I recently came across a windows based project on Reddit that could use multiple internet connections together and combine their speeds for downloads. I was surprised to see that something like this was even possible, so I tried it out and it worked pretty well.

I sent it to a friend who made a NixOS linux port for his own use. That got me thinking that something like this could be insanely useful on the deck, so I started working on a decky loader plugin for it.

The plugin lets you combine multiple network connections, such as wifi, dock/hub ethernet and usb tethering, and combines the speeds on steam game downloads and updates.

for my own use case. I combined my home wifi with usb tethering from my phone's 5g mobile data and got steam download speeds of over 450mbps on the Deck. (my home broadband is on a 200 meg plan)

It's still an early release, so feedback and testing would be really appreciated. please let me know your experience and if you have any suggestions for new features or bug fixes :3

More technical details on the GitHub readme.md

GitHub: https://github.com/FlashWreck/net-merge-decky

Installation: download the decky zip from GitHub releases, enable developer mode in decky loader and install using the downloaded zip.

Are there any Steam Deck Stellaris hand held players out there with UI mods like 'Tiny Outliner' that actually work with 4.5?

Unfortunately, the only way I could manage playing hand held was with the Tiny Outliner V2 mod. I've just purchased 4.5, mod is incompatible and the game isn't really playable anymore. Hoping there's something similar that works with 4.5 to make the small space manageable. I am playing on native resolution 0.9 ui scale. Yes I can reduce the ui scale to potentially workaround but everything is then too small to see.

P.s: There ARE outliner mods in workshop that state they are 4.5 compatible but they break the game by pushing tabs of screen rendering the game unplayable.

Thanks in advance!

If you already subscribe to claude and have claude code you can ask claude how you can install it on your steamdeck. it is pretty easy. Once claude is on your steamdeck it can help you clean up duplicate files and unused downloads. It can also help you fix and install mods and decomps. I had claude fix all 3 resident evil Re enhanced mods for me yesterday. I had tried everything and gave up but the AI was able to get everything sorted and free about 60GB of space on my HDD. I know everyone hates AI but I just wanted to let you all know it can be used on the deck to fix things for you. GLHF