[NeoLemmix] Which levels can be beaten with the new skills?

[Crane]

And some more!

Mayhem 8, 12, 23 and 28 are impossible.

[Crane]

Here's one for Taxing 16.

[Minim]

I did four more Taxing levels yesterday: 4, 5, 7 and 8. Thanks to its layout, 4 is indeed annoying and requires a great deal of motivation. 5 is also fiddly, especially when you're trying to break the bars with a fencer. I will update the levels again as soon as I submit everyone's results.

Comments on WillLem's Taxing solutions. I'll have a look at Mayhem later.

Spoiler

Taxing 2: I managed to reach the exit with one stacker. I controlled the lemmings a little differently too. Here's my 4-skill solution if you need it.

Taxing 7: I beat this record by using your Tricky 4 technique. I was also able to stretch the bridge at the top to 4 platformers. This makes it and Tricky 4 8 of each.

Taxing 8: The first 4 fencers are obvious, but I've proved that you don't need the fifth one to free those lemmings. Skillful stacking out of the pit should guide them onto that bridge without too much trouble.

Taxing 13: You went over the last one-way wall which is fine, but there is enough room under the arrows with a well placed fencer. This should hopefully save up on those building skills.

Taxing 15: Again, you used one fencer too many here! I was able to substitute one of the fencers with a stacker, matching the number of platformers and thus making it 6 of each.

Taxing 16, 19 and 22: Because of the short time limit, you unintentionally ended up losing some lemmings on 16 despite completing the level. I upped the release rate for you to make this save all solution certain. There's also a trick while safety building that if you let a Glider stack all eight steps, and give him a shimmier while he shrugs, he will jump on top of the stack and you can then build another tall stack. Clever, huh? Now see if you can use this trick on all the other steep drop levels. I was able to get Taxing 22 down to 4 of each using this method.

Taxing 28: Great teamwork to control the crowd here. Well done!

Comments on Crane's Solutions

Spoiler

Taxing 26: You ended up with a poorer result than WillLem because you missed that extra pixel on the lower right side of the terrain, and ended up gliding all 10 lemmings at the top. However, that fencer underneath the creator's platformer to control the crowd is inspired! We can combine the two to make the final result.

Taxing 28: I was able to save that lemming you splatted with a holding stacker and shimmier, making the final result 1 of each, lost 1.

Mayhem 1: Because you used all 10 stackers for the big ascent (Which is no surprise given its horrible layout), I'll probably reupload the level and make the skill total 20 so that a save-all solution is hopefully possible.

Mayhem 2: I beat this solution by using the blue wall (Although it's still fiddly to execute, there are some annoying steel bits hidden underneath the terrain), making it 4 of each.

Mayhem 4: WillLem beat you to it with his Fun 25 solution by a fencer. So the result is 7 of each.

Mayhem 16: You forgot to turn up the release rate at the end! Otherwise, this and 27 are indeed straightforward solutions, and thus I've counted your result in.

Mayhem 29: I swapped the stoner with a cloner and stacker, making the final solution 5 of each. Good job stretching the platformer bridge here.

Mayhem 30: Good job on this very long level. I think this can still be improved though with some smart stacking on that pit to the left of the exit hill. Hopefully it won't be too steep to execute this.

Finally, my comment on ccexplore's Tricky 28 solution. I understand that this is contrary to DOS mechanics, but I'm banning any terrain and steel adjustments to all levels. So this level layout stays the same, which also means, your lower result will count. Well spotted using the clear physics and NL mechanics to take advantage of the non-steel parts of that platform below the exit.

[Proxima]

Please let me know if this idea has already been done before I go ahead! I probably won't feature every level, just maybe the best 20 or 30 in a compilation pack.

We started something similar in the old-formats days as a collaboration pack, but it didn't get very far. Maybe enough time has passed that it's worth giving the project another go, obviously in the latest NL version.

[Proxima]

Ok, I got a "solution" for Tricky 28 ("Lost Something?"), but I don't think it should actually count.  The level in the original is solid steel for the steel block where the exit sits.  But the NeoLemmix conversion has all those decorative vines as regular terrain apparently cutting into the steel, making it no longer completely indestructible.  It seems a little wrong to count this as a solution when arguably the conversion of the level to NeoLemmix is not done accurately.  The decorative vines shouldn't be turning the steel into partial steel.

The culprit here is that "simple autosteel" has been removed from NL. Yet another cull buried away in the small print so that we never had a chance to discuss it. (It took me 15 minutes to find the relevant post, even knowing that it existed!)

[Minim]

I realised I forgot to send my Taxing 2 replays. I'll put them here.

Now, some comments on WillLem's Mayhem Solutions, and then I'll put the updated results up on the OP.

Spoiler

Mayhem 2: I beat this solution by using the blue wall (Although it's still fiddly to execute, as there are some annoying steel bits hidden beneath the terrain), making it 4 of each.

Mayhem 8: I cut this down to 16 by using the stacker-shimmier-glider trick.

Mayhem 10: Cut down to 8 of each. While a symmetrical solution is cool and pleasing to the eye, this is a joke solution, as there's no need to go for both exits at once. As well as going for 1 exit, I used platformers and 1-brick stackers to stretch to it.

Mayhem 19: Used the stacker-shimmier-glider trick again to reduce this one to 4. The position of the entrance also played a cool role in my solution.

Mayhem 29: As Crane proved, you can stretch that bridge on the left to 5 platformers.

Mayhem 30: You used too many stackers to climb up the rocky structure on the right. What Crane did was send a lemming all the way from the left entrance to fence through the one-way arrow.

[WillLem]

Thanks for the comments Minim, here are some replies.

Taxing:

Spoiler

Taxing 16, 19 and 22: Because of the short time limit, you unintentionally ended up losing some lemmings on 16 despite completing the level. I upped the release rate for you to make this save all solution certain. There's also a trick while safety building that if you let a Glider stack all eight steps, and give him a shimmier while he shrugs, he will jump on top of the stack and you can then build another tall stack. Clever, huh? Now see if you can use this trick on all the other steep drop levels. I was able to get Taxing 22 down to 4 of each using this method.

Great work on this trick - it's a good method for when only 1 Lemming has to climb a steep surface, but how would you then get the rest of the pack to follow? EDIT - just seen your solution for Mayhem 19; I guess that's how!

I'm not sure what's going on with my replays if it's showing that I lose some... when playing through the levels, I didn't lose a single Lemming. I've looked again at this particular replay and you're right - some are lost because of the time limit. Maybe it didn't record me upping the release rate, or perhaps I used a previous replay by mistake.

At any rate, thanks for the heads up - I've now re-uploaded my replays pack with the corrected solution for Taxing 16 (this happens to be one of my favourite levels!) Also for Fun 16, which was an old replay from before I decided to go for maximum saves.

Let me know if you notice any more non-save-all replays - I assure you, I found save-all solutions to every level.

Taxing 28: Great teamwork to control the crowd here. Well done!

I really enjoyed finding a save-all solution to this one. I suddenly realised I could actually use those

Spoiler

cloners

to good effect in order to achieve this!

This and level 4 were my favourite challenges from this rank. Anything that involves looking more closely at the terrain and how you can use it to your advantage to get around the more obvious obstacles, I love those kind of levels.

And the Mayhem comments:

Mayhem 10: Cut down to 8 of each. While a symmetrical solution is cool and pleasing to the eye, this is a joke solution, as there's no need to go for both exits at once. As well as going for 1 exit, I used platformers and 1-brick stackers to stretch to it.

I know, but it does look awesome, right?

Mayhem 19: Used the stacker-shimmier-glider trick again to reduce this one to 4. The position of the entrance also played a cool role in my solution.

This is genius! I suppose if you focus on using skills in combination with one another to keep the amounts level, it's a good way to find these little tricks.

Mayhem 30: You used too many stackers to climb up the rocky structure on the right. What Crane did was send a lemming all the way from the left entrance to fence through the one-way arrow.[/spoiler]

I've just seen his replay - one of those "wish I'd thought of that" moments! Great work on the solution, Crane.

[WillLem]

Please let me know if this idea has already been done before I go ahead! I probably won't feature every level, just maybe the best 20 or 30 in a compilation pack.

We started something similar in the old-formats days as a collaboration pack, but it didn't get very far. Maybe enough time has passed that it's worth giving the project another go, obviously in the latest NL version.

I might just have to give it a go then. I've identified which levels I'd take on - since a lot of them are duplicates, I'll just use these layouts once. I'll keep it as a background project for now, keep looking closely at people's replays on here to get some inspiration as well.

[namida]

Ok, I got a "solution" for Tricky 28 ("Lost Something?"), but I don't think it should actually count.  The level in the original is solid steel for the steel block where the exit sits.  But the NeoLemmix conversion has all those decorative vines as regular terrain apparently cutting into the steel, making it no longer completely indestructible.  It seems a little wrong to count this as a solution when arguably the conversion of the level to NeoLemmix is not done accurately.  The decorative vines shouldn't be turning the steel into partial steel.

The culprit here is that "simple autosteel" has been removed from NL. Yet another cull buried away in the small print so that we never had a chance to discuss it. (It took me 15 minutes to find the relevant post, even knowing that it existed!)

Simple autosteel has not been culled yet (and has been deprecated since at least the start of new-formats, as evidenced by the lack of editor support), although it's possible that the setting got lost in the old-formats to new-formats conversion.

One issue that does probably exist now - I don't know how well simple autosteel will interact with alpha-blended terrain. Assume it won't work - alpha-blended terrain only gained support after simple autosteel was long since deprecated anyway, so no level should ever feature these two things together.

[namida]

Started the Oh No! levels. Would you believe that Tame 1 confronts us with an impossible level straight away!

I disagree. This solution saves exactly 25 and requires 10 of one skill (the Cloner, specifically) but might be possible to improve a bit - though I can confirm it does not work without at least some Cloners. When it failed with 0, I went straight to trying 10.

With some better crowd control, it's probably possible to reduce the stackers used too.

In fact, I'm pretty sure a more extreme version of this trick (potentially requiring amounts of cloners in the 4 or even 5 digits) could be used for Fun 21 and Fun 23, too. In practice, as the sacrificial lemmings must be kept alive (and out of the way, in most cases) until the trick is triggered, I suspect game lag from the huge number of lemmings would become a problem to ever actually doing this in practice, even if one were to successfully come up with the theoretical solution.

[WillLem]

Started the Oh No! levels. Would you believe that Tame 1 confronts us with an impossible level straight away!

I disagree. This solution saves exactly 25 and requires 10 of one skill (the Cloner, specifically) but might be possible to improve a bit - though I can confirm it does not work without at least some Cloners. When it failed with 0, I went straight to trying 10.

With some better crowd control, it's probably possible to reduce the stackers used too.

Oh yes, the nuke solution... I guess with all of my maximum-saves gusto/obsessiveness I forgot about that!

Amazing that you got exactly 25 btw - how exactly does this trick work?

[namida]

Amazing that you got exactly 25 btw - how exactly does this trick work?

Internally, NeoLemmix keeps a list of all lemmings in the level. At the start of the level, all preplaced lemmings are added to this list, in the order they come in the level's data. Then, each time a lemming is spawned - be it from an entrance or via a cloner - this new lemming is added to the end of the list. Note that a lemming is not removed from this list when it exits / dies / etc, it just gets marked as "no longer active", though this distinction does not matter for the purpose of this trick (it can matter in other contexts, eg. manual editing of replay data).

When the nuke is used, a 5 second countdown is immediately assigned to the first lemming in this list that is still alive and active (any that are no-longer-active are skipped). Then on the next frame, the next lemming on the list gets one, and so on, until every lemming has gotten one. (Prior to V12.7, zombies were skipped just like no-longer-active lemmings are. As of V12.7, zombies are no longer skipped; all lemmings that are still active will receive a countdown, one per frame, even zombies and neutrals.) As soon as the nuke is activated, hatches also stop releasing any further lemmings.

The trick in my solution above is that the first lemming is allowed to go into the crowd, but the next 34 are contained off to the left. The final 15 are then allowed into the crowd again, and the crowd gets gathered above the exit. Nuke is activated. The first lemming begins his countdown. The next 34 frames are spent assigning countdowns to the lemmings that were seperated from the crowd; by the time countdowns get back to lemmings in the crowd, it provides them with enough time to exit. Thus, 15 of the 16 lemmings in the crowd exit. The cloners are just used to bring that 15 up to 25, so the save requirement is met. (In a more elaborate setup, like the hypothetical "extreme cases" for Fun 21 and 23, you might need cloners to actually get lemmings to explode at the right time, or to add delays between countdowns starting. In this specific case, they're only needed to meet the save requirement.)

It's no coincidence that I got exactly 25 - it's because I allowed 16 lemmings (one of whom is lost due to exploding) to go to the right, then add 10 cloners. I suspect it's possible to allow a few more than 16 (though not a full 26, hence why some cloners are needed - if you try this, some lemmings will explode before exiting, remove the ground below the exit, and thus leave others unable to exit either; it's critical to seperate some lemmings off but keep them alive) to go to the right; which could either result in using fewer than 10 cloners, or saving more than 25 lemmings. I'll leave optimizing the solution to someone else; I just wanted to prove there is a solution.

[namida]

On a side note - for the downloads in the first post, I really strongly suggest changing the folder names (and maybe the pack title in info.nxmi too) from the ones used by the regular versions of these packs...

[ccexplore]

In fact, I'm pretty sure a more extreme version of this trick (potentially requiring amounts of cloners in the 4 or even 5 digits) could be used for Fun 21 and Fun 23, too.

Yes, that's exactly why I asked you about this a few posts ago:

On a related note, are there upper limits built into the game?  If we can have potentially unlimited cloners, I do wonder if we can get some crazy nuke solutions for some levels that can still work out, by virtue of having cloned a crazy high number of lemmings so some would take nearly forever to actually explode?  (You'd use the nuke as a cheat way to get the effects of bombers.)  Or perhaps using nuke as part of solution should be disallowed altogether?

I'd take back that last part now though, as we have at least two levels now where a nuke solution is practical to execute, and we've never disallowed nuke solutions in past challenges either.  But yeah, for levels like Fun 21, the amount of cloned lemmings likely required is not something I'll have the patience to bother.

[Minim]

This is genius! I suppose if you focus on using skills in combination with one another to keep the amounts level, it's a good way to find these little tricks.

Hey, thanks for the compliment on Mayhem 19. I'm proud of that one too.
So, at this stage I thought I might send my comments on the Tame levels, then my response to namida's side note, and finally post some more results for Tricky.

Now the Tame comments...

Spoiler

1: (Namida's solution) I had a feeling the nuke was the only way down here. Well executed, and excellent crowd control! I like the way you kept the non-important lemmings well away from ruining the solution.

6 and 10: Beat you to them! It turns out my trick wasn't necessary after all for both levels. I cloned a glider down to that rocky overhang and platformed a safety bridge. The final save-all solution for both levels are now 2 of each.

8: Great solution. The raised clone platformer is inspired. Well done!

11: I "jumped" over the stalagmite, saving the extra fencer you used and making the final solution 1 of each.

13: Great job there using my Mayhem 19 trick. Well done!

14: The wall to the left is not usually used as a holding area for this level. Well done taking advantage of that.

20: Haha! Brilliant. One that reminds me of one of my first threads.

Namida's side note: I didn't quite understand on first glance about which folders needed to be changed, but eventually I just added the "Original_" to the filename "Lemmings_newskills" if that's what you meant. Please clarify if not. The info.nxmi file was changed and having done this for the first time, I found it quite fun actually. I'll try and do this info file for OhNo too.

Now, some more Tricky results from last night.
6: 3 of each
I used the stacker as a safety net here.

7: 4 of each, lost 4
8: 7 of each, lost 11 (This one was hard. At least I was able to share the stoners and stackers for ascent.)

9: 2 of each, lost 1
This exploits the gap on left side of the landscape.

11: 1 of each, lost 1
12: 1 of each, lost 5
Great challenge here for a coffee break! Concept replay atttached. I'm sure someone else can reduce the lemmings lost number.

13: 3 of each, lost 6
Another annoying level, as stretching the smallish gap with stoners and stackers appears to be out of reach. The Fencing up to the exit is awesome though!