DEMO 4 - progress

[stefanhendriks]

I do intent to make some vibration map in memory so worms are attracted to heavy vibrations and so on. So heavy movement causes vibrations and attracts worms, yes.

Although harvesting is a dangerous thing, there should also be more reward then if a harvester succeeds. (more money perhaps). And, then the request of Josh should be added as well i think, for every harvester lost , a new one should be replaced. It will slow down your spice production significantly when eaten, but it will not leave you without harvesters and too many refineries.

So, basicly:

- units standing still on sand = not attracting worms

- units moving/being busy on sand = vibrating

Depending on unit type the vibration can be done. I will set a variable in game.ini then.

The voices in d2tm are the same as in dune 2, though some are missing. However, if you choose Ordos, you hear Ordos voices. Not for units though, as they are the same (as in dune 2).

[vidiware]

A production queue of 5 would be nice (like the Tiberium Sun). A small queue removes the "forget-to-build"-syndrome in the periods with little spice (where you're doing everything else but waiting for enough spice to build units.)

It would be very nice if you finnish the total singleplayer mode in the demo 4.

PS! Remember to visit www.vidiware.com to get music addons :P If any good musicians want to make a total new soundtrack they're very welcome to do it.

[Woofna]

Hey! This demo is the sole thing that brought me to these boards, I'm very glad of it...

if I might interject... I love the old Dune 2 feel.. lets keep it as close as possible, eh? Perhaps like playing Dune 2, but in better control. I'd rather not have queues for units.

The starport has no limit, and I really like that, so it should not be altered...

having trouble accepting troopers being so powerful. And the rocket turrets appear to be a lot weaker.. used to be two of their missiles would kill off a missile tank.

Also, how do you deploy an MCV?

Hope this works well!

[The_Beast]

I not sure if at the moment bulding speed is increased by bulding numbers.

Building queues sould be based on number of factories and paid before, money is liberate if canceled

My suggestion

One Yard/Factory(left menu base icons) normal bulding time for item(Rightmenu base/unit icons)         No building queues

Two Yard/Factory(left menu base icons) normal bulding time for item(Rightmenu base/unit icons) - 25 %  5 building queues

Tree Yard/Factory(left menu base icons) normal bulding time for item(Rightmenu base/unit icons) - 50 % 10 building queues

Starport queues maxed to 12 ( Computer AI should use starport to )

Are these freatures are planned?

Sell function

Power off function (on each building)

Rally point (for each unit factory)

Select the main factory(if more than one)

ornithopter : they stay in the hight techfacility, you see a new icone (with the number of ornithopter disponible), when you click on it you can select a target(or maby a zone[like an artilery]) to attack then when the task is done they return to the hightech facility or patrole the selected territory. [Orny shoud use gaz to limit their flight time].

Custom cursor for

deploy(mcv,[detonate devastator?]),

return (harvester),

selected (one or more) damaged unit over repair bay

attack/move

force attack/forcemove

[Dunenewt]

Put in a delay for the autoscroll as mentioned before!

[Andrew]

- Units can gain experience:

  - no stars = no experience

  - yellow stars (max 3)

  - orange stars (max 3)

  - red stars (max 3) -> max experience: twice damage done

  (*) Stars are gained by kills; infantry kills give units 1/10th star experience.

      bigger units 2/10th star.

  Units with more experience will deliver bigger hits on enemy units.

That will be very interesting to see implemented.

So do you get up to 3 yellow stars, then it upgrades to one oranges star, then 2, 3 orange, then 1 red?

Or are the stars pertinent to each unit type (say infantry only use yellow stars?)?

[stefanhendriks]

About experience:

For each kill a unit makes, depending on the unit type they kill, experience is gained. Experience is showed in an amount of stars. A unit can gain 9 stars in total, but to prevent showing 9 stars, i have made 3 different colors:

- 3 yellow

- 3 orange

- 3 red

so, 1 red star, means the unit has actually 7 stars collect (meaning it will do (7/10 * damage)). When a unit has 9 stars, it does almost twice as much damage as usual , compared to a unit without stars.

About building:

In demo 3, (was even in demo 1...) , the more structures you have, the faster you can build. Try this with light factories, etc. It works definatly ;). You can also set a primary building already.

Currently i do not see a real priority in queuing stuff, so i do not yet spend time on this to implement. There is another feature that slipped into demo 4 which will change the face of the game a bit, but certainly gives it (imo) more eyecandy.

Ornithopters:

I intent to make them more powerful or useful.

Starport:

I would love to let the AI use them, but there is no dune 2m ission where the AI uses a starport.

Palaces:

I will implement these for demo 4.

Rally point:

Should be in demo 4, as i find it very handy as well.

Force attack/move:

I will add these.

Deploying the MCV:

Yes, this should be done as well, just lacking the time to finish these tiny features i guess. ;)

ETA release:

No date planned, or estimated. Though demo 4 will be even more then you will expect.

[Andrew]

Rally point:

Should be in demo 4, as i find it very handy as well.

Sweet!!

Nothing more annoying than accidentally selecting a harvester when selecting lots of units.

About experience, why not make a 10th star, which would be white or something to show its maxed. To me it would seems simpler to know that with 3 yellow it does 30% more damage, 1 orange 40%, 2 orange 50% etc.

I figured if you got 9, why not 10? (easier fractions to comprehend) ;)

Just thinking, maybe turrets can get experience? (you could think that people man the turrets, so the more they kill the better they get). Would make custom missions cool where the enemy base can start with turrets with max experience.

Starport:

I would love to let the AI use them, but there is no dune 2m ission where the AI uses a starport.

But there's no experience in Dune 2 eithor..

[stefanhendriks]

i actually did not think of a 10th star. I could add one, no problem, but it looks odd i think. I will experiment with that.

About starport; i can do an ai for it, but there will be no ai used in the dune 2 missions. But for skirmish it will be surely used then. So , lets say it will be added, but only after skirmish is added as well ;)

Turrets & Experience, thought  off it, but no. Would make units quite useless then. Turrets are easier to maintain, therefor easier to gain experience (ie, units in mission 5 are not repairable, etc). But who knows ;)

[stefanhendriks]

List updated (see 1st post)

[Dunenewt]

Put in a delay for the autoscroll as mentioned before!

Meh, please respond.

[stefanhendriks]

:P

Ok because you ask, there is a delay already though it is too fast. If you mean a specific delay before there is ANY scrolling and such, also possible to do but is not that high on my priority list. I do have it noted though.

[vidiware]

What about landing-pads like the CnC games (and Emperor)?

Let the ornies load a more powerful missile/rocket at the landingpad, and make them controllable (when target is dead, return to the landing pad) and repaired. If you not have the landingpad, the ornie should behave like Dune 2 and randomly attack buildings

[stefanhendriks]

List updated again.

[heavy trooper]

Hi Stefan!

The experience-system is absolutely great!!

And as I could see, you added some nice new features like the caryall blowing up sand when taking off or landing!

Now there are nearly no wishes left that you didn' realize in the game.

As I could see, drackbolt is also working on a dune II clone withe network support. Perhaps he could help you with the multiplayer-mode?  ???

I can't wait til demo 4 is finished!

:D KUTGW!  :D

[stefanhendriks]

DrackBolt is coding the game in a totally different language; therefor i don't think he can help me code-wise. I did a tiny research for network coding, but it will be tough.

No more features left to add? I have some in my mind.

[Sfon]

I have a feature in mind too: saving or pausing. Either one will do. I strongly dislike having to start a mission over because I had to go answer the door.

--Edit--

When you win a mission in D2TM, it doesn't play the proper victory music. Each house has their own seperate victory music. Is it that you are having trouble finding the Ordos victory music? I extracted and cleaned up the Dune 2 midis for my own use some time ago, and I am pretty sure I remember the Ordos victory music being in a different location than the Atriedes and Harkonnen ones. Also, it sounds quite different, which makes it even harder to find. I had to listen to it in-game and compare it to what I extracted in order to find and label it correctly.

[stefanhendriks]

For winning a mission i did not listen to a house-depended win music, i just play randomly a music file.

For losing it is house-depended.

Saving/Loading should be in as well.

[MrFlibble]

I'm positive Dune 2 has three House-dependent victory songs yet only one defeat tune, unless we're talking about the Genesis version, where the defeat tune had three separate variants fro each House.

[attachment deleted by Gobalopper]

[The_Beast]

Any news about the progress stefan ?

[nemafakei]

Patience. I'm sure Stefan will update the first post as and when things get done to his satisfaction (last update was only 2 days ago, incidentally.). The more time Stefan has to spend saying "no, I'm working on a bug" or "yes, but tying up loose ends that are invisible to the user" or just "no, I've had other things to do", the less time he has for D2TM.

[stefanhendriks]

Indeed nema.

In fact, here is what i've been up to so far:

- investigate possible networking libraries

I have found some interesting libraries, the problem is that my system does not compile with the needed source files. This is (partially) because i am using MSCV 6.x instead of Visual .NET. I have .NET though, i never really worked with it because at that time Allegro did not compile with it and so forth.

Also i have to reinstall my laptop and reorganize my desktop computer. I code on both machines so i have double backups. But to be entirely sure, i have burned all data on a dvd as well. The entire D2TM project, all files i have collected through the years and so forth take up 1.2 gigabyte. Not bad huh?

Since i am trying out .NET now, i have to re-install it, re-setup all libraries i already have. Make sure, everything works ok. Then try to add a new library (networking one) and see if it compiles. If it does i try to continue coding where i left off...

... i made a start for skirmish gaming, adjusted my menu code here and there and i am thinking about restyling some code as well, but that is not yet a priority.

[stefanhendriks]

Some update:

- after a few hours of work, i got D2TM compiling fine on MSVC 7. Also working fine with the other libraries

I am also able to compile RakNet (a networking library) and detect if the computer is able to create a server or to function as client. Its simple, but now the source files compiles and the dll work with the program, it means in theory that networking is possible as longas you know how to code it. So don't expect anything, this will take a while.

I will focus on skirmish and other features i CAN implement. After that i will focus on multiplayer and that would need serious testing...

[Andrew]

Will you make a map editor? or would that be too hard to make for now :)

Just wondering if you want people to make maps to test skirmish with.

Testing sounds like fun.

[stefanhendriks]

Well, i do intent to make a tiny map editor for the skirmish maps, as their format is very simple. It contains only terrain data and starting locations. All other stuff should be decided by D2TM itself when you setup the skirmish game.

I can't promise i do deliver a map editor with demo 4, but it would not take that long to make,