Does anybody want to complete Dune Legacy?

[martinreichl]

I'm currently working on the fog of war feature, it isn't that fast so far.

Because I had some problems with transparency and SDL I do it per pixel at the moment, which is a little bit time consuming.

NoFog->Fog :

Fullscreen: 160->100 fps,

windowed: 80->48 fps.

Also I don't know if the behaviour is right, I have to look at some strategy games.

Anyway you can have a look at the screenshot and tell me your opinion.

[attachment archived by Gobalopper]

[Major_Gilbear]

Hmm, that looks really good!

Btw, any chance of each House starting with/building only its own House's stuff?

[neonext]

doesnt dune legacy use 8 bit color?

i've never used SDL for drawing, but i dont see why alphablending should be so ineffecient, especially if you're just swapping palette colors. if you're not alphablending (making the fog of war be translucent), there's no reason to do it pixel by pixel, just blit the fog squares and the edges (not sure how dune 2 handles it, so not sure if it's in the PAK)

are you doing the normal black fog or are u adding translucent dynamic fog to the game (or both)?

[Cyborg]

And you can even use gamma correction for it  :P

Though alphablending is best, I think.

[martinreichl]

>>Btw, any chance of each House starting with/building only its own House's stuff?<<

what do you mean exactly? whats wrong at the moment?

The fog is translucent, I'm using SDL SetAlpha option to enable transparency on surfaces.

Unfortunately, it is working with a dynamically created black square, but not with the surfaces loaded out of the bmps.

So I decided to go through all pixels of the egde surface and if a certain color is there then I'm drawing a translucent black pixel on the screen. (Thats only for the egdes because I can draw a 16x16 black translucent square without problems as said).

I have speed up things a little bit because I cached the edge surface.

So now I've got

NoFog->Fog :

Fullscreen: 160->130 fps,

windowed: 80->70 fps.

Also I've set the fog timeout to 10secs so theres isn't so much to draw.

[neonext]

ya that's much better :) gj

[Major_Gilbear]

>>Btw, any chance of each House starting with/building only its own House's stuff?<<

what do you mean exactly? whats wrong at the moment?

Atreides can start the game with Harkonnen Devastators, Ordos Trikes, etc. They can also build Troopers and Siege tanks (which they shouldn't). Similarly, Harkonnen also start with a funny mixture of units, and can build Trikes (which they shouldn't). There are lots of other examples too; if you need me to, I'll prepare a full list, but I think you get the idea anyway.

BTW, when playing Skirmish, the game doesn't end when the player is victorious; you have to "quit".

And I have a GFX suggestion too. Could the unit queueing on the build menus have red numbers instead of white? It is just that on some icons, the numbers don't show up very well.

[martinreichl]

That build queue thing was my plan too, sometimes you can't read it.

There are some bugs prevent you from winning, e.g. sometimes if you saved and loaded you can't win anymore.

I'll take a look at it, but don't expect it to be fixed very fast.

[_Gumby]

Atreides can start the game with Harkonnen Devastators, Ordos Trikes, etc. They can also build Troopers and Siege tanks (which they shouldn't). Similarly, Harkonnen also start with a funny mixture of units, and can build Trikes (which they shouldn't). There are lots of other examples too; if you need me to, I'll prepare a full list, but I think you get the idea anyway.

BTW, when playing Skirmish, the game doesn't end when the player is victorious; you have to "quit".

And I have a GFX suggestion too. Could the unit queueing on the build menus have red numbers instead of white? It is just that on some icons, the numbers don't show up very well.

Atreides start with all that crap because the scenario file is a little wonky, i assume TonyD changed it so he could easily test things. You can fix it by moving in original scenario files from dune 2. I thought i had bundled the originals in with the distribution, but obviously not.

Atreides shouldnt be able to build troopers, thats very wierd. Atreides are actually able to build seige tanks  in the original iirc. But I agree, the tech trees are a bit messed up. Simply because when i was trying to fix them, i didnt have the full tree :/

Simple enough to fix though.

Save games and end-game conditions however, are another matter. I think martin will agree that the save/load game code path is seriously messed up at the moment. Not very nice at all. Its all my fault of course, since i hacked in the campaign loading and saving :)

If martin doesnt fix the smaller problems i'll check out the cvs and commit the fixes, but as he's already said, save games will take a bit longer :/

_Gumby

[neonext]

yup, all 3 sides should be able to build siege tanks

[martinreichl]

I can't build troopers with Atreides, wether campaign or skrimish.

fixed: Harkonnen can build trikes.

fixed: Construction Yard can build 2x2 concrete without upgrade.

not fixed: Construction Yard can upgrade without sense. (techlevel <4)

If you find out more problems with the tech tree,

write it here.

Could it be that the three-men-infantry is missing?

[Major_Gilbear]

Um, dunno if my memory is acting up, but didn't each side had one unit it could only get via the Starport: HK Trike, AT Seige Tank, OR Missile Tank?

Additionally, Atreides had no troopers, Ordos had no Trikes, and Harkonnen had no Light inf, Trikes or Ornithopters.

I am not sure about this next idea, but I put forward anyway:

What about restricting more troops? Each side has it's Legacy units as before, but is more limited in normal units:

+++Harkonnen+++

Devastator

Quad

Combat Tank

Missile Tank

Light Infantry

Trooper

Harkonnen would have the most firepower and the best aromour in the game, but would suffer from lack of speed. They are reasonably versatile, but must be commited decisively.

+++Atreides+++

Sonic Tank

Trike

Combat Tank

Light Infantry

Troopers

Ornithopter

Atreides would be versatile, using their superior Sonic Tank instead of the Missile Tank, and ditching the heavier units. They can assault or react as needed.

+++Ordos+++

Deviator

Raider

Combat Tank

Siege Tank

Trooper

Light Infantry

Ordos are fast and employ large numbers of cheap troops to soak up casualties. They can outmaneouver the other houses, and are excellent raiders. To repel assaults and assault Rocket Turrets, they can use the Seige Tank and the Deviator

Now, each side is more distinct, and still retains much of the Dune2 feel to it. What do you guys think?

[neonext]

i like

[martinreichl]

when the next beta is finished, we can make a extra version and try it out.

for now I'm working on issues of fog and also try to make the radar scaling so it isn't so small on standard maps.

fixed several bugs, don't remember all of them exactly.

e.g. you could select enemy units also if the map wasn't explored at their position.

[vidiware]

Good work with the new GUI:

My bug report list! This is very important!:

Sardaukar can not build ornies. (Planes are supposed to circle aroud the target to prevet that the r-turrets are taking them)

Harkonnen are NOT able to build Light infantry or Infantry barracks, just the WOR. Ordos can build both, they get the WOR at level 8 or something. Atreides both Trike and Quad after upgrade of factory.

Harkonnen are able to order Trikes from the Starport. Everyone can build siege tank. Ordos can not build rocket/missile launcher. They have to order it from the starport.

Option button are not working inside the mentat windows, but it is still present.

you do not need a radar for light vehicle factory in original dune 2 do you?

1st priority suggestions:

Make a editable ini for the tech tree.

Make a editable ini for campaign. (Why not use the original ini?).

and btw.

How do you update the sourceforge website? If i come with a working website can somebody upload it?

[martinreichl]

I've done all your suggestions (some were done in the recent version already).

Did you talk about 93b2?

To make the tech tree editable it would require some work I can't do now.

Perhaps later, or another developer will do it.

The whole project requires some restructuring, but it's impossbible do that without help now.

If once the techtree is ok, I don't think it's so important to modify it.

I'm about to finish the fog, new focus is campaign mode (very important I think).

The radar map scale is canceled for now because the code isn't so small and spread out to the program,

could be fixed with restructuring too.

Also I'll try to make the data size smaller, it's really big now.

I will provide a new compiled version soon,

so you can test the things you wanted to have.

Cheers,

Martin

[vidiware]

93b2 yeah...

Good that you're fixing up the things. I'm looking forward to the next compiled release...

And for those who didn't know, you can use the data files from Super Dune 2..

[martinreichl]

Unfortunately we have no real .pak support and the depacker can't be used with the linux version, so linux guys have to get the data pack (which is 12mb).

but I'm working on it, perhaps we can downsize to 5mb or so.

[martinreichl]

ok, uploaded a compiled cvs checkout to sourceforge.

please tell me any problems you encounter.

[vidiware]

Whats happening? are you still developing?

[martinreichl]

I'm not developing at the moment because the code really needs some refactoring.

I certainly do not want to do this, because I don't understand everything it's in there.

There is no documentation about it and there are some files with about 6000 lines.

There were some mistakes be designing this program and the code is a mixture of C and C++.

Sometimes it's C in a costume of C++.

So perhaps some day the 2 developers will come back and make some changes.

Or not...

Good luck and best wishes,

Martin

[TonyD]

Perhaps the mistake was that there was no design at all. :)

[_Gumby]

I'm not developing at the moment because the code really needs some refactoring.

Yeah, it really does need some refactoring, but like all code maintenance, its really really boring doing that, so no-one wants to do it...

I might have a crack at trying to fix all outstanding bugs to get a nice, stable build, depending on how bored i get :)

Of course, anyone else is welcome to download the code a make fixes :)

[rattle]

just found out another bug:

start building anything, hide the menu by pressing tab and then while the const. yard is still selected right-click where the build picture is supposed to be. it still pauses/stops the construction orders

oh and i have a suggestion for the atreides fremen and sardaukar trooper(s):

i recently played through dune 2 on the genesis with the atreides and noticed that the fremen troopers had twice the HP but same firepower, on the other hand you may have only one palace instead of 9+. so it would be cool to change the hitpoints respectively. the same goes for the sardaukar troopers, after all they should be the most fearsome soldiers on dune! :)

so my suggestions for future plans are 2xHP for fremen trooper(s) and 1.5xHP for sardaukar trooper(s) (or any other infantry unit)

well i'm still missing something: the good old move, attack, guard, retreat buttons. i also got something in mind about that, so why not let these buttons popup over a selected unit or unitgroup, like 4 small icons to click (naturally the hotkeys have to be changed/added as well)

by the way i'm still missing the original infantry and troopers

another idea is to make them more efficient by increasing the health and firepower to 4x of one single soldier, as by now, the soldier management turns out to be cnc-like and i liked the way it was in dune 2 a lot more to be honest :)

quite nice so far, i'm impressed. thats the best attempt so far to recreate the good old dune <3