Friday Facts #368 - Steam deck, Ghost bugs, Docs improvements

[FactorioBot]

Here it is! (beep boop)

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-368

[SHiRKiT]

Good to see FFF back! It's one of the few news updates I actually enjoy reading.

[Molay]

6 years its been on steam, and god knows how long I started playing this before it got there, with its humble little campaign and all that. Man, it's been a while! Time really flies. I'm glad the road doesn't end here

[Koub]

I hope that, in the desire to try and add controller support to Factorio, the GUI/controls won't be more limited, the same way I've seen it happen in the gaming industry (I've seen the controls and GUIs in the games transform themselves over the years to be "console compatible", especially in action and RPG games, which has limited/dumbed down the gameplay possibilities, and made the GUIs suboptimal for the sake of portability).

[Twinsen]

I hope that, in the desire to try and add controller support to Factorio, the GUI/controls won't be more limited, the same way I've seen it happen in the gaming industry (I've seen the controls and GUIs in the games transform themselves over the years to be "console compatible", especially in action and RPG games, which has limited/dumbed down the gameplay possibilities, and made the GUIs suboptimal for the sake of portability).

Yes, I noticed that too and absolutely hate it.
The controller support should bring no changes to the base game interactions. This makes the task quite the headache and is really pushing the limit of what you can do with a controller, but mouse and keyboard will stay a priority.

[tso413]

Anyone else wonder what achievements he is missing?

[MousE0910]

To use the Steam Deck's input, like in the video above, you will need to make your own controller configuration using Steam Input, trying to map the Steam Deck's buttons to keyboard and mouse interactions. Making a good profile will require a lot of patience and a good understanding of Steam Input's action sets, layers, radial menus, etc.

Is there any reason why you can't supply a premade steam input config for the game? Devs almost never use it but it is possible to do, at least with the Steam Controller (and I assume it will be the same for the Steam Deck) so that people wouldn't need to start from scratch when wanting to play even before controller support is done.

With the Steam Deck, the Steam Input is also receiving an update (correct me if I'm wrong on this though) where you can make direct game actions available for the config instead of having to map actual keyboard buttons, which might require some more work to plug into properly but should allow for things like context-sensitive bindings.
I believe it's covered here, under Native Mode: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/feat ... r/concepts

I think that this could be a good middle ground between full controller support and requiring players to do their own custom bindings but again, not sure how much work it would be to plug into the Steam Input API fully.

[Twinsen]

Is there any reason why you can't supply a premade steam input config for the game? Devs almost never use it but it is possible to do, at least with the Steam Controller (and I assume it will be the same for the Steam Deck) so that people wouldn't need to start from scratch when wanting to play even before controller support is done.

One reasons is that publishing profiles seems to not work right now
I am experimenting with having a default official profile, but I'm not sure if it will be good enough, so I don't know yet what the outcome will be.

Even with a default profile, you will still need to understand action sets and layers, and constantly check what maps to what, so you still need some patience and getting used to.

[pointa2b]

Work on the expansion is still the top priority for the team, and controller support is no easy task, so if it comes to Factorio, expect it much later this year.

Expansion sometime this year confirmed?

[Philip017]

Is there any reason why you can't supply a premade steam input config for the game? Devs almost never use it but it is possible to do, at least with the Steam Controller (and I assume it will be the same for the Steam Deck) so that people wouldn't need to start from scratch when wanting to play even before controller support is done.

One reasons is that publishing profiles seems to not work right now
I am experimenting with having a default official profile, but I'm not sure if it will be good enough, so I don't know yet what the outcome will be.

Even with a default profile, you will still need to understand action sets and layers, and constantly check what maps to what, so you still need some patience and getting used to.

I was coming here to suggest supplying the control layout you used in the video, but i see you are already working on that, so hopefully something can be figured out in the near future. then later an official controller layout could be worked on.

[Usul]

I have configured a controller profile for Factorio years ago using Xpadder utility. However, I only play Factorio with controller occasionally when I just want to chill out and run around my base, gaze at spaghetti or hang out on multiplayer servers, not actually building anything.

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The secrecy about the Expansion worries me. Factorio became so damn good because the community was involved and influential in it's evolution, which now isn't the case with the the Expansion.

[Redpossum]

Well, I do thank you for the update. It's always an interesting read.

[Tertius]

About that announcement in the top left corner of the forums here, I would politely, respectfully express my disappointment at having RL politics introduced into Factorio.

It's a good link. It links the Red Cross for donations, a non profit organization that is agnostic of politics and exist to help people in need. Homeless, poor, injured, starving, dying people. They are not taking sides, they just help people. A war is as much misfortune as a natural disaster, and you would ask for donations in case of an earthquake in the middle of Europe just as well.

[Brambor]

The text wrapping is quite weird on mobile:

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On requesting "Desktop site":

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Using Android, Chrome.

[astroshak]

Controller support for Steam Deck strikes me as one more hurdle removed for having this game appear on Playstation or Xbox consoles.

[GrumpyJoe]

The secrecy about the Expansion worries me. Factorio became so damn good because the community was involved and influential in it's evolution, which now isn't the case with the the Expansion.

This is explained in FFF365

If we show something that ends up being removed or replaced, it can feel like a broken promise, and we learned that it is generally the worst thing we can do.

Here I quoted the (now) least significant point, as it lately sounded like they are so far into it, that the main features are set in stone.
But all the points are still valid.

The fact that FFFs are becoming more frequent again is I good sign I think.

Could be an outlier tho, as a Factorio steam anniversary along with steam deck release could just be a good enough reason.

However I'm optimistic we'll hear more soon.

[ssilk]

An alternative way to go for mobile devices is to completely change the aspect or input-mode.

I mean: instead of trying to map all sorts of of inputs so that it works also for mobile it could be also an idea to completely ignore the current way of input handling and instead try program a second. Which could then work quite differently, but much more in flow, more intuitively.

It frees the mind to say “ok, how can we control the game with this device so that it is fun?” and not “ok, how can we map this device so, that it maps exactly what you can do with the keyboard/mouse?”. Completely different point of view.

Eventually you cannot do everything what you can do with the current mode (the seldom commands like glueing/splitting trains for example, why not having an on-screen menu to select such commands?), but what you directly can do is much simpler.

[T-A-R]

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I wonder how the input will compare with the Steam controller. I find Factorio pretty playable on the couch, but i like to keep my keyboard around for lesser used buttons like flip/mirror, text input and +-. Those could be integrated in the controller scheme (especially with the deck's added touch screen), but fancy configuration is required to add those in. There could be multiple ways to do it (mode shift, activators etc) if i intended to, i decided to keep them out. But that will not be an option for the deck's base configuration. There are simply not enough inputs to have a dedicated button for every feature we expect.

Everything to make it work is possible with the Steam (or alternative) configurators for sure, but the controller configuration software has been the Achilles heel of the (by now obsolete) Steam controller, since it has some what of a learning curve before it becomes comfortable to easily change setting in the layout.
Besides proper official/community binding sets, (links) to clear tutorials to fine tune your bindings could be a helpful addition. For archiving purposes we might consider keeping up a thread on the forum to centralize any discussion about the forming of a "ultimate" base layout and tweaking those. People gonna make, upload and vote binding sets on Steam regardless what Wube will do, i hope the same wheel won't have to be invented twice. It could, on the other hand, form a good base to work from.

I am happy to see Factorio is and will be mouse keyboard focused, as for now it is the most healthy way of providing input. I expect the deck to be optimal for shorter sessions then your factory expects you to do.

[Panderturtle]

Today, 6 years ago I bought it. Best Steam purchase ever

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[jodokus31]

I'm looking forward to proper controller support. Often, I don't have desire play anymore, because I want to avoid siting on desk with keyboard and mouse like on work