Dune 2 - The Maker Version 0.92 released

[stefanhendriks]

check out the website for the complete news message and what is changed. Any comments on the new released can be placed here ;) I'm slowly picking up this project again so i'd like to see some list of 'requests' and 'bugs' :)

[Andrew]

Played it, had fun.

Ordos last level, the worms were going around like normal, but eventually they stopped and did not move. I killed them, but they did not return.

Also ran out of spice and lost the mission because no troops to kill enemy :P

[stefanhendriks]

lol yeah. I play Atreides level 6 always for fun. I just finished it, took me around an hour or something.

I did had to tweak stuff though, so that will be for the next version. I increased a bit the harvesting speed. I also increased the amount of spice per tile, so you have more money in a level. The AI was pretty tough, i had to retry it for 2 times in order to win the mission. I also changed the radius for windtraps, since i find them too small. Now i can build a bit nicer bases.

I found the AI fun enough, but i did encounter nasty bugs. Like harvesters moving weird after getting out of a refinery. And soemtimes when units attack they do weird.

I also thought of a new feature that IS in dune 2 itself. Ie, when you destroy a harvester (which has spice collected) it should also drop some spice on sandy area's nearby.

Btw, did you got attacked by orni's? ;) How do you like them?

[Andrew]

Yeah, I did, thought I was going to lose because the enemy also sent some tanks.

I like the idea of windtrap increasing more. That was one annoying part.

Also get the cancel building / unit thing to work.

maybe even information when selecting a building that shows how many tiles it takes up, as I was not sure how big certain buildings were going to be. (Maybe under the name part when a building is highlighted, have a "2x2" or "4x2" tiles.)

[Hojo]

Mh ...in the first Map of the Ordos Campaing ..there is no ground to build on...there is only Sand... Oo

[stefanhendriks]

true. THe ordos campaign has seeds that i don't have :( In order to get them, i have to reveal them myself which is a pain in the ***..

[loredo]

In the first map of Harkonnen when I attack an unit, several times one of my units go to the tile of the enemy unit and then puts over it. My units attack the enemy unit and my unit too.

I suppose than in other levels will be so too.

(sorry, im spanish and my english isn't perfect..)

Another question is when i have selected several units and i click in a tile, all units says their response. I think than would be better..

And other thing is when you have selected one or several units and clicks in other different to select it. It appears the move icon over it and it doesnt select the unit.. Is this a bug?

[MrFlibble]

Looks like the placement grid bug's not fixed yet: if you scroll the main window with a mouse while you're selecting where to place a new building (or unit - in the editor), the placement grid disappears and you've got to select it again >:(

Also I've noticed that infantry is still incapable of moving into infantry rock (what the hell of infantry rock is it, then?), but I'm not sure. All-in-all, the game makes a very good impression ;D Keep up the good work! :) :) :)

[stefanhendriks]

about this placing, yeah, i know ;)

The infantry, they have no real purpose yet. They can;t be even squished yet.

[stefanhendriks]

fyi: for the next release the placing bug is fixed  8)

[MattyWanKanobi]

Forgive me if I am just raising an old conversation but I'll ask any ways as I have not ploughed through all of the forum pages.  Have you though about adding a multiplayer aspect to this...  I used to play dune 2 years ago and I could never help but this it that day it missed multi play using IPX or something...  in this day and age we have IP.  Is this something you can add in?

:O

[Andrew]

I agree Dune 2: The Maker Multiplayer would be sooo much fun. Also if this were implemented before it is "finshed" you could get a lot of people trying it out and reporting bugs.

Although I'm guessing that it would be difficult to do. :(

[stefanhendriks]

I never did networking before, so it will be a huge challange, but i am informing here and there for a good networking library. The next release wont have networking. I'll probably plan it like this:

- fix up bugs, finish the dune 2 features. Ie, starport, repair structure. Palace, etc.

- create some good/nice AI in skirmish

- try to add network support.

[MattyWanKanobi]

Well I got to sit down a give the game a good work over last night...  I was amazed about how alike the in game gfx were...  Nice work on that...  I did have a few issues though couldn't get a skirmish game to start.

Is there any way you can get the cut sceane mentor guys to who give you the run down of the mission added?

I used to love poking the harkonnen mentor...  hehehehehe

I thought that the first campaign finished when you harvested a 1000 credits...  I got up to 10k before I gave up...

Oh and the music brought back memories...  nice work dude, nice work.

Over I was imporess can't wait for the next release.

One thing that pissed me off was when you had a unit selected you had to unselect them before you could place a build building...

[stefanhendriks]

well the game is not finished, so single select mission was the only option. I hope to add the 'campaign' and 'skirmish' mode soon.

There is no win/lose factor yet, heh, will work on that.

The select/unselect thing is quite logical actually. But i will look into this. The code has several functions assigned to the mouse. When you select a unit, it assigns a 'move' function to the mouse. So when you want to place, it will not work, since its getten overwritten by this 'move' function. But i can probably fix this up. The next release already is big, but its not finished yet... You'll be amazed ;)

[glip]

Great stuff... loved it. I'm not a fan of the control style, much perfer something along the line of starcraft, but I can get used to it for the greatness of dune 2.

I couldn't get my harvester to run over the enemy, I'd like to be able to do that :D Otherwise, keep up the good work!

[stefanhendriks]

ur harvester 'problem' was a lacking feature in the demo. The next release has squishable infantry.

[MrFlibble]

A small observation of mine is that the background music that plays in the menu is not the original menu music but the Harkonnen Mentat Ambient one...

Anyway, are you going to add the Mentat feature into the game?

[stefanhendriks]

the mentat as in Dune 2 while playing an actual mission? no. But for mission briefing i think it will be fun to see those mentats brabble about how important the mission is.

[MrFlibble]

Should you become interested, I can post a pack of Dune II scores in MIDI that are renamed according to their place in-game (win/lose, map selection) or to the corresponding Dune2000 and Sega Dune: The Battle for Arrakis music tracks, so that you can make a CnC-style in-game music playlist or something. I've probably mentioned this before, but I'm SO proud of this little work of mine, you know :D

BTW it's somewhat offtopic, but have you noticed that the Ordos Mentat Ammon has his long hair on his right shoulder - this is the Suk Doctor haircut described in Dune book, isn't it? How d'you think, did the designers do this on purpose or not?

[stefanhendriks]

I am very interested in the music. If you have even original Dune 2 (with an old-skool sound-blaster) compiled music into MP3 i am even more ears. Contact me at stefan@dune2k.com and we can discuss some stuff because music is one of the big things i am working on as well. And i have a feature or 2 i dont want to spill here yet since i want this release to be BIG...

I dont know about the ordos mentat, but i would not be suprised if they did that ;)

[stefanhendriks]

better yet, send a mail to stefan-hendriks@planet.nl

[nemafakei]

Well, there's a selection of DII music linked to in the news item of 24th December '04 (at the bottom of the Fed2k main page).

As to the midis, there's a set of 9/10 floating around, as well as the set of 33 in Dune Legacy; to which set are you referring?

I've only heard one or maybe two of the Sega genesis tracks (named 'Atreides Dirge' or something)

I've also rewritten some of them to make them sound decent in midi form (see my website): you're welcome to use those.

It would be really good to make some in MOD format, but I'm finding it difficult to get it to sound right.

[stefanhendriks]

I have a selection of music. I think i got most of them. I tried yours nema, the problem is that the tempo of some is not the same as the other midi's as it seems. The best would be if i had some sb16 emulator so i could make them sound like it was in the old days.

[nemafakei]

I can alter the tempo as needs be. The thing with the other midis is that they're rips. If you look at them, notes don't happen in bars and beats, they just happen whenever.

So if you want to change them in any way, it's very difficult. Regarding emulation, .mod files might have a chance at getting it right; the midis were not the highest quality d2 music (unless the sb16 has a seriously weird sound set).