The_Beast

i hope you can release something before august 31!

nice, buy the way, most of the time when you are bulding something, the sound of the credits dropping i almos never timed with the time remaning to build the item. we see and ear credits dropping but after 50% of the unit done then nothing and we just have to wait until it's done.

really nice keep up with the good work stephan, In the next version in skirmish mode, will you make emperor house avialable, and sandworm on/off feature? other stuff can you make turret able to force attack?( ex:to blow up spice bloom) Finally when will be able to sell or destroy our own structures? thanks!

hi, nice demo 4 some improvement since 3.5 and some life since more than one year! Bulding queue would be a good idea for factories. the game crash when harkonnen devastator explode. Fixing so when the game start no unit are out of screen. the screen bounds could be improve. satrting with an mcv instead of a delpoyed base would be nice keep up with the good job!

Java is excelent for gestion programming(in buisness uses). But it's really not appropriate for game. It's heavy on the system and memory, need plugins. C++ is really adapted to game programming and way more powerful. The manadgement of memory is the key to performance, try to improve you skill in this domain and you will be impress with the gain's you can obtain. Also in c++ you can break incapsulation rules more easely if the needs are there. All the knoledge you learned in java will be easly transferable to c++. I learned java and when i came to c++, i just realysed the power of it! ps can't wait to see some new beta of d2tm to test out :P I'm missing the crazy progress you made since last winter!

Stefan just sended me an email with the fallowing content : EA is accusing me of stealing their rights, and this morning the police was at my house. They informated me that I got to go in a detention center while waiting for my lawyer. I know since a long time that they don't appreciate what I'm doing but I never tought it would went to this! I hope things will end right, wish me luck.

What you think about that??

While looking at Battle for middle earth II game mods. I found some great new stuff the would be so cool to make with dune universe. Quote : http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/battleformiddleearth2/review.html ***************************************************************************** The strategic mode in War of the Ring looks and feels very much like a board game, such as Risk. This isn't a complex or incredibly detailed strategy game, and EA keeps the overall management rather light. Your main job is to manage territories and move armies around the map. And since there are only two building nodes per territory (and only four building choices), you have to make some basic decisions about each territory's role. You might want your rear territories to house all the farms, which lets you recruit larger armies, while your front-line territories contain barracks to pump out units and fortresses to provide defense. Each territory confers certain bonuses to take into consideration as well, so that may go into your decision making. In addition, if you conquer whole regions, you'll gain even more bonuses. When two opposing armies meet, you can choose either to have the computer automatically generate the battle results or to play the battle yourself in real time. If you do play the battle yourself, you'll drop down to the province map and have to play it out just like you would a regular skirmish game, though any units or strategic buildings that were in the province at the beginning of the battle will show up on the battlefield. Needless to say, to win, just wipe out the opposing force. ***************************************************************************** This could be an interesting game mode( sure not making the same mistake ea done. The base should remain like you let them with the army as well ). While adding a whole research and investing( a bit like in ufo:aftermath) between mission the time continue and the enemy makes moves, to gain the new ubgrades you got to spend time and money doing research to acces each tech tree level. You build radar and drone technologies to see what going on dune. You see zones that are affected by sand storm and you can't access theses region during the storm (while the storm pass in a certain region some of the structures and units get damaged) Also between battles the player could trade spice and water and manage differents temporary allicances with The extra factions in extchange of ressoures( the Fremen( the people of dune ); the Sardaukar(house corino?); House Ix???; House Tleilaxu???; and the Spacing Guild;) [attachment deleted by Gobalopper]

Any news about the progress stefan ?

I not sure if at the moment bulding speed is increased by bulding numbers. Building queues sould be based on number of factories and paid before, money is liberate if canceled My suggestion One Yard/Factory(left menu base icons) normal bulding time for item(Rightmenu base/unit icons) No building queues Two Yard/Factory(left menu base icons) normal bulding time for item(Rightmenu base/unit icons) - 25 % 5 building queues Tree Yard/Factory(left menu base icons) normal bulding time for item(Rightmenu base/unit icons) - 50 % 10 building queues Starport queues maxed to 12 ( Computer AI should use starport to ) Are these freatures are planned? Sell function Power off function (on each building) Rally point (for each unit factory) Select the main factory(if more than one) ornithopter : they stay in the hight techfacility, you see a new icone (with the number of ornithopter disponible), when you click on it you can select a target(or maby a zone[like an artilery]) to attack then when the task is done they return to the hightech facility or patrole the selected territory. [Orny shoud use gaz to limit their flight time]. Custom cursor for deploy(mcv,[detonate devastator?]), return (harvester), selected (one or more) damaged unit over repair bay attack/move force attack/forcemove

I prefer this idea, but the spice sould reapear after certain delay. (ps: stefan i you read this, I would like to have your opignon about what i said in Reply #29 )

New balancing thing for demo 4. The worms at this time are not fearsome. If I let my unit on the sand (including harvester), during the mission the worm will eat mabe only 2 or 3 units, it dosen't give a bing impact. In my point of view, worm should be really more dangerous. First of all, in the dune movie, harvesting is a dangerous thing, the second that a worm is detected in the perimeter they call carryall to evacue. At the moment in d2tm, it's really rare that worms eat harvester. Troops deplacement sould bring significant danger, because a massive army moving on sand excite many worms. Rocks should be more significant as a secure place then just some place to put concrete and structures. If in d2tm harvesting was a dangerous thing, this could bring a lot more stategic. 1 Each times a worm sight is detected. The player first reaction would be : I got to save me harvester in priority. Then, are my units in security. 2 Attrackting worms to the enemy harvester with a kamikase ou a fast moving unit. At the moment I feel that the worm are in to mode : 1 moving for fun 2 seeking only one target, with no alternative. This sould be. 1 Seek the units that makes more vibration 2 If the worm can't reach unit or lost it, he seek for a next meal 3 Why not to size of worm? (on small and other 4x4 that can immerge form the sand in a strait shot, and make a hole in you 10 tanks moving to attack) If gathering ressources and troops movements is a more perious task, we would economy spice and try more tactics then just massive army ramming to the base. Wormsight should be more frequent and allways triggered be vibration. When the vibration level reach a certain value more than one worm show himself to eat. In a second part, would be cool to add every sounds that were in dune 2 and vocie message, i can't wait to ear again all the various sonds and the cool voice of the tree house and warning gived by the mantat. (ps: at the moment ther is still some sounds bug, some sounds or class of sounds are not playings for periode of time that appear again) [Volume options would be nice to, each time I start the game it change my windows wav and syntiser volume to the max] tell me what you think about that.

Do we gonna have blood when we squish or kill infantry(I remember some blood in dune 2, don't know were by the way :P ). Will infantry and trooper get shadow ? any estimated release date for demo 4? Continue your great job stefan!

at the moment : Ordos : 80% damage (faster speed) Harkonnen : 120% damage Atreides : 100 % damage The water could mix thing up Ordos : 100% damage (faster speed) Harkonnen : 120% damage Atreides : 100 % damage ( stillsuits ubgrade & consume water more efficently ) [stillsuits ubgrade only avalable to atreides ( as int he movie, the water is much more in the atreides culture ), fremen should only be atreides freinds] the idea of water silos is really interesting. I think the water element could bring much more strategic posiblity Spice : The main economy, used to buy stuff Water : Needed to maintain the troops, the critical level of water should be proportional to army/base size Electricity : Needed for building and maintain base. ( when no power on : turret/radar offline, building speed is decrease by 50~75%, no worm sight/enemy attacking alert ) the water/spice could be traded in the starport, stuff like that. The windtrap, capture water at slow rate and also generate power. you can also build 3 new types of structure : 1 - water silos : the structure is mostly underground ( to isolate from the burning sun ), there are some elements (to enter in it, pumps, etc) at the surface 2 - Advanced water gatherer : ( maby somthing that filter sand and rocks to extract some umidity) ?? 3 - Sun pannel : the name explain itself. we could find many other stuff to seperate the 3 houses harkonnen cruelty and the drinking blood ritual, with not find somthing with that(mabe some kind of fenzy when that kill/destroy somthing that make them more crazy[they fire more faster but with less accuracy]). and for the ordos we sould find mabe, some genetical modification or invent new stuff that suits to the dune univers.

at the moment it takes 10 rocket tower cannon bullet to kill a atredies trike, thi isn't really normal. I was stuck a mission 9 playing ordos with no more harvester ( prehaps because i add build some carryall )? why a troopers squad is more powerfull than a combat tank? i think eaven a single tropper can kill a tank. i just observed somthing, all dune 2 units don't make a lot of damage, so when you increased the damage of troopers. I just discovred that all the dune 2 unit do weak damage, so if you want to bounce up infantry ( this is a good idea ) all the other units sould be tweaked (firepower, rate, speed, hp) to balance the whole stuff. Why don't balance the dune 2 units to make them more realistic and give to each of them weakness and strength. in my opignon the new balancement to deviators make them to week, don't forget that ordos can only buy missile tank with starport. This is a lot to discuss here, but mostly some test have to be set to obtain more equivalence in the units strength.