EagleEye

Not unless someone disassembles TD, RA, and D2k and converts them to C, as was done with Dune 2.

Nice work. :)

U.N. Owen Was Her?

That's a pretty neat idea Westwood had. It's amazing how alien a concept that is compared to modern RTS games, isn't it?

Yes, sir. I apologize.

Ignore that. I misread your thing and had a breakdown. I'm sorry about that. It's been kind of a shitty decade for me, and I took it out on the wrong person. You didn't do anything.

Edit: Ignore that. I'm an idiot.

For legal reasons I didn't really look at the stuff in the code blocks, but just reading your explanation that makes a lot of sense. I never knew that the foreign language versions only had 1 EVA voice. Any clue why a VOC file larger than 20kb crashes Dune 2? Is it just that there's a 20kb buffer for each sound, rather than it being malloc()ed?

It's not in anything resembling a presentable state. I'll make a post here when it gets closer to being alpha-fundable.

My game isn't really that relevant to Dune Dynasty. Basically, it's a RTS with elements of a 4X, that controls like a Command and Conquer game. Dynasty would have to add support for 20x20 tiles, first. Edit: Just looking at Artil.bmp, the thing itself looks like it's supposed to be 20x20, but goes over it. Supporting 24x24 or 32x32 for units might be necessary to support the Hard Vacuum graphics.

MrFlibble, I am really glad you linked to that page. Now instead using horrible programmer art for my game, I can use that.

I forgot some words. I meant that as "I do agree with you that using switch with strings whenever you could use an enum or int is bad."

Agreed. That and the multilanguage support are the main reason I'm switching to your implementation. I disagree. I do agree with switch-case structures using strings whenever you could use an enum or int, though.

No, I said the current Dynasty sidebar had the same problem as C&C3 had: Whenever you select a unit, you lose the tab you were looking at. I then said: If Dune 2 doesn't have independent build queues: Use CnC's sidebar If Dune 2 does have independent build queues: Use CnC3's siderbar And in either case: Put the currently selected unit and their commands at the top of the sidebar Valid point. Those would be on the same tab, the same way the Barracks, Hand of Nod, and Mutant Hovel are on the same tab. By the way, Nyer, I looked at your complaints about my code. They do the same thing. Running Stopwatch a couple of times on both of them tells me they run at the same speed. I took an iterative approach rather than the approach you would've taken. It's no less valid. I can tell you used to write in Java.

Example code I'm part of "us programmers." You know, it's almost as if I explained this in a previous post: My problem was with scrolling the sidebar. CnC3 has tabs for each type of production, and sub-tabs for each production facility. (It only allows for one of each superweapon, but you could just put it in the sidebar and have it act like everything else.) Thanks, I'll use this in my game.

When you put it that way, it's a lot more tolerable.

It seems to me like a project to enhance Dune 2 and make it more accessible to modern gamers. Having the option to use C&C's cursors to better represent the context sensitive action seems like a good idea to me. This isn't a feature request for vanilla Dune 2, this is a feature request for Dune Dynasty. The main reason I'm playing it is that Dune 2000 doesn't work right on my system. My main point was that losing the current production list I was looking at whenever I select a unit was disorienting, and that a way to fix that would be to still display the current unit and it's actions when they're selected, but show a CnC3 style sidebar under that. It could gracefully fall back to the default Dune 2 clips if there isn't a Dune 2000 clip available, the way it does with Dune 2000 music. I wrote this in about half an hour today (consider this Public Domain): using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.IO; using System.Linq; using System.Text; namespace WorldwideWarfare { class Section { public string name; public List<string> keys; public List<string> values; public Section(string s) { name = s; keys = new List<string>(); values = new List<string>(); } public Section(bool b) { name = "!!INVALID"; keys = new List<string>(); values = new List<string>(); } public string this[string key] { get { int i = 0; foreach (string k in keys) { if (k.ToLower() == key.ToLower()) { return values[i]; } i++; } return null; } /*set{}*/ } } class Ini { public List<Section> sections = new List<Section>(); private Section section; public Ini(string fname) { string[] ini = File.ReadAllLines(fname); foreach (string s in ini) { string s2 = s.Trim(); bool start = false, end = false, equals = false; string s3 = ""; foreach (char c in s2) { if (c == ';') { break; } if (start) { if (c == ']') { end = true; break; } else { s3 += c; } } else { if (c == '[' && !equals) { start = true; } if (c == '=') { equals = true; } } } if(start && end) { section = new Section(s3.Trim()); sections.Add(section); } else if (equals) { bool half = false; string k = "", v = ""; foreach (char c in s) { if (c == '=') { half = true; } else if (c == ';') { break; } else { if (half == false) { k += c; } else { v += c; } } } if (sections.Count > 0) { section.keys.Add(k.Trim()); section.values.Add(v.Trim()); } } } } public Section this[string name] { get { foreach (Section s in sections) { if(s.name.ToLower() == name.ToLower()) { return s; } } return null; } /*set{}*/ } } } That would be valid were I saying Dune 2 is a bad game. I am not. I am saying that Dune Dynasty could be improved if concrete was less annoying to place. That is my number one problem with the project as-is, and if it were alleviated, then the project would be essentially perfect. (After that is using the TD cursor to show that you can/can't move/attack/scroll the screen.) Honestly, I'd make some of these changes myself, but legally it'd be risky for me to look at OpenDUNE's source code. Not because the source code itself is illegal or anything, but because it wasn't a "clean" disassembly and reimplementation (wherein different people look at the disassembly than implement the new code), and I'm currently working on a commercial RTS.

I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to add a mouse.png with the new frames needed. Edit: Aren't Command and Conquer and Red Alert's mouse pointers in Dune 2 .SHP format? Literally every other game I play that isn't exited by hitting Esc is paused by hitting Escape. A Quake-style key rebinding system that allowed you have attack bound to either a or ctrl-leftmouse and menu to either F2 or esc, for example, would be really nice. (Also, I could never play the original Dune 2. Mainly because between the production screens, the concrete, and the lack of context sensitive commands, things just took too long). Westwood's coding can be incompetent at times, but there's an index of ranks in code. I doubt they were stupid enough to store more than score, level, side, name, and maybe the rank if they didn't decide to calculate it using the score and level. It would be pretty cool if this were changed to a well-formatted Fame.txt file. Why would the CnC3 sidebar hurt? (It doesn't have to be the default option, of course.) Dune 2000 has different speech for all the mentats, too. Also, dynasty has source code access, so I assume he could tell it to play a different sound if it's set to use Dune 2000 voices. Those are the visual cues I use in every other game with a sidebar system I play, and they're extremely effective. When I said "greyed out", I meant visually. Honestly, it wouldn't be so much of a problem if I could also queue the position of the building. That way, I could queue up 4 concrete slabs and a windtrap without having to worry about placing them while in battle or scouting. At the very least, there either needs to be an optional big, annoying visual indicator that I have a building that needs to be placed, or a way to place ahead of time. What's the problem with having an option? It doesn't really. It makes it less annoying, but it doesn't make it not annoying. If you could place them before they were done, it'd be a moot issue, but even then you could add it to that stage so you didn't have to keep clicking the button. It feels like there's enough to work with to get it working. I'll see if I can hack something together. Edit: I can't find any good way to test how certain things would look. I think the rock and sand connecting would be fine, but it looks like the mountain isn't well-represented enough. Edit2: It's a lot better represented in BLOXBGBS.

Agreed. Whereas box selection is second nature to anyone who uses Windows, every browser I ever used used ctrl+mouse wheel to zoom in or out. (I should note, though, that I do like the zoom feature.) Could you add an option in the controls menu to use a more Command and Conquer style command system (that is, left click selects and commands, and right click deselects)? Also, it seemed like I couldn't get my infantry/soldiers to shoot at a structure in the second Atreides level (the one where you attack Ordos), despite both right clicking on the building with the guys selected and then trying the same after clicking "Attack" on the side. I admit, though, that I am so new to actually playing Dune 2, that I have no clue if I'm supposed to be able to do that. If so, a "no attack" cursor would be useful. Also, could you make a "move" and "no move" cursor? And make them green, and the attack/no attack cursor red? Holding ctrl and clicking with a unit selected didn't force attack. Additionally, force attacking the ground with the sidebar didn't cause them to actually attack it. I know that's a stupid complaint, but I've been playing Tiberian Dawn for years and I kind of expect that to work, regardless of how stupid it is. Can you run over units? If so, can you order a vehicle to attempt to run over a specific infantry with force move (alt)? I noticed that, too. I was trying to enter "001" as a savegame name with the numpad. I only use the non-numpad number keys for groups in Command and Conquer, so could you fix that? Entering your score doesn't let you enter more than 5 characters, and doesn't let you use capital letters. I know this is a stupid request, but could you fix this? If you change that, please leave fullscreenwindow exactly the way it is. Also, thank you for adding fullscreenwindow. Fullscreen applications somehow crash Windows 7 explorer, but fullscreenwindow (which, I've heard a long time ago somewhere, is now supposed to be the preferred way of doing fullscreen), whereas I can alt-tab between fullscreenwindow and other applications easily. Why not just add a new savegame format that can save queues? When loading, check if it's using the Dune Dynasty magic number (maybe "DYNASTY"), and if not, load the old way. Otherwise, load the new format. The sidebar suffers from CnC3's problem: When you select units, you can't see what you're building. Does every production building have it's own queue? If not, I'd suggest ripping off Tiberian Dawn's sidebar layout (left column is for structures, right is for everything else, including superweapons). If so, I'd suggest ripping off CnC3's sidebar layout wholesale (but not ditching the currently selected production tab whenever you select a unit). A slight modification you could make is to make it so above the production tab, you see the currently selected unit's information/action selection. You have a drop-in thing for Dune 2000's music. How about it's sound effects (and by that, I mainly mean the unit/EVA speech)? They're also .AUD files. When the harvester is selected, the text box tells you what percent full it is. Instead of that, could you superimpose that percentage onto the harvester, either as a number or bar? Also, could you make it so when a unit is at the top of the map, you can still see it's healthbar? Esc should open the pause menu. Currently, esc exits it, but doesn't open it. In the sidebar, instead of having the name of the building, have all the icons touching each other, and make the name come up when you hover over them (like in Tiberian Dawn). Instead of a percentage (or maybe in addition to it), do the grayed out circle thing CnC does when you're building a structure. When it's done, make it's icon pulse to make it jump out. Do the same to the construction yard icon if it's the currently selected building. Add an option to gray out all construction options except for the one being built (don't make it the default, because grayed out generally means "not available," but I use it as a crutch when trying to find what I was building). Also, add an option to make new entries on the sidebar appear after old ones, rather than the sidebar showing the structures in what I assume is the order they're programmed into the game. I say make that an option because I assume some people would prefer the sidebar to always have a certain order. I'd like it if placing concrete was a really quick thing, rather than the drawn out process it is now. In Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge, you can place a bunch of wall by building one wall, then holding down the button while placing the wall and letting go at the end of the wall. Something like that, but rectangular, would be extremely nice. Also, I guess the wall thing could apply to walls, too. Would it be possible to use Dune 2000's tilesets for the majority of the map? I understand unit graphics would be a pain (Has anyone figured out how to extract those, yet?), but at the very least, the Dune 2000 map editor has the tilesets in .BMP format. I'm not sure every D2 map tile has a D2k match, though. That's all I can think of at the moment.

The aesthetic thing didn't seem likely to me until you explained it. Now it actually makes perfect sense.

I was going to say that's not how we do it in America, but I looked it up, and that's a rule under APA, making you a psychologist. Since you've also mentioned riding a train, and the only other person I've heard of riding a train is Sherlock Holmes, that makes you Sherlock Holmes the Belgian Psychologist/Assembly Hacker. My logic is foolproof. Repeating reinforcements. Track vs Tracked. "Ornithipter". I'm amazed the title didn't wind up being Dune: The Building of B Dynasty. (More seriously, though, I think they thought that you were supposed to capitalize the A, and were just incorrect.) More on topic, this sounds really cool. I haven't had a chance to try it out yet, but I'm looking forward to it.

I just coded up a program that will take the files extracted by redalert-ps1-ietool.exe (by Crasht) and rename them from 00000000.mis to _prac.mis. I figure this is as good a time as any to ask: Has anyone done any reserach on the PS1 version of Dune 2000? Also, while trying to figure out who made the file extractor, I found nyergud's version of the program I just made. I am an idiot. Would anyone object to me uploading the extracted files to 4shared (since they can't be used to play the game)? P.S. Everytime I hit an arrowkey on this form, it scrolls the scrollbar/removes focus instead of moving left/right/up/down a character. Is anyone else having this problem?

Does anyone know what causes the split-screen bug and if there's any way to fix it now other than downgrading drivers? (I can't downgrade my graphics drivers.) I've asked hifi to look into making cnc-ddraw D2K compatible, so if he gets it working (or if it's been working and I'm just an idiot), I'll note that here. Edit: Oops, just noticed there was a technical support forum.