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Dune 12 (a mod)


vota dc

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When I was younger (in 2000) I wrote with my little brother a silly novel of 60 pages,that is Dune 12.It is based more on the games than the book,but it is not serious,just a parody.The Harkonnen want the spice because they use it for beauty mask,Atreides are drunk or doctors,the Ordos are not based on the mafia but they are based on the Swiss (I mean they are good traders,they support the Pope,they are excellent soldiers),the Bene Gesserit are just useless charlatans,there are the Tremend instead Fremen and are just poor people that live underground,there are sancats instead sandworms,etc.

With this mod I want to bring the book on Dune 2000 game.

The mod is incomplete for some reasons:I haven't found a way to implement sandcats and the strings are unchanged for now.

And there are also other problems:Tibed doesn't work with 1.06,and in my pc the Dune 2000 mission editor doesn't work (I don't know if the guilty is Dune 2000 version or Vista),so there are some problems:for example in my book Ordos are allied with the Emperor-Pope and Emperor together against the infedels but since I can't mod the missions you will have to fight against the Emperor!

These are the changes:

Light Infantry is different for each house:

-Atreides,Smugglers and Mercenay use the standard Light Infantry

-Ordos,Emperor and Fremen use a faster infantry with 900 armor (instead 600) and better rof,but it cost 75 solaris instead 50.I modded Fremen to implement this.

-Harkonnen infantry is well armored (700) but is really slow (192 instead 256) and has a bad rof.However they are cheaper:40 solaris instead 50.I modded thumper to implement this.

Troopers now have a better attack against tanks,but worse against light vehicles.They are better against the infantry,but still inefficient.Their speed now is really pathetic.

Trike are only a little faster than Quad,but they cost only 200.

Raider are as fast as the carryalls,but they still cost 350.

Quad now have the same range of combat tanks,but their bonus against light armors make them excellent against missile launchers.

Ordos Combat Tanks are just a little slower than quad.

Atreides Combat Tanks are really slow (a little faster than siege tanks) they have worse armor than the original game (2000 instead 2100),a really slow rate of turn...but they cost only 600 and they are really fast to produce.

Harkonnen Combat Tanks are faster than Atreides tanks,but they are still slow.However their armor is huge:3500.They cost 800 instead of 700.

Siege Tanks are a little more efficient against heavy armors (warhead changed from 20 to 25).

Missile Tanks have a 25% bonus against heavy armors,but they are more vulnerable to Quad.

Sonic Tanks are faster and have a better range (the same of siege tanks).The armor is 2500 instead 3000,but now is easier for them to reach the enemy.

Devastators have a decent range,still short however.

Deviators have a better range (same of Sonic Tanks) and are faster.Their gas is quite effective against infantry.

Ornithopters are slower and do 50% less damage,however airstrike requires half time to recharge.

Saboteurs are faster.

Death Hands have heavy armor instead of none.That means that missile launchers can intercept them?I don't tested it.

Tremends are not stealthed but they are produced (only one at time) ten time faster.They have huge armor (1500) and the same speed of Harkonnen Combat Tanks.

Sardaukars have 2000 armor and a better rof of the Tremens,but they are just fast as regular infantry.They selfheal.

Sandworms are faster than many vehicles such siege tanks or harvesters (like Dune 2).

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I forget about turrets!

In normal game they aren't so useful.

Cannon turrets now are cheaper and they require 30 energy instead 50.Harkonnen cannon turrets are more expensive but they have a better rof:they are even a little useful against infantry,but they are nothing against massed troopers.

Rocket turrets require the same energy,but they are cheaper.Like missile tanks they have a 25% bonus against combat tanks.Atreides rocket turrets have a better rof.

For aistrikes there is not longer half damage:combined with speed reduction was too much for poor Atreides.Every bomb now does 300 damage instead of 400 (standard).

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In my original project I tought to modify the grenadier for a sonic soldier,so small sonic weapons are possible.

But 1.06 doesn't work with Tibed and since you can't add any unit,you can have only 7 type of soldiers:in this mod 3 basic infantry,the trooper,the engineer,the sardaukar and the tremend.

For small sonic weapon you have only to mod an existing weapon (you can't add any weapon).

The infantry drop I think is impossible...at least with Tibed.

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Harkonnen Combat Tank cost now is 850.

Combat Tanks and Cannon Turrets are more effective against infantry.

Bullet weapons (light infantry,sardaukar,tremend,trike and raider) now are 50% more effective against infantry,but they are less effective against wood armor.So light jeeps like the trike are real infantry killer.Bullet weapons are more effective against tanks and light armor:massed light infantry can harm a combat tank more easily and is more dangerous for a quad.

With the 50 bonus of bullet weapons now Tremen and Sardaukar can wipe all the other infantry with only two shots,only Ordos infantry require three shots.

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By saying tremend, you mean fremen right? Did you actually change their names too?

Can we have a file to playtest your current progress? Info from here would be very nice.

Yesterday i began playing dune2000 in hardest difficulty settings with harkonnen. The game AI is... dated... to weak. Its frustrating when you select a group and send them to enemy base, only to notice they try to go there directly, come to a hill, begin moving along it, trying to find a way.

Or the square based system pereventing your own units to reach combat. The inability to select same units in the view or map like red alert 2 has. The inability to give a waypoint for your buildings.

And when you increase the difficulty, all you get is slower build times, higher build costs... Enemy ai is still weak. The units are "tremen"deously unbalanced... just pump out as much as trikes as you can, head for enemy harvest zone...

Really, what you can expect from such a game when enemy begins his base build, with many units guarding it, and you try to reach him from scratch, yet it still cant handle you. Even in hardest setting.

Sure, it was a little bit difficult in the beginning, i had to smash some infantry with mu harvester. After that, it is a "waiting game" and the only real difficulty is tyring to manuever your units. And after tanks show up, you dont need anything else because they can crush infantry. I am still having difficulties understanding this. But i know its hard to balance things, especially as i am toying with dune 2 nowadays.

However, i see dune2000 as a wasted project. Westwood could have hit to top with it, yet they wasted it under red alert 2. And when they tried "emperor"... well it was much better, but still same kinds of problems existed, and those awfull movies... Where in the end they put a crown on their heads... The crown is made of plastic, and some pixels are applauding "the emperor of the known universe who wears a plastic crown"

Even in dune 2 endings, the emperor was really in a palace. It shouldnt have been so hard. Wasted...

An now it is us, a handfull of dune fans who try to turn them into something exciting. Some guy had even made a mode where you could order your carryalls around.

Oh, and the awfull, terrible spice and worm in dune 2000. The warm is like a swarm of grey pixels who sometimes buzz some ligthning, and the spice is just the orange version without any movement. You expect to hear some kind of "wind" when you click the windtrap right? maybe some water dropping...

And the units... the extremely deep characters and environments of dune is what makes it so strong, yet you create units who share the same sounds all. There is no difference between a light infantry and a rocket infantry, no difference between a tank who began the game with you and killed 20 enemy units and the newly produced tank from factory. No difference in your buildings... No difference in playstyle...

You expect ordos to use raider trikes? Not until final patch where they gain stealth, and then? They should have been merchant kings, bureucrats and money lords, yet they get the same price for starport units, they create all same kinds of units.

Harkonnen with their crushing force can crush my a... whatever. They dont play differently then atreides.

Overall, its the same kind of nostalgic thrust that keeps me still playing these games, and the works of such a handfull of fans who try to do some "quality"

Thus i wait your mod with hopes.

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I can swipe the string,but I can't change,so there are still Fremen and not Tremend.I think that the strings are tied to the unit art:I changed the thumper unit art and the game name is light infantry as I desired.

I'm agree for Dune 2000 as a wasted project:it is just Red Alert reskinned for Dune.The scissor,rock and paper is failed due to the overpowered combat tanks.The worst thing is surely the worm because is too slow:in Dune 2 I was scared by the worm before the turret mission (mission 5) and with Atreides I was scared even in mission 9 because units didn't fire at the sandworm and it was faster than any tank.

About Emperor I think that Harkonnen movies (and Soviet Red Alert 1) are the best of Westwood games.Even the campaign is a masterpiece....until the end.The battle with the Emperor Worm is good and the final movie is decent,but....is the same thing with all the houses.It is good for Atreides,but simply I can't accept the Harkonnen as savoir of the universe:in Dune 2 endings you can see how the Atreides are noble (they process the emperor),the Ordos are insidious (they use the emperor as a pawn),the Harkonnen are evil (they kill the emperor and his poor advisor that in the Atreides ending seems a good person that is not agree with the emperor deceive)...well in Emperor there is no difference (the Ordos are still insidious because the ghola emperor,but it is explained before the ending) and in Dune 2000 is even worse because the only difference is how the emperor is killed.

Now I made other changes:

-You can't order trikes from starport:if you want a good scout build the light factory.

-Instead trikes you can order troopers from starport:it will help in Ordos mission 6 because the troopers are just too slow to reach te starport from your base.

-Harkonnen CAN'T train troopers,they can only order from the starport.This could sound very anti dune,but in Dune 12 book there is not difference between infantry (there is only light infantry and the elite infantry like Sardaukar) and I tought:if the Harkonnen have better tanks why they should focus on antitank soldiers?I hope this will balance the game.The Harkonnen based faction of the Empire can train troopers instead,so be prepared!

-Troopers have a better range:combat tank are not so invicible.

-Gun Turrets are radically changed:now they are really infantry killers but they are quite weak against tanks.

-Crushing Sardaukar now does 25% less damage,but.......EVERY infantry (save saboteurs and engineers) now have the same ability!A Harkonnen desperate player could train lots of his junk soldiers and for every one of them squished the enemy combat tanks will lose 150 energy.Ordos are less advantaged since their cheaper infantry cost 75.

I tried to give temporary stealth to raiders (I don't like permanent stealth for them because they are cheap) but I discovered that I can't give temporary stealth without the saboteur ability....and this is very unbalancing.

Dune 12.zip

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tibed can edit 1.6........

Since I tried many times and every time it crashed I tought it was impossible.Now I tried again and I found the error:I have to add the bin files in the backup directory of tibed,else tibed will ignore new units.Thanks for the information,soon I will release a new version of the mod compatible with 1.06.

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Waiting for it! I really need something like that... Yesterday i played another level of harkonnen at hard setting v1.07. for the first time the computer was able to beat me, because of my untis superior pathfinding capabilities. When i noticed that backup did not came yet, my combat tanks were fighting inside enemy territory for almost 10 minutes, all in red hp and burning. (micro helps extend thier lifetime) I looked at my base and saw them all stuck in the bottom of my bases hill area. they couldnt succeed.. Neither could i. All my units died, some big amount of atre combat tanks and quads arrive and i reload the game. A tiny hope? ... maybe... maybe...

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I noticed that some changes,like the improved range of the devastator were already made for the 1.06.

Now infantry crushed cause again 200 damage to tanks,the Harkonnen of course haven't many problems in crushing.

-Harkonnen Combat Tank now cost 900 and has 3600 hp.

-Atreides Combat Tank has a slower rate of fire:that means the Atreides will lose tank battles if are stupid enough to build only combat tanks.Instead they should use their combat tanks as a shield (they cost only 600 and they can sustain a hit more compared the more expensive Ordos Combat Tank) and rely on support units such troopers and missile launchers.

-Missile launcher has a faster rate of fire.

-Increased the trooper range:is the same of the combat tank.

-Increased the light infantry and fremen range.

-Increased the light jeeps (like the trike) range:they still outrange light infantry.

-Increased sardaukar range against infantry:they outrange all infantry saved the troopers.

-The Atreides have the stealthed fremen that are the fastest infantry.They can be squished without damage (because the invisibility byte is the same...I choose stealth over the sardaukar squish damage).

-There are again the non stealthed fremen for the fremen faction (and crushing them is painful).

-The Ordos light infantry cannot be outranged by light jeeps and has a bonus against light and wood armor (just like the sardaukar,but little),I used Harkonnen Sardaukar for these soldiers.

And now the big news:

-Added the grenadier for the Harkonnen.It cost only 60 but has a very little range,because it is too stupid outrange the enemy rifle with hand grenades...use rock instead the rifle then!They are fast as regular infantry (so faster than the harkonnen one) and do 300 base damage (450 against infantry,90 against tanks,240 against quad):they are strong,but the problem is reach the enemy!

-Every house have total different light jeeps:

1)The Atreides have the trike that cost only 150,but has the same speed of the quad,a pathetic-for a jeep-rate of fire (35) and only 600 armor.

2)Harkonnen,Emperor,Mercenary have the Raider that cost 350 but has double armor than trike and an excellent rate of fire (15),and it is faster.

3)Ordos and Smugglers have the Stealth Raider that cost 350 and is the fastest vehicle,however it has only 900 armor and 20 rate of fire.

Dune 12.zip

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Since I tried many times and every time it crashed I tought it was impossible.Now I tried again and I found the error:I have to add the bin files in the backup directory of tibed,else tibed will ignore new units.Thanks for the information,soon I will release a new version of the mod compatible with 1.06.

no prob, maybe you wanna help .mis research?

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I noticed that is possible add new warhead with tibed.

These are the changes:

-The harvester cost only 1000,but has the regular tank armor,so it is more easy to destroy it.Also remember that harvesters can't run from sandworms in this mod!

-Harkonnen tanks (both Devastator and combat tank) have another type of armor that make them IMMUNE to bullets.You can send 100 trike against them but they will lose.The new armor also make a little more sturdy against other tanks,but is more vulnerable against rockets and bazooka.Why the new armor?Simply because if I added more damage for the missile tank,the result is that the Atreides Combat Tank and the Ordos Combat Tank are wiped with a single hit.Now the missile tank does the same damage (600) but does 125% damage against regular tanks and 175% damage against harkonnen tanks.

-Squishing is more painful for tanks.

-Increased range of missile tanks,but decreased their rate of fire.

-Increased speed of MCV.

-Increased health of Siege Tank.

-Increased cannon turret range (that is the anti-infantry turret)

-Engineers cost 250 instead 400.Also Engineers have the same graphic  and speed of light infantry...and the same firepower.Using engineers to combat is not cost effective,but the enemy doesn't know who are the soldiers and who are the engineers!The Atreides are the best to use this deceiving tactict because Ordos have faster light infantry and Harkonnen a slower infantry while Atreides engineers and light infantry have the same speed.

-I changed the string:there are not more Fremen,but Tremend like my book.The stealthed fremen are called Tremend Commando and the non stealthed one is Tremend Warrior.The Tremend Warrior cost 150 solaris and can be built by Ordos and Atreides.The Tremend Warrior use two weapons:a sniper rifle that can outrange every soldier save the Sardaukar and the antivehicle weapon of the Ordos light infantry.However Ordos light infantry are better in blowing vehicle because they cost less and they have a better rate of fire,so the best use of the Tremen Warrior is killing infantry from distance.

-Increased health of Atreides and Harkonnen light infantry.

-Ordos light infantry is totally different.It cost 100 solaris but has the same weapon of the Raider with a worse rate of fire.So it can outrange other infantry.It mantain the anti vehicle weapon of the previous version.The Ordos light infantry have a new type of armor that make them resistant to bullets (75% damage instead 150%) but have a strange effect because some weapon bad with regulare infantry like quad rocket,missile rocket and the bazooka of the trooper are more effective (grouped troopers can beat this infantry,but is not cost-effective because you need at least two of them).Siege tanks have the same effects and sniper weapon does 150% damage instead 200%,so is still effective.

-Sardaukars have the same new armor of the Ordos light infantry,an increased range (they outrange all infantry save Tremend Warrior and they outrange tanks) and an excellent rate of fire.

-Harkonnen grenadier have the same new armor of the Ordos light infantry and now have two speciality.The first is that can cause a lot of damage against building and trike (but trike widely outrange the grenadier).The second is that his weapon ignore the new armor and can blow Sardaukar and Ordos....the problem is that you are always outranged.

Now I will try to edit the mission to make the campaign more similar of the book.

Dune 12.zip

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Who has tried the mod?Sardaukars are a real problem in the final mission of the campaign:two of them can destroy a siege tank,so you need a group of 4 siege tanks to kill them or a big group of fremen.

The Sonic Tank sounds quite overpowering in this mod.

They are surely stronger than Dune 2000,but they aren't overpowered like Dune 2.The speed and range buff is good but they still can't use hit and run tactics and have 15% less armor.With sonic tanks and better rocket turrets Atreides are the best on defense now.

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  • 2 years later...

Who has tried the mod?

Now that I can edit campaign I presume I can take off Tremend from Ordos and Atreides and include Tremend in more maps. Stealth Tremend will remain with Atreides, but they aren't Tremend at all.

How can I modify which faction I am playing with mission editor?

BTW those are the faction and how the appear in the book

Atreides have 50% manpower and 25% surface of the universe. Their leaders are incompetent, but at least keep taxes very low: people here is happy but government is very poor. Their infantry is average, their generals are crap, their vehicles too. They focused in the space fleet that is very efficient with fighting aircraft. They develop infantry with sonic weapons that destroy aviation, and later sonic tanks that destroy turrets. They are famous for medical abilities, use spice to cure people and also make crazy genetic experiments like instant growing.

Harkonnen have 32% manpower and 5% surface of the universe. They are richer than Atreides because they use slaving and their government keep huge taxes. Their infantry is bloodthirsted: they like to fire to already dead enemies even in the heat of battle. Their generals are very good, their vehicles are the strongest, their space fleet is huge and based on bombers but weaker in fighting aircraft. Their turrets seems very good (reason why Atreides develop sonic tanks). They use spice for beauty mask and are allied with Bene Gesserit that give visions that give a lot of trouble: they lose Atreides alliance at the beginning of the book because a wrong vision that persuade them to attack their allies! They have only a single spy, but they contact AIM (yes the one of Jagged Alliance and the director of AIM is Piccolo, yes the one of Dragonball but he never fight) to assassinate generals of other houses.

Ordos have 8% manpower and 20% surface of the universe. They are a lot richer than Atreides and Harkonnen, but they are also greedy: they seems to hate military expenses. They are ruled by a former boxer that is the headmaster of the Imperial Tactical Institute: they haven't nobles but just religious fanaticals and merchants. Their infantry is well equipped, their vehicles are high tech but not strong as Harkonnen ones, their space fleet is just small. They use a lot of spies and saboteurs. They don't care spice at all: they just sell to CAODM (a corporation that add spice to their fuel to travel faster). And they are only in Dune because the Pope want to eradicate Bene Gesserit: no more spice to Harkonnen means no more spice to Ordos.

Emperor has 5% manpower and 45% surface of the universe. Is richer to both Atreides and Harkonnen, but poorer than Ordos. Manpower is rare and he constantly need pioneers to populate his planets and extract resources. Vehicles are a little better than Atreides, fleet is nothing special. Their basic infantry is very well trained, their elite infantry is even more stronger. He sell spice to CAODM.

Tremend have 1% surface of the universe. They live underground and use spice as....a spice for their food. They seems quite friendly and the Emperor used them to colonize other planet, but they are jealous of their life standard: they begin to rebel when the emperor promise to make Dune a fertile planet! They often ride sandcat and use them for dig underground and take the enemy by surprise. They discovered that sandcat have hundreds of dentitions and their teeth create the spice. For this reason they hate Harkonnen that want to exterminate sandcats. They seems to don't care about technology and wealth: their goal is just survive and are willing to ally with the lesser evil.

Aliverso is just a corporation that becomes a wannabe house: since CAODM is better in make money they hope to use force to become richer than them. They have a huge fleet and many vehicles: but is just a trade organization that converted their civilian tools in military tools. They just lack any experience in warfare. They never use infantry: only vehicles and aircraft.

The Pope has a huge political influence. He arranged the alliance between Ordos and Emperor after the Emperor saved his life. Atreides have a genuine hate for him (they believe to the sumerian god Anu) while Harkonnen have Bene Gesserit to protect from him. Pope force never fight, but Atreides general said that he has no a real army (well for Atreides standard of course) but his turrets are very efficient and in big number.

Now I can make Smuggler = Aliverso and Mercenary = Pope. I should weaken Mercenary in campaign and also Emperor: I am sure that Emperor could wipe everything with Sardaukar. Not sure if skirmish is balanced.

I can play even as subhouse, any idea to make them more "unique"?

For example Aliverso will have just the engineer as infantry, stealth raider, raider, quad (3 vehicles instead 2), ordos standard tanks + missile launcher, ornithopter.

Tremend just infantry (they are snipers!) and alliance with sandworms, maybe some trike and weak combat tank because outside Dune there are Tremend that manifacture weapons. I should make some modify to make the sietch less alien (you can't even see the hp).

Pope? Maybe standard light infantry, turrets strong as Harkonnen and then ordos vehicles?

Emperor? I should remove Siege Tanks from them: their story doesn't justify an antinfantry vehicle.

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