Cm_blast

1 Campaign added: -New house Sequel, By Cm_Blast

The old post is pretty much outdated since then now with all the new releases of new versions of the editor we have actual regular numbers and not hexadecimal counts, although overall still works the same. I don´t remember if I mention the proportions on the original post: this is a screenshot from the lastes editor that no longer use hexadecimal values. If you have a proportion of 1,000, killing your own units won´d do anything, as you get both a kill an a casualty at the same time. Because of these, the mercenaries with whatever proportion they had (I don´t remember from memory right now), even if they kill their own troopers with the sieges that won´t affect them, or at least not in a negative way. I guess you can make them kill their own troopers with their sieges just to make it to not turn against you easily on those missions. And, if I recall, crushing over infantry also count.

I don´t understand, I have no link on the first post here. so not sure if you mean that you clicked on the index, or you clicked something here. Regarless, if you only need the mission launcher, check the signature of the user of the 2º post, that´s the autor of the launcher, that will send you to a topic that contain a big "DOWNLOAD" to download.

like awil mention, the ally getting really stuck because it stop sending units, this is also true for the enemy, the smuggleres (mission 6b) had a gallilion of units, I had to provoke them just to make them to move at all, and well, not just smugglers but pretty much every one. And the main reason is this value, the Morale Attack building, that the lower it is, the more scared an AI will be based on how many units their allies died. This is not a screenshot from your mission, I picked a random mission from the original game, but thing is that I know you are reusing missions, maps and ais from the original game. On the original game is not too much because the enemy doesn´t have thousand of units nor get lots of reinforcements and deliveries, so the AI becomes more pasive but won´t gather as many as your missions. Also, if you check the Ordos missions where you have an ally, you will see the mercenaries have "100" in all of them, to avoid issues with your ally not doing anything. Now it´s up to you if you want to change that, and if you don´t do it for the enemy, at least do it for the ally on your missions, otherwise, they may get stuck forever since a Player will never stop figthing one way or another (and well, game will potentially crash when a frigate don´t have room because there is just too many units, either ally or enemy, just because it didn´t happen it doesn´t mean it cannot). Here, a good reason to not give the Ai priority against walls, he will try to use the sabos into them

I completed mission 4 and 5, there are a couple of things to mention. The main issue is this one, you blocked this entrance, which makes those enemies landing there unable to exit, luckily the mercs can deal with them with raiders and tanks, but still, this is kind of bad to have there The second is something minor, but worth mentioning. Your ally like to attack every piece of wall. Although this is not too bad, once the mission is kind of over and walls doesn´t matter Anymore, you have an ally that keeps wasting time, instead of just finishing the mission. This wouldn´t be an issue if the player has his own base and army, but here I just wish they just continuing destroying the remaining harversters and the few smugglers structures left, and more in a mission where destroying enemy buildings don´t stop enemy reinforcements to happen. You can change that here: Just put 0,000 on all the 3 walls and they will stop doing it. you can keep it for the enemy if you want them to break through walls or something, but for an ally it is a bit problematic. Anyway, I kind like the idea of having an ally with a big main force keeping the enemy busy while you sneak with the infantry to do damage that you wouldn´t do on your own, so so far enjoying the campaign even if it is so different than the usuals one, will keep playing nexts ones.

I started playing the early missions on this campaign, and I want to point a couple of things that you maybe didn´t notice. First, on the first mission, I saw a quick blink of text that I could´t read. Checking the editor, I saw you wrote "1" in duration, this means that the message only last 1 tick: Either you put a "0" there (this is the default, which I think is 400-500 ticks, around 16-20 in game seconds), or you write a different value, but surely not less than 400 to let people read it. The second is, that I notice that on the 2º mission some walls were under my control, I feel that you weren´t suppose to have them and you put the wrong ones by mistake? I cannot tell, but just in case I put the screenshot, with the "ownership" activated to let you know that most the pieces are on my control. If done on purpose then disregard this, if not, you may need to change it, mostly because "base under attack" got me confused thinking my barracks got attacked, and well, you can sell the walls for both movility and extra credits to train more infantry. Nothing wrong with mission 3 I am halway mission 4, and I already notice some guys going iddle, you forgot to put them into hunt mode Also, I don´t know the rest of the campaign yet, but it is a bit confusing figthing blue vs blue. I didn´t mind on early missions since they were only a few of them and they were iddle and just mean to be killed, but here sometimes I don´t even know if that combat tank is mine of enemy.

STORY: This is a sequel to the "A new house" campaign. That campaign presented an alternative story how a fourth House, along with Atreides, Harkonnen and Ordos join the battle for Arrakis. Despite being behind in tech and manpower, that House defeat the other 3, and even the Emperor, to win the competition and take control of Arrakis. Now the planet is theirs, although some Frigates has been lurking and threaten to make some trouble on the new rulers. THEME: The main theme is the presentation of 5 minor houses that will try to fight for the planet. The minor houses are Ginaz, Ecaz, Moritani, Mutelli and Richese. All these will have less tech available than the player, and they won´t be able to produce certain units based on the house, like building siege tanks but not combat tanks. Instead, they will have multiple bases or the game will present variants of the "destroy all", making lots of self references as the structure of the sequel is the same as the original (similar objetives if you compare both). This campaign also present the "autoqueue", which means that once you click on a unit, that unit will be keep being produced constatly and non-stop unless the player cancel it or the money is low. The maps used the expanded version from Fey´s, so they will resemble the original maps from the campaign; they have been expanded and altered, so people will remember the maps but they won´t play exactly as the original. This is still a vanilla campaign with no mods applied, although the duration is going to be more than the original as the overall tech of the game (for the player at least) starts bigger, but also you fight more enemies. Screenshots: Attacking an Ecaz base that only have low tech units available. Protecting the Smugglers from Ginaz attacks. Moritani and Richese forces keep hostage the smugglers, stealing any units being delivered to them. Trying to escape from the Mutelli Ambush that forces the Fremen to fight back. FILE: New House Sequel.rar This is a vanilla campaign, It only uses custom colors for the new enemies. HOW TO INSTALL: Unzip the file and copy every folder into the root of the game. Any folders included will go to the path that it is suppose to go. If the launcher triggers and error is because the color files are not properly applied, game still will run, but the enemies will be the main colors instead.

Same, only reason I keep playing the game since the last 10-15 years is only because the custom missions, if not I would have this game totally forgotten (and only ocassionally playing the original missions once every +5 years). Also, I just finished a new campaign, a sequel of a really old campaign of mine, which will be release really soon, so that´s even more stuff to play!

In preparation for the sequel, I made some balance changes to the original campaign to make it not feel as hard on certain parts that didn´t mean to, the main post has a summary, but here there are some detailes. -First, I added coloring into the Atreides, it is hard to know if that quad is yours of theirs, same with combat tanks, so I gave them a taint of blue. They only appear on 3 missions, so feel free to not apply if you are using the online color path. The launcher will say a file is missing but it will be playable. -Mission 4: I gave the player some reinforcements, they are rather small as the mission wasn´t too hard to start with, but this will give you a bit room of error in case you under-perform. Also, near the completion of the timer, you will get a harvester for free, which either will speed up the production of tanks on the 2º part (to make the mission less tedious) or replenish the harvester that the sandworm ate, thus making the mission more bearable and not having to restart if you loose one. -Mission 5: the enemy dropped lots of reinforcements, so I removed and reduced some of them; but also the enemy at the top was really defensive. Now the amount of units defending it is smaller, and instead it will build more focused on sending attacks. The attack will be slighly stronger, but it will consist on more quads and less combat tanks and with the reduced/removed enemy reinforcements it won´t feel as bad to try to attack them now. -Mission 6: mission is untouched. Now, due having some buildings as part of a "cutscene", you could always deploy structures there. I never did for testing-balancing purposes, but the thing is that by using it, the mission is easier. Some people may not even be aware that you could do that, so now the game will trigger a message reminding that that area is available so every player has an evenly knowledge of it. This alone speed up the mission so it takes less time to win. Also, there are no longer fake concrete, so now there are more room for extra buildings on that spot. -Mission 7: The mission present a High Tech factory that deliver reinforcements in loops on the Mercenaries, and later on the player if you capture the structure. However, those reinforcements were into used to defend, making the mercenaries to gather an insane amount of units every time they attack. Now they get the same amount of units but those will attack as soon as they land, so the player will have to deal with 4-8 units every once in a while instead of a big 30-40 unit wave (much stronger than the Harkonnen sends on this same mission). Since now the mercs no longer hold the units, they will be less defensive too, so easier to destroy. Overall these are the changes done, done to make some missions less punishing, and enemies less defensive. Maybe a little more aggresive but better to face minor waves often than a massive wave later that may destroy you if you are not expecting it.

The creator of the Launcher is Feda, so he is the only one that knows exactly how it works, but just to be clear, the files that are going to be overwriten are named as ".bak", so for example you have the file "template.bin" which contain the units on the game. If my mod make that the raider now cost 5000 credits, that file is already modded. when you play my mission with the that modded file, the launcher first pick up the original "template.bin" and named it as "template.bin.bak", so in the worse case of a pc shutting down, you at least still have the original missions and you can proceed to renamed your self. But also, on the main folder on the game installed, a folder called "MissionLauncherBackups" is going to send the original files that were about to be overwritten, so if the Pc just "break", the best solution is going to that folder and copy everything on it. It probably will contain files that weren´t part of the group copied with this mod but previous mods, but at least you know that copying these files into the proper folder (usually is "\data") is the safest way to recuperate the original state on the game. And to be even more safe, if I am not wrong that mission folder back up copy the file only the very first time, so with the example of the raider, it will copy the template.bin there before applying the modded version, but later, whatever is replaying this mod or 5 other campaigns that modified the cost of other units, it won´t matter, the "template.bin" on the back up folder still will be the one that was originally before loading any mod.

Did you download from this post or the all in one installer? (or any other site). Also, if you played other custom campaign/mission prior to my campaign, your game may have loaded wrong stuff on it. The butlerian is a vanilla campaign, which means it doesn´t use any mods, so you know for sure that it is not a mod of mine wrong applied (this campaign showcase intel and tactical map, but it is not modded in anyway). So what may be happening is that you applied whatever mod from other mission, and now the mercenaries (ordos) structures no longer exist, maybe whatever mod reused those structures for a different side, or removed from existing to the ordos/mercs side and, when trying to play my mission, they don´t exist to beging with, thus failing the mission, as mercs loosing any of the heavy/light factories or barracks is what make you loose. So at the end, a random mod removed any of those 3 building from the ordos/mercenaries and because of that you "fail" the mission instatly. Only way is to recuperate the game to the original state, either using files from the "MissionLauncherBackups" folder (if you have it), or reinstalling the game. I know the mission works fine as the previous user just played it right, hard, but right.

I have no idea then, it is really really weird. I could understand 1 campaign being all wrong because I uploaded the wrong file or something, but just 2 specific missions not working is incredible odd (missions 10, 11 and 12 use all 3 the same files, either all show up wrong files, or none do, but happening on just 1 of the 3 would be incredible weird). Even the border color is displaying (assuming still happens the same way) the tleilaxu one (tha greenie/blueish mix) , instead the Coalition (wine color) which it match the color of your units. This is not exactly a solution, but if your all in one installer works with every other mission except those two, you can at least play all the other campaigns it contains, as right now there are like around 50 campaigns to play, so you have lots of hours of content, skipping this one specific campaign won't change that much.

I don't know what it is wrong, any other mission, whatever is mine or from another player works fine? just to know if it is mine or it is something that happens to your whole game. just random missions you can find, or only happens with those 2 specific missions? Just load any Atreides mission, original or custom one, to see if it is something realated with my mod or just the whole game is broken for whatever reason. But seeing how all seems so wrong (is literally impossible to see damage buildings on your game unless a files there went really wrong) I could suggest to just uninstall and delete all, and just redownload the all in one installer, doing a fully fresh instalation, withouth copying anything more and try again.

Here. Now, after you download and try the first mission to see if it works. If it works, before playing more (I mean, you can still keep playing more), pick up this one. I updated this mission because I did a mistake I wasn't aware, it is the mission 18, so it is near the end of the campaign, so no need to rush, but if you can play missions 1,2,3... just fine, download and apply this one. The folder is just "data/missions" and should prompt you to overwrite.

@FunkyFr3sh Colour editor link doesn't work. either update the link, or just straigh upload the tool directly into the forum ( I can upload it myself).

Did you also downloaded the mission launcher? Maybe is that what it is missing because if you really downloaded all properly and you downloaded and applied the exe, (the editor is not needed at all), maybe you were missing the launcher itself? The launcher had an update, has been a while since then, but maybe you don't have it, the launcher will load the game custom assets so you don't have to move files around everytime you play this campaign and then switch to a different campaign. Also you can try to open any of the original missions with the launcher, like, "Original Atreides mission 5" just to see if works properly or there is something wrong, because if the latter maybe some files got moved wrong or who knows that is affecting the core game. Hope you get it to work, and if not I may send you the "all in one installer" that there is on the forum that contain all the custom campaigns ready to play, is like a big 1 file download you unzip and just play everything withouth having to download stuff individually.

I wanted to do some kind of progression, and you need actually new enemies to fight against. Good luck, hope you like the Lassoki´s homeworld planet, there are new resources and an interesting set of fights. You will see that one mission has 3 versions. It is not needed to play the 3, it just changes where you deploy, if north, east or south. I mean, if you want to play the 3 versions fine with me, but in any case, check the briefings, as every version has a advantage or disadvagate depending on the version you play, so read to see which you prefer. The intel has a summary of the pros and cons of every version if you want a quick check instead of reading the whole briefing (the briefing is the same except for some lines).

I missread, since you were skipping the bonus I though that before finishing that and going into the sequel you started playing a different campaign I made named "New house". So nevermind. nNt so good for naming campaigns :P: new house, new enemies... too similar, and I am already stopping myself to not call the "new house sequel: more enemies". I never had that error, and I don't recall anybody else reporting it, but I can see that it may be possible depending on the circunstances. At 100.000 ticks all the three enemies get 15 special tanks each one; the regular small deliveries (tanks- missiles - sieges) happens every 9.000, which it is a good timing to not mess each other, but I can see the AI doing an order before the 99.000 tick mark, then getting my delivery, then at 100.000 getting another in queue, while the AI in bewteen does a new one, but considering is exactly the 110000 is odd. I will check it. good luck with the sequel, those early missions are not too though due having the numbers advantage, but let's see how you deal in some of the traditional 1 vs 1..

Oh, hi back! If you are interested on all that complicated stuff, I can suggest you to join a discord that we have available for modders, you can recieve and answer almost in real time (depending on who are online and how much we know about the topic). There are some modding going just right now on and, since has been a while, you may not even be aware at the multiple new units that some people created, such as tank that uses a machinegun-gattling kind of weapon, flamethrower tanks/turrets, autogun turrets (think on yuri`s gattling tanks and turrets) tesla coils wannabe and more! If you don't want to join a discord, you can always start a new topic with all the questions you have and we will try to give specific answers, as some like creating a new unit with new graphic may be a bit dense for this topic that doesn't involve the editor in specific or needs a bit of heavy explanation. Like the palettes, which unit you are using to import and lots of stuff going on. For editing the colors of the units is incredible easy, there is a tool although it seems that now it is not available for some reason; I will post the tool there later, but meanwhile you can check the screenshot under that post, which I took using that tool and a few clicks, is just really easy: https://forum.dune2k.com/topic/27380-coloursbin-research/page/3/#comment-394728 You may not even be aware of the "Custom campaign data" folder so you can do your own mods per mission withouth needing to move files around (nor asking other people to do it) and well, lots of things really, it is nice the amount of improvement and stuff we can do now, as you can make 5 different mods with 5 different tech trees all for just 1 single campaign and nobody has to move files around while playing it. This new editor is so new that I don't even know how to fully use it yet, but I know it has so many stuff that you may want to use at some point. So feel free to either join the discord (on the main dune 2000 there is a pinned post on it) or create a new topic to go more deep into every part you may need.

Oh, bad timing, meanwhile I am doing the new house sequel, I also doing a few balance fix on the original one. Only about 3 missions will be easier, the defensive one will give you reinforcements (every other mission on the game give you at least 2, but this one none at all), including a harverster for free which will help making the 2º part of the mission less tedious. Later on there is a mission with some enemy which is not just that it gets multiple reinforcements, but these don't go hunt right away, instead they group on ther base, which will happen is that if you don't deploy multiple turrets next to each other this enemy will overrun you. also, Fremen gray color are a bit hard to see with Atreides units colors (hard to see which side the combat tank or the quad are) so I am also applying a small blueish color to the atreides so they are easier to see. But anyway, the New house is easier than the Coalition and you defeated it already, so you can win that one even withouth the future balance-difficulty patch I will release. It just will have maybe 2 difficulty spikes that makes the mission harder than the next 2 missions after that one, but no mission is though that Coalition 9, for example.

Sad to hear the crasers, it is interesting since both missions are very similar, just 1 enemy AI vs 3 enemy ais, but everything else is pretty much the same. Only reason I can see that scrapped mission crashing (It never did to me) could be that having 3 ais togheter in a small spot make them to have issues navigating. But if I recall those Ais have really low attack timers as they build fast but attack often, so it shouldn't be that, who knows. The AI has 1 specific rule on ordering units, it does it if the silos/refs are full (when it happens it insta buy). They will buy too if they have no other structures to deploy units, so the starport is the only thing that can give them units. Sometimes the AI order when it has lots of money, dunno, 10.000 maybe... but I saw them doing it on less amount, sometimes they do, sometimes don't (with all the refs/silos full they 100% does it all the time). And I am not sure but maybe under attack and maybe if they have certain money they do to. Not sure if the AI will rush to order if the amount of initial units is not big enough (you know, when the AI use X amount of units to wander around the base, any other units being produced is waiting on the factories exit to attack theplayer). On a campaign I did recently, the "vs ixian" one (you are not the ixian, you fight against them) I used events so the AI never orders early, it starts the mission with the value set to "0", so the AI cannot order even if any requirements (being attacked, storage full...). And later on, when it is sure that the player is developed enough, I let them order to increase their army and have a bigger attack. This is something that should happens on their own, but as mentioned, the Ai sometimes order early.

yes, I wanted to pretend that you were figthing only 1 AI, not 3, so like the player. Some people just capture or deploy on a nearest (to the enemy) area, and then deploy multiple turrets (sometimes extra factories for increasing speed or simply having the new units closer to the enemy). They are still 3 enemy Ais. So pretty much this is a bit of "enemy sending lots of forces to hold your ally from the first wave", and then the AI keeps trying to push foward to break through and... meanwhile, he will deploy a bigger base (with more refineries, starport, and other structures missing from the main area). but also, deploying turrets on those 2 new other areas, so if you are too defensive, you will have to fight 2 Ais that will deploy around 15 turrets (both gun and rocket turrets), it will build other structures like barracks and outpost because are mandatory to deploy the turrets, but won't make use of the barracks. If you let the AI live really long enough, it will start deploying pieces of walls. 100 total. The AI usually builds them in a diagonal-chess pattern, but since he is building 100 pieces, eventually due lack of room or just random, it may have an actuall good line up. Mission has to go really really long for that to happen, but it is also true that if you let those Ais having so many turrets, your allies become almost useless. The Scrapped mission 16 is much harder. The main thing on the mission 16 scrapped version is that your allies are almost completelly useless. On the actual mission your allies help, they send forces and they can do damage. Sure, if the enemy has turrets they will die, but even if that's true they still destroy some on every wave and, if no turrets are alive, they will do damage to the main enemy on the top side. On the scrapped version, you fight 3 enemy Ais which use each one his own queue, which means they will attack with triple amount of units (a bit less since they only have 1 fact each, as that doesn't build as fast as having 3). But on the other hand, before you have 1 single AI trying to covering all the areas. Like the top one and the other 2, as it will try to protect. On the scrapped every AI will dedicate to defend his stuff only. Other differences goes into for the scrapped version you have more spice and 3 blooms instead of 1, as you really need the money to not die against the enemies. And finally, on the actual map the AI deploy a CY and then multiple turrets, pretending what a player could do on a expansion area. On the scrapped map, they will actually start producing fully functional bases. There are few other differences here and there, but those are the mains one. It is not like this mission is imposible´s level. But when I was playing it multiple times, I realize that the mission was pretty much "player vs multiple enemies" and your allies had no input, they could be removed from the map and won't make much difference. After doing so many missions that they are key to the mission (a player on their own can win, but having 2-3 allies will help a lot), suddenly having the final map being just a solo-player felt wrong. So I pivoted, I reduced the enemy aggresive, stopped making extra bases, in return the player have acess to less spice/blooms but your allies will have something to do to help you. With this info, feel free to play it. And the bonus mission too although it is too simple. And if you really want, you can go into the sequel straigh away. It is going to feel a bit different, as story wise, you defeated the major enemies, so now these "new enemies" will be weaker but it balances out because you won't have all the coalition to back you up. the coalition still exist and you will have help from them on the missions, but no longer is a 4 vs 1 enemy AI, it is more into 2 vs 1, or 2 vs 2 situation.

maybe if you fully cover the tile they drop with troopers you can kill them 1 by 1, but still, possible to just send quads to destroy them. If you don't destroy the convoy, the enemy will produce them, I don't remember if the enemy still gets more convoys, I think not. You can try, the only thing is that you may need to protect yourself a bit more, but it is worth trying, if you feel multitasking is hard, maybe grouping units and just attacking whatever they send it is more feasible. Probably they did it for balancing purposes. building a starport and not being able to order anything because the expensive cost may feel bad, but also since now the AI also can buy and the Ai always buy in order, from trike first, to siege tank last, so it would do damage to the AI if units could cost more.

Unit queueing is like playing a moderm Rts, that you click 10 times on an unit to be produced 10 times. Dune 2000 doesn't have that, but we manage to do kind of similar. You click on that unit and the unit will repeat producing itself until your cancel it. You can run out of money and all like just traditional, but if you just want to spam troopers instead of having to paid attention to the queue and keep clicking every few seconds, you can go full focus on whatever fight against the AI is while the game keeps producing troopers for you as long as you have enough money. On dune 2000 you cannot train in group but they group already, so I guess they didn't want to just build 3 troopers in 1 click. I made 13 to refill faster just because it was too boring waiting for them, it is not that much faster, but at least you can order at least 1 or 2 units more often. For the convoy mission it is suggested to have quads and, if you can, have them not close from the enemy drop landing, but when they arrive you can send the quads and, if possible, attack them from behind. Enemy's sonic tanks and devastator may try to turn around but then turning around again and keep moving foward, ignoring your quads. Another good alternative are combat tanks since the Ordos combat tank is the faster and the one that shoot more often of the 3 combat tanks, You use the same tactic of attacking them from the flank or from behind. Just to be clear, you are not forced to stop the convoys, it is not a main target. If one of the enemy convoy reach their base, the AI will began producing the 3 special tanks. This makes the enemy attacks stronger, since the AI will produce both traditional tanks and special tanks at once. Sure, the enemy waves now will be stronger, but you can still deal with them, you just may need more efford to protect your allies or when attacking. So if you are having trouble having managing to both building your base, protecting it (or your allies) and also stopping the convoys, just ignoring them, try to focus on your army instead. Just keep in consideration that the worst you can do is placing units where the enemy is landing, they will insta-shoot, but if you place units on the path you may get 1 or 2 to be killed (if your troopers are not being crushed over). I only updated the sequel one. The bonus mission on the first half (the one you are playing) is just a callback of old modders. big maps, multiple sides figthing against each other, both player and the enemy gets units for free with deliveries, massive bases... gameplay wise is just simple, but it is not canon. The sequel bonus mission is a callback to dune 2, the tileset, the way the AI behaves, the way you can get attacked by Fremen (using troopers, not the fremen unit) from any position instead of being produced by the Atreides Palaces... and so on. The update was because with the new exe the starport prizes weren't updated properly, cost of the units should be sometimes cheaper and sometimes more expensive (just like in dune 2).

I am not sure if you are refering to vanilla campaigns or custom campaigns since you mention summer's solstice. The difficulty on custom campaigns will heavily varied, but summer's solstice is not too hard, the thing is that the modder rebalanced the whole game so you cannot apply any strategy from that campaign into regular campaign. For vanilla missions (and I mean the original campaign, but also custom campaigns that has no modders features), the common start is to deploy a windtrap, then a refinery, then it depends. If overall you feel the Ai is a slow attacker but send lots of units, go for a 2º and a 3º refinery (and if possible, put the refineries as close as the spice). If the enemy seems more aggresive, then after the refinery you put the barracks and train enough troopers, since they deal with most of the vehicles except for siege tanks, and then you go for the 2º, and 3º refinery. After that, you can either go for a 4º ref (not counting more windtraps to sustain energy) or the heavy factory first, and build combat tanks. Troopers and combat tanks are the two overall better units in the game. Later you can mix a bit with sieges, missile tanks and other units, including light vehicles. It is better to deploy 1 combat tank than 2 quads (which cost slighly more), plus combat tanks can go over enemy infantry/troopers easily. Turrets are a great help, if you can line up 5 rocket turrets, and then 2 siege tanks behind them they will deal with the majority of the enemy waves, but those require other structures, so that's it. Another solution (which also depends on the mission) can be rushing the enemy harvs or even the base. There is a few missions (like Atreides 9) that if you use all your units against the enemy base, you can destroy their 2-3 core buildings so you face 1 AI less. Later on more refs if you have the room, or more harvs, or both. You will have +8000 credits that you won't be able to spend faster enough. For houses. It is bewteen Atreides and Harkonnen. Online players uses either of the two. Tecnically the devastator counters the sonic tank, but that's a such high end tech so it is more important getting the advtage early and there both sides have the same tech, with the only difference is a combat tank slighly faster for Atreides and with some more health for the Harkonnen version. If by any chance you were talking to summer's soltice campaign, then I will call the author for specific tips since he altered pretty much everything. Also, just to take in consideration. At what speed you are playing the game? I am guessing you are into the max speed, since that's what most people play nowadays and downloads come at that speed by default, but the original game didn't run that fast by default. You can consider checking on the menu and moving the slider 2 times to the left. That's the speed I play on (I am not a pro player), and I call it the "real time speed"; which means that if you play a mission that sais "in 20 minutes, you will get reinforcements", 20 real life minutes will be needed to reach that timer to 0. On the maximun speed the game runs 2.5 times faster, so 20 in game minutes is just 8 real life minutes. Reacting to that big enemy wave in 20 minutes or in only 8 makes a huge difference, even if it is just deploying your base more efficienly.