Nova Drift - Asteroids-like shooter roguelite.

I’m looking forward to the new Steam Controller to basically enable that.

Canada should change its currency symbol to 🍁399.20

the one that allows you to scrap the covers for your non steam games right in gaming mode UI.

Scrape, not scrap. Your version doesn’t sound very useful. :D

Doesn’t have to be a loss, just competitive with what a self-built PC would be.

Daniel Owen does good PC part breakdowns. Especially video cards. Here’s a cheap build he threw together using PC Part Picker to see what it would be like to build a PC using comparable parts to what the Steam Machine has, but a garbage power supply and case. It came out to $706.

(This link skips to 27:24. You have to rewind 2 minutes or so if you want to hear him talk about the bad power supply and case, which you definitely shouldn’t buy.)

https://youtu.be/RTB-lP_qwc0?t=1644

If Valve can come in around $700 it will be a good deal. If it’s sub $600, it’s an outstanding deal. Especially because of the premium wifi, special Steam Controller antenna, small form factor, and stuff like that. SFF cases and motherboards have premium prices.

That’s disappointing. However, being a mass produced, single spec device, it has to be cheaper than comparable self-built PCs. Otherwise, no one would buy it.

Fallout 3.

I spent the time to learn how to make action layers, radial menus, and multi-action keys. It’s great! (Emulating mouse/kb controls)

• Holding L2 for sights/scopes enables gyro aiming.
• X button presses Ctrl and Caps Lock at the same time to toggle both crouching and walking. (I will disable Caps Lock once I take the Silent Running perk.)
• Holding L1 enables an action layer that changes nearly every control:
  • Right stick becomes a radial menu for item hotkeys, 1-8
  • X presses Caps Lock alone to toggle walk-run by itself
  • Y is hotkey 8, which is my hotkey for Stimpack. It’s easier to hit in an emergency than the radial menu.
  • B becomes X (keyboard) for exiting shops
  • Right trackpad become a a scroll wheel for menus

Stuff like that. Basically, I have every important keyboard key mapped somehow. I have the E key mapped two different ways. R3 for just opening doors and such where aiming isn’t important. And L4 for when I’m using the right trackpad as mouse for carefully picking up individual items like bottlecaps, Nuke Colas and such that are often surrounded by junk. Same with landmines.

It’s not as good as a real kb/mouse, but it’s much better than the default XBox 360 controls. Steam Input is so amazing.

Sure! The only thing I’m worried about taking over the community is the Steam Frame. There’s a chance it becomes super popular. But if that happens, we can just make a new community for it. No biggie.

I’ve been replaying Fallout 3 on Steam Deck, and I only have Gyro enabled when I hold down L2 for aiming. It’s pretty awesome because it’s so much easier to fine tune aim by pivoting the whole steam deck than it is to use a stick. Like I can get headshots with a 10 millimeter pistol at close-medium range pretty easily. I could never do that with a stick.

That’s funny. I could have written your exact comment. I, too, have been hoping for this controller and have the original HTC Vive.

Oh man! Can I use it like the U-Force?

Regurgitate

• Final Fantasy Adventure DX
• Loop Hero, but it became too hard at Chapter 3, and I have no idea how to get good. (I guess grinding resources and building more things in my town to see what they do.)
• Balatro, but it got repetitive and boring.
• Dave the Diver (Beat it. Loved it.)
• Nova Drift, but after 140 hours, I think I’ve had enough. Awesome game!

Ah, gotcha.

Thanks. I understand better, but I feel like I would just use one of the rear buttons as “disable gyro” if I were to use that kind of setup.

Your last idea is interesting, but again, there are back buttons for thing like that. Also, how are you even hitting the D-pad when your thumb is on the left stick? I don’t see why you would need to change what the D-Pad does based on whether or not your thumb is on the left stick because to hit the D-pad, your thumb is always not on the left stick.

When I played Horizon Zero Dawn, I had gyro activate on left trigger, like you are saying, and it was very nice. I was so used to playing BotW that I couldn’t play any other way.

You can disable wake from bluetooth in system settings now

Good to know!

The JSAUX one is definitely robust enogh to handle Steam Deck charging. Also, I’m pretty sure it has a chip in it. It was advertised as such when I bought it. That means it probably is compliant.

Can you give an example of how you use them?

It comes with a free Portal-universe game that teaches you how all the controls work. It’s fun. Play it immediately. It will teach you that the thumbsticks are capacitive. Turns out that’s a useless feature, so just get some nice thumbstick caps that make them larger, more rubbery, and more comfortable.

I highly recommend a 180° USB-C adapter to use the power cord while playing. It makes the cord angle down instead of up, which feels more natural. Plus, I feel like it would be gentler on the cord and USB-C port if the cord got tugged hard when plugged into an adapter instead of directly into the Steam Deck.

Plus, with a 180° adapter, you can keep the Deck in it’s case while charging. Normally you can’t do this because the top of the Steam Deck faces the hinge of the case. But the adapter fits in the case OK and reroutes the wire downward. It definitely raises the deck up slightly, but you can still zip the case halfway closed. I do this because I live in a very small apartment with a high chance of knocking or spilling something onto the Steam Deck if I were just to leave it laying around.

Fun fact: the touch pads don’t actually click when you press them like a button, but you will swear they do! The haptic feedback mechanism is incredibly good.

Major Overheating Issue

I don’t know how this is not a more widely complained-about problem.

I paired a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller to my deck, played a game, then put the deck in its case while asleep. (You tap the power button and the deck goes to sleep.) Well, apparently, “Wake on Bluetooth” is enabled by default and you can’t turn it off! So, I threw my Nintendo Switch controller in a drawer, and of course a button got hit. It woke up my Steam Deck in it’s case. I had a game running, so the Steam Deck starts rendering the game and creating a lot of heat that is just being circulated within the case by the fan. The Deck got insanely hot!

I noticed it sometime later only because I heard it make a sound. When I took it out, I used my infrared thermometer to measure the back of the deck, and it was over 140° F. Uncomfortable to touch! It would have sat there for hours like that if I hadn’t noticed.

Solution: I had to install the Decky Loader plugin system in order to install a plugin that disables Wake on Bluetooth. I still don’t see any way to disable it without using Decky. Decky is pretty great though, and it has tons of cool plugins. Of course, you could also just turn off Bluetooth before putting this Steam Deck in its case, but if you forget, it’ll be a problem.

Nova Drift, and then some more Nova Drift. Followed by a long session of Nova Drift. I think I need help.