D2TM - DEMO 3 progress

[Sfon]

Deviator:

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The Deviator acts like a normal Rocket Launcher. However, by firing its nerve gas it will convert

any unit to its own side. (Unline Dune 2, the units will STAY that way and not be converted back).

The unit is fast, light-weighted and has little armor; thus easily to destroy. However, do NOT

underestimate the power and danger of this unit!

I understand the desire to make deviators not stink, but this sounds completely broken. Think of it this way: they can eliminate any unit with only one hit *and* give you one of each unit it destoys. A bunch of deviators working together would basically be invincible and could eliminate any threat of enemy units in seconds. True, any group of units can be powerful, but nothing even close to being this powerful.

Also, wouldn't it break the new unit vs. unit balancing? With deviators like this, you'd only need other types of units for damaging buildings. You wouldn't even need other types of units for close range fighting, as long as you keep your deviators a bit spread out and thus they cannot be attacking without being in the right range of at least one other deviator.

IMO this could be solved by not letting them take over units so easily. There could be only a 25% chance of converting upon hit, they might only be able to convert heavily damaged units, or there might be a set number of hits of gas needed to convert a unit. Another good idea would be to have units which are more expensive or rare, such as house specials, be harder to convert than cheap common units. Even if deviators only convert an average of 1 or 2 units before they die, they will still be very powerful since the units they convert are permanent.

[stefanhendriks]

Actually i disagree. Deviators are weaklings, you can take them out easily with a bunch of trikes. Even when spread out, send out a couple of trikes to them and since their firerate is so slow you can mostly confuse them and make them miss (as their rockets will not hit when too close).

But...

I do agree as a human player it would be too easy to win by using a lot of deviators since the AI can never do such tactics all the time on such attacks.

So, i will look into it, make it a bit harder to convert units , make the deviators easier to destroy and i think that will balance it a bit more?

[stefanhendriks]

DEMO 3 is coming soon now.

[DuneFan]

WOW this project is going well already new demo coming out 3 :)

And very happy i have seen so many project crash and burn so finaly a project that go very well.....

SO if i unterstand this it will be demo 3 demo 4 and 1.0

SO you will not see like beta 1,2,3 and RC 1,2,3 correct ???

[stefanhendriks]

well you can see it like this:

demo = beta

so DEMO 1 = BETA 1

though "beta" stages officially mean "playable but only needing bug fixes" , i don't call them really beta but 'demo' ;)

I intent to:

- release demo 3 soon

- get feedback (hopefully a lot) so i can squish down serious bugs for demo 4

- demo 4 will contain the graphical updates, like a neat option menu etc.

- demo 4 will contain skirmish etc (huge feature to add, but hence someone's gotta do it ;))

- demo 4 will be released some time ( dunno when )

- get feedback a lot as well

- fix down last bugs

- release version 1.0 with bug fixes, tidying up stuff (ie, cutscenes, etc)

[vidiware]

as a small bonus while waiting for the Demo 3 release,

Stefan sendt me AdLib soundblaster music for download at: http://www.vidiware.com/dune2.html

[stefanhendriks]

another small bonus for demo 3:

DEBUG MODE:

This version includes a D2TM - DEBUG.EXE file. This will enable D2TM into

debugging mode to spit out a lot of information into log.txt

You can use this to see how the pathfinder works, but mostly to track down bugs.

Use TAB-D to see unit/structure ID's and information. Use SHIFT-F4 to destroy

instantly a unit and so on. The DEBUG version has less eye-candy and can run a

bit 'stuttery' due the fact it writes to disk more then the original d2tm exe files.

When launching the D2TM - DEBUG.EXE file you will see the word "DEBUG" on main

screen and you will see the game has a raster of cells, no fancy shroud and paths

drawn for pathfinding.

If you find a bug and you want to replicate it or get more info about this try:

- run with "d2tm - debug.exe"

- get the unit ID (so you know what to look for later), by pressing TAB-D

- use te unit to replicate the bug, or wait until the bug seems to happen, you can

  quickly jump to missions where nescesary (see controls.txt)

- when the bug occurs, wait a bit and quit the game (ESC)

- open up LOG.TXT and try to find the unit , you can search by its name and

  an ID will be shown:

Example:

  [uNIT[8]: Raider Trike - House 3, iCell = 2207, iGoal = 2207 ] 'ORDERED TO MOVE'

Shortly:

  [uNIT[ # ID ] : <name > - House <ID> , iCell = <current cell>, iGoal = <current goal cell> ]

  and a message between ' ' telling some more about its behaviour or messages.

Typcally when a unit is ordered to move, you will see:

  [uNIT[8]: Raider Trike - House 3, iCell = 2207, iGoal = 2207 ] 'ORDERED TO MOVE'

  [uNIT[8]: Raider Trike - House 3, iCell = 2207, iGoal = 2527 ] 'No pathindex & no nextcell, resetting unit'

  [uNIT[8]: Raider Trike - House 3, iCell = 2207, iGoal = 2527 ] 'Create path ... result = 0'

DEBUG mode is only available in DEMO 3 , perhaps in DEMO 4. The question is how much

use it will be for a user / player to use this debug version to track down bugs. If

anyone seriously wants to playtest any latest version, contact me at stefanhen83@planet.nl