[Developing] Arkanon campaigns [2 missions available]

[Fey]

I'll be updating the OP of this thread periodically with new levels. there are currently 2 playable missions:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XDkNfZVmBoC8dSk5KL2u-zETcaTbJvsn/view

please keep in mind however that this is a development thread. these missions are considered rough drafts. that said, feel free to try them out anyway! any data y'all can send my way will be helpful for improving the final result!

some general dev commentary and/or FAQs:

Spoiler

    Questions about the tileset...
It's got its own thread, as it was drawn before I started working on this campaign. You can find that thread right here:

    Custom music?
Klofkac made it possible to play music from the GAMESFX folder via events. Modders can now add music to individual missions without intrusively adding that music to a player's regular music playlist.

Given that file size would be an issue while trying to add a whole bunch of custom tracks, I make some adjustments and convert the tracks via XCC Mixer to .aud format, which is majorly compressed.

Choosing tracks that aren't really subject to copyright enforcement is important to consider for the streamers, let's players, and others who want to give these missions a go online. That is, there might be some tracks that are copyrighted, but the holder of the IP doesn't necessarily care to enforce that so strictly. I suppose it also helps that I like to transform the original material in ways, rearranging or mashing up themes, for which fair use rules could come into play. Especially because this is not a commercial endeavor the tracks are accompanying. Just a mod for a beloved old game.

Regardless of whether a track is copyrighted or not, I'm including credits in the missions where the tracks play. Please pay your respects to the original artists; they deserve our admiration and support.

Sound identity is important too. The themes I choose have to be associated somehow, at least within the same campaign on Arkanon. You may recall from ArkDebut, if you played that mission, that themes from both Halo and Freespace were used. Heavy percussion, accompanying choir... there were some thematic similarities between those tracks.

I would prefer to avoid using especially iconic themes, or rather, themes using the main motif of the game. Like Rock Anthem for Saving the World, from Halo, for instance. Doesn't mean I won't find nice spots for some such tracks, potentially, but that's why I look for pieces that are different, like Impend on level 1. Musical accompaniment is supposed to add to the moment, you know? Players are likely to recognize certain themes, but my hope is to keep things focused on the moments in the game where these themes are played rather than take the player out of those moments.

There's no perfect solution when using material from other games, I suppose. I'll just try to be judicious about where I use each custom track.

    Usage of AI?
Remember, my sister's mostly the one who drew this tileset by hand (with certain aspects falling to others, like Kipp was responsible for the water assets). I've got a personal beef with AI on her behalf. Not to mention that I'm fond of writing, and there's plenty of generative AI for that too! And I've got my own history with fighting bots...

Look: I don't judge anybody for using it as a tool to SUPPLEMENT human creativity. If it SUPPLANTS human creativity, that's definitely a problem. As for myself though, I prefer not to rely on it.

That said, AI is in a lot of things nowadays and often serves some kind of underlying purpose, if it's not front and center. I picked up Voicemod at the suggestion of PsYcHo, our beloved voxel artist, and I'd imagine it uses some degree of AI to deal with transforming voices to sound like somebody else, or to clean up audio. I still intend to use it to handle the voiceovers for scripted lines in the Arkanon campaigns. Back in Summers' Solstice, I used koe.ai, but, again, that was for the sake of transforming human-spoken lines. I said words, the thing made it sound like somebody else, and then I cleaned stuff up and edited it manually in Audacity afterwards. That's in contrast to, say, something like Elevenlabs, which to my knowledge generates speech from written words. While powerful, it lacks that human origin.

So, if Voicemod uses AI at all to serve its purpose, then that's the degree to which I use it. I have my own human ideas, I bounce my ideas off other real humans, my human sister handles a lot of art, I do my own human edits to that art, I use my own human voice as a basis for transformative works... It's always something on my mind.

In fact... You know, Frank Herbert did away with AI in his work because he wanted to focus on the human element in his storytelling. I think we can bring it back without compromising on that vision as long as the humans' reaction to AI is a main focus. This is something I hope to explore in the Arkanon series, so please look forward to it!

    Mission briefings got shorter.
Summers' Solstice personified the factions in play through various characters. Briefings had to focus more on character interaction and rationale and all that. In this new series, I intend to convey more information with less words.

I mean, I'm yapping plenty in these dev commentary sections, but that's not the in-game stuff. You're here looking for more info, so here it is.

The player will be addressed typically by some unnamed advisor. The faction in play will be characterized through things like its plans of action, its unit roster, and the phrasing of this advisor's words. Given plenty of love, I can keep the briefings from being long enough that they generate a scroll bar in the Mission Launcher, but adequately characterize each faction at the same time. That's the goal, and the challenge.

for ease, I included the latest exe from Klofkac in the zip. if you'd rather grab v3.0 yourself, the thread's right here:

but, please note that there are some occasional hotfixes Klofkac does that are tested in the Landsraad Discord server pinned at the top of this forum. there might be something important in the exe in the zip. at the moment, I don't think it'll crash the game or anything if you use Klofkac's "stable" exe over the one in the Arkanon campaign zip, but I'm just throwing this out there in case somebody runs into a problem. I'll adjust this advice if something in particular is added that makes it vital to use the one in the campaign's zip

that's all for now

Edited 58 minutes ago by Fey
reformatted. level 2 published

[Fey]

with level 2 finished, I'm gonna do it this way... details about each new mission will be done up in a new post (and I'll move the details for level 1 down here too), and while I'll only add onto the OP if there's some kinda new FAQ that pops up, I'll at least change the thread name to reflect how many playable missions there are. that way folks can keep up easily

here's the original info for level 1:

Spoiler

for now, I have only one, and it's not even on the Arkanon tileset, but it's part of the campaign so screw it, we're starting the thread lol. here's a link to the rough draft of level 1:
check the OP! the link's there now!

and here's some more information about the first level, including a full map image (with and without events displayed)

Spoiler

FULL MAP IMAGE:

Spoiler

lotsa rough draft crap. no new EVA or voiceovers for the scripted lines, the swordsmen are using placeholder frames from sard flamers, lasgunners need realignment, things don't have their proper names when moused over, some other stuff... there's also no mission intel or tactical map yet mission intel & tmap were added. but it should be a playable mission from any start location. albeit an easy one, since it's just level 1. except maybe on hard mode? it can get a little spicy, I guess

I took a more traditional approach with the tutorial level in Summers' Solstice and gave the player a feel for some changes in the tech tree before introducing a simple but kinda scary AI opponent in the second phase of S01V1. this one is more akin to S01V2, but is built much more like a tutorial level. the player MOSTLY gets the basic infantry, Sardaukar Riflemen, to work with. some Trike-equivalent units are introduced a bit later, and there are scarce Sardaukar Troopers, Flamers and Buzzsaws to find as well. the idea of giving the player a mostly homogenous deathball and asking the player to go have fun is so I can introduce the more eccentric enemy units in a controlled and low-pressure environment. the player is more likely to be observant of the enemy units' qualities in this kind of scenario

those heavily-armored Mavrys buggies are probably the biggest threat on this map. that's why there are some Sardaukar Troopers included in the mix, even on hard mode. sure, you can tank their hits with Scythe Bikes, AKA Scythers, and gun them down with Riflemen eventually, but they're essentially minibosses at that rate

as for the enemy units, lasgunners are fine against infantry. not as efficient as riflemen, but they deal respectable damage to light armor and very slightly better damage against structures or heavy armor than bullets-based weapons do. the other enemy infantry, those paladins, are the tankiest infantry unit in the ga,e. their energy shields stay up until they take a swing at their target in melee. attempting to crush them (like with Buzzsaws) will EMP the crushing vehicle, temporarily stunning it and slightly damaging it. Harvesters are EM-shielded and cannot be stunned, not that you get to run any paladins over with those on this mission, but I'm just saying. and while you might think a sword does little damage to armor, they do have a small slash wave projectile because what they're carrying is less a sword and more a hyper-stylized handheld plasma cannon

hard difficulty puts a crapload of paladins at the final enemy position you assail before phase two of the level, and Shock Turrets will return fire on your forces

there's a new gameplay mechanic introduced in this campaign where although your infantry can still heal to 50% while idle, like in SS, leaving them near Barracks will heal them up to 100% over time. on this mission, friendly Barracks can do this for your infantry. not that I intended to make the player wait, or slow down the action, or anything... the heal crates scattered around the map are global. if the player picks one up, units on the other side of the map will be healed too

although this mission is designed to be non-linear, the start location system adds another layer of non-linearity. I hope to leave an impression on the player with its level of detail, despite how brief a mission it is.

I did test runs on hard mode from all three start locations to make sure the rough draft works correctly. these clips will expire eventually. for now, here they are:
top left: https://streamable.com/bq4f9o
top right: https://streamable.com/fg8lbw
bottom right: https://streamable.com/5r2nys

EDIT 8/30/26: made a bunch of tweaks and fixed various oversights and errors. moved the crate at the garrison down to the bottom so it's harder to accidentally pick up. also added a (generous) timed section to the end of the mission. the enemy will actually set off those explosives if you let them.

Nguyen did runs of this mission too, before the tweaks I just mentioned. his playthroughs gave me some helpful information on what to fix. here are his runs:

thank you, Nguyen!

EDIT 8/29/26: an uncommon issue was found where if the player didn't explore all expected locations, the enemy would keep some extra units. I also fixed an issue where an unmanned unit would move. and, some more failsafes were added in case of funni unit pathing. the zip's been updated with those tweaks

I also got this footage of mapping this mission, and mapping the next. level 2 is not done yet. and, again, streamable clips will expire eventually. still, for now here are the clips:
level 1: https://streamable.com/jnyu1f
level 2: https://streamable.com/0kfqpn

ADDENDUM 9/13/26: I'll start doing proper dev commentary sections on each mission. here's the one for level 1:

Spoiler

SARD 01: First Contact
    A Heighliner mission to kick off the Arkanon campaign?
What can I say? I'm an incorrigible tease.

It was important for story reasons too though. Attacking a Spacing Guild Heighliner, let alone the Imperial Sardaukar of House Corrino, is an unthinkable act in the Dune universe.

Yeah, I know we did that in Summers' Solstice, but look, Westwood did it too, so I can justify that as the Imperials seizing those Deviator prototypes and keeping the illegal tech off Arrakis, alright?!

Anyway, like I was saying: The scenario itself immediately conveys some key details about the new faction that will be the main antagonist in the Imperial campaign on Arkanon to any familiar with Dune lore. They don't care about the rules of the Landsraad at large, they present as extremely territorial, they have the means to navigate their world up to objects in orbit around it, they demonstrate a tactical approach in trying to control movement of Guild and Sardaukar forces on the Heighliner with the RFGs and all, and they either had the means to identify a structure of importance quickly or are already familiar with Guild technology. This new faction should leave an impression in their very introduction on both the player and the Sardaukar.

Not to mention, it serves a story well to start in the middle of the action, so to speak. Prologues are tough to do well. This method of starting the campaign says, "Hey, all the context you need is that this happens in the aftermath of the original campaign(s) of Dune 2000. The Sardaukar lost Arrakis. To who? Somebody, I dunno. Anyway, shenanigans ensue. Go, go."

Just as well, it needs to be established that the Guild and Sardaukar are working together here because the custom special weapons the Sardaukar will get involve Guild support. One of them, which is already designed and implemented, will be teased as a scripted setpiece on level 2, but it will be player-targetable anywhere later on.

    Infantry can hop into vehicles?
Summers' Solstice made use of a simultaneously clever and stupid trick after crates were implemented for campaign missions. I used the images of units as specific-unit crate graphics so when the player touched them, they'd get that unit. Like the Flame Tanks around the player's starting base on S06V2.

I like this mechanic of giving the player extra vehicles to use. However, you can't destroy them and they don't take damage until obtained, so it was kind of immersion breaking. The new systems Klofkac designed... well, they're basically a new programming language that allow us to build our own systems.

Reinforcement drops have a variety of great uses. Putting things like crates or idle units out on the map, however, are ways to encourage the player to scout around on the average macro mission. They're there to reward the player for exploring beyond their comfort zone.

In the case of a no-build mission like this, the idle units are there to create a short lull in the action. The aggressive reinforcement drops on top of enemy forces are used to encourage players to press forward with their deathball and clash with the enemy, while players have to pause a moment to position infantry when the idle units are discovered.

I don't want to delay the action for too long. Brief moments of downtime, however, are good for getting players to naturally absorb more information. They can go into the next fight mentally refreshed when things are clearly structured and sectioned off.

This new system comes with its own problems. The Scythers on level 1 belong to an enemy faction on level 1 so players can't see them through the shroud until they're meant to. This has to be handled carefully so the AI doesn't do something funny with them, or doesn't attack the player's units before they turn friendly and get revealed. However, it should be a more immersive system than the last and it should allow for idle units to be more frequently found.

    A no-build mission to start us off?
The purpose of giving the player a mostly homogenous deathball and simplifying the gameplay in this fashion is to place more emphasis on other new things revealed on this mission. The new enemy faction has some very eccentric units, and it's easier to notice how they are different when the player doesn't really have to think about their own units.

In S01V2 back in the Summers' Solstice campaign, I tried to apply a similar principle by having familiar units like Riflemen or Cannon Turrets appear in its prologue, or Arc 1. That was intended to allow the player to focus more on the differences in how the mod feels before introducing new things like Shotgunners and Autogun Turrets in Arc 2.

Where S01V2 differs however is that it was a lot more micro-intensive. This level 1 is much less-so, while still being quite actiony. It gives the player an immediate taste of clashing with the enemy in a low-pressure environment before changes to the base-building elements are introduced on level 2.

    Impend? The Champion of Sanghelios?
Halo has some beautiful and memorable tracks and strategic use of music in games like it are an inspiration for big setpiece moments. In the case of this mission, the custom mix between Halo 2's Impend & Killer Instinct's The Champion of Sanghelios can last for its entire duration on fastest game speed, so it's less a setpiece track here and more an introduction to the campaign in general.

It just so happens that this first mission features a clash between rival elite infantry alien to each other while the enemy uses a bunch of plasma-based weaponry and sets up explosive devices on a space ship you have to go disarm. Although an extremely similar scenario to where the theme, Impend, plays in Halo 2, I choose themes AFTER devising the premise for a level. So it really was just a coincidence! The Aether Knights have a bit of a history with the Spacing Guild, and having them strike the first blow in this fashion was important to convey this detail! Besides, it was not setpieces alone that made Halo 2 so excellent. If I sought to mimic greatness in mere fragments, it would be disrespectful to the source material and do my own work no favors whatsoever either.

I did consider having Impend play when the second phase of the mission starts up. However, having taken the opportunity to create an extension and mash-up the Killer Instinct version with the Halo 2 one, and considering the length of the mission since it's level 1, I opted to open the campaign outright with this theme. The way this mix ebbs and flows should make for good accompaniment for most players' runs. And its immediate appearance helps convey to the player that while commanding a legion of Sardaukar might be familiar, they should expect something new and different nonetheless!

that's all for now. any feedback while this crap is under development is greatly appreciated!

and here's some info on level 2:

Spoiler

FULL MAP IMAGE:

Spoiler

dev commentary here:

Spoiler

SARD 02: We Descend
    Repackable hovertech MCVs?!
The player could already do some pretty clever things with the mechanic introduced in Summers' Solstice that spawns Engineers from sold or destroyed Construction Yards. In fact, there's an easter egg on level 2 if you capture the enemy ConYard. Besides some alternative dialogue, you can repack that one, although you can't repack your own.

After this mission, the player will receive MCVs for macro missions and will be able to repack them freely. They will use the hovertech body. I look forward to seeing what creative things players get up to with this new game mechanic.

    Drop pods?!
Back in Summers' Solstice, certain missions featured orbital artillery bombardments. They were at scripted locations and went off based on specific criteria.

We can produce custom special weapons in Dune 2000 now. Although nothing more than a scripted setpiece on this mission, Drop Pods are going to be one of them, for the Sardaukar faction. I set them up in this mission in that format so they can be easily used again later.

They're done up in, like, five parts. A bunch of math is done to determine the impact point and spawn spot, Drop Pods are a projectile that spawn other projectiles, infantry spawning is, uhh... inconsistent. If the tile is occupied by anything, I don't allow the infantry to spawn. However, only unoccupied tiles are chosen for the Drop Pods to fall to. Something would have to move to one of those tiles to obstruct it.

I'm definitely going to have to do some more work on this system to make it feel best. Do y'all suppose I should force infantry to spawn in adjacent tiles if the tile the Drop Pod lands on is occupied? I could do that instead so the intended amount of infantry is spawned every time. The Drop Pods are plenty damaging on their own, even to what infantry DO spawn, so maybe that approach would be for the best...

    Farthest Outpost?
It's just a coincidence that Arkanon has 'ark' in it and the song for the first mission on it is also the first time you drop down to and step foot on the Ark in Halo 3. Again, the name Arkanon came from a silly moment with my sister related to World of Warcraft. There's more info about the background of the tileset in the tileset's thread.

It happens that Dune 2000's soundtrack by Frank Klepacki has a lot of long choir notes scattered around. Halo was also originally envisioned as an RTS. In theory, it fits rather nicely.

Anyway, considering the Drop Pods and all that, I had to pull this one out. The timing was a bit tricky though. I play on fastest game speed, but I have to try to account for other game speeds too... What I did here was, I split up the beginning of the song, which ALWAYS can play all the way through even on fastest speed and had that play as soon as the start location is chosen. When the Drop Pods burst through the atmosphere, the song actually kicks in. I had to sacrifice some of the intro, but it's better than cutting it off in the middle.

I don't intend to make frequent use of multiple music files for one mission. There are some specific places I have in mind, this being one of them.

    Tech zero?
I got some reports from players that the first level was actually significantly more challenging than expected. There are A LOT of new things this campaign introduces! Not just the flashy stuff like the Drop Pods, but things under the hood. Simple macro missions like this are really important to help the player get their bearings.

Keeping things contained in a mostly-homogenous deathball also helps the player soak up information about new things rather than focusing on their units all that much, as I mentioned was the intent behind how level 1 was designed. You get a free second Harvester with your first Refinery. Barracks can heal infantry nearby. That weird purple stuff in the corners eats your health if you stand in it. Oh, the enemy is actually holding choke points and splitting their forces to attack me.

Given how different things are between the various factions in this series, let alone how different things are from vanilla d2k, I'm hoping that the early missions in this campaign prove more interesting than those in Summers' Solstice. I'm still aiming for them to be short so they don't overstay their welcome, especially if played in rapid succession as many players did on the early missions of SS before butting heads with the "hey, go take a break" level that is S05V1, or getting frustrated with the funni first bonus mission... but, yeah, there should be a buncha things making these even more interesting.

SS was very gimmicky. While that can be interesting in moderation, my focus in this campaign is on refining the gameplay loop. I think SS' strongest missions were the ones where its gimmicks played to the strengths of the gameplay loop. i.e. something like S14V2, where the randomized airstrikes changed how the map played out between runs and where the Fremen Gholas offered a snowballing mechanic to help keep the momentum going. Or S16V2, cluttered though it was, where the player could kind of ignore that clutter by pursuing specific targets, and then the gimmick helped bring the map home in an all-out assault on that tough enemy base. Those were still macro missions where the player had to build up and fight the enemy, but the special events on those maps added something positive to the macro game: Small objectives to go for, compartmentalizing the mission.

    Scythers still feel really weak...
Yeah, and they're way too similar to smuggler / mercenary Trikes / Raiders. The factions are very different from one another in this campaign, so I'm inclined to tweak this.

I might retire them and adjust the Buzzsaw to be the basic Imperial LAV. Scythers can stay in the first couple of levels so the player sees, "oh, those lasguns are kind of scary," and then a new LAV can take the currently intended place of the Buzzsaw after the Light Factory is upgraded.

PsYcHo, our voxel artist, suggested another route in making the Scyther deal area-effect damage while the Buzzsaw can crush. It's an interesting concept. I'll be thinking on it.

    There are water cliffs in this mission that weren't published in the tileset thread!
Yeah, those are still a work in progress. I did a bunch of new cliff blends, some of which appear on this mission. I'll be releasing an update to the tileset after I get some more work done on the water cliffs, among some other things.

Nguyen gave the rough draft of this one a test run. thanks to him and some other testers' data, I was able to make some good tweaks. here's his run:

and for however long this clip will stay up on streamable before it expires, here's my test run of a later draft from the left start location
https://streamable.com/ctbxag

another simple one for the player, but still quite complex on the back end

that's all for now. the OP's been updated with the new link and stuff. good luck and have fun