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haha, yeah those final missions can get a bit hairy xD especially the Harkonnen ones! I guess because you get Devastators as Harkonnen, Westwood was like, "alright, start 'em off with the cruddiest of stuff between all the level 9's" lol ah, sorry to hear this issue has gotten in your way on thatun. fortunate it is, indeed, that we can freely select any mission from the Mission Launcher! starting a long mission over again is bothersome, but at least it ain't the whole campaign, right? I hope you enjoy the campaign though! 💕 good luck n have fun!

hey there! the number you're seeing in the error message is the amount of "ticks" that have passed in the saved games you've got. 25 ticks = 1 in-game second, and at fastest game speed, an in-game second is roughly 0.4 of a real-life second. it's just a way to tell you when the crash occurred, for debugging purposes game data invalid is what it sounds like, unfortunately. something in the save file ain't playing nice with the new exe. we try to maintain backwards compatibility, but ya know how development can be the good news is, you should be able to run any mission made with a prior version of the game in mind just fine between stable versions of the exe. there are minor exceptions, like if a bug was exploited for map design and that bug was fixed, the map that used it may be a little different. nothing should be unplayable though and, you should also be able to run more modern campaigns making use of the powerful new features. Cm's index has all known playable content documented: and if you'd like some examples of more modern campaigns, I can make a few recommendations of threads to check out via that index: - Thel 'Vadam Flippy's Great Battle of Arrakis focuses heavily on large-scale macro missions, using some powerful variables-based features, such as 'repeat queueing' to let you mass-produce large armies to clash with - PsYcHo's Smuggler Restructure campaign is closer to vanilla in terms of most of the event types used, but makes use of minimap pings and quite a few lovely new units he created as voxels, which I later polished up - my Summers' Solstice campaign recently had some new features backported to it. nothing that fundamentally changes the missions, except ooone thing on the final mission, but some significant optimizations and QoL but there are plenty of gems besides those; these are specifically campaigns that use new features with the v2.3 exe and all that on a tangential note, the very latest mission designed for d2k at the time of this post is the Arkanon Debut mission included in that tileset's thread. it'd be under "single missions" in the index. that uses a cutting-edge exe though, technically not the stable version of 2.3. still, it might be of interest if you're looking to get a peek at the most modern of our capabilities anyway, I hope that answers your question!

OpenRA is different! different engine and all that stuff. therefore, this process is not applicable to anything OpenRA they probably have another way to get custom tilesets in, but I wouldn't know how that works so, good luck!

I feel that ^^ the build queues are a popular request

aye, unfortunate about the build queue patch being so, uhh... you know. hard to get working thank you! I appreciate that! and I extend the same offer; if you need help getting the repeat queue system implemented on any missions at all (like those that NEED the new exes to work), feel free to reach out. I frequent the Landsraad Discord server, a link to which is pinned on these forums, and could help more rapidly over there. but if you just wanna give it a try and see how it feels, you'll find the system implemented in the recent ArkDebut mission, which is linked in the Arkanon tileset release thread hope that helps!

that's factually incorrect! Klofkac didn't merely design new features - he designed, essentially, a new programming language we can use to add our own new features to Dune 2000. the custom special weapons in the new ArkDebut mission, for example, are of my own design thank you though there are a lot of things people have said we'll "never have." if that were our attitude, we wouldn't be here ^^ those two in particular are pretty popular requests though. I can poke Klofkac about those again. given progress in other areas, perhaps he's up to investigate the implementation of stuff like this more closely I'm no stranger to the OpenRA side of things either. I appreciate their platform... but it's not d2k! and we d2k folks over here don't intend to just pick up and start implementing everything in their engine. we've got our own to make improvements to, which is important for them too since they've benefit from our advancements and contributions. for instance, quite a few of our new art assets have wound up in OpenRA-based d2k thingiemajiggers. so, I hope they have fun, and I hope they get lots of use out of the next art assets we'll be polishing up over here! it's just not my place. that's all

well, if you figure it out again, I'm curious how changing that graphic works! TibEd is entirely replaced and on many levels surpassed by Klofkac's editor. you'll be pleasantly surprised when you have a look, I'm sure

no idea about that, mate ^^ I could show ya how to apply the repeat queue system to any mission though, if that helps

naww, APC logic ain't a thing. probably possible to design somehow with the new systems, but we do have custom airlift unit behavior. you can give Carryalls new behaviors easily that way, like automatically helping vehicles cross impassable cliffs. the 'terrain restriction' behavior used on the new hovertech units can apply to a flying-type unit too, allowing traversal of cliffs and stuff. however, due to game logic, they can't pass over tiles with other units or structures in them, so... theoretically, it's feasible to make a "low flying" air unit that could navigate any kinda terrain, but not go over buildings and stuff. or something. maybe we get more proper flying unit logic later who knows lol

oh yeah, we interact with those folks! they asked us for some of our new art assets a while back. we've ported over a couple they've made for OpenRA-based projects, but I'm not sure they've seen too much use yet. I worked personally with the prior dev on the Cameo project, who did stuff like this (streamable links expire eventually, so for posterity I'll just say this is a Terran v Protoss game in the OpenRA engine on the Tiberian Dawn temperate tileset I played back when I was testing bruv's new-at-the-time brutal AI) https://streamable.com/0tp0h1 no shade to the OpenRA folks, but it's simply not Dune 2000 ^^ that's a whole different engine. it certainly has its advantages, but make no mistake! there's plenty we can do with Dune 2000 nowadays! this old timer still has teeth!! I recently released a debut mission to showcase the aesthetic of a new tileset we have (and the assets are available in both vanilla and expanded size to map with), as well as some new features made possible through Klofkac's ingenuity. here're the first ten minutes: https://streamable.com/b8rwm8 amphibious units, shielded hovertech laser tanks, multi-shot bursts, explosive units and structures, ECMs throwing off homing rockets, repeat queue, a new hotkey for spamming structures... lots of stuff! Klofkac didn't just add new features; what he designed was an entire new system, essentially a programming language, atop which we could design our own features! the thread detailing those recent experiments and their fruits is over here: vanilla-sized tileset files for editing with are in the OP, and the second post in the thread has links to the example mission and some other stuff, like an editor capable of handling the expanded tileset size. remaps are also included for automatically swapping existing Arrakis maps to the new tileset, though they're not perfectly accurate, so some adjustments will probably be necessary on some maps. a notable example is the ice cliffs, which... I guess I could have remapped those to water instead for more precision, but there are no equivalents in the regular cliff tiles for some of those ice cliff pieces I've also notated lotsa stuff in the example mission so even if the events themselves are confusing, the notes describe what they're meant to do that server would be over here ^^ stop by sometime! I'd be happy to help ya get some new systems figured out for your maps and stuff!

like Cm said, due to other changes and stuff it became incompatible with, uhh... everything :c but we do have a modern queue system. here's a convoluted example of 'repeat queue' cuz even weird units like Carryalls are included, and unit groups are in a funni order in this mod how's it work? just looking at the bottom three events in the top block, which are the most important: basically, is a unit leaving a building? cool, tag it and queue that kind of unit on the player's sidebar again. easy peasy it's not a traditional queue where you can mix and match on your sidebar, but it's a solid system that works well!

I don't remember about manipulating the size of the Sonic Tank's ball. maybe it has to do with the size of the blue square graphic the weapon uses, and swapping out that graphic will make it smaller? anyway, for ANY modding of d2k, you'll wanna pick up the latest exe and editor from Klofkac's thread over here: and the structures editor is very intuitive. you'll find sonic weapon data, including its graphic, under the weapons tab. hope that helps! good luck!

oh, of course! thanks to the various ways the macro is simplified (repeat queue, B hotkey, etc), the tech tree can and should be more complex I've seen the various testers and the players who have checked the debut mission out so far take wildly varied approaches to the macro game. I anticipate you'll see those problem areas I described while the tech tree is in its unfinished state when you eventually get the chance to give this debut mission a shot, but it's hopefully also much more interesting than vanilla d2k's handling of upgrades and teching up, even at this juncture eh, that's not too difficult, if ya ask me... if a mission is meant to spotlight a certain kind of unit, and those units are already balanced with certain roles in mind, then we already know where that role shines. the mission just needs adjustment to emphasize that role. frankly, the tougher part is getting a player to realize "this unit is imba on this mission" because everybody just spams Troopers, Quads and Combat Tanks. xD before yelling at me for locking Rocket Turrets behind T3 because they're OP and very much desired on hard mode. ...maybe with a new faction in play we'll see players pick up what I'm laying down more often, ya know? lol not that I want to make that unit the only viable answer on its associated mission or whatever. that's the other tough part. Starcraft 2 leaned a bit too heavily into that, in some places. some very one-note missions that wind up feeling like a glorified tutorial. I get the sentiment that campaigns may be meant to lead the player onto the ladder or something, but for those who want only to enjoy the campaign, I've gotta take special care in gearing a mission towards a certain kind of unit so all the other stuff the player has been picking up still applies. better experience that way regarding the multiplayer thing: that's unfortunately nothing more than theory until they get access to the new features we've got in single-player that make stuff like this new faction's units possible. I hear they're making good progress on it, but who knows when they'll formally wrap that up. the theory can be important for making a satisfying balance in single-player, but it ultimately only applies to single-player even if we do wind up with some overpowered stuff though, uhh... I mean, RA2 is unbalanced as hell and still very popular just cuz its wacky roster of units is so much fun. so, while balance is absolutely a consideration as you can see from... all of the above, and all to follow, it does actually take a backseat to fun factor and rule-of-cool. cool / fun new thing comes first, attempt to balance cool / fun thing comes second that's a good approach. I went a bit of a different direction with maps like S02V1 back in SS... that was balanced as a 'skillgate mission,' a tougher mission that appears early on just to ask the player, "hey, are you comfortable with the difficulty level? if not, turn it down. if so, carry on." that sort of thing takes players off-guard, but helps shape their experience in the rest of the campaign in a more positive light. or so that's the intent. it worked out well for a lot of players who, after butting heads with S02V1, started experimenting more on the later maps and discovering subtleties to the submods that really helped them survive in ways they may not have found if not for S02V1 frontloading some pain in their faces I had spotlighty missions too. like, S06V2 very much so encourages the use of stuff like Siege Tanks or Duelist Tanks. it was more about missions like S02V1 though, strategically raising or lowering the difficulty level to gauge or tamper with the player's expectations, or for story reasons doing things a bit more traditionally in some respects this time around, I don't think there will be maps like that where the enemy has high/end tech early on, like on S02V1. specifically because it involves a new faction and players are 100% not going to be familiar with it from vanilla. I'll thus probably be doing it that way, spotlighting units as they become available through subtle mission design tricks to encourage the player to try them out in favorable conditions and understand those favorable conditions. smoother difficulty curve. strategically-placed difficulty spikes can do a campaign favors, but they're not for every campaign

thanks very much!! ah, I don't like to restrict the player too much even on missions with pure defense objectives, I've gotta account for if the player's gonna be aggressive and attack the enemy and stuff. quite a few players have been taken off guard on S02V1 by trying to beat up the high-tech enemy lol there are some exceptions, of course. like, S02V2 was designed to introduce hero units in a controlled environment, to teach the player to sacrifice ANYTHING to keep them alive, and show their strength without the macro game in the picture. that was only for like... 22.5k ticks or something? and I don't think we'll need missions like that in the next series. no hero units so yeah, defense-oriented missions, sure, but I gotta spice it up if it's pure defense, somehow xD ah yeah, and the Wings of Liberty campaign had that one with the supernova and the banshees and all that. terran buildings being able to pick up and wander the map was integral to that one. fun concept, very memorable it took the forefront in that mission though, whereas the natural progression of wandering the map for resources is, uhh... more of an encouraged course of action than a necessity. an underlying gameplay mechanic supporting the main gameplay loop, the focus remains on defeating the enemy. less, uhh... distinct, but hopefully more fun to be had with more flexibility on more missions. less linearity and stuff damn, mate. aye, I've lost some missions too. dang computers perhaps what I refer to as gimmicks are what you're referring to here as secondary objectives ^^ I would classify the end stage of S06V2 as being its secondary objective. the production goals on SBON2 are secondary objectives. perhaps 'xyz hero unit must survive' is more of a secondary objective than a gimmick even if it's all primary though, missions can remain interesting with a strong enough gameplay loop. I've replayed Halo: CE lots of times just because its gameplay loop is so well-conceived, despite its repetition in mission layout and stuff aye, that's the plan ^^ actually, that was chiefly what I was looking for in Kipp's test run of the variables example map in the thread I linked in the last post! he had to expand a bit to support his offensive, but wasn't overwhelmed by the enemy before he could do that. target hard mode balance achieved! and now I've got the data to go off of for future missions' designs. a factor in helping to balance this debut mission, despite it being very different from that variables example map didn't mean it was perfect from the get-go though. not that that was my fault... during this process, we discovered the AI on hard mode in d2k gets a x.75 modifier on its unit build rate, which was enough to screw up my calculations without an AI parameter-adjusting event using the index number of the assigned variable as opposed to the variable's stored value too. that also happened. what a headache xD after those problems were accounted for though, the theoretical balance I had been aiming for worked out perfectly. the testers reported it was quite manageable! thank goodness Klofkac really went all the way with enabling us mappers to do stuff ^^ impossible to overstate the meaning of his contributions aye. the variables example map was more dramatic on this front, allowing the player to start in the top right, bottom left or bottom right corners, so you'd get three very different ways to approach the rest of the map. this debut mission already introduces lotsa new units, not to mention the new environment, so the three start locations here just change the order in which you get the units you're meant to start with. the player gets an MCV at the same place on the debut mission no matter which start location was chosen oh, yeah well, time will tell about the Keravnos. it's probably in a pretty good spot for an MBT, but some other units may need adjustment. the Diakotn for one feels weak, but with its low cost and some other stuff, maybe that's just fine. I already made some other adjustments, like to its armor type

appreciated, mate. take your time ah, you're unfamiliar with Klofkac's editor? if you've used it at all since v2.0 or so, it'll be familiar enough. otherwise if you're talking, like, shai-hulud editing or something like that, Klofkac's editor will spoil you rotten with the amount of stuff we're capable of now. for reference, v2.0 is the most advanced version of the editor BEFORE new features were added, and remains suitable for co-op or multiplayer mapping. the vanilla-sized version of the tileset I published can be mapped with via v2.0. we're currently on v2.3! if ya got any questions about the editor, I should be able to answer 'em. I frequent the Landsraad Discord if you gotta rapid-fire 'em, otherwise I try to check back here. oh yeah, you're preachin' to the choir here I hope that's enough insight for ya into my thought process on the design front xD