- May 15, 2017
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Inbreeding a Dynasty!?Inbreeding a Dynasty?
NOW, that's a crusader kings experience if I ever heard one...
NOW, that's a crusader kings experience if I ever heard one...
Is it possible for loli version to be posted elsewhere in future? Or are plans for it scrapped completely?
- Dec 11, 2018
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Nothing is scrapped. We have considered posting it elsewhere but now we are also kinda scared by news stories of people getting arrested for AI loli. Maybe it's just best to wait things out for a while and let others be the guinea pigs.
- Sep 14, 2022
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- Dec 11, 2018
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- Sep 14, 2022
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Yes, the updates build upon the previous chapters, extending them. They're not just the new chapters, but the whole game expanded.
this is pretty cool, i love the designs you chose for the main characters, that 1st Chani bath picture is amazing- and i usually fucking hate ai.
I think maybe it's bc of technical constraints, but changing the pose/portrait on different costumes sells the vibe of those costumes better, even if it's just for Jessica rn.
Ill def be checking this
I think maybe it's bc of technical constraints, but changing the pose/portrait on different costumes sells the vibe of those costumes better, even if it's just for Jessica rn.
Ill def be checking this
- Sep 14, 2022
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The merit for the images is lmno 's. He's the one to thank for all the visual goodness!
- Dec 11, 2018
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In a way it's a technical constraint, in a way it's the opposite. Artists tend to draw the same poses and just swap out clothes because it saves a lot of time. With AI that isn't the case and you would in fact have to go through some extra effort to get consistent poses and faces. Despite that, we'd rather have an artist on board.
While I’m far from an expert, I’ve seen All The Fallen mentioned as a place with looser restriction on AI-generated content. (As long as it is clearly artificial, photorealistic stuff is still forbidden there.)
Obviously, that doesn’t protect you from ever more restrictive laws with regard to creative expressions. That depends on your location and how good your internet hygiene is. (Using TOR/reliable VPNs/etc.)
Loving it thusfar! Love the free roam experience. Hope it expands.
- Sep 14, 2022
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We're planning on that, hoping to provide more game elements to complement the novel side of the game.
- Dec 11, 2018
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Nerd talk:
Let's discuss weapons and combat in Dune. Focusing on shielded combat. Frank Herbert never really fleshed it out and left many things unanswered.
Let's start with what we DO know.
Shields stop objects from penetrating it, based on their speed. Shields can be set at variable strengths. The higher the setting, the slower an object has to be to penetrate. At maximum setting, shields are completely impervious, even to air. The user would suffocate. Hence why this setting is never shown to be used.
Shields indirectly protect against lasers too. When a laser beam intersects with a shield, this results in a nuclear explosion in either the shield, the laser weapon, or both.
Therefore, shields render projectile weapons ineffective, and laser weapons too dangerous to use except in special circumstances. Humanity reverted back to the use of melee weapons, which when paired with an appropriate fighting style, can penetrate shields ("The slow blade penetrates the shield").
On Arrakis however, there are special circumstances that make shields unsuitable for use in the open desert. The rhythmic vibrations of the shield attract and enrage worms. Also, sand storms apparantly can overload shields. So ranged weapons are useful on Arrakis. The Fremen use the maula pistol (spring-loaded poison dart shooter), and everyone else probably uses lasguns.
Here are all the weapons that I can remember being mentioned in the book:
maula pistols
lasguns
slow-pellet stunners
swords
various forms of knives
Fighting tends to be glossed over in Frank Herbert's book. Sometimes a battle is mentioned in just one sentence. Most fighting we see described is just duels or small scale combat. So our picture is far from complete. However, it appears that most direct combat is conducted with either swords or knives, which I personally don't think makes sense. Historically these were mostly just used as sidearms, and I think it would be no different in Dune. I will explain why later.
Now it's time for speculation.
Let's begin with slow-pellet stunners.
I'm assuming these shoot slow projectiles for the purpose of penetrating shields. The book itself even says this about them: "Effectiveness limited by variations in shield settings and relative motion between target and projectile." But how does that work? How does a sufficiently slow projectile stay in flight? It would need rather large wings and perhaps a method of propelling itself. That could hardly be called a pellet. It also sounds rather useless to me. Shooting such a slow projectile against anything but a totally immobile target would be futile. Instead I think it's a projectile that slows down just in front of the target. Much like flak shells that are supposed to detonate at a certain height, slow-pellets could have a variable timed fuse that engages air brakes after a certain distance. This could be done with the help of a sophisticated range finder integrated into the weapon, or manually by the user. In any case and especially in the latter, I imagine this would make stunners rather fiddly and difficult to use weapons. Engage brakes too close to the target and the shot bounces. Engage brakes too early and the shot will be too easily dodged or blocked, or lose too much momentum. Nonetheless, fighters in Dune are trained in the use of knives and swords, which isn't exactly easy either. So I think it makes sense. Atreides are often seen carrying these weapons, and Atreides are known for being well-trained. Another drawback of the stunner however, is that it obviously can't transfer enough energy into the target in order to be lethal. Any pellet-sized projectile - no matter how dense - once slowed down enough to pass the shield, would no longer carry enough energy to inflict a meaningful wound. A knife can be pushed after passing the shield. A projectile would need a strong propulsion system that engages after passing the shield. It seems like exactly such a weapon was used to kill Duncan Idaho in David Lynch's Dune. But that doesn't seem to be the case in the book. The weapons are called stunners for a reason. They kill or incapacitate by delivering poison, not by inflicting deep wounds. On the other hand, different kinds of slow-pellet weapons could still exist. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Nonetheless, such weapons would always have to have some serious shortcomings, otherwise, why resort to melee combat?
Why swords and knives? Why not spears or other pole weapons?
Historically, pole weapons were the main weapons of war in most armies, and swords and knives were for self-defense or as a backup weapon. After all you don't want to lug around a freaking pike with you everywhere. I imagine the range advantage would still matter even in shielded combat. And that's just one advantage. The other is the fact that a heavier, two-handed weapon is much better suited to pierce armor. Which brings me to perhaps my most important point:
Freaking armor!
What happened to armor? I don't remember Frank Herbert mentioning it at all. As if force shields made them obsolete (but I disagree). Various adaptations of Dune have shown the use of armor, but in typical movie fashion, these don't protect the wearer at all. Even knives have no trouble with it. Of course that's silly. Even if the weapons were made of some futuristic super material that can cut through steel like butter, armor would be made out of better material too. Otherwise why have it at all?
The usefulness of armor on Arrakis, where the use of shields is limited, is evident. But I think armor would be just as useful in shielded combat. The slow blade may penetrate the shield, but it won't penetrate even mild steel (same for stunners). You need some serious momentum or pressure for that. Shields plus armor would result in really powerful protection. The only way to get through both with with an edged weapon would be by finding the weak points in the armor. All armor inevitably has these. Unless we assume the existence of a an impenetrable yet flexible material, the joints would have to be weak points. And exploiting these is quite possible, with a sufficiently pointy weapon. Medieval knights in plate armor did that sort of thing. When they didn't have hammers, maces or similar implements to hand, they would grapple each other and try to slip the points of their swords or daggers through joints or vision slits. But add a force shield on top of that and it becomes even more difficult to do.
I think we can come up with better methods to defeat the shield + armor combo. What about... a gun! What? Yes! But use it as a melee weapon. Instead of dueling with a knife, you might just as well use a pistol, and once you have slowly passed it through the shield, press the trigger! Couldn't be easier!
Another thing I imagine could work would be a drill. Do I even need to explain it? Gruesome but effective.
Finally, inserting a small explosive into the shield should do wonders. The shield would contain the explosion, making it even more devestating. Depending on how quickly the shield collapses when the shield generator is destroyed, the attacker may or may not be protected from the explosion.
I imagine a very good weapon for battlefield use or for use by guards would be a sort of halberd.
Instead of the spear point you'd have a drill bit, a gun, or a small mine. The other parts can remain as they are. The axe head for use against unshielded opponents, and the hook for hooking on limbs or weapons, to disarm, restrain, or trip an opponent. I imagine this would be a great main weapon for the average trooper.
But maybe a big battle doesn't involve just infantry. Just because humanity reverted to melee weapons for fighting man to man, doesn't mean that larger crew-served weapons can't be effective against shields. Now we have to ask how exactly shields stop objects. Do they absorb the energy of the incoming object or do they just prevent it from entering? Is the shield more like a hard shell? This is inconsequential when we're talking about knives or being shot with bullets. But what about a big-ass war hammer wielded by a roided up Sardaukar? What about being shot by a freaking cannon ball? Will the shield just stop the blunt impact, make it bounce off harmlessly? Or will the cannonball maybe rather displace the shielded soldier, effectively ragdolling him? We know that traditional artillery was no longer used in Dune until the Harkonnens revived it for the purpose of shelling the Atreides' unshielded mountain hideouts on Arrakis. We can guess from that that artillery is either useless or at least not effective enough to be used against shields. But that's indirect fire artillery, unlikely to land a direct hit. A tank gun is different. Solid shot might render the personal shield useless. Maybe. We just don't know. We DO know that there are ships called "crushers", and they... crush. These are big-ass space ships that drop from the sky, literally flattening enemy positions. We have to assume that they can overcome shields, and not just the personal shields of individual soldiers, but also bigger ones. Otherwise what's the point? Speaking of different shield sizes, or strengths. Do they have different capabilites? Is the difference just in how large of an object they cover, or do they have differing "damage capacities" too? Can a big enough weapon perhaps simply overpower a shield, rendering my earlier point about cannon balls moot? We know that shields can be overloaded by sand storms. Maybe other things can do that too. Rapid-fire weapons maybe? A literal storm of bullets? What about flame throwers? Even if they can't overload shields, a sustained flame should roast the target. Since shields must allow for gas exchange, the heated air (or what's left of it after burning) can enter the shield unimpeded. That is of course unless the attacked soldier were to turn their shield to its maximum setting. Then they will run out of oxygen quickly. But does that really necessarily happen? That's another big point of discussion. I will first finish the one about big weapons.
If some of the above assumptions about shields are true, and personal shields don't offer complete protection against everything that moves too fast, then the idea of big hordes of infantry facing off against each other in an open field, whether they be armed with swords or drill-halberds, is quite silly. War would still be largely mechanized, and melee weapons would mostly just exist for personal defense and for urban warfare, or wherever the big guns can't be used. Warfare would unironically be much more like the Westwood games depicted it.
Ok, last point. I think I found a serious flaw in how Frank Herbert depicted shielded combat. Like I said before, maximum shield settings prevent anything from passing through, making the shield impervious, but also suffocating the user. Except, really? It appears that personal shields form close to the body, rather than forming a bubble. So there're little air inside the shield. People don't pass out from lack of oxygen immediately, but you'd hardly be fighting at peak efficiency under these conditions. But what about freaking oxygen tanks?! Give an oxygen tank (and an empty one for exhaling into) to an average trooper and you got yourself a super soldier! Invulnerable as long as the oxygen lasts! This must be an oversight, right? Can this be handwaved somehow or must we simply ignore this?
Let's discuss weapons and combat in Dune. Focusing on shielded combat. Frank Herbert never really fleshed it out and left many things unanswered.
Let's start with what we DO know.
Shields stop objects from penetrating it, based on their speed. Shields can be set at variable strengths. The higher the setting, the slower an object has to be to penetrate. At maximum setting, shields are completely impervious, even to air. The user would suffocate. Hence why this setting is never shown to be used.
Shields indirectly protect against lasers too. When a laser beam intersects with a shield, this results in a nuclear explosion in either the shield, the laser weapon, or both.
Therefore, shields render projectile weapons ineffective, and laser weapons too dangerous to use except in special circumstances. Humanity reverted back to the use of melee weapons, which when paired with an appropriate fighting style, can penetrate shields ("The slow blade penetrates the shield").
On Arrakis however, there are special circumstances that make shields unsuitable for use in the open desert. The rhythmic vibrations of the shield attract and enrage worms. Also, sand storms apparantly can overload shields. So ranged weapons are useful on Arrakis. The Fremen use the maula pistol (spring-loaded poison dart shooter), and everyone else probably uses lasguns.
Here are all the weapons that I can remember being mentioned in the book:
maula pistols
lasguns
slow-pellet stunners
swords
various forms of knives
Fighting tends to be glossed over in Frank Herbert's book. Sometimes a battle is mentioned in just one sentence. Most fighting we see described is just duels or small scale combat. So our picture is far from complete. However, it appears that most direct combat is conducted with either swords or knives, which I personally don't think makes sense. Historically these were mostly just used as sidearms, and I think it would be no different in Dune. I will explain why later.
Now it's time for speculation.
Let's begin with slow-pellet stunners.
I'm assuming these shoot slow projectiles for the purpose of penetrating shields. The book itself even says this about them: "Effectiveness limited by variations in shield settings and relative motion between target and projectile." But how does that work? How does a sufficiently slow projectile stay in flight? It would need rather large wings and perhaps a method of propelling itself. That could hardly be called a pellet. It also sounds rather useless to me. Shooting such a slow projectile against anything but a totally immobile target would be futile. Instead I think it's a projectile that slows down just in front of the target. Much like flak shells that are supposed to detonate at a certain height, slow-pellets could have a variable timed fuse that engages air brakes after a certain distance. This could be done with the help of a sophisticated range finder integrated into the weapon, or manually by the user. In any case and especially in the latter, I imagine this would make stunners rather fiddly and difficult to use weapons. Engage brakes too close to the target and the shot bounces. Engage brakes too early and the shot will be too easily dodged or blocked, or lose too much momentum. Nonetheless, fighters in Dune are trained in the use of knives and swords, which isn't exactly easy either. So I think it makes sense. Atreides are often seen carrying these weapons, and Atreides are known for being well-trained. Another drawback of the stunner however, is that it obviously can't transfer enough energy into the target in order to be lethal. Any pellet-sized projectile - no matter how dense - once slowed down enough to pass the shield, would no longer carry enough energy to inflict a meaningful wound. A knife can be pushed after passing the shield. A projectile would need a strong propulsion system that engages after passing the shield. It seems like exactly such a weapon was used to kill Duncan Idaho in David Lynch's Dune. But that doesn't seem to be the case in the book. The weapons are called stunners for a reason. They kill or incapacitate by delivering poison, not by inflicting deep wounds. On the other hand, different kinds of slow-pellet weapons could still exist. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Nonetheless, such weapons would always have to have some serious shortcomings, otherwise, why resort to melee combat?
Why swords and knives? Why not spears or other pole weapons?
Historically, pole weapons were the main weapons of war in most armies, and swords and knives were for self-defense or as a backup weapon. After all you don't want to lug around a freaking pike with you everywhere. I imagine the range advantage would still matter even in shielded combat. And that's just one advantage. The other is the fact that a heavier, two-handed weapon is much better suited to pierce armor. Which brings me to perhaps my most important point:
Freaking armor!
What happened to armor? I don't remember Frank Herbert mentioning it at all. As if force shields made them obsolete (but I disagree). Various adaptations of Dune have shown the use of armor, but in typical movie fashion, these don't protect the wearer at all. Even knives have no trouble with it. Of course that's silly. Even if the weapons were made of some futuristic super material that can cut through steel like butter, armor would be made out of better material too. Otherwise why have it at all?
The usefulness of armor on Arrakis, where the use of shields is limited, is evident. But I think armor would be just as useful in shielded combat. The slow blade may penetrate the shield, but it won't penetrate even mild steel (same for stunners). You need some serious momentum or pressure for that. Shields plus armor would result in really powerful protection. The only way to get through both with with an edged weapon would be by finding the weak points in the armor. All armor inevitably has these. Unless we assume the existence of a an impenetrable yet flexible material, the joints would have to be weak points. And exploiting these is quite possible, with a sufficiently pointy weapon. Medieval knights in plate armor did that sort of thing. When they didn't have hammers, maces or similar implements to hand, they would grapple each other and try to slip the points of their swords or daggers through joints or vision slits. But add a force shield on top of that and it becomes even more difficult to do.
I think we can come up with better methods to defeat the shield + armor combo. What about... a gun! What? Yes! But use it as a melee weapon. Instead of dueling with a knife, you might just as well use a pistol, and once you have slowly passed it through the shield, press the trigger! Couldn't be easier!
Another thing I imagine could work would be a drill. Do I even need to explain it? Gruesome but effective.
Finally, inserting a small explosive into the shield should do wonders. The shield would contain the explosion, making it even more devestating. Depending on how quickly the shield collapses when the shield generator is destroyed, the attacker may or may not be protected from the explosion.
I imagine a very good weapon for battlefield use or for use by guards would be a sort of halberd.
Instead of the spear point you'd have a drill bit, a gun, or a small mine. The other parts can remain as they are. The axe head for use against unshielded opponents, and the hook for hooking on limbs or weapons, to disarm, restrain, or trip an opponent. I imagine this would be a great main weapon for the average trooper.
But maybe a big battle doesn't involve just infantry. Just because humanity reverted to melee weapons for fighting man to man, doesn't mean that larger crew-served weapons can't be effective against shields. Now we have to ask how exactly shields stop objects. Do they absorb the energy of the incoming object or do they just prevent it from entering? Is the shield more like a hard shell? This is inconsequential when we're talking about knives or being shot with bullets. But what about a big-ass war hammer wielded by a roided up Sardaukar? What about being shot by a freaking cannon ball? Will the shield just stop the blunt impact, make it bounce off harmlessly? Or will the cannonball maybe rather displace the shielded soldier, effectively ragdolling him? We know that traditional artillery was no longer used in Dune until the Harkonnens revived it for the purpose of shelling the Atreides' unshielded mountain hideouts on Arrakis. We can guess from that that artillery is either useless or at least not effective enough to be used against shields. But that's indirect fire artillery, unlikely to land a direct hit. A tank gun is different. Solid shot might render the personal shield useless. Maybe. We just don't know. We DO know that there are ships called "crushers", and they... crush. These are big-ass space ships that drop from the sky, literally flattening enemy positions. We have to assume that they can overcome shields, and not just the personal shields of individual soldiers, but also bigger ones. Otherwise what's the point? Speaking of different shield sizes, or strengths. Do they have different capabilites? Is the difference just in how large of an object they cover, or do they have differing "damage capacities" too? Can a big enough weapon perhaps simply overpower a shield, rendering my earlier point about cannon balls moot? We know that shields can be overloaded by sand storms. Maybe other things can do that too. Rapid-fire weapons maybe? A literal storm of bullets? What about flame throwers? Even if they can't overload shields, a sustained flame should roast the target. Since shields must allow for gas exchange, the heated air (or what's left of it after burning) can enter the shield unimpeded. That is of course unless the attacked soldier were to turn their shield to its maximum setting. Then they will run out of oxygen quickly. But does that really necessarily happen? That's another big point of discussion. I will first finish the one about big weapons.
If some of the above assumptions about shields are true, and personal shields don't offer complete protection against everything that moves too fast, then the idea of big hordes of infantry facing off against each other in an open field, whether they be armed with swords or drill-halberds, is quite silly. War would still be largely mechanized, and melee weapons would mostly just exist for personal defense and for urban warfare, or wherever the big guns can't be used. Warfare would unironically be much more like the Westwood games depicted it.
Ok, last point. I think I found a serious flaw in how Frank Herbert depicted shielded combat. Like I said before, maximum shield settings prevent anything from passing through, making the shield impervious, but also suffocating the user. Except, really? It appears that personal shields form close to the body, rather than forming a bubble. So there're little air inside the shield. People don't pass out from lack of oxygen immediately, but you'd hardly be fighting at peak efficiency under these conditions. But what about freaking oxygen tanks?! Give an oxygen tank (and an empty one for exhaling into) to an average trooper and you got yourself a super soldier! Invulnerable as long as the oxygen lasts! This must be an oversight, right? Can this be handwaved somehow or must we simply ignore this?
Dune's weaponry system falls apart when you start thinking about it for more than 10 seconds. It is pretty obvious to me that Herbert simply wanted to shove melee combat into futuristic setting and came up with shields as clumsy explanation to that. If I were to rework combat system in Dune, I'd get rid of shields completely and entirely. Characters would still carry their blades of choice around - but that'd be more of a cultural thing. Much like Japanese soldiers did in WWII. They did have their beloved katanas with them but still fought primarily with firearms like any sane person would. Then, I'd introduce Duel Codex, according to which nobles must solve their differences with cold steel.
This way we'd still have melee combat in the narrative, yet it wouldn't look as ridiculous as it did in the source material.
This way we'd still have melee combat in the narrative, yet it wouldn't look as ridiculous as it did in the source material.
- Nov 7, 2017
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Shields did create lots of cool moments, like attacking during a sandstorm, or hiding them around in the desert to destroy careless 'thopters using lasers.
Yea parts don't make sense, but hey, ~space magic~. Maybe I'm more forgiving because I first read Dune when I was about 14
Yea parts don't make sense, but hey, ~space magic~. Maybe I'm more forgiving because I first read Dune when I was about 14
- Dec 8, 2020
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- 863
as much as i like the idea, the issues of lasers and possibly other more efficient than IRL guns weaponry remain in that case. and that would completely change the battlefields. the fremen would likely have much greater access simply due to trade. heck even taking the smugglers out of the equation, i would think just the years while governed by duke leto would've given them access though trade.... and if for whatever reason they didn't have access... well the baron would have an even more ridiculously easy time committing genocide whenever needed to set examples for the rest of the fremen.
to be fair, pole arms have generally been anti-caverly weapons. sure they got the range advantage to deliver a first strike... but unless their enemy is kept at that range (or kills/incapacitates with every strike) the common infantry/swordsman/etc. can/will parry or dodge and quickly close the distance and make the pole arm nearly useless. infantry is usually trained to do this. costing time of the pole arms person to drop their pole arm, and pull out their back up weapon. and by that time chances are the infantry already got a clean-ish hit or two off and probably killed them. this is entirely why [infantry > anti-caverly > caverly > infantry] effectiveness triangles are used in most games, though mostly for simplistic sake. also for formations like shield + spear wall, infantry + archers is the method to break them if you don't have any environmental cards to play, or their formation and/or strategy is sloppy and they can be easily flanked. add to that pole arms generally were peasant weapons (unless on horseback) to enable less training time and good meat shields to protect form caverly. honestly, i can't see them being used in dune much unless a replacement for a horse is put in. and i REALLY can't see pole arms being used to kill worms and worm riders.
also another thing half swording. maces and pole arms aren't 'needed' to kill heavy armored opponents. and they gaps in the armor 'can' be ignored with half swording.
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though i don't think it can be used against alloy armors that are more rubbery or otherwise can absorb blunt impacts. so prob not useful for dune franchise. >_<as for you points on armor. and most other points, i totally agree. and for shits and giggles, expanding on the idea. i would think anti-laser specialized armor could conceivably be more easily penetrated by melee or bullets. and could possibly be made the meta if personal shield and such are removed. (which honestly could be the counter to my earlier point about laser weapons and other sci-fi shit dominating warfare, and anyone left without could be slaughtered.)
might be an idea to make spice or some other material native to the planet have anti-laser/energy-absorption properties.
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- Dec 11, 2018
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Nope, dead wrong. That's more of a video game trope. Historically speaking, polearms were relegated more to anti-cavalry use only after firearms became the main weapon for infantry. Even a spearman with relatively little training can fend off a trained swordsman in most cases, provided they have space to manoeuver. Getting inside the guard of a spearman is not as easy as you think.
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And that's without taking formations into account, where you can have staggered rows of points that are almost impenetrable.
Again, spears in one form or another were the main weapon of almost every pre-modern army. Not just peasants and levies used them, but also professional soldiers. Knights on foot didn't use swords that much either. The Romans are the only ones I can think off that used the sword as their main weapon. And even that was the case for only part of their history.
Sure, that existed, and they even trained that technique, but it was far from an ideal measure. Hitting the weak spot of a moving and resisting target isn't so easy. Knights of that era preferred to fight each other with pollaxes, war hammers, maces, etc.
Nah, the shields in Dune are too cool and unique from every other sci-fi worlds I know. I think it would be better to nerf the shields somehow, rather than getting rid of them entirely.