyway.

Perhaps this would be a chance for the devs to pick out a few highlight mods to put on the E-store as free purchases, which might allow them to bypass the storage limits? I know other games exceed that limit significantly.

[mmmPI]

Perhaps this would be a chance for the devs to pick out a few highlight mods to put on the E-store as free purchases, which might allow them to bypass the storage limits? I know other games exceed that limit significantly.

I think this would not work for most mods that adds images or animations in Factorio because there is no loading time past the first one that would allow to utilize more than the 4 GB of RAM in the Switch by swapping things around. All the graphical assets, and sounds are loaded at the beginning of the game and what's left is available to grow a factory. Some mods are more than doubling the number of original graphical assets and sounds, even if they could load, there would be no possibility to make the larger factory needed to produce all those additionnal things, whereas in other games, such as those from more traditionnal genre on console, there are interruption in the sequence of gameplay where things are loaded instead of other things, like levels or zones change, or combat sequence, or cutscene.

I don't know for mods that do not add those additionnal images or sounds, the processor limitation is something different which makes it more difficult to estimate which mods would or would not slow the game to a point where it's too unpleasant.

[Gummiente27]

Perhaps this would be a chance for the devs to pick out a few highlight mods to put on the E-store as free purchases, which might allow them to bypass the storage limits? I know other games exceed that limit significantly.

I think this would not work for most mods that adds images or animations in Factorio because there is no loading time past the first one that would allow to utilize more than the 4 GB of RAM in the Switch by swapping things around. All the graphical assets, and sounds are loaded at the beginning of the game and what's left is available to grow a factory. Some mods are more than doubling the number of original graphical assets and sounds, even if they could load, there would be no possibility to make the larger factory needed to produce all those additionnal things, whereas in other games, such as those from more traditionnal genre on console, there are interruption in the sequence of gameplay where things are loaded instead of other things, like levels or zones change, or combat sequence, or cutscene.

I don't know for mods that do not add those additionnal images or sounds, the processor limitation is something different which makes it more difficult to estimate which mods would or would not slow the game to a point where it's too unpleasant.

There are also the quality of life mods, maybe research for increased reach or inventory space, more shortcuts or fun mods like disco science.
These might make sense for factorio on switch.
Or some mods which accelerate the game start - maybe not everyone wants to redo the initial stuff-by-hand etc on their 3rd or 4th new game.

Maybe people would try to create mods which limit the micro-manangement (and are therefore also more processor-friendly) for post-endgame like a huge mining drill taking 15x15 or even 20x20 space, some sort of advanced assembler taking a bunch more space which might also output items magically-compressed or so (like one item is "20x iron-plate"). Might make the game feel easier on the first read, but I'm sure that some people have smart ideas for balancing that, maybe you need a new sort of belt and/or inserter to transport those compressed items - also the changed sizes mean one has to redesign the factory or build a new one.

I don't play factorio on a switch tho (don't even have one).

[Melodi-of-Crystals]

Honestly I'm all for qol or optimization mods. I literally got notified when I loaded my save today that I had to turn down sprite rendering quality of risk running out of memory. So yeah, there's that. Also who knew trees were so damaging to memory? I'm in a forest world essentially and my base just hit a memory limit that my last one never did.