Dune II: Version Discussion

[Nyerguds]

Not really, since "XXX unit approaching" by itself, with your side as "XXX", sounds far more like "reinforcements have arrived" than like "you're being attacked".

[MrFlibble]

sounds far more like "reinforcements have arrived"

Except reinforcements are never announced that way.

You're probably right from the standpoint of real world logic, but games often use their own logic that may or may not coincide with any real-life experience. So I don't think the issue in question should necessarily be considered a bug. If the message that says "<Player's House> unit approaching" is only displayed in cases when a deviated unit originally owned by the player is attacking the player's base, then it clearly has a distinct function and serves to inform the player about a certain situation in the game. Of course, the game could have had a separate message like "Our unit has been deviated and is now attacking us!" but it probably would be clumsy to implement.

Also there's some "real world logic" in that too, in that even though it's the Ordos who have deviated a player's unit and ordered it to attack, that unit still belongs to its original House (except that now I'm not sure if a unit that was destroyed while in the deviated state counts towards the losses of the original House or the Ordos).

[drnovice]

However it is a situation that in original game occurs when a Deviator non-Ordos deviates human unit, surely even this wasn't tested and maybe neither expected by developers, since only Ordos may have Deviator to their intentions.

[Nyerguds]

drnovice, as I said, it's unrelated to that. The same thing applies if the Deviator is Ordos. The unit sent to your base will be a unit sent as attack by the Ordos, but will be announced as being your side "attacking you".

[drnovice]

Have you already tested it?

Maybe it would add a check about Deviator HouseID and target HouseID: if equal, Deviator never can deviate the target.

[Nyerguds]

Eh? How is that related? I never said anything about Ordos deviating Ordos.

[drnovice]

Neither do I.

I told about Deviator.HouseID <> target.HouseID

 

e.g.

patched Mercenary Deviator deviates only non-Mercenary units and deviated unit becomes Mercenary -> alert "Enemy unit..."

or

unpatched Mercenary Deviator deviates only non-Mercenary units and deviated unit becomes Ordos -> alert "Enemy unit..."

 

so if you play as Mercenary patched/unpatched Deviator you can't deviate already Mercenary units (like if an unit is already deviated: u->deviated > 0) and no alert is shown.

 

 

But I have to test it if this is the case...

[Nyerguds]

I never talked about deviating one's own units either. I meant sending your unit to an enemy base, having the ENEMY deviate it, and then having the enemy sending YOUR deviated unit back to your base, thus triggering the warning message.

[drnovice]

Ok I have to test it...otherwise I can't know how is the matter.

 

EDIT: however it could make sense this "bug" to recognize deviated units that becomes "temporarily enemy" against you, instead of real enemy units that are "actually enemy".
And I remember that on original game the AI never "moves" deviated units against human player, because of the unit commad remains to "Guard" instead to set to "Hunt" as should be more logic.

[Nyerguds]

Well, I think it simply doesn't make sense to be Atreides and get a warning about an "Atreides unit approaching". After all, it's the House that deviated the unit that is really attacking you.

[drnovice]

Surely it's a feature than on opendune code you can add, maybe a customized alert that say: "Atreides Deviated Unit approaching..." or simply to take deviatantHouseID and use it for alert.

[Nyerguds]

Exactly. Taking the house that deviated the unit instead was exactly the fix I was proposing.

[X3M]

Regarding the Android version.

 

Saboteurs:

Hey, I just noticed how the saboteur explode at random. And after a while. Sometimes 10 seconds after activating. It is rare for them to start walking automatically. They are visible too. They can blow up units, walls and of course structures.

 

Devastators:

A normal fire sound? What was their normal range? It seems like they have longer range now.

 

Rockets Launchers:

They fire on Ornithopters too. (Which is a good thing actually) Although ,they simply miss almost all the time.

 

I also noticed how I have a lot of combat tanks, even in mission 9 :D

[Nyerguds]

The saboteur bug is well-known. I think it was caused by some logic making it explode on target, but it mistaking the slowdown of some rough terrain (notably, edges between rock and sand) as that arriving on target, or something like that. It was also affected by game speed, like the sonic tank range bug.

Them being visible is normal; in fact, them being invisible in v1 was apparently a bug. We've already determined that enabling worm camouflage on the saboteur is a really nice middle ground, though.

[edit]

The Saboteur exploding bug:

http://forum.dune2k.com/topic/24316-dune-dynasty/?p=376608

[X3M]

Who here knows how the score algoritm for the android version works?

 

I just had a ridiculous score of 2006 for Atreides in the last mission. (Am sure some one here has had higher)

(And once again it is in my oppinion that Atreides=easy, Harkonnen=medium, Ordos=hard)

 

I already noticed in mission 8 that:

Fremen kills and razings count towards your score.

Dead Fremen don't count as losses.

Feeding worms doesn't count as losses. (Feed the worm, mjammjam)

 

And is there a bonus for finishing a mission quickly?

[dynasty]

Who here knows how the score algoritm for the android version works?

I seriously doubt anything changed in the Android port from OpenDUNE.

Just going by OpenDUNE in the following.

 

Dead Fremen don't count as losses.

It looks like allied unit losses added to your score, rather than subtracted. Oops!

Not sure if OpenDUNE bug or Dune II bug at this stage.

 

Feeding worms doesn't count as losses. (Feed the worm, mjammjam)

That's right. Carryalls and ornithopters lost/killed don't count towards score either.

 

And is there a bonus for finishing a mission quickly?

Yes, there is. The bonus is: g_campaignID * 45 - minutes played.

[Nyerguds]

Wait, isn't the Harkonnen campaign ID zero anyway? So they never get a bonus, then?

Sure seems to support the "houses = difficulty levels" theory, that ;)

[X3M]

Odly enough, I achieved 1500+ score with the Harkonnen, yet only 1300+ with the Ordos. Again all in mission 9.

(Damn, ordos sucks)

[MrFlibble]

Wait, isn't the Harkonnen campaign ID zero anyway? So they never get a bonus, then?

Sure seems to support the "houses = difficulty levels" theory, that ;)

Interesting observation. However, I'm only aware of the HK houseID being 0 - unless houseID and campaignID are the same thing/identical values?

[Nyerguds]

The bug that allows Super Dune II to switch campaigns by making the player a different house pretty much proves that, yes. That is a mixing up of the campaign ID and the player house.

The two were constantly confused in Command & Conquer as well, causing the same campaign switching bug. Only, in C&C1 this meant that if you took one of the special houses, it crashed on finishing the mission because only GDI and Nod have a score screen :P

[MrFlibble]

The bug that allows Super Dune II to switch campaigns by making the player a different house pretty much proves that, yes. That is a mixing up of the campaign ID and the player house.

There's also the thing that unlike C&C, Dune II does read the "Scenario X control for House Y" header in scenario files (if it's absent you can't win or lose a mission). I assume that it also plays some role in determining the campaign sequence.

[Nyerguds]

It READS that? Woah :O

[MrFlibble]

I concluded that from the fact that without the header (which I decided to remove once 'cause it's commented out, and not used in C&C), the mission would not end by meeting either the victory or the defeat conditions.

[X3M]

Funny, what does the enemy do when your wiped out?

[MrFlibble]

Actually I didn't test that. I vaguely remember that I could not end the mission after taking out the enemy. It was a test mission with just a few AI buildings and units. In fact IIRC I was testing how looped reinforcements worked (not sure, but I think that without the header they didn't), and discovered that the mission did not end properly entirely accidentally.