CnCNet 5 now supports Dune 2000! Play Dune 2000 Online, now!

[FunkyFr3sh]

I did like 100 test games, had a map with full vision and game running at 500fps, this way i could see quickly how much units they produce since the game was running so fast.

 

Turned out the AI is much worse when they build more than factory of each type, so I set it back to 1

 

priority allowed me to tell them which units they should prefer to buy

 

I had the best results with this build order: Light factory -> Heavy Factoiry -> barracks -> outpost -> starport

 

Building the light factory first is important, if they do a heavy factory first then they gonna spend a lot time making harvs and they had no defense at all (very easy to rush)

 

 

Anyways, the AI still sucks :D Doesn't matter what settings I tried, they just suck at multitasking, they cannot produce multiple units at the same time. First they produce quickly quads, once the heavy factory was placed they stop making quads and get lazy while working on the harv.

Getting the starport quick was only way to pump units quicker

[Feda]

Wow that's really odd, why are they weaker with 3 factories? I don't get it lol

[Dato]

Wow that's really odd, why are they weaker with 3 factories? I don't get it lol

yeah weak cuz  AI was vs me  :D  i had 2500 start money AI 40000 but i won  :D funky watched  this game  :D but AI not weak its much better 

[Feda]

Makes no sense how they would be weaker with 3 factories. They make units faster.

Btw, for challenges with AI have more of them allied against you rather than one and low starting cash :D

[Dato]

Makes no sense how they would be weaker with 3 factories. They make units faster.

Btw, for challenges with AI have more of them allied against you rather than one and low starting cash :D

i told its not weak just weak than human player and AI always will be weak than human player if player not noob  :D

[FunkyFr3sh]

I think they really make units faster, they are able to take advantage of multiple factories just like humans. But they are just not producing non stop and this "bug" is getting worse with multiple factories for any reason

[Dato]

I think they really make units faster, they are able to take advantage of multiple factories just like humans. But they are just not producing non stop and this "bug" is getting worse with multiple factories for any reason

but in tank master they build non stop cuz AI always get no money faster than humen but dunno what happened  in normal game

[Feda]

For me im my tests they always built units from heavy lol. With rare delays, but mostly they weren't stopping.

We shouldnt compare AI with humans, we'll never be able to get a non-cheating AI that can beat a good human player in 1v1 lol. By weaker, i meant how could an AI with my increased build rate and 3 factories be weaker that the same AI with 1.

Funky, best way to check this is if i add both AI (3 factory and 1 factory) in same match and let them 1v1. I can make such mission, but you should apply the unit priority changes to the 3 factory AI too. You can then send me both files and i'll make the mission.

Also, how do u set 500 fps lol? Thats really useful :D

[Dato]

i think new AI ok

[FunkyFr3sh]

Update:

 

Airstrike is now finally working in online games.

We added a new connection type "Self-Hosted", type "/FastGames" in the game lobby to get all informations

A new map .ini option has been added to keep the online games more balanced, using this key will disallow high res patch users to have more than 4 sidebar icons per row

 

[MultiPlayer]
SidebarIconCount=4

 

An example map was included on the update "New Habbanya Erg -by [MSI]wyq (4 Icons)"

[Feda]

Wow how did u fix the Airstrike? :D

[FunkyFr3sh]

It was really weird, when you launch the airstrike the game was calling the same function as the Home (H) key which gives you the coordinates of your base. On high res you will get different coordinates since it tries to get the center of your base, that caused the game to go out of sync :D So now i'm just pretending the resolution is set to 640x400 when you launch the airstrike to avoid that problem. But I have no idea why the airstrike needs to know the coordinates of the base of hte player who used the airstrike ... Maybe it spawns next to his base? No idea...

[Feda]

It was really weird, when you launch the airstrike the game was calling the same function as the Home (H) key which gives you the coordinates of your base. On high res you will get different coordinates since it tries to get the center of your base, that caused the game to go out of sync :D So now i'm just pretending the resolution is set to 640x400 when you launch the airstrike to avoid that problem. But I have no idea why the airstrike needs to know the coordinates of the base of hte player who used the airstrike ... Maybe it spawns next to his base? No idea...

Yea that must be the reason, it always comes from the edge of the screen near your base. Neat :D

[D2k Sardaukar]

Nice work, FunkyFr3sh!

[Charles]

Update:

 

Airstrike is now finally working in online games.

We added a new connection type "Self-Hosted", type "/FastGames" in the game lobby to get all informations

A new map .ini option has been added to keep the online games more balanced, using this key will disallow high res patch users to have more than 4 sidebar icons per row

 

[MultiPlayer]

SidebarIconCount=4

 

An example map was included on the update "New Habbanya Erg -by [MSI]wyq (4 Icons)"

What do you mean by "keep the online games more balanced"? Do high res give advantage? 

[FunkyFr3sh]

It has advantages and disadvantages, you can see more and have more sidebar icons but everything is smaller and it becomes harder to control the units properly

 

In red alert 1 no good players are using the high res patch cause the mouse has to move a bigger distance to the sidebar and your production becomes worse, and of course it also becomes harder to control the units there too. In dune 2000 the additional sidebar icons help a lot since you need to produce multiple units at the same time, that is probably the biggest advantage of the high res patch since you don't need to use hotkeys anymore

 

On the official westwood online servers they did even go one step further for the games that came out after dune 2000, they did limit the resolution so no one could set it too high

[Charles]

Thank you for the explanations :) 

 

Also hats off for having made airstrike working again ! 

[Galaxy]

Not sure if I should report bugs here, but if I self-host a game at the end I am still in the lobby and the results graph doesn't show up.

[FunkyFr3sh]

That means the game did not exit for any reason and is still running in the background, doesn't have anything to do with the self-hosted feature tho

[WindyQueen]

Ok, nowadays, I have a look at the mission settings for AI segment, and have changed many of the values which I think will make those AI play like humans more(build order, unitpriority...), I'm not sure how it works with some special strings lol, but with some tests by [sR]UnitLost it seems to work :D. Btw, you can never order full units in starport if you build it too early xD, the latest version of AI will get low power when they haven't built enough wind trap, that's one of the reasons why it is lazy and dont want to multitask :D (maybe another reason is cashstash)

[Feda]

If it goes low power and doesnt make windtraps, thats because the build priority for factories and starport is extremely high compared to wind trap priority. 

 

CashStash shouldnt be a problem in Hard, since they get 40k.

[FunkyFr3sh]

I doubt you can make the AI perfect, there always seems to be a flaw no matter how hard you try :D

 

Some updates:

A new game option was added "Short Game", with this option enabled you no longer need to search all map for harvesters to win the game (you will win once all buildings were destroyed now)

 

We are preparing for the new automatic map transfer in multiplayer games and some changes have been done, from now on all maps need to have a matching .ini file that contains the name of the map, CnCNet will read the name from there now instead of using the filename

 

Dato created a new tileset (he was lazy) which aims to mimic the look of CnC Red Alert maps, the tileset is now available for everyone under the name BLOXTEM

 

Maps with .mis files will now also be working if there are no events in the mission file (no need to add basic Win/Lose Events anymore), just add the following key to the map .ini file:

 

[MultiPlayer]

UseDefaultWinLoseEvents=Yes

[Charles]

This "Short Game" option is really a wonderful improvement !! It's not only about having to find harvesters but also the fact that some players just troll at the end with their remaining infantry. it's even worse with Ordos players who kept some stealth raiders. Sometimes, eliminated players themselves dont even know where are their remaining units. "Short game" option also raises the importance of your last base - I really like that ! 

[Feda]

Really neat new stuff, especially the short game. I've mentioned that in my videos a few times, hoping it'll happen.

[FunkyFr3sh]

Update 1:

 

dato's new tileset is now available on CnCNet under the name BLOXTD, he also made a few example maps which were shipped automatically with the update from today

 

To create new maps using his tileset get the following add-on for your D2kEditor:

http://funkyfr3sh.cncnet.org/files/d2k/D2kEditor-Tilesets.zip

 

Make sure you have the latest version of the edtitor, you can get it here:

http://d2kplus.com/MapandMissionEditor.php

 

Update 2:

 

wyq improved the AI and his updates are now the default setting on CnCNet

 

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New tileset preview:

 

New AI preview: