Happy Holidays everyone

I hope it was a great day. :)

As some of you know now, I'm starting a new job right after New Year's.  So, development will slow back down on D2TGP again.  I'm glad I had this time off and was able to fix up some bugs and improve a couple things.  Now however I'll be spending more of my free time on separate projects, some of which are game-related and will hopefully one day be available for download or purchase. ;)

Cheers
- Drackbolt

1.1.19 released!

Changes since 1.1.18:

• Official map pack is now included with each download (thanks to Frontliner)
• Choosing AI opponents now offers three levels of difficulty (1= Easy, 2= Normal, 3= Hard)
• Rocket Launchers now move slower than Combat tanks.  This is to help them stay behind tank lines and also to remove the unnecessary advantage.  Deviators also are slower, but have increased range (and being Ordos will be slightly faster anyway)
• Ornithopters now do 35 damage up from 25, and are size 8 down from 9.  Buffs are due to recent increased range from Rocket Turrets and previous lack of usage
• Fixed bug preventing clients from being able to use Microwave power
• Fixed bug allowing clients to possibly queue more flyers than allowed

1.1.18 release!

Lolwuuuut?

Big update here.  Mercs are available again (and more often), big client-side cheats are fixed, and all turrets have been buffed considerably.

The turret changes bear some explaining.  The fact is that in Dune 2, space is at a huge premium; even making turrets cost next to nothing in spice doesn't take away the intangible cost of that loss of building area. There is no melee attack in D2TGP, so placing turrets in key locations is less effective when units can always outrange them to hit other buildings.  Plus, in the late game, armies are vast and powerful, while the amount of open space is still limited.

So, this all added up in my mind to base defense needing to be more viable in the early game to get people into the mid-game and beyond more often.  Making them cheaper and keeping them less powerful was not the correct choice.  So while it may shake things up and not be within the original Dune 2's ideas, I think this will be a great change.

Updated since 1.1.17:

• Cleaned up some old code
• Added sanity checks and fixed major bug with client queue creation that now FIXES and PREVENTS the ability to spam buildings in the same location, queue more harvesters than allowed, or build units beyond the unit cap
• Fixed Sonic Tank power cost for firing weapon to properly be set at 25 now
• Fixed major bug with Mercs preventing them from being accessible even after the Tier 2 research option
• Merc options are now statically available and depend on the distance to the nearest base from the closest MTP
• Buffed all turrets and increased cost to make base defense viable once again.  In general they have 50% more range and a better rate of fire.

1.1.17 release?? O.o

Yeah, this will seem weird maybe... but I felt like playing a few games with Frontliner and we got around to some D2TGP.  We reminded ourselves of a few serious bugs and as it happens, I'm off of work this month.  So, after a couple hours of pulling my hair out I got the old development environment working again, and I now present to you a totally random bugfix release a couple years after I stopped working on it. :)

Changes since 1.1.16c:

• Spamming buildings should no longer be possible; the old "rubble" effect temporarily preventing you from rebuilding over damaged ground should always be operational again
• Death Hand targeting has now been corrected
• Sonic Tanks now draw 25 power when attacking, up from 15
• Some other small bugs fixed

For those of you still reading this, enjoy.  :)

Help this go viral

Please. :)

http://youtu.be/abGgUaG9EoI

Go!

Hey guys,
Been a while since I posted, let alone about anything having to do with Dune 2.  I hope you all have been doing well.  I've been very busy at work for the most part, which has also included learning more about object-oriented code and practices.

I've been looking around for a "primary" language/environment to use that both better conforms to industry standards than what I was using (BlitzMax) and also "feels" right for me.  Right now I've got my sights set on the Google Go language.  As many of you know, I've wanted to rewrite the D2TGP project for quite a while now, and with Go's in-built support for clean networking and what (so far) seems like fun code to write, I'm going to make it a priority to dig further here and see if I can't reboot this project.  Plus, it's not Microsoft, and it will compile on Windows/Mac/Linux, so that maintains my intention to have multiple versions available.

That being said, don't get too excited yet!  I'll be using this as my opportunity to learn Go and to exercise my knowledge, much more than to get D2TGP back on a development cycle.  However, this undertaking will allow me to get more involvement with others, so maybe progress will be good.  If I can maintain control of the project I'll see about making it open source also, though we'll need to get around the IP issues.

I've already (secretly) made a dedicated server version of D2TGP in the old code, so I think I'd start there.  This server version isn't fully fleshed out since it would take a lot more to rewrite how games are connected, started and finished, but it does run its own hard-coded CPU games well.

So hey, maybe something will come of this, maybe not.  Many of you know that I've started and stopped other projects before, but I'm feeling more determined and I'd really like to make a Go of this.  :)  Talk to you guys again in a while and we'll see where it goes.  Wish me luck.

--Drackbolt

Minecraft

Hey everyone,

Just a quick note to remind you that we have a nice Minecraft server running with Dune-based modifications, currently administrated by Gusstuff.  He's put a lot of hard work into the mods and brought some of the structures over from the old map, so be sure to head to the forums to check it out and join the community!

Cheers

Drackbolt

DuneCraft Minecraft world back up :)

Please check the forums for updated texture pack and IP address.  We also have online dynamic mapping and permissions are in place, so you will need to request build access.  Hope to see you there. :)