Listing bugs in demo 4

[Nosferatu]

Hi,

first of all, The Maker is wonderful. The project got me all excited again about a game I loved running under Dosbox even these days. With the ability to improve it, it seems great.

In order to be somewhat helpful to the project, I'll list a few bugs I noticed that should be addressed:

-Computer units regularly go off-screen for one or more fields. Sometimes, when you end a scenario you need to patrol the edges to find that static harvester ;-) You can do that to your units too if you go near the edge with a group.

-Computer's autopathing blocks when coming across "mountain" terrain. Happened to me a few times, in one game, a computer harvester stopped working forever when he stuck before one of these. It seems the units don't detect this section as impassible, but try to move over it and stop forever cause they can't.

-This is something of a strange oddity. A harvester was returning to the Refinery and was halfway inside when I ordered it to move somewhere outside. As a result: it disappeared - a frame could be selected inside the refinery, but it didn't unload and was stuck: no more credits :-(

-in some cases, units that are picked up by carryalls remain as a dot on the mini-map and can even be selected as invisible, although they are still somewhere else on the map.

-If you send two units at the repair yard at once, one is bound to drop down next to it and not go in for the repair.

-Units in carryalls can take orders. When you group a section in memory position, and one unit is picked up, you can still direct the entire group on the map. One harvester got stuck in the attack group by accident and the loaded carryall persistently went to the destination position.

-A spice bloom appears "below" a static unit which immediately explodes. OK, if I remember the novels, that's not unrealistic, so it's less of a bug, more of an unfortunate nuance.

-Game crashed when one of my buildings got destroyed. Can't say for sure, but I believe it was because it was selected at the time...?

Some (non-bug) suggestions:

-Units "wander off". When you position them to stand guard near your base and an enemy approaches, they leave the position and sometimes even go for the other end of the map. Either limit the max range they can patrol or add an option for them to stand-guard at a position (shift+click?)

-Heavy troopers seem to be too powerful. While in the original they were useless above level 4, here you get tempted to stamp out only these and siege tanks. Still, they're better overpowered then underpowered

-I don't know if I wrongly detected this or do rocket turrets have longer range then the rocket launchers? the point of the launcher in the original was to take out the turrets, that doesn't work here, only swarming the turrets have a chance of taking them out.

-The build list should be in some static order. It seems buildings appear in the list in the order in which they were made available. it would make more sense to make the list static (i.e. palace is always last, slabs and windtrap always first).

-Structures repair too fast. If you have only two-three weaker units attacking a structure, it repairs faster then they can destroy it.

-Add Worms to skirmish! Better yet, under Startpoints: x, add Worms: x ;-)

-If you and your opponent play the same side in Skirmish (civil war ;-), they're both of the same color, perhaps have the second side switch color to distinguish them on the minimap?

-Make missing original Dune things like Palace specials...

-When ending a mission, add a generic statistic page, showing number of destroyed units/buildings. Perhaps more detailed then the one in original (like: killed infantry, destroyed tanks, destroyed special vehicles)

Some exotic suggestions:

-add non-Dune tiles like water, grass, etc. It something of a heresy to Dune purists, but there's a whole galaxy out there, wouldn't it be nice to make a Harkkonnen invasion of Caladan ;-)

-as an add-on to request above, an eco-transformed Dune would have plants and water along the desert anyway.

-A more advanced campaign, which would enable you to capture one region at a time on the map (instead of 3 at once), with each map separate of course :-) This would raise the number of missions in a campaign by threefold, but which Dune-enthusiast would complain?

-A "workshop" building which would be able to build generic upgrades for all unit types... like upgrading Siege tank armor (or weapons, speed) to level x/5, making it x% stronger.

anyway, hope I didn't bother you too much, I just like the game and I'd love to see some of these things incorporated ;-)

[stefanhendriks]

First of all:

anyway, hope I didn't bother you too much, I just like the game and I'd love to see some of these things incorporated ;-)

Don't worry you'll ever 'bother' me with these posts. In fact, I always appreciate input in order to make the game better.

Ok, lets get started:

first of all, The Maker is wonderful. The project got me all excited again about a game I loved running under Dosbox even these days. With the ability to improve it, it seems great.

Thanks!

-Computer units regularly go off-screen for one or more fields. Sometimes, when you end a scenario you need to patrol the edges to find that static harvester ;-) You can do that to your units too if you go near the edge with a group.

Good find. I already knew this, but atm this is to me low priority. How is the priority in your opinion? Does it really frustrate the game play? Or does it happen

occasionaly? Or rarely?

-Computer's autopathing blocks when coming across "mountain" terrain. Happened to me a few times, in one game, a computer harvester stopped working forever when he stuck before one of these. It seems the units don't detect this section as impassible, but try to move over it and stop forever cause they can't.

Yes, I've noticed this as well in skirmish mode specifically (with new cool maps with lots of mountains).

-This is something of a strange oddity. A harvester was returning to the Refinery and was halfway inside when I ordered it to move somewhere outside. As a result: it disappeared - a frame could be selected inside the refinery, but it didn't unload and was stuck: no more credits :-(

Ok. Thats new. And definately a bug. Those harvesters do give me lots of trouble code-wise. But the refactoring is underway to take care of things like this. All i can

say is; i'm working on it.. although not as hard as i did a few months back.

-in some cases, units that are picked up by carryalls remain as a dot on the mini-map and can even be selected as invisible, although they are still somewhere else on the map.

Can you explain this further? Do you mean you can also control these units? Do carry-alls ever drop the units again? If so, is the 'dot' on the map at the correct position

then? Does it happen when a unit gets destroyed, yet picked up anyway? Or is it some other case?

-Units in carryalls can take orders. When you group a section in memory position, and one unit is picked up, you can still direct the entire group on the map. One harvester got stuck in the attack group by accident and the loaded carryall persistently went to the destination position.

I've fixed the 'you can select carry-alls' bug for the new version. You cannot order them anymore.

-A spice bloom appears "below" a static unit which immediately explodes. OK, if I remember the novels, that's not unrealistic, so it's less of a bug, more of an unfortunate nuance.

Lol, i've never seen that but it is technically 'correct'. Perhaps i should add a check not to 'spawn' these things beneath units :)

-Game crashed when one of my buildings got destroyed. Can't say for sure, but I believe it was because it was selected at the time...?

Ai! Crashes are not wanted. Could you try to reproduce this? all kind of crash-bugs should be eliminated and have my highest priority.

-Units "wander off". When you position them to stand guard near your base and an enemy approaches, they leave the position and sometimes even go for the other end of the map. Either limit the max range they can patrol or add an option for them to stand-guard at a position (shift+click?)

You mean they leave even when no enemy is near? (like, they suddendly decide they should go away?) This is a bug for sure.

-Heavy troopers seem to be too powerful. While in the original they were useless above level 4, here you get tempted to stamp out only these and siege tanks. Still, they're better overpowered then underpowered

I've heared this a lot. I've moderated them down further in the new version. But they are still useful.

-I don't know if I wrongly detected this or do rocket turrets have longer range then the rocket launchers? the point of the launcher in the original was to take out the turrets, that doesn't work here, only swarming the turrets have a chance of taking them out.

I am not sure, but I can't guarentee it is the exact same as Dune 2.

-The build list should be in some static order. It seems buildings appear in the list in the order in which they were made available. it would make more sense to make the list static (i.e. palace is always last, slabs and windtrap always first).

I see what you mean. Atm it is the order of upgrades / new techs that affect the lists. There is no 'static' way yet.

-Structures repair too fast. If you have only two-three weaker units attacking a structure, it repairs faster then they can destroy it.

This is a 'tweaking' issue, good to know. Although perhaps Rockets should be less powerful then..?

-Add Worms to skirmish! Better yet, under Startpoints: x, add Worms: x ;-)

Yes, definately :) But then again, i need to rethink of the skirmish GUI layout.

-If you and your opponent play the same side in Skirmish (civil war ;-), they're both of the same color, perhaps have the second side switch color to distinguish them on the minimap?

Ah yes, this is also something I did not take into account at start. For now, the color is tightly-coupled to the HOUSE. But it should be coupled to a 'PLAYER'. So a player has a color, and a player is playing with house X.. When i can do that, i can fix this bug. :)

-Make missing original Dune things like Palace specials...

In the progress thread i already posted some screenshots of my first workings on this issue :). Not working yet though. Definately on the list.

-When ending a mission, add a generic statistic page, showing number of destroyed units/buildings. Perhaps more detailed then the one in original (like: killed infantry, destroyed tanks, destroyed special vehicles)

Yes, also a good point.

Some exotic suggestions:

-add non-Dune tiles like water, grass, etc. It something of a heresy to Dune purists, but there's a whole galaxy out there, wouldn't it be nice to make a Harkkonnen invasion of Caladan ;-)

-as an add-on to request above, an eco-transformed Dune would have plants and water along the desert anyway.

-A more advanced campaign, which would enable you to capture one region at a time on the map (instead of 3 at once), with each map separate of course :-) This would raise the number of missions in a campaign by threefold, but which Dune-enthusiast would complain?

-A "workshop" building which would be able to build generic upgrades for all unit types... like upgrading Siege tank armor (or weapons, speed) to level x/5, making it x% stronger.

The 'conquering' part (of regions) is , i think, already possible by editing the campaign ini files and make them only conquer one region instead of 3 there. A workshop building seems like a 'good' idea. Perhaps the Palace should be introduced earlier to offer these things?

[Skrilax_CZ]

This isn't really a bug but the Harverster seems to be a bit wider than in the original dune in the new graphics ... (I know how it looks like from the icons, but still :P )

Anyway seeing upper posts I suggest for now keeping the unit properties (HP, weapon, etc.) as it was in the original Dune II and then make it like "total conversion" switch/mod for the D2TM rebalancement, like the Dune 2000.

[MrFlibble]

Speaking of unit/building stats, Stefan, what do you think about using the stats from the Sega version of Dune? Building hit points are doubled, unit attack is increased by 50%, and unit hit points remain the same. Meaning that units deal 150% damage against units and 75% against structures compared to the PC version.

[stefanhendriks]

The Sega way sounds ok with me. I'm looking for less 'fast' way of destroying things, yet it should be a bit fast gameplay. The Sega is probably a bit 'slower' at things because you're unable to react as fast as with the mouse (when at the PC)?

[MrFlibble]

The Sega is probably a bit 'slower' at things because you're unable to react as fast as with the mouse (when at the PC)?

Perhaps. But then again, the Sega stats resemble those of Command & Conquer or Red Alert, so  maybe it was just a general improvement. After all, in Dune II buildings are easily destroyed by fewer units (e.g. a Windtrap is fairly quickly knocked out by a group of 4-5 Quads).

[stefanhendriks]

I guess there is one way to find out if it is ok or not ;)...

[Nosferatu]

Here's the expansion on the questions:

- A note about rocket troops, sorry I know people always complain about that, but at this moment, they're the strongest unit for its value... BUT even this overpowered, it's still WAAAAY better then the original one's uselessness after level 3 ::) another idea would be to speed up tanks, so they can at least run them over :D

- About units going off-screen, yes, it's not that big of a priority. it can only get a little troublesome when you want to end a mission, and a harvester or some other enemy unit is static outside the screen. In this case, I always need to group units and go around the edges to find and destroy that last unit. I presume a lot of people didn't realize this and probably reported this already as an 'all enemy destroyed, game doesn't end' bug 8)! This problem is somewhat worsened when the AI doesn't work in skirmish. In this case, the last unit is always stationary and you have to move your finding group a bit at the time around the edge so they would shoot on the enemy who wouldn't shoot first (thus revealing his location). Roughly, I'd say this last unit problem appears at 3/10 times. Also, AI sometimes launched attacks on the base's behind from off-screen, which means that bases near the edge need defensive units looking that way too.

- As far as selectable units (picked up by carryalls) remaining as a dot on the minimap, it didn't happen often enough to properly debug. I'm very sure it was a unit picked up to the repair yard, likely selected in group at the time. I didn't track its position after the repair yard, but the old point was selectable, creating an empty frame. If I remember well, the frame wasn't movable. I'll need to look more into this as it doesn't happen that often.

- About destroyed building and crashing, I'll try to reproduce and let you know.

- Units 'wandering off'... what regularly happens is that my units on-guard in front of the base get attacked by several units, which they destroy, then start going forward... all the way to the enemy base on the other side of the map :) I appreciate their enthusiasm, just count on them in defense ;D Sometimes, they move after just killing the first unit in an attack group, so the remainder attack the base, while they go on.

- About rocket turret ranges, it may be that original Dune launchers had 1 field longer range then turrets (not equal) for this same reason. as it stands, The Maker's launchers seem to never have the range for that... in the original, evry1 probably remember moving launchers one field at the time to see when it comes to that vital out-of-turret range :P because of this, I've abandoned that as a tactic, and instead do mass attacks with rocket troopers and tanks.

- keeping on the subject of launchers, yes, rockets should be less powerful against structures, but also against units. they kill a tank with two direct hits, and fire very fast as well. Right now, they seem like something of a 3:1 value on rocket turrets in defense, but that's a very subjective estimate.

- As far as colors of houses in skirmish go, the different colors for same house would be nice, but I'm still impressed that the rest of the mechanics works. I saw some people report that same houses don't fire on each other... Never happened to me, and I believe they may have seen the Skirmish AI not active bug instead. Fix that one first and a lot of these other problems might just go away ;D

More notes:

- Spice can be stored regardless of space which makes Spice Silos obsolete and that need to spend quickly gone. When you correct this, it would be wise to slow down the harvesters by a bit... They collect spice at roughly 2x speed of the original... with 3 working at once, there's no way you'll keep spice under the structure max limit and you'll always lose spice (note: about that info screen at the end of a mission, add "Spice lost"???).

- I saw someone already report the "Press Upgrade twice to make it immediately" bug. I seems to only be possible if another upgrade after that one is possible (like Heavy Factory: MCV, then Launcher upgrade both possible, twice makes MCV immediately).

- Another thing that happened to me once is that the AI placed a new structure on top of one of my units. I'll give that problem more testing through to be sure. Also, a nice addition would be for something from the original: light infantry (damaged or full health) spawn randomly under destroyed buildings.

- Oh, and units should fire on enemy structures without being ordered, but ONLY if there are no enemy units nearby; this is probably a nuance to code, but I have confidence in you ;)

- You probably know already that Harvesters try to shoot back, stopping what they do. Aside from that, much praise for the way they work! I presume Harvester AI code is totally specific and hard to figure out the many unique cases. I'm particularly glad to see they respawn regardless of the problem (destroyed or even 'turned' by an Ordos brings in a new one at the refinery). A side note here, AI should be more interested towards building another Harvester at the factory... I don't believe I've ever seen an AI with more then one...

oh, and a very important request for the first next version should be a PAUSE function, if the Options menu is not yet done (which does the same thing). When a battle drags on, you need that P button to be useful ;)

that's it.

I'm back to the testing ;)

thanks again for a great remake of a great game :)

[MrFlibble]

Oh, by the way, Stefan, the unit and building stats from Sega Dune (dune2gens.txt) are attached to this post if you need them.

[Nosferatu]

I've just completed a few extreme stress tests, so here are some new/old things I've found...

DESTROYED BUILDING CRASH

A Light Factory was selected, while building an Ordos Trike, which was about 50% complete when the structure was destroyed by the enemy. The game displayed the destruction graphics and sound ok, which ended as usual. A moment later, the sound effect "Construction Complete" stalled and looped at Compl...(ete) and the game crashed. Most probable cause: unit produced in destroyed building?

Log doesn't seem very helpful:

0| Turret bullet shot itself, will skip friendly fire

0| Skipped friendly fire

0| AUTO-REST: FPS is higher then ideal (=60), increasing rest value

0| AUTO-REST: FPS is lower then ideal (=60), reducing rest value

0| Turret bullet shot itself, will skip friendly fire

0| Skipped friendly fire

(the last two repeat for a while)

0| AUTO-REST: FPS is lower then ideal (=60), reducing rest value >>> last entry

MAJOR STRESS TEST

SETUP: Skirmish game Ordos vs AI Harkonnen; eliminated all but one windtrap then concentrated on building extreme number of structures and destroying them; followed by spawning a large number of units :-)

Happy to report no major problems occurred despite some wild ideas.

IMPORTANT THINGS NOTED:

- A very aggressive AI that went for my structures, suddenly turned "stupid" after destroying 3 of my structures (the last one being a refinery, which seemed like a trigger for that). After they destroyed the refinery, they stopped attacking (despite other buildings in range) and only responded individually to attacks.

- A Starport destroyed while deploying units will "keep" the undeployed units. When a new one is built, they'll continue to deploy the same units. Testing sample: 101 Trikes and 66 Siege Tanks :O :D Note that introducing Dune2's starport quotas will prevent such extreme cases ;)

- Spice storages... Somehow two refineries had a limit of 7500 spice. Spice silos add 2000 space (original was 1000, as were refineries)

- House of IX destroyed, yet Heavy Factory can still make special unit

- Units have range to a structure behind other structures, yet move about as if looking for a path there; a selected group of 10 units was order to a ranged attack, yet only one shot, the others went around in confusion... Possibly looking for a path before checking for range to target?

MINOR NUANCES:

- Minimap dot remains for two units that moved away (not picked up by a carryall, just moved on!); reason unknown. The old location was selectable, as was the new, selecting both tiles selected the same unit that can be moved. This seems bad, but since I moved units about 300 times in this game, I'm impressed that only two such unit problems happened.

- Moving the selectable Carryall with Harvester will permanently stuck the Harvester to it (ie. loaded Carryall continues acting like an carryall, fly around and not bother to drop cargo)

- Ordos nerve gas can destroy spice blooms :) and then keep pounding over the tile forever. Atreidis Sonic tank can do the same, but that seems ok to me, after all it's a sound weapon...

- Sometimes units will fire only once on a tile then stop when force-attack is given, other times, they do this constantly. The ordos launcher will continue blasting away always (?).

- Selecting multiple units then ordering force fire on a tile made the fastest unit shoot, then they all stopped. Subsequent attempts to order the group to attack the tile produced no result, but a few units reacted by randomly shooting around in incorrect directions, thus killing a few friendly infantrymen :D It was funnier to see then read.

UNLIKELY TO HAPPEN EXCEPT WITH NITPICKER TESTERS:

- Selected harvester picked up by Carryall, health bar remains visible (as if selected, only at 0% health) and able to order the harvester about.

- Building a huge number of Windtraps gave top 90% power on slider (can't go above?), then destroying them ALL did not lower the slider at all. Outpost continued working with 0 windtraps... Destroying Outpost lost radar, but rebuilding it (still no windtraps) restored it. Also note: in original no buildings can be built while no windtraps.

Multiple construction yards speed up construction??? NICE FEATURE ;) Also like the way unslabed buildings having different background... NICE.

Overall, the game runs very smoothly even with 100+ units and a large number of structures.

That's it for stress testing

[MrFlibble]

- House of IX destroyed, yet Heavy Factory can still make special unit

Heh, that happens in Red Alert too ;D Players are even known to sell their tech centers to save money and power after they have gained access to the advanced tech units.

[Will]

Perhaps. But then again, the Sega stats resemble those of Command & Conquer or Red Alert, so  maybe it was just a general improvement. After all, in Dune II buildings are easily destroyed by fewer units (e.g. a Windtrap is fairly quickly knocked out by a group of 4-5 Quads).

Hmm, I don't really have the same experience. Buildings repair WAY too fast in Dune II, IMO. It's especially frustrating when it takes ages to destroy a rocket turret, and it's immediately replaced by the AI.

If building repair speed were to be reduced by, say, 50%, then it sounds like a good idea.

[MrFlibble]

Hmm, I don't really have the same experience. Buildings repair WAY too fast in Dune II, IMO. It's especially frustrating when it takes ages to destroy a rocket turret, and it's immediately replaced by the AI.

Actually I was talking about the opposite situation: when a bunch of AI's units destroys the player's base.

[Nosferatu]

Here's another mass test result ;D

UNIT LIMITS

after you build huge number of units, you hit a limit (not sure about the number). You probably hardcoded this in the engine, but I'm pointing out the game ran very smoothly and nice with the limit; feel free to raise it confidently.

CREDITS LOST: When you try to built new units over the limit, the credits are lost, the building appears to be working, but no units appear! It would be better to have the original's limit message appear not to lose credits on what you can't build. Even worse, with so many units, you usually don't notice that units don't appear until you've spent a lot of credits ;-)

CRASH: Starport crash problem. When unit limit has been achieved, it is still possible to order units in starport. When you do that and order them, the Startport starts to glow, but Frigate doesn't appear/land. I could repeat the order and the second time the Frigate appeared, dropped cargo and when the first unit was to deploy - CRASH :'(

CONTROL: Massive number of units grouped (about 60+) and give order to move. Since the majority of them were inside a huge formation of units, they could find no path and didn't move. Just the outer layers moved. Repeating the command five-six times moved the majority. Perhaps make units 'wait' for a path if blocked by friendly units with unfulfilled move order of their own?

EXPLOIT: "Starport stock-exchange". You can reserve a number of units (without ordering them) when they're cheap and sell them a few minutes later when the price raises. Example: once and a while the Siege tank drops to 400 credits or less. You order 3. A few minutes later, they change to 800 credits. By canceling their order, you've made 1200 credits :-) The original "solved" that problem with the static screen. Ordering from the starport paused the game... You can solve the problem by a compromise: when someone orders a single unit from the starport, all the prices remain static until the order is complete... this will also prevent "price hunting" exploit: that is, waiting for prices to hit better values for each vehicle before ordering the set of cheap several. OK, so you usually don't have time and credits to waste on waiting, but the prices change often enough to use this.

A video card issue... ok, so this is probably not something you handle in code, but I'll mention it anyway. I've upgraded my NVidia card drivers to a newer (but still old) version. After the upgrade, the fullscreen mode doesn't work. When I run that exe, the screen flashes (as if starting fullscreen), then restores to the window and plays in window mode ???

BTW, Sonic tanks are simply horrible against Harkkonnen troopers. They fire very quickly and it only takes two shots to destroy them, so troopers can't even get into range. Well, sound is good against infantry, so I don't mind... plus, the poor Duke's (Light) soldiers are totally useless, so the Sonic tank makes a nice counterweight for that. What could do with correcting is the fact that the sonic tank hits only the target, as opposed to the "line damage effect" of the original D2.

[stefanhendriks]

UNIT LIMITS

after you build huge number of units, you hit a limit (not sure about the number). You probably hardcoded this in the engine, but I'm pointing out the game ran very smoothly and nice with the limit; feel free to raise it confidently.

That is correct, there is a limit in the engine. Good to know it runs fine , but I do wonder what your specs are?

CREDITS LOST: When you try to built new units over the limit, the credits are lost, the building appears to be working, but no units appear! It would be better to have the original's limit message appear not to lose credits on what you can't build. Even worse, with so many units, you usually don't notice that units don't appear until you've spent a lot of credits ;-)

Ah yes; there is never a check if the limit is reached. Basically you'd want not to be able to build anything when the engine's limit is reached.

CRASH: Starport crash problem. When unit limit has been achieved, it is still possible to order units in starport. When you do that and order them, the Startport starts to glow, but Frigate doesn't appear/land. I could repeat the order and the second time the Frigate appeared, dropped cargo and when the first unit was to deploy - CRASH Cry

Actually that makes sense to me. There is probably some spot where this limit is not checked and simply the next entry in the array will be used to add a unit. Since that is basically overwriting memory in a place where it shouldn't (out of bounds) it will crash the game.

Good find though!

CONTROL: Massive number of units grouped (about 60+) and give order to move. Since the majority of them were inside a huge formation of units, they could find no path and didn't move. Just the outer layers moved. Repeating the command five-six times moved the majority. Perhaps make units 'wait' for a path if blocked by friendly units with unfulfilled move order of their own?

Yes. Basically that is the way to 'solve' this issue. I am not satisfied with the units logic regarding path finding etc.

EXPLOIT: "Starport stock-exchange". You can reserve a number of units (without ordering them) when they're cheap and sell them a few minutes later when the price raises. Example: once and a while the Siege tank drops to 400 credits or less. You order 3. A few minutes later, they change to 800 credits. By canceling their order, you've made 1200 credits :-) The original "solved" that problem with the static screen. Ordering from the starport paused the game... You can solve the problem by a compromise: when someone orders a single unit from the starport, all the prices remain static until the order is complete... this will also prevent "price hunting" exploit: that is, waiting for prices to hit better values for each vehicle before ordering the set of cheap several. OK, so you usually don't have time and credits to waste on waiting, but the prices change often enough to use this.

Nice find! Never knew this. Shouldn't be to hard to fix.

A video card issue... ok, so this is probably not something you handle in code, but I'll mention it anyway. I've upgraded my NVidia card drivers to a newer (but still old) version. After the upgrade, the fullscreen mode doesn't work. When I run that exe, the screen flashes (as if starting fullscreen), then restores to the window and plays in window mode Huh

The engine has a fall back in windowed mode when it cannot allocate the fullscreen video mode. I think it is your drivers in this case? Great that the auto-fall back works since i never had a chance to test it my own :)

BTW, Sonic tanks are simply horrible against Harkkonnen troopers. They fire very quickly and it only takes two shots to destroy them, so troopers can't even get into range. Well, sound is good against infantry, so I don't mind... plus, the poor Duke's (Light) soldiers are totally useless, so the Sonic tank makes a nice counterweight for that. What could do with correcting is the fact that the sonic tank hits only the target, as opposed to the "line damage effect" of the original D2.

True. The sonic tanks only hit something at the end, so no damage along the way with the sound waves. Balancing is still hard.

I've recentely re-installed my PC with Win 7 (64 bits) and D2TM works fine. I had to recompile a lot of stuff, but there was a problem. Erm, i was refactoring, stopped, months later i recompiled it and got it working. But now the game is screwed.

Luckily i use a versioning system so i can revert back... *sigh*.