Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
Good news:
I found a way to improve 1st mission a couple of seconds again.
Bad news:
Hex-editing tested.
I did it like this:
1) recorded a movie X from reset to the end of mission-2
2) recorded another movie Y for mission-1 only, stopped recording when hitting button A would start mission-2
3) inserted X to Y from the position where X hits button A to begin mission-2
Result: desync
It seems not possible to insert missions together at the point where pressing button A begins the next mission. However, I did this only once. There might still exist some positive frame nearby from where the inserted movie would sync. If this is not true, the whole game must be done at once.
BTW, any kind of meaningful hex-editing inside a mission is impossible because moving the cursor differently affects so many events.
Dune: 1
Timeattackers: 0
Are we losing the game?
Joined: 3/30/2004
Posts: 359
Location: Borlänge - Sweden
Highness wrote:
Cool. Didn't know that.
And yes. Dune is book and movie in it's original. Written by Frank Herbert. The movie is by David Lynch I think. Can't remember.
I just love the movies of Dune.
There is also 2 great movies named "Dune 2000" which is a remake of Dune that came 1979 or something and "Children of Dune" there we can follow Muad'dibs twin children. Both movies is 6hours long ;)
I recommend them =)
Actually I didn't like the directors cut version of the 1979 one. Too much bullcrap that really didn't need to be there, atleast all of it. :)
Thats about the first time I don't like a directors cut.
Never heard about Dune 2000 movie. Children of dune though.
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
This Dune project will be too hard task to me alone. I could possibly make 5 quality runs for other games with equal amount of work.
Maybe someone will do the PC version when/if Dosbox has re-recording movie support. Hee-he.
Ok, offtopic then.
I recommend watching more movies by David Lynch if you happen to enjoy his Dune movie. His movies are... broken.
Lost Highway is my favorite. :)
I can't hide that I want to see this game done ASAP. But then again, I know how hard it is to make a good looking run. Especially if you are fighting desyncs every minute.
I'm in. Not with playing a lot, but I'll point out things in all the WIPs if that's wanted.
I played a few levels (real time) and realized this run will be extremely long. After three or four levels I was already way past an hour, and the two first levels are fairly quick.
One thing I noticed was that the enemy base in Atreides 3 can be attacked from behind, drawing a minimum of enemy fire. Just take a detour to the right and move along the top of the screen to the right.
There's also a mass of tricks abusing the enemy AI:
Sometimes, if the enemy is attacking one unit, pull it back, and the enemy units will follow while drawing fire from all your other units.
Sometimes you can get the enemy to shoot his own base (when it's in a line between his unit and yours), or you can make him waste his firepower on one of the mountains while you're pounding his base.
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
I think we should forget manipulating everything for now.
It would require too much experimenting to get all things go optimally.
Yeah, this is going to be a long movie. Maybe the longest one on the site. :)
Truncated, did you record your playing?
No... I was going to. I played just one stage to try out the controls, but then I got stuck in "just one more stage" syndrome and played 4 more, while getting nothing on file.
LOL! Next time hit the record button Truncated! :D
About the trick with crappy AI. They will shoot their own buildings yeah. It's very easy to use, and I hardly even see that as manipulation. I just see that as a lack of AI. Well... Manipulation it would be called I think since we know that this can be done. Which is more or less a firearm extra in the war towards them selves. :)
I wonder to which extent regular missiles can be manipulated to miss, or even hit their own units and structures.
Oh, and the follow command actually works in this version of the game. It doesn't in the PC version, there you are forced to click each and every unit where it's supposed to go. But it's okay since you have a mouse.
Ok, ok, I will record something. Hope it's okay if I start with the third level since the two first are just harvesting.
People! I just ran two tests!
I used building of a dynasty first. But that one desynced after 3 minutes.
Then I ran a 10min test with Battle for Arrackis (E) (!) rom and that did not desync. So perhaps we should switch roms? Even though building of a dynasty is faster. That could actually be the issue right? Dynasty is played too fast on the sega?
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
Good work Highness! I'll test that other rom too.
I should have tested more those different roms myself in the first place.
Hopefully we got the desync issue solved now. :)
I just recorded the last mission in realtime with Atredies. 67min something the clock stops on. The in game time ends on 1:04. I can put the gmv up here if you wish!
No desyncs when I watched it with frame skip.
Edit:
I also suspect that the last mission could be ended in a matter of just a couple of minutes.
You have a pretty good offensive to start with. Atleast you could do it sub 30min without problem I think. :)
If I'm not imagining, in the PC version you can win the last mission just by harvesting enough spice. I don't remember the exact amount.
This doesn't seem to be the case in the console version, though.
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
Highness, please show us the gmv!
I tested the european rom and something strange happened.
I began playing the first mission with normal speed and suddenly all audio goes "piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii", no sound, no music, only "piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii". I restarted and it happened again after a minute or so! Is this normal for the european rom, eh?
My sound went off. Have to check again. I might have fiddled something-
I noticed some diffrences between the Building of a dynasty and battle for Arrakis games though.
For example.. When building a palace and places it, you will have a weapon ready right away. This is not the case in building of a dynasty. It has to charge first, like when you used it one time.
My webserver is unreachable ATM. Not sure what happend to it. I will need to upload the GMV somewhere else, or send by instant messenger such as MSN or ICQ. Another alternative could be by email. You could PM me Aqfaq and I'll send the gmv to you.
Edit:
What do you know! After I posted the above I check the webserver again, and it sort of solved the problem it self! :D
Here's the link to it: http://133an.sytes.net/~highness/Dune_-_The_Battle_for_Arrakis_(E).gmv.zip
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
It seems that we solved the desync problem only to run into another kind of problem.
When I watched the first 2 minutes of your movie, the sound went off.
The problem is too technical for me to solve.
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
I watched the whole movie now. Your strategy was nice. I could probably not play that well myself.
I guess the optimal destroying order for enemy structures would be
1) construction yard
2) vehicle factory
3) barracks or palace
4) all else
Ofcourse, this order is probably not possible in every mission. Harkonnen Death Hand would do miracles in the last 2 missions. Damn, it's really hard to decide what house to play.
But now we need to solve the sound problem. What causes it?
My suggestions: a) bad rom b) some Gens sound settings
Despite the sound bug. Any further tries on this Aqfaq?
Oh and I forgot to reply on the earlier post you made.
Aqfaq wrote:
I watched the whole movie now. Your strategy was nice. I could probably not play that well myself.
I guess the optimal destroying order for enemy structures would be
1) construction yard
2) vehicle factory
3) barracks or palace
4) all else
The play I made was very clumsy. But considering I had not played the game for a while I suppose it's OK. But I think it's very crunchable even in a real time attack. I have just not refined my strategy since I was a kid.
But yeah. The tactic to destroy the computer is rather good, since you won't get disturbed alot when you attack from that corner. The only thing that pisses me off is that the computer re-builds stuff out side the "rules" if you know what I mean. When a computer plays he/she atleast needs to link everything together with concreate slabs, which the computer never builds. They can build very far off the base which is very annoying. I don't really know when they stop to build in a place, because if you watch the movie again they don't always re-build stuff behind me. Wonder what triggers it?
