Dune II editor with 1.07 support

[MrFlibble]

To dispel the impression that I posted the above here for no obvious reason, I was wondering if it were not impossible to incorporate the tech tree code exceptions in your editor - to allow to modify the House/side, the level at which the exception kicks in etc.?

[Nyerguds]

I'm afraid not... the editor only supports continuing lists of data, not sporadically spread out bytes to change in specific ways.

I have expanded my editor to include stuff like the houses, file lists and commands, because these are also data lists of the same kind as the units and structures ones, but these code exceptions in the prerequisites functions are simply not the kind of data the editor was meant to edit.

I'd have to add a new list item in the main units/structures/etc list for every single one of these exceptions, which is kinda ridiculous if you ask me. We have the knowledge to hack them now, let's leave it at that.

[MrFlibble]

Ah, alright :) I suspected it would be troublesome.

[MrFlibble]

When I converted the Raider Trike into the Sardaukar Trooper in Dune 2 eXtended, no matter what I changed in the stats, the explosion graphics remained the same as with all light vehicles. On the other hand, when I experimented with converting the Deviator into a Fremen Fedaykin (before I figured out how to make the "new" sides susceptible to deviation), the explosion graphics was gone. I thought that the light vehicle explosion could have been set in the UNIT.EMC file, but maybe it's hardcoded somewhere in the EXE?

[Nyerguds]

The explosion is one of the options in my editor, isn't it? Or do you mean, what determines WHICH explosion they get?

[MrFlibble]

No matter what is set in the editor, the explosion is the same for all light vehicles, and remains as such regardless of what editable stats were changed. Also, all wheeled vehicles have an infantry spawn chance of 25%, yet I don't remember any infantry ever being spawned from light vehicles at all, so there are probably certain exceptions.

BTW, the animation you called "Debris???" seems to be a wheel from a light vehicle - maybe they intended it to fly off in a random direction, kinda like in TS? :)

[Nyerguds]

Heh, would've been cool.

[dvalin]

heyo, as I wasn't able to figure out how to run your editor under wine in the past,

and rediscovered the issue again when trying tonight:

$ wine d2editor.exe

"No way to get console screen buffer info"

I figured that I'd share how trivial it was to get working with others,

just execute it with 'wineconsole d2editor.exe' rather than 'wine d2editor.exe'.

Pretty simple :)

[Nyerguds]

wine? Why not just recompile it in Linux?

Oh right, then you can't use the nice ASCII frames ;D

Anyway, thanks for the info :)

[dvalin]

ahh, so it's been fixed since last time I tried it then, earlier I made it compile,

but had trouble running it and pascal isn't really a language I know and wanna know enough to fix stuff..

good to see others did though :)

[Nyerguds]

well bluehappybyte sent me a PM telling me what I should fix... :P

I also implemented the non-F-key-shortcuts in the program, as he requested.

[Nyerguds]

I made a full changes overview of all released versions of the editor. This has been added into the zipfile of the latest version. It can also be accessed here:

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/dune/dune2edit/d2edhist.txt

This document shows the full version history of Nyerguds' Dune II Editor:

v1.17.2
-Added pure UTF-8 frames set in the source code
-Added some more help items
-Added normal alphabet shortcuts to all special functions, with bright colour
 indication of the shortcuts in the footer line
-Fixed a bug in the Voice Prefix Letter editing box that made it try to show
 the type help and the old value on the same spot
-If something has only a single prerequisite or owner, the string in the values
 column is no longer abbreviated
-Included math and sysutils libraries to replace homebrewn workarounds with
 official functions
-Fixed file types to include PAK files loaded into XMS/EMS
-Added more identified options

v1.17.1
-Houses category: decay factors implemented
-Implemented a logic to allow list-based data types to show the bare value
 in the data column, if the value in the exe is not present in the list.
-Fixed inconsistencies in the source code
-New item-specific Help system
-Editing frame now shows the address in the exe at which that data is located

v1.17.0
-Added the ability to read the action scripts for structures

v1.16.3
-Files category: file types list implemented

v1.16.2
-Implemented Files category

v1.16.1
-Internal optimizations
-Minor changes to footer and header of the program
-Better support for version detection in renamed exe files

v1.16.0
-Internal optimizations: general data list system implemented

v1.15.3
-Actions category: infantry responses implemented

v1.15.2
-Actions category: sidebar mode implemented correctly
-Actions category: action interrupt mode implemented

v1.15.1
-first attempt at identifying the options of the Actions category

v1.15.0
-Actions (unit commands) category implemented

v1.14.3
-Added support for the graphics list of Dune II v1.00 and the demo version

v1.14.2
-fixed an error that crashed the editor when opening a 4-byte value in decimal
 editing mode
-fixed an error in the saving of booleans that sometimes cleared the entire
 byte when changing one bit
-rewrote the code to convert negative integers to 4-byte array so it works
 correctly for large values
-Identified "Unknown 039" as "default AI command", and changed it to the
 "Command" data type
-Changed handling of the Commands to allow a "None" value (-1) in the list
-Added a note to the type description of the Graphics to inform people that
 value "0" (normally the mouse cursor) is also used as 'None' in some cases

1.14.1:
-Fixed hex comparison mode so the comparison value updates after editing
-Added graphics display modes.

v1.14.0
-Implemented unit graphics lists, effectively enabling graphics modding

v1.13.2
-Implemented the House letter data type
-Implemented the superweapon data type

v1.13.1
-When you have a bit switch selected, hexadecimal mode's compare column
 now shows the value of the selected bit instead of the entire byte value
-hexadecimal mode now uses binary editing when you have a bit switch selected
-When using binary editing mode on a bit switch, you will automatically have
 the correct bit selected.

v1.13.0 (unreleased)
-Implemented data comparison in hexadecimal (research) mode
-The editor now uses multi-dimensional arrays for everything related to the
 main types list

v1.12.0
-Implemented Houses category

v1.11.1
-Percentages added as data type
-Added more identified options

v1.11.0
-Added the final system to show all bit switches in the normal options list
-Added more identified options

v1.10.0
-Added a more general system for bit switches
-Added more identified options

V1.09.2:
-Added the first bit switch options (graphics modifiers).

V1.09.1
-Added support for renamed exe files

V1.09.0
-Fixed a bug which caused the program to turn any negative integer input into -1
-Added coloured interface

V1.08.1
-adjusted the variable name of Unknown 036 to "Structure gfxID"
-grouped some bytes together

V1.08
-Support added for Dune II 1.07 HitSquad release version, with label "1.07-HS"
-Changed the label for the original US 1.07 version to "1.07-US"

v1.07.2
-Undid the bug fix of the byte writing method of v1.07.1, and fixed the REAL
 bug in the hexadecimal input method.

v1.07.1
-Fixed a bug which caused the program to write nothing but zeroes
 when saving a value of less than 4 bytes in the hex editor
-Fixed the bug where a "press any key to close the frame" situation would still
 execute the editor command of the key if it was an arrow key or F-key

v1.07:
-Changed version label for 3-language version exe from "1.07-CD" to "1.07-EU"
-Added the ability to edit a value from the units/structures list
-Pressing F2-F3-F4 in editing mode also cancels the edit now
-Pressing F11 toggles Full Hexadecimal Mode
-Supports the demo exe file

v1.06:
-Added decimal editing (F4) for all data types
-Improved internal procedures for reading & writing bytes
-Added sounds list
-Added compatibility with european v1.07 (CD version)

v1.05:
-Further optimized the layout drawing time
-Binary editing implemented.

v1.04:
-Fixed a bug that caused only one byte of the construction options to be read
 and written
-Fixed a bug that caused some messy bits to be written when changing
 prerequisites lists.
-Changed single bytes from unsigned to signed
-Wrote a little algorythm to do a smart abbreviation on the structures strings
 for the prerequisites display
-Drastically optimized the layout drawing time

v1.03:
-Hex editing implemented
-Type-sensitive help-function implemented
-Ego-trip screen implemented ;)
-widened third frame to make it touch the right-hand edge of the screen.
-Boolean editing implemented

v1.02:
-Added compatibility with Dune II v1.00

v1.01:
-Bug with negative numbers fixed
-Implemented editing for prerequisites 

v1.00c:
-Implemented editing for movement types
-Implemented editing for integer types
-Implemented editing for unit factory construction options
-Implemented editing for sidebar commands
-Implemented editing for string references

v1.00b:
-Identified a lot more options for the structures
-Ownership editing implemented

v1.00a:
-Structures category implemented
-Adapted the program to make it read the units and structures list straight
 from the exe file, using the name references
-All unit and structure data is read from the exe
-Implemented data structure for reading ownership values.

v0.03:
-References to strings work

v0.02:
-Editing popup box implemented

v0.01:
-Layout and navigation system

[MrFlibble]

Cool :) (The [code][/code] tags give a very small font that is hard to read though)

[Nyerguds]

meh. I linked to the .txt too anyway :P

[MrFlibble]

[quote][/quote] tags still have a nicer font :)

[Nyerguds]

But they don't scroll... it's a REALLY long list, you know. Complain to whomever made that CODE font so small then :P

[MrFlibble]

I'm not complaining, I just noted that the font is small and hard to read (for me, at least). If you are absolutely positive it is better than quoting (I didn't know that it does not allow for scrolling of long paragraphs), so be it :)

(BTW, I wonder if using the [code] tags in combination with the [size] tags would give any decent results...)

[MrFlibble]

Nyerguds, I think you'll be glad to know that your editor has helped the guys from a Russian forum who study the Sega version of Dune 2 to better understand the parts regarding unit and structure data :) Apparently, major parts of the code were left unmodified when the game was ported, and many data structures are quite comparable to their PC counterparts. The Sega version also makes use of EMC files, and EMC editors by Minniatian and Segra were put to good use as well :)

[Nyerguds]

Ooh, nice to hear. Always glad to know I helped some people in some way :D

[MrFlibble]

These guys (btw, topos84 who visited us here some time ago is one of them) are quite active analysing the code of the Sega version and developing modding tools (in the first place, a map/mission editor) :)

[Nyerguds]

Woo, they even used my F11 research mode. Too awesome :)

[edit]

He called it "dune2 unit editor" though. That's wrong :(

[MrFlibble]

He called it "dune2 unit editor" though. That's wrong :(

I'll tell 'em to fix it :)

[Edit] Done :)

[Nyerguds]

Not sure what he was saying about unknown 32, but the research on that value (which I seem to have overlooked and never added to the editor) is here:

http://forum.dune2k.com/index.php?topic=20456.msg352447#msg352447

I now added to the editor as "AI build priority" now, btw.

Next version will also have:

-A better mechanism for displaying percentages: always displayed both as 'part of 256' AND as rounded percentage: "77/256 (30%)"

-A system to jump to the nearest value on the list if the current value in the exe does not appear in the list (also useful for percentages)

-little arrows indicating if a list can be scrolled (up and down) beyond the currently displayed part.

[MrFlibble]

Ti_ did some testing on the Sega version, and he believes that LemonFactor could have originally been used to make some of the produced units take damage by simply moving (i.e. affected by the harsh desert conditions similar to buildings). Tests have shown exactly this kind of effect.

[Nyerguds]

Though it would stroke with the information in the manual, that's still pretty awful as gameplay element. Reminds me of C&C1 tiberium... when I first moved some infantry through it I was all "Huh, infantry loses health just by MOVING in this game? How lame..."

Some mission briefings later EVA told me to keep my troops out of the tiberium. Aheh. :P

About that LemonFactor... did any of the resident hackers ever find out if it's actually used anywhere in the PC version?

[edit]

Wait, you mean 'production defects' that made SOME produced units decay in the harsh elements? lol!