Can we add crates in missions?

[MattBaker]

The small, green, cute crate that gives you 1000S, 5 soldiers, a vehicle or a "pew" randomly. Can we add it in maps? 

[Cm_blast]

6 hours ago, MattBaker said:

The small, green, cute crate that gives you 1000S, 5 soldiers, a vehicle or a "pew" randomly. Can we add it in maps? 

No as far as I know, because any game loaded with the editor/launcher it's considered "campaign" type of map, thus no crates.

[Fey]

6 hours ago, MattBaker said:

The small, green, cute crate that gives you 1000S, 5 soldiers, a vehicle or a "pew" randomly. Can we add it in maps? 

I imagine it has a tiledata value, but we don't really know it yet. The tiledata value would be the only way to add crates to maps.

I do, however, happen to know how you can add CHOAM Freighters that circle around like Carryalls. Value 199 will add an Atreides-colored CHOAM Freighter, 391 is the Harkonnen CHOAM Freighter, and 558 is the Ordos'.

CHOAM Freighters will not be targeted by anti-air, but they will self-destruct through the use of a "leave" event. If you want to add one to a map and have it be a destructible goal, you'll need a nearby target on the ground that can be destroyed that will trigger the leave event that destroys the CHOAM Freighter.

You can also add Death Hand Missiles with similar values, but they'll launch at the start and ALWAYS land in the very, very center of the map. So, there are limited applications for such things. You may also add a sandworm for each faction - like, for instance, 557 is the special value for the Ordos Sandworm - but again the side would need to have no AI whatsoever or the sandworm wouldn't work. The player's side doesn't work either because you can actually order the sandworm around, and doing so instantly breaks the sandworm.

ALL of the special values for spice blooms, player start, etc. have Harkonnen Sandworm as their placeholder in tiledata... but from what I can tell, there is no Harkonnen Sandworm outlier that would contain a crate's value. There ARE hidden units and values, like I found "Superdense Spice" exists (special value 3), but that instantly crashes the game. Because of the existence of Superdense Spice, I BELIEVE there may be a special value for crates that is hidden, but I haven't found it yet.

I have tried adding 8 player starts to a single-player map and using INI settings to add crates per player, with zero results.

I have tried many special values not assigned to specific structures or units to spawn crates, with zero results so far.

While we continue to search special values from 0 to 999 for new stuff, there is one alternative. This!

Spoiler

https://forum.dune2k.com/topic/27863-release-heighliner-tileset/

The Heighliner Tileset was built for compatability, and it has special features that are perfectly suited for the things crates are normally capable of doing:
 - Bonus units can be spawned when the player discovers docked CHOAM Freighters via events.
 - The hybrid expendable crates & infinite nodes resources harvesting system allows for innovative new designs!
 - On a map where the player doesn't get a Refinery, a cash increase event can happen when crates are found.

Now, you may want to check out the mini-campaign (only four missions long) to see how maps were first designed for this new tileset, but just to give you an idea of what the in-game crates / reinforcement spawns could look like...
A bunch of crates: https://i.imgur.com/g5mkItC.png
Found new units: https://i.imgur.com/cNG114D.png

Those are both screenshots from the very first level in the mini-campaign.

I hope that helps. 😅 D2k is unfortunately so very limited, but hopefully new innovations continue to expand our options.

[MattBaker]

On 4/25/2019 at 4:54 PM, Fey said:

I imagine it has a tiledata value, but we don't really know it yet. The tiledata value would be the only way to add crates to maps.

I do, however, happen to know how you can add CHOAM Freighters that circle around like Carryalls. Value 199 will add an Atreides-colored CHOAM Freighter, 391 is the Harkonnen CHOAM Freighter, and 558 is the Ordos'.

CHOAM Freighters will not be targeted by anti-air, but they will self-destruct through the use of a "leave" event. If you want to add one to a map and have it be a destructible goal, you'll need a nearby target on the ground that can be destroyed that will trigger the leave event that destroys the CHOAM Freighter.

You can also add Death Hand Missiles with similar values, but they'll launch at the start and ALWAYS land in the very, very center of the map. So, there are limited applications for such things. You may also add a sandworm for each faction - like, for instance, 557 is the special value for the Ordos Sandworm - but again the side would need to have no AI whatsoever or the sandworm wouldn't work. The player's side doesn't work either because you can actually order the sandworm around, and doing so instantly breaks the sandworm.

ALL of the special values for spice blooms, player start, etc. have Harkonnen Sandworm as their placeholder in tiledata... but from what I can tell, there is no Harkonnen Sandworm outlier that would contain a crate's value. There ARE hidden units and values, like I found "Superdense Spice" exists (special value 3), but that instantly crashes the game. Because of the existence of Superdense Spice, I BELIEVE there may be a special value for crates that is hidden, but I haven't found it yet.

I have tried adding 8 player starts to a single-player map and using INI settings to add crates per player, with zero results.

I have tried many special values not assigned to specific structures or units to spawn crates, with zero results so far.

While we continue to search special values from 0 to 999 for new stuff, there is one alternative. This!

  Reveal hidden contents

https://forum.dune2k.com/topic/27863-release-heighliner-tileset/

The Heighliner Tileset was built for compatability, and it has special features that are perfectly suited for the things crates are normally capable of doing:
 - Bonus units can be spawned when the player discovers docked CHOAM Freighters via events.
 - The hybrid expendable crates & infinite nodes resources harvesting system allows for innovative new designs!
 - On a map where the player doesn't get a Refinery, a cash increase event can happen when crates are found.

Now, you may want to check out the mini-campaign (only four missions long) to see how maps were first designed for this new tileset, but just to give you an idea of what the in-game crates / reinforcement spawns could look like...
A bunch of crates: https://i.imgur.com/g5mkItC.png
Found new units: https://i.imgur.com/cNG114D.png

Those are both screenshots from the very first level in the mini-campaign.

I hope that helps. 😅 D2k is unfortunately so very limited, but hopefully new innovations continue to expand our options.

Thanks, you're so professional that it's beyond my knowledge

[MattBaker]

On 4/25/2019 at 4:14 PM, Cm_blast said:

No as far as I know, because any game loaded with the editor/launcher it's considered "campaign" type of map, thus no crates.

Ok, thanks. That's so sad because I really love the little crate in Dune 2000 and RA95.

[Fey]

1 hour ago, MattBaker said:

Thanks, you're so professional that it's beyond my knowledge

You flatter me! Thank you. 😅

1 hour ago, MattBaker said:

Ok, thanks. That's so sad because I really love the little crate in Dune 2000 and RA95.

I'm still searching all the special values for the possible hidden value of a crate (in layman's terms: If I find it we can place crates, but it might not exist at all). As unfortunate as it is that we can't place them in campaign maps (as far as we know so far), there's still that new tileset with on-map crates to use. It's... not perfect, but it's something!

They take the role of thin Spice; they can be harvested for cash. You can see in-game screenshots with them underneath the spoiler in my previous reply.

[Cm_blast]

10 hours ago, Fey said:

I'm still searching all the special values for the possible hidden value of a crate (in layman's terms: If I find it we can place crates, but it might not exist at all). As unfortunate as it is that we can't place them in campaign maps (as far as we know so far), there's still that new tileset with on-map crates to use. It's... not perfect, but it's something!

They take the role of thin Spice; they can be harvested for cash. You can see in-game screenshots with them underneath the spoiler in my previous reply.

Did you try:
CratesPerPlayer: yes
and then with all the special values? (from 0 to whatever limit).
or... did you try instead "no" to "yes" just simply write "1" and doing the same thing with the special values?

Just wondering.

[Fey]

37 minutes ago, Cm_blast said:

Did you try:
CratesPerPlayer: yes
and then with all the special values? (from 0 to whatever limit).
or... did you try instead "no" to "yes" just simply write "1" and doing the same thing with the special values?

Just wondering.

Good question. I didn't try CratesPerPlayer: yes AND 8 player spawns placed before placing all the special values...

I've tried up to ~300 so far without the above parameters, with no results... except discovering Superdense Spice, but again, that crashes the game. Its existence at the very least suggests the possibility of a hidden special value for crates, I've also only tried BLANK values, although obviously Spice blooms and such have other stuff in their tiledata entries so maybe there's a written value that would be the crate spawn. Don't know yet.

Below are the components to the Tiledata Editor:
TileDataEditor.exe
buildings.txt
units.txt

For whoever's reading this, you can open your TILEDATA.bin file with this editor and its components and use them to check what values are assigned to what units and structures. These values are the special values picked by Klofkac's map and mission editor to place units and structures in-game. Maybe if we try every value from 0 to 999, we'll find crates? 😅