The_Legacy

Yep... it was definitely an ID-10-T error. I had multiple copies of the install, and the one I was using, was missing files. *Facepalm* Thanks! 😅

Hi there! I've been trying to get DuneMaps to work on my laptop, and, no matter what C++ redistributables I throw at it, it crashes at launch with no error message, and does not show up at all. I've also tried reinstalling it, and changing the install location. No dice. Two things to note: It works fine on my Desktop (Windows 10 Professional, AMD processor), and my laptop runs Windows 10 Home, Intel-based. Can someone help me troubleshoot? Thanks!

Hi there! I had a very quick question for you; I *vastly* prefer the Sound Blaster Pro version of Dune 2's music, compared to the MIDI playback on OpenDune. How do I get the (Adlib?) Sound Blaster Pro music to play instead of MIDI?

Thanks drnovice! I'll let you know once things in my life are more settled.

Alright, I'll give OpenDune a try. Thanks.

I'll definitely keep that in mind. I did notice the chance of deviation, and simply halving it could give me the option to have dual fire. Or...something. Anyway, I wanted to reiterate a part of my earlier post, regarding some roadblocks I've found with modding thus far. Can you find out whether these are doable?

I already figured it out, drnovice. Thanks though. To be honest, reading those threads (I had found them earlier) actually were extremely difficult to decipher. Ultimately, the issue was that I had been editing Infantry for prototypical purposes, loading the first Atreides mission to see the changes, and didn't see any. Then, I promptly facedesked when I realized that it's the Soldier that I should have been editing. Wow I felt dumb. lol

Sounds like this idea for Deviators is quite...polarizing. You're right in that two shots would, in effect, double the chance for Deviation. But, what if fire rate was also halved? In other words, same rate of fire overall, but, you get an alpha-strike ability in an attempt to turn a target, but, once fired, you're sitting for a -long- time before they're ready to fire again, and will likely require them to retreat after every volley. What do you think?

Alright. I'm planning on making my mission/balancing mods to be compatible with both. I'll probably do the most advanced stuff for OpenDune, but I also wanted some backward compatibility for those loons (like myself) who want to still play on the old EXE.

So far, I haven't run into any. I'll let you know if I do. If you mean the Carryall bug with the Barracks, that was an easy fix, by enabling Infantry and Soldiers for the Harkonnen. Since they can't build the Barracks, enabling these units won't affect that balance. I believe so. If I could get Area Guard to work as intended, this should give your units a more hands-off approach, giving you time to work on other tasks. Very useful in the harder campaign. The problem is, is that when your units are being shot at by air units outside your base, it leaves you practically defenseless with only one unit type (two for the Ordos) to shoot them down. This would fix that issue. To compensate, I want to decrease the cost of Ornithopters to 400, so that mass-aerial tactics are viable. I was originally going to boost their hit points, but then I realized that they can easily kill an unprepared base, and they're hard enough to kill as it is. There definitely is; the Quad will still handily beat a Trike/Raider Trike in a one-on-one fight. It's instead a question on whether you want scouting ability or damage. I may not have been clear enough when I wrote it up; basically, I'd like to see Light Vehicles to be used as scouts (with vision ranges to match), while Heavy Vehicles have limited ranges, due to their enclosed chassis and such. Launchers, Deviators and Sonic Tanks I can imagine being an mild exception; though I nerfed them from 5 to 3, they still have respectable ranges. Thanks. I'll keep that one in, then. It's just a thought. I've covered it above. I've considered that too. It would have to be a careful balancing act. It's worth a try, because Soldiers and Infantry are practically useless. They would make decent support units. I could consider making that change. I've already boosted their damage significantly (at this point, I think they're a tad TOO strong), because a damage of 4 (per shot) is quite low, considering the Siege Tank's 30 (per shot). I cannot change the Fremen/Sadaukar specifically, because they all use the same unit type (Trooper/Troopers). There is no actual special unit for these factions. Thus, a buff to Troopers is also a buff to these powers. I felt that buffing the Troopers addresses both of these issues. As for the 10 Palaces, I just did that earlier today. You're absolutely right, but there's a big problem: It costs a lot of credits, you need a lot of room, and you need a lot of defenses. With the new campaign, it would be extremely difficult to deploy that many palaces uncontested, especially since I plan on having multiple enemy bases from very different angles, plus random enemy attack groups from all angles. Indeed it does. Only issue is that it only fires one round per attack run. I decided to keep it as a missile attack instead. as a result. You're right. I think I may make it cheaper, and/or allow Construction Yard building in the Construction Yard. I've covered that above. They may sell equipment, but who pilots said equipment? Unless they're manned on location. Even if we use that logic, military uniforms/body armor/guns/etc can also theoretically be purchased there, making the same point valid. But....hot drop o'clock? O.O That would be amazing...if there was a way. True. I actually tried to make it work like a Fremen-styled drop, except it only drops one or two. My question is, how does one re-script the Palace powers? Thanks for your feedback, everyone! ^_^

After some playtesting, I'm starting to learn about what I can and cannot do. Before I go into responding to your comments (Thanks for the feedback!), I want to explain what I plan on doing. I'm creating a new, reworked version of Dune 2 (using the original EXE on the v1.07 fix version) which reworks the entire campaign to be both far more challenging, and to give you most of the tech tree to start (namely, Palaces will be left until levels 8 and 9), the Atreides get the WOR at level 5, and the Ordos get the Launcher at level 6. Additionally, the Starport will be seeded with infantry and troopers, in addition to the standard full list. I intend to keep the storyline identical, but the inspiration is that, in the cinematics, I'd imagine the war would have all the houses deploying their full militaries early on. I figure that the tech tree buildup over the 9 missions is to teach players how to use the different units, but rather I want to see the war start on a high note, and keep its initiative for the entire game. The purpose of the unit re-balancing is because I wanted to see all the different unit types used at all times; I'd imagine that most players will only use Infantry for capture, Quads/Trikes/Raider Trikes for finding the enemy base, Launchers for Artillery and Fog-Of-War removal, and Siege Tanks for destroying enemy units (with some flavor units thrown in). Ultimately, most units are forgotten as the tech tree level increases. Instead, I'd like to see these changes happen (which have already been successfully tested): - Infantry and Soldiers are reduced in cost to make them more cost effective. - Troopers are increased in cost, and buffed to both make them effective alternatives to vehicular frontline units, as well as increasing Sadaukar/Fremen difficulty. - Quads, Trikes and Raider Trikes have greatly increased sight ranges, to make them truly effective scouts, at a low cost. - Raider Trikes are buffed to equal the standard Trike for armor and firepower, have an even larger sight range than the Quads and Trikes, but now cost 200 for their increased value. Quads are still the king in firepower in the Light Vehicle category, however, so Ordos players would build Quads and Raider Trikes together. - Quads, Trikes, and Raider Trikes now fire rapidly, trading damage per shot with sheer volume of fire. These vehicles can also shoot air units. - Tanks get an increase in rate of fire, turret and chassis rotation speed, and movement speed, but lose damage per shot, to give them an interesting maneuvering mechanic. - Siege Tanks will be kept the same after all (600 cost). - All heavy vehicle units will lose their vision ranges. The larger the vehicle, the smaller the vision range is. This is because I don't think tanks should have as good vision ranges as base Dune 2 provides. - Ornithopters now cost 400 instead of 600, to encourage further usage. I've successfully tested the use of gun sounds and sprites with Ornithopters, but it will only fire one shot at a time. Thus, I decided to keep it stock. - Saboteurs now respawn in the palace in 150 seconds, instead of 300. - Greatly increasing Devastator weapon damage while greatly reducing fire rate, making it an extremely powerful foe in singular fights, but that can be easily defeated against large numbers. Currently, the Devastator is essentially a bigger, badder Siege Tank, and can completely replace them in armies. This change would make using them en masse a risky strategy, due to their extremely low fire-rate post-change. - Outposts, Palaces, WOR's, Barracks, and all other non-capturable structures can now be captured. (This has been successfully tested as working, by enabling the building of Infantry/Soldiers for the Harkonnen, while keeping their access to building the barracks as blocked. The same applies for the Atreides and the WOR) - Most units now replace the Retreat command with Hunt. I'm running into the following issues, however, and I'd like your advice on this: - I'm unable to adjust when the Ordos get access to the WOR. I want the Harkonnen and the Ordos to have access to the WOR at level 1 for the campaign, while I want the Atreides get it at level 5. - I want to allow Construction Yards to be build inside Construction Yards; this works ingame, but the issue is that I can place it anywhere I can see rock. How can I prevent them from being built outside of physical touch of other structures? - I want Quads, Trikes, and Raider Trikes to be able to engage Ornithopters automatically. How do I get these units (as well as Troopers and Launchers) to engage them? - I want Area Guard to be based on the position of where the unit is currently stopped, instead of where the unit was first created. How do I fix this? - Is there a way to increase the maximum air unit count, and maximum structure counts? - Is there a way to change how palace powers work? IE. How Fremen are deployed, number of deployed units, type of units, etc. Oh. Whoops. XD Sorry. Changing the availability of units is moreso the case, that I find it strange that the Atreides, a peace and life-loving house, would prefer to send weakly armored and armed soldiers after the much more powerful Harkonnen (and, in some cases, Ordos) units, particularly the Troopers. I find that Soldiers and Infantry are practically useless in standard Dune, but with the cost reductions I tried, I found that the AI creates massive swarms of them, and they can actually do some damage. That said, I think that, politically speaking, the Atreides would eventually relent to activating the Trooper units. Preferably, in the case of the advanced mission pack that I'm co-currently designing with these changes, I'd like to make it so that the Ordos and the Harkonnen start with the WOR at level 1, and the Atredies at level 5, when they have a change of heart. A good argument for this change is that, if the Atredies are so against violence, then why are they building Siege Tanks and Rocket Launchers? And why can the Harkonnen buy Trikes, and the Ordos Rocket Launchers, in the Starport? I believe that doctrines in war can shift to face an ever-escalating situation, and that's why I'm considering enabling these units at a higher level. I was just considering that launchers fire two missiles, whereas the Deviator fires one. I felt that the Deviator should fire two as a result. The slower rate of fire would compensate for its improved first-strike capability. But this doesn't -need- to be added. Perhaps. Yeah, I'll keep things the same (maybe reduce the cost of an MCV?) As an alternative, I'm considering allowing Construction Yard building in the Construction Yard itself. In testing, it works well, but the downside is that you can place them ANYWHERE there is rock. I'm not sure how to restrict them to being built around existing structures. Any advice on this would be appreciated. Duly noted. That's actually a great idea. Weren't saboteurs invisible in version v1.0? I can definitely make these changes, on top of the reduction on the palace power.

Thanks for the link, that is quite useful. By chance have you seen my two other threads? I'll consolidate them here: 1) Is there a way to use your tool to change how commands operate? For example, changing Area Guard from basing its defense on its spawn location, to where the unit is at the time of the button press. And, new: 2) How does one change the tech tree for a specific faction? For example, Harkonnen have the WOR at level 2, but the Ordos get it at level 5 (and the Atredies don't have it listed as per their Owner stat)

Actually, capturing a WOR or Barracks is entirely possible. It's a bit of an exploit I discovered a number of years ago, in later versions when they introduced AI reconstruction of structures. How the AI builds their buildings, is that their structure placement overrides ANYTHING that is currently sitting in the square, let it be concrete, rock, units, sand, or even buildings (someone mentioned that you can rebuild rocket turrets to prevent them from building, but would sometimes 'change side'. This is actually because the AI simply built over your turret with its own, and permanently erasing the one you built). What is entertaining with this feature, however, is that if you capture the enemy construction yard while it's building, you will be able to place this building, anywhere you please. The only catch, is that this building will be built in the AI's faction. So, for example, you can place the WOR or Barracks inside your base, but it will be built as enemy. Now, the exploit part; it is possible, as stated before, to build a structure on top of another. So, for example, if you placed your WOR so that part of it is overlapping a Refinery or Repair Facility, you can actually drive units into the Refinery or Repair Facility over the overlapping square(s). Since the structure isn't completely overlapping, it won't vanish. Strangely, the building you click, is the one that is on top; click the other, and it becomes on top. The final bit; to capture it, you would need to reduce it to red health, click on the harvester/unit to enter the Refinery/Repair Facility. Immediately click on the Refinery/Repair Facility. Wait until the unit starts moving into the overlapping square, then click the WOR/Barracks before it finishes its move. Suddenly, the vehicle will capture the structure! Thus, Atredies Troopers, or Harkonnen Carryall spam, is yours.

Hi there again! I wanted to ask whether it was possible to modify the unit commands in Dune 2? Specifically, I've noticed that Area Guard has units always return to the point of their spawn, rather than the point of where they last stood. It's essentially a more powerful version of Retreat, since units return to their spawn positions, but will leave it to attack enemies. Instead, I'd like to be able to set a unit's 'default' position instead, by simply clicking the Area Guard command to set a new 'home' location. Thanks!

I took the one for the European version, as far as I remember. I'll take another stab at it tomorrow. I attempted to install the 1.07 official patch, but it kept erroring out when it tried to patch dune2.exe for having differences. Once I can get 1.07 installed properly, I'll try the fix again, and then your utility. EDIT - Figured it out! Thanks!

Greetings! After many years of playing Dune II, and recently being inspired to play it once again, I've decided that I wanted to create a complete overhaul on the missions, and unit balancing. Specifically, I'd like to try to change some of the stats of the units, and, more importantly, I wanted to create an 'expert' mission mode, where the missions all start at mission 8 tech levels, where some missions will have different objectives or higher spice quotas, and existing enemy bases are heavily expanded upon, for all to provide late-game level challenges. Ultimately, I want to rework the existing campaign to make it a difficult fight all the way through, without changing the overall positions of the starting locations, but rather instead expanding on them. The motivation is because I believe the war would have started realistically with all the big weapons available to all commanders from the beginning, and that the player (and his/her foe) are limited in technology for learning purposes. If I'm not mistaken, tech availability in the Construction Yard, Light Factories, Heavy Factories, and High Tech Factories are all based on hardcoded information in the EXE file (I've looked through the Dune II editor and I now know the different values you can set). Scenarios and Starport availability, as far as I know, are coded in the Scenario###.ini files, which is arguably the far easier part of the job. But, if I'm not mistaken, EXE editing is required to allow construction of later-game buildings, and I will need to edit the EXE anyway for some balance changes I wanted to make. Using the Dune II Editor, I was able to locate hex values in the EXE, and I changed them to what I wanted. However, when I ran the EXE, I saw no changes. Do you know why this may be the case? Are there tutorials to hex editing the EXE? Is there anything I need to know? Thanks. P.S. For feedback purposes, I wanted to provide the changes I was thinking of doing, based on what I can see that is changeable: - Increase maximum number of units and structures to the maximum the game engine allows. - Adding the ability to capture ALL structure types, to allow a full-base-capture playstyle. - Changing most unit commands from the default Attack / Move / Retreat / Guard to Attack / Move / Hunt / Area Guard, to facilitate proper unit defenses and co-ordinate mass assaults. (Note: Move changes to Guard automatically after movement, so replacing Guard essentially adds a fifth command). - Allow the Atredies to build the WOR, and the Ordos the Launcher, after level 4, due to the increasing violence from the war triggering changes in policy (the fact that the Ordos can order Launchers in the Starport, and the Atredies can build Siege Tanks, which are substantially more powerful than Troopers, make this glaringly apparent). - Changing the roles of Quads, Trikes, and Raider Trikes to proper scouts (large vision range) and modifying their machine guns to be dual-purpose anti-ground/anti-air to fill a badly needed role which the game only provides in the Troopers, Launcher, and Gun/Missile Turrets. - Increasing Raider Trike damage and hit points to match standard Trike levels, while increasing costs to 200, in order to provide proper counterplay verses Quads and Trikes beyond scouting. - Markedly increasing movement speed and increasing turret and chassis rotation of standard Tanks (similar to Dune 2000 levels, and, perhaps, to launcher levels but with better movement speed over sand), in order to give them a badly needed flanking advantage over Siege Tanks in a one-on-one battle (whereas Siege Tanks would keep their firepower and armor, making them superior in a head-on fight vs Tanks). This would reward players for micromanaging combats with tanks, but Siege Tanks would win in a fixed-position battle. - Decrease Siege Tank costs from 600 to 500, to address the cost vs effectiveness ratio comparision between Tanks and Siege Tanks provided in another thread. - Reducing sight range of Siege Tanks and Devastators to current Quad/Trike/Raider Trike levels, to compensate for the changes for Light Vehicles. - Greatly increasing Devastator weapon damage while greatly reducing fire rate, making it an extremely powerful foe in singular fights, but that can be easily defeated against large numbers. Currently, the Devastator is essentially a bigger, badder Siege Tank, and can completely replace them in armies. This change would make using them en masse a risky strategy, due to their extremely low fire-rate post-change. - Add a second missile launch for Deviators, in order to match Launcher fire output. Rate of fire would be reduced to compensate. - Decrease cost of Soldier to 30, and Infantry Squads to 50, due to their extremely poor cost vs effectiveness ratio. Reduce Barracks upgrade cost to 100. - Increase Troopers damage and armor to be equal to Tanks, and the Trooper as half that. Increase cost from 100/200 to 125/250 This is not only to make infantry tactics viable, but to dramatically increase the difficulty of Sadaukar Trooper deployments in Missions 4, 8 and 9, and to boost the effectiveness of the Atredies Fremen palace power. Their lower cost is compensated by their vulnerability to being run over. - Change Ornithoper weapons from missiles to guns (as per the intro cinematic). Increase Ornithopter armor to 100 (compensated by the addition of effective mobile anti-air units). - Remove upgrade requirement for MCV construction. Increase base cost of MCV's to 999 to compensate. - Add ALL non-faction units to the Starport. Since the Starport delivers mercenaries to your force, it would make sense for Infantry and Troopers to be included in their offerings. - Saboteurs will be rebalanced...somehow. Something to make them more effective. If there is some way to spawn multiple of them akin to how Fremen are deployed, this would be optimal, and appropriately terrifying. Note that I will be balance testing all changes before release, and any suggestions are welcome.

Hi there! Is it possible to edit the v1.07 original EXE with this program? I'm trying to make changes without the use of a Hex editor, but I'm struggling. Thanks! Edit - I tried changing default commands on a unit via hex editing, but saw no difference in their defaults (Attack, Move, Retreat, Guard). Any ideas? Edit 2 - I notice on the upper right that it says "Dune Version: 1.00", but I am using the v1.07 Fix version. Is this normal, or is there a way to change what version it is basing its detection mechanisms on?

Stefan, can you respond?

Hey there. I wouldn't mind giving you a hand. I tried Demo 2 out, and it's fantastic (as I write this, I'm downloading Demo 3). I don't have a HUGE amount of time on my hands, but I can sprite, do basic coding, map making, and I can do some music. On that note, a while back I 'extracted' the DOS Sound Blaster Pro soundtrack using a method of recording. I had it put up for a while, but I took it down because Dune2k.com was SUPPOSED to upload it, but didn't. There's a few that is missing, but that will be done something in the future, maybe even today time permitting. But this is the entire ingame, attack, intro, middle-cutscene, victory, and loss songs. Only the Atredies and Ordos game completion themes are missing. Gotta love authentic Sound Blaster basics. ^_^ Send me an e-mail or MSN and I'll send it to all valid parties (or prod the site admin). My MSN is thelegacy@gmail.com. Let me know what I can help with. I'm SURE I can help with SOMETHING. ;D

I'm one of the best unit makers for Total Annihilation, and I'm the creator of the Total War mod for W40K Dawn of War (http://totalwar.moddb.com). I've also done a thing here and there to test their modability.

I'm guessing that they use the similar format that they used with all Westwood Games era Dune 2 - Red Alert 2. If so, look for XCC Mixer. It can both read, convert, and extract all kinds of file types. It can also read all the .MIX files from those games. Note: Although Dune 2 uses a '.pak' format, they can still be read as a mix file. Just change what you're looking for. However, if it is in a C&C Generals, format, look for a archive tool for C&C Generals. Good hunting! - The Legacy

Having Dune ported to Dawn of War would be amazing. Now I can help whoever is making it in various ways: 1. I can port the Dune 2000 cutscenes into Dawn of War. 2. I can get you either the Dune 2000 or even Dune 2 sound effects. 3. I can get the voiceovers. I don't plan on helping out since I'm already making a seperate mod for Dawn of War, but if you guys need the content from the older Dune games, then I can surely send it to you. ;) Another pointer is that Dawn of War is incredibly popular atm, and mods for the game have already been listed under PC Gamer. Trust me on this since my "Total War" mod made it in. (Total War is a mini mod that increases the build cap) And to top it up, I've had over 200 men on screen at once with nary a stutter.