Expansion Mod

[qball13]

This mod includes all the changes and modifications I have made to EBFD for myself over the past 5 years, because it seemed like very few other people were and almost nobody seemed to actually complete their mods. I loved this game growing up, but I always wanted the infantry to be more important than they were in the original game. So I made changes and added a bunch of new units. Here is a link to Modb to download.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/qballs-expansion-mod

Most of my changes revolve around getting rid of some units and adding others, with a few gameplay changes. I also kludged together a few models from existing ones to give some units capabilities they wouldn't normally have. I did my best to balance out the changes, but it wasn't really my primary focus, so if anyone has any suggestions to fix that, let me know. I tend to go back and mess around with changes to this mod when I get bored or need a de-stresser from work, so if anyone wants to ask me to make changes or requests, I will probably get to them eventually. Bear in mind that I am by no means an expert at modding and there will be a lot of things outside my capabilities. With all that said and done, here is a list of all the changes I have made, or at least all the ones I can remember. All the changes I made should work in both skirmish and campaign.

Credit to the Shai-Hulud mod and WermRider for giving me a bunch of ideas that I used.

Overall Changes:

Spice collection is quicker (this is more for me, since I was playing so many games trying out mods. It is easy to change if you want to increase difficulty)
Increased starting money (same thing as increased spice collection)
Can set starting money for skirmishes and multiplayer to 50,000

The main change I made was to make it so you can no longer build most ground vehicles (you can still build Harvesters). You can only order them through the starport. I also reduced the types of vehicles each faction has. You still need to build the factory to get access to certain buildings and units (I left it in because some of the campaign missions require it and without it, some of the missions become unwinnable)

-MCVs not buildable and can only be gotten from Starport

The following ground vehicles are only starportable.

-Harkonnen: Assault Tank, Devastator, Flame Tank (can be used as APC)

-Atreides: Scout-trike, Minotaur, APC

-Ordos: Lasertank, Kobra, APC

Other changes to vehicles:
Ground vehicles (including APC) attract worms much more frequently. Use carryalls to move vehicles more safely.
All vehicles are more expensive and have more health and armor.
Harkonnen vehicles have more health and weak shields. Can slowly regenerate both
Ordos vehicles have a little but more health and strong shields. Can rapidly regenerate shields.
Atreides vehicles have no shields but a lot of health and armor, and can self repair quickly.
Atreides APC no longer cloaked
Ordos APC has different weapon

If you look in the files, you will see that all the vehicles are all still in the Rules text file. That is because some missions in the campaign require having vehicles. Also, some of the cutscenes show those vehicles. Instead I made changes to the ArtIni file so that only the vehicles I gave above will show up on those maps. So if, for example the map calls for a group of Mongooses to be in the map, instead, you will have a group of Minotaurs. I did have to leave in the Sonic Tank, because one of the Atreides missions references it specifically, but you can't buy it from the Starport. Also, the periodic reinforcements will only be infantry. I could have removed the reinforcements completely, but it will still give you the notifications that are coming, and it annoyed me, so I left them in.

I also added a bunch of new units and buildings to try to flesh out and balance the infantry of each faction, while still keeping them unique, as well as adding some units to the sub factions. Mainly I wanted the three main factions to have a CQB unit, a long range unit, an engineer, a scout, and a direct fire medium range unit. Here is a list of new units and changes I made to existing units. Bear in mind, to do a lot of these, I had to change around and remove and edit weapons and other stuff. I changed way to much to keep track of every change. One big thing is that you can order some of the new units directly from the starport, the way you would from the barracks. Having these units queued at the starport will prevent you from placing an order to bring ship in vehicles though.

Atreides:
Atreides Scout - larger field of vision, now cloaked even while moving (my in-universe explanation is that they are trained by the fremen to move stealthier)
Atreidees Light Infantry - slightly stronger weapon
Atreides Sniper - no changes
Atreides Kindjal - deployable gun can attack aircraft
Atreides Engineer - need factory to recruit
Ginaz Swordmaster - melee only, a lot of health and armor, are recruited directly from Starport
Atreides Ornithopter - slightly more health
Atreides AA Drone - no change
Atreides Hawkstrike - now just deals damage to infantry and some damage to buildings (hated the idea of it somehow convincing enemy troops to leave)

Harkonnen:
Harkonnen Spy - replaces scout, cloaked while still, has a knife and will only attack if you tell him too
Harkonnen Light Infantry - no change
Harkonnen Trooper - no change
Harkonnen Engineer - need factory to recruit (this is the only main faction engineer with a weapon)
Harkonnen Flame-thrower Infantry - no change
Harkonnen Man-Hunter - uses a long range gas-grenade launcher (direct from starport)
Harkonnen Gunship - no change
Harkonnen ADP - no change
Harkonnen Death-Hand - no change

Ordos:
Ordos Saboteur - replaced scout with saboteur, more health, no cloak
Ordos Chemical Trooper - slightly more health
Ordos AA Trooper - no change
Ordos Engineer - need factory to recruit
Ordos Mortar - no change
Ordos Mercenary - heavy infantry with a pistol and a deployable heavy machine gun (very good in defense, it always struck me as odd that the ordos didn't have any mercenary troops to augment their flesh vats)
Ordos Eye in the Sky - now acts as an ornithopter with a laser gun that can run out of ammunition
Ordos ADP - now acts the same way the Eye in the sky originally did, by blowing up and air dropping a saboteur.
Ordos HeliPad - landing pad to refill ammo for Ordos aircraft
Ordos Lightning Strike - deals more damage and doesn't turn units against each other

Fremen:
Fremen Warrior - has an rpg with very limited tracking ability. Does less damage to vehicles and buildings than the Harkonnen trooper or Ordos AA trooper, but does more damage to infantry (I always thought it was weird the fremen used snipers when you never see them with sniper rifles only smgs and rocket launcher)
Fremen Fedaykin - can no longer summon worm, has an atreides smg and knife, very dangerous in close quarters (I wanted to make them more true to the books and cutscenes)
Fremen Trapper - slow, has an atreides smg and a deployable trap. the trap is invisible and will deploy when an enemy enters range. Only really useful against enemy infantry, and the trap will destroy itself after firing once or twice
Fremen Sietch Naib - pretty much the original Fedaykin with the sonic gun and the ability to summon worms. More health than the original fedaykin (needs palace to be built)

Sardaukar:
Imperial Sardaukar - no change
Imperial Sardaukar Elite - no change
Imperial Sardaukar Bashar - equipped with sardaukar machine gun, cloaked while still
Imperial Sardaukar General - this unit appears on some campaign missions and is now recruitable. Has sword and plasma cannon. He can also detect invisible enemies, which is useful against Fremen. (directly from starport)
Imperial Orbital Drop - this unit requires that an outpost be built. It will launch a missile from the outpost any where on the map that will explode and deploy a squad of imperial Sardaukar.

Ix:
Ixian Infiltrator - no change
Ixixian projector - no change
Ixian Technocrat - a heavily armored and shielded engineer with a flame pistol, very dangerous against infantry and can still take over buildings (my in universe explanation is that you can recruit Ixian Technocrats from their homeworld) they are recruited directly from the starport
Ixian Assault Bot - uses the ordos dust scout model and capabilities, very fast (made sense to me that the ix could build vehicles on Arrakis when others couldn't. Also the legs of the bot don't attract attention the way other vehicles do)
Ixian Windtrap - a larger windtrap that generates more energy than the standard ones
Ixian Mega Cannon - large cannon that can reach anywhere on the map, deals a lot of damage but fires very slowly and uses a lot of energy

Tleilaxu:
Tleilaxu Contaminator - no change
Tleilaxu Leech - more damage to infantry
Tleilaxu Face Dancer Assassin - invisible saboteur, when they explode they release the deviator gas that turns units against each other
Tleilaxu Flyer - Lands and takes off like an ornithopter, fires a deviator missile and has a field that reveals cloaked units within range (needs hanger)
Tleilaxu Windtrap - produces more energy than standard windtrap, and each new windtrap slightly increases the Flesh Vat production rate
Tleilaxu Living Turret - buildable cannon, can't be sold, but if you select it and tell it to move, it will turn into a leech. Can't be turned back into cannon

Guild:
Guild Maker - no change
Guild Tank - no change
Guild CHOAM mercenary - mercenary with a pistol and a deployable rocket launcher. The rocket launcher has a lot of range, but slow reloading.
Guild Flyer - has a very slow firing, radiation missile. Doesn't do a lot of upfront damage, but creates a radiation field
Guild Pyramid - large pyramid structure that generates a lot of power
Guild Mega cannon - large cannon that can reach anywhere on the map, doesn't deal as much damage as the IX cannon, but fires faster

Smugglers:
Smuggler Starport - can't be built, but if you find one on a campaign, you should be able to take it over with an engineer
Smuggler Quad - if you take over a smuggler starport, you can order these directly from a starport
Smuggler Supply Drop - can be ordered to starports. basically gives free money so that you keep going on a map if all the spice is gone, or for when you are on planets without spice.

That should be all the changes and additions that I have done. I ran out of space to add more units and have it still work in campaign mode. It goes without saying that this mod wil be incompatible with most other mods. All of the new units have icons that I made for the selection bar. Some of them kind of suck. If anyone wants to make better ones for me, I would appreciate it.

There are a few units that I wanted to added, but didn't for one reason or another.

Suk School Trained Medic - this was supposed to be an infantry unit that could heal other infantry. The only way to make this work was to kludge together an infantry model with the Atreides repair unit model. It worked, but the new infantry model was constantly running in place. It still technically worked, and the unit would even get in and out of APCs, I just didn't like that his legs never stopped moving.

Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother - I wanted to make a unit that would sacrifice herself to deal damage like the Sorceresses of Rossak did in the prequel book series. I eventually created a unit that could deploy and become one of the tornadoes that moves around the map. However, the tornado seemed o last forever, and it didn't seem practical.

Fremen outpost - I wanted to create one more unit for the Fremen, and I was going to give them a unit that could set up a base on any rock plateau on the map, no matter the distance from the original base. But it seemed too overpowered.

[Goater24]

I saw your mod over on Moddb recently. I haven't tried it yet, but I just want to say thank you for completing a mod. It's a shame this game's modding scene isn't bigger. It's just great to see someone else still sees the potential in it.

[qball13]

Thanks. This was the first command and conquer game I ever played, and it will always be my favorite and I love making it more similar to the base lore.

[ImperatorRAD]

Played this, gave it a really good go. I know this is very infantry centric and vehicles are brought in via a starport, though I'll admit on my PoV - I wish vehicles were buildable from the factory. Even on hard mode for campaign, it's a breeze when all the enemy can do is charge at you with a dozen cannon fodder infantry.

[qball13]

I appreciate the feedback. Yea I thought about giving the infantry more health, but didn't want to change it too much without some people giving me feedback. I guess another option is to just make the units a lot cheaper and quicker to produce.