Dune mod for Mount&Blade Warband (tryout)

[Davidu]

21st April 2013

 

51. name for the mod: The Desert Dancer from arabic Ar-rāqiṣ meaning the dancer; more info here DONE

50. energy shield WIP

49. new UI design WIP

48. new font WIP

47. new battle HUD DONE

46. new environment textures (ground, desert and spice) DONE

43. Sardaukar Maula Pistol WIP

41. inserting script for attacking people in towns, villages and taverns (start brawl script) WIP

 

 

[Davidu]

28th April 2013

 

50. energy shield WIP

49. new UI design WIP

48. new font WIP

43. Sardaukar Maula Pistol WIP

41. inserting script for attacking people in towns, villages and taverns (start brawl script) DONE

[Davidu]

I will go in hiatus for a month as my parents come to visit. Sorry for the delay guys :)

 

Good thing is I'm making progress on the force shield. It will be the main gameplay modifier so I want to implement it right. It has to be on AND allow for a left-hand parrying weapon also. The coding part is going to be a real b*tch, but it's doable. Right now it's a shield that you can unequip and attach it to yourself as a scene prop. The problem is that, as a scene prop I have to add its code in each scene I want it to be used, AND the NPCs can't use it. But for now it's a big step. I have to code it as an item that cannot be wielded even though it's equipped. But, in the same time it has to be active in order to deploy it. Basically it will be a belt occupying a weapon slot that uses a specific key to turn the shield on and off. That way I will keep the shield key available for the left hand weapon. But, as I said, slowly does it :) Sorry for these delays and slow speed.

[Davidu]

Got some time today at work and did the two moons as seen from Arrakis. They're still WIP as I have to work out the moons' surfaces, differentiate these surfaces and make the shapes look more like terrain and not drawings. But the main work has been done :)

 

 

 

Also the background for the moons will be a starlit night sky, obviously. Now... which one of the moons comes where on the night sky and which one is bigger? :D

[fartbubble]

Signed up just to talk in this thread. I'd love a Dune MB:W game!

 

to answer your question: Given that the second moon is the one with muad'dib, I'd assume it would appear somewhat smaller.

[Davidu]

Thanks for the feedback :) I'll pick up with the moons any time soon I hope, really busy times...

[Davidu]

Ok, parents gone, deadline gone, got some spare time and picked up work on the shield. There are lots of problems with it as right now it's defined as a scene prop and not as a wearable item. This means it needs a collision mesh next to the model one, which right now kinda' either crashes the game or traps the character inside. 

 

I am trying to apply it to a wearable item such as a belt (like in the book) so right now I'm searching for a way to do that. In the meantime here's a teaser:

[fartbubble]

What if you just made the shield a belt that changed the character stats and model? Or what if you made a shield bracer and used the right click mechanics to activate it, except make it togglable? That way you could restrict shield users to one-handed weapons or somethng for balance.

 

Maybe the shield just makes you immune to all ranged weapons except lasguns, which instagib you, but prevent you from using anything but melee weapons? You know how unstable paradox games are. I'm just spitballing ideas in case you can't get your idea to work (which is really cool btw)

[Davidu]

The thing with the shield is that in order to make it as close as possible to the books, it has to stop ALL projectiles. And ALL attacks coming from outside it. On the other hand it should be completely passable for anything else. I don't think I can make it any other way in game. I mean, you arm the weapon (hold the attack button), move inside the opponent's shield and attack from within, where he's vulnerable. Here comes another problem because in the books it says the shields reject eachother. I might have to ignore that for the gameplay's sake.

 

I was also thinking of a bracer at some point, but it wouldn't follow the books. Also in some scenes FH depicts fight with shield and weapons in both hands, so I'd like to make that possible at some point, which would mean the shield has to be independent of the arm. The status changer is a good idea, but it's not enough. The shield has to be there. 

 

Talking about the lasguns, I just think i'll put one of those shield detecting triggers in some how. So if you aim a shield the gun won't fire. 

[fartbubble]

Very clever. No wonder you made the shield bubble so big. I like it.

[Davidu]

A bit more work on the two moons and I think they're ready. I'll have to start work on a skybox for them soon.

 

Kangaroo Mouse moon

 

Clenched Fist moon

 

Work continues on the shield and a Pyon Sun Hat. For the latter I'll have some screenshots soon (as soon as I am satisfied with how the texture looks, that is).

[Davidu]

Pyon Sun Hat

 

 

 

[Davidu]

Force shield

 

One guy on the TaleWorlds' forum (that being the company that made M&B Warband) has coded the shield for the mod. So thanks to Lumos there we have a working shield. Only attacks closer than 80cm will affect the character. There's a bit of fine tuning to do but overall the code is in.

 

 

Also my website is down so most of the pictures are unavailable. Sorry for that.

[MrFlibble]

The soldier model looks nice, but the shield looks kinda weird.

[Davidu]

Yeah, I gotta work a bit more on the texture. I want to make it a bit more transparent. The engine unfortunatelly sucks when it comes to transparencies and such contemporary eye-candy. Also I want to ask the guy to implement the "stopped attack" animation when a weapon hits a shield, as if the shield rejects it, now the attack goes normally and the weapon goes through but no damage is done.

 

The shield depletes at some point and slowly recharges, and you're unable to switch it on while it's under a certain capacity. The values for all these will be balanced later. Anyway, I have to admit this is a cornerstone in the gameplay because shield fighting is what it's all about. The next tricky thing about gameplay would be to implement 2 handed fighting (aka a weapon in each hand). The problem (besides actually implementing this) would be how to assign secondary attack and parry buttons for the left hand. I mean ergonomics.

 

I hope I'll get more time soon to work on some new models, maybe some city scene props, buildings, etc.

[fartbubble]

It looks amazing guys, keep up the great work!

 

Personally, I like the new aesthetic so far. I was always a fan of the 84 movie's blocky gold shields (they were so unique and handsome, staying within the movie's rococo style), but this is a cool take. I do hope you don't go for the tired blue bubble look, although I wouldn't be that disappointed. I look forward to more of your creativity!

[fartbubble]

Oh, and I forgot to ask: How will you handle weapon balance? If shields negate ranged weapon damage, even considering their charge, how will you make ranged weapons viable/balanced? Will they be one-hit kill weapons, rapid firing, or very accurate? Will shield troops be high tier and very expensive?

[Davidu]

Well the House's troops will all be shielded. The idea would be that more high tier troops will have better body armor and ranged weapons. The troops of Arrakis based factions such as Fremen and Smugglers will lack shields for most of the troops with only high tier troops having them.

The shield can get depleted by repetitive strikes. This is implemented so to bring it a bit more down-to-earth with the energy storage capacity and the air consumption from inside the shield. And also to deny 1 shielded trooper taking on a whole army. This is when the ranged weapons should come in handy. Also they should be quite useful during sandstorms (we know shields get disabled by the static).

This would prevent Fremen and Smuggler forces from overrunning the House siridar. In order to balance the stuff the "unshielded" factions will have more soldiers than the noble Houses in their units AND shields will be disabled when fighting in the desert (on sand per se - not to attract worms). So shields will be restricted to settlements and solid ground for clear weather. Maybe I will be able to implement a script in the battle scene itself to check if the character is on solid ground texture or sand/desert texture in order to switch the shield on and off. Unfortunately for now the shields can only be used by the player and not by the NPCs. Also implementing the "weapon parry" animations on the attacker when the weapon hits the shield should be done, but I didn't have time to code.

Right now I'm working on some building scene props for the settlements. I want to give it an interior also so the whole thing is a bit more complicated :) As an architect, I simply cannot have loose ends on my buildings so I'm actually designing an as-real-as-possible cheap communal desert dwelling for colonists.

This is what I'm working on:

[MrFlibble]

That image doesn't display properly because the site that hosts it doesn't seem to allow hotlinking to their images.

[Davidu]

It is impossible for me too to open the picture now. I could've saved it and uploaded it on photobucket, but it keeps showing me the "forbidden" image even on the home site :(

 

::FIXED::

[Davidu]

Guys, any reference in the books of any sort of "water table" on the planet? Water table is the ground water level. I am asking if it is possible to "dig for water" even if it means 100m down or more. I mean windtraps seem to be a pure fremen technology while the pyons would've used the classic method, also villages were build on ground and not on sand, so as far as i know building wells or some sort of things could've been possible, just it would've gone waaaaaaaaaay down.

 

Here's an article on some very deep wells/cisterns in the arid part of India: India's Forgotten Stepwells

[MrFlibble]

Well, I only remember a few passages in the first book where water is discussed (it's mostly from the dinner at Arrakeen scene). A quick search shows the following:

"The sky's so dark," [Jessica] said.

"That's partly the lack of moisture," [Yueh] said.

"Water!" she snapped. "Everywhere you turn here, you're involved with the lack of water!"

"It's the precious mystery of Arrakis," he said.

"Why is there so little of it? There's volcanic rock here. There're a dozen power sources I could name. There's polar ice. They say you can't drill in the desert--storms and sandtides destroy equipment faster than it can be installed, if the worms don't get you first. They've never found water traces there, anyway. But the mystery, Wellington, the real mystery is the wells that've been drilled up here in the sinks and basins. Have you read about those?"

"First a trickle, then nothing," he said.

"But, Wellington, that's the mystery. The water was there. It dries up. And never again is there water. Yet another hole nearby produces the same result: a trickle that stops. Has no one ever been curious about this?"

"It is curious," he said. "You suspect some living agency? Wouldn't that have shown in core samples?"

"What would have shown? Alien plant matter . . . or animal? Who could recognize it?" She turned back to the slope. "The water is stopped. Something plugs it. That's my suspicion."

"Perhaps the reason's known," he said. "The Harkonnens sealed off many sources of information about Arrakis. Perhaps there was reason to suppress this."

Jessica signaled a servant, turned to the banker: "And you, sir, were speaking of birds earlier and of their habits. I find so many interesting things about Arrakis. Tell me, where is the spice found? Do the hunters go deep into the desert?"

"Oh, no, my Lady," he said. "Very little's known of the deep desert. And almost nothing of the southern regions."

"There's a tale that a great Mother Lode of spice is to be found in the southern reaches," Kynes said, "but I suspect it was an imaginative invention made solely for purposes of a song. Some daring spice hunters do, on occasion, penetrate into the edge of the central belt, but that's extremely dangerous--navigation is uncertain, storms are frequent. Casualties increase dramatically the farther you operate from Shield Wall bases. It hasn't been found profitable to venture too far south. Perhaps if we had a weather satellite . . ."

Bewt looked up, spoke around a mouthful of food: "It's said the Fremen travel there, that they go anywhere and have hunted out soaks and sip-wells even in the southern latitudes."

"Soaks and sip-wells?" Jessica asked.

Kynes spoke quickly: "Wild rumors, my Lady. These are known on other planets, not on Arrakis. A soak is a place where water seeps to the surface or near enough to the surface to be found by digging according to certain signs. A sip-well is a form of soak where a person draws water through a straw . . . so it is said."

There's deception in his words, Jessica thought.

Why is he lying? Paul wondered.

[Davidu]

Damn, I forgot about the sand-trouts... So no step-wells for the pyons :) I might incorporate that design for the cisterns in the sietches though.

[fartbubble]

Guys, any reference in the books of any sort of "water table" on the planet? Water table is the ground water level. I am asking if it is possible to "dig for water" even if it means 100m down or more. I mean windtraps seem to be a pure fremen technology while the pyons would've used the classic method, also villages were build on ground and not on sand, so as far as i know building wells or some sort of things could've been possible, just it would've gone waaaaaaaaaay down.

 

Here's an article on some very deep wells/cisterns in the arid part of India: India's Forgotten Stepwells

No, it is impossible to dig for water in the open desert on Arrakis during book one. The sand trout all capture whatever water is in the ground before anyone could possibly get to it. This works with the ecology of Arrakis, as water is poisonous to worms. The only place where one could dig for water would be in the polar caps. There are water merchants who siphon water from these caps. Other than that, the only place where water is found is in the atmosphere. Dew gatherers (men and women who harvest dew from plants) and windtraps attest to this.

[Edit] Also, if you need any proofing done for the game, hit me up. Part of my job involves proofing, so I can probably spot any errors in the text.

[Davidu]

Thanks for the offer.

 

I nearly forgot about the dew gatherers. I should implement them somehow so the player could rob them of the water 8)