Dune 2 unit stats, what does "arms" do?

[stefanhendriks]

I've been searching through this forum, looked into the Dune 2 - Insiders guide, but to no avail.

I'm trying to figure out how the "arms" property works (seen in the dune 2 insides guide). It reminds me of armor, but there is no information how the amount of "arms" influences anything?

If anyone can help me with that it would be great.

I want to replicate this behavior in my own dune 2 remake, hence my question.

@Nyerguds - I also DM'd you, since you're the source of the Insiders guide 😉

 

[Nyerguds]

I guess I'll just... re-post my answer here then, lol... should just have linked me to this thread in your DM.

 

I'm assuming those are supposed to be weapon damage. I don't think Dune actually has armor mechanics, and the Death Hand has the highest value there. But those values look like complete ass-pulls to me... these are the actual values:

Carryall: 0
'Thopter: 50
Infantry: 3
Troopers: 5
Soldier: 3
Trooper: 5
Saboteur: 2
Launcher: 75
Deviator: 0
Tank: 25
Siege Tank: 30
Devastator: 40
Sonic Tank: 60 (65 in v1.0)
Trike: 5
Raider Trike: 5
Quad: 7
Harvester: 0
MCV: 0
Death Hand: 100
Rocket: 75
ARocket: 75
GRocket: 75
MiniRocket: 0
Bullet: 0
Sonic Blast: 25
Sandworm: 300
Frigate: 0

I'm not sure how/if the projectile damage values (Rocket / ARocket / GRocket / MiniRocket / Bullet / Sonic Blast) are used; they should depend on the unit's value instead. Since GRocket has a damage value there, while the gas rocket in-game does no damage at all, I assume the value is simply ignored on all but the Death Hand.

You can look those up for all versions here:

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/dune/dune2rules/

Mind you, I have no idea if Fremen and/or Sardaukar actually get buffs on their infantry; the game is known to do things like that, but it'd have to be looked up in the OpenDune code. Maybe @MrFlibble knows more about that. I do remember that troopers' rockets actually do slightly less damage than their guns, ironically.

 

By the way, it seems like starting from page 59 they messed up their headers, and switched the Arms and Cost columns...

Edited August 5, 2021 by Nyerguds

[stefanhendriks]

Thx! So it looks like they are related to inflicting damage rather than absorbing them. 

[Nyerguds]

MrFlibble said he hasn't been able to log in on the forum ever since the update, something about a google authenticator?

Anyway, he said the "Arms" values are the weapon damage, but balanced to the fact some units fire twice. Still doesn't seem to match the internal stats though, so maybe it's more generally balanced to their rate of fire?

[edit]

I just noticed that the Arms values in the guide are consistently the damage values in the exe * 1.5, for all of them except for the Saboteur, since the damage in the exe for it is its gun's damage, not the damage for the sabotage.

Name       Damage  Arms
Carryall:       0     0
'Thopter:      50    75
Infantry:       3     4
Troopers:       5     8
Soldier:        3     4
Trooper:        5     8
Saboteur:       2   150
Launcher:      75   112
Deviator:       0     0
Tank:          25    38
Siege Tank:    30    45
Devastator:    40    60
Sonic Tank:    60    90
Trike:          5     8
Raider Trike:   5     8
Quad:           7    10
Harvester:      0     0
MCV:            0     0
Death Hand:   100   150

This all checks out, lol.

Edited August 5, 2021 by Nyerguds

[stefanhendriks]

11 hours ago, Nyerguds said:

MrFlibble said he hasn't been able to log in on the forum ever since the update, something about a google authenticator?

He is a mod. Mods have 2fa enabled for some time. I suspect @Gobalopper can help out here?

 

as for the rest of your post:

I’m still confused :). So there is a “damage” and an “arms” property? Or “damage” is just in the guides? I can imagine “arms” == “damage/fire rate”?

So if I conclude that one missile of a Launcher does 112/2 damage - does that make sense?

[Nyerguds]

1 hour ago, stefanhendriks said:

I’m still confused :). So there is a “damage” and an “arms” property? Or “damage” is just in the guides? I can imagine “arms” == “damage/fire rate”?

I'm just comparing the internal damage stats from inside the exe with the "arms" stat from that guide. That's all.

The "Arms" stat in the guide turned out to literally be just the internal damage ratings with a mulitiplier of 1.5, rounded to integer numbers. Nothing else. I have no idea why this multiplier was applied, or if it has any relation to the actual damage done in-game.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Nyerguds

[stefanhendriks]

Aha. 

I've been digging into the OpenDune code; 

Here you can see how damage is calculated for a unit. It looks like it is taken from a "UnitInfo", which is probably the config values. And as said earlier it reduces the amount of damage to inflict depending on health or unit type (scroll a bit down for that).

The createBullet function simply sets a value if it is a "big bullet" or not; and does not alter the damage property.

The UnitInfo struct does not seem to have an "Arms" property, so the Insiders Guide has some made up word for it probably. Why the multiplier exists remains a mystery I think. (even searching for the word "arms" will find nothing)

btw, if you're wondering about the unit stats, you can find them here

[Nyerguds]

 MrFlibble told me that the values in the Sega Megadrive version are adjusted in a rather peculiar way: to make structures generally more durable, all structure health was multiplied by 2, and all unit damage was multiplied by... 1.5. 

And, now here's the interesting part: there was a similar guide for the Sega Megadrive version, and apparently the author of this guide simply copied large parts of that without double-checking 

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/genesis/586152-dune-the-battle-for-arrakis/faqs/1520

And, look at that. He uses "arms" for unit damage

7 hours ago, stefanhendriks said:

btw, if you're wondering about the unit stats, you can find them here

I really don't wonder about them. I literally linked you to full stat dumps from all known versions of dune II earlier in this thread.

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/dune/dune2rules/

And those dumps are made with my own editor for the game.

(and knowing the filename structure used in the released C&C code, that file was probably called udata.c )

 

Edited August 6, 2021 by Nyerguds

[stefanhendriks]

5 minutes ago, Nyerguds said:

I really don't wonder about them. I literally linked you to full stat dumps from all known versions of dune II earlier in this thread.

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/dune/dune2rules/

And those dumps are made with my own editor for the game.

haha, I wouldn't dare to tell you about that. My post was for the generic audience 😉 

I guess we have enough info here then.

[Nyerguds]

Somewhat ironically, the Sega Megadrive ROM actually contains a plain-text version of these stat dumps, and those are the PC version's stats, so they don't have that 1.5 multiplication 

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/dune/dune2ini/megadrive/profile.ini

(under [COMBAT], second column of values.)

Edited August 8, 2021 by Nyerguds

[Gobalopper]

On 8/5/2021 at 3:07 PM, Nyerguds said:

MrFlibble said he hasn't been able to log in on the forum ever since the update, something about a google authenticator?

I changed his account to a regular one so he should be able to log in again, can you let him know? The authenticator was a requirement for moderators and I thought it was skippable if you weren't using moderator functions but I might have been wrong.

[Nyerguds]

Nice, I let him now.

[MrFlibble]

8 hours ago, Gobalopper said:

I changed his account to a regular one so he should be able to log in again, can you let him know? The authenticator was a requirement for moderators and I thought it was skippable if you weren't using moderator functions but I might have been wrong.

Thanks! I've not been visiting here for ages so my functions as a moderator have had little impact on the forums. I wanted to suggest this demotion myself.

[Gobalopper]

Glad you took your demotion well.