[Release] Smuggling Operations - Dune 2000 Campaign

[Cm_blast]

Some years ago I created a small mini smuggler campaign that contained only 4 missions long. I was trying to keep the theme of my vision of the Smugglers; If the campaign would be bigger (and increasing the tech from map to map) at the end the missions would feel like if you were playing as Ordos but with another color.

But today I had new ideas and I manage to pick up those 4 missions already made and expand that mini campaign into a full complete campaign: 9 missions + 1 bonus extra mission, being able to maintain the main theme of the Smugglers, so here we go.

STORY:
This it's the story of a specific group of smugglers, led by Esmar Tuek. He hired the player to command his army, since you have the skills to do it and help them with the problems that a hostile planet as Dune can throw at them.

The Smugglers are neutral in the big war for Arrakis. They main purpose it's getting money by harvesting or doing business with contraband of vehicles inside or outside Arrakis. But this doesn't mean that their lives will be easy; not everyone is so peaceful.

Can you help solve all the problems that may affect this small group of smugglers?

THE THEME:
For my vision of "who are the smugglers" I followed these three points:
*Neutral: Smugglers are neutral in the big war of Dune. They don’t have allies or enemies, but this does not mean that they are not exempt from dangers.
*Money: Smugglers main purpose it’s to earn profit. Harvesting it’s a good way to do it, but not the only one.
*Weak: Smugglers are not too well prepared to fight like other factions, so they don’t really want to start a war against any House.

Although that it’s the theme of the Smuggler, this campaign still has traditional fighting, building a base from zero and all that, but you never will face several factions at the same time, or maybe there are other favorable factors that will help you to survive, making credible that a such weak faction can win in specific situations.

MINI CAMPAIGN REUSED:
The original mini campaign was composed of four missions; I reused the three first to make the start of this new campaign. They are overall the same but I made a few adjustments now that I know more about the game.

For example on the mission 2 the Ordos now will target your silos with their engineers instead going against a windtrap. Or in the mission 3 the walls around the base are owned by the player instead on an ally AI without affecting the main outcome of the events.

There are a few more changes, but those missions are played roughly the same. I changed the most the briefing to add Esmar Tuek and other parts of the text to adapt to the new situation. Also the dialogue in mid-game will change a bit too, not only adding Tuek's name when talking/warning the player, but also a couple of more lines more.

The 4º mission no longer made sense with the story of the full campaign extended, but I didn’t want to delete or leave this map out. For this reason I included it as part of a bonus singular mission following an alternate ending. This final map its' not part of the main cannon, so it's not mandatory to play it.

The bonus mission has been altered a bit. The main part it's I make the enemy to not crush deliberately your infantry, so the luck (of being crushed by the AI or not) it's not a factor to win or loose the map. The map is still hard and can not be taken lightly.

SCREENSHOTS:

FILE:
Smuggling Operations.rar

HOW TO INSTALL:
Unzip the file and copy every folder into the root of the game.
Any folders included will go to the path that it is suppose to go.
Do not copy any pgn (screenshots) nor the readme.txt (instructions).

Edited January 13, 2022 by Cm_blast

[D2k Sardaukar]

Nice work! Thank you. I enjoyed the first two levels. First time I died right away, second time I kept building units and survived. Nice how the engineers focus on silos.

However the third level is too difficult for me. I cannot build enough units on time and I cannot build turrets.
Also building harvesters at the same time is not possible.  Any hints, tips or tricks?

In the readme.txt there is a small mistake. You wrote:

Quote

<where you instaled>

But it should be "installed" with two l's.

Edited December 14, 2018 by D2k Sardaukar

[Cm_blast]

12 minutes ago, D2k Sardaukar said:

Nice work! Thank you. I enjoyed the first two levels. First time I died right away, second time I kept building units and survived. Nice how the engineers focus on silos.

However the third level is too difficult for me. I cannot build enough units on time and I cannot build turrets.
Also building harvesters at the same time is not possible.  Any hints, tips or tricks?

Wow, I was still editing the main post to change a few things wrong and you already beat 2 missions xD.

On the third level you have 2 choices:
*you can start producing a couple of harvesters and trying to survive with your initial units, trying to pop up manily infantry and troopers (but not using money on raiders or updates for the quads) so for the late game you have a better economy.
Or
*You can use all the money on units early, no harvesters at all. After the first defense you will recieve some help to protect you, so that's the moment to produce a few harvester more.

In either case, try to set your units together but in small groups, Missile tanks can be killed quickly even for infantry, so having infantry spreaded around will help a lot. You can have a few troopers with you just for killing the tanks once they lost they shot at your cheap infantry. Same with the light vehicles coming at you, wait until they reach you and, if you can, place your units behind the walls. Troopers will reach the trikes/quads and the enemy AI will do a bit of walkaround.

12 minutes ago, D2k Sardaukar said:

In the readme.txt there is a small mistake. You wrote:

Quote

<where you instaled>

But it should be "installed" with two l's.

Oh; I've using this readme since... forever and nobody told me anything xD. well, doesn't matter, I think is still easy to understand.

Edited December 14, 2018 by Cm_blast

[Fey]

Hype, moar smugglers campaign!

Imma give this a look at some point after the holidays, because busy at the moment. 😢 But soon! Soooon. Soon.

[Szwagier]

finally new campaign !

[Cm_blast]

4 hours ago, Szwagier said:

finally new campaign !

I hope this time you have the original tech :P.

[MattBaker]

I played the 4 mini missions, they were too hard for me haha. I really don't like using the infantries 

[Cm_blast]

2 hours ago, MattBaker said:

I played the 4 mini missions, they were too hard for me haha. I really don't like using the infantries 

Don't worry; the 4º one now it's just bonus mission; after finishing the campaign you can play it for an alternative ending (which you already what it is) but if you don't enjoy that map you can skip it; also in this new mission 4 you already start controlling tanks, so the tech increases, just slighly slowly than usual.

The original mini-campaign was hard because was short. this one it's not exactly easy, but the 2º mission and the 3º one now it's extra help for players.

Edited December 18, 2018 by Cm_blast

[MattBaker]

[Szwagier]

Ok, i have got still moded dune2000 so i got crash mission 6, in few sec after start

[Cm_blast]

On 12/19/2018 at 5:00 PM, Szwagier said:

Ok, i have got still moded dune2000 so i got crash mission 6, in few sec after start

Take this; but before I suggest to do a back up of all the files before ovewritting, just in case.

This template it's the original values I use to revert after playing a campaign that mod units/tech.
It's also included the colour.bin since a couple of missions over there ask for a custom colour too; I think there are a mod that slighly changes the shades of blue/red/etc to make the units more visible during online game; My colour.bin revert to the very original state so depending of what you have you may need it or not; just in case do a copy of any of those files before overwritting.

After placing these files (all of them will overwrite the ones you have now) try to play the mission again.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Cm_blast

[Szwagier]

it works thanks

 

ok played mission 6, ixian was inactive half game till i moved all hark army to his base and he went hostie, it should work diffrent?

 

lol mission 8  after when u are in atriedes base, enemy got reinforcement between ordos and artedes base, and i spent 15 min to micro to win vs them XD

i was sure i need make base in ordos base

Edited December 19, 2018 by Szwagier

[Cm_blast]

8 hours ago, Szwagier said:

ok played mission 6, ixian was inactive half game till i moved all hark army to his base and he went hostie, it should work diffrent?

No. On this map Ixian are not your ally nor your enemy, but they are not Harkonnen ally or enemy either.

Spoiler

Once you do the first part of the plan it's the time to do the second: Trigger a fight between both, and to do that you need to drag some Harkonnen units into your units into the Ixian base. The splash damage will trigger the hostility between both sides and from there the map become more easily to finish; although still is a triple threat, so you need to be carefull to not be the ones under Ixian siege.

8 hours ago, Szwagier said:

lol mission 8  after when u are in atriedes base, enemy got reinforcement between ordos and artedes base, and i spent 15 min to micro to win vs them XD

I don't know if felling mad or impressed.

I deliberate made the rock at the Atreides base so small to discourage people to deploy there; and then I proceed to drop an insane amount of advance tanks to ensure that players are enforced to not come back into the Ordos base and then... I read your post. Those units are a "ok, definitely that's not the way I need to go" but you guys are just too insane; I mean, I know about thinking outside the box and that type of things, but after doing multiple jobs and Moving foward to the next, what part of you mind made you see a too big amount of units that it's not way it's balanced compared to the rest of the whole campaign and said "mmm. I wonder if I need to go that way".

Fortunatelly; I hope I have gotten ahead of that kind of behavior and the game don't tell you a "you win" deploying the MCV on the Ordos base.

8 hours ago, Szwagier said:

i was sure i need make base in ordos base

The only good thing about this it's to know that even if you deploy the MCV into the Ordos base you still need to reach the next objetive.

Asking seriusly now. What I am suppose to place there to avoid to people like you to ever try that again? just what combination of units will give you a "ok, not even my master-skilled-ultimate-saiyan-final-form can't beat that". Because at this point I am out of ideas!

Edited December 20, 2018 by Cm_blast

[Szwagier]

i think u can make if player will make construction yard will be lose, also you should add artiedes units near turret so player will see where he should go

[Cm_blast]

On 12/20/2018 at 4:51 PM, Szwagier said:

i think u can make if player will make construction yard will be lose, also you should add artiedes units near turret so player will see where he should go

I am a bit full of events here, so I need to remove stuff to add that. But that doesn't fix the problem, if you go into the Ordos area and deploy there the game show a "mission fail" but that it's not telling you where to go; and even if I made that, after the player reach the final destination you are asked to deploy the MCV in the inner of the final base (because there is no other place to do it). Nothing could stop you to wait with your MCV on the Ordos base, reaching that final base and after the "deploy the MCV" message you do it into the Ordos base and you won the map.

I can opening a bit the Atreides base to make it more easy to cross.

but how about if I write on the briefing "1 special unit per base" or something among those lines? that will make things more cleary by saying "you sell that to the Ordos, no reason to come back to them"?. Better this way?

Of if really necesary I can tell details like "you will visit 5 bases, travel to all of them", so you at that point you know you still has 1 more place to go.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Cm_blast

[Cm_blast]

After enough time of resting, I replayed this campaign once more; I did things different and didn't remember everything present on the maps, so I played a bit more blindy than in intense test.

The first post got update with the full list of the changes, overall the biggest changes are part of the mission 5; 1 enemy refinery it's 100% surrounded by walls and protected with multiple troopers. Use the Siege tanks given to kill them from a safe distance with no damage. Also I move some spice fiels because the enemy harvesters were going into my ways and I didn't want my units to attack them damaging themselves due the splash damage.

On the mission 8; the briefing now it's more clear with the objetives. Now Tuek sais that you will meet 5 specific factions during your journey, doing a deal with all of them. Even the goal at the end of the briefing ask for selling 1 special unit per group. Also the Atreides base now it's more open and more easy to cross; no longer need to do a walk around around walls to reach the exit, so now should be more clear to understand that you need to keep moving group after group until you met the 5 of them.

First post updated and file updated too.

[Ulamr]

Hello.

I'm new to the forum, but I believe this is the right thread.

Just started playing some campaigns by Cm_blast, they seem fresh and entertaining. I.e. finished Fremen Warriors, everything was fine, and the same was true for Smuggling Operations 1-3.

But mission 4 of this campaign is either bugged, or impossible, or I don't understand something.

From the very first seconds as the map loads, a host of Emperor forces comes attacking and keeps hunting my buildings and units. This is NOT a retaliation or something (though if I manage to kill some attackers I get a warning message) - it happens before I can do literally anything.

After a few retries, I came up with two ways to fulfill the initial goal. One is to sell all the buildings (so you get just enough). The other one is to send the one harvester closest to the enemy as far away as possible, then the second harvester might manage to harvest and unload 400-500 credits before getting destroyed together with the refinery.

Either way, this brings us to the second objective - a couple of sloooow sonic tanks need to travel to the opposite edge of the map to demolish the wind traps, while having a never-stopping bloodthirsty horde on their tails (actively hunting my units one by one wherever on the map they are).

After many, many more tries I was able to buy just enough time (by sending every single man or harvester to various remote locations, so the pursuers have to travel a lot) to destroy the damn wind traps. Was about to celebrate a really hard-earned success, when... Probably the main part of the mission pops up, with MCV and all.

So by the time MCV arrives, all my structures are either sold or destroyed, all initial units are dead, I have zero credits, and an ever-growing Emperor force is coming straight at me. I do not think it is possible to micro-manage THAT squad of high-level vehicles with a few lousy infantrymen that arrived with the MCV. So at this point I totally give up.

Maybe you would like to check diplomacy, AI settings, triggers or something.

Thank you

[Cm_blast]

On 9/10/2020 at 8:40 AM, Ulamr said:

From the very first seconds as the map loads, a host of Emperor forces comes attacking and keeps hunting my buildings and units. This is NOT a retaliation or something (though if I manage to kill some attackers I get a warning message) - it happens before I can do literally anything.

This is something bugged with your game then; this is what should happen.

A) You start the game and harvest the amount of money requirement (no clicks needed).
B) you get the Sonic tanks and destroy the windtraps
C) Imperials get angry at you for doing that and then start with the attacks.

And then only after the "C" part it's done, he will start launching attacks, but no before that.

Did you play any modded campaign recently? because maybe my trigger it's "certain unit/building exist" but due you using a modded version, that unit/building arealdy exist (or don't) and everything trigger before expected.

If you want to check this is the teaser I did for the campaign, I did move a bit the harversters (exploring a bit the area) for the sake of the video, but you can see how I am just calming doing my thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwE-hAQqKxo

Just in case I recently downloaded the mission and applied/loaded with the mission launcher.
Nothing wrong happened to me (That's the MCV landing).

Harvesting the quota, doing the windtrap thing, receaving the MCV, no enemy unit on sight.

In fact, the enemy it's made to be passive, and will actually waits until you fullfill the windtrap goal, when you do that, you get a MCV. When you deploy the MCV, the enemy can start producing units, and only when the siege tank it's produced (which will take some time as the AI will build other units befre), an enemy wave will trigger and launch a attack.

It's true that you only have low tech to protect against combat tanks and so on, but it's just that, he is passive until you do that job (or if you let the game running for... dunno, maybe 3 hours, then he may launch an attack on you).

Just be sure that you copied the file "tiledata.bin" provied (although I don't think this has anything to do with it), which path it's "data/bin", but if you already did, then you may need to rever whatever change was done on the game. 

Here, these are the usual 4 files that gets modded depending on the campaign, this upload are the originals I have as a back up.
Template Original.rar

They are in the folder "data/bin". So try to overwrite them. This should revert the game to the vanilla state and try again the mission.

And again, the battle shouldn't ever start not until a MCV it's delivered, and even then, the AI will take some time to arrive (so your Sonic tanks have enough time to come back, you can build a second ref and barracks and group a decent amount of infantry/troopers to protect yourself).
Even storywise you are the neutral faction, Imperials are not the attackers, you are the one that "attacked" a windtrap the emperor wanted and then retaliate because of that action.

Edited September 14, 2020 by Cm_blast

[Ulamr]

Thank you for such a detailed answer!

 

Yes, I figured this is not how events in the mission should unfold, that is why I wrote in the first place

 

I am using the Gruntmods' version of the game, could this be a problem? I did install some custom campaigns and missions, but only those made/rearranged by you, IIRC (like the "Battle Royale" map set, very nice one  ). Definitely nothing to change the base game significantly (like totally new units etc).

 

Ok, anyway, so this is a bug on my side. I will try the backup files. If this doesn't help, will try to reinstall the game from scratch and add only this campaign. If yet no success, then the problem would probably be in the launcher version. I will try and report my findings.

 

Thanks again for your commitment!

[Cm_blast]

24 minutes ago, Ulamr said:

Thank you for such a detailed answer!

Yes, I figured this is not how events in the mission should unfold, that is why I wrote in the first place

I am using the Gruntmods' version of the game, could this be a problem? I did install some custom campaigns and missions, but only those made/rearranged by you, IIRC (like the "Battle Royale" map set, very nice one  ). Definitely nothing to change the base game significantly (like totally new units etc).

Ok, anyway, so this is a bug on my side. I will try the backup files. If this doesn't help, will try to reinstall the game from scratch and add only this campaign. If yet no success, then the problem would probably be in the launcher version. I will try and report my findings.

Thanks again for your commitment!

Thanks to you for playing.

I don't know then, I am using gruntmods too; my version it's not the most update one, but this shouldn't be a factor (The mission don't use rare events that weren't available in early days, I think).

By the way, if you are not using this mission launcher I suggest to get it.
https://forum.dune2k.com/topic/28811-release-dune-2000-mission-launcher-12/

If you play a campaign that use custom stuff that use any kind of new thing (different tech, new colors...) this launcher (and if all the extra files are applied where they should) you won't need anymore to do any copy-paste anymore; really old campaign by authors gone those still require, but I have a few of my campaigns (and a couple of the rearrange ones) that I added the extra files needed, so you can play the "luminar's Fremen" and training Fremen and building sietchs, but thanks to the launcher you don't need to worry about copy custom files and paste them, the launcher will do it for you.

Also, that Launcher includes plenty of missions by Feda, the last campaign ever made (to this day) plus some of the older ones (just a few). But that's the thing, it's the most updated Mission Launcher where you can play multiple/different missions campaigns at once and the launcher will pick the correct modifications for you (just be carefull with downloaded all the files, as an extra folder has to be moved and a ".ini" file it's mean to remplace the old one in order to the launcher to read the extra info, but you only need to do this once, then you can play mission 5 on the Emperor return, then jump into mission 3 on the Ixian one and then jump into mission 6 on the Luminar's Fremen and the game will play with different mods depending on the mission chosen).

Edited September 14, 2020 by Cm_blast

[Ulamr]

So, yes, I placed the 4 files you sent in the required folder, and it worked as intended. Just completed the mission 😃

Strangely, the file manager showed that the files that had been overwritten were OLDER than the "backup" ones, not newer.

It would be hard now to figure out which mod/campaign initially broke the mission. Anyway, let's record that these files in data/bin solve the problem (if someone else runs into it one day).

Thanks a lot!

Edited September 14, 2020 by Ulamr

[Cm_blast]

14 minutes ago, Ulamr said:

So, yes, I placed the 4 files you sent in the required folder, and it worked as intended. Just completed the mission 😃

Strangely, the file manager showed that the files that had been overwritten were OLDER than the "backup" ones, not newer.

It would be hard now to figure out which mod/campaign initially broke the mission. Anyway, let's record that these files data/bin solve the problem (if someone else runs into it one day).

Thanks a lot!

No idea; maybe the date of my files were when I installed gruntmods, but whatever modded the game for whatever campaign were done before that... I don't know I think the original files should be from 1998, but I don't know, I even have an original color file and it is dated as 2018, so who knows.

I think what it happens was something simple as the game, instead having a Imperial construction Yard, it had a Harkonnen CY (which looks the same); those scatered iddle units will go bersek (all the units go against the player) as to get rid of them by the end of the mission once you destroy the CY, but if you game was modded with something as simple as making imperials to use a Harkonnen version instead the imperial one that was enough, around 30 units will attack you for no reason.

I know something similar happen some years ago with a similar problem with an Outpost. Destroying it would make the iddle units to kill themselves against the player thus making more easy to attack the enemies; and here somebody had the same problem: units going bersekd from the first second, which it was impossible to win against that.

Anyway; glad it worked for you and good luck with next missions.

Edited September 14, 2020 by Cm_blast