Amiga Moding Questions

[TCH]

@Foxman:

The manual is inside my editor's package. I sent you a mail about v2.00 is available with seedgenerator and the manual you asked before.

I've never tried to put a unit under a spice bloom. Is that crashes Amiga Dune 2?

Thanks for the praise, try the new version, it will get rid of the seed packages.

 

@MrFlibble:

Perhaps the term is invented by Westwood Studios, but the genre isn't. A lot of real time strategy games were made before. It's like, there was a man who invented the stone axe and another one who named it. But still, all of the stone axes made before the name born, are still stone axes.

Also, Westwood admitted that they copied a lot of game elements from a japanese RTS, called Herzog Zwei. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_II#Development)

[MrFlibble]

@MrFlibble:

Perhaps the term is invented by Westwood Studios, but the genre isn't. A lot of real time strategy games were made before. It's like, there was a man who invented the stone axe and another one who named it. But still, all of the stone axes made before the name born, are still stone axes.

Also, Westwood admitted that they copied a lot of game elements from a japanese RTS, called Herzog Zwei. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_II#Development)

There is certainly no doubt that strategy games with real-time action/combat did exist before Dune II. But the term real-time strategy does not cover every strategy game with real-time action. It is strongly associated with a particular type of gameplay mechanics, which include base construction, resource gathering, the ability to produce units on site, and both macro- and micromanagement of units.

Herzog Zwei, for example, does not have most of these elements. There is no direct unit control, base construction is absent, and resources are generated depending on the number of auxiliary bases that the player controls.

[Foxman]

@Foxman:

The manual is inside my editor's package. I sent you a mail about v2.00 is available with seedgenerator and the manual you asked before.

I've never tried to put a unit under a spice bloom. Is that crashes Amiga Dune 2?

Thanks for the praise, try the new version, it will get rid of the seed packages.

 

I have got now your new Version and its amazing. Thx to you that you have worked again at the editor.

If i see correct, now the seedgenerator works also for the Amiga Version? 

That is really cool and makes me really happy. 

My work on the mod take a lot of time, but its fun and i motivated to bring them to an end. 

Not only new maps, also new Story and Text will be inside. 

 

One question:

Is the building limit also counting the turrets, r-turrets and walls?

[MrFlibble]

One question:

Is the building limit also counting the turrets, r-turrets and walls?

That's a good question! IIRC, turrets use indeces and are thus counted against the global limit. Walls and concrete slabs, if I'm not mistaken, are counted differently, but in the PC v1.0 you could not build new concrete slabs or walls when the global structure limit was reached. This was fixed in v1.07, and I think the Amiga version is the same as v1.07 in this respect.

You can just check scenario INI files, and the walls and concrete slabs should have different indexing compared to other structures.

Turrets are only different in that, if I'm not mistaken, they are not considered "buildings" when checking the win/lose conditions. For example, if a player has no buildings but turrets left, this is the same as having no buildings at all.

[TCH]

@MrFlibble:

I did not say, that Dune 2 did not have it's innovation. I just said, it's not the first RTS. As for what is covered by the term, it's depend on terminology. If you interpret the term by word, it's mean it's a strategy game, where events are happening in real-time and of this type, there were a lot of games before Dune 2. If by RTS, you mean Dune 2 like games, then Dune 2 is obviously the first.

About the game elements, you mentioned, all of them are already made their debut earlier in real-time strategy games in titles like Sim City, Carrier Command, Nether Earth, Populous, Supremacy, just to name the real-timed ones, but for example base/unit construction and unit macro/micromanagement were parts of even more earlier turn-based strategy games (like Utopia) and the real-time tactical parts were debuted in real-time tactics games like Legionnaire, Stonkers and Cytron Masters.

Herzog zwei was just one example, i mentioned it, because Westwood mentioned it.

 

Besides as i checked some games, i found something:

http://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1982-12/1982_12_BYTE_07-12_Game_Plan_1982_djvu.txt

 

 

1 24 Cosmic Conquest by Alan Sartori-Angus /

The first-place winner in the BYTE Game Contest is a real-
time space strategy game.

It appears that even the term too, made it's debut more earlier, but everybody just forgot about it. So, it's appears, not even Stonkers was the first, it was Cosmic Conquest. But if we consider the only tactical real-time games too, then Cytron Masters is even more earlier.

 

@Foxman:

Yes, the seedgenerator is the same on both platforms.

Your question about the walls and turrets are already answered correctly by MrFlibble.

[drnovice]

Foxman, maybe this can help you:

 

http://forum.dune2k.com/topic/26585-maximum-of-structures/

 

http://forum.dune2k.com/topic/18875-exe-editing-programming-issues/page-11#entry345737

[MrFlibble]

TCH, I started a separate thread of the first RTS discussion, if you don't mind :)

[Foxman]

Thx, i will test the building limits in the evening.

I would like to make new mission targets. Harvest xxx Spice and destroy the enemy is a little boring the whole game.

My first and second mission has a new approach.

In first mission i choose the win loose flags so you have first to harvest a amount of spice and then you have to destroy the enemy.

Second mission is the coolest i think.

You only have a choam and outpost and windtrap. You have to destroy the enemy base and enemys but you must occupy the enemy refinery to harvest the spice for the mission target.

I want to include some more special missions, but my ideas are going down.

 

Perhaps you have new ideas for some tricky missions? 

 

One Idea i have is to rescue first an harvester to reach the target harvest. Or to rescue an MBF to start and win a mission.

[TCH]

@MrFlibble:

Okay, this was offtopic here anyway.

 

@Foxman:

 

 

I would like to make new mission targets.

You can do that, but be warned about two things:

1. You have to edit the executable for that.
2. My editor obviously only supports the "normal" flags, so you have to "hack" your additional flags into the binary scenario file.

It's not impossible, of course, but you already turned down the idea of new pictures, because you claimed the decyphering of WSA-s "too much" and this would be an even more difficult task (at least, editing the executable would be, because i can describe the Amiga scenario format for you, see at the end of my post). So, i think you should stick to the original flags.

In first mission i choose the win loose flags so you have first to harvest a amount of spice and then you have to destroy the enemy.

You cannot do this by the original flags. Read the manual first: the flags are in logical OR connection, regardless whatever condition fires first, the game ends. You can do that, that either you have to collect X spice OR destroy the enemy. (If you happen to destroy the enemy in the very same second than you acquired your last needed credit, then the result will be the same.)

However, with a bit trick, you can reverse your conditions: first you have to destroy the enemy, then collect X spice. Of course, you cannot do with this with the flags, but if you place the required amount of spice behind the enemy, then even if the scenario only requires you to collect X spice, you still have to destroy your enemy to achieve that, and you have to do this before the enemy collects the spice, because after that, you cannot collect enough to fill your quota, so you even have a non-specified timeout.

 

You only have a choam and outpost and windtrap. You have to destroy the enemy base and enemys but you must occupy the enemy refinery to harvest the spice for the mission target.

Good idea. Dune 2 lacked tactical missions anyway. However, be aware, that you only can acquire a building, if it's heavily damaged (in the red phase) and if you succesfully acquired the building, then you either have to have enough credits for an emergency repair or you have to start with two windtraps, because a windtrap only produces 100 power and a starport requires 80 and without enough power, your buildings will beginning to decay, which is definitely fatal in a heavily damaged builing's case. And there are no flags for a specified building's status, so, if the refinery has been accidentally destroyed, then the game will not be ended.

 

 

Perhaps you have new ideas for some tricky missions? 

Try out, if the timeout flag works on Amiga. It does not works on DOS version of Dune 2, without a patch, but maybe it works on Amiga. With that, you can make new type of missions.

 

One Idea i have is to rescue first an harvester to reach the target harvest. Or to rescue an MBF to start and win a mission.

Rescue missions won't work in Dune 2. The enemy will destroy your "hostage" units immediately, you cannot make them invincible, or put them a "rescuable" state, like in StarCraft. (Of course, you can build a ton of walls around the "hostage" unit, to prevent the AI from destroying it, but still, you cannot protect it from air attacks, unless you disable all possibilities of an air attack.) And if you have to rescue the harvester, then you have to have a refinery. So destroying that harvester will automatically "resuce" it, as if you have zero harvesters and you have at least one refinery, then the game automatically brings you a new harvester.

 

And now, as i promised, here are my notes about the structure of the Amiga scenarios from 2007:

;id data = B [SECTION], B (id_owner)  e.g. [MAP]/Bloom id = B 1, B "B" = 322 = $0142[BASIC]W 0		;LosePicture idW 14		;LosePicture strlenB db X		;LosePicture strB db 14-X	;unusedW 1		;WinPicture idW 10		;WinPicture strlenB db X		;WinPicture strB db 10-X	;unusedW 2		;BriefPicture idW 12		;BriefPicture strlenB db X		;BriefPicture strB db 12-X	;unusedW 3		;TimeOut idW X		;TimeOutW 4		;MapScale idW X		;MapScaleW 5		;CursorPos idW X		;CursorPosW 6		;TacticalPos idW X		;TacticalPosW 7		;LoseFlags idW X		;LoseFlagsW 8		;WinFlags idW X		;WinFlags[MAP]W $01,"F"	;Field idW X		;Field lengthW db X		;Field valuesW $01,"B"	;Bloom idW X		;Bloom lengthW db X		;Bloom valuesW $01,"S"	;Seed idW X		;Seed[Harkonnen]W $02,"Q"	;Harkonnen Quota idW X		;Harkonnen QuotaW $02,"C"	;Harkonnen Credits idW X		;Harkonnen CreditsW $02,"B"	;Harkonnen Brain idW $00,"C"|"H"	;Harkonnen BrainW $02,"M"	;Harkonnen MaxUnit idW X		;Harkonnen MaxUnit[Atreides]W $03,"Q"	;Atreides Quota idW X		;Atreides QuotaW $03,"C"	;Atreides Credits idW X		;Atreides CreditsW $03,"B"	;Atreides Brain idW $00,"C"|"H"	;Atreides BrainW $03,"M"	;Atreides MaxUnit idW X		;Atreides MaxUnit[Ordos]W $04,"Q"	;Ordos Quota idW X		;Ordos QuotaW $04,"C"	;Ordos Credits idW X		;Ordos CreditsW $04,"B"	;Ordos Brain idW $00,"C"|"H"	;Ordos BrainW $04,"M"	;Ordos MaxUnit idW X		;Ordos MaxUnit[Sardaukar]W $05,"Q"	;Sardaukar Quota idW X		;Sardaukar QuotaW $05,"C"	;Sardaukar Credits idW X		;Sardaukar CreditsW $05,"B"	;Sardaukar Brain idW $00,"C"|"H"	;Sardaukar BrainW $05,"M"	;Sardaukar MaxUnit idW X		;Sardaukar MaxUnit[CHOAM]{W $06,<unit_typ>;Choam unit idW X		;Choam unit amount}db N		;Choams[TEAMS]{W $07,<team_#id>;Team idW X		;Team ownerW $00,#1letter	;Team behaviour typeW $00,#1letter	;Team movement typeW X		;minimum unitsW X		;maximum units}db N		;Teams[UNITS]{W $08,<unit_#id>;Unit idW X		;Unit ownerW $00,<unit_typ>;Unit typeW X		;Unit HealthW X		;Unit #o FieldW X		;Unit ?Rotation?W X		;Unit Behaviour type}db N		;Units[STRUCTURES]{{W $09,"G"	;GENERAL STRUCTW X		;Structure #o FieldW X		;Structure ownerW X		;Structure type}{W $09,"I"	;ACTIVE STRUCTW X		;Structure #idW X		;Structure OwnerW X		;Structure typeW X		;Structure HealthW X		Structure #o Field}}db N		;Structures[REINFORCEMENTES]{W $0A,<RF_id>	;RF idW X		;RF OwnerW X		;RF TypeW X		;LocationW $$,$00|"+"	;Time (+ signs after(Time)}db L		;RFs[EOF]W $FFFF

The abbreviation "db" is the short version of the hungarian word "darab", which literally means "piece", but we use it also for "amount of <something>". All words are big-endian, so if it's written as $fa52, then it will look like the same on the disk and not $52fa, like on an x86 machine.

[Foxman]

Hello TCH,

 

the timeout feature does not seem to be working.

I tried it yesterday but nothing happened.

I tested with Win / Loose Flag 8: 8 and 24: 8

When I tried to counter 1 or. 2

After my base and units was destroyed by the computer playing with the W / L flags ran on to infinity.

 

The one with the new seeds I did not get. I choose a new seed (for example, 139) and create a scenario, I get an error at the start of the level and the game crashes.

 

Do I need to integrate the seeds in the Amiga version? And if so how?

Did you test the functions before?

[Nyerguds]

I don't think Nyer's editor supports the Amiga version (?).

If someone gives me the executable, and the internals are similar enough, I could add it...

[TCH]

 

 

the timeout feature does not seem to be working.

I tried it yesterday but nothing happened.

Sorry, i forgot to say, that the computer will only check the flags after two minutes and then every fifth second. So if you set a timeout to a very low value to test, then please set a higher value than 2 minutes.

 

 

The one with the new seeds I did not get. I choose a new seed (for example, 139) and create a scenario, I get an error at the start of the level and the game crashes.

The seeds are just numbers. The whole map is not stored in the scenario file, so it's not the seed what causes the crash. You can choose any number from -32768 to +32767, you don't need to worry about anything.

 

Do I need to integrate the seeds in the Amiga version? And if so how?

No, you don't have to. More precisely you cannot. Seeds are just numbers, they are initializing the random map generator.

 

Did you test the functions before?

Of course i did. But even if i would not tested it, the loading and saving mechanisms are the very same, like in the 1.x versions, so if your scenario worked when you saved with the 1.03 versioned editor, it must work with 2.00 too. Just to test again, i loaded the last Harkonnen mission and saved it again in Amiga format. Then tried it in the game. Worked.

My best guess is, that you set something which can crash the game, or you have did not set something which should be set and that can crash the game. Try your scenario in the MS-DOS version of Dune. If crashes, then your scenario contains a flaw. If not, then your scenario must contain something which is not allowed on Amiga.

 

If someone gives me the executable, and the internals are similar enough, I could add it...

You can download the whole Amiga Dune 2 from oscomp.hu, but i assume, that the internals will differ vastly. Amiga version uses a different image structure, lacks Fremen and Mercs section, lacks some terrain elements (spice on dunes) and the whole number storing is big-endian. Not mention to that, that the Amiga version was entirely written in assembly, while the MS-DOS version was written in Borland C++. The sizes are different too, Amiga version: 150k, MS-DOS version: 360k. (Which is interesting, the MS-DOS version would be the one which should be smaller, MS-DOS only saw 640k purely, 16 MB (286) or 32 MB (386/486) if extended and memory extensions slowed the machine drastically, while nearly all of the Amigas in 1992 had at least 1 MB ChipRAM and could extended with 152 MB of FastRAM (nearly 2 GB actually, but nobody made turbocards what used the Z3 extension area).)

[Nyerguds]

You can download the whole Amiga Dune 2 from oscomp.hu, but i assume, that the internals will differ vastly. Amiga version uses a different image structure, lacks Fremen and Mercs section, lacks some terrain elements (spice on dunes) and the whole number storing is big-endian. Not mention to that, that the Amiga version was entirely written in assembly, while the MS-DOS version was written in Borland C++. The sizes are different too, Amiga version: 150k, MS-DOS version: 360k. (Which is interesting, the MS-DOS version would be the one which should be smaller, MS-DOS only saw 640k purely, 16 MB (286) or 32 MB (386/486) if extended and memory extensions slowed the machine drastically, while nearly all of the Amigas in 1992 had at least 1 MB ChipRAM and could extended with 152 MB of FastRAM (nearly 2 GB actually, but nobody made turbocards what used the Z3 extension area).)

Well. If they kept the structs the same, it could still work.

Oh, and, um, PC version is big-endian too?

[edit]

Yeah, okay... there are literally no recognizable strings in there, at all. Even the basic startup checks would fail.

[TCH]

 

Oh, and, um, PC version is big-endian too?

No, that's was i explained above, that the PC version - as an x86 program - is little endian.

 

Yeah, okay... there are literally no recognizable strings in there, at all. Even the basic startup checks would fail.

Told ya. Westwood wrote the entire Amiga Dune 2 in ASM. Probably to keep memory usage and CPU resource needs low, to make Amiga Dune 2 able to run on almost any Amigas. They could do it, the 68000 assembly is much more easier than the 8086/80186/80286 assembly; just to say the most trivials: bigger and easier addressing, more and wider registers, more instructions, more addressing modes; and this was just the 68000, the Amiga OS behind the game offered much more options than MS-DOS, for example the multitasking, you could leave your work and go into Dune 2, then if the boss comes, then LA + M and the WB window came back with your work, on Amiga a correctly written program never needed a "boss key". X)

[Foxman]

My first version (0.5) Spice Obsession Mod is online now.

http://amiga68k.de/2016/01/02/dune-2-spice-obsession-mod-0-5-veroeffentlicht/

 

Its Version 0.5 because only until mission 4 playable. 

Its only the german version (choose "3" at start).

 

Greets Foxman