So, I'm new here and all that, yadda yadda yadda.
I've been working on modifying Dune 2 to fit my own personal tastes - messing with the tech tree, changing what costs what and how fast it builds, changing where the IX Units are built from, and so on and so forth. I've noticed a few oddities, however.
1) If I try to edit Scenario.PAK directly to accommodate a Starport in lower tech levels, the game fails to go past the Bene Gesserit screens.
2) If the build time is set to 1, some funky things happen with structure costs - half of the cost gets lopped off (I haven't tried this out with Build Time 0 or 2 yet). Similarly, a Sonic Tank at Build Time 10 with cost 600 only deducts 500 when all is said and done. So far, using (tech+1)^2 build times combined with (tech)*100 build costs alleviates the cost oddness, but it does generate balance issues on early stages.
3) Changing structure sizes also produces weird graphical results - while functionality is never impaired, it's a little hard to distinguish a silo from a house of ix from an outpost when they all look like half-built structures. Likewise, changing the upgraded concrete from 2x2 to 3x3 produced weird results when trying to place the concrete - most of the time, the bottom level of concrete wouldn't place (and don't even bother changing regular concrete from 1x1 - it doesn't have the same adaptability that upgraded concrete has)
The specifics of the modifications I'm making are as follows:
This is to my personal tastes and preferences: I am changing the tech tree to better suit what I think makes sense. Some examples are requiring a Spice Silo before you can build Harvesters, as well as the chain of Windtrap -> Refinery -> Light -> Heavy -> Hi Tech -> Starport (Outpost has been removed from the Vehicle Factory chain, but Starport still requires it)
Sonic Tanks and Deviators are now built from Light Factory instead of Heavy Factory in order to increase the number of Launchers and Siege Tanks built by the AI on higher levels (in theory, at least)
Concrete is Fast and Cheap - 1x1 Concrete and 2x2 Concrete both cost 3 credits, with build times of 1 and 4 respectively; Similar speed and cost changes have been made to Wall, Turret, and Rocket Turret, but walls now consume 1 power per tile, and Standard Turret power use has been raised to 20.
Structure sizes will be changed based on function. All support structures would become 1x1 (except Refinery, which will probably have to stay at least 2x2 tall, and may even become 3x3), Barracks, WOR, and Light Factory will become 1x2; Heavy Factory will become 1x3; Hi Tech will become 2x2; and Palace, Construction Yard, Starport, and Repair Facility will all become/remain 3x3 structures. This will only happen once I learn how to adjust graphic size correctly, but I will modify the scenarios to accomidate the new sizes once I figure out how to change the CHOAM sections without breaking the file.
Ornithopter-using enemies will become much more deadly due to increased vision ranges of Outpost and Starport - Outpost now has vision 25, and Starport now has vision 250.
Miscellaneous unit changes: All units except for Devastator have full CPU outside of screen; Turret and Rocket Turret now have full CPU outside of screen (so no parking a Launcher or Sonic Tank outside of turret range and just filling the CPU Rebuild Queue with Turrets); Thopters are now controllable, and have Area Guard as a command option; Devastator speed decreased to 5, Health increased to 1000, now has rotating turret, turning speed increased to 2, is no longer picked up for repairs, move command replaced with Hunt, Guard replaced with Area Guard; Sonic Tank range decreased to 5, now fires twice, now sounds like a Worm attacking; Deviator no longer fires twice, but firing rate now matches Devastator and can now target air units.
Construction Yard can now be built from the Construction Yard; it requires a Palace to have been built, but it's cheaper and faster than building an MCV.
Snce the mod is based around my personal preferences and likely won't have many major overhauls to the actual scenarios, I'm not planning on publicly releasing it - though I may mail it to you if you really want to see what I like to play against. The only major change I would make to the scenarios at this point beyond Starport adjustments is replacing all Human Construction Yards with MCV's.
The main reason I'm posting this is to get my approved post, but also to see if I can get some advice on how to do most of what I want to do with this; the Modding Tools thread is very out of date, and a lot of the links I found while trying to do this myself were dead links - some led to the forum without leading to a topic, while others lead to a webpage that I couldn't make heads or tails of.
