I dunno if Loap still gets worked on now-a-days but I only found out about this program a few days ago and I got to say... I prefer this over the PS1 version that I played years ago after wanting to play through the game again. The many QoL stuff that it has such as camera panning made this better to play by far.

I recently finished the Vanilla Level Pack of 3D lemmings though I do want to make a report that Bombers can't seem to break terrain above them if climbing a wall. Now... this was iffy even in the PS1 version that I played long ago but it was possible for terrain to get destroyed by a Bomber in that version (I also watched a video of someone playing the DOS version and they were able to break away the terrain above them while climbing.)

You kinda have to be frame perfect it seems given that it's already iffy to bomb away ceilings while climbing, but it seems that in Loap it's impossible to do that even if using the frame by frame to line up the bomber.

The attached image is in "Taxing 02 - Picky Platform" where I'm one frame away from the Climber hitting his head on the ceiling and falling down. I apply a Bomber on this frame which he goes boom and... doesn't damage the ceiling there. Doing it a frame later will have the lemming go through the "oh no!" animation while falling which... wouldn't be anywhere near the ceiling, so no damage occurs there.


Another instance of this can occur in "Mayhem 08 - Five Towers" where you can't break away the ceiling while climbing the wall after building a few bridges, though after watching a video... turns out I never knew the actual intended solution to that level. I either build bridges and time a bomber or try to have the climber break away the ceiling with a bomber, though that has to be frame perfect.

*EDIT*
I got curious and tried this in "Fun 07 - Candyland Climber" where I'm one frame away from a Lemming hitting the ceiling & falling. Given the hitbox location I guess that's why you're unable to break the ceiling that's directly above you. It's apparently inside the wall itself. I've attached a screenshot of that.

I do wonder why it's do-able to do that in the PS1 & DOS versions though. Might be due to the lemming being a frame inside the ceiling allowing them to damage it? Maybe all this time the PS1/DOS version being able to bomb away ceilings while climbing was a bug. *shrugs*

P.S.
I also want to make a mention that holding the right-click in order to pan around the camera for some reason tends to bug out and not move correctly in the right direction. For example... if I move my mouse to the right while holding right-click most of the time it works fine and pans to the right but then sometimes it'll pan to the left or up/down. In order to get around that I have to let go of right-click and hold it down again in order to pan the camera around correctly. I have attached a gif to hopefully show the issue.

I would've made this a separate thread, but unsure if Loap is still being worked on.

P.S.P.S.
Is there an option to change the sky box resolution? Or is that not possible in the current Loap Build? I'm using Loap 0.29.0 / Loap Core 0.27.0.

Quote from: ccexplore on June 14, 2019, 05:04:26 AM

Quote from: Name Invaild on June 13, 2019, 05:28:48 PMI think Classic Tribe's total would be different as only one level comes to mind if using the Crawling/Y-Sliding and that'll be "Classic 07: So close but so far away".

Yeah, that sounds about right, I don't recall any other levels besides the 3 mentioned need any special glitches to save everyone.

For Classic 7, here's a reminder of the level (although it's written for Amiga version, I verified the stats and level layout are identical to DOS version).  Gold for that level allows for losing up to 4 actually.  A conventional solution almost certainly requires losing at least 2, possibly more depending on how many builders minimum you need to get up to the top.  The limited number of skills given and all that steel doesn't really leave much room for deviation when it comes to conventional solutions.  Maybe you can try and see what you can get for that level if crawling is not allowed.

A Exploder is needed to be used at the beginning of the level, so that's one. The far left section you need a Blocker so they don't go off-screen so that's two. At that point you will have only four Builders left... one being used to reach the upper part of the terrain to make a Basher tunnel and three for the far left of the level with a Blocker on top.

It looks doable to have two Builders remaining for that left section but I'm unable to get the Lemming to build at the highest point of the third Builder bridge since the Blocker is on top... at most you'll miss is a one pixel height. Using another two Builders once he turns around at the Blocker and you'll reach the steel but with a five pixel ledge which is one pixel too high for them to climb up so you'll be left with one Builder which is needed for the exit. The Digger will have to be sacrificed so he doesn't dig all the way into the drink as well as another one to free the group of Lemmings.

If you could somehow save a Builder at that spot then most you'll lose is three Lemmings since you can stop the Digger with the spare Builder or free the group with it but it's a bit tricky due to the crowd, otherwise... four Lemmings are lost at that point.

Quote from: namida on June 12, 2019, 08:13:41 AMYou could still do it faster, or perhaps with fewer skills!

Yea, I could try doing that.

-----

Now... I've been thinking... if excluding the Fast-Forwarding & Cannon-Pause glitches. Wouldn't the totals be this?

60 - Beach
60 - Outdoor
60 - Egyptian
60 - Medieval
60 - Classic
60 - Circus
60 - Highland
59 - Polar *1 lost in Snowed In !*
60 - Space
60 - Cavelem
60 - Shadow
58 - Sports *2 lost in Ceci n'est pas une pipe*

Unsure of the totals if excluding the Crawling Upwards... or was it called Y-Sliding? I dunno. You do encounter that normally with Fillers & Sand Pourers as well as Blockers somehow forcing it and it occurs if there's a one pixel gap in the terrain. It just has a unintended side-effect of going through ceilings.

I think Classic Tribe's total would be different as only one level comes to mind if using the Crawling/Y-Sliding and that'll be "Classic 07: So close but so far away".

Quote from: geoo on June 11, 2019, 08:39:28 PMNice find with the fast-forward glitch, too! So does it just skip every other frame, and the cycle length
of the tennis ball is even with one frame killing the lemmings? I knew fast forward was a bit wonky
with respect to physics, but never knew there were reliable patterns to exploit.
The pausing technique ccexplore mentioned is documented here.

Hope I can explain this well. When the Tennis Ball crusher is at it's highest bounce, there's one extra frame that plays before it begins to go back down and that frame... the moment it plays... any Lemmings under the Tennis Ball will get crushed. If you Pause & Fast Forward on this frame but before that one frame plays... it'll be skipped completely as long as you're still fast forwarding. You know those five Tennis Ball Crushers in "Sports 09: The Nervous Network!"? You can walk right-on by without any Lemmings getting crushed if you Fast Forward at the right time. If you wish, you can stop Fast-Forwarding and watch as most of your Lemmings get crushed at the same time by those five Tennis Ball crushers.

That perhaps means that the frames are even, which is maybe why this trick works. Anyways... video time.

Classic 05:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1uYLR3u5Sc

Polar 08:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgOM0zgRGaA

Sadly the ending doesn't change as it just tells you "You are indeed the chosen one but can you do any better?" on the credits despite saving all 60 Lemmings in each Tribe.

Alright, "Classic 08: The Secret Of LEMH", you have been dethroned as the hardest level to save all the Lemmings on for me, the new king of the throne goes to "Classic 05: The Magnificent Severn". In my opinion.... this is without a doubt the hardest level for saving all the Lemmings on given how precise the skill usage has to be and how picky assigning the Floaters and especially the Digger. I also have that on video after many attempts which I'll get around to uploading later as I haven't even gone to bed yet.

"Polar 08: Snowed In !" took way less attempts than that level, but anyways... all the Lemmings have been saved in this game now , just have to redo the later levels. I wonder if the ending changes... sadly... it does not.

Quote from: ccexplore on June 11, 2019, 09:50:39 AM
edit: forgot to ask, what glitch did you use for Sports 01?  The 100% solution that was previously reported here does use a glitch, but curious if you used the same one or found something completely different.

The glitch is using the Fast-Forwarding Button. If you time it on a certain frame for the Tennis Ball Crushers... they'll never play that one frame that is suppose to crush the Lemmings since it skips the frame. I got a bit of a hint with Fast-Forwarding skipping frames which was during "Highland 03: Stop your ticklin' Jock!". I've seen a few lemmings going straight through trampolines even though they were the only ones using it while Fast-Forwarding.

Also... ah, Polar 08, I did attempt something with the Thrower Skill, I think. also, that Cannon-Pause glitch which I recall encountering that during the Circus Tribe, if I recall.

Classic 05 solution looks to be a tough one to time. Funny enough I actually did attempt something like that but only after all of the Lemmings came out of the Trap Door.

*EDIT*
All 60/60 saved in "Polar 08: Snowed In !"! That bit with the Jumper with the Thrower stone to fence away the left bit of the holding cell was tricky to time, as well as the Cannon-Pause glitch since you'll have Lemmings right near each other and they won't use the cannon if one lemming is in the middle of lighting the fuse. I'll upload a video of it at some point.

Now to deal with Classic 05.

I had the game finished a few days ago and just been curious... is it even possible to save all the Lemmings in "Classic 05: The Magnificent Severn" & "Polar 08: Snowed In !"...? These are the only two levels where I couldn't figure out how to save them all.

This is what I have so far.

60 - Beach
60 - Outdoor
60 - Egyptian
60 - Medieval
59 - Classic *1 lost in The Magnificent Severn*
60 - Circus
60 - Highland
59 - Polar *1 lost in Snowed In !*
60 - Space
60 - Cavelem
60 - Shadow
60* - Sports

*Note*
"Sports 01: Ceci n'est pas une pipe" uses a glitch which allows you to save all 60 Lemmings, otherwise the most that I could save without the glitch is 58. I dunno if the glitch is exclusive in the DOS version.

-----

I think the hardest level for me when trying to save them all has to be 'Classic 08: The Secret Of LEMH' due to all the timing with those Diggers & such. "Highland 10: EAT MY SHRAPNEL !!" is perhaps second hardest but you can sorta make it easier with the timing with a Slider on the wall and then using the Mortar as that Slider falls down, after that you'll get the timing down.

Hardest level by regular means... has to be "Sports 10: Take up Archery". Missing even one Archer for creating the arrow bridges, arrow walls or taking too long and it's a reset. Could have two spare Archers if I aimed them correctly but still rather tricky. Despite that level giving me some trouble... I did encounter a number of shortcuts especially in "Sports 05: Blow Back...." & "Sports 07: The Sun Sign Selection" for that tribe. A couple Space Tribe levels where tricky to deal with as well.

***EDIT***
Bit of an edit here but saved all the Lemmings in Classic 05 & Polar 08. Figure I put these here so it's a bit easier to find.

Classic 05:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1uYLR3u5Sc

Polar 08:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgOM0zgRGaA

I dunno if this is the right place to post this but given that the title of this thread has "Suggestions" in it perhaps this is the right place?

Was a Gravity Gimmick suggested before? I don't mean the "Anti-Gravity/No Gravity?" that's currently in NeoLemmix but I mean "flipping" the gravity to either be walking upside down or on the sides, etc. Something like this...

I color-coded them in the image to hopefully make it a bit easier to tell them apart. Blue is upside down, Yellow is on the right side, Green is normal, Red is on the left side and finally Purple is walking around the terrain without falling.

Now perhaps it may not be a gimmick maybe skills that allow lemmings to flip gravity in whichever direction or to act something like the Mango Boots in Lemmings 2: The tribes. There could also be an object that changes the Lemming's gravity.

Skill names since this suggests two I guess can be called... names can be changed if they don't fit.

Gravity Field/Change - Changes a lemming's gravity pull. An arrow will appear which will point to wherever the cursor is at much like how the Turner Skill in 3D Lemmings did. The skill is applied upon clicking a second time anywhere. Can cancel it by selecting another skill if you change your mind. Can also force a lemming with Gravity Boots to come off the terrain and go stick to different terrain. Think of it as moving from planet to planet.

Gravity Boots - Works like the Mango Boots in Lemmings 2: The Tribes however you can assign skills without losing the effect. Can't assign Climbers if a lemming has this skill since it'll always stick to the terrain however you can give it a Floater/Glider if you force-change gravity with the Gravity Field/Change and they will use them until they land on terrain.

This is perhaps more of an idea than a suggestion now looking at it but looking at all the gimmicks and new skills I figure I can give it a shot. It... wouldn't hurt, right?

Unless this is a different issue altogether, the skipping is caused by the sound effects, even though it affects the music. If you have sound effects disabled, but leave music enabled, you shouldn't have problems.

However: Note that you must actually disable them in Lemmini. Just turning the volume down to zero is obviously not going to do the trick. =P

I've seen the issue occur in other Java games too, so it might be a Java issue rather than anything Lemmini-specific, or more so, to do with Java and specific formats of sound, with Lemmini using one it doesn't like so much.

Even if I disable the sound effects the music still skips. Also... I did see something on the Lemmini site that mentions "SFX Mixer - select a sound device. "Java Sound Audio Engine" is most compatible, but others may have better performance (less latency)." but I don't have "Java Sound Audio Engine" as a option.

This is a known problem, although I believe prior to your post, there was no known information on what does/doesn't cause it to happen. The only known solution is to disable sound altogether (you can leave music enabled, I believe).

The music skips so I will have to turn off both the sound and music or downgrade back to my Integrated Video Card to fix it.

I hope this is the right place to put this thread...

Back in the day I was able to play Lemmini just fine without any issues whatsoever... until I upgraded my rather old PC with some extra RAM and a Video Card then for some reason, Lemmini keeps having this sound delay and the music skipping randomly which is quite annoying however if I downgrade back to the default Video Card which is integrated then Lemmini works fine again. The idea is that I want to still play Lemmini without any issues with the upgrades.

I'll post my specs since I think it may be related to this but I could be wrong, both old and new.

(Old Specs)
System: Windows XP Home
Ram: 512MB DDR
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2.80Ghz
Video: Intel 82865G Graphic Controller *Integrated*
VRam: (Cant' remember.)
Audio: SoundMAX Digital Audio

(New Specs)
System: Windows XP Home
Ram: 2GB DDR
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2.80Ghz
Video: NVIDIA GeForce 6200 *PCI Card*
VRam: 256MB
Audio: SoundMAX Digital Audio

Yes, I know it isn't much of a upgrade for a fossil PC and I do have plans to buy a better PC later on but I want to at least try to get Lemmini to work again without the sound issue on the new specs, if possible. Thanks.