Outpost 2 Easter Eggs

Outpost 2 contains several Easter Eggs! In case you are new to Easter Eggs in games, Easter Eggs are difficult to find anomalies purposefully placed in a game. Outpost 2 contains 3 currently known Easter Eggs: Dan's Dog, the Small Capacity Air Transport (SCAT), and Santa Claus. Only Dan's Dog has been proven to exist in gameplay. See below for details on all three Easter Eggs.

Note: The following information was compiled by Hooman.

Dan's Dog was an inside joke by the Outpost 2 programming team that referred to programmer Dan White's dog. Dan Duncalf, the lead programmer of Outpost 2 verified the reference to the dog is to Dan White. An animated howling dog can appear during gameplay under very specific in game circumstances.

Dan's dog will appear when a meteor impacts if all the following conditions hold:

• The impact leaves a scorch mark
• The impact occurs exactly at a multiple of 32768 game ticks (about 327 marks)
• the tile at the point of impact belongs to the third terrain type (for the built in maps, this is the sand tiles, however it need not be, and can be adjusted in the map file. See the map specification for details on the “TerrainType”)
• the tile is not currently occupied by a unit

Proof of Dan's Dog Scenario (created by Hooman): cdandog.zip

As an additional note, the routine that generates the dog belongs to the Unit class for the Meteor, and this processing function will only be called when (unitIndex XOR tick) MOD 8 != 0. Hence the time condition can only hold for meteors that have a unit index that is a multiple of 8.

char MapName[] = "cm02.map"; // The .map file used for this level
char LevelDesc[] = "Dan's Dog"; // Description appearing in the game list box
char TechtreeName[] = "Multitek.txt"; // File to use for the tech tree
SDescBlock DescBlock = { Colony, 2, 12, false }; // Important level details
 
 
int InitProc()
{
    // Center view over about where Dan's Dog appears
    Player[0].CenterViewOn(35, 10);
 
    // Bump up the game time
    *(int*)(0x56EB1C) = 32768 - 76;
 
    return 1; // return 1 if OK; 0 on failure
}
 
void AIProc() 
{
    static int i = 0;
 
    if (i < 100)
    {
        Unit meteor;
        TethysGame::CreateUnit(meteor, mapMeteor, LOCATION(35 + (i % 25), 4 + (i / 25) * 5), 6, (map_id)3, 0);
        int* meteorUnit = (int*)((*(int*)0x54F848) + meteor.unitID * 120);
        int* meteorUnitFlags = (int*)((char*)meteorUnit + 0x44);
        int* meteorUnitTimer = (int*)((char*)meteorUnit + 0x3C);
        *meteorUnitFlags |= 0xC000;
        *meteorUnitTimer = 5;
        i += 5;
    }
}

The small capacity air transport (SCAT) is supposed to be a flying evacuation transport in Outpost 2. The existence of the SCAT in game has not been proven.

Artwork of the SCAT is contained within Outpost 2. It can be found using the Outpost 2 Art Viewer. See the Outpost 2 Helper Programs Page for details on how to use the Outpost 2 Art Viewer.

An animated Santa Claus wearing a green suit is contained in the Outpost 2 artwork. Rumors are Santa Claus will appear walking across sections of tubing during gameplay under certain circumstances. The existence of Santa Claus within a scenario has not been substantiated to date.

Quote from Dan Duncalf, the lead programmer of Outpost 2:

"... but I think Santa appears in similar circumstances to the dog, but when the date is 12/25 and involves a different terrain type and tick modulo. Since there are a few assembly guys on the board, have them set breakpoints around GetSystemTime and/or GetLocalTime and that may give them some insight."

Artwork of Santa Claus is contained within Outpost 2. It can be found using the Outpost 2 Art Viewer. See the Outpost 2 Helper Programs Page for details on how to use the Outpost 2 Art Viewer.

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