Dune II editor with 1.07 support

[stefanhendriks]

Actually such a thing (damaging units to a certain extent by the harsh conditions) is not that weird. In fact, you should be able to upgrade units in order to slow down the decay, which would make it interesting as a gameplay element as well. (a sort of substitute for houses being able to get low/medium/high armor).

[Nyerguds]

well but here it seems to be caused by "production defects", making some units susceptible to decay :P

The main problem I got with it is that it would require you to have a system to repair units much earlier ingame, and it would create the necessity to actively command carryalls to drop your units where you want them to cut on travel times.

[stefanhendriks]

I totally agree on the carry-all part. In fact, Dune 2 is very limited in the usage of carryalls.

[MrFlibble]

Though it would stroke with the information in the manual, that's still pretty awful as gameplay element.

As a matter of fact, the idea that units could decay as well as buildings had occurred to me earlier. It's kinda logical if you think about it, and also this passage from the Harkonnen Mentat is suggestive:

It is impossible to operate machinery in this desert without causing damage. You must have a repair facility to take care of your damaged vehicles.

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

Heh, in my case, I knew Tiberium was harmful to infantry from my friends who had already played the game. Actually, when we first played Red Alert (at one of my friends' birthday, when he got it as present from another friend of ours), we were all pretty surprised that infantry would, in fact, not get damaged from walking in ore fields ;D Ah, those were the days... (although I must confess I was more of a Blizzard fan back then)

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

I think TrueBrain or Segra mentioned somewhere that the function was related to unit production, but it is never actually used in the game, so they did not bother finding out what effects it could produce.

well but here it seems to be caused by "production defects", making some units susceptible to decay :P

We know that the developers have planned only the structures without complete concrete foundations to decay; perhaps this randomness with units was a kind of substitute for concrete with structures, so that not every unit would suffer from decay. Also, LemonFactor values are different for all Houses, and so are Decay values, meaning that some Houses are more sloppy with maintenance than others. Having to repair units more frequently with some of the Houses (as a counter-balance for strong units, as IIRC the Harkonnens have the highest LemonFactor value) would definitely add an edge to game variety, although it is obvious why this feature was dropped after all.

[Nyerguds]

Woo, I got my 10 years of Westwood pack in the mail today, so I finally got a CD version of dune II :)

Now here's an odd thing... the Legend of Kyrandia CD also contained a Dune II installer. So I installed it. But when I ran it, it seemed to crash whenever I skipped the intro. So, I tried my editor on it... and the version was unknown. I ran the Dune exe again, this time not skipping the intro, and found out that it really was just that: the intro, looping until keypress (or mouse click). What I thought was a crash was just a minor graphics glitch on exit.

Obviously, I couldn't leave it at that. I opened the exe in my hex editor, and, bloody right, all game data is in there. So the next version of the editor will be compatible with the completely bloody useless version now dubbed "DEMO-KY" (KY for Kyrandia) ;D

I'll upload the demo soon, and the new editor version. One odd thing I noticed about this demo was that it has MORE files in its files list than ANY of the other known versions. I wonder if this means the game engine is complete and could be reactivated by one of our Dune II hackers... :O

[Nyerguds]

v1.17.3

-Added arrows to show when lists can scroll beyond the currently displayed part

-Implemented a better mechanism for displaying percentages: they are now always displayed both as calculated percentage and as part of 256

-Added a system to jump to the nearest value on the list if the current value in the exe does not appear in the list

-Added support for the demo included on the Legend of Kyrandia CD as "DEMO-KY"

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/dune/dune2edit/d2editor_v1.17.3.zip

The demo from the Legend of Kyrandia CD can be found here:

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/dune/dune2versions/dune2_demo_ky.zip

Edited August 9, 2023 by Nyerguds

[MrFlibble]

Woo, I got my 10 years of Westwood pack in the mail today, so I finally got a CD version of dune II :)

Now here's an odd thing... the Legend of Kyrandia CD also contained a Dune II installer. So I installed it. But when I ran it, it seemed to crash whenever I skipped the intro. So, I tried my editor on it... and the version was unknown. I ran the Dune exe again, this time not skipping the intro, and found out that it really was just that: the intro, looping until keypress (or mouse click). What I thought was a crash was just a minor graphics glitch on exit.

Obviously, I couldn't leave it at that. I opened the exe in my hex editor, and, bloody right, all game data is in there. So the next version of the editor will be compatible with the completely bloody useless version now dubbed "DEMO-KY" (KY for Kyrandia) ;D

I'll upload the demo soon, and the new editor version. One odd thing I noticed about this demo was that it has MORE files in its files list than ANY of the other known versions. I wonder if this means the game engine is complete and could be reactivated by one of our Dune II hackers... :O

Well, what can I say... COOOOOL!!! ;D AWESOME FIND, MAN!!! 8)

v1.17.3

-Added arrows to show when lists can scroll beyond the currently displayed part

-Implemented a better mechanism for displaying percentages: they are now always displayed both as calculated percentage and as part of 256

-Added a system to jump to the nearest value on the list if the current value in the exe does not appear in the list

-Added support for the demo included on the Legend of Kyrandia CD as "DEMO-KY"

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/dune/dune2edit/d2editor_v1.17.3.zip

The demo from the Legend of Kyrandia CD can be found here:

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/dune/dune2versions/dune2_demo_ky.zip

Great, thanks for sharing it with us! ;D

[TrueBrain]

Woo, I got my 10 years of Westwood pack in the mail today, so I finally got a CD version of dune II :)

Now here's an odd thing... the Legend of Kyrandia CD also contained a Dune II installer. So I installed it. But when I ran it, it seemed to crash whenever I skipped the intro. So, I tried my editor on it... and the version was unknown. I ran the Dune exe again, this time not skipping the intro, and found out that it really was just that: the intro, looping until keypress (or mouse click). What I thought was a crash was just a minor graphics glitch on exit.

Obviously, I couldn't leave it at that. I opened the exe in my hex editor, and, bloody right, all game data is in there. So the next version of the editor will be compatible with the completely bloody useless version now dubbed "DEMO-KY" (KY for Kyrandia) ;D

I'll upload the demo soon, and the new editor version. One odd thing I noticed about this demo was that it has MORE files in its files list than ANY of the other known versions. I wonder if this means the game engine is complete and could be reactivated by one of our Dune II hackers... :O

LOL! You are insane :D In a very positive way :)

I noticed before that the Dune2 demos feel more complete .. would be nice to see if the game can be made playable .. insanity++ ;)

[Nyerguds]

Well especially since this demo seems to be based on a much later version of Dune II.

[MrFlibble]

I noticed before that the Dune2 demos feel more complete .. would be nice to see if the game can be made playable

Yeah, that would definitely be cool.

I'll upload the demo soon, and the new editor version. One odd thing I noticed about this demo was that it has MORE files in its files list than ANY of the other known versions. I wonder if this means the game engine is complete and could be reactivated by one of our Dune II hackers... :O

I haven't looked into it extensively yet, but the only extra file I have noticed so far is the demo splash screen called FINAL.CPS inside DUNE.PAK.

[Nyerguds]

Ah. Okay. Then that's probably the Virgin screen it shows after you click to end the intro loop.

That does mean that all the rest is on par with the EU version.

[Nyerguds]

v1.17.4:

Adds a version info screen to show some information about the Dune II version that's being edited.

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/dune/dune2edit/d2editor_v1.17.4.zip

Edited August 9, 2023 by Nyerguds

[Nyerguds]

Version 1.18 released. Guess what it does ;D

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/dune/dune2edit/d2editor_v1.18.0.zip

(As the F1 help function will tell you, use F10 to write the dump)

Edited August 9, 2023 by Nyerguds

[MrFlibble]

Version 1.18 released. Guess what it does ;D

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/dune/dune2edit/d2editor_v1.18.0.zip

(As the F1 help function will tell you, use F10 to write the dump)

Wow, this is kinda cool ;D

I wonder if this means the game engine is complete and could be reactivated by one of our Dune II hackers... :O

Ah. Okay. Then that's probably the Virgin screen it shows after you click to end the intro loop.

That does mean that all the rest is on par with the EU version.

A closer examination of the demo revealed a couple of interesting things. First off, the French voiceovers are completely different from the ones in HS/EU version. It seems that they re-recorded them with either a native speaker or someone with better pronunciation. Unit responses have radio static, as in the English version (while it's missing in both German and earlier French versions). However, it is not advisable to use the new FRENCH.PAK raw, as, for reasons unknown, the text strings in the demo all have extra spaces in the end, resulting in visible displacement of all centered text (e.g. on the sidebar).

Other than that, the demo EXE seems to be based on the EU version (separate German sidebar font, no "load into EMS/XMS"-tagged PAK files), and it seems that they just added a function to loop the intro and go to splash screen when pressing any key.

BTW, have you checked your CD version of Dune II - is it identical to EU or HS version?

[Nyerguds]

Wow, this is kinda cool ;D

Olaf van der Spek asked if my editor could do that... he said it would probably be handy for Dune clones. Well, now it can :)

BTW, have you checked your CD version of Dune II - is it identical to EU or HS version?

My Dune II CD's exe seems to be the HitSquad version, though there's no HitSquad text anywhere on it. Looks like it was more than just HS that used it.

[MrFlibble]

My Dune II CD's exe seems to be the HitSquad version, though there's no HitSquad text anywhere on it. Looks like it was more than just HS that used it.

In fact, I believe that the version that we designated as EU was also released by HitSquad - IIRC, the manual snapshots at Abandonia (provided they are from the same version as the game itself) have the HitSquad logo. So basically, the HS version is an "earlier" trilingual European release, while EU is a more recent one :)

[Nyerguds]

Silly how they never actually bothered to change the game version number.

[edit]

Here's a dump of the rules of all the versions we got so far:

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/dune/d2rules.zip

[MrFlibble]

Silly how they never actually bothered to change the game version number.

Yeah, that's kind of misleading. But on the other hand, the bulk of the code was left unchanged since the US v1.07, and most changes only affected the German and French localizations and/or minor compatibility issues (I guess that's what the removal of the "load into EMS/XMS" flags is about, but could just as well be not intentional).

[Nyerguds]

I just noticed by doing some file compares that the 'HS' version is missing a font file... NEW6PG.FNT - seeing as there's also a NEW6P.FNT, I'm guessing HS is missing the German-specific 6-point font.

I never really looked into the differences between these two... you got any more info on that?

[MrFlibble]

I just noticed by doing some file compares that the 'HS' version is missing a font file... NEW6PG.FNT - seeing as there's also a NEW6P.FNT, I'm guessing HS is missing the German-specific 6-point font.

Exactly, that's a EU-only thing. Other than that, there are differences in French and German voice clips (in the EU version, one or two clips were replaced by copies of different soundbites, e.g. the German "OK" unit response was replaced by a copy of "Jawohl" or something like that). The EU version also has a lot of spelling fixes for French and German, both in the text files and the graphics (e.g. in the HS version, the German text on the map selection screen erroneously spells "Eroberungsgebeit" instead of "Eroberungsgebiet"). The sidebar font in the EU version is narrower, and has umlauts for German. I suppose the differentiation between the NEW6P.FNT and NEW6PG.FNT was introduced to limit the narrow font to German only (since many words do not fit on the sidebar with a broader font), but somehow they decided to use the narrow font for all languages after all, although the NEW6P.FNT does not have umlauts IIRC. (If I'm not mistaken, the Amiga version, which is based on the EU version, retains the original broad sidebar font for English.) Additionally, the EU version has a separate string for the "Load Game" option on the main menu - all other versions use the "Load a game" string which is the same as in the in-game "Options" menu. I suppose this change was introduced because the German and French strings in the "Options" menu are numbered, while the items in the main menu are not. Another difference is that in the HS version, the French postposition of House names (e.g. "Trooper Harkonnen") does not work for player ranks on the score screen; in the EU version this is fixed, and House names are given after the players' ranks in French.

None of the versions, to my knowledge, fixed the internal misspelling of #FOUR.VOC (misspelled as #FOURE.VOC), which resulted in the omission of the number four from the Harkonnen missile launch countdown. Neither did they remove the German entries for Sardaukar and Frigate from the English Harkonnen Mentat database. BTW, the French and German briefings also have some weird mistakes, for example, all Mentats will tell you in the advice section for the first mission to build a Refinery and a Silo, even though Silos are actually unavailable in the first mission. This is something that could not have resulted from faulty translation, but is rather a weird screw-up IMO. One thing I just noticed is that in all versions of FRENCH.PAK, the "Wormsign!" soundbite is missing. On the other hand, both French and German voiceover sets have the equivalent of "Select your next conquest", even though it is never played in the game itself.

[Nyerguds]

interesting... thank you for that analysis.

[MrFlibble]

There also some other minor differences, for example, the HS version has the text "Taking advantage of extended memory. Please wait..." translated into German and French and shown when EMS/XMS is turned on in options. In the EU version, this message is only in English and is never shown anyway, unless you put a "load into EMS/XMS" flag on any of the PAKs.

Also, the HS version (at least, the one submitted by ArrakisResearchCo) does not have the "manual check" copy protection, which was removed in some sloppy way that resulted in a minor graphical glitch: instead of the copy protection dialogue, the game would briefly show scrambled graphics from the map selection screen (I fixed that in my patch).

[Nyerguds]

Hmm... I just did a file compare between my CD version and the HS one in the archive I got from ArrakisResearchCo. This was the result:

Comparing files DUNE2_10Y.EXE and DUNE2_HSARC.EXE

0004E851: B8 E9

0004E852: 01 14

0004E853: 00 06

0004EE70: 8B B8

0004EE71: 46 01

0004EE72: E0 00

I'm assuming that's the crack? The date stamp of that exe DOES say 1995; seems kinda late for a dune II release when mine says 1993. And all other files in ArrakisResearchCo's HitSquad archive DO have the 1993 date stamp.

anyway, I've updated my Dune II exes pack with all original exes, with original date stamp, and also replaced the HS one with the one from my own CD, so these exes are all 100% original and unedited:

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/dune/d2exes.rar

[MrFlibble]

Comparing files DUNE2_10Y.EXE and DUNE2_HSARC.EXE

0004E851: B8 E9

0004E852: 01 14

0004E853: 00 06

0004EE70: 8B B8

0004EE71: 46 01

0004EE72: E0 00

I'm assuming that's the crack?

Well, it most probably is :)

[Nyerguds]

v1.18.1:

-Fixed an error that made the header redraw in bright white

-ini dump now puts the version in the filename

-Added 'n' shortcut for ini dump

-Added 'F9' shortcut for version information

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/dune/dune2edit/d2editor_v1.18.1.zip

Edited August 9, 2023 by Nyerguds