Alternative to using WASD key for movement

[mfortune]

Hi everyone,

Has anyone has changed or modified their movement from using the WASD keys? Searching the forums I can see that something like this has been requested multiple times. I also understand that some folks really like using the WASD keys to move around.

I must admit that I am a brand new player, but I find using the WASD key combinations to be extremely difficult for movement control. I attempted to use my Razer Nostromo and it is pretty easy to setup the N, E, S, W movement. Attempting to setup the NE, SE, SW, & NW movement is an exercise in frustration trying to create the macros.

I have searched for mods that allow you to utilize the mouse and a cursor for movement but I have not located anything yet.

All suggestions are welcome!

Thanks,

Mark

[Ifalna]

I sometimes wished for click and point movement as well, wanting to lean back and play the entire game using mouse only.
To be honest though: If you are new to gaming in general, give it some time and patience. You will learn to coordinate keyboard and (in other games) mouse movement.

This brings back hilarious memories of my first bout with an FPS (Alien vs Predator) and how long it took me to be able to walk in a straight line.

[urza99814]

WASD sucks. I play with a gamepad, which is SO GOOD. An X-Box gamepad works alright, but really I think the ideal experience is a Steampad since it can more accurately emulate an actual mouse. I usually play on a projector from my couch so a full keyboard and mouse is just not an option. But even if I'm playing elsewhere (like my laptop) I won't even bother if I don't have the gamepad. Keyboard and mouse is a terrible experience in comparison.

But that still uses WASD...or sometimes I remap to arrow keys...but using mouse only would probably require pretty heavy code changes. I think you'd really need to change some core game mechanics -- it's rare that I'm moving and not still using the mouse for construction or targeting or other functionality. And unless you've got some massive mouse with a crazy number of buttons you'll still need the keyboard for everything else, so I don't think that would work very well...

That Razor Nostromo looks like it should be great too though...what are you trying to map the movement keys to? Looks like it has a joystick type thing that should be perfect -- that's exactly what I'm doing with my steampad, I map WASD to the bottom joystick and it works exactly how you'd expect. I can move in straight lines and it perfectly handles the NE/SE/SW/NW automatically. I don't know if Steam does any translation for that through...do you use Steam at all or do you just have a native install? Or are you trying to use some other keys for movement?

[featherwinglove]

Keyboard and mouse is a terrible experience in comparison.

To each his own. I hate controllers. Especially in a game with 32 hotkeys and a need to place that cursor tile-perfect every time. For a guy who types 50WPM, having to name a character or save file with a console controller is like the waiting room of a dentist's office.

[Koub]

To each his own. I hate controllers.

Same thing here. And there is one thing I hate more than controlers, it's games that have been castrated to fit the limited possibilities of controllers.

As long as I don't have to give up the powerful versatility of a mouse + keyboard in order to please controller fans, I'm OK.

I painfully remember having played T4C (if you're old, you may have heard of it ^^), on which every single key of the keyboard (save the very few used for the system) could be bound directly, plus With Ctrl, plus with Alt, plus with Shift. I had around 45-50 spells (all save the weaker versions I had no use of) bound under my fingertips. Last MMO I have played is TESO, where ... well you have to choose 5 skills/spells amongst all those you have access to at a given time, because the game was designed to be playable on console, and it is very impractical to have such a choice on a controller.

Factorio could probably be controller friendly without sacrificing anything for us, keyboard+mouse users, so IDGAF ^^.

[urza99814]

Keyboard and mouse is a terrible experience in comparison.

To each his own. I hate controllers. Especially in a game with 32 hotkeys and a need to place that cursor tile-perfect every time. For a guy who types 50WPM, having to name a character or save file with a console controller is like the waiting room of a dentist's office.

Hah, very true I do have a keyboard available for real typing on this system -- a tragically underutilized IBM Model M...but basically I only ever use that to log in, and it certainly isn't needed for Factorio! As for placing that cursor tile-perfect...that definitely can be an issue with an X-Box gamepad, but the Steampad is a whole different beast. It's basically a weird hybrid between a normal gamepad and a laptop mouse. Kinda works like two laptop trackpads, with about twenty extra buttons, and shaped like a gamepad. I use it to navigate my desktop, and even use it as a spare USB mouse...even something like a Raspberry Pi recognizes it as a standard mouse with no drivers or configuration. As far as I'm concerned, it *is* a mouse. And while Factorio does have a ton of key bindings, there's a lot that aren't really necessary and there's also a lot of cases where you can bind multiple functions to the same keys where they won't both be usable at the same time. So if you double bind a couple buttons and you use a couple combos you'll still have plenty of buttons left over.

There's also actually a very nice way to type on Steam using this thing...it definitely takes some getting used to but instead of just hitting a direction pad to slowly move across a keyboard you can move exactly to the letters you want using both trackpads at once...which is exactly as weird as it sounds at first but it works surprisingly well once you get used to it! The only problem with using that for Factorio is that it doesn't integrate with the game itself so sometimes the keyboard display covers up the actual text box you're typing in and it doesn't pop up automatically so it's a few extra buttons to get the keyboard open. But typing in Factorio is pretty rare anyway, so for small stuff like naming your saved games it'd be fine.

I've literally played thousands of hours of Factorio with this thing and I absolutely love it. Although I do think it changes the gameplay bit, because there are definitely functions I don't use. I don't like the whole middle mouse button filter thing -- that's what the circuit network is for, if it doesn't have a circuit it shouldn't be able to filter IMO. I didn't even know the 'kill stats' window existed until a few seconds ago when I looked at the control list, and I don't use production stats and barely even use the blueprint library...it's a much more casual game when you're playing from the couch, but that doesn't make it any less fun

Apologies if I'm dragging this thread a bit off topic...but yeah like I said earlier, I don't see why the OP's Nostromo wouldn't work just like the gamepad, so I'm curious to get some more info on how that's configured...and maybe some of this rambling will be helpful?

[FrodoOf9Fingers]

It's be really nice to have alternative bindings.

The game's pausibility is great for me because I can just help out with kids/baby whenever. It'd be nice to have the ability to map all of the keys to the number pad, so I could feed the baby and still play with the other hand >.>

[mfortune]

I sometimes wished for click and point movement as well, wanting to lean back and play the entire game using mouse only.
To be honest though: If you are new to gaming in general, give it some time and patience. You will learn to coordinate keyboard and (in other games) mouse movement.

This brings back hilarious memories of my first bout with an FPS (Alien vs Predator) and how long it took me to be able to walk in a straight line.

I also have these types of memories in Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness! Wow, that really dates me!

You are correct, I do need to give myself more time to acclimate to using keyboard for movement.

Thanks for the reply,

Mark

[mfortune]

WASD sucks. I play with a gamepad, which is SO GOOD. An X-Box gamepad works alright, but really I think the ideal experience is a Steampad since it can more accurately emulate an actual mouse. I usually play on a projector from my couch so a full keyboard and mouse is just not an option. But even if I'm playing elsewhere (like my laptop) I won't even bother if I don't have the gamepad. Keyboard and mouse is a terrible experience in comparison.

But that still uses WASD...or sometimes I remap to arrow keys...but using mouse only would probably require pretty heavy code changes. I think you'd really need to change some core game mechanics -- it's rare that I'm moving and not still using the mouse for construction or targeting or other functionality. And unless you've got some massive mouse with a crazy number of buttons you'll still need the keyboard for everything else, so I don't think that would work very well...

That Razor Nostromo looks like it should be great too though...what are you trying to map the movement keys to? Looks like it has a joystick type thing that should be perfect -- that's exactly what I'm doing with my steampad, I map WASD to the bottom joystick and it works exactly how you'd expect. I can move in straight lines and it perfectly handles the NE/SE/SW/NW automatically. I don't know if Steam does any translation for that through...do you use Steam at all or do you just have a native install? Or are you trying to use some other keys for movement?

I agree with you 100% that the Nostromo game pad should be able to do this! My problem is my lack of experience using the Razer Synapse software that is used to setup the game pad. I never thought about using something like an Xbox One controller to use with Factorio! Programming the Nostromo is no problem when all you want to do is map a single key to one of the game pad's buttons. The challenge is when you want to enter multiple keys in the input field as you are only allowed to enter a single key, entering W & D for N/E travel just enters the last key that you pressed, in this case the D key as the W key is overwritten. I thought perhaps a recorded macro for my pressing the W & D keys and assigning the macro to the number two position of the 8 ways thumb pad switch would work. Unfortunately the macro recorder catpures each key press as multiple key presses and trying to edit out the extra keys seems to be impossible.

I am going to do some additional research on the programming the Nostromo game pad as there has to be a way to do this and I am just not seeing it.

I will also look at the Steam pad and I may have some questions for you.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply!

[urza99814]

I agree with you 100% that the Nostromo game pad should be able to do this! My problem is my lack of experience using the Razer Synapse software that is used to setup the game pad. I never thought about using something like an Xbox One controller to use with Factorio! Programming the Nostromo is no problem when all you want to do is map a single key to one of the game pad's buttons. The challenge is when you want to enter multiple keys in the input field as you are only allowed to enter a single key, entering W & D for N/E travel just enters the last key that you pressed, in this case the D key as the W key is overwritten. I thought perhaps a recorded macro for my pressing the W & D keys and assigning the macro to the number two position of the 8 ways thumb pad switch would work. Unfortunately the macro recorder catpures each key press as multiple key presses and trying to edit out the extra keys seems to be impossible.

I am going to do some additional research on the programming the Nostromo game pad as there has to be a way to do this and I am just not seeing it.

I will also look at the Steam pad and I may have some questions for you.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply!

Ahh, yeah I see the problem now! The way Steam configures the joystick for a game like Factorio it is actually operating as only four directions, not eight. So when you hit the diagonals it just registers that as two directions at once instead of a complete separate key.

Took a bit of a look around and I did find some reference that sounds like you can do the same with the Nostromo too, you just need to redefine the pad as "directional" instead of as "buttons" -- does that make any sense?
https://insider.razerzone.com/index.php ... ons.12862/

I think maybe you could also use something like autohotkey to set it up via macros if you need to go that route...define the corners as some other buttons you aren't using and then use autohotkey to map those to the required two button macros. Never used that software myself so I don't know the details, but it sounds like it should be pretty simple to set up that way. That might work for the folks who want alternate bindings too...although I'm sure it wouldn't be as convenient as just having the game support that in the first place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoHotkey

[featherwinglove]

it definitely takes some getting used to but instead of just hitting a direction pad to slowly move across a keyboard you can move exactly to the letters you want using both trackpads at once...which is exactly as weird as it sounds at first but it works surprisingly well once you get used to it!

That's probably easier for me to imagine than you might imagine. Imagine that someone stole a netbook that didn't have a keyboard out of a public area. Yeah, that's the last I saw of it. Before then, but after it lost it's keyboard to a coffee spill, that particular Samsung N550 was being run by me using the touchpad and Ease of Access OSK. I think I could get about 20WPM in a flat rush.

There's also actually a very nice way to type on Steam...

...Steam is a dirty word for me. At least if it's referring to that horrible game storefront/DRM run by Valve and not the fog seen forming in hot water vapor...

Edit: Why the did I hit Submit with a typo that dumb???