Dune 2000 Inspirational Review Video (2020) + Learning How to Map/Mod D2k

[AZ-Stalker]

Reuploaded. Missing structure. Hope it's good now.

[Cm_blast]

2 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

Not going to strictly follow a tech level approach as with the original campaigns, but the tech will be integrated naturally with regard to the mission at hand. Check out my first mission to see what I mean. Some things at the end will be your starting units on the next mission.

alright, so something in bewteen. I found campaigns that on the second mission you are already building the palace.

2 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

So I couldn't get the separate file to work and rename the Sardaukar for this mission alone, and I don't know how to put the mission in game in order to get the briefing to show up, so please enlighten me. You've been so detailed and helpful and I'm very grateful for all the help. I'm including the first mission I've made so you can try it out and see how I'm doing in learning all of this. Not going to make a separate thread for the campaign until I'm certain that it'll actually be a thing. Still in the learning process right now.

Sorry if you already did all or some of these, but just in case, to rename the Sardaukar you need to do these steps:
- First, open the text.uib with the "string table editor", the file of the tool it's called "UIBEditorV0.1"; this tool it's part of a "toolkit" you can find on the index although will send you into the d2k+ page (you can use this tool individually fine). <-- you can do a copy-paste of the text.uib before opening it and rename it with a different name like "stalkertext.uib" just to be sure that you won't alter the original file by mistake.
- From that editor, open that text.uib (or the one you created if you did that)
- Using the searcher search for "sardaukar", although it is the line 866, just like here.

- Change "Sardaukar" for whatever you want to call it. Keep in mind that at 959 line there is the entrance of the MP_Sardaukar (Multiplayer), so depending on which faction you are playing (or spawn, since you can spawn any of both) you may need to alter this one instead (or both).
-After you are done save the file (if it was the vanilla one, use a different name).
-On your map mark this and write there the name:
 <-- or use the arrow, it will show a list of all the available .uib files.

And that's it, from that moment your map will load with that specific text.uib; if any more future maps need it, you can use it; or you can do "stalkertext2.uib" if you want to alter "sardaukar" for a different name; you will see how Fey have like 15 different text.uib, one per mission I think.

2 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

Another thing that I couldn't get to work is the friendly fire message appearing after you shoot one of your allies. I set it to IF Casuality = 1. It never happens in testing. Thoughts?

If you want the casualties to trigger at the first unit it dies, just write 0,000 in the proportion and 0 on the treshold. At the moment one unit of the selected faction die, the event will trigger (don't forget to add a flag to avoid the event to trigger infinitely). With the value you said set to 1 the game will trigger afther the second death.

2 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

(everything you read beyond this point is a prototype and might change in the future)
A short introduction to my campaign - House Redzani:

Interesting, you went straigh into a non-traditional faction.

2 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

nd I don't know how to put the mission in game in order to get the briefing to show up, so please enlighten me.

If you are using a custom text.uib I think the briefing can appear, by writting the briefing directly into the text.uib, there are lines that sais "AM1text2" or "IG_AM1text2" (one was for briefing when loading the map, the other in-game, I guess it's the second, but I am not sure right now) with the briefing of the original game; but depends on which side you are using. AM it's for Atreides, HM for Harkonnen and OM for Ordos; you need to write you briefing there (or copy paste), but be carefull, you need to write "¬¬" to include every change on line. 
Later, on the mission editor  there is a "mission number" you write "1" there.

However, if you are planning to do more than 9 missions, or 2 versions like 1a and 1b with separated briefings, then you cannot do it, because vanilla game only had for 9 and the versions reuses same briefing. Also, if campaign will be "Imperial" then you cannot do it. (or Merc, or smuggler...).

I am not 100% sure if it is totally impossible to do it with Imperial/merc/smuggler... by changing AM1text2/IG_AM1text2 into other names or something.
I didn't bother to go for that trouble and I just simply let the "no briefing" ingame; although may be a bit of inconvience.

Fedaikyn had some reminders on his game, an interval that trigger 3-4 times during the game to remind the main objetive, just like happens on the C&C games. Just in case you want an alternative.
If I did a mission about "capture X building" with a mission fail if you destroy it I tend to include a "tile revealed" condition marked at the building, so if you reach that building while attacking the enemy base a message with a reminder will show up "capture that building!".

Edited March 23, 2020 by Cm_blast

[AZ-Stalker]

13 minutes ago, Cm_blast said:

alright, so something in bewteen. I found campaigns that on the second mission you are already building the palace.

Nah it won't be one of those. I like the gradual tech style, but am working on it as if it will be primarily played by someone who has already beaten the original campaigns and knows how the game works.

16 minutes ago, Cm_blast said:

Interesting, you went straigh into a non-traditional faction.

Figured it'd be a bit boring to just add to the default when I can make something a bit new and connect it to the main story or wider Dune universe in some cool ways.

Thanks for all the advice and descriptions, I'm learning a lot!

[Fey]

1 hour ago, AZ-Stalker said:

Not going to strictly follow a tech level approach as with the original campaigns, but the tech will be integrated naturally with regard to the mission at hand. Check out my first mission to see what I mean. Some things at the end will be your starting units on the next mission.

Fair enough, as long as it flows smoothly!

1 hour ago, AZ-Stalker said:

I decided to go with singleplayer at the moment. I've put coop aside for now to learn easier.

Also fair enough. Once you have a lot of experience with pure single-player, you'll find it easier to make a co-op map, I'm sure. Knowing intimately what you're capable of allows you to work around the limitations in co-op maps in various ways.

1 hour ago, AZ-Stalker said:

So I couldn't get the separate file to work and rename the Sardaukar for this mission alone, and I don't know how to put the mission in game in order to get the briefing to show up, so please enlighten me. You've been so detailed and helpful and I'm very grateful for all the help. I'm including the first mission I've made so you can try it out and see how I'm doing in learning all of this. Not going to make a separate thread for the campaign until I'm certain that it'll actually be a thing. Still in the learning process right now.

Another thing that I couldn't get to work is the friendly fire message appearing after you shoot one of your allies. I set it to IF Casuality = 1. It never happens in testing. Thoughts?

Briefing doesn't show up in-game in Gruntmods version, but it does in Dunemaster. Weird limitation of Gruntmods version, which otherwise is extremely useful for testing new maps because of its debugging toolkit. You CAN, however, read the briefing before the map begins via the mission launcher, which we use to launch the maps anyway!

Some people don't read the briefing AT ALL. Even native English speakers. I've had folks fail my maps and complain that they didn't know they were supposed to capture X building, or could expect Y to happen. So, I've taken to putting the mission objectives above the briefing, like so:
https://prnt.sc/rl8cv3

I know it's weird, but the format seems to help folks not get themselves killed for no reason. Some people don't even read the objectives. lol

Anyway, you can assign a text file to the mission. Put a line like this in the .ini:
TextUib=FeyTextS011.uib

Or write it in the editor, here:
https://prnt.sc/rl8gjc

And then you'll just need to save a .uib file by that name. If you have trouble finding the right editor, I can send mine. Anyway, the in-game text for custom messages used by the .ini seems to ignore this file, so don't worry about what number you use for events. The .uib is there to change other stuff you see in-game, such as "<Faction> has become hostile!" messages, or unit names. Here's a Sardaukar unit in-game that acts as the player commander:
https://prnt.sc/rl8jjf

So it works!

The "<Faction> has become hostile!" messages are the ones you'd want to change to make your ally go, "Hey, you're shooting at the wrong target. >_>" My maps tend to do something similar to alert the player to the sandworm. If you use an allocation index between 0-6 for the sandworm, and make the sandworm neutral towards the player (but not the other way around), it will generate a "<Faction> has become hostile!" message the first time it's attacked. Not perfect, it can swallow a Harvester before the player gets the "Wormsign!" message, but hey, the commanders are only human. They miss stuff like that sometimes.

Remember, a neutral faction being attacked will not only generate such a message, but it will also make both factions hostile towards each-other. If the units at the base should not attack their commander AT ALL, then having them become allied with the player (and vice versa) when the base is discovered is probably the best idea. And using a "casualties greater than 0" triggered message is the best course of action. It is "greater than," by the way! So if you want it to happen after 1 unit is dead, the casualties threshold should be set to 0.

On some of my maps, an allied MCV will fly in from off the map to start building a base with you, but this requires an MCV off the map so the AI doesn't think "I have nothing, I must go into berserk mode." When the AI flies its 'real' MCV in and deploys it, units off the side of the map become hostile to the off-map MCV and destroy it. Then, when the AI has base structures, but no MCV, they become allied with the player. At this time, because the MCV off the map is destroyed, no strange terrain will be revealed to the player and the AI ally can begin to function as normal. In the brief window they have a unit on the map somewhere and are neutral towards the player, they don't have anything that can fire back at the player, so the message about your accidental attack fits. If you want them to get combat units along with their MCV, you can have those arrive after the player is allied.
https://prnt.sc/rl8qnu

Hopefully that answers your questions.

2 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

A short introduction to my campaign - House Redzani

Ahh, it sounds like a character-driven story! My campaign is also character-driven, focusing on individual commanders and stuff to bring more identity to each faction. I'm quite excited to see your style develop!

2 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

Please let me know what you think of it and any advice you feel I might benefit from! Eager to hear what you think of my first mission!

I gave it a quick run. "Knightfall," I like that.

It's very evident that you have experience with mapping and balancing. You have a keen eye for details. This was a well-balanced first map rich in aesthetic and story. Still some misplaced tiles, but again, you'll get used to spotting them. Here are where they appear:
https://prnt.sc/rl947t
https://prnt.sc/rl964v
https://prnt.sc/rl9cev
https://prnt.sc/rl9ebv
https://prnt.sc/rl9ijs

I also pointed out the tiles you might want to replace the funny ones with.

Regarding the balance: You give the player enough to work with, even if he makes a mistake. The incidental dangers you can avoid are not too dangerous that they eliminate your ability to complete the mission. The three Light Infantry just before you get to the friendly base were surprising, but not unmanageable. A good sort of surprise. Revealing the last group of Harkonnen infantry to fight, and giving the player some reinforcements to handle them, was a good call. The map is also small enough and not dangerous enough to warrant more map reveals around the terrain - the player could explore on his own and not run into extreme danger, and that's good. If we HAD to fight the Trike and two Light Infantry, revealing them ahead of time so the player could plan was definitely the right thing to do.

Regarding the aesthetics: There's a good balance of dunes, rock, open sand, and doodads around. Very strong aesthetics, definitely feels like a winding Arrakis mountain range. For the sort of map it is, the narrow pathways the player's units must take are not concerning in the slightest, but I am obligated to remind you that due to unit pathing being funny, I recommend using wider pathways on any standard maps, or any maps where the player really needs to be able to micro his units effectively. It can be a bit tricky to make things aesthetically pleasing and functional, but as long as you keep in mind how the map is expected to play out, you can design the terrain around that expectation. Just as an example, here's one of my maps:
https://prnt.sc/rl9wbn

The player sets up his own base atop the ruins of the Atreides base. The basin is surrounded by cliffs, but there's plenty of flat, open space where the action will take place. There's some infantry rock in convenient spots. And, more subtly, there are dunes that slow the enemy advance to not only give the player more time to react, but help to keep the light vehicles closer to the heavier ones since light vehicles are slowed down more by dunes. Also, there is enough space for the worm to go wriggling all around the main rock island.

We all have our own styles and what you do is up to you! I just hope to provide an example of "functional and aesthetic," if it helps you out at all.

FYI, I played at the default resolution of 640x400. I noticed the messages were sometimes fairly long, but never clipped into the sidebar. Which is good! This is a common mistake and I recommend continuing to write messages that fit the default resolution.

That's about all I've got to say for now. Hope that helps!

[Feda]

@Fey lol I feel you about people not reading briefings. That is why I am intentionally keeping the objectives to the bottom of the text xD. I am forcing them to at least have to scroll. People are lazy as hell nowadays lol. However, for the new campaign i will EVENTUALLY release at some point I handled this a bit differently. Besides the long ass briefing with dialogues and stuff, the objectives at the bottom will summarize the long ass briefing and display the objectives at the same time. Maybe the lazy asses will finally understand the story and not kill the building they had to capture anymore 😛

[Fey]

11 minutes ago, FedaYkin said:

@Fey lol I feel you about people not reading briefings. That is why I am intentionally keeping the objectives to the bottom of the text xD. I am forcing them to at least have to scroll. People are lazy as hell nowadays lol. However, for the new campaign i will EVENTUALLY release at some point I handled this a bit differently. Besides the long ass briefing with dialogues and stuff, the objectives at the bottom will summarize the long ass briefing and display the objectives at the same time. Maybe the lazy asses will finally understand the story and not kill the building they had to capture anymore 😛

They'll never stop blowing up the critical structures, I guarantee it. 😂 I literally did everything I could to make a certain enemy base as annoying to destroy as possible before the side-objectives were complete, and even explicitly stated those side-objectives both in the briefing AND in-game, and yet a certain someone went blowing up the side objectives and went through the enemy base the hard way... 😭

The other reasons I put the objectives at the top are because my briefings are stupidly long, to the point where some maps' briefings can't actually be displayed in their entirety in-game the dunemaster version. The mission objectives would be lost to the limitation then. Also, there's another thing below the briefing! The "additional intel" section with extra details about various things. So even if the player could scroll all the way to the bottom, he'd still have to scroll up a bit just to get to the objectives, and it does make it a bit unfair on folks replaying the maps who just want a refresher on the objectives without going through all the story again.

Still looking forward to the new developments with your campaign, mate. We still need a Draconis IV tileset, unless we use the WC II snowy tileset Cm ported over, but at least Giedi Prime and Caladan are done up enough. I guess that snowy one could work, I just think of Draconis IV as being a lot more hostile-looking. No trees. I'd love to combine the TD snowy tileset with the WC II snowy tileset. TD cliffs and stuff, WC II ice. Would certainly make for a varied enough tileset...

Edited March 23, 2020 by Fey

[AZ-Stalker]

1 hour ago, Fey said:

Still some misplaced tiles, but again, you'll get used to spotting them.

I really hate the feeling of not noticing the little bits here and there. I'm VERY detail oriented, but with so many new things going on my first map, my eye wasn't trained enough to spot them. It hit me like a brick when you pointed out one was staring me in the face at the crash site this whole time. Thanks for pointing them out! I will likely adjust the map in a few more passes as I learn more to polish it all out.

1 hour ago, Fey said:

I recommend using wider pathways on any standard maps

Yeah I have it on my mind. I considered widening some of the side paths on this one too, but it just ruined the feeling I was going for. And clicking twice a few times didn't seem like a bother to get the squad through. If the player looses 2 infantry, then it's no bother at all. The whole theme I was going for is that this area was specifically selected by House Redzani because it's so hard to get vehicles in to attack their base, let alone find it. But the Harkonnen somehow knew there'd be an airship passing by and shot it down, and then you discover they've been thumping the worms towards the base - which isn't typical Harkonnen behavior. They'd rather just attack and be done with it through force, yet they didn't approach this one, so I'm using such things to convey a story with the terrain.

1 hour ago, Fey said:

You give the player enough to work with, even if he makes a mistake...

I tried to make it so it's forgiving of a mishap, but that you don't really have a chance to mess up again. I've actually managed to destroy the Harkonnen outpost too with some micro. You CAN also go through the Trike team and still win, you have a rocket trooper to help out. But then you need to survive the three infantry surprise (which killed me in testing a few times) just before the base, so there are ways to make it easier or a cool challenge. The easiest route is to just go in a snake Ƨ curve evading everything at the beginning.

The thumper guy who is the win condition (as he's attracting the worms) with his guard squad can be taken care of by either using your infantry, or baiting the guards to follow you into the Redzani base. The allied forces will make quick work of them, leave the thumper and maybe one more soldier up there. So it IS kind of a boss fight, just not the kind I expect the player to loose at. The infantry reinforcements you get are here to assist you if you just BARELY manage to get to the base alive with the Knight Commander. Which happened to me on runs where I'd explore everything. And it's a fitting event when you see the base in action for the first time. So works nice.

I've read all the stuff you've suggested and will do my best to implement and learn from it. It's not going to waste.

Any feedback is always appreciated!

Edited March 23, 2020 by AZ-Stalker

[Cm_blast]

6 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

Nah it won't be one of those. I like the gradual tech style, but am working on it as if it will be primarily played by someone who has already beaten the original campaigns and knows how the game works.

That's good, sometimes I am limiting myself because of that; a good concept almost wasted because it's a tech of 3 that finish quickly. Same with alliances, hard to go against the usual "canon".

6 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

Figured it'd be a bit boring to just add to the default when I can make something a bit new and connect it to the main story or wider Dune universe in some cool ways

That's good. At the beggining people did mercs, Ixian, smugglers, Imperial... for that reason. Fremen are the ones with less missions, only the luminar one, which halfway I think he got a bit tired, and the one I did that you don't build a single base; I hope I can do eventually a big campaign just based on them.

5 hours ago, FedaYkin said:

lol I feel you about people not reading briefings. That is why I am intentionally keeping the objectives to the bottom of the text xD. I am forcing them to at least have to scroll. People are lazy as hell nowadays lol. However, for the new campaign i will EVENTUALLY release at some point I handled this a bit differently. Besides the long ass briefing with dialogues and stuff, the objectives at the bottom will summarize the long ass briefing and display the objectives at the same time. Maybe the lazy asses will finally understand the story and not kill the building they had to capture anymore 😛

They may forget too xD; I had as objetive "Destroy the small inactive bases" (that are protected by another faction) and somebody tried to go against the big base with 15 turrets, 3 starports delivering stuff and 25 silos full of spice,because it forgot that was the objetive.

Edit:
Oh, by the way, 3 tricks it can help you a lot to do testing.
First: Using debug mode as Fey pointed. You can control other factions, so you can look exactly what the AI it's doing (you will share control of the units); or if the map it's too hard but don't want to start a new test from the beggining, you can sell their buildings from the inside and then come back into your own faction and continue the test.

Second: Revealing the whole map, by using a "reveal map" with a value of 0. The minimap won't work correctly not until you save-load the savegame, but you can have the whole vision on the Ais while building your base, so you know exactly what happens.

Third: The timer to countup; with the value set to -2 (mission windown where you set the initial money, tech, alliances...) it will show a timer that goes up (with a negative value); if you add a hidden mecanic like giving to the AI more Tech or making him to build much more faster at 40 minutes, you will have the feeling on how the map it's going when that happens (Should that happen later or early?).

Edited March 23, 2020 by Cm_blast

[Fey]

8 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

I really hate the feeling of not noticing the little bits here and there. I'm VERY detail oriented, but with so many new things going on my first map, my eye wasn't trained enough to spot them. It hit me like a brick when you pointed out one was staring me in the face at the crash site this whole time. Thanks for pointing them out! I will likely adjust the map in a few more passes as I learn more to polish it all out.

You ARE very detail oriented! I sympathize!

Don't worry, spotting EVERY tile can be pretty difficult. Once you map enough, you'll have eyes sharper than a crysknife.

8 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

Yeah I have it on my mind. I considered widening some of the side paths on this one too, but it just ruined the feeling I was going for. And clicking twice a few times didn't seem like a bother to get the squad through. If the player looses 2 infantry, then it's no bother at all. The whole theme I was going for is that this area was specifically selected by House Redzani because it's so hard to get vehicles in to attack their base, let alone find it. But the Harkonnen somehow knew there'd be an airship passing by and shot it down, and then you discover they've been thumping the worms towards the base - which isn't typical Harkonnen behavior. They'd rather just attack and be done with it through force, yet they didn't approach this one, so I'm using such things to convey a story with the terrain.

Not on this map, no, it wasn't a problem. It felt claustrophobic and sneaky, in the right ways.

A good, subtle call. Your attention to detail is very obvious. I foresee great things!

8 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

I tried to make it so it's forgiving of a mishap, but that you don't really have a chance to mess up again. I've actually managed to destroy the Harkonnen outpost too with some micro. You CAN also go through the Trike team and still win, you have a rocket trooper to help out. But then you need to survive the three infantry surprise (which killed me in testing a few times) just before the base, so there are ways to make it easier or a cool challenge. The easiest route is to just go in a snake Ƨ curve evading everything at the beginning.

You might be surprised what's possible with a little micro. >.> I can't tell you how many times Cm and I have tried to discourage the player from doing certain things in a map, but some players just exploit the AI in totally unforeseen ways and then we have to think of a new strategy for making something "impossible." lol

Non-linearity is usually a good idea, but the best sort of non-linearity is where several different strategies or routes are viable, and the player can gravitate in his own direction to achieve victory as long as he works well with what he's got. Having such a route is good. Some of my maps also have an "optional hard mode" depending on actions the player takes in-game, such as allying with a certain faction or making them your enemy, or deciding to roll over an inconvenient Fremen Sietch only to have a ton of Fremen come attack your base a while later.

9 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

The thumper guy who is the win condition (as he's attracting the worms) with his guard squad can be taken care of by either using your infantry, or baiting the guards to follow you into the Redzani base. The allied forces will make quick work of them, leave the thumper and maybe one more soldier up there. So it IS kind of a boss fight, just not the kind I expect the player to loose at. The infantry reinforcements you get are here to assist you if you just BARELY manage to get to the base alive with the Knight Commander. Which happened to me on runs where I'd explore everything. And it's a fitting event when you see the base in action for the first time. So works nice.

Speaking of, what color are you going to make the Redzani eventually? Green is fun and all, but the Ordos use that. How about index 98? Really nice black / red color. You know, for REDzani. Here's an in-game screenshot of an index 98 base:
https://prnt.sc/rlkl7u

Very bold red too. Can tell apart from Harkonnen on the minimap, and on the field.

[AZ-Stalker]

Thanks for all the feedback guys! Appreciated. I'm taking notes.

5 hours ago, Fey said:

Speaking of, what color are you going to make the Redzani eventually?

The name wasn't an indicator of color when I came up with it, so I'd like to keep only the Harkonnen red as they're the distinct antagonists here. It's strange though, as usually I'm on top of such visual aspects but with this faction I'm unsure about the color, so we'll see.

Also please note that I'm having some trouble relaxing these days considering my city (Zagreb) was just hit by an earthquake with aftershocks happening among other things. So apologies if I don't respond right away to forum replies, I always get to them eventually!

[Fey]

24 minutes ago, AZ-Stalker said:

Thanks for all the feedback guys! Appreciated. I'm taking notes.

Also please note that I'm having some trouble relaxing these days considering my city (Zagreb) was just hit by an earthquake with aftershocks happening among other things. So apologies if I don't respond right away to forum replies, I always get to them eventually!

Staying alive comes first. Take it easy, mate.

24 minutes ago, AZ-Stalker said:

The name wasn't an indicator of color when I came up with it, so I'd like to keep only the Harkonnen red as they're the distinct antagonists here. It's strange though, as usually I'm on top of such visual aspects but with this faction I'm unsure about the color, so we'll see.

If you're changing the colors.bin, you could use any of the 8 original allocation indexes for style / tech and do the color up however you'd like. How about pink? Or, white?

I added a slight blue tint to the Fremen gray color, which looks like this:
https://prnt.sc/rlpb6c

My mercs are orange, which looks like this:
https://prnt.sc/rlpcvc

There's a pretty "corpse scarab" colored Harkonnen index at 129:
https://prnt.sc/rlpegm

Could try a pronounced cyan color, different from Atreides, more similar to, like... the enemy units on the tower defense map, for instance. Or a deep green, like the Guild forces in Emperor: Battle for Dune. Play around with the colors at first, and when you're happy with the idea, fine-tune them.

[Cm_blast]

5 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

The name wasn't an indicator of color when I came up with it, so I'd like to keep only the Harkonnen red as they're the distinct antagonists here. It's strange though, as usually I'm on top of such visual aspects but with this faction I'm unsure about the color, so we'll see.

I am going to place this file, it contains the list of the colors per index. Some of them may change per game or even computer; others always will looks the same, maybe not in 2 different computers, but at least the same color every game.

Index Allocation.txt

This is in case you don't want to alter vanilla colors; if you use Atreides, Harkonnen, Ordos... as enemies and don't want to alter them.
80% of them are "black", and you need to be carefull because with some of them (mostly the black ones as Atreides) will crash the game while deploying a MCV (due they are "sandworm" side, and that side doesn't have an ownership of a Construction Yard).

I had a list with the most interesting index that looks more or less decent (infantry usually will look the worst, but it's the exchange).

9 - Atreides bright blue.
32 - Atreides Dark brown
33 - Harkonnen dark brown.
34 - Ordos Dark brown
35 - Imperial dark brown.
65 - Harkonnen dark brown.
70 - Mercs dark brown.
71 - Harkonnen with red-brown-type.
98 - Ordos, red.
101 - Smugglers, red.
130 - Ordos bright Greenie, magenta on the minimap.
131 - Imperial greenie
132 - Atreides blue clear.
133 - Smugglers bright yellow.
134 - Mercs bright color (I don't have written which one)
154 - Atreides with a big of green or celeste.

And as a plus
166 - Mercs Black
193 - Harkonnen Black
194 - Ordos Black
196 - Atreides Black

Not sure right now if the Atreides black can deploy an MCV, any other faction can.

My recomdation with this it's to give to the Ais these index (unless you have a trigger on an specific Atreides building or something like that); I say Ais so you can see how the overall vision of that "color" on a base.

All those browns looks almost the same, but for example, 33 and 65, despite being brown, they are not exactly the same; 65 looks the same (to me) with those other "dark brown"; I used this on my Butlerian Yihad; you played that campaign before that update; but now, instead facing only multiple enemy Atreides bases, you will see a Harkonnen, Ordos or Atreides base, all wearing the same colors; this way the Ais can build Harkonnen combat tank on their own, or Raiders, or Deviators. 

So yeah, besides the changing colors (on some index) and the game crashing deploying a MCV (but if it is an AI that use campaign style that's not a problem); so you can still use some of these withouth altering the color-file.

As an extra note: difference bewteen Harkonnen and Imperial it's the production of the devastator. and bewteen ordos and smugglers it's how the starport looks.

Edited March 24, 2020 by Cm_blast

[Fey]

20 minutes ago, Cm_blast said:

index allocations

Some colors past 7 can change between times you load up the same map, but others are the same. 13 is a nice green / black Atreides, but don't let them deploy an MCV. That will crash the game. 129 shouldn't change, IIRC. Nor should 98. There are probably neighboring indexes that are similar.

[AZ-Stalker]

1 hour ago, Cm_blast said:

Butlerian Yihad; you played that campaign before that update

As an extra note: difference bewteen Harkonnen and Imperial it's the production of the devastator. and bewteen ordos and smugglers it's how the starport looks.

Excuse the scene where my troops just suicide into one of the bases in my video. I was having fun.

Thanks for the heads-up for the differences, that'll come in handy!

Question though, why are you all promoting index colors to me when I can just use Funky's color swap tool and replace a faction that I don't need? Is that a bad practice or will I find it limiting going forward when I try more complex things?

Also, I've been editing colors a bit and think I'm going to go with and orang-ey gold for Redzani. So far so good. Just need to figure out how to not confuse them with the Mercenary allies, as I'd like a support ally with a similar color like in the first mission. The Mercs being a placeholder for Redzani forces the player doesn't control but is assisted by. Need to tweak colors a bit more but yeah...

https://i.imgur.com/9QUQWwP.jpg

EDIT: Some work in progress for the second mission where you leave the safety of the mountain base and the map opens up to a wider (vehicle friendly) desert.

https://i.imgur.com/xNH70QT.jpg

Edited March 24, 2020 by AZ-Stalker

[Feda]

Changing colors is something we usually try to avoid because it involves modifying a .bin file, so it's already a mod, not just a mission. Indexes, on the other hand, are not very reliable for getting the color you want, but at least they dont require a modded bin file.

 

I will add the functionality to swap colors.bin files automatically to the mission launcher in the future, this is something I have planned for quite a while. My recent work uses custom colored bin files as they will be released with this feature.

 

So basically, you can use custom bin files or indexes, both are fine, it just depends on your preference and wether you trust ppl installing colors.bin properly or not. 

[Cm_blast]

1 hour ago, AZ-Stalker said:

Excuse the scene where my troops just suicide into one of the bases in my video. I was having fun.

No problem, sometimes I send troopers too just at a random turret when they are damaged or don't know what to do with them, or spreading infantry to explore the area, or sending a group of 15-20 troopers into an area far from my base and near (but not so neaR) the enemy one so I can attack and destroy 1-2 enemy turrets, but I do not pay too much attention, if they suceed good.

what I want to say it's this:
https://forum.dune2k.com/uploads/monthly_2019_03/1739451274_ButlerianJihadWarMachines01.png.f77cf08dd887553569c567c32563c195.png
Althouth this is a screen from the first sequel, this is the color I used for the whole trilogy. you can see Atreides wearing brown, but you can also kind of enemy Ordos units that wear the same color (Raider, Ordos combat tanks...) but, for the player, they will appear as just only 1 faction. I updated the first campaign to also make use of this.

1 hour ago, AZ-Stalker said:

Question though, why are you all promoting index colors to me when I can just use Funky's color swap tool and replace a faction that I don't need? Is that a bad practice or will I find it limiting going forward when I try more complex things?

Main reasons:
- First, because you won't need to alter any vanilla file.
- Second, you will need to swap bewteen "colour.bin" and "altered colour.bin" everytime you play your campaign versus any other campaign, since from now, unlike text.uibs, you cannot pick on your editor which colour.bin to use (you can only have 1 a the time on the folder).
- Third: depending on which enemies it's on your maps; if a map it's your minor house joining Atreides and Ordos vs Imperials, Mercs and smugglers... well, you cannot alter too much the colour.bin except you go into Fremen/sandworm, but if you have 4 minor factions there you are screw; unless you are going crazy to tell people to use your altered colour.bin during the first 6 maps, then revert to the original during mission 7 and again use your altered one at mission 8 and 9.

This is a personal feeling, but I like to avoid anything that overwritte if possible, if other index gives me a decent color for a minor house but there is only present 1 minor house, it is a bit of trouble for just one color. But if you are not facing any vanilla houses, but 6 totally new minor houses, then you can heavily act colour.bin and make good use of it.

Not just color but for example, Tibed. I prefer add the imperial Palace on the map (even if later expert players sell it just to have more money and energy because they don't care about the Sardaukar) that use Tibed just to make the Sardaukar available from the regular barracks (since, using tibed, also required to, at least, overwritte 1 file).

To this day I have this amount of folders prepared:

If I want to play any of those specific campaigns, I need to enter the folder, overwritte the vanilla files, and once I finish, using the "template original" which are the original files I did as a back_up.

But again, feel free to do anything you want; I am just giving alternatives; if you use a different color.bin I will add a new "template" folder with your stuff in order to play it.

1 hour ago, AZ-Stalker said:

Also, I've been editing colors a bit and think I'm going to go with and orang-ey gold for Redzani. So far so good. Just need to figure out how to not confuse them with the Mercenary allies, as I'd like a support ally with a similar color like in the first mission. The Mercs being a placeholder for Redzani forces the player doesn't control but is assisted by. Need to tweak colors a bit more but yeah...

I did an orange color when I was messing witht he program, here:
https://forum.dune2k.com/uploads/monthly_2017_10/col.png.9607f371b0a66edf9194926ddab5f53b.png

It is a really easy to use tool, but before even tools were considered I create a tleilaxu campaign with one of those index, and from there, everytime Tleilaxu appears, I use the same index just to keep the "canon" in bewteen my own campaigns.

[Klofkac]

Hello there, finalyl I got into checking what's going on in this thread, and tried out the first released Redzani mission.

I must say, it was pretty good and fun to play! The mission flew pretty well and won it at first try. I found a way around the Harkonnen outpost, so I sneaked without losing any units encountering Harkonnen base or trike. In the end, only my Sardaukar survived and I used it to kill the thumper infantry. I did not notice three additional reinforced units at first so did not use it.

The terrain design was nice too, many narrow passages I needed to sneak through, and you used extraordinarily large amount of "sand specials" everywhere, which is ok for this kind of mission design. I noticed lot of tile errors and misplaced tiles, but as discussed here, you would eventually become more cautious to spot and fix them.

My only concern here is configuration of events, namely use of run-once flags for events which are triggered by "Tile revealed" condition. As far as I know, the "Tile revealed" condition triggers only once on its own already, so it is pointless (and waste of event slots you might get short of) to yet add flag condition to make it run only once. Or am I wrong?

[Fey]

4 hours ago, Klofkac said:

My only concern here is configuration of events, namely use of run-once flags for events which are triggered by "Tile revealed" condition. As far as I know, the "Tile revealed" condition triggers only once on its own already, so it is pointless (and waste of event slots you might get short of) to yet add flag condition to make it run only once. Or am I wrong?

You are not wrong! The tile revealed event can be set to run only once all on its own. Very conveniently, as you have more room for other conditions and events, and tile revealed triggers are useful. You can use them to spawn units for the player, reveal a larger area, or send a message of some sort.

[AZ-Stalker]

8 hours ago, Klofkac said:

Hello there, finalyl I got into checking what's going on in this thread, and tried out the first released Redzani mission.

Hi! Thanks for trying it out, glad you enjoyed it! As you've noticed I started with making a Dune video and ended up making maps, a win-win!

8 hours ago, Klofkac said:

large amount of "sand specials" everywhere, which is ok for this kind of mission design. I noticed lot of tile errors and misplaced tiles

I'm fully aware that I shouldn't go crazy with the infantry oriented detail on maps which require more vehicle movement, so no worries! This was an infantry map after all!

I've already made adjustments to the tile errors and have been polishing it up a bit for when I eventually make a campaign thread with the missions. As this was my first map and use of provided tools, I'm not yet that well trained in spotting things in the vast amount of things I need to pay attention to. But I'm working on it and will surely improve over time.

8 hours ago, Klofkac said:

it was pretty good and fun to play! The mission flew pretty well

Thanks, I gave it a lot of thought. The second mission will continue off a bit farther from the upper left with the MCV and two combat tanks that were waiting for the Knight Commander's arrival. And so the campaign flow will continue to see you exit that tight mountain range and meet the more open desert.

8 hours ago, Klofkac said:

the "Tile revealed" condition triggers only once on its own already,

I wasn't aware. Thanks for pointing it out! I'm still very new to how D2k scripting handles itself.

Speaking of which, I'm having trouble making it so that the lose condition works if the Ordos (Redzani) player loses after losing their structures OR MCV if it hasn't been deployed yet. For some reason its either letting me play after the base is sold or destroyed, or I lose the mission just as the game registers the MCV exists or just as it unpacks but isn't a structure just yet. I'm probably missing something here. Suggestions appreciated.

Another question, if a condition is ticked [x], does that mean that the game treats it as "1", and then when an event such as tick flag ticks it to "True" it just stays as it is?

I'm having trouble understanding the "if unit exists" tick logic. If it's ticked, does the game belive it exists or doesn't? Could anyone explain a bit more, as it has taken me some trial and error to figure it out, and just as I think I know what it's doing the game crashes from certain events not being set up properly.

Any way to influence which direction a Carryall will leave or arrive in during the reinforcement event?

Can I block the AI from ordering more Harvesters via automatic Refinery Carryalls?

And the big question which I now have to tackle as I've built the entire map for mission two and need to set up the AI... -> How do I script the AI to produce units and behave? Best practices?

Edited March 25, 2020 by AZ-Stalker

[Cm_blast]

4 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

I wasn't aware. Thanks for pointing it out! I'm still very new to how D2k scripting handles itself.

Don't worry about this, If I check my maps, probably 80% of them have a flag tied to a tile revealed.

4 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

Speaking of which, I'm having trouble making it so that the lose condition works if the Ordos (Redzani) player loses after losing their structures OR MCV if it hasn't been deployed yet. For some reason its either letting me play after the base is sold or destroyed, or I lose the mission just as the game registers the MCV exists or just as it unpacks but isn't a structure just yet. I'm probably missing something here. Suggestions appreciated.

Not sure, but I think there is a slipt second (like, 1 tick ingame) that when a MCV deploys it doesn't exist either a base or units at the same time.

you can set different mission win or looses at the same time; one for the "player loses after lossing their structures" and another for the MCV requirement; the usual "mission loose" I tend to use it's one single mission loose with the "base destroyed" and "unit destroyed", so the player will loose once you don't have units under control (in this case usually the player will quit the game before reaching that point, it's easy to see when you already lost; but of course, depends on what kind of mission it's about).

4 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

Another question, if a condition is ticked [x], does that mean that the game treats it as "1", and then when an event such as tick flag ticks it to "True" it just stays as it is?

I'm having trouble understanding the "if unit exists" tick logic. If it's ticked, does the game belive it exists or doesn't? Could anyone explain a bit more, as it has taken me some trial and error to figure it out, and just as I think I know what it's doing the game crashes from certain events not being set up properly.

The "X" means the opposite.

For example: <Unit exist - Harkonnen - Trooper>: means that this trigger when the Harkonnen have at least one trooper ingame.
<[x]unit exist - Harkonnen - Trooper>: means that will trigger when the Harkonnen doesn't have any trooper ingame.

Base destroyed - Player has no building
[x] Base destroyed - Player has any building.

Most of them works this way, like the "Spice harvested", 15.000 means player harvester that amount, [x] 15.000 means the player don't have that amount.

4 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

Any way to influence which direction a Carryall will leave or arrive in during the reinforcement event?

No, carryalls always land more near to the spot, if the nearest border it's top, they will enter top.
However they will abandon the area always at the same border, I don't remember right now if it is top or bottom, or left/right (so that doesn't matter where they land, they will abandon the area always in the same direction); this is something I have in consideration if I want to drop "hidden stuff" that I don't want the player too see.

4 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

Can I block the AI from ordering more Harvesters via automatic Refinery Carryalls?

You can remove the event, it is not a must to have that; but if you concern it's the Ai getting harvester after harvester with no ways to use them, you can change the triggering; make the game to ask for the refinery.
So.
Atreides (AI), if they have the refinery but no harvesters, will get a new one.
If the player destroy the refineries, they no longer recieve harversters even if you destroy them. 

In my lastest campaigns I don't do this just because I run ouf of conditions, so I simply use the "base destroyed" for both the mission win and the harvester remplacement, but on previous campaigns I had it that way.

4 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

And the big question which I now have to tackle as I've built the entire map for mission two and need to set up the AI... -> How do I script the AI to produce units and behave? Best practices?

To the top right area, you have several tabs into the AI itself.
There there are lots of stuff you can use to make the AI to build slow or fast... to have lots of units defending or just barely a few... and even the proportions.

The editor should include a "AI manual" that explain what each lines do and what about values you can pick. It is also added a few Ais done by me, those are generic, but you can use them just to activate the AI and have the minimal values needed and then alter what you need from there.

There are some that I consider "core", there are plenty of them that doesn't seems to do anything or we just simply know.
Even then, I could suggest to use the "import" button and load one of my generic ones and then alter; since doing manually can take a while and lots are just like "rebuild buildings" that you want your AI to rebuild stuff as a basic, or buy units (buying from the starport) that 80% of the time people that add a starport it's to the AI to use it.

Also there are some "attack building priority"; you can do your own, my generic simply pick the vanilla values, those are the ones that tell the AI to focus windtraps and the CY over other buildings; you can alter that, or you cannot import anything and just have a priority of 1,000 to make the AI to focus whatever they want, that's an option too.

Later are prioties on which proportion of untis the AI will build, by default, the AI it's programed to build 1 of each unit (if available), so you will see an AI to build 1 infantry, 1 trooper, 1 trike.... and after he don't have all the units, he won't start producing a 2º infantry. That's default-vanilla value that you are free to alter, you can even write a "0" and the AI won't build that unit at all (for example, my generic ones have the MCV to 0, or else the AI will use money on having that vehicle produce... and if he manage to build all the units available, will produce a second MCV).

Here you can choose another set of Ais, I extracted this ones from the final mission on the vanilla game (both versions).
https://forum.dune2k.com/topic/27765-vanilla-ais-ready-to-import-into-a-custom-mission/
With an excel on the main values; I didn't cover all, just if the AI has quick-production of units or attack sooner or later.
However in this case if the Ais are from the final Atreides map, those AI have the highest priority on Atreides buildings, which means you can capture an enemy ordos Windtrap and the AI may ignore that much neared building just to attack your regular windtraps very far into your base.

And here: https://forum.dune2k.com/topic/27803-d2k-ai-manual/?do=findComment&comment=395859
After my second link, I detailed a bit more some of the ones that I usually alter (i load one of my generic first and then I change these), of course there are plenty more or things that can be changed, but if you simply want an AI ready-ro-fight with those you can make an AI hard or easy, frenetic or slowed-paced, harass-kind-of-AI or simply chilling-one, heavily-harvesting-based or barely-economy.

Edited March 25, 2020 by Cm_blast

[Klofkac]

6 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

Speaking of which, I'm having trouble making it so that the lose condition works if the Ordos (Redzani) player loses after losing their structures OR MCV if it hasn't been deployed yet. For some reason its either letting me play after the base is sold or destroyed, or I lose the mission just as the game registers the MCV exists or just as it unpacks but isn't a structure just yet. I'm probably missing something here. Suggestions appreciated.

Here I came up with quite simple and straightforward solution. Take a look:

The Mission Fail will trigger, if you do not have any buildings (Base Destroyed) AND do not have any MCV unit at the same time.

However, when you deploy MCV, then there's a very short while (probably just a single tick) when the MCV does not exist, but Construction Yard does not count yet at the same time and you would fail your mission even if you should not.

Here the third condition (Flag) comes into game. At the time you start a mission, all flag conditions are False by default. So at the time you deploy MCV, the Flag 2 is false and Mission Fail event won't trigger. But here you have the Set Flag (2 = True) event, which triggers when you do not have MCV. This little trick causes one tick delay in condition evaluation. So the first tick when you deploy a MCV, you do not have MCV AND do not have construction yard, BUT Flag 2 is False. The second tick, the Flag 2 is True, BUT your construction yard already counts, and you would not fail mission.

(Note that this setup would fail, if you deploy your starting MCV and build some base, then build a new MCV, sell all your buildings and deploy your new MCV again. This scenario is rather not probable, but just in case you want to count with that, you would add a third event, Set Flag (2 = False) and the condition would be [x0]Base Destroyed (Atreides), so the Flag condition gets reset once you have any building)

7 hours ago, AZ-Stalker said:

Another question, if a condition is ticked [x]

The tick on condition means Negation. The event would trigger, if the condition is false. I think Cm already explained it.

[AZ-Stalker]

Ran into an issue which is bugging me:

The UIB editor doesn't show me which string is which. There are no numbers on the left column.

EDIT: I've renamed the Sardaukar from the first mission and also the MP_ variant, and loaded the UIB into the Mission Settings... and yet he's still named Sardaukar?
EDIT 2: Figured some things out, but now the Sardaukar does not have a name tag at all. When I hover over him nothing happens. No text popup.

Edited April 7, 2020 by AZ-Stalker

[Fey]

1 hour ago, AZ-Stalker said:

Ran into an issue which is bugging me:

The UIB editor doesn't show me which string is which. There are no numbers on the left column.

Silly question, but did you make sure the bottom scroll bar is ALL THE WAY to the left?

1 hour ago, AZ-Stalker said:

EDIT: I've renamed the Sardaukar from the first mission and also the MP_ variant, and loaded the UIB into the Mission Settings... and yet he's still named Sardaukar?

Did you restart Mission Launcher before loading the mission? That can sometimes help a map's settings be loaded properly. Also, if you want to make 100% certain something is properly implemented, head to the folder and open the .ini! You can directly input parameters there, and there aren't too many, so it's not much trouble to remember the ones you really like to use.

1 hour ago, AZ-Stalker said:

EDIT 2: Figured some things out, but now the Sardaukar does not have a name tag at all. When I hover over him nothing happens. No text popup.

Weird. ^^ Hang on, mate.
UITableEditorV0.3.exe

Here's mine. Maybe that makes a difference!
https://prnt.sc/rv0zag
It's v0.3.

[AZ-Stalker]

7 minutes ago, Fey said:

It's v0.3.

The tools in the collection thread are not up to date then. Mine is v0.1 apparently.

Still trying to figure out why the Sardaukar name tag isn't showing, working on it now.

EDIT: What does RepairTickRate do? I'd like the AI not to repair anything.

Edited April 7, 2020 by AZ-Stalker

[Cm_blast]

23 minutes ago, Fey said:

Did you restart Mission Launcher before loading the mission?

This is very important, Stalker.

Whatever you alter something with a text.uib, tibed or even the editor, close and reopen the mission launcher or even the editor. Some things are not updated in real time, it require you to close the program, opening again and reload the map again in order to work.

Because that's weird.

By the way; I don't really know, but the words that appears on "KEY" (that I guess it sais Sardaukar) needs to stay... I think; I only altered very lightly, but those keys tells the game which unit or building it's owned (Fey, feel free to correct me if I am wrong). 
So "SARDAUKAR  -  SARDAUKAR", you only need to mod the second one with the new name.
If you delete the first (or wrote another name) the game then doesn't ever know which stuff you are refering and the original "Sardaukar" entry doesn't exist (so, void); 
well, at least this is my guess, I never changed that, only the column to the right.

18 minutes ago, AZ-Stalker said:

The tools in the collection thread are not up to date then. Mine is v0.1 apparently.

I didn't ever knew there were a 0.3 version of this tool.

Edited April 7, 2020 by Cm_blast