Should "Nuke" be counted in skill-counter for completing a level?

[Prob Lem]

There's one level in H94 that would disagree with your claim... http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/tongue.gif" alt=":P" title="Tongue" class="smiley" />

Oh man, I remember having a chuckle at that one when I got to it. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/laugh.gif" alt=":D" title="Laugh" class="smiley" />

(I vaguely recall the amiga original doesn't let you abort and makes you click the nuke button, but every other version in existence i've played, including SNES (select+start) has a way to rapid abort instead of nuking.)

The Amiga original (and, I assume, the later one-disk pack-in edition of same) also lets you press Escape to circumvent the need for nuking. Saves a lot of time if you don't especially want to sit through it. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/thumbsup.gif" alt=":thumbsup:" title="Thumbs Up" class="smiley" />

[namida]

Actually, i think it IS a glitch that counting bombers can exit the level, as a nuke solution is the only time it's ever required (feel free to prove me wrong if you can).

A counting bomber, except for the counter over his head, behaves in every way like a normal lemming - he can fall and splat, you can assign skills to him, etc. By extension, there is no reason to think that exiting would be the one exception to this.

[Zaphod77]

The Amiga original (and, I assume, the later one-disk pack-in edition of same) also lets you press Escape to circumvent the need for nuking. Saves a lot of time if you don't especially want to sit through it. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/thumbsup.gif" alt=":thumbsup:" title="Thumbs Up" class="smiley" />

seems like i had bad information.

Anyway, the lemming gods have spoken. because it is actually required to solve certain levels, the nuke button is in fact a skill. when it's not required for solving you can press escape itself, which is not one.

[namida]

I would disagree that it's a skill. It's a mechanic under the player's control, similar to the release rate, which use of is also required for certain levels (aside from levels where you simply have to put it to 99 at the right time, the Havoc level "Flow Control" makes more extensive use of it).

[ccexplore]

A good way to think of it:  a skill is something you command a single specific lemming to perform.  Thus things like changing the release rate clearly does not fit that definition, even when you are making use of it in a critical way in solving the level.  Nuke is a little funky partly because the end result is equivalent to (except for consuming the skills count) assigning bombers one-by-one to all the lemmings still alive.  I'd still argue that since it's not a specific command directed to a specific lemming, it is not a skill.  And in practice it indeed is almost never used for anything other than ending the level early, unsurprising given how little control you have over it, and how it affects every lemming still alive and significantly shortening how much longer they can still be alive.  I'm personally fine with not counting nuke in the ranking even in the rare case you are actually using it as part of the solution--if you're clever enough to actually manage to take advantage of it for actual solution purposes, you deserve the free bonus on your rank by not counting the use of nuke.

[Zaphod77]

I can think of no level where nuke is an improvement and not a requirement.

On a version of lemmings which scores points, does nuke score 1000 points like any other skill assigned? if so it's a skill. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/smiley.gif" alt=":)" title="Smiley" class="smiley" />

[ccexplore]

The SNES version is the only known version that does scoring and it does not score the use of nuking.