[QUESTION/SUGGESTION] blockers can’t be placed close together

[mobius]

reserved

[mobius]

I know that in Original Lemmings the way blockers worked dictated that two blockers couldn't be very close together; that is they had to be at least an arms-width apart. Is there any reason to keep this behavior? It seems more logical to allow many blockers to be stacked on top of each other.
Walkers around them would be unaffected.
Walkers in the middle of a bunch of blockers being assigned may or may not be affected; obviously depending on how it's handled.
Fallers would be affected but I don't see it as being a huge problem but there may need to be decisions made on how to handle it.
Maybe there is something I'm overlooking about this hence the /bug/question/

The downside is: on rare occasions you need to assign a lot of blockers quickly, sometimes very close together in a small space and it's unnecessarily difficult this way.

[namida]

It is intentional, so not a bug.

Whether or not it should be changed can most certianly be discussed, though. I don't think there's any technical reason why it couldn't be. A decision would be needed on how to handle overlapping blocker fields if they point in different directions.

[Simon]

Blocker separation was a technical requirement for L1, because blockers wrote back trigger areas when done blocking.

In NL, this technical requirement isn't there anymore. Style has become more important. Allowing blockers everywhere simplifies the rules. The complexity goes instead where the player won't see it as often: Away from assignments, where we pay 100 % attention, to handling non-worker collisions with several blockers.

-- Simon

[mobius]

I can think of two major scenarios how it would work with 'anywhere blockers' at least regarding walkers;

-if walkers get stuck in the middle of blockers very close together so there is no room to walk; they behave like stuck in terrain
OR
-they bypass the blocker(s) altogether. I like the first suggestion better because the second seems glitchy and allows for backroutes much like how in L1 you could push lems through terrain with blockers.

In some cases; 2 blockers close enough [such that they're almost or are on top of eachother] could work exactly like just 1 blocker.

[namida]

Once some general tidying-up of the physics code is done, I'll see if I can put together a few test versions to try out potential behaviours for this; that is assuming that we don't decide before then to keep things as they currently are.

[IchoTolot]

I know that in Original Lemmings the way blockers worked dictated that two blockers couldn't be very close together; that is they had to be at least an arms-width apart. Is there any reason to keep this behavior? It seems more logical to allow many blockers to be stacked on top of each other.

It might seem logical, buuuuut if you place a bunch of blockers on top of each other you will end up in a very big mess with no real oversight of how Lemmings inside this mess will behave.
So why allowing this?
It just causes messy stuff to happen and the cases where you want to assign a few blockers next to each others are not that often or there is enough room to assign them anyway.
In my opinion it would be logical, yes, but why add even more messy stuff to the game?

[Wafflem]

I've been meaning to point this out but keep forgetting:

You can already put blockers close together, via pre-placed blockers. So there is some sort of inconsistency regarding this - why can a level designer put pre-placed blockers together, but when one plays a level they cannot assign blockers close to each other?

[namida]

So there is some sort of inconsistency regarding this - why can a level designer put pre-placed blockers together, but when one plays a level they cannot assign blockers close to each other?

Because the level editor isn't really designed to be "smart" in terms of what it will and won't allow. I also wouldn't be willing to guarantee that such a setup will be glitch-free - it's unlikely to glitch, but it's possible. At the very least though, I would expect some weird results if a lemming falls onto them from above.

[mobius]

I know that in Original Lemmings the way blockers worked dictated that two blockers couldn't be very close together; that is they had to be at least an arms-width apart. Is there any reason to keep this behavior? It seems more logical to allow many blockers to be stacked on top of each other.

It might seem logical, buuuuut if you place a bunch of blockers on top of each other you will end up in a very big mess with no real oversight of how Lemmings inside this mess will behave.
So why allowing this?
It just causes messy stuff to happen and the cases where you want to assign a few blockers next to each others are not that often or there is enough room to assign them anyway.
In my opinion it would be logical, yes, but why add even more messy stuff to the game?

those are some valid points.
Maybe more to the point of my initial reason for posting this; I'd be happy if a simple change was made to simply allow blockers being placed just a *little* closer together; not so much that is causes any changes that have been discussed. It's not really a big deal; it just seems the space needed is a little farther then necessary and causes minor annoyances when placing blockers in tight spaces.

[namida]

I believe the maximum closeness already is "close enough that their trigger areas touch, but don't overlap". I could be wrong though.

[Simon]

why add even more messy stuff to the game?

Lemmings can already be trapped in multiple blocker fields. To see this, put a hatch above many pre-placed blockers. The "messy stuff" is in the rules already.

Either the game should complain on blocker area overlap, or we should allow arbitrary blocker positioning.

-- Simon