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for those with no attention span or who are only having a glance: THERE IS NO PLAYABLE CONTENT JUST YET! I'LL BE EDITING THIS POST WITH THE DEBUT MISSION LATER! UNTIL THEN, THIS IS MERELY INFO ON THE NEW TILESET AND BASIC ASSETS FOR MAPPING WITH. hallo. this thing is almost done, so I guess I'll put it out there kinda sorta maybe a little. technically the tileset is complete, but I'm still working on the playable example mission, and I'll be continuing to make tweaks to the tileset until that's done, so... ya know, it ain't official just yet anyway, here's a full map image of the current state of the debut mission-to-be: and here's an image of just the starting area. this is the sort of thing that will be pictured in the tactical map, so it's not a spoiler. I mean, you clicked on this thread to get a look at the new tileset, yeah? surely this is fine! nobody had better come complaining to me later about spoilers when I hid the full map image!! this tileset is hand-drawn primarily by ZoeO, AKA my sister who did the lovely splash art for the Summers' Solstice campaign, among other things like those new Barracks we've been seeing in-game, the new smuggler sand mouse or mercenary rock dragon minimap emblems, and more this download link is for d2k editor v2.0-compatible mapping assets. again, nothing playable here just yet. if you're a mapper and want to mess around with the tileset, knock your socks off. you can find a summarizing list of credits under the FAQs section around the bottom of this post. also included are .r16s of the recolored crater assets. auto-smooth works for water and water bridges too, making that easier to map with https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Gb2I4-xpLj1UG5rShNWdwna-RSloT6yG/view what's auto-smooth? it's that feature you might be familiar with from Arrakis maps that automatically paints borders. shift+click the edge of a whole buncha painted water tiles like the first screenie here, and you'll wind up with the second screenie. makes painting water or water bridges very simple and easy EDIT: I was made aware of an issue with auto-smoothing on vertical bridges. for some reason I'm not yet aware of, horizontal bridges are auto-smoothed perfectly around water, but vertical bridges are not. you can paint a vertical bridge on any other terrain, auto-smooth it there, and then use select mode to drop them where they're meant to be. my apologies for the inconvenience. also, the bridges MUST be square! they don't have turns and whatnot! before I continue, here's a clip testing the first five minutes or so of the debut mission-to-be https://streamable.com/04dlae this streamable link will expire eventually, but it's here for now to give a peek at what will be the first playable mission, by me at least, on the tileset it's rough around the edges and totally unbalanced at this stage. my intent with this test was merely to examine the macro game rebalancing, and I got a pretty good look at how the early game goes. very safe build order, lots of production off two refs and four harvs with hard mode's build costs, and I would have had more income after getting a couple of rigs up on the southern island. when I tweak the AI so they don't send end-tech stuff in their first attack, this should feel pretty good anyway, below is a list of features, some purely about the aesthetic and some involving concepts and plans I have for this tileset. no spoilers, really, this is just hidden for the purpose of sectioning and condensing the thread. it features: I've been detailing progress on the creation of this tileset in a dedicated channel over in Feda's Landsraad discord server. if y'all wanna check out my diary, you can find it there. spoiler alert, obviously, but you could hang around the server anyway for all sorts of other d2k stuff. here's a link to the pinned thread which itself has a link to said server: I'll go on to elaborate on the development process and list answers to some frequently asked questions here though first, here are a buncha development screenies. apologies in advance for crashing your computer if you look under here; there are a ton of images. I guess maybe it might help that most of them are hidden under secondary spoilers? maybe? it is impossible to fathom how much effort this was without witnessing the absurdity of the development process. this is the extent of my sister's generosity - she's owed our highest praise for all her hard work! and I make sure any she receives is passed along to her, as she doesn't frequent this locale I will be doing my best to justify all her efforts: make this tileset simple to draw for other mappers through carefully customized editor presets, come up with remaps for Arrakis tilesets so they can be quickly converted, characterizing it strongly through a passionately-crafted series of campaigns including old and new factions... all that stuff here are some FAQs that's all for now. check back later for the debut mission. I'll be sure to edit the thread's name when that's ready

thank you very much! PsYcHo did great work on their voxels it's a process, that's for sure. creation of the voxel, polishing and recoloring, frame alignment and adjustment, there used to be palette conversion issues to deal with... the palette differs for each structure. the colors are all defined by their position in the palette, and can be customized. there are some new units that have green faction color pixels and dark blue shadows doubt not at all, Falcon if you still have those, I would love to see them. can't promise anything with regards to implementation, but... the campaign PsYcHo used the new hovertech units in is a smugglers one. as for my intent, the two hover units seen in that clip will be the main battle tanks or long-range fire support units for the new 'native' faction on Arkanon. they can be ordered at the Starport. notably, hovertech is incapable of crushing infantry, meaning this faction will feel even more different than one might expect from the original ones there are plenty of counterbalancing factors, of course. their infantry units (when they're done) will be well-rounded and compete with the Sardaukar, their Siege Tank equivalent unit emerges from the Light Factory, uhh... but, you know. and yeah, they'll get Harvesters and high-end tanks that can crush stuff, not that that really matters cuz those are slow units but yeah it occurs to me that we've been off-topic for a while now I'll see about making a proper thread for this tileset now that news of its existence is out there. we can continue on this subject over there, and I can update that thread with the proper release in due time I'll edit this post with a link when it's done, or reply with a link later EDIT: got that thread worked up. now we can discuss this stuff somewhere relevant https://forum.dune2k.com/topic/37027-wip-kinda-arkanon-tileset/

thank you very much! my sis worked hard on this tileset I hope it goes to great use for other mappers as well. I have much planned for it, myself. there are even some alternative colors for those pink salts there, like RA ore gold or TS tib green or blue well, it wasn't just my sis, but it was mostly her work. I'm handling the implementation and technical end of things, of course, and I did minor touch-up work on many of the tiles. the water assets are Kipp's work, and they've been seen before in some SS maps or in other campaigns, like Flippy's Great Battle of Arrakis campaign. Kipp kindly provided some recolors of the water for me, and I took the one that most people seemed to like (by a narrow margin, there were some great other options) and blended them with the new salt flats terrain, the sand-equivalent tiles. my sis touched them up further with some faded purple highlights, like those subtle colors that can be seen in the cliffs and shale/flats borders it took many drafts and lots of testing to shape it up 'til this point. to give an idea of how exactly she went above and beyond... Westwood appears to have worked off one thin Spice tile and airbrushed around it to make the various thin Spice tiles we see in-game. the pink salts on Arkanon are individually drawn, meaning we get to see them shifted around and take on all sorts of shapes as Harvesters suck them up streamable links expire eventually, so at some point this video will no longer be available. that's fine, this is just a look at the debut mission I'll be releasing along with the tileset. I can just link to the dedicated thread here when it's up at some point hopefully soon https://streamable.com/04dlae the map isn't balanced yet and the enemy currently sends end-tech stuff for their first attacks, so of course I get my butt kicked. xD I was only trying to see how the new economy and macro balance work out in the early game. it seems player income balance is pretty reasonable! that was a very safe build order, lots of infantry and a few tanks produced, and I would have had more income after getting some rigs up on the southern island. just gotta tweak some other parameters to make it fair game anyway, the clip also showcases in-game features. about the tileset specifically: the way the salts look being harvested on the left side of my base, the recolored craters, build spots specifically drawn for Mining Rigs to generate infinite funds (because Spice blooms are not meant to be used on this tileset, or at least I don't intend to use them, so the resources on the map don't regenerate), water being traversable by hovertech... lotsa stuff as a side note, those new units are primarily PsYcHo's work. I touch up all the new spritesets with shadows, removing erroneous pixels, polishing faction color, that kinda thing. Klofkac has been helping design and streamline their more advanced systems, like their hovering animation and, uhh... well, the shield system doesn't quiiite work yet, those units are way beefier than they should be in this clip, but we expect to iron out the kinks in that system without too much more effort. the shields are very new, I only drew those up recently, but the hovering animation appears in PsYcHo's mini-campaign for sure. and, umm... my sis generously provides sidebar icons for the new units. they've already made an appearance in PsYcHo's mini-campaign, which is linked in that Landsraad disc server. hopefully Cm makes a thread for that soon ayyy, zerg stuff that looks pretty interesting! I like how the Refinery came out, especially. the Extractor assets look really nice arranged like that

thank you so much! I'm really glad you enjoyed it! I hope it felt appropriately balanced throughout. I did try to differentiate adequately between and maintain reasonable expectations for the three difficulty levels ah yes, that system was a fun experiment. ever since creating it, I've wanted to use it in an entire campaign the revamp? it's already been completed for SS, a long time ago this latest patch was simply to backport some new features Klofkac added, like those lovely new minimap pings, or the weapon behavior he designed explicitly for the SLasher I plan to use the dual faction system in the Arkanon series' mercs/smugs campaign. that tileset is not yet officially released, but my sister has finished hand-drawing it and I'll be making a thread with an example mission, remap inis to convert Arrakis maps, and other stuff like that before long. by the way, we also have the potential to expand tilesets now, meaning we can have a bajillion terrain assets on a single map. this tileset will have a vanilla-compatible version too just in case, though. anyway, until then, here's a sneak peek at it: this debut mission will not have the dual faction system because it's meant to showcase the new faction native to this world, or at least most of their roster, but yeah I've been documenting progress in a dedicated channel in the Landsraad discord server. Feda's thread with a link to the server is pinned here: so, feel free to drop by if you'd like more info

Ah, pardon. I totally didn't notice this question until now... Perhaps you stopped by the Discord I had mentioned in the last post, and we helped ya there since the time of this post? In any case, I'll leave the answer here for posterity, as this is a frequently asked question and might help lurkers: Units and structures are arranged by their types. Page up and page down can be used in Klofkac's editor to rearrange the order of those unit or structure types. If you need Klofkac's editor, you can find it here: Hope that helps.

Klofkac came out with a new stable update recently (2.3), including some features meant for Summers' Solstice despite the campaign's completion. out of respect for the one whose efforts are the sole reason we have all these cool new features to enjoy, I had to backport these and include some other stuff Klofkac himself requested. THIS IS NOT SOMETHING THAT DRAMATICALLY AFFECTS GAMEPLAY. I'M ACTIVELY AVOIDING MAKING CHANGES THAT WOULD HAVE TOO BIG OF AN EFFECT. mostly. THIS IS MOSTLY JUST TO ADD SOME VISUAL FLAVOR, OPTIMIZE PERFORMANCE, AND IMPROVE CONSISTENCY OF UNIT BEHAVIOR. so don't feel pressured to, like, replay the campaign or something if you've already done it! here're the patched files for use with version 2.3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11U05622fjjbAh2VQyUYEAGrQqbkpv_xW/view I'll bug gruntlord and dato to include these in their installers by default along with the 2.3 update where's v2.3, you ask? check this thread: anyway, nevertheless, there are some minor changes. I'm not going crazy and adding features intended for the next campaign(s), like repackable ConYards, player choice in starting location, buildable Mining Rigs, build speed recalculations, dynamic variables-based reinforcement drops, repeat queueing... nothing like that. just some quality-of-life stuff and small tweaks. and maybe a couple of variables for certain specific new features. and also maybe a little something special on S18V1, idk lol. anyway here's a list of all the new stuff, and why it's being added: one more thing: Klofkac added the ability to type-select with the W key. due to how certain things in the Summers' Solstice campaign works, you might sometimes type-select certain units and not actually get all of them. this is kind of a bug I have to leave in since some triggers might be tied to the duplicated units, and I don't remember what would need to be changed, so I'm not going to go messing around on the back end. type select is still a great new feature though, you'll get a lot of mileage out of it and I'll be accounting for this new command in the next campaigns that's it. enjoy! if anything seems hideously broken in an unintentional fashion, do feel free to poke me about it and I'll patch the crap. thanks EDIT: I'll list whatever bugs folks have found here, and when I fix them. the link at the top of this post doesn't need to change, I'll just update it. 8/29/25 - conflict with Rocket Turret found on S03V1 hard mode. forgot to fix up their system properly, so they were firing more shots than expected

the server Kipp linked would be a good start

get next square is usually related to pathing issues. those can be made much less frequent by making sure there's adequate room to move around comparative to the amount of units you expect on the field. adding infantry-only paths to help free up other paths for vehicles also helps quite a bit

with the graphics files, the mod should be intact there are always new features under development by Klofkac. feel free to drop by the Landsraad Discord server, a thread by Feda pinned on this forum, if you have any questions about a concept you'd like to implement or bugs you're having trouble figuring out

don't forget to include the data.r16 you'll find it under the "data" folder, not in "bin" it's important when adding new units or structures because anything new gets a new icon in the icons slot. not having an icon means anything new is an instant crash

thanks so much! I'm so glad to hear you enjoyed it I'm continuing to test new stuff for Klofkac. did some co-op campaigns, but those don't exactly utilize new features. I'll be working with variables next similarly to how they were used on this test map: I'll also need to finish patching this one since the next incarnations of the d2k exe break some stuff in this campaign. eventually. lol

broken? umm. well, I've got my copy here until funky gets back to us: ColoursBinEditor.exe hope that helps xD

ah, apologies that I haven't responded; we noticed this post but I was busy patching some other stuff ^^ for anyone else having the same issue, I'll elaborate: once upon a time, in order to play missions with mods, players had to copy the mod files into the folders and stuff themselves. it was a huge pain in the butt since you had to back up everything, and then replace later with the original files when you wanted to play different missions Feda's upgrades to the Mission Launcher do this on the back-end, automatically copying mod files under CustomCampaignData where they're needed, when they're needed, and then replacing them with backup files when you're finished with the mission. this is how the mod files from one campaign get into your main data folder in the first place as for why they remain there and why the Mission Launcher doesn't replace them with the backups, that probably has something to do with the read-write permissions of the install directory. I don't really know how it works, but what I do know is that trying different install directories or adjusting the permissions for the directory you install to can remedy this issue I hope that helps anybody encountering the same issue

ugh💀 it was brought to my attention that some changes to the Set Tile Property and Add Concrete events have broken some such things on various maps. this issue probably sprung up with the recent addition of variables and all the cool stuff that enables us to do. alas, making progress sometimes means experiencing setbacks along the way... this amounts to little more than a visual error, but I refuse to leave that alone! before I go bugging dato and gruntlord to update their installers again (sorry💕), I'm just gonna give things a once-over to see if anything else is particularly broken. in the meantime, here's a patched version of the campaign for now: SS Campaign.zip I'll go ahead and edit this post when it's no longer an issue. apologies to all those inconvenienced!

hey there thanks for checking out my campaign! underneath the spoilers in its thread, which I see you've found already, there are videos and written strategy guides for each map ^^ for clearing a specific map, I'm not sure there can be better advice than referring to those! however, I can offer some general tips: Dune 2000 is a high-economy RTS. economy is the name of the game! see how many Refineries or Harvesters you can build before being overwhelmed. how greedy you are in the early game determines how quickly you get to the late game. generally, building just 2-3 Refineries and a few Harvesters per each one will be enough to sustain good production for the average macro-heavy campaign mission try to actually use the economy you build up too. if you hear, "Silos needed!" get into the habit of tabbing over to the Starport, clicking on the MCV 5 times and then right-clicking on it. why? because it depletes the Silos, allowing you to store more funds. this is not a thing that works in Summers' Solstice; cancelling your order will actually refill the Silos, so you'd need to dump funds by placing an order. other than that, remember that building 3 of a certain factory will max out production speed for related units. infantry can be tough to build diligently, but they DO make a huge difference if used carefully! if you can get used to being greedy and building units with the funds you accrue, then you'll wind up with a lot of units. that alone can guarantee victory against most AIs, but being efficient with them helps too. use Siege Tanks or Sonic Tanks against masses of enemy infantry, send Troopers in on Gun Turrets or Rocket Turrets before your vehicles get closer as well, prioritize important enemy infrastructure like Wind Traps, Refineries, production structures... or even just their Harvesters outside their base, if you can't crack into the base itself. vanilla AIs can be very defensive and stockpile lots of funds, so the Harvester thing might not be a good tip for vanilla maps, but it definitely works in some custom campaigns if you need more specific advice for or have questions about a certain Summers' Solstice map that the strategy guides don't cover, feel free to ask I'd be happy to help. otherwise, good luck and have fun!