Landsraad mod for Emperor Battle for Dune

[JulesG]

A quick update on the mod.

Ix, Corrino and Ordos units and buildings completed. Icons still outstanding.

Mercenary unit and buildings completed.

Landsraad unit and buildings completed.

Guild units and buildings completed

New GuPyramid (and damage levels) added for incidental map building (replaces NoddingDonkey so that can build a couple of Guild tanks if you capture the gupyramid which I have called the Guild Armoury).

Smuggler units and incidental buildings - New SMStarport damage models to create. Incidental ATR buildings - couple of damage levels wrongly textured. Some work outstanding.

Missions - Ix and Corrino complete

Ordos missions require retexting for Mercenaries and Smugglers and I am still unable to find the "defend the smuggler starport" mission. I have though found the "attack the smuggler starport supplying the enemy" and the "defend the smuggler convoy from Tl attack" missions.

May soon be back at a position where I can work on completing ICONs...

[veK]

where can I find the messages from the mission briefings Jules?

then I can take a look at them and maybe recognize the mission (defend the smugglers base from attack)...

[JulesG]

where can I find the messages from the mission briefings Jules?

then I can take a look at them and maybe recognize the mission (defend the smugglers base from attack)...

The strings file holds all the mission details, but the Ordos mission.txt file is badly hacked - a number of voice lines are pulled from various planned missions to create a completely different mission...

I will continue to search for the "defend the smugglers base mission" as it actually exists in the mission.tok files (by playing through every Ordos mission)rather than the theorectical one as defined in Ordos missions.txt file. (which does not exist as a equivalent mission.tok number.)

[Beonid]

One thing, how are you going to get Giedi Prime to fit in with the Corrino?

[JulesG]

Simply that the Corrino have captured Geidi Prime, killed off the Harkonnens (except for a few on Dune who are now Mercenaries) and made it their primary base as it is more desirable than the prison world of the Sardaukar.

With all heighliner and homeworld missions now disabled, then only end games are: Ordos homeworld, Geidi Prime (new Corrino homeworld) and Caladan (with both ATR and Ix prescence).

[Procyon]

You will make me reinstall EB4D! Why disabling the Heighliners and homeworld mission? They were my favorites. They still can be redesigned!

If this mod takes after the defeat of the emperor worm, which house was the victorious? And which homeworld was attacked at the end levels?

What is ICW?

[JulesG]

ICW = Imperial Civil War Mod.

Removal of heighliner and homeworld missions is to allow greater manipulation of building and unit orders. (These two missions call specific and non-specific buildings/units which constrains mod development). Development has been much more successful since I removed these missions.

Each house was victorious - so if playing the Ix campaign then ATR defeated worm but at great cost, hence alliance. If playing the Ordos campaign then OR defeated worm but at great cost, hence alliance with Tleilaxu.

The assumption is that Harkonnen world was attacked - leaving Corrino free to step in kill off any surviving Harks, take over Geidi Prime and attack Arrakis.

Anyway all this is irrelevant as at the moment all development is stalled as I have hit a technical issue with all the files I have being too many for EBFD.

[JulesG]

Quote from EdricO

==================

I haven't been active in the modding community for years, and I didn't follow the progress of your mod, but it did seem like the most ambitious EBFD mod ever, and with the enormous amount of work you put into it I'm very sorry to see it die.

However, unless I am mistaken, the reason you could not finish the mod was because of graphics limitations, correct? Wouldn't it be possible to release a version with stripped down graphics, just so we could enjoy the new units and game features? Or you could even release your incomplete work as-is, in case someone else decides to pick it up in the future.

The above IM from EdricO was sent to me a couple of weeks ago - apologies to EdricO for only just logging in to find the message.

I know it is unusual to post a private IM (and hopefully I wont offend EdricO) but it is quite timely in that rather than buy C&C 3 (I have the demo) I have been trying once again to get 3 new sides, 3 lots of new textures, a load of new units and buildings plus rewritten missions all to work.

The result - 3 sides not quite fully textured (Landsraad still needs damage models), all units speced out AND ALL ICONS DONE! Missions need to be redone and SFX to do.

The old problem was GREY ICONS - solved by making them a weak blue rather than 24 bit gray-scales which seems to have reduced the memory usuage(along with naming all corrino textures as HK_ and Landsraad as OR_ and Ix as AT_ rather than as separate new textures.) So fingers crossed this time I can make it to a finish. The icons are generic (used Dune2000 icons) and colour-coded by side.

The sides are now: Landsraad (RED), Corrino (PURPLE) and the Ix + HK mercenaries (ORANGE).

Subhouses are: Fremen, Atreides (Sniper, Mongoose, Minotaurus and Repair), Ordos + TL Alliance (DustScout, Deviator, Contaminator and Leech), Guild Army (Infantry and GuWorm) and Guild Navigators (GuNIAB). In addition capturing NoddingDonkey on maps allows building of Mercenary Factory (Buzzsaw, Inkvine Quad, Assault Tank and InkVine).

Landsraad Forces are: Infantry, Trooper, Mortar plus Trike, Quad, APC, Kobra, Hvy Assault Tank and Hvy Missile Tank. Superweapon is DeathHand missile.

Corrino forces are: Sardaukar, Elite, Flame Tank, Lion medium Assault Tank, APC (unarmed), Siege Dev, Beamtank (new weapon/bullet sfx). Superweapon is Energybeam

Ix forces are: Mercenary Infantry, Trooper and Flamer (plus Gunship and HKADP) with Ixian Hover trike, Missile Hover APC, Lasertank, Hover Plasma-Siege and Infiltrator. Superweapon is stealthed EITS. projector is only available as a reinforcement unit (or crate unit).

So assuming that sorting out the NewUnit descriptions and correcting unit voices does not impact memory I only have the hurdle of rewriting the missions (as Landsraad has replaced Ix, and Ix have replaced Ordos in main houses).

I will keep you all posted. If any of these cause problems I will post a file with all the above done to use in skirmish mode.

[JulesG]

Ordos missions are now re-written (not game tested yet), all Newunit descriptions, all damage models and all SFX done.

Redone Battle Map so that Landsraad is RED (replaces Blue), Corrino is PURPLE (replaces Red) and Ix is ORANGE (replaces Green).

Redone House selection/ingame options so that any odd colours and lines are removed to fit with new colour scheme above.

Removed MULTI-USER option from Main Menu as this mod I find must be played off-line with Anti-virus off(high memory overhead with higher level textures and models).

Game changes:

AI updated for new unit names and capabilities. AI scripts may be reviewed depending on campaign playtesting results.

Changed to single refineries (no refinery ramps), reordered the sub-houses:

was = now

Fr  = Fr

IM  = Atreides (Sniper, Mongoose, Minotaur and Repair)

IX  = Guild (GuMaker and NIABTank)

TL  = Ordos (DustScout and Deviator)

GU  = Tleilaxu (Contaminator and Leech)

Landsraad low level units can only get single level of VETERANCY. Higher units (Siege, Heavy Assault and Missile Tank) can get to 3 Tier Veterancy.

All Ix 3 Tier veterans are stealthed.

All Ix units can cross dustbowls including Siege Hover. (Excluding Projector, but this is only available as a reinforcement unit).

Ix turrets are now Flame-Turret and a Laser-Turret (with AA).

Corrino infantry and vehicles at 3 Tier are ELITES and can return to barracks/factory to increase build level. Corrino also now have a medium strength Missile Tank.

3 Tier units (all sides) and any GUILD unit can not be Deviated.

[erjin999]

Lets hope your persistence pays off and we get to see the fruits of your labour !

Sounds like it is really a resource hog somehow  :O

[JulesG]

Lets hope your persistence pays off and we get to see the fruits of your labour !

Sounds like it is really a resource hog somehow  :O

I begin to think I shouldnt mention progress - I have been away on business this week, the last thing I did before I left was edit the ordos mission text, I write today on my progress and tonight it hangs every time I load skirmish or any mission I only tested last week!

:O

Well it has taken me 3 hours to track down the error - a minor edit to the AI - I altered the AI build order (one extra entry) and it was this that it could not cope with  ::)

So I am back on track...

...still wont run with antivirus though....

[JulesG]

Well I have moved forward slowly, I have completed the Ixian (Ordos) mission rewrites and the Landsraad (Atreides) mission rewrites. Corrino to do after I have tested the missions.

I have reworked the Ixian side including more mercenary units (Buzzsaw, InkVine Quad, Assault tank) from a Mercenary factory, added an InkVine Rocket Turret (replaced the Laser turret) and replaced the MegaGun with the Ixan Research Centre (where all the hover tanks come from as well as the stealthed EITS and infiltrator "superweapons").

Landsraad early units are: Trike, Quad and heavy assault tank, while Corrino are: Light Flame-tank, quad and medium assault tank.

Thus all three sides early on play more like Dune2000 and then the special advanced units/sub-houses come into effect.

I am thinking that I will make the Guild units have the Laser-shield feedback explosion effect, so that their strength as units is countered by a limitation (at least against Ix). [uPDATE: DONE with new explosion effect as laserhit is used by Beam-tank, wondering how to add splashdamage bullet to surrounding units when the shield+NIAB explode.]

Also considering making the Corrino Beam-Tank and Landsraad Long-Range Missile Tank a new armour level: invulnerable and set the damage % lower than for all other armour levels so that they last longer making them worthwhile and useful superunits. This then countacts the Ixian infiltrator that has an expanded explosion blastradius and increased damage. [uPDATE: DONE, just need to retest gameplay]

Last thing is that I am not using chaos or hawk effects anywhere in the mod and am wondering whether to add to the Tleilaxu side (Leech would turn infantry chaotic while leeching vehicles) or as part of the Last Mission Supergun (hawk splash damage to scare units from attacking the worm?).

My thinking is to increase the strength of Leech through instant direct hit and superfast leeching of vehicles, while it hawk effects infantry or buzzsaws away from killing it...

Overall coming together still have Corrino missions to redo and Landsraad to finish testing.

[JulesG]

;D

Well it is nearly here - YES! after 3 years modding I have nearly finished Conflict of the Landsraad mod for Emperor Battle for Dune.

Three sides: Landsraad (weak), Corrino (Very Strong) and the Ix + Mercenary Alliance (sneaky Ix stealth bombs, shielded hovers and some good old Harkonnen units).

I have been testing side balances, checking textures, icons, new units, new buildings, and rewritten missions.

Testing has shown a number of bugs (fixed) missing textures (fixed) and some poor gameplay - i.e the Corrino were too strong and so were Ix.

FIXES:

Replace Corrino Beam-Turret and Beam-Tank with weaker PopUpTurret and Hawk-Tank (The Corrino Terror Tank!). Improve side balance by replacing unarmed Corrino APC with medium-strong Missile Tank (short range).

Replace Ix Lasertank with shielded plasma tank (single cannon), reinstate Ix projector and stealth-shielded plasma tank. Drop HKGunship to only gained via capture of NoddingDonkey building on maps or AI enemy gets it on arrakis base/homeworld maps.

Ordos subhouse get lasertank plus laser-turret and deviator-gasturret as well as deviator and dustscout.

Improve Landsraad by allowing starport ordering of Atreides Repair unit.

Final couple of weeks of Corrino testing to go.

[JulesG]

Well it is almost July and I am still doing final tweaks to the mod and testing Ixian and Corrino missions.

I have decided to not be like NOD forces (all weak stealth units) and so ditched the stealthed trike. All units are shielded (excluding mercenary) can hover over dustpools (excluding projector) or are stealthed bombs. No lasertank means it plays different from old Ordos.

Improved Landsraad - increased weapon range of AAtrooper (same as old ATR sniper) and heavy tank, but cut Long range Missile Tank damage capability. Also strengthened APC (heavy armour, good health) increased damage for AA and anti-vehicle/anti-infantry so making it a must build unit (took off AA from Quad).

For Corrino the Superweapon is now a Chaosweapon again, while the supertank using hawk effect to scare away the enemy. Corrino Missile Tank (medium armour and health) has short range but very heavy damage missiles, meaning if it gets in range to fire - your'e dead! Corrino Quad also lost AA, leaving missile tank, siege dev or advsard as anti-air (no AA on popupturret).

Still need an icon for Tleilaxu Living Turret.

Still have 1 month in which to complete testing and bundle up...

[JulesG]

;D >:( ???

Two steps forward, one step back...

Well the Corrino Terror Tank lasted 1 week of testing! Playing as Corrino the enemy AI used a Terror Tank and chased one Kobra right across the map shooting it every couple of seconds while I was pounding the AI base, not what was intended!

So needing to change the unit to a strong unit but with obvious weaknesses I have reverted to a Laser Devastator that I had in an earlier test version of COTL. It is very strong BUT the slow movement and turns means it can be picked off.

This released the ATSonicTank model...so...

Sub-House changes:

Fremen - sniper now short range but kills even a Sard, plus ADVFremen and FRSaboteur

Atreides - weak, cheap ATPillbox plus HvyInfantry, Kindjal and Sniper.

Tanks - RepairUnit (LN only), Mongoose, Mino and SonicTank (upgraded)

Guild - Beam-turret (with AA) plus NIABTank and Gumaker

Ordos - Laser-turret(with AA) plus Deviator turret. ORChemical, Dustscout, Lasertank and Deviator

Tleilaxu - TLTurret has longest range of any turret (and AA) plus TLWindtrap same price gets you double power output. Leech (instant hit) plus Contaminator

Mercenaries (via campaign maps) - InkVine Quad and InkVine.

Not happy with Corrino ChaosWeapon - going to switch it to Hawk Effect.

[JulesG]

So I am back on track...

...still wont run with antivirus though....

Did I mention the mod now works with my anti-virus/firewall software? - The difference is that I have added in a Firewall Router for my wireless network and my PC software does not have any work to do any more (connection attempts and spoof attacks have stopped compared to 10-20 plus per day before the router).

As to back on track...

...still not happy with game-play, tweaking various units, killed off ADP's (non-buildable now), tried to have a single CHOAM Starport model with extra Starportable only units for all sides - dont work leaves a icon "hole" where EBFD expects the icon to be when you have all the requisite buildings (which you cant as the primarybuilding is disabled)!

So I now have a CHOAM trooper with beam-gun and sword (counter to IMADVSardaukar) that can be built from Barracks (LN and Ix only) or ordered from Starport. Plus a CHOAM BeamTank (using ATSonicTank model) that takes over 3 times as long as other Superweapons (Laser Dev, LR Missile Tank etc) to build in Factory or just buy from Starport (all three sides).

To balance Atreides Light Infantry (=IMBarracks) now only available to Corrino.

Ix side now has Helipad and Ornithopter again and all Ornithopters cannot be built until after you have first built a helipad.

Not happy with the Corrino (old HK) Arrakis base campaign map as it often does not build any refineries and so retreats after a while (boring). Trying out adding in extra refineries as campaign buildings, but these must not then appear on Corrino homeworld defence (not tested yet) - so we will have to wait and see whether I can improve the gameplay for this campaign mission...

[stefanhendriks]

Do you have any screenshots of this? :) Or is it still 'secret'.

[JulesG]

I have posted Ix and Corrino pictures previously, the Ix have only changed in that the Atreides buildings have been replaced with "scruffy" harkonnen building textures (ie part HK textures plus a mixture of the mcv/harvester plain textures).

A few of the Landsraad textured buildings I think I may have shown when they were a sub-house, though they have since been redone.

I will try to remember to grab some pictures when I do so more play testing this weekend.

Oh - I have found two HK buildings that occur on the Arrakis Base campaign map and not on either the Homeworld map or the next-to-arrakis-base campaign map which I can turn into Corrino refineries. This will mean that the AI can put up a better fight than it often does on the HK Arrakis base mission.

Interestingly when I ran Landsraad versus Corrino Homeworld mission the AI automatically built the SuperWeapons Facility (allows building of Laser Devs and Starport) which was HKFactoryFrigate (never placed except in heighliner missions and the first ATR start mission) and the CHOAM starport which was one of the Heighliner mission building models. I thus believe that in the HK Arrakis Base mission the AI is often stopped in code from building Refineries, Starports etc in favour of two waves of attacks 1) from Laser Devs and 2) seige tanks/missile tanks etc.

I am going to check all civilian buildings for Ix and LN Arrakis Base and Homeworld maps to ensure that both can have backups to the AI not building all the new construction/support buildings.

I should then be in a position to wrap all this up into a release!

[JulesG]

Well I have sorted out the Corrino arrakis and homeworld maps and have added Ordos factory and CHOAM beam-turrets to make it a bit more difficult.

For the Ix arrakis and homeworld maps I have added Ordos factory and Ordos Laser turrets.

For the Landsraad arrakis and homeworld maps I am adding Ordos factory only (outstanding). On the homeworld I was surprised (I was Corrino) by Landsraad Deathhand attack on my ConYard - I had forgotten it now destroys the ConYard! (no splat anymore). Of course once I built turrets it shot them instead - shame the AI was programmed that way!

I have decided that the Ordos Deviator turret, Atreides pillbox and Guild beam-turret cannot be built though icons and construction models etc will be present in the mod should someone want to enable them.

In addition to get the Ordos Deviator requires both Ordos Factory and TLFleshVat, so not possible in campaign play except by the AI in the last Tl-Worm mission.

Only outstanding item is the new Handbook detailing all new units and structure trees with some screen shots.

All textures, buildings, units, sfx, icons done, just final tests and should be ready to try packing into an installer in August/September.

[JulesG]

tried to have a single CHOAM Starport model with extra Starportable only units for all sides - dont work leaves a icon "hole" where EBFD expects the icon to be when you have all the requisite buildings (which you cant as the primarybuilding is disabled)!

Well well - shame I dont put all the things I work out together - I separately realised that in artini if you left off the line that defines unit, buildings or infantry tabs it does not appear in the tabs list.

So apply that to the "hole" issue above when you have an icon not showing as the criteria have not quite been met (missing building etc) then I get no hole, no icon EXCEPT when you order through the starport, hence fixed and so the CHOAM Beam-tank is now only ordered from the Starport.

It also works for the Ordos factories that has been "added" to the homeworld maps, in that it is only loadwhenplaced, but includes icon details so that once captured it has an icon for when you upgrade the building.

[Voodoo Daddy]

Hi, Sorry for bumping this post up, but I had a question. I saw the announcement about this mod in the news section, so I looked here to read about it. I understand that it is a Campaign Mod. I guess that means that you can't use it in Lan/Online even if both players have it. After reading how much work you put into this, it would be a shame not to try it. But what I couldn't find was info. on Install/Uninstall, so that when I want to go back to playing online I won't cause a "out of Sync abort". After reading this post I looked at the Sticky posts like, Index of important topics, etc. But not a lot of advice there either, cause while I know my way around a 'Puter Ok, I don't think I'm anywhere near the level of the people who post here. So could you tell a little about how to do it? and Undo it?

Thanks, Voodoo. 

[JulesG]

I have completed a little installation program that will fix Emperor back to standard EBFD once you have un-installed Conflict of the Landsraad Mod.

Please note the exe file will need to be unzipped first.

If you previously had Appo's minimod installed, you will need to then reinstall it.

As for multi-player mode COTL will work with anyone else that also has it loaded.

Campaign mode just means I edited all of the mission files to reflect the house changes, otherwise it is a standard mod that works in campaign mode, skirmish and multi-player.

fix EBFD after cotl mod.zip

[Voodoo Daddy]

Thanks Jules, I appreciate your help.

Yes, I am running the mini patch.

I also am running Apollyon's AI patch, will that cause your mod a problem?

[JulesG]

It only tells the AI from my UNITLIST (objectsets)what type of scenarios to try so actually it probably will make little or no difference to my mod!

Having said that best to uninstall it, then re-install after using COTL as the COTL uninstaller will break it (I install some AI components).

[Voodoo Daddy]

Ok, thanks Jules.