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A Secret Plot - Mercenary Campaign by Domaithianus


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Posted (edited)

I am halfway mission 7. daaamamamamamamamamannn!!!! what a frenzy map. I needed to restart at the beggining because I lost a harverster, the enemy crushed my troopers and the devastator is hard to take with the weak combat tank and siege tank alone.

Those Fremen are everywhere, and my harversters insist on going near them =(.

Later the Fremen backstabbed me. I lost the CY, good thing I already had the Starport and the MCV only cost 1550 credits at that point, so I could order another one quickly.

Have you thought on giving the player something in exchange of the Ix building being useless? I don't know; maybe a small loop-delivery with missile launchers (2 missile tanks every several minutes) if the building is placed (or any other idea you could have).

Anyway; I already take the base to the left (well, smuggler's were the one that took it, I only helped a bit), and the right zone lost the refinery. The harderst part is trying to reach further away; they are so defensive and have tons of units around. I count like 8 devastators wandering the surroundings, is insane.

Fortunatelly, after a bit of "attack - destroy the refinery - run for your life" seems that the Harkonnen send all those units against me, and because the size of the map and the pathfinding The AI splitted his units and Could be the tanks first before the devastators appears in scene, which I could beat one by one.

I saved at this point. I am not sure how many defenses they have, but probably now I can start rolling and stomping over the Harkonnen an defeat them.

Edited by Cm_blast
Posted (edited)

OK, V2.05 is now ready.

Some missions have only had small touch-ups, others have had massive overhauls. 2, 3, and 6 have been my primary focus, but 7 and 7B have had some significant re-tuning too. All missions at least gfot a touch-up, and Sarakeen are a lot less ugly now.

 

  On 8/1/2017 at 10:16 AM, Fey said:

Got the update and blazed through the missions. Including the first ones again. I tested on normal difficulty, so here's my two cents:

M1V1:

  Reveal hidden contents

M2V1:

  Reveal hidden contents

M3V1:

  Reveal hidden contents

M4V1:

  Reveal hidden contents

M4V2:

  Reveal hidden contents

M5V1:

  Reveal hidden contents

M5V2:

  Reveal hidden contents

M6V1:

  Reveal hidden contents

M7V1:

  Reveal hidden contents

M7V2:

  Reveal hidden contents

M8V1:

  Reveal hidden contents

M9V1:

  Reveal hidden contents

M9V2:

  Reveal hidden contents

I've been writing this up for a few days. :) Just adding whatever I can when I can. Finally done looking at / beating everything, so this post is complete. I hope my feedback helps you improve the maps that need improvement, and when you're ready on the few maps I didn't play through to the end, I'll try 'em again.

Expand  

MS2:
Let's hope it works now

MS3:
The reinforcements are mostly negated by the base, sothey only happen once now.
The infantry path is opened up a bit more, and the ST's are now only in the base, so the infantry can come home when finished.  However, it is very worth trying to take out as much of the rest of the base with them as possible.
The map is a little bigger now.
Annoyingly, I've been finding AI glitches all over the place.  Every time I fixed one, another would go haywire.  I think they're working OK now, seem to be for my play-tests, but lemme know if it does anything strange.  I'm slightly worried this is gonna replace MS2 for biggest headache while designing award.
The wall around the base can be sold depending on player preference.  But at least initially it adds to the base under siege feeling.

MS4:
Not many changes.  Expanded the rock a little, made an extra exit for the Smugglers so they don't clog things up.  Put the Starport on a % rather than interval, beserked the Fremen

MS4B:
Sped up the reinforcements at the end, killed most of the Fremen.  They're still there, but a lot smaller.  Fremen spawns are beserked too.
The turrets were there to encourage the Smugglers to respond to attacks on the Mercs.

MS5:
Not much to say.

MS5B:
Moved the HT factory, fixed the unit spawn.

MS6:
Lots of new ways to neuter the Harkonnen base.  I'll leave you to find them.  Now has a mission fail timer to stop exploitation which cancels once hostilities begin.

MS7:
Mostly the same, but attack happens a little later, and there's a little more building room.

MS7B:
Nicer looking Harkonnen base, opened a path from Merc to Smug base.  Now has Outpost.

MS8:
Extra Ordos refinery.  Reinforcements still happen, would bee too much of an anti-climax if they didn't make an extra push before the timer runs down.  There's a perfectly decent spice field to the East - not much further to go, and a hell of a lot safer.  Harvest there.
Ordos have an extra refinery now, should hit harder, encourage the player to fortify more.  Takes them time to build harvesters though, so it should gradually build.

MS9/B:
These missions are meant to be OTT being final missions, though the big clusters of units was a bit much.  I've cut AI starting funds, knocked back attack times a little.  I don't wanna use harvester replacements, as I didn't through the rest of the game.  I'm just mean like that.  Allies have to start with full bases really, I can't bring myself to turn on 'practice'.  The AI builds bases like an oxygen deprived child on crack, after taking a serious head injury.  I just can't.
To be honest, these missions, and these missions only, I built with the mentality that if players find them too much, that's OK.  They're doable, so that sense of closure isn't blocked, but they're very mean open battles.
That being said, there are some legitimate issues worth fixing.


 

Plot205.zipFetching info...

Edited by Domaithianus
Posted
  On 8/4/2017 at 1:45 PM, Cm_blast said:

Have you thought on giving the player something in exchange of the Ix building being useless? I don't know; maybe a small loop-delivery with missile launchers (2 missile tanks every several minutes) if the building is placed (or any other idea you could have).

Expand  

Ideally, I would like to give the Mercs their own special unit.  Specifically a heavy tank.  Not as nice as any of the house specials, and unlocked one tech earlier, it would be two barrels and very slow.  Unfortunately, I have no idea how I'd do that.
Your suggestion is pretty cool though.  I'd have to have a think as to how to implement it...

Posted (edited)
  On 8/4/2017 at 6:24 PM, Domaithianus said:

Ideally, I would like to give the Mercs their own special unit.  Specifically a heavy tank.  Not as nice as any of the house specials, and unlocked one tech earlier, it would be two barrels and very slow.  Unfortunately, I have no idea how I'd do that.
Your suggestion is pretty cool though.  I'd have to have a think as to how to implement it...

Expand  

Unfortunately, you can't add new units to Dune 2000.

Tibed is a program which allow to change values, as the cost of the units, the health, tech/building needed, weapons used, etc... but even the program warns that adding new units is not possible.

The only way to "add" something is by replacing an existing unit for another. But still has lots of problems. First, if you, let's say, retire the Thumper (which is not used anyway) for "mercenary ultra awesome tank", in the game the icon (building bar) will be the thumper.

I remember seeing someone about a program that allows you to visually modify units and buildings, but I never used before and maybe is too complicated (and still, the thumber icon will appear anyway).

Now, there are two units which have the body and the barrel separated, so you can do a mix between them. The body of the siege tank and the cannon of the combat tank of viceversa, but you can't mix the missile tank because "body and cannon" are a single graphic.

There are too litte room to do this kind of things. I manage to create a mix (both visually and for stats) using the three Combat tanks. I converted the Atreides Combat tank to that unit, and then I used the Grenadier slot to place there the original ATreides Combat tank, so the player (being IX) builds this modified Combat tank, and the Atreides builds a "grenadier" that visually, stats and bevahiour is just the regular Combat tank.

Just like this:
https://forum.dune2k.com/uploads/monthly_2016_10/57f3b6a8c1207_Ix1.PNG.8af03563aa01729961bc1995be35ad21.PNG
Visually it's just the Body of the Ordos combat tank (which is very similar to the Harkonnen anyway) and the Cannon for the Harkonnen version (more squared).

And no, it's no possible to use the Siege tank body-part and mixed with the missile launcher; it's sad, because sounds like a good idea to add the missile-launcher into a Quad (although you still can give to the quads missiles as a weapon) and giving the light factory relevance.

Pd: You can give the Devastator to the mercs, for example, or the grenadier, or the thumper... any existing unit (which is much more easy that doing the combat stuff explained before). Or changing the weapons of the units (altrhough a missile tank shooting bullets is weird, but can be done).

Like this
https://forum.dune2k.com/uploads/monthly_2016_10/57f3b6b10a446_Ix3.PNG.01a1aa909adcbbde1e252b5cb2688cba.PNG
The Stealth Raider given to "Atreides" (it's ix, but for the game is just Atreides with another color), using the Fremen weapons.

Edited by Cm_blast
Posted (edited)

Double post to tell I already beat mission 7 and 8. Like I said, mission 7 was almost beaten when I saved the game, so took me like 5 minutes only to take the buildings, since the Harkonnen lost everything.

Now, after beating the map I checked with the editor, and you made a huge mistake with some events:

Events 21 to 24 never trigger.
Those contain two conditions that cancel each other out: timer % and Interval.

Probably you wanted to add only the %timer into those events, but you included the interval by mistake.

Also check the Show message, the others have "Base don't destroyed" while the message have "base destroyed".

Now mission 8.
The map was indeed easy, much more than the previous one.

I assume the Ordos using airstrike was part of the map, but the player having the Saboteur too?


Edit:
Mission 9: Aaaaah, this one is a classic map. The player with several allies versus even more enemies with 5 palaces/airstrike. It reminds me a lot of those early campaigns made by several people.

I played using the 205 version, so I will talk only about this specific run.

Well, map was hard, and at some point I was fustrated (not your fault) because when I thought I was fine suddenly "harverster under attack", "another Harverster under attack", "this time is the same harverster under attack" "man, that siege tank really hates your harverster". Mmm... does lines doesn't exist in the game, but that was my brain xD.

Lots of harassment for the player and not much rest. At least a few rocket turrets here and there help to protect my base, but the Fremen appearing from nowhere taking some of my turrets and the units defending those turrets, but well.

I played the map in three days, so I don't know how many time took me to defeat the map.

Anyway, I need to praise because at least the enemy barely defend itself. It's hard to move to some parts, like the Atreides base for the right, but a few saboteurs to destroy a couple of turrets and you already in, goodbye factories and the starport and at this point the game was almost won.

I like a lot the way you place the Smuggler base. An interesting design. Could even work as an enemy.

Edited by Cm_blast
  • 4 weeks later...
Posted
  On 8/5/2017 at 2:25 PM, Cm_blast said:

Double post to tell I already beat mission 7 and 8. Like I said, mission 7 was almost beaten when I saved the game, so took me like 5 minutes only to take the buildings, since the Harkonnen lost everything.

Now, after beating the map I checked with the editor, and you made a huge mistake with some events:

Events 21 to 24 never trigger.
Those contain two conditions that cancel each other out: timer % and Interval.

Probably you wanted to add only the %timer into those events, but you included the interval by mistake.

Also check the Show message, the others have "Base don't destroyed" while the message have "base destroyed".

Now mission 8.
The map was indeed easy, much more than the previous one.

I assume the Ordos using airstrike was part of the map, but the player having the Saboteur too?


Edit:
Mission 9: Aaaaah, this one is a classic map. The player with several allies versus even more enemies with 5 palaces/airstrike. It reminds me a lot of those early campaigns made by several people.

I played using the 205 version, so I will talk only about this specific run.

Well, map was hard, and at some point I was fustrated (not your fault) because when I thought I was fine suddenly "harverster under attack", "another Harverster under attack", "this time is the same harverster under attack" "man, that siege tank really hates your harverster". Mmm... does lines doesn't exist in the game, but that was my brain xD.

Lots of harassment for the player and not much rest. At least a few rocket turrets here and there help to protect my base, but the Fremen appearing from nowhere taking some of my turrets and the units defending those turrets, but well.

I played the map in three days, so I don't know how many time took me to defeat the map.

Anyway, I need to praise because at least the enemy barely defend itself. It's hard to move to some parts, like the Atreides base for the right, but a few saboteurs to destroy a couple of turrets and you already in, goodbye factories and the starport and at this point the game was almost won.

I like a lot the way you place the Smuggler base. An interesting design. Could even work as an enemy.

Expand  

Hey man, sorry I went quiet for so long.  Feel really bad, since you took the time to play and review.  Life's been...  complicated.

I've gone through, fixed those bugs, mission's even more hectic now, but I think in a good way.

Yeah, mission 9 I was very much going for a similar vibe to Ordos mission 9 from the original campaign, but even more extreme.

Posted
  On 8/1/2017 at 7:07 PM, Fey said:

Things

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  On 8/3/2017 at 11:20 AM, Cm_blast said:

Stuff

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I'm not sure I've really sufficiently expressed my gratitude for your reviews and suggestions.  This wasn't half the campaign it is now, thanks to both your help.  Really, thank you.  I'm gonna edit the original post soon to say thanks, as well as to update the file.

Here's the latest version.

Fey, I owe you some reviewing in return, and it is coming, sorry it's taking so long.

Meanwhile, in the downtime between craptacular real life events, I've been working on a remake of the Ordos original campaign, which I'll be putting up within the next few days if anyone's interested.  Not quite as big a thing as the whole fully original Merc campaign I've got here.  More of a re imagining of the original missions.

V3.7z

Posted
  On 9/1/2017 at 10:10 PM, Domaithianus said:

Hey man, sorry I went quiet for so long.  Feel really bad, since you took the time to play and review

Expand  

Don't worry. I wouldn't play this if the map wasn't fun.

  On 9/1/2017 at 10:10 PM, Domaithianus said:

Yeah, mission 9 I was very much going for a similar vibe to Ordos mission 9 from the original campaign, but even more extreme.

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More than Ordos mission 9 extreme this is just the "basic final mission" of the earliest campaign from several people:
The Akafeda's Atreides campaign has a 3 vs 4, and his Ixian one it's 2 vs 4. The Ordos by Magier it's another 3 vs 4. The Time based smuggler it's 2 vs 5 just for name some of them... so not really extreme, but nostalgic xD. Seems like people like to do that.

But probably your's it's the one with the less defensive AI of those maps.

  On 9/1/2017 at 10:17 PM, Domaithianus said:

Meanwhile, in the downtime between craptacular real life events, I've been working on a remake of the Ordos original campaign, which I'll be putting up within the next few days if anyone's interested.  Not quite as big a thing as the whole fully original Merc campaign I've got here.  More of a re imagining of the original missions.

Expand  

You just post stuff. 

At some point, when you feel your campaign or other maps are really ready I can suggest (I'll said this to Fey too) to upload the campaign/single map in the d2kplus.com webpage. Will take some time to Gruntlord to update it, but he will. At least there plenty of people will download the maps.

For example, my last single map "no more spice" here have been downloaded 17 times (or at least this said in my attachments screen), while in the d2kplus.com has already 120 downloads.

So, v3 ready, allllllll right. Got it.

Posted
  On 9/1/2017 at 10:17 PM, Domaithianus said:

Things

Expand  

Hey man, no rush. I take breaks for months at a time as well. :D You take your time and play through my campaign when you can and when you feel up to it. And don't sweat the time it takes. :)

I look forward to the Ordos stuff. Your mapping has revitalized my passion a tad! I'm just way too busy at the moment to continue, unfortunately, but... I'm feelin' it anyway!!

Posted
  On 9/2/2017 at 8:08 AM, Fey said:

I look forward to the Ordos stuff. Your mapping has revitalized my passion a tad! I'm just way too busy at the moment to continue, unfortunately, but... I'm feelin' it anyway!!

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That's awesome man, really cool to hear.  Shame you're too busy though.  Hope you find some time soon.

The Ordos stuff is up now.  It's basically just alternative options for the original missions.  The idea was to emphasise my favourite things about the original missions, and minimise the stuff I thought was a downer.  I also thought it was a good project to improve my mission building, through observing closely how they made the originals, and trying to imitate them closely.  But I should probably save all this for the appropriate thread.

 

 

  On 9/2/2017 at 1:32 AM, Cm_blast said:

At some point, when you feel your campaign or other maps are really ready I can suggest (I'll said this to Fey too) to upload the campaign/single map in the d2kplus.com webpage. Will take some time to Gruntlord to update it, but he will. At least there plenty of people will download the maps.

Expand  

That's a very good idea, I've been eyeing that site up for a while now.  Do either of you have any advice before I go uploading on there.  Naturally I'm gonna play through my campaign again, make sure it's all up to scratch, take screenshots, create a readme file etc.

Posted
  On 9/4/2017 at 10:00 PM, Domaithianus said:

That's a very good idea, I've been eyeing that site up for a while now.  Do either of you have any advice before I go uploading on there.  Naturally I'm gonna play through my campaign again, make sure it's all up to scratch, take screenshots, create a readme file etc.

Expand  

Nothing in particular. It's recommended to have the files in the same type of path of the original game. For example, if you used tibed with a custom Templates.bin, that file should be in a folder called bin into a folder called data (so data\bin), another folder "mission" with all the .ini/.maps/.mis... Readme with a instructions, screenshots and etc.

The Mod requirements in the page sums all.

Yes, be sure when you are ready, there is no rush. Also, Gruntmod will take some time to post the mod, so there is no need to rush.

Posted (edited)

Double post because I bring some good news.

Finally I figured out how the DefenceAreas thing works! And man... As soon as I see the results I already have one concept or two for a map!

I hope you don't mind me invading your post Doma.

Here some images; click to enlarge.
59af2778b81e8_Dunearea1.png.316a473d12ae20d6846bc56cfb8b06bb.png59af27c0e3641_Dunearea2.png.12d77a1731f603636cdfa9af2e83e8d2.png59af281a1b8b6_Dunearea3.png.d12fa22d830dab516bb0af3351709689.png

In this images you can see:
1) 2 areas defined, plus 3 barracks, 3 windtraps and some combat/missile tanks manually placed.
2) All those tanks went to the first area, also new infantry trained it's going to that area.
3) After the first area it's full, the units start moving to the second area.

So, the DefenceArea works as an imaginary rectangle of walls, making the AI to wander around that area, and when both areas are filled, next units trained are part of a new attack group against the player.

Keep in mind that sometimes all the units go directly to the first area and sometimes the units split between the two. Units trained usually go to the first area first, but sometimes 2-3 initial infantry goes to the second area first.

Reinforcements - free - also makes those units to go to the area.

When the player it's near one of the areas (like 4-5 tiles from the border), the units on the area (but not the other area) defend it like a regular unit spawn, so this is more natural and more competent that making a corridor covered by a few pre-placed tanks.

The AI will ignore their own base; even when I attack it, the new infantry seems to prioritize the areas.

To make this work, you need those numbers in these lines:
59af2cd5617e5_Dunearea5.png.a15e6deeb26800be99558ea5d77e3538.png and 59af2cd63e906_Dunearea4.png.cbc734f0c1cd9cea1dc111b2e6d0921a.png.(Those numbers are from an original map).

The startdealy it's the delay between the game start and the units start to wander about the area. In the original the number was 1000, I turned to 100 so I only need to wait 4 seconds.

This "freepercentage" it's what makes the manually placed units to move to the areas. That set to a lower number and only a few of them will go to the areas.

For now, the only I know for sure it's the meaning of the second unknow of the three. It has the same purpose as the "Guardgroupsize". 20.000 and it's needed all those units on the images on top. reduce it to only 1.000 and after 6-7 infantry the area it's filled.
And, like the guardgroupsize. 4 Devastators fill the area while are needed 20 infantry/troopers, but the size of the area itself seems irrelevant.

As a Final note. At the very bottom there is a "Unkown Byte 29" set to 0 in the original maps with a defencearea; I don't seem any diferrence with that set to 1 (it's set to 1 for all the others AI on all the maps).

And that's it. Only want to advice that if the defence area it's on sand the units will go to the center of the rentagle but won't wander around. In fact, if you set a sand area with 3 tiles of rocks, the tanks only will stop on top of then (the rest will remain at the centre). 

As a side note, maybe the "protect/defend strengh" has something to do about this. I didn't tested yet. In this test protect it's set to 80 and defend to 10. It's worth other test, but for now I have enough.

Edited by Cm_blast
  • Like 1
Posted

Holy hell dude, that's awesome! I can use this to make the fremen on the Harkonnen maps go where I need them to go.

You are amazing. :D

Posted
  On 9/6/2017 at 12:12 PM, Fey said:

Holy hell dude, that's awesome! I can use this to make the fremen on the Harkonnen maps go where I need them to go.

You are amazing. :D

Expand  

Yeah, I can imagine a group of Atreides defending a Sietch withouth placing walls, turrets or buildings at all, although the rock area is needed to make them wander around. The best thing it's creating the area you really need withouth placing walls everywhere.

Just remember that the units will go to rock areas, so if you defencearea it's big but there is only a small square of rocks the units will go there (but they'll defend all the area).

Probably the AI does this to avoid being eaten by a sandworm or, in case of infantry, to shoot themselves trying to kill the sandworm.

Posted
  On 9/6/2017 at 12:44 PM, Cm_blast said:

Yeah, I can imagine a group of Atreides defending a Sietch withouth placing walls, turrets or buildings at all, although the rock area is needed to make them wander around. The best thing it's creating the area you really need withouth placing walls everywhere.

Just remember that the units will go to rock areas, so if you defencearea it's big but there is only a small square of rocks the units will go there (but they'll defend all the area).

Probably the AI does this to avoid being eaten by a sandworm or, in case of infantry, to shoot themselves trying to kill the sandworm.

Expand  

That's fine. You've checked out H2V1, right? There are two groups of Fremen running around either Atreides base, and they tend to kill themselves running into the player...

Posted (edited)
  On 9/6/2017 at 12:48 PM, Fey said:

That's fine. You've checked out H2V1, right? There are two groups of Fremen running around either Atreides base, and they tend to kill themselves running into the player...

Expand  

You mean Feyh2v1? 

Oh, ok, I was thinking on the "fremen side" instead the units. I can see those two groups, being Mercenary/smuggler side and you used a few walls to make them wander around.

I have a similar map with two sides only having walls/turrets (around another two sides) and, in the long run, they seem to go all-in against my ally (usually after some battling), the AI is very weird.

But yes, with a defence map you can make those units to wander around the whole base and not only being near the walls (and giving the walls to the original owner).

Of course, for now I only did a few quick tests. I can't guarantee the units defending an area will remain there forever, but I don't remember the Fremen in the H4v1 (original westwood map) going bersek on me before, even I remember once I was toying with them sending only small groups of troopers, so took me several attacks before finally kill all of them.

But there is another thing. Like I said, all the AIs in all the original maps have a "unknown byte 29" set to 1, while in those maps with Fremen/sietch involved that byte it's set to 0 (maps with no buildings, besides the sietch); and since in those maps the fremen don't build anything, maybe that Byte it's the one that stop the AI to go all-in against anyone because won't be remplacements (nor attacks).

I could recommend to test your map turning the unknown byte 29 to 0 and look if that makes the AI to stop his "all-in".

At what point do you say it happens? 5 min, 10 min...? so I can try to do the test myself.

Edited by Cm_blast
Posted
  On 9/5/2017 at 11:08 PM, Cm_blast said:

Double post because I bring some good news.

Finally I figured out how the DefenceAreas thing works! And man... As soon as I see the results I already have one concept or two for a map!

I hope you don't mind me invading your post Doma.

Here some images; click to enlarge.
59af2778b81e8_Dunearea1.png.316a473d12ae20d6846bc56cfb8b06bb.png59af27c0e3641_Dunearea2.png.12d77a1731f603636cdfa9af2e83e8d2.png59af281a1b8b6_Dunearea3.png.d12fa22d830dab516bb0af3351709689.png

In this images you can see:
1) 2 areas defined, plus 3 barracks, 3 windtraps and some combat/missile tanks manually placed.
2) All those tanks went to the first area, also new infantry trained it's going to that area.
3) After the first area it's full, the units start moving to the second area.

So, the DefenceArea works as an imaginary rectangle of walls, making the AI to wander around that area, and when both areas are filled, next units trained are part of a new attack group against the player.

Keep in mind that sometimes all the units go directly to the first area and sometimes the units split between the two. Units trained usually go to the first area first, but sometimes 2-3 initial infantry goes to the second area first.

Reinforcements - free - also makes those units to go to the area.

When the player it's near one of the areas (like 4-5 tiles from the border), the units on the area (but not the other area) defend it like a regular unit spawn, so this is more natural and more competent that making a corridor covered by a few pre-placed tanks.

The AI will ignore their own base; even when I attack it, the new infantry seems to prioritize the areas.

To make this work, you need those numbers in these lines:
59af2cd5617e5_Dunearea5.png.a15e6deeb26800be99558ea5d77e3538.png and 59af2cd63e906_Dunearea4.png.cbc734f0c1cd9cea1dc111b2e6d0921a.png.(Those numbers are from an original map).

The startdealy it's the delay between the game start and the units start to wander about the area. In the original the number was 1000, I turned to 100 so I only need to wait 4 seconds.

This "freepercentage" it's what makes the manually placed units to move to the areas. That set to a lower number and only a few of them will go to the areas.

For now, the only I know for sure it's the meaning of the second unknow of the three. It has the same purpose as the "Guardgroupsize". 20.000 and it's needed all those units on the images on top. reduce it to only 1.000 and after 6-7 infantry the area it's filled.
And, like the guardgroupsize. 4 Devastators fill the area while are needed 20 infantry/troopers, but the size of the area itself seems irrelevant.

As a Final note. At the very bottom there is a "Unkown Byte 29" set to 0 in the original maps with a defencearea; I don't seem any diferrence with that set to 1 (it's set to 1 for all the others AI on all the maps).

And that's it. Only want to advice that if the defence area it's on sand the units will go to the center of the rentagle but won't wander around. In fact, if you set a sand area with 3 tiles of rocks, the tanks only will stop on top of then (the rest will remain at the centre). 

As a side note, maybe the "protect/defend strengh" has something to do about this. I didn't tested yet. In this test protect it's set to 80 and defend to 10. It's worth other test, but for now I have enough.

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This is awesome, and incredibly useful.  Of course I don't mind you posting in this thread about it.  The more I learn, the better my designs are gonna be.
Also now, thanks to you I've now discovered I've been using 'FreePercentage' entirely wrong.  This explains some very annoying AI behaviour I've been banging my head against. :- P

Posted
  On 9/6/2017 at 3:37 PM, Domaithianus said:

Also now, thanks to you I've now discovered I've been using 'FreePercentage' entirely wrong.  This explains some very annoying AI behaviour I've been banging my head against. :- P

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As soon as I see that only those Ais (only Fremen/Sietchs) have that number to 100 while usually it's 0 I through on that conection. Also I can see that the Freepercentage works in the same way in a regular base, so if you have all the 64 events covered but need one more, you always can remove the unit spawn, place the units manually and then write a 100 in the free percentage to work.

Posted
  On 9/6/2017 at 3:08 PM, Cm_blast said:

You mean Feyh2v1? 

Oh, ok, I was thinking on the "fremen side" instead the units. I can see those two groups, being Mercenary/smuggler side and you used a few walls to make them wander around.

I have a similar map with two sides only having walls/turrets (around another two sides) and, in the long run, they seem to go all-in against my ally (usually after some battling), the AI is very weird.

But yes, with a defence map you can make those units to wander around the whole base and not only being near the walls (and giving the walls to the original owner).

Of course, for now I only did a few quick tests. I can't guarantee the units defending an area will remain there forever, but I don't remember the Fremen in the H4v1 (original westwood map) going bersek on me before, even I remember once I was toying with them sending only small groups of troopers, so took me several attacks before finally kill all of them.

But there is another thing. Like I said, all the AIs in all the original maps have a "unknown byte 29" set to 1, while in those maps with Fremen/sietch involved that byte it's set to 0 (maps with no buildings, besides the sietch); and since in those maps the fremen don't build anything, maybe that Byte it's the one that stop the AI to go all-in against anyone because won't be remplacements (nor attacks).

I could recommend to test your map turning the unknown byte 29 to 0 and look if that makes the AI to stop his "all-in".

At what point do you say it happens? 5 min, 10 min...? so I can try to do the test myself.

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If I remember right, while I was testing a while back, I lost my attacking force against the southern base. Each Fremen attacked me one by one until there were none left, and I think they were defending some area. Weird.

Posted
  On 9/6/2017 at 4:39 PM, Fey said:

If I remember right, while I was testing a while back, I lost my attacking force against the southern base. Each Fremen attacked me one by one until there were none left, and I think they were defending some area. Weird.

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Maybe not so weird. The attack Building strengh of those two groups it's 0, so probably the AI start the attack with the minimum possible: 1 unit. After one it's killed, he send another one. Probably if the number was 10 or so they will send all of them at once.

But anyway. I'll try to test your map and a map of mine. I'll cheat giving myself 900.000 credits or even reinforcemnts every few minutes, but I'l try to force some small fights and see myself If I can manage to trigger them the same way.

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