What skills can't you live without?

[Clam]

Taxing 28: The least-skills solution (7 skills total) uses 3 builders, and no blockers or bombers, and can be adapted to a no-bashers solution. Both the climber and miner can be avoided with a solution that starts by building up from the floor. 1 floater, 3 builders.

(edit: Wow, Taxing can be done with no climbers. That's a nice little surprise http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/laugh.gif" alt=":D" title="Laugh" class="smiley" />)


Mayhem 1: With no climbers available, there's little opportunity (besides the final part) to save builders through steel glitches. I got this down to 15 builders (replay attached - for reference, the least-skills solution uses 17). 1 floater, 15 builders.

Mayhem 19: I don't know how namida plans on doing this with 5 builders, since the best I can manage is 7 http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/undecided.gif" alt=":-\" title="Undecided" class="smiley" />  (replay attached) 3 bombers, 7 builders.

Mayhem 29: Rather annoyingly, the tight skill and % limits appear to require one more digger and blocker than I'd like. Replays attached with 10 builders and no bashers. 3 blockers, 10 builders, 1 digger.

This leaves Mayhem 29 and 30, which I'll try now.

EDIT: Mayhem 30 almost certainly comes to 8 builders. I'll have to run through and confirm this, which may take a while...

[Clam]

Confirmed: Mayhem 30 with 8 builders.

And that's the lot. Totals are now up in the first post. And don't forget, some improvements may be possible...

[Minim]

Now that everything's finished, it's a good opportunity to move to this thread. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/winktounge.gif" alt=";P" title="Wink-Tongue" class="smiley" />

[Clam]

OK, I know. We'll weight the skills according to how many you "can't live without":

Blockers: 20 points
Miners: 22 points
Floaters: 57 points
Bombers: 60 points
Climbers: 61 points
Diggers: 65 points
Bashers: 72 points
Builders: 711 points

Can't say fairer than that http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/wink.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" class="smiley" />

[namida]

Hm... I don't think we want to have 711 points... perhaps more reasonable would be from 3 to 10 points (rather than 1 to 8, so it's a bit more balanced), based on the ranking here - the most needed being worth the most points.

But it should be discussed in that topic anyway.

[alfonz1986]

Replay of Wild 3 Builders Only

[LemSteven]

I'm reviving this thread because I just found an improvement:

Havoc 11: 9 Builders (The previous result was 11.)

Obviously this uses the ceiling route, as did the 11-builder solution.  The 9-builder solution takes the ceiling route even farther, so to speak.

Four builders are needed at the start to reach the top of the steel.  Four more are needed to navigate the two sets of hanging vines between the steel walls, and the last is used to free the crowd.  The exit is reached via direct drop.

I'm also not going to rule out the possibility of getting it down to 8 builders by using the release rate as a means of crowd control.  It would get really hairy, though, and I'm not sure I'd have the patience for it.

Finally, alfonz1986 found a no-blocker solution to Wicked 9, which he posted http://www.lemmingsforums.com/index.php?topic=12.msg11293#msg11293" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">here.

[ccexplore]

Cool. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/thumbsup.gif" alt=":thumbsup:" title="Thumbs Up" class="smiley" /> It looks like the Havoc 11 record was set by http://www.lemmingsforums.com/index.php?topic=170.msg5647#msg5647" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">minimac, so one would think it would've been improved later, yet it seems Clam never did when he subsequently go through the Havoc levels in that thread.

Your solution reads so much like the ceiling route for that level I know for the min-skill thread (ie. everything you said in spoilers match that solution, at least from what I remember), I'm going to have to take a look later tonight and see if/how it differs.  Might just be a level where no one at the time cared to improve because it seemed tedious?

[Clam]

Good job, LemSteven http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/thumbsup.gif" alt=":thumbsup:" title="Thumbs Up" class="smiley" />. It's very easy to overlook things in this challenge, since you have to consider every skill type on every level, and there are a lot of levels (290 "official" levels in all). I may not have even been aware of the ceiling-direct-drop route on this level at the time - it's not one of my favourites http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/undecided.gif" alt=":-\" title="Undecided" class="smiley" />. But, with all that said, I can now confirm 8 builders for Havoc 11 - not by controlling the crowd with the release rate, but by using the miner positioning glitch to cross the first gap in the vines with one builder. Replay attached http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/smiley.gif" alt=":)" title="Smiley" class="smiley" /> (edit: I should add, this leaves a diagonal-pixel gap that the lemmings will fall through when walking left, so it's unlikely this can be combined with RR to give a 7-builder solution.)


(edit: updated OP)

[ccexplore]

Your solution reads so much like the ceiling route for that level I know for the min-skill thread (ie. everything you said in spoilers match that solution, at least from what I remember), I'm going to have to take a look later tonight and see if/how it differs.  Might just be a level where no one at the time cared to improve because it seemed tedious?

I found my http://www.lemmingsforums.com/index.php?topic=98.msg2237#msg2237" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">min-skill solution and it turns out I purposely abandoned the direct-drop solution there halfway, because it actually uses up more skills total, even though it obviously would've used less builders to continue on with the ceiling.  I think minimac just took my min-skill solution to report the 11 builders.  Pity it took this long for someone to catch on! http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/undecided.gif" alt=":-\" title="Undecided" class="smiley" /> http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/tongue.gif" alt=":P" title="Tongue" class="smiley" />

[ccexplore]

And http://www.lemmingsforums.com/index.php?topic=141.msg3766#msg3766" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">here I found a full ceiling-route Havoc-11 solution I've posted ages ago, not for this thread, but rather the "skills to one lemming only" challenge thread (thus the non-optimality wrt to this challenge, though it's still very close to what I'm sure LemSteven did).  By then we've all but of course forgot about this challenge thread. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/undecided.gif" alt=":-\" title="Undecided" class="smiley" /> http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/winktounge.gif" alt=";P" title="Wink-Tongue" class="smiley" />

[ccexplore]

The "fewest types of skills" thread got me to do a closer look at Havoc 7, and I've managed to reduce the record here from 5 builders to 4 builders.  See attached replay.  One of the glitches used may be worth pointing out:

What I did towards the end with the crowd on the right:  the blocker is set to temporarily "disable" portions of the exit, allowing another lemming to mine without exiting, yet still leaves exit- triggering terrain (after freeing the blocker of course) on the path he creates for the left crowd.

--------

Also, a gentle reminder to update the OP table for Wicked 10 per http://www.lemmingsforums.com/index.php?topic=170.msg6935#msg6935" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">this post (7 builders, not 8).  Actually, looking back at the solution I wonder if one less builder is possible?

[ccexplore]

Update to Mayhem 21, a no-climber solution.  Not sure why it was missed, maybe because no one wanted to do this level due to the 50 floaters. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/undecided.gif" alt=":-\" title="Undecided" class="smiley" />

[Clam]

I found a 3-builder solution to Crazy 8. I've tried various ways of saving another builder, and also the basher, but no success on those so far.

EDIT: Success! Completed with no bashers, replay attached. The score for this level is now 3 builders.

[Clam]

Crazy 20 improved to 5 builders. Despite what I said in http://www.lemmingsforums.com/index.php?topic=170.msg5066#msg5066" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">an earlier post, you can cross the first gap with the icicle with a single builder, without losing a lemming from the right side. All it takes is some frantic bashing and blocking http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/smiley.gif" alt=":)" title="Smiley" class="smiley" />