I think some people set speed run records on the steam deck. Obviously, the number of pixels is lower and the processor isn't as powerful as a desktop, so a megafactory might not work well, but should be fine for tinkering with a design.
Yeah, good idea. This game take up a lot of time because it is amazing and there's soooo much to do.
If you like the dopamine hit from making something better, or fixing problems with a system, then you'll love this game.
I think there may also be a demo, but I don't know if that works on the steam deck. That's totally worth checking out, but set aside 4-8 hours for the first time you play it and I recommend setting an alarm to remind yourself to eat.
I played a whole run of the base game without mods on my Steam Deck in handheld mode and found it just fine. It uses the extra buttons on the back quite effectively.
It works pretty well, and that was without customising the controls. You definitely feel the limitations when doing some more complicated things like wire layouts for circuits, but it can be done. When I later played the Exotic Industries mod, then it felt like it wasn't quite enough (configuring radial menus helped though).
Imo it's a little too cumbersome to comfortably play on the deck. Totally possible and it does work thanks to community controller presets but I feel limited playing on the deck compared to when I play on mouse and keyboard and a full size monitor.
It's worked perfectly for me, 3k logistics bots in my network and rocket launched. I've never made a "mega factory" and I don't use trains, but I'd bet trains work just fine.
Megafactories are those games where instead of launching one expensive rocket, you launch one or more per minute. They're usually at least 5 times larger than an endgame factory, and usually stop growing when the FPS drops below 30.
I really like that definition, 1 rocket per minute=mega factory. I was impressed when I was doing 2 per hour (though it was a bit cheesed by having some extra ingredients buffered before the first rocket
I think the more proper definition is 1kspm, so not only 1 rocket per minute, but also all the other sciences to match it.
I ended up completely rebuilding my base once I unlocked trains. Hexes everywhere, each one a cell that peoduced one thing, and then I just built enough to support 500smp IIRC. My first rocket launch was from a 500smp factory with no logistics. It took me 80 hours to do that though. XD