How I choose radial menu items for Tuxborn on a Steam Deck
This is a followup guide to this one that I wrote a while back: HOWTO: Set up a radial menu on a Steam Deck game. Tuxborn players expressed some interest in the details of my decisions on how to set my radials, so I’m going to write those out for this post here.
The primary audience for this post is Tuxborn players on Steam Decks. But a lot of this can apply to any Skyrim players on Steam Decks, especially if you’re running a load order similar to Tuxborn’s, and if that load order happens to include the BFCO-related mods we have.
What things I like to set, and where
This table lays out my choices for how I configure my Deck for a Tuxborn build. This is basically the same layout I’ve used for all versions of Tuxborn I’ve played to date, 0.5.2, 1.0.1, and 1.1.3. Only the particulars of things like “which follower summons means am I putting on the menu” and “what are my current weapons of choice” have varied from build to build.
| Category of item | Where I like to place it | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Critical Skyrim or Steam Deck functionality | Back buttons | L4 is a flex button, I fill that in as needed. R4 I usually set to F5 for saving. L5 I set to Spacebar for setting Skills Legendary. R5 I set to the Steam Deck’s Screenshot functionality because I don’t like hitting two buttons to take screenshots. |
| Primary weapon | DPad Left/Favorite 1 | This is usually a sword for me. |
| Secondary weapon | DPad Right/Favorite 2 | This is usually a bow for me. |
| Photo Mode | Center button of radial menu | I set this to single quote since Skyrim doesn’t use that button. |
| UMF Check hotkey | Radial menu | I set this to N in the MCM since that’s a key Skyrim doesn’t use. |
| Simplest Horses H hotkey | Radial menu | Critical hotkey for managing horses, is set by default so you don’t have to set it yourself. |
| LOTD Stash Supplies spell | Radial menu/Favorite 3 | I consider this a critical enough spell that I set this immediately in Tuxborn, even if I haven’t started LOTD in the load order yet. |
| Flex options | Radial menu/Favorites 4-6 | What I specifically set here depends on which followers I’m running, and if they have means to summon them that I can set as Favorites and therefore place on the radial menu. I may or may not take up all three of these Favorite slots with follower summons, it all depends on who I’m running. Could overlap into “alternate weapons” territory, depending on what gear I have. |
| Flex options | Radial menu/Favorites 7-8 | If I make it to filling out Favorites 7-8, these are usually additional weapons I like to have in my inventory, but not enough to make them primary weapons. This might be the Elmlock Blade, the Silver Fang sword from Demon Slayer Armor Mashup, Nightingale weapons, etc. |
| Dual-wielded daggers | Radial menu/F1 | I am a fan of dual-wielding daggers, so I usually go to the trouble of setting this up via SkyUI’s grouping functionality. I’ll use whatever good daggers I have on me. |
| Any other mod hotkeys I want | Radial menu/Variable | Usually this is the two hotkeys that trigger QuickLoot off and on, which I set because some of Tuxborn’s modspaces have problems with QuickLoot on chests (e.g., Carved Brink). So I want to be able to turn off QuickLoot in such areas as needed. |
| Hotkeys to trigger support mods | Radial menu | Some of Tuxborn’s mods that have in-depth config UI have known hotkeys to launch those UIs. I will usually place those hotkeys on radial options too. Examples: Immersive Equipment Displays, Community Shaders. |
What I’d do for playing a BFCO profile
The table above is based upon my playing the Tuxborn – Deck profile (or on Tuxborn 0.5.2, Tuxborn – Deck CS). I would not substantially change what I’m doing here for playing TuxBFCO – Deck, with one exception: the BFCO profiles do remap what several Skyrim controls do, including the DPad buttons.
So on a BFCO profile, I’d move Favorites 1 and 2 down off the DPad buttons and onto the radial.
Possible variations depending on your specific build
After over a dozen Skyrim playthroughs, I have a pretty standard build archetype for what I like to play: a sort of mashup of spellsword and stealth archer. Which is why I often fight with:
- Sword in right hand, spell in left
- Bow
- Dual-wielded daggers
And I’m almost always doing Light Armor rather than Heavy.
But if you’re playing a different kind of build than I favor, you might be asking, “But what if I’m playing a tank? Or a mage? Or an unarmed build?” Etc.
If you still want to do a layout similar to mine, that’d really just boil down to what are your weapon choices, how you’re choosing to fight, and how many followers you’re running that might require keeping means to summon them handy.
| If you’re playing a… | Then you could choose these for your favorites and radials… |
|---|---|
| Tank (Heavy Armor, Two-handed weapons) | Whatever your favorite two-handed weapons are (Greatswords, Battleaxes, Warhammers). |
| Pure archer | Bows (and maybe also crossbows if you get some good ones). Maybe consider dual-wielded daggers as backup. |
| Gunslinger | Including this as an option just because Tuxborn’s load order does include two possible ways of getting guns. You won’t be able to take advantage of this until either running Clockwork or reaching level 30, at which point the Glenmoril vendor spawns, and you can buy things from him (including guns). But if you’re going this route, you might make your favorite guns your Favorites 1 and 2, with however many others you want on the radials. |
| Mage | Staves, spells, and/or scrolls, depending on the specifics of how you want to wield magic in combat. |
| Unarmed build | Unarmed combat via the Hand to Hand addon requires both of your hands to be free, so you could fill up your favorites and radials with Shouts. |
And note: though I’m calling out Shouts as a thing to consider on the table above just for the Unarmed build, don’t think I’m suggesting limiting Shouts to just that build type, ’cause I’m not! No matter what kind of build you’re playing, remember, you are the Dragonborn. You’ll pick up a lot of Shouts through the course of your game. And if you’re like me, you may often forget to actually use those Shouts in combat.
Other variations to think about
Mod hotkeys
A lot of Tuxborn’s mods have their own hotkeys to do certain functions, and which ones of these are relevant will be your choice. But here are the ones I like to keep tabs on, well enough to have them available in my radials:
- UMF’s Check command to bring any followers it manages to me, which I set to N
- Simplest Horses’ H command to do all horse-managing functions, already set by default
- QuickLoot’s toggle off/on, two different hot keys, I use period and comma for these
- Photo Mode, which I set to single quote
Some other mods known to have settable hotkeys in our load order are:
- moreHUD
- SkyUI (groups 1-8 are all settable)
- SmoothCam
- UMF has hotkeys available for a few other functions besides Check: Wait, Follow, and Dismiss
Summoning followers
UMF should handle any followers running vanilla code (which basically means base game followers, and also any follower from Interesting NPCs). UMF also still handles Lydia, even though she’s a modded follower in our load order. So any follower managed by UMF should be summonable to you via the UMF Check command. I set this to N in my config, but you can use whatever available key you want.
Just about all of our custom followers have means to summon them, typically either a spell, a power in your Powers list, or a physical object that has a summon function on it. In all cases, you would still need to mark the method of summons as a Favorite, so that you can get at it off your radial menu.
Any questions?
Talk to me on the Tuxborn Discord, or drop a comment here!
Angela Korra'ti
As Angela Highland, Angela is the writer of the Rebels of Adalonia epic fantasy series with Carina Press. As Angela Korra'ti, she writes the Free Court of Seattle urban fantasy series. She's also an amateur musician and devoted fan of Newfoundland and Quebecois traditional music.