Plans for V12.9.0

[namida]

Now that V12.8.0 is out, while of course it's likely there'll be some bug fixes for that - and likely, performance enhancements for the high-res mode as well as it can currently be a bit laggy - it's now time to start thinking about V12.9.0.

The two major features I want to look at for V12.9 are:
- Jumper skill
- Resizable terrain Sorry, this one will not be happening. Maybe in V12.11.0.

Over to the minor features, I'd like to look at:
- Projection shadow
- Styles cleanup and non-fresh-install detection
- Addressing some of the recently-discovered physics bugs: Fall distance from entrance | Blocker-glider-wall interaction | Floater / Glider start height bug
- Force field direction fix
- Make username non-optional
- Update link
- Window size bugs


If you think anything else should come in V12.9.0 (this would generally be bugfixes - but not for UI bugs unless they relate to a recently-added feature - or minor UI features), let me know.

[Strato Incendus]

Great to hear that the Jumper is still on track for the next version, i.e. in May, as far as I understand it?

That would be a great timing for my pack development, actually. Right now, Eurovision season has started again, so my metal-cover YouTube channel is keeping me busy, as usual. After the contest final in May, I can then get back to working on Lemmings levels, specifically on Lemmings Hall of Fame (the Lemmings 2: The Tribes-based pack), which can't really progress any further without the Jumper anyway.

[namida]

Yep, that's correct - April for RC, May for stable (and an experimental might precede both of these). Of course, this isn't an outright guarantee yet. It's possible I won't be able to have it ready in time (in which case, delayed until V12.11.X) or that it won't turn out useful in practice and thus won't be kept.

To be clear here: Once a stable version includes Jumper, you can be sure the Jumper is here to stay, guaranteed. If the RC build has the Jumper, even that's almost a guarantee the Jumper will stay - it would need some very serious strike against it at that point to see it removed; a delay until V12.11 is a bit more possible at this stage but even that's quite unlikely. However, an experimental build with it could well be reverted prior to the RC release, either as a delay or as a "this is no longer going to happen at all" thing. It's unlikely, but not impossible.

[Strato Incendus]

Thanks for the clarification! Given its already long-established presence in both Lemmings 2: The Tribes and Lix, I doubt that for the Jumper specifically there will be any doubts about its usefulness that might result in it being "retracted" again. With an all-new skill, I could see that happening, of course.

[WillLem]

Will the jumper need a sprite? If so, how many frames?

[namida]

It will need a sprite, but any details beyond that remain to be decided.

[Strato Incendus]

I thought you were simply going to use the one from Lemmings 2: The Tribes? "Simply" being a relative term, because I don't know how easy those sprites are to extract. But it seems to have worked for the Shimmier, with some slight modification for the Reacher to make him jump vertically, rather than diagonally?

[WillLem]

I thought you were simply going to use the one from Lemmings 2: The Tribes?

Even so, there will need to be hi-res ones made, plus xmas versions in both resolutions. Obvs, if someone else wants a go at it that's great, but I guess I'm offering to do it for consistency since I worked on the existing ones. I've gotten used to seeing these guys up reeeeeeeeeally close for hours at a time!

If the Lemmings 2 sprite is available anywhere, that'd be great to use as the low-res default and also as a template for the other versions.

[WillLem]

What can be done about the lag? It gets really bad on levels that are bigger than about 800 x 240 and those that contain more than a handful of animated objects.

The hi-res mode looks lush tho, and it's well worth the efforts that have been made to realise it! I can't emphasise enough how chuffed* I am that it all came to fruition.

* chuffed. adjective, British colloquialism. Very pleased, grateful, satisfied.

[namida]

When I see chances to improve it, I will. It's likely that, once NL reaches a final state as far as features go, I'll spend a bit of time specifically on optimizing the code (because at that point - optimizations can be done without having to worry about what impact they might have on the ability to add new features in the future).

However, currently, the only options are "use a faster PC" or "turn off any other option that might slow things down" (eg. high quality minimap - which is already a huge performance hit, but even more so in high-res mode). In terms of what counts as a "faster PC" - the two things that matter here are single-core CPU performance, and RAM speed. Having more cores won't help (except to the extent of "the core isn't shared with as many other apps"), having more RAM won't help (NL is 32-bit and almost every PC these days has 4GB or more RAM anyway), having a better GPU won't help (NL doesn't use it), having an SSD won't help (it will improve load times slightly, but won't affect in-game lag).

In an ideal world, I strip out GR32 (or at least, use it only for physics rather than graphics) and replace it with a hardware-accelerated graphics library. In practice, that's not a task I'm willing to take on until / unless I decide the rendering code needs a rewrite anyway.

[namida]

Updated the list in the first post. Let me know if you think anything else should be added to it - keeping in mind that, as an odd-numbered version, 12.9 is more focused on physics features than UI features, so would only introduce minor UI features (projection shadow being an exception as a delayed feature that was meant for 12.8) and would only fix UI bugs if they relate to recent additions / changes.

Jumper can be considered all but confirmed for V12.9.X at this point - it seems to be fairly solid, and it's already showing plenty of potential. The exact details of how it functions are of course still open to change. Resizable terrain is "it still might happen but I'm not promising yet".

[WillLem]

Not sure if this helps, but I found that the lag issues in Hi-Res mode are greatly alleviated to the point of nonexistence by using the low-quality minimap instead; even for large, object-heavy levels, I haven't really had any problems with lag since changing this setting.

For reference: my laptop is quite old now, it has a Core i3 M370 processor.

Also, regarding projection shadows: how do these differ from standard skill shadows?

[namida]

Also, regarding projection shadows: how do these differ from standard skill shadows?

Projection Shadow lets you hold a hotkey and mouseover a lemming, and see what path it will take for the next 30 seconds or so. This can be either in the form of "if the lemming keeps doing what it's doing now", or "if I assign the currently-selected skill to the lemming".

Some current skill shadows already work like this (except they end after the lemming stops performing the action, rather than ending after a certain time), such as Glider, Shimmier, and (exp build) Jumper. Others do not - eg. the builder shadow shows where the bridge will be built, not the path the lemming will take while building it.

[namida]

Given that there's almost zero progress towards it and that V12.9.0 is a bit behind schedule, I've decided that resizable terrain will be delayed until a future version.

The Jumper will still be happening (as it's pretty much ready to go now), and the above bugfixes are still V12.9.X goals.

[namida]

Looks like no one really feels further style cleanup is needed, and all other target features are taken care of at last. I'll likely get an RC build out, at the latest, sometime this weekend.