Daelin

There is an export function that exports ALL unit information from the map... and a sibling import function. In the unit editor of course, though this can also be done for abilities, doodads and all the others. Make sure you also import any items you have in the import manager and are linked to those units (models with aferent paths). -Daelin

The repairing units behavior was noticed on missile turrets only (in missions 7 and 8). The normal turrets attacked "empty" carryalls. Exactly! Tweaking with the stats is the solution. The only problem is the fact that here we do not have different types of armor, and therefore the whole tweaking would be pretty limited. Speed also I do not know how much of an improvement would be for a unit, though I've read that you can sort of 'evade' attacks. Nevertheless, for example, present infantry is highly inferior to troopers and sardaukars. Something needs to be done (btw: fremen troopers can also steal enemy units so the light infantry brings absolutely no advantage). Yep, it would be really cool to be able to add new units ^^ And due to the fact that you replaced the Trike with the Sardaukar, you will notice also that if a tank attempts to squash a sardaukar, it will explode or atleast get severly damaged. That's a nifty advantage ^^ That's really cool with one small exception: makes the factory pretty useless in certain situations... :) Atleast for the moment (because i take into consideration the fact that the project is obviously a WIP and you've mentioned this a lot of times already). True, but then some other graphics in my opinion would be cool to differentiate the two factories. Again, this is a suggestion for future development. ;) What happens if you attribute two houses' brain to the 'Human'? Does the game crash? But if you place reinforcements at the enemy base or at your base, maybe even in waves, it would be a pretty nifty scenario thingy. -------------- UPDATE: I've been thinking today about the techtree of the three factions and I came with the following ideas in terms of lighter/heaver troops a) Lighter Troops require quantity, so what if you decrease the unit maximum limit for the powerful factions (Sardaukar, Harkkonnen) and/or increase it for the lighter factions (in terms of lightness - largest for Mercs, smaller for Fremen? :) ) b) I just realized that speed affects certain units and attack mechanisms such as the Missile turrets. Making lighter troops move faster would definitely make an advantage. c) Attack speed could also be tweaked towards the advantage of the lighter troops. Lighter means they can attack faster. A small increase in bonus, but a larger increase in speed. Of course, you would need for instance atleast 3 trikes to demolish a Siege Tank, but it's definitely getting better. d) Can ornis be controlled at a low level by players (not every move but order target)? I wonder if this has already been attempted.. e) I wonder how various missiles can be manipulated... Where does the randomizing factor for the missile launcher dwell? If another unit is given this attack, does it also keep this property of the Launcher? Same for Sonic Tanks and line attacks. I think in the end the techtree could get to this (inspired from Dune2000 and Emperor battle for dune too): Mercenaries - fast troops, with decent firepower (especially in terms of speed) but relatively low hit points... QUANTITY over quality :) Sardaukar - good firepower, good hit points, but slow movement and attack speed.... smaller quality, so expensive, but more powerful Fremen - focused on range... with decent firepower, speed and armor. I'd say the "mediocre" faction... As for units, I'd go like this: Mercenaries - infantry, trikes, tanks, ornis, fast saboteurs Sardaukar - sardaukar trooper, siege tanks, launchers, devastators Fremen - fremen trooper, quads, launchers, sonic tanks If the ally thing would be succeeded, it would be really awsome to get reinforcements from the allied house... it would definitely improve the gameplay a lot. The few troops also focuses the game less on the techtree "development" (getting more and more units and stuff) and it could be somehow focused more on campaigns of some sort... destroy enemy base with no capability to construct anything for instance sounds like a cool scenario. -Daelin

this was more a 1 vs 1... a mere disadvantage in my opinion... 6 devastators (4800$) have an advantage over 8 sonic tanks (4800$). Of course, the outcome depends on several factors such as the battlefield itself (sonic tanks are after all ranged) and the experience of the owners of the tanks (or more specifically the player, since there is no multiplayer support in Dune 2). -Daelin

I do not know if the name Daelin rings a bell, but let's just say I have some experience with Warcraft 3 coding (specialised in spells and abilities). I used to have a total conversion mod of my own "Revival of the High Elves" that unfortunately failed due to objective reasons I won't mention here. If Starcraft 2's scripting language proves to be close to Warcraft 3's JASS, I can definitely help you with coding. Haven't worked in JASS for a year and a half now, but after 4 years experience, I think I can remember how things work. :) I would luv to see Dune 2 recreated in 3d. :) -Daelin

And here is my reply to Flibble's reply and additional comments: About 1. - yes, enemy turrents attack your carryalls too. I first noticed it in the "normal" game when I had carryalls pick my troops from the enemy base and bring then back to repairing. Strangely, both Missile AND regular Turrets strike the carryalls (so I guess regular turrets also attack ornis?). About 6. I mistakely mentioned "you"... I was referring to the computer. :) ---------------------------- Okay, let's get now to the new comments. 1. Giving the Saurdaukars strong tanks, and the other factions really small ones makes the game seriously imbalanced. I understand in Red Alert 1 things were like this (never played it). Okay... I have no idea whether in RA you could select multiple units, but in Dune 2, you cannot! And this is a serious problem when you have large numbers of troops and you need to order different groups different actions. Though this idea sounds cute, I have to say that it strongly ruins the balance of the game. Let's look at the Special Units of the original houses: 1. Harkkonen's Devastator - High Armor, High Firepower... but short range, very slow, and unstable. Easily countered by Ordos' Deviator (self destruct? ;D). 2. Atreides' Sonic Tank - High Range, Medium Firepower, Sonic Damage (line thingy)... but Low Armor and range subject to game speed (probably a bug). Sonic Damage also affects your troops (except other Sonic Tanks). Countered by Harkkonnen Devastator. 3. Ordos' Deviator - Use enemy troops against them, deviation bug is really useful... but Low Armor, Medium Range, No Firepower, and effect subject to chance. Countered by Atreides Sonic Tank. So it would go like this: Devastator owns Sonic Tank Sonic Tank owns Deviator Deviator owns Devastator (rock paper scissors anyone? :) ). So what I'm trying to point here out is just the fact that the factions were relatively balanced. Sure, the Death Hand is really strong compared to the Saboteur, but most of the time you need to cheat for it to be effective... just as the Fremen in my opinion were actually useful when the rocket turrets did not attack them. The smaller tanks have practically NO advantages to the stronger tanks (except that they are cheap? ... uhm.... we'll get to that too): they have less HP, less Armor, less Firepower, and are not even much faster! I bet a small army of siege tanks could beat a large army of Quads... It's just the way it is in Dune 2. Quads have absolutely NO advantage towards Siege Tanks so they always get owned. 2. About the purpose of the Starport: can Mercenaries only get the stronger tanks by means of the Starport? Same for non-factory-accessible tanks for Fremen and Sardaukars. 3. It would be cool to still have the Light Factory graphic around. Why not switch the non-Hark/Sard. factory with the Light Factory? 2 tiles smaller ^^ Plus maybe you should reduce some windtrap power requirements too. 4. I saw that someone suggested that you should replace the Bene Gesserit mentat for the Mercenaries with Gurney Halleck. I second that... Cryo's Gurney seems the perfect replacement (let's just say that the Bene Gesserit doesn't really have a "Mercenarish" aspect, but Gurney does :D). Btw... I have a curiosity about the deviated tanks :) How do the ordos react if you ally them and use deviators? Do they actually attack your foes? This is more of a curiosity :) My conclusion? Serios modifications need to be made to the techtree if you want to actually make this whole "lighter tanks vs heavier tanks" thing applicable :) this includes units' damage, hp, armor and range Thanks for your time! -Daelin

Hello there, I previously sent Flibble a message on Project Perfect Mod forums but he suggested me to "Forward" it here, even though he has already replied to it, so here it goes (I'll make a double post so we keep the new comments separated from what i have already written): First of all I'll just mention that I got to play the Sardaukar mission (at the beginning of April) but reached only the last level and didn't bother to actually finish it. I have to say that it was a piece of cake, given the fact that i had the devastators at my fingertip, plus the sardaukar troopers had an awsome firepower. However, there were some problems: 1. While playing a mission against the ordos (I think mission 4 - nevertheless I had missile launchers unlocked), the enemy turrets were a bit too close to my base, and therefore their attack was triggered by my carryalls (which would now and then strike at my buildings). I had the base at the bottom part of the map and the enemy had two bases (one to the left, and one to the right). 2. The available building and unit information were not always consequent to the actual buildings/units available. For example, in mission 5 even though the starport had been unlocked (and subsequently the frigate), none were present in the menu. Maybe you should fix this! 3. Some mentat orders were also bizzare. For instance in the last level, it mentioned the betrayal of the Atreides, the Ordos and the Emperor (though I was playing on the side of the emperor). Maybe you should check all these texts and have them fixed! 4. I have to say that the sandworms are quite a pain in the ass. In mission 8, I couldn't understand why the Fremen would attack me so soon, sending orni after orni, when I had barely built the Outpost. Only then I came to realize that the Worm triggered the existance of the player, and consequently the attack waves of the Fremen. Maybe you should take a look at this (and maybe remove the worms or change their positions until you can change this). 5. Why so many "simulations"? I remember seeing simulation battles up to map 7 and the pretext is quite ridiculous, given the fact that you are visibly struggling for enemy territory. Simulation with Ordos forces, simulation with Atreides forces.... it just doesn't sound right! 6. Why battle the Ordos and the Atreides? Since there are two new factions, wouldn't it be more logical to battle the Fremen and/or the Mercenaries? Same goes for when playing the other factions. At the beginning you should get the support of the allied house, and later when battling both sides, have a small supporting base of the allied house too. Finally in the last battle, "your" allied house would then battle you too (except the Fremen-atreides as I get that is actually a problem with the game code). 7. As mentioned at point 6, but with the map territory. It would be really cool to actually see a battle of territory between the 3 houses, and as for the final mission, your ally (except the Fremen where you would have the emperor) take the color. And now, the last modifications to the techtree, I find them ridiculous. If the Harkkonnen and the Emperor for instance have Siege Tanks so quickly, this makes the game strongly imbalanced, unless you modify the stats of the counterpart tanks and troops. The trike is inferior to the Quads which are inferior to the Sardaukar... => Sardaukar heavily pawns trike. Same goes for siege tank vs combat tank. I think you seriously need to rethink the techtree. I noticed the problem after downloading the last patch and attempting to play with the Fremen. The Harkkonnen had Siege Tanks in the first mission, while I had at my disposal only small troopers... this is a serious problem in the balance of the three factions and you should search for a solution right away. I mean, sure... the ordos were a bit disadvantages in the initial game due to the lack of missile launchers, but the later deviator bug would bring a huge advantage to them, somehow rebalancing the game. And btw, I miss the Light Factory. Sure that at the later levels it becomes quite useless, but it had is charm and was part of the original game. I'd hate to see it gone... maybe we can find a new purpose for it (ex: build Harvesters?).