[REVAMP] Summers' Solstice Campaign

[Fey]

On 7/22/2023 at 4:22 AM, lefiath said:

Thank you very much for updating this, this version actually works for me and I can run it at borderless in decent resolution, while the in game sound still plays. I wish OpenRA would put some more love for Dune 2000, but unless that miracle happens, I guess I'll keep coming to this release.

Thank you very much for playing! That means a lot to me

Do you mean that the patched maps in my prior post have eliminated the glitch for you? If so, that's excellent news! I apologize that that wasn't fixed prior to release, but we had no idea what exactly was causing it due to the nature of the glitch. I'm glad Awii proposed that it was due to the stealth units.

I still have more testing to do to make sure that update to the AI behavior doesn't cause any other problems, and actually prevents the crash. Any additional testing though is of great help! Many thanks.

[lefiath]

No, I didn't download the fix, I wasn't reacting to any other issues other people were having, so I'm afraid I can't comment on that. I've only played campaign and experienced no crashes (as I wasn't playing with any invisible units).

I was simply praising your version, because it's the only version of the original game I can play that does work for me. The latest Gruntmods version sadly has some issue, where the sound wouldn't play for me in the borderless version, and that was the only version where the game would cover 100% of my display, for some reason, if I chose fullscreen and smaller resolution than my desktop, it just acted like windowed version, no amount of tweaking I've attempted would work, other than the borderless. And the game is quite unplayable in 1440p, you can't see anything.

Edited July 24, 2023 by lefiath

[Fey]

11 hours ago, lefiath said:

No, I didn't download the fix, I wasn't reacting to any other issues other people were having, so I'm afraid I can't comment on that. I've only played campaign and experienced no crashes (as I wasn't playing with any invisible units).

I was simply praising your version, because it's the only version of the original game I can play that does work for me. The latest Gruntmods version sadly has some issue, where the sound wouldn't play for me in the borderless version, and that was the only version where the game would cover 100% of my display, for some reason, if I chose fullscreen and smaller resolution than my desktop, it just acted like windowed version, no amount of tweaking I've attempted would work, other than the borderless. And the game is quite unplayable in 1440p, you can't see anything.

Oh, wow! Well, I'm happy that you're able to enjoy the game  And glad to hear you didn't run into any crashes! Thank you very much. 

[Nguyen Quang Luan]

Thank you for this campaign, although it's hard but I never give up until all mission has passed
I have completed Arc 4 in 1 day (3/8/2023), nothing can stop my mind

[Fey]

Update: The patch to majorly reduce the likelihood of the stealth units crash is now included in the Dunemaster full package installation. I'll edit this post when it's in Feda's Mission Launcher 1.3 package too. It's also in Feda's Mission Launcher 1.3 package now. Details about the crash here:

Spoiler

This is not an update to gameplay! I am not touching this campaign anymore willy-nilly, I only did an update to fix a high-likelihood crash that could occur on multiple maps, the cause of which was only recently figured out! If you already played, you didn't miss anything, don't worry about it, it's all well and good

On 8/3/2023 at 9:47 PM, Nguyen Quang Luan said:

Thank you for this campaign, although it's hard but I never give up until all mission has passed
I have completed Arc 4 in 1 day (3/8/2023), nothing can stop my mind

Thanks so much for playing, and also for helping to test that stealth units crash fix! I hope you had a blast!

Edited August 28, 2023 by Fey
Feda hustled lol

[Nguyen Quang Luan]

10 hours ago, Fey said:

Update: The patch to majorly reduce the likelihood of the stealth units crash is now included in the Dunemaster full package installation. I'll edit this post when it's in Feda's Mission Launcher 1.3 package too. It's also in Feda's Mission Launcher 1.3 package now. Details about the crash here:

  Reveal hidden contents

This is not an update to gameplay! I am not touching this campaign anymore willy-nilly, I only did an update to fix a high-likelihood crash that could occur on multiple maps, the cause of which was only recently figured out! If you already played, you didn't miss anything, don't worry about it, it's all well and good

Thanks so much for playing, and also for helping to test that stealth units crash fix! I hope you had a blast!

Yes, it's my pleasure to do all mission I have played, not only the test, I have enjoyed my fun and will do all mission and guide it for the next player to play

[Fey]

ugh💀

it was brought to my attention that some changes to the Set Tile Property and Add Concrete events have broken some such things on various maps. this issue probably sprung up with the recent addition of variables and all the cool stuff that enables us to do. alas, making progress sometimes means experiencing setbacks along the way...

this amounts to little more than a visual error, but I refuse to leave that alone!

before I go bugging dato and gruntlord to update their installers again (sorry💕), I'm just gonna give things a once-over to see if anything else is particularly broken. in the meantime, here's a patched version of the campaign for now: SS Campaign.zip

I'll go ahead and edit this post when it's no longer an issue. apologies to all those inconvenienced!

[Zane0440]

Just finished playing this piece of art! Splendid execution! The plot, new units, new weapons, voice narration! Its not even Dune 2000 anymore, more like a different game, but not in a bad way! Hopefully you could make more of this, its a waste not to utilize your work to full potential! Keep up the Great Work!!

[Fey]

On 12/27/2024 at 11:23 AM, Zane0440 said:

Just finished playing this piece of art! Splendid execution! The plot, new units, new weapons, voice narration! Its not even Dune 2000 anymore, more like a different game, but not in a bad way! Hopefully you could make more of this, its a waste not to utilize your work to full potential! Keep up the Great Work!!

thanks so much! I'm so glad to hear you enjoyed it

I'm continuing to test new stuff for Klofkac. did some co-op campaigns, but those don't exactly utilize new features. I'll be working with variables next similarly to how they were used on this test map: 

I'll also need to finish patching this one since the next incarnations of the d2k exe break some stuff in this campaign. eventually. lol

[Fey]

Klofkac came out with a new stable update recently (2.3), including some features meant for Summers' Solstice despite the campaign's completion. out of respect for the one whose efforts are the sole reason we have all these cool new features to enjoy, I had to backport these and include some other stuff Klofkac himself requested.

THIS IS NOT SOMETHING THAT DRAMATICALLY AFFECTS GAMEPLAY. I'M ACTIVELY AVOIDING MAKING CHANGES THAT WOULD HAVE TOO BIG OF AN EFFECT. mostly. THIS IS MOSTLY JUST TO ADD SOME VISUAL FLAVOR, OPTIMIZE PERFORMANCE, AND IMPROVE CONSISTENCY OF UNIT BEHAVIOR. so don't feel pressured to, like, replay the campaign or something if you've already done it!

here're the patched files for use with version 2.3:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11U05622fjjbAh2VQyUYEAGrQqbkpv_xW/view

I'll bug gruntlord and dato to include these in their installers by default along with the 2.3 update 

where's v2.3, you ask? check this thread:

anyway, nevertheless, there are some minor changes. I'm not going crazy and adding features intended for the next campaign(s), like repackable ConYards, player choice in starting location, buildable Mining Rigs, build speed recalculations, dynamic variables-based reinforcement drops, repeat queueing... nothing like that. just some quality-of-life stuff and small tweaks. and maybe a couple of variables for certain specific new features. and also maybe a little something special on S18V1, idk lol. anyway here's a list of all the new stuff, and why it's being added:

Spoiler

 - Fixed some various bugs arising from the addition of variables to the game
Only so many critera can fit in a Check Units condition. This campaign frequently performs complex checks to do everything from make a specific group of enemies go on guard mode all at once to surprise the player with an airstrike right over his units and drop enemy reinforcements nearby. Many such conditions were broken by the latest update and needed repairs.

Actually, this is just a visual error in the editor produced by a limitation on how the data can be displayed. I adjusted some Check Units conditions before Klofkac confirmed the nature of the issue to me, but it shouldn't have any effect on how anything works in practice. I simply made them more streamlined.

 - Shotgunners now have a distinct spriteset
Thanks to PsYcHo, we now have a gorgeous new spriteset for Shotgunners that allows you to immediately distinguish them from Light Infantry. They're still similar, sure... but they've got blue visors, shell ejections, and more, now! I've adjusted Mission Intel and Tactical Map images by painting blue over the visors of any Light Infantry in them. I didn't go as far as to perfectly re-create each intel image, those took a lot of effort to get the way they are, but they're a little blurry anyway, yeah? It's fine if some of the details don't show up there. The blue visors are the most distinct feature, so I had to include those at least.

I'll be updating the OP with these credits along with some other stuff under the condensed/spoiler sections.

 - Female Fremen, Rowe Summers, etc. now have appropriate death sounds
Now that we can customize death sounds, I've brought in some more such sounds for the female infantry units. This won't be heard too often, but hey, when it's supposed to happen, it's for the best that it happens. I also messed around with some other custom death sounds for S11V1's enemies specifically...

 - Saboteurs no longer commit step lego unless ordered
Ever been in that situation where a sandworm gets a little too close to your pile of Saboteurs and they collectively decide to nope themselves out of existence? Yep, not a problem anymore. We can tell the game, "don't let this unit fire automatically." So we get the cool new Saboteur behavior without the not-so-cool new jank that originally came along with this behavior. Thank goodness. Sandworm paranoia was so annoying when playing with the new Saboteurs...

 - Dual shot behavior is now done through weapon customization
The dual shot behavior on units like Quads or structures like Rocket Turrets was actually done through game events specific to each map. Klofkac added the ability to customize quite a few things about weapons directly in the mod files though, so this system is obsolete. I'm not cleaning out every obsolete system, but this change fixes some minor issues most people wouldn't be aware of or notice. For example, RPG Quads with the prior system would lose dual shot on their rockets against certain targets, like the bulk Freighter laying in the sand on S11V1, due to how the prior system determined which weapon an RPG Quad is firing. While it was a rare bug in the first place, it's no longer a problem at all.

 - Uncrushable infantry is now done through unit template customization
Another system done through in-game events was making certain infantry, like Sardaukar Elites, uncrushable. How that actually worked was the game would check which tiles have such infantry in them and literally turn off the ability for vehicles to traverse those tiles. Such tiles-based events are rather resource-intensive though and this had a marked effect on game performance when a weak or old machine is running a large map. Thus, it was of particular importance to retire the old system in this case.

No, Issam Nehara isn't uncrushable now. On an adjacent note, it's now possible to make certain vehicles inedible to the sandworm, but I haven't added that either. Summers and Durant in their vehicles can still be eaten if you leave them on the sand. Why? Because I said so. Get used to it. Muahahahahahaha.

 - Storm Lashers and Shock Raiders now have a proper trail of lightning and perfect accuracy
I always wanted Storm Lashers to be perfectly accurate and have a visual trail. Their splash art portrays them as having a lightning trail. However, this was never something I was able to add without sacrificing other aspects of my vision...

Firstly, accuracy for non-homing attacks is affected by distance to the target. For each tile of distance, there's potentially a 4 pixel discrepancy. SLashers have a 14 tile range, making their inaccuracy a huge issue and requiring that I go with an area-effect kaboom to make them functional at all.

With the ability to adjust the accuracy of weapons added, a distant attack can be perfectly accurate. They're keeping their area-effect damage though.

Just make it a homing weapon like Missile Tanks have? Homing attacks in Dune 2000 are massively affected by the speed of the projectile, to the point that they no longer work properly if the speed is too different from what you'd expect from the speed of an existing homing weapon, like the Missile Tanks' attack.

Doesn't this affect balance though? Yeah, a bit. SLashers still should take, like, six or seven hits to take down an Autogun Tank. They remain an APM tax on the player and operate more consistently whether you're far from the megaturret or right up in its face. In a way, this makes them more predictable and less underwhelming. It should work out to be a positive change, and closer to my original intent for the megaturret. They're definitely scarier though, so... good luck.

No, this change doesn't break the ending of S18V1. Enough Rocket Turrets can be taken out to work with, and the area-effect damage will still weaken the most distant ones.

Secondly, how trails work in Dune 2000 is, the trail effect spawns at each pixel the projectile travels along. To give the SLasher a trail before, it would have needed to be a slow attack that travels to the target. It actually does have a trail on the back-end: The lightning that appears above the tower of the megaturret is the trail effect occurring at the origin of the projectile, but because it's an extremely fast projectile, it jumps straight to its target without spawning any more trail effects along the way. Klofkac added a special 'lightning' behavior just for SLasher megaturrets, which gives them a zig-zagging trail despite being instant.

One of the biggest complaints I get about SLashers, understandably so, is that their attacks are poorly telegraphed. The best I could do while staying as close as possible to my original vision was give them a unique firing sound and try to add landmarks to the terrain on maps representing their maximum range. Thanks to Klofkac, I no longer have to make that sacrifice! You will be able to see them firing on your forces. Or see yours firing on the enemy, of course.

As for Shock Raiders, they were never particularly inaccurate thanks to their short range, but their warhead radius is pretty small. Improving their accuracy just improves their consistency whether they're two tiles away or right next to their target. Among units that got accuracy adjustments, this is probably the most impactful indirect buff.

 - Issam Nehara is perfectly accurate
This only affects SBON1. Due to the aforementioned behavior of inaccuracy in Dune 2000, I had to make weird compromises on occasion, like giving this marksman the 'elite' warhead that can damage vehicles effectively as well as infantry, just for its damage radius to compensate for inaccuracy issues at the maximum range of four tiles.

Now, Nehara can consistently snipe that Shotgunner from four tiles away. More fun for the kind of unit Nehara is.

 - Most bullets-based weapons (not shotguns), and homing rockets, now have 50% inaccuracy
In other words, they're 50% more accurate.

Bullets-based weapons suffer the most from inaccuracy issues thanks to their small warhead damage radii. If you were to stick an Autogun Tank right next to a Combat Tank and have them fight, its performance would be much better than if you were to put them both at maximum range because the Combat Tank has a bigger radius on its warhead, compensating more for its inaccuracy. This change improves the consistency of units like Riflemen, Trikes, Raiders, Autogun Tanks, Autogun Turrets, armed Engineers... not a direct buff, but you'll notice your Raiders are easier to handle as positioning is less of an issue with them.

Why improve the accuracy of homing rockets? Those don't actually keep their homing behavior against structures.

Missile Tanks are stupidly inaccurate whenever you want to fire on turrets or Silos with them, or something like that. They're still not the ideal weapon for taking out structures, but their performance against structures from their desired range of far away is more where you might expect it to be.

 - Autogun Tanks, Autogun Turrets and Rowe Summers' Autogun Tank have more pew-pew
One of the cool new things Klofkac added was the ability to make units' shots double up. Not like the two-shot burst before reloading like you'd see on stuff like Quads, but the ability to fire two projectiles simultaneously. I don't want to add this change to stuff like Quads or Rocket Turrets because their staggered shots have a certain impact on how combat plays out that I want to maintain, but I roughly halved the damage of all autoguns while making the entities using them fire two shots at once.

Autogun Tanks got a slight buff as a result. However, this change is mostly cosmetic. It looks like they're firing more bullets at once.

 - Grenadiers, RPGs and Siege Tanks have 150% inaccuracy
On the flip side of things, units with large radii on their warheads are a bit too effective. These units remain very much effective against their intended targets, especially buildings, but this sort of change makes it more important to give them a good close-range escort. For instance, Riflemen, Shotgunners or Troopers have more of a chance to close the gap on Grenadiers, and Grenadiers will be a bit less capable of handling quick anti-infantry targets like Trikes or Raiders by themselves.

Some players are iffy about Grenadiers because of how much they suck in vanilla Dune 2000, or due to their notoriety for chain-detonating, but have you tried them in this mod? I really did give them a potent series of buffs to make them a viable alternative to or complement for Troopers. Range might be the strongest stat in a game like this, however, and they really were just a bit too powerful.

 - Flame Tanks have ~70% more firepower, double shot (angle 1) and 200% inaccuracy
"But Flame Tanks only have one flame cannon!" Correct. Thanks to their short range, the "double shot" they spew looks more like a wide cone, like the one cannon they've got can spew flame over a wider area. Have a look:

I like Flame Tanks, but they're kind of underwhelming and hard to use because of their short range. Despite dealing comparable damage to Sonic Tanks against regular base structures, their need to get much closer to dish out that damage is kind of a big deal. They still need to be used with careful consideration to their positioning and angle of attack to be effective... This adjustment simply helps them capitalize on their position when used appropriately.

No, this isn't a problem on SBON1. Their two projectiles veer off around the target thanks to the angle parameter, which keeps their attack very strong against big targets like buildings, but their reduced ability to hit infantry counterbalances their doubled firepower. I checked it myself, of course; Summers tanks that Flame Tank like a champ. They're still relatively squishy units and can be killed quickly, being in the LAV category which consists of squishy, but fast and hard-hitting units, so it's fine.

 - Power-ups obtained from crates apply globally on all difficulties
Did you know that, on easy mode, that stealth crate on S07V1 will apply to every valid unit on the map? Or that that health crate on SBON1 can be picked up with a Trike and instantly heal Summers in a fight elsewhere? They have a bigger radius on normal mode without being full-map, and hard mode only gives them a three-tile radius.

On second thought, this is kinda crappy. Especially when accounting for the fact that stealth crates only apply to specific units, so if a player goes and picks up that stealth crate with a heavy Combat Tank, he gets absolutely nothing out of that. Fuggit. Let's make the crates actually mean something. Now, the easy mode behavior is a thing no matter the difficulty, so you can have more flexibility and do more creative plays if you wanna pick up that crate. Maybe use that health crate to keep an attack going even after your frontline winds up in the red, or cloak that whole squad of Quads sitting at your Light Factory and see about Harvester hunting with 'em. Have fun with that.

I added the behavior for enemies too though. Break the walls on S17V1 with enemy units around and maybe all their Harvesters are gonna get stealthed.

 - Added 200 more credits to the secret crate on SBON3
Just felt like it. ...Where's the secret crate, you ask? I encourage you to train a Trooper on S01V1 and watch what he does. Destructible terrain objects can withstand quite a lot of punishment, possibly requiring you to force-fire on multiple tiles if it's a large object due to game logic, but all the artificial objects across the campaign are, in fact, destructible. Taking that knowledge from S01V1, give that a try on any other map. SBON3's secret crate is in a pretty obvious place.

 - An error on S17V1 with regards to how Fremen Fedaykin are trained for the player has been corrected
Speaking of S17V1, an oversight in how the submod was formatted resulted in an odd training method for Fremen Fedaykin.

In Dune 2000, units have GROUPS and TYPES. Combat Tanks in the base game are a good example of how these work: All three Combat Tanks belong to the same unit group and require a Heavy Factory belonging to any side. However, any given side only has access to one unit from a certain unit group at a time. This is why, even if you capture an enemy Heavy Factory in the base game, you don't get to build a different kind of Combat Tank. Summers' Solstice separates them into their own unit groups, hence multiple Combat Tank variants being available to the player if other Heavy Factories are captured.

If you mess around with the prerequisites and behaviors of different unit types belonging to the same unit group, you get different results. For example, the enemy Ornithopters and Death Hands on S17V2 take longer to prepare than the player's special weapons because the version they use, while identical in stats and firepower and such, has a longer build time. Unit type discrepancies within the same unit group can give multiple sets of prerequisites, like how on some levels Sardaukar legionnaires have two possible ways to be trainable: Two Barracks upgrades and a High Tech Factory, or zero Barracks upgrades as long as the player has an Imperial Palace.

Fremen Fedaykin are a bit more complicated. They have their own unique "Fremen" unit behavior, which tells the AI to send them separately from main attack forces and wait for a certain amount of them to be ready before sending them out, besides affecting the manner in which they're trained. ONE type of Fremen Fedaykin on S17V1 has the "Fremen" unit behavior, making them train as you'd expect for Fremen Fedaykin. The other is the unit that actually spawns from the Palace of Diplomacy, but it was only stealthed without having that special "Fremen" behavior.

The former has a longer build time and is used by all enemy factions. The latter is used by the player.

The lack of that unique "Fremen" behavior on the type used by the player is the cause of this error. Unfortunately, there's only so much room for different unit types, so I have to give the AI its pesky special behaviors for Fremen Fedaykin in order to make things behave as the player would expect for his or her own faction in the event he acquires a Palace of Diplomacy. As a result, in order to make some attacks function properly, I've also bumped the enemy Fedaykin Gholas delivered by certain reinforcement drops up by one.

 - A new behavior was added to S16V1's AIs causing them not to prefer targeting the player
The AI in d2k is weighted towards targeting the human player, which is why you might be nuked or airstruck even though your ally is the more threatening adversary to the enemy AIs. It's been a pain in the butt for mappers for years. What if we WANT the AI to treat the player like any other side?

This is yet another thing Klofkac made possible. S16V1 was the most sensible place to implement this, specifically for the bottom AIs due to the vulnerability of your allies from the top angle, but I might have snuck it in a couple other places here or there... some that will actually favor the player as pressure is lower, but also some places that will demand the player's attention outside his or her base.

 - An error on S06V1 preventing the enemy from receiving as many reinforcement drops as they should has been corrected
Most reinforcement drops in the campaign are tied to an enemy Outpost. There are actually supposed to be quite a few reinforcement drops by the Imperials in the early game on S06V1, but due to an oversight they never arrived because the Imperials don't have an Outpost on this mission. I've tied their drops to the Construction Yard instead.

They will now show up, as intended. It doesn't really mess up the balancing. They were designed to be small drops to cause a bit of early game chaos without being too threatening. The player's focus is meant to be around midfield. The player may merely be poked once or twice at his or her main base now, is all...

 - Minimap pings occur alongside certain events
Oddly, we didn't have minimap pings in the game until this update. Since we have them and since the elimination of some events has given me some leeway, I threw them in in a few places. Doesn't really affect gameplay, but they're a nice quality-of-life feature to have. Did you get a first-time sandworm alert? Find a secret on one of the maps? Maybe a lootable Freighter on one of the Heighliner maps? Is the enemy dropping an attack behind your base? Now there are clear indicators of these things on the minimap, usually in bright green.

Oh, I also included them dynamically in certain places - using variables - to, for instance, alert the player to where his or her low-health hero unit is positioned. I considered using the power of variables to snap the viewport to the location of a hero unit with critical health, but what if the player already has Summers on-screen, and then by centering the viewport on her, I mess up the player's ability to command her? I settled for the non-intrusive minimap pings option; I don't like to take control from the player under most circumstances.

 - S18V1's climax now more accurately reflects its splash art
I dunno if I made the end result look ok. I mean, I tried. Had some help, too. Kipp linear dodged the hell outta the screenie I picked up from Emperor, and then my sis did the damaged frame. She always does awesome work. Klofkac personally requested something like this, and we have him to thank for everything that we enjoy out of d2k today. How could I not give this a shot? When you reach the end of the mission, a surprise awaits you. Or I guess you could just load the map and scroll down to the bottom edge at the start to see what's up, maybe. Or have a look at the new Mission Intel images for S18V1. Anyway, I hope y'all find it fun and not, you know, crap. xD I tested this, of course. It's fair. Had like half an hour left when the thing went down, on hard difficulty, fastest game speed without saving at any point all the way through. The usual test for testing of fair and fair balance test balance fair. Just, umm, maybe an extra hurdle. One more mean thing on a mean map overall. That's fine, right? Yeah. Surely. Yeah...

one more thing: Klofkac added the ability to type-select with the W key. due to how certain things in the Summers' Solstice campaign works, you might sometimes type-select certain units and not actually get all of them. this is kind of a bug I have to leave in since some triggers might be tied to the duplicated units, and I don't remember what would need to be changed, so I'm not going to go messing around on the back end. type select is still a great new feature though, you'll get a lot of mileage out of it and I'll be accounting for this new command in the next campaigns

that's it. enjoy!

if anything seems hideously broken in an unintentional fashion, do feel free to poke me about it and I'll patch the crap. thanks

Edited Sunday at 11:33 PM by Fey
friggin screenie wound up in the wrong place