How to determine the version of Dune II?

[ant222]

Hello all,

 

According to MrFlibble the version of Dune II can be identified by the size of the executable. Could you tell me which version is mine if it is 371 616  bytes?

[Nyerguds]

The easiest way is usually just to download my editor and launch it in the same folder. It will identify the version and show it in the top right corner :P

[edit]

There's an archive of all Dune II exe files here. Yours seems to be the 1.07-EU version.

Note that versions of Dune II are a bit of a mess; there are three different 1.07 versions, two of which are European. We refer to the other one as the "HitSquad" version (1.07-HS) because it was first found in a version of the game marked as being published by publisher HitSquad, but even that isn't entirely correct, as it's very much possible both EU versions were published by them -_-

[ant222]

Thanks for the info. I am still a tad worried about my executable because it seems to lack some of the fixes released in 1.07, namely: 

• The corners of the map are no longer revealed from shroud at the beginning of the mission.

  In my case the south-east corner is exposed on every mission.

• The saboteur is now visible to the player.

  I don't see enemy saboteurs, should I?

• The "Repair" button on the sidebar now starts flashing red when a building is below 50% its original HP (in v1.0, the button always flashes red regardless of the damage).

  In my version the button flashes red-white whenever it is visible.

In despite of sporting an old-school text-based GUI, your editor seems compiled for Windows, so I can't run it on my MacBook. Will try it on my Windows machine a bit later. By the way, did you write that TUI by yourself or using a third-party library?

EDIT: Ah, I see. My version has all those fixes as described, and it is super.exe from Super Dune II Classic that seems based on version 1.00 and has all those problems and more. Is it expected or did MrFlibble upload the wrong file by mistake?

[Nyerguds]

You can run my editor on wine, using wineconsole. It's not a DOS app because the old Pascal compilers are crap compared to FreePascal :P

As for Super Dune II, honestly, not a clue. That's MrFlibble's thing. Maybe you accidentally downloaded the non-upgraded original Super dune II instead?

[MrFlibble]

Hey ant222, long time no see! ^_^ How are ya doin'?

EDIT: Ah, I see. My version has all those fixes as described, and it is super.exe from Super Dune II Classic that seems based on version 1.00 and has all those problems and more. Is it expected or did MrFlibble upload the wrong file by mistake?

I used the v1.0 executable for Super Dune II Classic on purpose - mostly for the nostalgic feel I suppose. I think this fact might be mentioned somewhere in the readme or in the respective thread, but I'm not sure.

Also the "turbo mode" feature is only possible with v1.0 because it uses double hit points for structures (similar to the stats in the Sega Mega Drive version). In many cases this means that structures have above 500 HP. In v1.07, all such structures will be repaired for free because of a bug in the code.

And yeah, the overpriced repair costs in v1.0 is also a thing that I wanted to keep. This adds somewhat to the difficulty level and affects playing strategies to a certain extent.

[ant222]

You can run my editor on wine, using wineconsole. It's not a DOS app because the old Pascal compilers are crap compared to FreePascal :P

But Free Pascal can (cross-)compile for MS-DOS. Glad to know you have chosen this venerable and fine language. Did you manage to make the interactive debugger (breakpoints, watches, &c) work?

As for Super Dune II, honestly, not a clue. That's MrFlibble's thing. Maybe you accidentally downloaded the non-upgraded original Super dune II instead?

I already wrote I had made sure that my .exe was 1.07 in several ways, and MrFlibble has answered my question.

[ant222]

Hey ant222, long time no see! ^_^ How are ya doin'?

Thanks, I am allright but busy all the time, although I have managed to complete an English translation of the Star Heritage Demo. Out team could have made the full version but very few people seem to be interested in playing it :-(

Hope you are well & in good spirits!

I used the v1.0 executable for Super Dune II Classic on purpose - mostly for the nostalgic feel I suppose. I think this fact might be mentioned somewhere in the readme or in the respective thread, but I'm not sure.

Didn't find it. This is worth mentioning in the readme.

Also the "turbo mode" feature is only possible with v1.0 because it uses double hit points for structures (similar to the stats in the Sega Mega Drive version). In many cases this means that structures have above 500 HP. In v1.07, all such structures will be repaired for free because of a bug in the code.

And yeah, the overpriced repair costs in v1.0 is also a thing that I wanted to keep. This adds somewhat to the difficulty level and affects playing strategies to a certain extent.

Thanks for the explanation. I have started to play sd2class and was rather worried about the AI not rebuiling destroyed structures, which is said to have been fixed in 1.07. But I no longer worry about messing up the installation.

Must the relevant thread be archived—I might want to ask several questions about it. Will have to start new threads.

[Nyerguds]

But Free Pascal can (cross-)compile for MS-DOS. Glad to know you have chosen this venerable and fine language.

Oh? Never really looked into that.

 

Did you manage to make the interactive debugger (breakpoints, watches, &c) work?

Um, no clue, really. I probably debugged through the run a few times though, yeah. I don't think the standard Lazarus IDE package I downloaded had any problems with that. Though, it's been a while since I made that editor; I honestly don't remember.

Must the relevant thread be archived—I might want to ask several questions about it. Will have to start new threads.

Yeeeah... that archiving system is really annoying, especially on threads about Dune II. Auto-locking threads after a year of inactivity, when they're about a game that's 20 years old, is kind of disproportionate. The worst part is that it seems to hide them from the threads listing.

MrFlibble: Is there a way to make threads exempt from archiving? Because people might still want to comment on my editor's thread as well, and, who knows, despite all revelations from the OpenDune code, I might just update it somewhere in the future.

[MrFlibble]

Hope you are well & in good spirits!

Thanks! I've also been pretty busy lately with various projects (none of them Dune related though).

 

Thanks, I am allright but busy all the time, although I have managed to complete an English translation of the Star Heritage Demo. Out team could have made the full version but very few people seem to be interested in playing it :-(

I've never heard of this game which is probably unsurprising because I know very little about the ZX Spectrum platform.

 

Must the relevant thread be archived—I might want to ask several questions about it. Will have to start new threads.

MrFlibble: Is there a way to make threads exempt from archiving? Because people might still want to comment on my editor's thread as well, and, who knows, despite all revelations from the OpenDune code, I might just update it somewhere in the future.

Gobalopper told me a while ago that so far the solution is to manually turn the archiving option off for individual threads. This can only be accomplished with administrator-level permissions. I guess we should make a list of those threads we do not want archived and then ask to get them back into the non-archived category.

What I don't know is if they will stay that way or if the system will archive such threads after some time (if they are inactive) again.

Surely this is inconvenient but this is not up to me to decide.

I guess that for now the solution would be to just start new threads for new questions and comments.

[Nyerguds]

Nope. I tested that. Searched for [Dune editor], and the results did not include my editor's thread.

[MrFlibble]

Guys, I moved the branch of discussion that concerns archived topics here. Please reserve this thread for the original discussion about the different versions of Dune II.