[Suggestion] Usage issues across the Sonic styles

[Flopsy]

https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4483.new;topicseen#new

I was going to post this in the topic above since it is related to the above in some way.

I feel like since it has been allowed to have tileset recolours in the styles download then why am I not allowed to replicate items such as these across all of my Sonic styles?


















This is just a few examples but these objects and steel could potentially benefit from being in all of my Sonic tilesets but the tileset replication rules prevent this.

When IchoTolot gave me some feedback on Star Light recently, one comment he made was that the tileset needed some custom Steel to which I said that there is custom Steel but it is in the Sandopolis tileset. I feel like the steel in this tileset is very versatile and I feel like making other custom steel for the other tilesets would be obsolete due to how good the steel is above.
Also the other objects above which are common elements to all Sonic zones are only in Scrap Brain, again NOT allowed to be replicated in the other styles.

I feel like my styles are not user friendly because it is not exactly written in stone anywhere that you have to go to Sandopolis to get the steel or get the level objects above from Scrap Brain.

I also feel it is unfair that if styles are being replicated with re-colours like what is being said in the topic linked above then why am I not allowed to replicate a handful of images across all of my Sonic styles? The images are not that big, about 1KB at most.

I currently have 7 tilesets that are made almost entirely by myself (with a little help from other people) which I would like to introduce at least the above items to all of.
flopsy_scrapbrain (contains the above sprites)
flopsy_starlight
flopsy_marblegarden
flopsy_casinonight
flopsy_mysticcave
flopsy_deathegg
flopsy_sandopolis (contains the steel already)

+ another 2 are collaborations with GigaLem, I do not intend on bringing these items to those 2 tilesets at all.

I also have another 6 unreleased and unannounced Sonic styles which will release with GGF when it is finished, not having these items pictured above to hand in these styles is not exactly making these styles easy to use either.

[IchoTolot]

I feel like my styles are not user friendly because it is not exactly written in stone anywhere that you have to go to Sandopolis to get the steel or get the level objects above from Scrap Brain.

Normally I don't like too much redundancy, but I think Flopsy has a point here.

Tilesets should have steelblocks and even if we have tileset mixing it shouldn't be required to always have to resort/point to other sets. Even more if we consider that the majority of levels limit themselves to using only 1 tileset.

I would allow this minor redundancy across the sonic sets. 

[namida]

This is just a few examples but these objects and steel could potentially benefit from being in all of my Sonic tilesets but the tileset replication rules prevent this.

I'm fine with this. The "duplication" thing is more focused on tilesets that as a whole are pretty much duplicates of other entire tilesets; not those that have one or two similar pieces (which there are plenty of examples of already).

With this being said, it's still a bit messy because if for whatever reason you need to change it, you now need to change it in several styles. So I'd like to propose an alternate idea - some kind of way (in a style; not a user-side thing) of telling the editor "when the user selects style A, also include these pieces from style B in the list". Would that achieve what you're after?

[Flopsy]

With this being said, it's still a bit messy because if for whatever reason you need to change it, you now need to change it in several styles. So I'd like to propose an alternate idea - some kind of way (in a style; not a user-side thing) of telling the editor "when the user selects style A, also include these pieces from style B in the list". Would that achieve what you're after?

This is what I've been trying to propose some time ago but I didn't think my suggestion got noticed. I did type it on Discord though.

Personally if the steel and the unlock button gets replicated to the other tilesets only then I'll be happy. I'll put these in all of my styles for now

[namida]

This is what I've been trying to propose some time ago but I didn't think my suggestion got noticed. I did type it on Discord though.

Ideas brought up only on Discord tend to get lost. Although it's certainly okay to discuss things there, topics should always be made on the forums for suggestions / bug reports - this isn't just about bringing it to my attention, but specifically that I use the forum as something to refer to when looking at "what do I need to do next?" etc.

[Dullstar]

I like the idea of styles being able to specify to include pieces from another style, although it does have the disadvantage of allowing full styles to have dependencies.

[namida]

Had some uncertianty on Discord around the original question so just to be clear:

- Don't create styles that are, as a whole, slight visual variations on existing ones. I'm probably going to grandfather in existing styles of this nature (including, retroactively, orig_dirt_md), but we definitely won't be accepting new ones (at least for now; and this extends to the Genesis styles that weren't already present).
- It's fine to duplicate a few individual pieces between styles when they really do fit into every style - some official styles do this already (eg. steel blocks between orig_dirt and orig_pillar). For example, Flopsy's original question above would be a case where this is okay.

In terms of "what happens later if/when we get an ability like the one suggested in reply #2" - to be on the safe side, when duplicating pieces between styles, try to keep the name the same in all styles. But I envision that "fixing" levels where this is relevant will be as simple as "run Cleanse Levels in a version of NL that's new enough to have this feature".

In terms of "what's going to happen long term" - I do really agree that once we get on-demand downloading of styles back in place, this is a much less significant issue. The on-demand downloading is a priority feature for V12.8, so once that's out, we can possibly go back to allowing this. Before that though, a discussion needs to be had around physics consistency - whether NL enforces it somehow, or if it's on a basis of "not keeping it accurate to the source style is grounds for your style being removed", or whether it's just "use these styles at your own risk, don't assume they're physics-accurate to the source material".

I'm going to close this topic; further discussion around styles acceptance / tidyup goes in the original topic on this subject: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4483.0