Community set, changes for Lix 0.7.x

[Simon]

Forest of Fears reverted to Proxima's one-way gadget, trying to prevent Nepster's backroute (swap bomber with one of the bashers) with wider leftmost water pit.

re Path to Mahimah: I've played the new version halfway. It seemed obvious enough how to proceed and I was too lazy to finish it. It's indeed faster and better than before, but still fiddly. The alternative levels are very strong in comparison.

-- Simon

[Proxima]

mobius: Please provide your replays for the most recent versions of Exit Stage Right, Cold Irons Bound, It Takes Time to Build.

I have attached my replays for Ascension and As Good as Dead. Check whether these are intended / acceptable; if not then provide replays of intended solutions.

[Nepster]

new levels scrapped: Five Easy Pieces

That's a pity, because the solution you hinted at is great. So I tried to come up with a backroute-fix myself, cf. attachment.

@möbius: Please check whether you agree with my changes and whether this is (at least somewhat) close to your intended solution.
@everyone: Please try to backroute this version.

[Simon]

The Pit (Quirky): Exploders 1->0, final builder is less precise. The fling-exploder was misleading, it allowed many wrong ideas that started promising. Without the exploder, the level is worthy of Quirky, whereas before it seemed too hard.

Nepster: I tried for 10 minutes to backroute your 5Steps, didn't get any solution.

-- Simon

[mobius]

mobius: Please provide your replays for the most recent versions of Exit Stage Right, Cold Irons Bound, It Takes Time to Build.

I have attached my replays for Ascension and As Good as Dead. Check whether these are intended / acceptable; if not then provide replays of intended solutions.

Attached the intended solution(s). Cold and Time to build have more skills than necessary and allow for some leeway.

the other levels are intended. Ascension has a few different solutions; all acceptable. @ geoo's comment in IRC: is it really that precise? I specifically modified the edge of the pillars to avoid precision. Actually the level doesn't seem to work without this modification. I told Simon this; digging next to a straight wall makes odd behavior (easily makes notches in the wall). The walls could be modified even further I guess.

@möbius: Please check whether you agree with my changes and whether this is (at least somewhat) close to your intended solution.
@everyone: Please try to backroute this version.

this is pretty nice! If it works; I like it. But it may still require backroute testing...

Spoiler

my original intended solution was only different in that you mined over the platform from the other direction.

[Proxima]

Proposed backroute-fix for Exit Stage Right.

Regarding Cold Irons Bound:

Spoiler

It looks like a similar U-shaped dig-and-bash solution should work but with the tunnel going through the steel. However, there's only a single pixel where the digger can go all the way down without the steel stopping him, and it turns out to be impossible to get the basher through to meet the dig pit. This should either be made possible, or more clearly impossible, to stop players getting frustrated trying to make it work.

It Takes Time to Build: My only remaining issue is that the extra skills don't really give enough leeway, with the lose-4 save requirement. May we change this to lose-5 (as geoo suggested earlier)?

[geoo]

New updated levels (see attached)

I didn't realize that in Path to Mahiman you could just follow the trail; I thought it involved finding a good spot to clip through the ceiling. Now with that idea in mind, but considering that clipping through ceilings is ugly, I made a new version that instead gives you a basher. I think this version is much more interesting, while rather short once you know the solution.
I update The Pit to eliminate Nepster's simple solution, in addition to Simon's already existing changes.
I changed It Takes Time to Build to address Nepster's and my issues with it. In the new version, there is a lot of leeway, it's back to platformers to bridge the gap while at the same time you still have to release the top lixes facing left otherwise they drown. Unless the leeway allows for some strange backroutes, I think this version should work very nicely.


Issues with proposed levels.

Duality: that pointed area left of the upper hatch must be this way; it forces you to use at least two skills there (digger and miner) to hold back the crowd.

I don't get this. If it were simply flat (and maybe a bit widened to ease execution), it'd still force you to use at least two skills.
Btw I just realized that the level can be solved with a builder to spare. If you look at my solution, it'll be obvious how considering your comment.

Ascension has a few different solutions; all acceptable. @ geoo's comment in IRC: is it really that precise? I specifically modified the edge of the pillars to avoid precision. Actually the level doesn't seem to work without this modification. I told Simon this; digging next to a straight wall makes odd behavior (easily makes notches in the wall). The walls could be modified even further I guess.

You don't need to be able to dig there at all, watch e.g. mine and Proxima's solutions. But it should either be easily possible, or impossible altogether. Right now, it's four pixel-precise diggers, two of which are also frame-precise, and as the terrain is misaligned (odd coordinate) on the left, it even looks like there's a tiny overhang after you dig, but the climbers can still scale it.
If you want to make it impossible, just make parts of the top platforms steel. If you want to make it easy, put some steel halfway down the pillar so you can just dig down in one go without much precision, until you hit steel.
Similarly, there's this horizontal overlap between the climbers' platform and the top platform (allowing the climbers to walk from the climbers' platform to the top platform). I think this overlap should either be much wider, or the platforms should align exactly so that even if you place a blocker at the very edge of the top platform, the climbers will turn around and not go to the exit. As it is right now, there are some solutions that require more precision than really necessary, e.g. one that saves two extra lix (see attached), but also variations thereof.

My previous solution to Five Easy Pieces still works in Nepster's fix, see attached.

Cold Iron's Bound has another solution different from the ones we had so far, see attached.

Exit Stage Right looks backroute free as far as I can tell now. Only minor complaint is that the one-way gadget above the platformer gap doesn't allow for jumping over the gap now which always used to be possible (thus reducing options to think about), but I think in the current version that actually prevents a backroute exploiting this.


Reorderings

I think Icho's suggestions should be taken with a grain of salt if they actually pertain to NeoLemmix versions of levels. As far as I know, some levels have changed quite notably.
I remember when I proposed Recycling Plant, Steve (and Proxima too if I remember?) though the level might be too hard for the opener of Hopeless. I can't really tell how hard it is, but I like it as an opener to Hopeless.
Bashing and Building I remember having trouble with, but based on someone's feedback (I don't remember) I put it in Vicious in the end. The solution is quite simple, but I don't object to moving it to Hopeless if we have another level to move down. I think it's a similar story to Oh No Not Again, once you know the solution it's quite simple, but it's hard to come up with it. I think the only level where there's some consensus that it could be moved down from Hopeless is Broadway Tinker Tailor.

I'd be ok with moving Parking Garage past One Step Off as Nepster brought up. I was musing about that back in the day actually.

Regarding the other ranks, I think Conundrum and Death or Glory are fine where they are. I don't have strong opinions on any of the other ones.


Cullings

I think the levels with consensus are Digging the air, Babylon Fading, When the Levee Breaks (and maybe Path to Mahiman if you think my remake sucks).
But that might already be enough if we don't want to swap in too many new levels.

There is still One-Lix Showdown that was proposed to go in? To replace one of these levels, or to replace Make You Mine?


Simple (Lovely) levels

Some thought I had, which isn't urgent and could be discussed and implemented later:

With the new tile sets, I think it'd be great to have a few prettier levels early in the game. For instance, Building Block Maze is rather plain and could be replaced by a level that maintains the spirit and looks pretty.

I was also a bit afraid players might be bored by the slog of lots-of-everything levels, and maybe things could be mixed up a little early on with some simple 2 or 3 skill puzzles, where there's not much to try (and you only need to understand 2 or 3 skills which doesn't take much time experimenting). In particular, I think some of the repeats (i.e. levels reused from harder ranks with a more generous skill set slapped onto them) could be replaced by something more interesting. One proposition I have, see attached is Beneath the Lab. It could go instead of a level like Four Corners, Let's All Go Down the Strand, The Road Not Taken or Alternative Route Recommended (possibly with some minor re-orderings to ensure variety), or possibly even Four Color Circus or Blocked by a Snowball (which is very close to Hrududu, two levels which are "place a blocker, build a path, release the crowd").

[Proxima]

Thanks everyone for feedback, new levels/edits and replays. We're under a bit of time pressure considering Simon wants to make a stable release, but everyone's put in some hard work to help things run smoothly.

In the next few days, I'll have another look over everything in this thread and then make final decisions. For now, a few quick responses to parts of geoo's post:

I think the levels with consensus are Digging the air, Babylon Fading, When the Levee Breaks (and maybe Path to Mahiman if you think my remake sucks).
But that might already be enough if we don't want to swap in too many new levels.

There is still One-Lix Showdown that was proposed to go in? To replace one of these levels, or to replace Make You Mine?

I like "Babylon Fading" myself, although with a couple of votes against, it's definitely a candidate for swapping out. It would be nice to make room for Theresa, if we can fully backroute-fix the level.

One-Lix Showdown is proposed to replace Lixes in Arms.

One consideration that hasn't been brought up yet: This is a Lemmings Forums community set, so I don't think we should include remakes of levels by authors outside the community (Martin Zurlinden, Yawg, t3tesla). I wouldn't be completely against it if we had gaps to fill, but the opposite is the case: we have too many levels and are struggling to decide which to leave out.

Another reason for excluding these levels is that we can't ask the original authors for their intended solutions. Mobius really likes "Duality", but geoo and I both found it much easier than mobius rated it, so our solutions are probably backroutes; but without knowing the intended solution, how can we go about fixing them?

[Nepster]

I like the new Path to Mahiman.
Also attached a replay to Sinking Ship. For the version with decoration I would raise the exit platform a bit. In the current version, I didn't really know whether the lix would survive the fall from the top plank of the big ship or not.
Regarding Mass Lixicide: There is slight modification of the intended(?) solution that has one builder spare. I doubt that this builder can be used to create an actual backroute, but I still wanted to mention this solution.

My previous solution to Five Easy Pieces still works in Nepster's fix, see attached.

Thanks. I made a few changes and can no longer adapt your solution now.

Mobius really likes Duality, but geoo and I both found it much easier than mobius rated it, so our solutions are probably backroutes; but without knowing the intended solution, how can we go about fixing them?

And there is the attached alternative solution, that's arguably even more problematic than the ones posted so far.

Cold Iron's Bound has another solution different from the ones we had so far, see attached.

And here is another problem: The save-all solution of "It takes time to build" and (what I imagine to be the intended) solution to "Cold Iron's Bound" are pretty similar. So either we have to modify "It takes time to build" again (though I don't know how to prevent the attached solution), or cull (this new version of) "Cold Iron's Bound".

[geoo]

Regarding It takes time to build: I thought at some point that we eliminated the double digger cancelling from the physics (by having the very last frame in the cycle remove terrain), but it seems like it didn't happen after all. I don't think there's much that can be done about this, without a physics change.

Five Easy Pieces still has my backroute. Only difference at the end is that you jump over the blocker, turn with the miner, and bat towards the exit instead.

EDIT: Attached Sinking Ship with the lifeboat moved up, as Nepster suggested.

[Nepster]

Thanks, geoo, for this variation of the backroute to Five Easy Pieces. The attached level should fix this. The solving replay is the same that I already attached to my previous post.

[geoo]

New hackjob deluxe backroute to Five Easy Pieces.

And I updated Pain Train to make execution easier considering the change in digger/steel interaction.

[Proxima]

Okay. Thanks again to everyone who contributed to discussion and work on the levelpack. I've decided to go ahead with the following changes:

Update these levels (with the latest versions from mobius' zip unless otherwise stated):
Q11 Migration -> Slaughterhouse
Q18 Path to Mahiman (geoo's version)
Q34 The Pit (geoo's version)
Q35 Exit, Stage Right (my version)
Q36 Tower of Babel
C15 It Takes Time to Build (geoo's version)
D4 Over My Head
D17 Lixes in Motion
V2 Conundrum (keep this title)
V14 Five for Fighting
V30 All Aboard the Pain Train (from above post)

Remove these levels:
L14 Four Color Circus
C10 Diggin' the Air
C13 When the Levee Breaks
C18 Cold Irons Bound
V10 Lixes in Arms

Move these levels:
L11 A Necklace of Raindrops -> L14
Q18 Path to Mahiman -> Q35
Q35 Exit, Stage Right -> C10
C4 It's a Long Way Up -> C13
C36 Once You Pop, You Can't Stop -> C18
C37 The Rainbow Road -> C4
D19 Dances with Lixes -> V13
D34 Seven Pillars of Lixdom -> C36
V13 Cuber Replacement -> D19
V31 Bashing & Building -> H17
V33 Hellfire -> D34
H17 Tinker Tailor Soldier Lix -> V31

Add these levels:
Beneath the Lab -> L11
Forest of Fears -> Q18
As Good as Dead -> C37 (change exploder to imploder)
One-Lix Showdown -> V10
Theresa falls up the stairs -> V33 (most recent version; keep this title)

[Nepster]

Here another version of Theresa falls up the stairs (formerly Five Easy Pieces) with a larger gap to the left of the hatch.

[mobius]

Here another version of Theresa falls up the stairs (formerly Five Easy Pieces) with a larger gap to the left of the hatch.

where/what set do those platforms come from? They are nice but I've not seen them before.