In US 1.07 the Sardaukar Unit at least inherits the Range property from the standard Trooper Squad (just tested by setting Trooper range to 25 and when the Sardaukar showed up in Harkonnen 4 I lost range advantage). I did not think to check other stats but I think it's safe to assume that Sardaukar Troopers are just standard troopers with some code exceptions added in.
E2: Just confirmed power checking with the bare minimum base - the UI is reporting Power I/O properly - I have a need of 60 and an output of 59, and my radar shut down as expected. Just confirmed that Sardaukar have a base HP value of 110 (not sure how to check rate of fire). Repairing appears to be in chunks of 10 HP/Time (so structural repair speed decay is not a thing)
To clarify, I've been using Repair to refer specifically to the actions of the Repair Facility. I don't think I made that clear before.
Thanks, Pokota! This made me go back to the source and I realized where I went wrong before. New suggestion: The power output is proportional to health between 50%-100%. If the Windtrap is below 50% health, it still gives 50 power. You could try it by setting two Windtraps to minimum health and see if they can power a base which needs 100 power.
Ah, so the repair facility works at the same speed even at low health? I'll see if I can confirm this in source.
I was referring to building self repair earlier, so we misunderstood each other. Can you check if buildings repair themselves slower at low health?
Thanks, Pokota! This made me go back to the source and I realized where I went wrong before. New suggestion: The power output is proportional to health between 50%-100%. If the Windtrap is below 50% health, it still gives 50 power. You could try it by setting two Windtraps to minimum health and see if they can power a base which needs 100 power.
I'll do you one better - the Radar facility only requires 30 power, so that's something that can be put paid to once and for all (you get just enough credits in mission 2 to build the Outpost first). Expect a new demo from 1.07 EU up shortly.
Ah, so the repair facility works at the same speed even at low health? I'll see if I can confirm this in source.
I was referring to building self repair earlier, so we misunderstood each other. Can you check if buildings repair themselves slower at low health?
Building repair does not (appear to) slow down at low health. The Repair Facility slows down for Unit Repair at low health. Sorry for the confusion.
ALSO: I did a dirty test last night for the first two missions (tested on Harkonnen, but should be viable across all houses) - First mission can be done in one harvester cycle, second can be done in two-and-a-half (one windtrap, two refineries, then a third refinery after the first two harvesters unload once). This ends up being 4 minutes in-game for the first mission and six for the second. Outage decay appeared to be a minimal factor given the outage wasn't until after the 2nd refinery was placed, and there's no weather decay in missions 1 and 2. Using a Silo instead of a third refinery should improve Mission 2 further, I'll give it a run tonight. There's no way extermination is faster in Mission 2.
Since missions 1 and 2 are quota missions, should we run up the score while we're waiting for the harvesters to get back? Killing enemy units without losing any of our own would do the trick and provide mild entertainment during the downtime (harvesters are unaffected by being off-screen).
NOTE: I'll have an easier time doing these test videos on EU 1.07 than anything else at the moment as my recording station only has EU 1.07 right now. I intend to fix that for Thursday.
E: I was not expecting this result. I wonder why it's made this way?
Link to video
what does the "run score" mean?i think u should entertain only if no time is lost,in case it means scoring more points than needed to complete the mission,i hope score tally doesnt take time
TAS i'm interested:
megaman series: mmbn1 all chips, mmx3 any% psx glitched
fighting games with speed goals in general
The "Run Score"? Oh, "running up the score" - basically scoring more points by killing enemies since the mission completion speed (especially for mission #1) is dependent entirely on the Harvester, which has to complete at least one harvesting cycle in order to complete the mission. No time should be lost hunting down the enemy in mission 1 as the Harvester should maintain full CPU while off-screen. It's riskier to do in mission 2 as the enemy has an actual base and requires more planning to pull off, but it should still be possible to get an unexpectedly high score.
Note: the largest factor regarding Score seems to be spice harvested, so score maximizing in a TAS should be limited to missions 1 and 2 (harvesting takes time). I don't know if it's just Spice Harvested or if it's Difference in harvested spice between Player and AI.
Btw, I'm not sure exactly how the harvester AI works, but in the TAS it might have to be micro'd to harvest patches in an optimal route so that there's as little travel time as possible.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Thanks again Pokota! Then it's confirmed that Windtraps work as I described above, 50 is the minimum output.
Also, I cleared up the wiki page with correct info about repair facility and building self repair.
- Building self repair is not connected to building health.
- Repair facility gets double punishment. On low health, the repair speed is lower and repair cost is higher.
About mission 2, I think it should be tested if an immediate attack with the starting units could work. Harkonnen Quads and Troopers versus Atreides Trikes and Soldiers, you could bring a Harvester to crush the Soldiers after building two structures and perhaps keep the screen only on your own units so the enemy units fire less often.
moozooh: Yes, the harvester needs to be directed, it doesn't seem to try to end its run as close as possible to the Refinery.
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Truncated wrote:
About mission 2, I think it should be tested if an immediate attack with the starting units could work. Harkonnen Quads and Troopers versus Atreides Trikes and Soldiers, you could bring a Harvester to crush the Soldiers after building two structures and perhaps keep the screen only on your own units so the enemy units fire less often.
I tried that earlier today.
I used the Harvester to A) crush enemy foot soldiers B) distract the vehicles and pull them away from defending against those about to attacking their buildings.
I had the Quads drive around to attack from behind with no resistance along with some troopers.
As a (near) immediate rush, it doesn't work. However, adding a handful of extra troopers from the WOR, it does work. The question is though, once that point is reached, perhaps it's better to just go for the spice collection goal? I did not time it both ways.
Edit:
Under 1.0, this may work, as there's one less building at the start, and they can't create new buildings, I didn't test with 1.0 though.
Edit 2:
I just tried this again with a slightly different strategy. I gathered my quads and troopers together, and drove close a harvester to get their units to follow and attack it into an ambush. From there, the AI kept firing on my harvester while my units took out their vehicles pretty quickly, and they didn't even destroy my harvester.
From there, I had my harvester run over foot soldiers, while my units attacked the buildings. So it can work from an initial rush, although it was somewhat time consuming to blow up those buildings with so few weak units. A TAS I'm sure would do it quicker than I did, but I'm still not sure that's faster than just harvesting...
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
First time using JPC-rr. I keep expecting it to send my keyboard/mouse inputs from the keyboard/mouse and I know that's not going to be correct but it still took me over a minute just to get to the Geidi Prime image.
Joined: 3/9/2004
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Pokota wrote:
What was your time? I got six minutes just focusing on the harvesting, and that's without micromanaging the harvesters.
I don't recall, but it was nowhere near 6 minutes. I don't know how the heck you pulled that off.
It takes me 7 minutes to beat the first level where only 1000 credits need to be acquired.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Link to video
NOTE: Not recorded in JPC-rr; I'm still learning the ropes on how to use it. Doesn't look like it'd be good for general play or for quick demonstrations given it doesn't send through mouse or keyboard input (instead relying on the virtual keyboard and mouse menu).
I can't tell if three refineries or two refineries and a silo would be faster. I screwed up the execution on both, but I want to say that Three Refineries will be faster.
Back when I was screwing around with the mouse in this emulator I put together a really stupid simple script to help make mouse movement easier. Instead of using the menu to bump the mouse in weird increments you can instead type exactly how much you want to move it into the lua console. There's a display for button states as well, and if you use hotkeys for them you won't have to touch the mouse menu.
Don't know if it will be helpful, but I'll throw it here: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/26318138254340419
I've never played this game or have any other knowledge to add, but best of luck on the TAS!
What was your time? I got six minutes just focusing on the harvesting, and that's without micromanaging the harvesters.
I got it down to 10 minutes. Maybe it could be 2 minutes faster with optimal play, getting the Atreides trikes to shoot at their own buildings more, and sacrificing the troopers at the right time, but I doubt it could go down to 6 minutes. (And your movie could probably be improved too.)
Next up: testing if Sardaukar and Fremen troopers are really stronger.
Edit: Test complete! Sardaukar and Fremen troopers are exactly as strong as Harkonnen troopers, firing as often, dealing as much damage and having as much health. This was tested by editing scenario.pak to put Sardaukar and Fremen troopers in the first Harkonnen level.
Sardaukar confirmed as frauds!
Fremen confirmed as charlatains!
Details at eleven!
I'll poke the other houses and see what their times for the first two missions are. Hark is fastest for just those two because the spice is RIGHT THERE.
Speed differences for the first missions are negligible - all houses can one-cycle the first mission (Atreides needs one concrete to get PB Refinery placement) and all houses can get six minutes in the second mission (Ordos needed two concrete for one of the refineries' placement).
I'll whip up a "free concrete" mod and see if refinery speed is adversely affected by foundations or not. It's probably going to be outside the scope of a TAS, but it's still worth knowing.
WTH is the Mentat asking you about the IX facility?
Watching your video, it seems the game is moving somewhat slower for you than it is for me, yet I think the time it computes for me is larger than that difference, considerably so. I haven't timed it yet, but I think the game is computing time elapsed at level completion ~1.5-2 times greater than real time for me.
It would seem we're using versions which differ considerably, or the way we're running it causing the game to react differently?
Back when I used to play this on my 3x86, I recall that when it reported a missile was fired at me, I had a couple of seconds before it would reach my base. Now however, as it's being reported, it already hits (meaning the audio playing speed is constant but the game speed outpaces it).
Truncated wrote:
Edit: Test complete! Sardaukar and Fremen troopers are exactly as strong as Harkonnen troopers, firing as often, dealing as much damage and having as much health. This was tested by editing scenario.pak to put Sardaukar and Fremen troopers in the first Harkonnen level.
And how do we know the game doesn't change stats on a per level basis?
I don't have any hard evidence for that in Dune II, but I know for a fact Westwood did that in various Command & Conquer games.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
WTH is the Mentat asking you about the IX facility?
Version 1.0, I think was the version I was using. It's just the copy protection. To my knowledge the only official version that doesn't include that is HitSquad CD, which is based off of EU 1.07
Watching your video, it seems the game is moving somewhat slower for you than it is for me, yet I think the time it computes for me is larger than that difference, considerably so. I haven't timed it yet, but I think the game is computing time elapsed at level completion ~1.5-2 times greater than real time for me.
Entirely possible. Do the three-refinery solution for mission 3 and report back your results.
It would seem we're using versions which differ considerably, or the way we're running it causing the game to react differently?
Both possible. I'm running the latest Dosbox SVN Daum as my playtesting environment (I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around JPC-rr). I can switch versions at the drop of a hat, just in case you're using a version I'm not. Would you download the editor I'm using and verify which version of Dune II you're running? Copy your Dune folder and drop the editor in that, the editor should show your base version on the second line, over on the right.
Back when I used to play this on my 3x86, I recall that when it reported a missile was fired at me, I had a couple of seconds before it would reach my base. Now however, as it's being reported, it already hits (meaning the audio playing speed is constant but the game speed outpaces it).
That sounds more than likely a processor speed variation than anything else, but it could also be a versioning difference.
And how do we know the game doesn't change stats on a per level basis?
I don't have any hard evidence for that in Dune II, but I know for a fact Westwood did that in various Command & Conquer games.
We don't, yet, though there's strong support for the Sardaukar (and weak support for the Fremen) being derived units if not simply factional rebrandings.
E: With that said, once we figure out what version we're using, it's pseudotrivial to prove if the stats change or not as we can check the RAM. Do we have a DOS emulation environment that includes address viewing or memory search? I'm not sure where to find it in JPC-rr
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Pokota wrote:
Nach wrote:
WTH is the Mentat asking you about the IX facility?
Version 1.0, I think was the version I was using. It's just the copy protection. To my knowledge the only official version that doesn't include that is HitSquad CD, which is based off of EU 1.07
This is the CD I have, which is from the US:
What's "HitSquad"?
Edit:
This is what the official game menu looks like (which can be bypassed):
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Pokota wrote:
Watching your video, it seems the game is moving somewhat slower for you than it is for me, yet I think the time it computes for me is larger than that difference, considerably so. I haven't timed it yet, but I think the game is computing time elapsed at level completion ~1.5-2 times greater than real time for me.
Entirely possible. Do the three-refinery solution for mission 3 and report back your results.
I actually normally do 4...
I just tried with a fresh install on DOS Box with high CPU settings, used the keyboard for attack/move so I don't have to drag my mouse to the side, got myself a carry-all right away, and used early return to more quickly to get a 3rd harvester in play and also for the last group of returns once I deemed enough spice must've been gathered based on the % of each. Turned out to be 5 minutes! I'm wondering if with more optimal management with 4 instead of 3 like I just tried, if it's possible to shave another minute off...
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Brougt military victory on Harkonnen 2 down to 8 minutes. My great plan to take over the enemy's refinery and build a light factory there was foiled when I found out that Harkonnen have a special condition and can't build light factory until level 3. Was going to try the middle map, since I have done the right one until now, but I see that Nach brought down harvest victory to 5 minutes, so maybe not...
EDIT: went ahead and gave it a try. Middle map can be won in 6 minutes by direct attack. So maybe 5 minutes with TAS isn't impossible...
Pokota wrote:
And how do we know the game doesn't change stats on a per level basis?
I don't have any hard evidence for that in Dune II, but I know for a fact Westwood did that in various Command & Conquer games.
We don't, yet, though there's strong support for the Sardaukar (and weak support for the Fremen) being derived units if not simply factional rebrandings.
There is strong reason to suspect that Fremen is the same too. I found the code which creates Fremen forces when clicking the palace button (src/structure.c, line 883) and it just creates UNIT_TROOPER/S with the normal Unit_Create and Unit_Allocate functions (used whenever a new unit is created), which also don't have any special code to handle Fremen or Sardaukar.
Really, at the moment there is no reason to think they are special. The mentats are wrong on this, just like they are about some other things.
It looks more like a flavor thing than anything else.
1) The Sardaukar in canon are trained on Salusa Secundus, a hellish prison planet that's been engineered to be the perfect secret army training location.
2) Leto (and by extension Paul) wanted to use Arrakis to raise up an equivalent to the Sardaukar - and they got it from the Fremen.
It would seem odd to those familiar with the setting to not have something praising the fighting prowess of the Imperial and Fremen forces. Though why there isn't a faction modifier on the Fremen is a good question. They have a faction definition, but only have two three units show up in the official game - Sandworm, Trooper Squad and Trooper Solo. (Sardaukar is understandable as they do have a functional base in the finale)
If nothing else, it's a good psyche-out. You don't see the Fremen coming until it's too late (how is their spawning determined?) and the player doesn't expect the Sardaukar Inquisition the first time playing.
E: Forgot that the Sandworms are internally listed as Fremen units.
E2: Nach wrote:
That's a windows launcher. I guess all the CD versions were patched to exclude the copy protection. Can you post up the copyright text that's on the CD? The whitetext that's near the outer edge of the label.
Next up: testing if Sardaukar and Fremen troopers are really stronger.
Edit: Test complete! Sardaukar and Fremen troopers are exactly as strong as Harkonnen troopers, firing as often, dealing as much damage and having as much health. This was tested by editing scenario.pak to put Sardaukar and Fremen troopers in the first Harkonnen level.
What's "HitSquad"?
Edit:
This is what the official game menu looks like (which can be bypassed):
