Dunenewt's suggestions

[Dunenewt]

Ah yes.. that is a problem right now :).

Of course anything is possible. So i could create a 'mountain' (thats how i call it anyway :)) bordering with sand immidiately. Would perhaps also require a 'border with spice' variant. Perhaps i can think of something better so you can just apply it on any kind of 'terrain' beneath it.

So the short answer is : no it is not possible yet

The longer answer is above ;)

Following on from this, I have some other ideas.

How about rock that is impenetrable by any unit, sort of like a natural wall.  This could also be a work around in creating a sort of cliff effect.

Also, how about destructible terrain?  There could be a type of rock tileset that could be destroyed by units such as Siege Tanks or Missile Tanks, and obviously not by Trikes or other lower calibre weapons.

Moving away from tilesets, is a Corrino side a possibility?  If so, I would like to try to help out on the artwork etc.

Perhaps the arrow buttons to change the purchase selections could be a bit larger, at least the clickable area could be stretched vertically?

[stefanhendriks]

How about rock that is impenetrable by any unit, sort of like a natural wall.  This could also be a work around in creating a sort of cliff effect.

Sounds easy to do. perhaps a different kind of color of mountain?

Also, how about destructible terrain?  There could be a type of rock tileset that could be destroyed by units such as Siege Tanks or Missile Tanks, and obviously not by Trikes or other lower calibre weapons.

Also this is easy to do. Something like a 'mountain with cracks'? Although I'd wonder what the purpose would be. The only thing i can imagine right now is that the player is challenged to investigate those cracks in order to get something (credits, spice, etc).

is a Corrino side a possibility?

I am not sure, you could try Skirmish and see if it is selectable. I thought it was only selectable for AI, not for the player.

The arrow buttons would be easy to do. However, do know that you can also 'scroll' with your scrollwheel of the mouse. (without even being near the sidebar with your cursor).

[Dunenewt]

Yes, a different colour of mountain would indicate this fine.

About the destructible terrain, it would just perhaps give someone more options around the map as they advanced up the tech tree, although it could also be implemented in different ways, such as spice deposits like you suggested.

Ah I didn't realise even the AI could play as Corrino.

Would it be possible to for me to have a look at the building textures for example?  I was wondering if the different sides graphics could be slightly altered to differentiate the sides more?

[MrFlibble]

Also, how about destructible terrain?  There could be a type of rock tileset that could be destroyed by units such as Siege Tanks or Missile Tanks, and obviously not by Trikes or other lower calibre weapons.

I remember that someone in the Dune 2: The Golden Path forums suggested a feature of "shifting sands" that would (un)cover rock areas as a result of sandstorms (post link).

[Rippsblack]

I would very much like to see some completly impossible terrain, (that would be indestructable)

Destructable terrain would be great, but I would enjoy having both.

From a map creationists point of view, indestructable terrain allows you to force players to go a certain way and therefore create bottle necks and such.

The Destructability of infantry rock would be nice, as long as its done in such a way that the rock cannot be simply removed all together.

Mountain Rock on sand would be very nice to have as well, but would that not require new tiles and hence a new map rendering system (additional characters in the map.ini system)??

[Dunenewt]

Yes, those ideas came about from me creating maps.

Also, what about tech buildings that you can capture on the map?

[Rippsblack]

yes i read that ;)

[Dunenewt]

Maybe some neutral defence structures, and a neutral observation post which reveals the shroud around it.  Also, some kind of neutral hospital etc, like in the C&C games.

[Rippsblack]

as great as those ideas are

I am against changing Dune2 beyond its original scope too much

like new units etc...

I think would probably spoil my experience

I would however like to see the emperors house made playable in skirmish

maybe even create a freman house at a push

The things i would most like to see would be the expansion of the map tilesets to allow mountains on sand, impassible terrain & improvements to the command & control system

maybe some features similer to Total Annihilation & Supreme commander with an advanced way point system of some kind

[Dunenewt]

Of course I'm sure it would be possible to have the game set at various degrees of originality, but I agree with you about the things I'd most want to see, I'd even help out with any of the unit or building artwork.

[Rippsblack]

I would like to see some features such as formation move from C&C as well incorperated into the Dun2tm code.

how good are you at graphic design?

do you have anything i could check out?

[Dunenewt]

Not good, but I don't think the Dune II style graphics would require too much work.  I retextured quite a few Emperor units back in the day.

[Rippsblack]

emperor was probably the only Dune game i did not like

( i still played it to the end of the campaigns )

just thought they ruined the houses by making strange units, like those spinny disc things that harks had

[Dunenewt]

The Buzzsaw?  I think that visually it would be quite nice to have some more variation between the appearances of the units, sort of like in Dune 2000.

[Rippsblack]

Dune 2000 was(is) very good

it got allot of stickk for being C&C in a different skin

and even though i can forgive westwood for not even drawing new graphics for their 'minigunner infantry' and their 'rocket trooper infantry' from C&C

and even though they pretty much kept the costs and balance the same as C&C

it was very nice to see...

3 versions of the combat tank

3 versions of the windtrap

and so on..

I think the best way to create the sides a unique look and feel would be to do something similer

even its just something as simple as having 3 shades of concrete for each side

[Dunenewt]

It depends on what direction Stefan wants to take with the game I suppose.  After he's finished all the Dune II aspects of it, I would like to see lots of original features, perhaps making it into the game Dune 2000 could have been.

[Rippsblack]

Dune 2000 was great as it was...

there was nothing really wrong with the C&C gameplay

apart from the fact it was outdated

their rock paper scisors approach was old when it was new

this is why i prefer chris taylors strategy games as each shot is simulated.

and space was actualy calculated in 3D even in total annihilation

C&C Generals and Emporer: BFD were 3d yes... but only in the sense of 3d graphics

the gameplay was still very much 2d

[Dunenewt]

So you'd like the introduction of height into the game, with cliffs etc which affect the game?

[Rippsblack]

I played Total Annihilation the same time as i had bought red alert 1

and i loved  how cliffs got in the way of bullets AND line of sight in Total Annihilation, where as in red alert and (to the best of my knowledge all C&C branded games since) there is no advantage to having the high ground

I also liked the way in Total Annihilation there were no 'tiles'

and units could ocupy any space on the map, even cliff walls

as long as the unit was capable of doing so..

(for example, units had a max slope factor)

[MrFlibble]

and i loved  how cliffs got in the way of bullets AND line of sight in Total Annihilation, where as in red alert and (to the best of my knowledge all C&C branded games since) there is no advantage to having the high ground

IIRC, in Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 units on high ground gain increase in sight and attack range but this is not very noticeable.

[Rippsblack]

as much as I love Tottal Annihilation and its way of thinking

i recognise that incorporating that system of thought into a DuneII game is almost impossible without a complete re-write of the engine

But when it comes to height and cliffs like in C&C & RA, this would be doable right?

I mean yes.. it would require some graphics and or tile sets to be made up

(or stolen from dune200) (actualy thats not a bad idea (Dune II units running on Dune2000 Tilesets) it might look strange i addmit)

lol

sorry for many brackets, just me thinking to myself out loud :P

I would only worry about getting more use out of the existing mountain tiles, maybe make them placeable anyway as per stefans thoughts...

Completly impassible terrain would be great, a darker colour mountain rock could be used for this

if i think back, and remember correctly, did the amiga version of dune II and the PC version of Dune II have different colours of rock? maybe this could help us avoid drawing new tiles completly?

can anyone confirm this?

[stefanhendriks]

I don't know about the amiga version.

However, running dune 2 with d2k tileset (in a somewhat simplified way) with a bit more polished units it would actually look ok i think. The gui needs some changes as well then though.

Atm my top priority is to get the code working, finish up missing features. After that it is interesting to see what direction to take. Ie, make that d2k/dune2 mix graphics wise? or some other stuff? Who knows. Everything is possible :)

[Rippsblack]

yes you are right

for now, we need you to finish dune 2 clone, then you can bend and distort it beyond the original scope of dune2

a smaller request then

in the next demo could we have more commprehensive keyboard short cuts?

eg...

Select All Tanks

Select All Infantry

Recall All Harvesters

I cant imagine these things being hard to impliment, and i imagine most people would aggree they would be rather usefull to have.

[stefanhendriks]

Such keyboard short-cuts are easy to implement :)

What keys would you suggest for those functions?

[Rene]

Since you use the Ctrl key for creating groups, it might be a good idea to map these shortcuts to Ctrl-T, Ctrl-I and Ctrl-H. In this way you can create a scheme where group actions are done using the crtl key.