Author Topic: [Lemmings 2] What skills can't you live without for gold?  (Read 27404 times)

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Offline ccexplore

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[Lemmings 2] What skills can't you live without for gold?
« on: March 26, 2010, 02:03:01 AM »
This is modeled after <a href="indexa75c.html?topic=170.0" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">Clam Spammer's "skills you can't live without" challenge</a> for Lemmings-1 based games.  Conceptually, you're focusing on minimizing the types of skills used and the number of one individual type of skill.  I've no idea how fruitful this type of challenge will be for Lemmings 2.  Hopefully it will still be fun and interesting.

Definition: The set of "skills you can't live without" on a level is the set of skills that is common to <strong>all <span class="bbc_u">gold</span> solutions</strong> to the level - without using every skill in this set, you can't possibly achieve gold on the level.

So for example, if you find a gold solution that uses only 1 roper, plus some number of builders and other skills, and another gold solution that uses only 1 builder, a few ropers, and a different bunch of other skills, the result for that level would be "1 roper, 1 builder".  Your general approach would be to minimizing the number of <em>types</em> of skills to employ, finding as many disparate combinations of skill-types as you can.  And then to minimize the number of skills used of a particular type, for each skill-type that appears to be common to all gold solutions.

Unlike Clam Spammer's challenge thread, I'm not including totals here, because different levels usually have fairly disparate types of skills, making the total not very meaningful.

I've started things off with a few results that are obvious enough for me to come up with at a glance.

(Note: <em>none</em> means there are no skills that are common to all gold solutions to the level.  <em>no results reported</em> means no one has looked at the level yet to come up with any numbers.)

<span style="font-size: 0.7em;" class="bbc_size"><strong><span class="bbc_u">Classic</span></strong>
1: none
2: 4 builders
3: none
4: 3 builders, 1 basher, 1 miner
5: 1 blocker, 1 builder, 5 bashers, 1 miner, 1 digger
6: 1 builder
7: 2 builders, 1 digger
8: 1 builder, 2 bashers, 1 miner, 1 digger
9: 4 builders, 1 digger
10: 1 climber, 1 builder

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Beach</span></strong>
1: none
2: none
3: none
4: none
5: none
6: none
7: 2 platformers, 2 jumpers
8: none
9: none
10: 1 archer, 1 scooper

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Cavelems</span></strong>
1: none
2: 2 stompers, 3 scoopers
3: none
4: none
5: none
6: none
7: none
8: none
9: 3 platformers
10: 1 fencer, 1 platformer, 1 glue pourer, 1 stomper

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Circus</span></strong>
1: 1 climber, 1 jumper, 1 laser blaster, 1 glue pourer
2: none
3: 4 platformers
4: none
5: 1 platformer
6: 1 bomber
7: none
8: 1 platformer
9: 1 laser blaster, 1 platformer
10: none

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Egyptian</span></strong>
1: 1 digger
2: 1 glue pourer, 2 flamethrowers
3: none
4: 1 twister
5: 2 bashers, 1 stomper, 2 glue pourers
6: none
7: 1 laser blaster
8: 1 stomper, 1 platformer
9: 1 stomper, 1 basher
10: none

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Highland</span></strong>
1: 1 twister
2: none
3: 2 builders
4: 3 throwers
5: none
6: 2 ropers, 2 laser blasters
7: none
8: 1 basher, 1 laser blaster
9: 2 flamethrowers, 2 platformers, 1 attractor
10: none

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Medieval</span></strong>
1: 3 scoopers
2: none
3: none
4: 1 club basher, 1 sand pourer, 1 stacker, 2 glue pourers
5: 2 bombers, 1 builder, 1 club basher
6: 3 twisters, 1 platformer
7: none
8: none
9: none
10: none

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Outdoor</span></strong>
1: none
2: none
3: 1 platformer, 1 flamethrower
4: 1 glue pourer
5: none
6: none
7: none
8: 4 platformers
9: none
10: 1 platformer

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Polar</span></strong>
1: none
2: none
3: 1 roper
4: none
5: 1 roper
6: 1 stomper
7: none
8: 1 exploder
9: none
10: 2 glue pourers

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Shadow</span></strong>
1: <em>no results reported</em>
2: <em>no results reported</em>
3: <em>no results reported</em>
4: <em>no results reported</em>
5: <em>no results reported</em>
6: <em>no results reported</em>
7: <em>no results reported</em>
8: <em>no results reported</em>
9: <em>no results reported</em>
10: <em>no results reported</em>

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Space</span></strong>
1: none
2: 1 platformer
3: 1 platformer, 1 fencer, 1 stomper
4: none
5: 1 roper, 1 bomber
6: 1 filler, 1 shimmier, 1 climber, 1 spearer
7: none
8: 2 laser blasters
9: 1 ropers
10: 1 glue pourer, 1 jumper, 2 bazookas

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Sports</span></strong>
1: 3 flamethrowers, 1 bomber
2: none
3: 2 platformers
4: none
5: 2 stompers
6: 1 roper
7: 1 magno booter, 1 ballooner, 1 laser blaster, 1 platformer
8: none
9: 1 roper
10: 5 archers, 1 roper</span>
« Last Edit: October 21, 2019, 08:13:56 AM by Minim »

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #1 on: March 26, 2010, 02:08:21 AM »
Here's an example of the kind of analysis one might do, using the result of "None" for Polar 2 as an example:

We know from the minimum-skills thread that Polar 2 can be golded with just 1 fencer and 2 flamethrowers, so all other types of skills are optional.

We can make the standard solution not use any fencers by breaking through the floor using 2 flamethrowers on the left side of the snowman.  Details left as exercise to reader (I do have screenshots available on request).

We can also make the standard solution not use any flamethrowers by using fencers for all 3 obstacles, and use a thrower to block off the slope at the level's right side.

Hence the result is 0 fencers, 0 flamethrowers = none.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #2 on: March 26, 2010, 07:58:13 PM »
I'm looking at Cavelem and while I can't say I've come up with any earth-shattering solutions, there are definitely at least some interesting ones worth trying, such as golding Cavelem 6 and 7 without ropers.

So I think this challenge can be worth our time.

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #3 on: March 27, 2010, 01:38:18 AM »
I've had a look at some of the earlier levels from various tribes, and here's what I've got so far:

Classic 1:  2 builders appear to be necessary to reach the exit.

Classic 2:  One of my 7-skill solutions from the fewest skills thread uses just basher and six builders via a crawling route.  The other 7-skill solution uses a climber, four builders, a basher, and a miner.  The basher can be eliminated fairly easily, leaving just the 4 builders.

Classic 3:  Floaters, bombers, blockers, and diggers are clearly not necessary.  Climbers, builders, bashers, and miners can each be eliminated in separate solutions.  The end result is therefore none.

Circus 2:  My two-skill solution from the fewest skills thread uses just a stomper and a basher.  I've got another solution to the level using just a roper, platformer, and pole vaulter, so therefore the result is none.

Highland 1:  1 twister

Highland 2:  The standard solution (or at least the way I usually do it) uses just a runner, a fencer, and several jumpers.  The runner and jumpers are fairly easy to eliminate; the fencer can also be eliminated by making the entire crowd use the "over the top" route.

Space 1:  None -- this should be obvious.

Sports 2:  None --  the two-skill solution uses just a twister and a roper.  The twister can be eliminated easily.  I was also able to eliminate the roper, but with a considerably greater level of difficulty.  The basic idea is to platform from the football to the exit, which by itself is not too hard to do.  The challenge is keeping the crowd trapped until the platform is done, and then freeing them without using a roper.

Beach 1:  None -- another obvious one.

Outdoor 1:  None -- It isn't very hard to eliminate that twister.

Outdoor 2:  None -- the one-skill solution uses just a laser blaster, and there's also the stacker+filler solution.

Egyptian 1:  1 digger is unavoidable.  Everything else can be eliminated pretty easily.

Medieval 1:  You're going to need 3 scoopers because they're the only available ground-removing skill available.  Everything else can be avoided pretty easily.

Medieval 2:  A rather obvious solution uses only twisters and sand pourers.  The twisters can easily be replaced with other digging skills, and I have successfully eliminated the sand pourer by using a series of fillers and platformers to get over the steel block that protrudes up near the middle of the level.  This one is therefore another none.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #4 on: March 27, 2010, 06:57:32 AM »
I've completed the section for Cavelem.  I think for most levels it's obvious enough not to require much explanations, especially after you first look at the minimal-skills solutions.  Here're some quick analysis for a couple, and I have a spoiler section for additional info on them.

Cavelem 6, 7: roperless solutions are possible
Cavelem 8:  minimal-skills solution used stackers, rollers, fencers, bombers, and a jumper that can easily be substituted with a ballooner.  Rollers are replacable with stackers+jumpers.

This leaves solutions using no bombers, and separate solutions using no fencers.  Both are achievable using variations of the standard solution, if you take advantage of a detail in the terrain, best explained by an attached screenshot.

So we're left with just the 1 stacker from the minimal-skills solution.  I'm not certain, but I doubt you can make the fling solution work without the stacker to help compress the crowd.  [edit: whoops!  can't believe I miss this :-[, but it's rather easy to set up a way to trap the crowd at the start using just a bomber and a fencer.  So stackers are not needed, leaving a final result of "none"]

Cavelem 9:  minimal-skills solution uses 1 parachuter and 4 platformers for setting the path.  You can use either hang glider or jetpacker to get the hero over the mushroom, and you can use either basher or jetpacker+stomper to remove the mushroom.  Standard solution doesn't require the parachuter because you can send your hero down using jetpackers and good fanning.

So we're left with platformers.  You can modify the minimal-skills solution to not platform over the gap at the bottom, instead bashing and stomping from above.  And the route uses by the standard solution does not appear to allow for anything with only 2 platformers.  So we're left with 3 platformers.

Cavelem 10:  there are two basic ways to solve the level.  One can leave jumpers and floaters unused, the other can leave attractors and shimmiers unused.  Beyond those, I didn't find anything that lets me get away with not using one of the 4 skills listed in the results.

Quote
Cavelem 6 hint:  You can create a path to the exit from where the lemmings land from the entrance, by doing builder, glue pourer, fencer, builder, glue pourer.  You can get the crowd out of the starting pit by either 5 fillers and then lower the left edge a little more with stompers.  Or you can just use a single roper and then you forgo any use of stompers.

Cavelem 7 hint:  you'll end up using many of the jumpers to get some lemmings ahead of others.  In particular, I start off with 4 jumpers just to increase the distance between 1st and 2nd lemmings out.  The boogeyman trap's trigger can be covered up with just one brick from the stacker, besides scooping.  My roperless solution gets up to the exit above the entrance, using a single platformer + 3 bricks from a stacker (using a different lemming).

Cavelem 8 hint:  the screenshot shows how inserting a stacker brick there can get you up two pixel-sized "holes" in the terrain.  At that higher elevatation, it's possible to break through with just a single bomber, or separately using 3 fencers.

Cavelem 10 hint:  For the one that uses attractors and shimmiers, the attractor isolate a hero lemming, who will at some point fence under the fossil bones, and then shimmy across its underbelly.  Alternatively, for the other solution that uses floaters and jumpers, the floater is to create separation between 1st and 2nd lemming so 1st lemming can glue-pour in time to avoid losing 2nd lemming, and so no attractors needed.  Then instead of fencing to go underneath the fossil bones, you get a lemming to jump up to it, and then later jump up onto each of the 3 mushrooms below to get over them.  As he finishes the rest of the path to the exit, the crowd will fence under fossil bones to release themselves.

Offline geoo

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #5 on: March 27, 2010, 06:57:55 AM »
Yeah, I had thought about this kind of challenge as well already, as it seems to next most intuitive after the minimum skills (apart from minimum time, but that was already predictably fiddly last time for L1).

I'll try not to get too distracted by these thread for the next two days considering an upcoming exam...
Though like last time, let's start with some Outdoor levels (updates hopefully later than sooner).

Outdoor 3: 1 platformer (the gap at the end), 1 flame thrower (3 obstacles, only 2 platformers).

Outdoor 4: 1 glue pourer, the archers seem to be barely too short for the roper to reach, I'm not entirely sure though.

Outdoor 5: Should be none using a ballooner route, but the time limit makes this hell to execute, so not confirmed yet.

Outdoor 6: none - use platformers as substitute for ropers

Outdoor 7: none - the 5 skill route uses 1 attractor, 1 jumper/shimmier, 1 floater, 1 bomber, 1 bazooka. Bazooka can be replaced by 2 stackers. Bomber can be replaced by a bazooka and some more of them to get through the wall before the exit. Direct route bombing from the top to the bottom works without attractor, floater.

Outdoor 8: Evidently it's only platformers, question is how many. I concieved a solution using only 3 of them, sadly it runs out of time, so no result yet.

Outdoor 9: none - builders from the crawling route can be substituted for bashers, sufficient builders/archers to substitute the roper in the standard route, archers can be circumvented in the stardard route by firing the roper quickly enough for crowd control, bashers are interchangable.

Outdoor 10: 1 platformer - I've been trying various flinging routes, but I can't seem to eliminate the platformer.
Notes to avoid the stomper:
Quote
If you have the runner jump at the position shown, he'll land on a 1-pixel gap within the second floating piece of terrain, from where you can fence so the three gaps can be bridge with two platformers. Use the hopper on the first lemming to get sufficient time to builder the longer platform, and the bomber on the slope at the bottom to have everyone turn around.

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #6 on: March 27, 2010, 08:18:19 PM »
I had a look at most of Circus last night, and here's what I came up with:

Circus 1:  There's not much room for deviation from the standard solution, so this is equivalent to the 4-skill solution from the Minimum Skills thread:  1 climber, 1 jumper, 1 laser blaster, and 1 glue pourer.

Circus 3:  You need to use 4 platformers to reach the exit.  Crowd control can be done several different ways, so no other skills are common to all solutions.

Circus 4:  The level can be done with twisters only, and so the question comes down to whether or not the level can be done without any of them.  At first glance, it looks like a twister is needed to get up the steep slope below the exit, but I have confirmed that it is, in fact, not necessary.  (See the hint below)  So the end result here is none.

Circus 5:  Bashers, stackers, and scoopers can all be eliminated in separate solutions, but 2 platformers are needed to reach the exit.

Circus 6:  My four-skill solution from the minimum skills thread uses just a fencer, a glue pourer, and two bombers.  The fencer pretty easy to eliminate, as you can also use a bomber or glue pourer to free everyone.  I also eliminated the glue pourer (see hints below).  This leaves just the 2 bombers, and I haven't found a way to do the level with less than two of them.

Circus 7:  This was a fun one that surprisingly comes down to none.  The climber can be eliminated by using a bazooka to blast someone over the first wall.  Geoo's five-skill solution to the level avoids bazookas and fillers.  A variant of that solution involves giving the stomper a bazooka right before he breaks through; the resulting blast gives everyone a relatively low place to fall from, and the remaining gaps can be filled with fillers, eliminating ropers.  Finally, another variant eliminates the stomper by using bazookas to get the climber down to the bottom of the level, and then using ropers to create a safe path for the crowd down the left side of the level.

Circus 8:  Bashers are eliminated by using the crawling route and using a stomper + scooper to tackle the first wall.  Stompers are easily avoided in the standard solution.  I don't see the point of the hoppers in the level, but they can be used in place of jumpers to stop the scooper when setting up the crawling route.  Also, the crawling route can be set up using a basher instead of a scooper, so scoopers can be eliminated.  1 platformer is still required in the standard solution, and it can't be eliminated because the crawling route also uses platformers.

Circus 9: 1 laser blaster, 1 platformer, and 1 magic carpet -- the laser blaster is needed to free the crowd, and it appears that a magic carpet is needed to get to a place where you can do so.  Finally, a platformer is needed to reach the exit.

Circus 10:  Jumpers, club bashers, stackers, and stompers are easily avoided.  Geoo's crawling route avoids pole vaulters, and it can be adjusted to avoid scoopers, as well.  Fillers, however, are quite challenging -- it appears that one is necessary when using geoo's crawling route, and as far as I can tell, there aren't quite enough skills to take the regular route without fillers.  So to eliminate fillers, I ended up taking a completly different approach.  I've outlined the basic principle of this approach in the hints section below, and I've also included a more detailed solution below that.  The only thing left is platformers, and I can get it down to 1 platformer by using the regular route.

Quote from: hints
Circus 4:  Use flame throwers so that the lemmings will just barely pass under the pesky steel block.  Then use a fencer to get up to the floor above and to the right.  You can stop him from going too far to the right by making him bash air after he's broken through to the floor above.

Circus 6:  One bomber clears the first wall, and a second bomber gets down to the floor below with the cannon.  Most of the lemmings get stuck in the pit; fence to the right to get out of it.  The lemmings (even those bouncing on the trampoline) will all end up on the bottom floor, where the lower cannon is located, except that you need one lemming to go back to the upper cannon (make him a climber).  That lemming uses the upper cannon to get to the exit and bombs on the floor so that the lemmings below can get up to the exit using the lower cannon.

Circus 10:  The general idea is to crawl up the right side of the level, but in order to do this, you need to have one lemming take the regular route and bash out an opening so that the others don't crawl off the top of the screen.  See the spoiler below for the detailed solution.

Quote from: Circus 10 no fillers -- detailed solution
The first lemming stomps a couple of steps after dropping out of the hatch.  When he finishes, you'll end up with a whole bunch of lemmings bunched together.  Make one of them jump so that he is a short distance ahead of the others, and then make one of the others club bash through one of the three pedestals.  Make him stop by jumping him after he takes one stroke.  One lemming should be walking to the left, while the others are trapped.  Make one lemming scoop at the wall on the right; he needs to jump at an exact moment mid-scoop so that there is a small step that the lemmings walk up at the right edge of his tunnel.  From this step, make a lemming platform to the left, and then make him jump just before he lays the second brick.  The lemmings will start to crawl, but they won't get very far because they will reach a small gap between the platform brick and the top of the scooper's tunnel.

Now go over to the leader, who should be walking toward the left side of the level.  He has to make his way to the top of the level, which will require a pole vaulter, a platformer, and several jumpers.  When he gets to the right side of the level, make him a scooper so that when he falls, he ends up on top of the pedestal to the left of the exit (this will keep him from splatting).  Jump over the exit and club bash through the wall to the right.  Stop him after two or three strokes by jumping and he will make his way to the exit.

Finally, make one lemming from the crowd a stacker the instant that he stops crawling and starts walking on the brick.  If done properly, the stacker's brick will make everyone crawl up to the exit, via the tunnel that the leader club bashed earlier.

EDIT:  Added Circus 10.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #7 on: March 28, 2010, 01:29:23 AM »
Thanks, I've updated the table with your Circus results.  Although I do have one quick question regarding Circus 8:

I don't see the point of the hoppers in the level, but they can be used in place of jumpers to stop the scooper when setting up the crawling route.

Keep in mind that the game doesn't let you assign hopper or shimmier to a lemming if the ceiling is too low, something I found out when I did Egyptian 10 with ClamSpammer's hopper glitch.  I haven't tried out Circus 8 in detail, but can you confirm the above statement (or possibly find a different skill to substitute jumper for)?

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #8 on: March 28, 2010, 03:00:02 AM »
Thanks, I've updated the table with your Circus results.  Although I do have one quick question regarding Circus 8:

Keep in mind that the game doesn't let you assign hopper or shimmier to a lemming if the ceiling is too low, something I found out when I did Egyptian 10 with ClamSpammer's hopper glitch.  I haven't tried out Circus 8 in detail, but can you confirm the above statement (or possibly find a different skill to substitute jumper for)?

I tested it out again, and I have confirmed that this does work.  The scooper's tunnel is much wider than that of a basher or miner, so the ceiling is high enough to allow you to make him a hopper.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter, because I've also confirmed that the regular solution can be done jumper-free by using hoppers and the extra platformer in the three places where the leader has to cross a gap.  The hopper's hop is just barely long enough to span the gaps.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #9 on: March 28, 2010, 10:37:02 AM »
Outdoor 4: 1 glue pourer, the archers seem to be barely too short for the roper to reach, I'm not entirely sure though.

Outdoor 5: Should be none using a ballooner route, but the time limit makes this hell to execute, so not confirmed yet.

I've had a look at those.  I agree with your assessment for Outdoor 4 after some tries.  Anyone who claims to have a no-glue-pourer route will have to provide me with enough details for me to successfully reproduce their solution before I'll accept the result.

I've also saved you the trouble with Outdoor 5, with a no-roper route that requires everyone to balloon at some point.  While no Friday's walk in the park :P, it actually isn't too bad to execute--perhaps I've minimized the amount of ballooning a bit more than you do:

Quote
It is possible to get lemmings to crawl up the middle of the 3 "mushroom stalks", using just 2 stacker bricks along the bottom side of the island the stalk's standing on, as well as an archer arrow at the left edge of the lestmost mushroom to prevent anyone falling back down that way.  Then the only ballooning you need can be done over a relatively wide and obstruction-free area, such that you can easily get like 7 or 8 balloons going at the same time without too much trouble steering them simultaneously.  The attached screenshots show the details.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #10 on: March 31, 2010, 02:23:33 AM »
Sports 10 caught my attention last night, and it turned out to be a fairly interesting level for this challenge.

First, as I reported in the "fewest types of skills" thread, you can gold the level using just archers, jumpers and ropers, eliminating the runner commonly used.  Not the biggest surprise there (though it's not as quite obvious as it sounds).

Now minimizing each individual skill type through separate solutions:

jumper:  the 11- and 12-skills crawling solutions use jumpers in just 2 places (the crawling avoids the usual 3).  Fortunately it turns out you can eliminate both using the roller and the hopper.  It's a little tricky though, I've included some screenshots and hints.

roper:  the standard solution uses 2 ropers, but it turns out one of them you can substitute with 4 spearers+1 archer.  You don't have enough skills left over to eliminate the other roper, so the end result is 1 roper.

archer:  the 11- and 12-skills crawling solutions use 6 archers.  I've reviewed them and the easiest, possibly only one I can eliminate is the final archer used before the roping to the exit platform.  The function of that arrow can be replaced with a system of spears, though the setup is not what you might expect.  I don't believe you can eliminate the arrow that's used together with the roper for crawling (at least not in a useful way that still lets you also eliminate the final archer) due to the angle of the spear.  So long story short, looks like the end result is 5 archers.

So the final result for Sports 10 is 5 archers, 1 roper.

Quote from: hints/spoilers
No jumpers:  to get over the first giant jump with a roller, you have to assign the hero lemming roller at a pixel-precise location (screenshot A), otherwise the roller will not make it.  And because you can't have hero jumped onto the arrows he fired to get him to go to the right, you need to use a vertical arrow instead.  Follow screenshots B and C for where and how to fire that arrow.  Screenshot D shows the desired result, where the arrow ended up vertical at the very left edge of the terrain below.

For the second gap you normally jump over, you will use a hopper, but unfortunately, you can't just hop over it directly.  Instead, you'll help out the hopper with an arrow to shorten the width of the gap.  See screenshots E and F for what you're aiming to do.  Once the hopper gets over, you'll proceed to fire 2 arrows to span the gap as per usual business.  However, because you used the hopper (as opposed to the fast runner), there's a chance that the crowd may catch up before the 2nd of those 2 arrows are ready.  Ideally, you should have it like in screenshot G, where the ends of the first gap-spanning arrow and the hopper-helping arrow, their ends meet, preventing the crowd from falling off the gap.  If the arrows didn't work out like that, your best bet is to stall the crowd by assigning them spearers and pole vaulters.

Finish the rest of the level via the crawling route solution.

1 roper:  the screenshots show exactly how to replace the lower roper with 4 spearers and 1 archer.  This is based on the standard (ie. non-crawling) solution.

5 archers:  ideally, we just throw the spears while standing at that sloping portion of the terrain below the exit platform, and the spears will seal off the drop at the left.  But I've failed to find any positions where the thrown spears end up at the correct location and angles to achieve that.  So instead we have a more exotic solution.

Go through the crawling solution but stop once you fired the rope.  Now have 2 left-going lemmings spear at the locations shown in screenshots A and B.  The spears will create a catch (see screenshots C, D) to allow lemmings to fall safely onto it from the top.  Now fire the arrow at the rope to trigger crawling.  Once you have lemmings land on the spears and turn around at the wall, assign one hopper just when the lemming has turned around.  This will trigger ClamSpammer's hopper glitch, allowing the lemming to get up the wall.  Once he has gotten to the height shown in screenshot D, assign him spearer, and when he finishes throwing the spear and can be assigned another skill, immediately assign him spearer again (ie. don't let him fall off the wall!).  These 2 spears, throw at the right height near the gap, will seal off the gap in question as desired.

Offline geoo

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #11 on: April 01, 2010, 04:26:06 PM »
Ah, using crawling for Outdoor 5 is a nice idea.
My attempt was indeed more troublesome, trying to stomp away most of the mushroom and then guiding everyone all the way up.

Updated my previous post with a few more Outdoor results.

The archer elimination on Sports 10 is nice; still haven't got around to checking Cavelem.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #12 on: April 02, 2010, 03:40:56 AM »
Circus 6:  My four-skill solution from the minimum skills thread uses just a fencer, a glue pourer, and two bombers.  The fencer pretty easy to eliminate, as you can also use a bomber or glue pourer to free everyone.  I also eliminated the glue pourer (see hints below).  This leaves just the 2 bombers, and I haven't found a way to do the level with less than two of them.

(Very good job by the way with Circus, especially Circus 10.)

A light bulb went on, and I figured out how to do Circus 6 with 1 bomber:

Quote from: hint
Think about what happens in Lemmings 2 if a walker lemming falls into a 1-pixel-wide pit.  What would the physics of crawling make it do?

Quote from: spoiler
Climb (or jump) and bomb to get to the upper cannon (make sure the bombing happens at a location that enables you to later use the upper cannon to send everyone over to the exit platform).  Glue-pour twice to cover up the trampoline completely, then for the 3rd glue-pour, you need to do it at a position such that the stream of glue starts 2 pixels away from the left wall of the pit with the trampoline (in other words, there's 1 column of empty pixels between the pixels of the pit's left wall, and where the glue lands).  See screenshot A for exact position if still not clear.  This will create a 1-pixel-wide pit, which by the physics of crawling, will have the effect that whichever side a lemmings fall into the pit from, they will crawl out of the pit on that side (see screenshot B).  This means everyone will be able to use the upper cannon.

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #13 on: April 02, 2010, 06:13:20 AM »
I've got some work done on the first half of Beach.

Beach 2:  The 3-skill solution from the minimum skills thread uses just a jet pack, a roper, and a laser blaster.  In addition, I have completed the level using just bashers and glue pourers.  The combination of these solutions yields a result of none.

Beach 3:  The four-skill solution to this level uses an archer, two hang gliders, and a laser blaster.  The archer can be avoided by using a bomber next to the steel (this just barely works, as the bomber is pixels away from being flung off the top of the screen).  In addition, the two hang gliders can also be avoided (see hints).  But it looks like 1 laser blaster is unavoidable.

Beach 4:  There are two four-skill solutions that I know of to this one.  One uses two jumpers, a canoer, and a laser blaster, and the other uses a jumper, a runner, a canoer, and a laser blaster (and some good timing getting the runner to grab onto the chain).  These solutions have 1 jumper, 1 canoer, and 1 laser blaster in common, and I haven't found any ways of eliminating any of them.

Beach 5:  The 3-skill solution here uses just a fencer, a builder, and a glue pourer.  The glue pourer is easily eliminated by using a stomper and 3 builders in the end.  I've also done the ending with an archer and several glue pourers, eliminating the builder.  Finally, the fencer is eliminated by stomping 2x at the beginning and then using the remaining skills to get up to the exit.  So the result here is none.

Quote from: Hints
Beach 3 No Hang Gliders:  Start the level as usual by using an archer to restrain the crowd and a canoer to get one lemming over the water.  Instead of making him a hang glider before he falls, make him an archer and fire it to the bottom of the can on the right.  As soon as he starts walking again, make him a diver before he falls.  He will end up falling in the water, so give him another canoe to get out.  When he turns around at the top of the slope, make him jump up to the next slope.  Now glue pour from the arrow you fired earlier.  The glue should go far enough so that you can jump over the beach ball.  The rest should be obvious.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #14 on: April 02, 2010, 09:26:22 AM »
Beach 4:  There are two four-skill solutions that I know of to this one.  One uses two jumpers, a canoer, and a laser blaster, and the other uses a jumper, a runner, a canoer, and a laser blaster (and some good timing getting the runner to grab onto the chain).  These solutions have 1 jumper, 1 canoer, and 1 laser blaster in common, and I haven't found any ways of eliminating any of them.

I can eliminate the canoer and the jumper (disclosure: for "no jumper" I only got to the part of getting a single lemming past the ball; I did not actually carry through the rest of the solution using LemSteven's solution with the runner, but I see no reason why the part of the solution wouldn't work here).

Quote from: Hints
no canoer:  use the chain.  Wrong facing direction?  Do something with the terrain to turn yourself.

no jumper: surprisingly easy with the bazooka's fling.

Quote from: spoilers
no canoer:  First, have 2 lemmings fire bazookas at the positions suggested in screenshots A and B.  This creates craters at the island with the suction trap, such that the right wall of the rightmost crater can turn a walker lemming around.  Now get a lemming onto the chain, and then release yourself while the chain is pretty much at the end of its swing to the right.  You will basically fall straight down.  Use the crater to turn yourself around facing left, and then jump back onto the chain at its lowest link.  Fan the chain to full power and then release yourself at the position shown in screenshot D.  Hopefully the result will be screenshot E where the lemming is successfully flung over the water.

no jumper: see screenshots for when to shoot the bazooka against the umbrella to fling exactly one lemming over the ball.  The reason this works is that the explosion happens basically just as that lemming, walking to the right, has gone past the center of the explosion.  This means he will be flung up and to the right very hard, because of his very small horizontal distance to the center of the explosion.

no laser:  you can blast through the floor using 2 bazookas fired to the left when you're standing on the handle of the bucket.  The issue is how to ensure no lemming gets flung over the ball from the 1st bazooka (the 2nd one will automatically work because the 1st one flung everyone far enough away from the blast site).  Sadly this is mostly a matter of luck/"timing".

My strategy is to get the hero to firing the bazookas quickly.  This means 1st lemming out runs and jumps over the ball, and try not to spend too much time on the chains.  Also, notice that if you assign a lemming jumper soon after he lands from falling out of the entrance, the jumping will bring him at nearly the same position as the previous lemming out.  This means if you basically jump every other lemming, you can reduce the number of positions the lemmings are at by roughly half.  Together with getting to the bazooka quickly (so there are fewer lemmings out and about), this will help increase your chance of success.  Still, good luck.

This leaves the laser blaster.  I was able to fire the 2 bazookas while standing at the handle of the bucket to blast through the floor, but the main problem is that in the process, inevitably a few (or not so few) lemmings gets flung over the ball.  Theoretically, it may be possible to avoid that result by using the spare jumpers and runners to somehow "vacate" the space really close to the explosion, to make sure no lemming gets flung over too hard to get past the ball.  I'll have to play around with the level a little more another day to see if I can make that work (and if anyone manages to get that to work before I do, more power to you).

[edit: no laser works!  this means final result for Beach 4 is none!
Unfortunately it's so timing-sensitive, I'm unable to tell you exactly how to reproduce my success; I'm sure it'll take me another few dozens of tries to do it a second time myself.  I do have a strategy that at least will hopefully make success a little more likely; see spoilers.]

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #15 on: April 03, 2010, 12:35:08 AM »
Beach 3:<snip>But it looks like 1 laser blaster is unavoidable.

And here's how to eliminate the laser blaster.

Quote from: Hints
a) a diver can push a lemming inside a wall
b) it's true you can't assign a crawling lemming skills, but maybe you can get him to stop crawling...?

Quote from: spoiler
As in the typical solution, start by firing an arrow to block the crowd, letting one lemming hero out to canoe and hang-glide.  But also fire 2 more arrows, like in screenshot A, to ensure that later when you assign a bomber near the steel, no one gets flung off to the water.

Steer your hero to end up on the steel platform below the pool of water near the entrance.  Just as your hero is about to turn around at the wall (but still facing left), assign him diver (screenshot B).  The diving action will cause the lemming to end up sufficiently inside the wall that he will start crawling up it.

When your hero has crawled up about 2/3 of the height of a steel block (16 pixels, so about 9-10 pixels), assign bomber to a lemming in the crowd near the steel (screenshot C).  In addition to removing some terrain, the bomber's knockback will knock back the crawler also, giving you a chance to assign him the 2nd bomber when he gets up after swooning.  This means your 2nd bomber can explode below the lowest point of the crater of the 1st bomber, making it possible to break through the terrain.  Finish the level with a glue pourer to seal that narrow gap.

---------------

I also improved Circus 5 to 1 platformer rather than 2.  This is just a modification of my 4-skills solution to that level, replacing the rightmost platformer with stacker+basher.

Offline Simon

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #16 on: April 06, 2010, 06:29:41 PM »
Got one :-)

Polar 1: You can choose two of these and still blast through all the walls: flame thrower, all bazookas and all mortars. To get a worker far ahead to glue pour, you can use either a runner or an explosion's stun. Furthermore, it's possible to save the 2nd glue pourer by bazooking the wall above the steel at a certain point, creating a step out of removable terrain leftover. Result: 1 glue pourer.

-- Simon

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #17 on: April 07, 2010, 07:51:25 AM »
Continuing on with Beach:

Beach 6:
  • The minimum skills solution uses a ballooner, a platformer, a roper, a club basher, and two scoopers.  In this solution:
    • The club basher can be replaced with fencers quite easily.
    • The second roper can be used in place of the platformer.
    • The ballooner can be eliminated by using an attractor for crowd control, instead.
  • I've eliminated ropers by doing some clever scooping, such that no ropers are needed to turn everyone to the left (see spoiler).
  • Finally, one of the scoopers can be eliminated without too much difficulty.

So the result here is just 1 scooper.

Beach 7: 
  • I've got the jumpers down to 2, using ccexplore's miner/jumper trick at the tree (the beginning of the level is done slightly differently to avoid a jumper there).
  • Bashers can be eliminated by mining through the green bucket and stomping through the tree.
  • The runner and stompers are not used in the minimum skills solution.
  • By using a series of bashers, miners, and jumpers at the striped buildings, the lemmings can get high enough to bash directly to the exit, avoiding the swimmer.
  • It looks like the platformers and at least one miner are needed no matter what.

My result here is 2 platformers, 2 jumpers, and 1 miner.

Beach 8:
  • The minimum skills solution uses a magic carpet, three archers, and a builder.
  • The magic carpet is avoidable by using the bomber to fling a lemming to the ledge under the sun.
  • The builder can be replaced with an archer quite easily.
  • Archers are also avoidable (see spoiler).

The end result is therefore None.

Quote from: Spoilers
Beach 6 No Ropers:  Balloon over the tree and platform over the water.  Make the leader scoop when he is a few steps past the steel on the other side of the water.  Jump him before he breaks through and then scoop the other way.  If done properly, he will hit the bottom of the steel, but create a small gap underneath that the lemmings can fall through.  Now platform over the trap, fence through the tree, and club bash to the exit.  Release the crowd with fencers.

Beach 8 No Archers:  Restrain the crowd with an attractor and have one lemming magic carpet 2x so that he ends up on the island under the entrance with the palm tree.  Build 2x from the right side of this island to create a landing for the crowd.  The leader will land on the second of three small islands.  Build from the second island to the third, and then drop down to the large, bare island.  On this island, make the leader a bomber, and then bash from the bottom of the bomber pit.  Stop the basher by making him build.  If done properly, nobody will be able to walk out the right side of the pit.  Now use your last builder to get to the exit and release the attractor.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #18 on: April 08, 2010, 03:03:11 AM »
People might've noticed that I've started the recent habit here of improving other people's attempts rather than doing whole new levels.  This is purely to restrain myself from overrunning the entire challenge thread like I sort of did with the min-skill one.  (It is also admittedly less work for me. :P)  It is not in any way trying to diminish the efforts of other people on the same levels.

Anyway, on that note:

Beach 6:<snip>So the result here is just 1 scooper.

Here's a no-scooper solution for Beach 6.  It uses no glitches, just some subtle things with the exact details of the terrain:

Quote from: hint
Your first no-scooper problem is that at the upper-right area of the level, you can't rope directly into the top platform where the red bucket sits, starting from the free-floating platform below it.  But it turns out by getting through the clubhouse a particular way, there is a tiny piece of terrain you can rope to from the free-floating platform that will enable you to turn lemmings around.

The next no-scooper problem is how to create a path to the exit with the limited leftover skills.  The main trick here is to platform to the right, starting from the edge of the lower right leaf of the tree left of the suction trap closest to the exit (phew, that's a mouthful!).

Quote from: spoiler
Fence through the tree nearest the entrance, then use the attractor to hold back everyone except one hero lemming.  Hero lemming platform over the water as usual.  He will club-bash over the clubhouse, but you must start club-bashing at the precise location in screenshot A.  This will allow him to stop club-bashing with a tiny bit of leftover terrain from the right edge (screenshot B), terrain that you can rope to for turning everyone around (screenshot C).

Now rope and fence as usual.  Once your hero is approaching the suction trap's trigger, use a ballooner to bring him onto the lower-right leaf of the tree.  The part of the upper-right leaf that attaches to the tree will turn lemmings around on the lower-right leaf, so you can platform to the right from the right edge of the lower-right leaf (screenshot D).  Jump the lemming after the 11th platform brick to prevent the platform from fully connecting, and you now have a path to the exit (screenshot E).  Release the attractor and you're done.

I haven't looked at Beach 7 in detail yet, but even I have to doubt that there'd be any way to make that level not break the "none" streak on Beach so far.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #19 on: April 08, 2010, 02:33:37 PM »
Beach 7: <snip>
  • By using a series of bashers, miners, and jumpers at the striped buildings, the lemmings can get high enough to bash directly to the exit, avoiding the swimmer.
  • It looks like the platformers and at least one miner are needed no matter what.

Here's a no-miner solution for Beach 7.  It's really just a variation of inspired by LemSteven's no-swimmer solution (similar concept, somewhat different details):

Quote from: hint/spoiler
Instead of eliminating the swimmer, use the swimmer and the other usual skills (a stomper for the tree is recommended) to get a lemming up on top of the striped buildings as usual, and then have him stomp+jump a few times to create the additional steps necessary for getting high enough to bash to the exit.  You need to get at least 27 pixels above ground-level of the striped buildings.

I've attached a single screenshot showing an example result.  You will end up using pretty much every other non-miner skills given in the level.  Here's a detailed accounting of usage:

Quote from: spoiler
You need to send 2 lemmings instead of 1 over the green bucket, one who will swim etc., and the other will platform and then use 3 bashers+3 jumpers to create the first 3 steps up the striped buildings.  (Each basher+jumper step will gain you 6 pixels in height, so you get 18 pixels so far.)  To send 2 lemmings over the green bucket, you must use at least one jumper (the other one you can and will use a runner; note that the swimmer must also be the runner).

The usual route towards the top of striped buildings will take 1 swimmer, 1 stomper (for getting through the tree), 1 runner (which you may already assigned before) and 3 jumpers.  Finally, once on top of striped building,  you need at least 3 stompers+3 jumpers to create steps to gain the additional 9+ pixels required for the magic 27, given that the maximum walkable step-height is 4 pixels.  Throw in the usual platformer for the narrow gap left of the green bucket, basher through green bucket, plus final bashing towards exit, and you wound up using every non-miner skill with only 1 stomper to spare.

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #20 on: April 08, 2010, 06:03:18 PM »
Good job!  :thumbsup:

I suppose I should mention that this is somewhat different from my no-swimmer solution, which requires all five bashers at the striped buildings (four to get up 24 pixels and one to complete the way to the exit).  Using just 3 bashers to get up 18 pixels won't work because the two miners combined will only get about six pixels at most.

To do this, I had to avoid the green bucket completely by platforming at the start and jumping the lemmings that caught up before the gap was covered.  I sent a runner ahead to take care of the second gap before anyone caught up.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #21 on: April 11, 2010, 03:58:45 PM »
Taking an exception to "only improving other people's results", because I just spent some time with Medieval 9, I might as well work out the results of that level for this thread as well.  Though a bit of an anti-climax as there are no fancy solutions involved here.

The "fewest skills" thread show that archers are the only common skill to the four solutions given there.  But a no-archer solution is also possible and not very hard (see hints and spoilers).  So the final result for Medieval 9 is none.

Quote from: hint
Use 2 spears to create the bridge for getting across the water.  Of course, to do so, you will use a bunch of other skills to get a lemming into the correct position for throwing the spears.

Quote from: spoiler
Use attractor to hold all but 1 lemming, and use 3 jumpers to get that lemming all the way to the right, at that area right of the large pool of water and underneath the shield, so he can turn around facing left.  Then balloon him up to the floating platform, where he can throw the 2 spears for the crowd to cross water.  The rest is obvious

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #22 on: April 12, 2010, 02:51:36 PM »
Having posted improvements for Medieval 4 recently on the min-skill and fewest-skill-type challenges, I think I can now post results for this thread as well:

  • The fewest-skill-type thread has a no-surfer solution for this level.  It uses up all other available skills.
  • The min-skill thread has a 7-skill solution which uses 1 stacker, 2 glue pourers, 1 surfer, 1 club basher, and 2 sand pourers.  You can replace one of the sand pourer with another stacker (stack on the left side of the pit and then glue pour).

Beyond that I'm not seeing any other possible reductions.  So final result is 1 club basher, 1 sand pourer, 1 stacker, and 2 glue pourers.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #23 on: April 19, 2010, 07:50:12 PM »
Circus 9: 1 laser blaster, 1 platformer, and 1 magic carpet -- the laser blaster is needed to free the crowd, and it appears that a magic carpet is needed to get to a place where you can do so.  Finally, a platformer is needed to reach the exit.

Turns out you can get to where you need to laser-blast without using magic carpets, using a glitch very similar to one already used before.

Quote from: hint
Remember how divers can push a lemming sufficiently inside a wall to trigger crawling?  There's a skill available in this level that has a similar effect (and it's not the hopper, whose glitch doesn't actually make the lemming crawl per se anyway).

Quote from: spoiler
If you assign pole vaulter to a lemming just before it turns around at a wall, he will immediately trip and fall, but doing so will actually put him slightly inside the wall when he gets up, similar to using a diver right against the wall.  However, unlike the diver, a single pole vaulter does not quite push you far enough inside the wall for successful crawling, so you'll need to assign a 2nd pole vaulter when the lemming gets up.

For this level, use LemSteven's min-skill solution, but use the 2 pole vaulters to crawl up on the left for laser blasting, instead of using a magic carpet to get up there.

[edit: also added a result for Highland 3.  I got 2 builders for the min-skill solution, and I really don't see any way to solve the level with fewer builders.]

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #24 on: April 20, 2010, 01:25:05 AM »
Good work!   :thumbsup:

I've been quite busy lately, so I haven't had much time to play Lemmings.  But I will go ahead and wrap up Beach.

Beach 9: -- The jumpers, rollers, archer, and filler are clearly not necessary.  I've also managed to control the crowd without using the attractor, so that is not necessary, either.  Bazookas and mortars can each be eliminated in separate solutions.  Finally, I've eliminated platformers by flinging everyone over the first pool of water (see spoiler for details).  The result is therefore none.

Beach 10:  ccexplore's 4-skill solution requres 2 archers and 2 scoopers.  One of the scoopers can be eliminated without too much difficulty, and a builder can be used in place of the second archer.  So my result is 1 scooper & 1 archer.

Quote from: spoiler
Beach 9 No Platformers:  Make the first lemming a mortar after he takes a few steps.  Now assign a second mortar in the same place.  If done properly, you should create a holding cell for the crowd.  Use an attractor to get as many lemmings bunched together as possible.  While you're waiting for everyone to come out of the entrance, use about 4-5 bazookas (start a short distance right of the entrance) to begin blasting the path to the right of the water.

Once everyone is dancing, jump the attractor and allow everyone to accumulate into the holding cell.  Use jumpers to get the crowd as tight as possible, and then have the lemming in front fire a bazooka just before hitting the left side of the holding cell.  The explosion should hopefully fling everyone over the water, and they should get stuck under the sand castle.  Carefully use more bazookas/mortars to break through to the ground below, making sure nobody gets flung back into the water.

Now the lemmings should all be heading for the clam trap.  To keep them from getting eaten, have the lemming in front fire an arrow toward the trap trigger.  If the arrow does not cover the trigger, use a filler to finish the job.  Now blast through the large clam and you're done.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #25 on: April 20, 2010, 10:45:53 AM »
Nice work on Beach 9 no-platformer. :thumbsup:

Speaking of platformer elimination, the glitch I just used for Circus 9 finally enables a no-platformer solution for Circus 10!  This is one of my more complex solutions to date.  The glitch is actually just a small (albeit essential) part of it.  In planning the solution, I actually needed to write a computer program to help me calculate the number of filler pixels required for various configurations of the crowd-trapping pit's width and height (though ultimately there are just 16 combinations, so it's doable by hand too I guess), to find the ones that work out.

Quote from: hint/concept
Suppose you have a one-pixel wide, tall column ("the straw") leading down into to a perfectly rectangular pit ("the juicebox"), situated right into a wall; something like this (the dots are empty space pixels, X, W = wall pixels; the whole thing surrounded by more terrain pixels except the opening at the top of the straw):

XX.WWWWWWWW
XX.WWWWWWWW
XX.WWWWWWWW
XX.WWWWWWWW
XX.WWWWWWWW
XX.WWWWWWWW
XX.WWWWWWWW
XX....WWWWW
XX....WWWWW
XX....WWWWW
XX....WWWWW
XX....WWWWW

Suppose the crowd is milling about at the bottom of the juicebox, and you have fillers pouring in coming from the side where the straw resides ("left" in the picture above).  If the filler fills up the entire juicebox and no more than bottom 4 pixels of the straw, every lemming is guaranteed to crawl up on the side away from the straw ("right" in the picture above, or in other words, they will crawl through the W's above the juicebox).  In other words, even if the left wall of the straw (the X's) doesn't go all the way up to where you need to, it's okay because no lemming will crawl up following that wall; they will all follow the walls on the right (the W's).

This comes about from the game mechanics of crawling.  PM me if you want a more detail explanation.

Quote from: full solution
Start with 1st lemming scoop after moving up 3 pixels of the slope (screenshot A).  When scooper breaks through, one lemming will overtake him, and the scooper himself will fall with a swoon (but not the overtaking lemming who can walk immediately).  This ensures everyone gets trapped in the stomper's pit created by the overtaker.

The stomper's pit should be situated right next to the wall on the right, so that it goes 4 columns of pixels into the wall (screenshot B).  Meanwhile, at least 2 lemmings should turn left from the end of the scooper's tunnel while it was still in progress.  Jump one of them to the left to crawl up the steel using the pole-vaulter glitch (screenshot B again).  He will use a scooper and a club basher to prepare the way to the exit, in particular creating an opening at the right wall at that area so later the crowd doesn't crawl to oblivion. (screenshot D)  Another of the lemming that turned left from the first scooper, let him fall down and then club-bash through the blue triangular slope on the right (screenshot C).  In the meanwhile, jump the stomper immediately after he stomped down 4 times (screenshot B).  For timing purposes later, please follow screenshot B exactly for when to assign the stomper a jumper.

Now wait until last lemming comes out of entrance (at clock about 7:34).  Jump him immediately after he steps down into the first step of the scooper tunnel (screenshot E).  The jumping will reflect off the ceiling so he will turn left.  Now watch for the second-to-last lemming to just move off the green pedestal at bottom right, exactly at position shown in screenshot F.  At that moment, place your cursor at the crowd milling in the stomper's pit, and assign stacker.  If you followed my prescribed timing now and in earlier steps, the stacker's position should create the "juicebox setup" mentioned in hints/concepts, with the stack being the left wall; the size of the juicebox is 5 pixels wide by 10 pixels tall.

In the meanwhile, as soon as the last lemming out falls down on the left, assign him filler (screenshot G).  It doesn't have to be pixel-precise but it must be before he moved left much after landing (you have about a margin of about 4 pixels I think?).  Pouring filler facing left will "burn off" a number of filler pixels that will otherwise ruin the juicebox setup we're working towards, because those pixels will stay on this platform.  The rest will drip down into the area between the green pedestal and the stack.

Now have the lemming turn around facing right, then have him pour filler 3 more times.  The filler will eventually get over the stack, and just enough of it will go into the juicebox to trigger the entire crowd to crawl all the way up (screenshot H).  Finally, have your filler-pouring lemming fall into the "straw", and immediately assign him pole-vaulter twice when he lands, to make him also crawl all the way up (screenshot I, J).

So yep, Circus 10's final result is an unexpected none.

[edit: as usual, I might have over-complicated things slightly. :XD: I've attached an alternate method that may lead to another no-platformer solution.  It still requires a bit of pixel precision and some planning with fillers, but maybe not as much work?]

Quote from: alternate method quick outline
Looking at the screenshot.  The dent in the bottom right wall is created by interrupting a scooper mid-scoop assigning him jumper.  Notice the shape, in particular the upper-right 2 pixels.  It may be possible to pour fillers such that you create a step trapping everyone in that 2-pixel area, and then you can use a stacker inside there to make everyone crawl.  Just like my first no-plaformer solution, use pole-vaulters to send a lemming up ahead to set things up for the exit.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #26 on: April 23, 2010, 02:14:35 AM »
Following naturally from a major improvement I made to Highland 4 in the min-skills challenge thread, here is my result for Highland 4 for this challenge:

The min-skills solution doesn't use attractors.  The standard solution doesn't need fencers nor jumpers.  A no-filler solution is also possible and not too difficult to work out (see hints or screenshots).

This leaves throwers, and using a crawling route concept, I have a solution that only uses 3 throwers.  Final result:  3 throwers.

Quote from: hints (just go to screenshots for full solution)
No fillers:  it's pretty obvious that for a stone path that doesn't require fillers for the crowd to get onto, the leftmost stone must be sticking against the left wall of the pit, which means it must be thrown by a lemming inside the pit.  You will basically create the entire stone path using the lemming in the pit, and then once you release the crowd to go over the stone path, you can use the remaining skills (there are plenty of fencers and jumpers, as well as a few spare throwers left) to extricate the remaining lemming out of the pit, over the "stone path ceiling", and on his way to the exit.  See screenshots for one example of how I did it.  I didn't show individual steps because there's some margin of error for where you throw and stuff.

3 throwers:  the pit can be taken care of entirely with fillers.  Then to set up crawling, there's a pixel-precise location you can throw so that the ball sticks to the right wall almost but not actually landing on the blue triangle slope, which means the slope and the bottom-right empty pixel of the ball will form a trigger spot for crawling.  The lemming will crawl against the column of pixels 3 away from the right wall (corresponding to the vertical central axis of the ball), so simply stack balls vertically to determine how far up the crawl goes, and then have the topmost ball offset 2 pixels to the left from the vertical stack to form an opening to both stop crawling and create a wall that turns the crawled lemming back to the right.  3 throwers suffice to create a tall-enough ball stack to start fencing.

For the fencing, because the normal slope of fencing is too shallow, you'll enhanced the amount you go vertically by interrupting the fencing after each single slope, and starting the next one at the highest point available.  It's also pixel-precise important where you start the first fence-stroke, since:
  a) the lowest point of the surface is only 2 pixels in width
  b) you start only barely high enough for this to work
  c) the highest point of a fence stroke is at the very end of the tunnel, so you have no flexibility in how much horizontal distance you gain per stroke.

See screenshots for the pixel-precision details.


Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #27 on: April 24, 2010, 02:53:38 AM »
Good job on Highland 4.  I had a brief look at Egyptian this evening, and heres what I've come up with:

Egyptian 2:  The attractor, stomper, jumpers, and runners are all easy to avoid.  I've also avoided platformers by using glue pourers to fill over the water and cross the gaps.  I can get glue pourers down to one by making the bottom two sets of lemmings crawl up to the top group.  Finally, it should be pretty obvious that the minimum  number of flame throwers is two.  The result is therefore 1 glue pourer & 2 flame throwers.

Egyptian 3:  All of the non-digging skills are clearly not needed.  Using a path down the left side of the level, it is possible to complete the level with just two digging skills.  Some of the possible combinations include Fencer/Stomper, Fencer/Scooper, and Scooper/Stomper.  Since no skills are common among all combinations, the end result is none.

Egyptian 4:  1 twister is needed to create a tunnel for the crowd.

Egyptian 5:  It appears that most of the skills from the minimum skills thread are needed.  The only things I was able to remove were the runner and one of the jumpers.  See the spoiler for how to do this.  The result comes down to 1 stomper, 3 bashers, 2 glue pourers, & 1 jumper.

Quote from: spoiler
Egyptian 5 One Jumper:  You can delay the runner in the end with a stomper+basher so that the glue covers the final gap before he gets there.

Egyptian 5 No Runner:  Before starting the second bash, wait for the crowd to bunch up some.  You need to bash such that two lemmings are in front of the basher when he finishes.  Make the former basher a glue pourer after he walks a couple of steps.  The glue should arrive at the gap just as the pair of lemmings in front reach it.

Now you have to make the two lemmings in front each jump three times so that they both beat the glue to the last wall.  You need to place each of the six jumpers perfectly in order for this to work without the lemmings hitting anything or falling in the water.  Now make the first lemming bash through the wall, and after he takes one stroke, make the second lemming bash.  The two lemmings working together should just be able to obliterate the wall before the glue arrives.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #28 on: April 24, 2010, 02:50:16 PM »
Egyptian 5:  It appears that most of the skills from the minimum skills thread are needed.  The only things I was able to remove were the runner and one of the jumpers.  See the spoiler for how to do this.  The result comes down to 1 stomper, 3 bashers, 2 glue pourers, & 1 jumper.

No jumper is possible and actually presents a nice puzzle (in the sense used by Simon and geoo--elegant solution w/o messy, frustrating precision moves everywhere, unlike my usual solutions :P).  You can probably use the same idea for an easier no-runner solution too:

Quote from: hint
Take the ceiling path to get a lemming ahead over to where you need to bash to allow the 2nd glue pourer to cover two gaps.  Remember that the slider does a little more than just letting you slide down tall walls...

Quote from: solution (no jumpers)
Assign a lemming rock climber and runner, and have him bash thru the tree.  Let him continue, and when he got to the top and is starting to walk up the slope towards oblivion, make him stomp, and then bash when low enough.  You want him to end up on the left shoulder of the "human figurine" thingie (that thing whose "head" has an eyeball glyph) floating to the right.  Once he gets there, wait for him to continue on towards the pillar (screenshot A), until he finally falls down from it facing left ( screenshot B).

In the meanwhile, continue with the usual solution, stopping at the wall left of the 2nd gap (ie. the wall leading into the area where the "human figurine" is overhead).  Start bashing that wall only after the hero lemming lands his fall from the pillar and is swooning (screenshot C).  Assign hero slider at that point.  When he starts "flipping" himself for sliding down the block, assign the 2nd glue pourer (screenshot D).  The slider lets the hero faces right after sliding finishes (screenshot E), so that he can bash through the block in time (screenshot F) for the glue to continue onto the final gap.  Although hero is runner, because he's also slider he will slide down instead of jump down the two following steps, which will slow him down sufficiently to ensure he won't overrun the glue while it is spanning the final gap (screenshot G). [It also helps to not start bashing too close to the wall.]

A 2-basher solution also exists.  Unlike no-jumper, this is one of my usual messy, tough-to-execute solutions (in fact possibly amongst one of the toughest).  The underlying concept is innocent enough, but just so many things tend to work against you one way or another.

Quote from: hint
Well, it's pretty obvious that you want to stomp down low enough to bash through the two walls leading into the 2nd gap area, using just one basher.  The problem is that this will actually break through the terrain on the left edge of the stomper tunnel, but hmm, what skill do we have that adds terrain pixels?  (sure, you need that skill type for more important things, but observe that you have a little left-over "spare pixels" during each application of the skill for the important stuff...)

That's the concept anyway.  You'd be surprised how hard it is to apply this idea to actually get a working solution. The spoiler explains all the annoying things getting in your way...

Quote from: full 2-basher solution
Start by stomping down at the position shown in screenshot A.  When stomping breaks through, exactly 3 lemmings will fall down facing right, bunched closely together.  Make the front one pour glue after he walked 1 pixel (screenshot B), so the other 2 overtake him.

Now make the one at the back runner when the glue has gone to about the horizontal midpoint of that block at the ceiling with the "wavy water" glyph (screenshot C).  He will overrun the front walker; make runner jump before he overtakes the glue and falls (screenshot D).  [The reason we pick the back lemming be the runner has to do with later moves and how the game prioritize which lemming to select when there are multiple ones under the cursor.]

The runner will jump clear over the gap.  Make him stomp immediately after he turns around the wall facing left [screenshot E] (ideally we want him to stomp while still facing right, but it turns out there's subtle difference in the positioning of the stomper tunnel for left-facing and right-facing stomper, a difference that would ruin the solution if you stomp with a right-facing lemming, even if as close to the wall as possible).

When lemming still walking on the glue reaches the exact position shown in screenshot F, jump him.  He will land inside the stomper pit, wait for him to head all the way to the right end, and assign him basher while he's still facing right (but just about to turn left) [screenshot G].  Immediately switch skill to jumper and assign the stomper lemming jumper ASAP, position the mouse cursor carefully to not touch the basher (screenshot H).  This will stop the stomper just moments before his 4th stomp.

[As the screenshots show, what happens is that some of the leftover glue from the glue pourer will re-form a wall for the left edge of the pit, closing up what the stomper broke through during his 3rd stomp.  But unfortunately, there are additional leftover glue that will then quickly solidify on the floor of the pit itself, which would cause the pit floor to be 5 rather than 6 pixels below ground level, and you need 6 for the one basher to go through both walls.  This is why we need to send 2 lemmings over, instead of sending just 1 and reusing the stomper for the bashing.  We needed the basher to start bashing before those final pixels of glue would've solidified and raised the pit floor.]

Now, when the basher has just broken thru the 2nd wall, use a jumper to stop him at mid-stroke such that it makes steps the lemmings can walk up by (screenshot J).  Wait for the runner to just have overtaken the front walker (screenshot K), then jump the runner clear over the gap ahead.  Immediately switch skill to glue pourer and assign it to the walker lemming (screenshot L).  [The reason we don't glue-pour first and then jump the runner is because doing so greatly increases the risk of the glue overtaking the final basher before he breaks through the wall.]

The runner should be sufficiently ahead that, if you assign him basher as close to the wall as possible (screenshot M), he will be able to break through it before the glue overtakes him (screenshot N).  Use the remaining jumper to jump the runner over the final gap and you're finally done!

Anyway, final result:  1 stomper, 2 bashers, 2 glue pourers.

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #29 on: April 26, 2010, 05:44:00 AM »
Oops.  I should have caught that no-jumper solution for Egyptian 5.  :-[  And you're right, it can be modified for a much easier no-runner solution than what I found.  Good job, though.

Anyway, continuing on with some more of Egyptian:

Egyptian 6:  I shouldn't have to explain why this one is none.

Egyptian 7:  It appears that both the stomper and the laser blaster are needed.  The SuperLemming in the 3-skill solution can easily be replaced with other skills, so the result is 1 stomper & 1 laser blaster.

Egyptian 8:  The easiest solution uses 2 stompers, 2 fencers, 2 platformers, an attractor, and a jumper.  One of the stompers can be replaced with a third fencer, and the jumper is used to release the attractor, and can therefore be replaced with just about anything.  In addition, I came up with a neat no-fencer solution using ccexplore's "pole vault into the wall" glitch.  This solution also eliminates the attractor and uses just one platformer, so the result is 1 stomper & 1 platformer.

Quote from: Egyptian 8 No Fencer Hint
Basically you have to follow the regular solution, except that you can take a short cut about halfway down by using the pole vaulter glitch.  Then you can do the rest of the level normally.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #30 on: April 26, 2010, 06:56:30 PM »
Good work on Egyptian 8 no-fencer, I might've overlooked it myself if you haven't pointed out the possibility.

As for Egyptian 7, no stomper is confirmed possible:

Quote from: hint
If you get someone down there to laser quick enough and laser as left as possible (also make sure the lasering lemming himself is facing left), with some luck in timing, only 3 lemmings will end up heading to the right of the sphinx below the entrance, allowing you to use the remaining non-stomper skills to get those 3 lemmings out of that area.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #31 on: April 27, 2010, 09:46:50 AM »
Outdoor 8: Evidently it's only platformers, question is how many. I concieved a solution using only 3 of them, sadly it runs out of time, so no result yet.

Well, I haven't seen any updates on this for a while, so I'm going to put in a result I can confirm at this point, a 4-platformer solution.  I actually still haven't even quite figured out yet what your 3-platformer attempt-solution is, out of time or not. :XD: (Interestingly, my 4-platformer also takes up most of the clock, with less than 20 seconds left when finished.)

Offline geoo

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #32 on: April 27, 2010, 08:44:14 PM »
Vaguely remembering my 3-platformer attempt, I had another go at it, and it's a lot easier to execute that what I remembered, but still runs short of time (but now about 5 seconds instead of a minute or so, from what I recall). Here's a brief outline, perhaps you can improve on it:

Quote
Wait for everyone to be out, then have the attractor fence, and have someone bomb before falling off the edge. The entire crowd but one should be flung over both gaps. When reaching the pit in the way upwards, have one lemmings stomp 3px below the local peak, while going downwards. After one stomp, platform. Remaining should be a 5 pixel high step with a pixel at the top so that the climber won't be able to surpass it. Climb/slide the hero, and scoop leftwards down to the crowd (can also use the fencer in addition). The crowd is still contained in the pit with the platform, but scooping will lower the ledge so they can step out. Platform over the scooper gap with a single separated lemming (the former stomper) at the top, while attracting the crowd for a while. Free the attractor with a fencer, fence through the mushroom platform before the exit and watch the screen fade out barely before the lemmings enter the exit.

Does fast forwarding at the end actually give a timing advantage while the screen fades out, like it did in Cheapo?

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #33 on: April 28, 2010, 01:48:36 AM »
Ah I see, so that's what I was missing; I underestimated the power of the fling.

Does fast forwarding at the end actually give a timing advantage while the screen fades out, like it did in Cheapo?

Using a test level I can confirm that yes, it does give a timing advantage just like in Cheapo.  But testing shows it only gains you about slightly more than 2 game seconds, so I think you'll need to optimize your solution a bit more still before the FF will help (if you haven't taken advantaged of it already).  I had a brief try at your solution and I'm afraid so far I'm not seeing much room for improvement time-wise (and I think you probably have better timing at it than I do at this point).  Good effort nonetheless.

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #34 on: April 29, 2010, 05:10:51 AM »
And here's the rest of Egyptian:

Egyptian 9:
  • The minimum skills solution uses two bombers, two bashers, three stompers, and a platformer.
  • Bombers are not used in the standard solution.
  • I've eliminated the platformer by following a path similar to the minimum skills route, but without the crawling (see spoiler).
  • I haven't found any way to reduce the stompers or bashers from the minimum skills solution, so the result is 2 bashers & 3 stompers.

Egyptian 10:
  • I posted a 9-skill solution in the minimum skills thread that uses only sand pourers, glue pourers, and the mortar, so all other skills can be eliminated.
  • Sand pourers can be eliminated using a minor modification of ccexplore's 7-skill solution (see spoiler).
  • One of the glue pourers can be eliminated (see spoiler).
  • So the result for this one comes down to just 1 glue pourer & 1 mortar.

Quote from: Spoiler
Egyptian 9 No Platformer:  Follow ccexplore's minimum skills solution up until the point when you assign the last bomber.  Instead of a bomber, assign a left basher, and the lemmings will get stuck in the space underneath the water.  Wait for the last lemming to come out, and make him jump before he joins crowd.  He should fall on a small ledge below; make him stack to turn around (to the right).  Now bash, stomp, and bash to get him to the exit.  Finally, release the crowd with a basher or a bomber.

Egyptian 10 No Sand Pourer:  The only difference between this and ccexplore's 7-skill solution is how you turn the hopper back to the right after applying the hopper glitch.  In this case, you simply need to let him hop down the pyramid and before he takes his last hop, jump him to the tall pillar on the left.  He hits it and turns back to the right.

Egyptian 10 One Glue Pourer:  Again, this is a variation of ccexplore's 7-skill solution.  Follow his route for most of the level, but do not make the leader a slider; instead make him a sand pourer on the piece of flat terrain to the right of the pyramid to turn him around.  Now let him drop down the gaps that you would ordinarilly glue pour over and give him some more sand pourers.  You need to get the sand as high as possible, and then make the lemming a rock climber so that he can climb back up.  Let him walk to the left and make him a glue pourer once he turns around.  The sand should prevent the glue from going too far down, so both gaps are covered with one glue pourer.  Now release the crowd with a mortar.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #35 on: April 30, 2010, 01:05:46 AM »
Looks like I'll be too busy until the weekend to look into those levels in detail, but I was able to quickly spot a very simple improvement to your Egyptian 9 result (improving to 1 basher, 2 stompers) using a simple modification of my min-skill solution:

Quote from: hint
Start by stacking and jumping, to get a hero over the block near the entrance, while keeping the crowd trapped between the stack and the block.

Now you can eliminate one of the stompers by platforming over the entire pit where the trap is and bashing across the pillar, instead of stomping at the trap trigger and bashing underneath the pillar.  Alternatively, you can eliminate the basher you use on the block by instead using 2-3 stompers (plus possibly another platformer, depending on how exactly you do it) to clear the block.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #36 on: May 01, 2010, 06:39:26 AM »
Ok, here's a better improvement for Egyptian 9.  I'm able to reduce stompers down to 1.  This is actually a solution based on the standard solution that goes across the water to get to the exit approaching from its right.  See screenshots and hints.

Quote from: hints
(hints listed in increasing details)
1) The stomper is used on the left side of the water.
2) Bombers are all you need for getting past the final steel block you encounter before the exit (to its right).
3) It'd be nice to use the stacker on the right side of the water, but it'll turn out you need it on the left side.  This means you'll need to get up to the base of the pillar (above the steel it rests on) using only bashers.
4) While the solution might not necessarily depend on this, you should test out the details of how exactly the steel stops a basher, especially for a basher that's partially above steel.
5) You will need to assign a walker lemming a skill while he's close to another lemming already doing another skill.  Use mouse cursor placement to make it work.

Quote from: full solution
Similar to the min-skill solution, start by bashing through the block and then start stomping very close to the trap trigger (in fact, as close as is safely possible is preferred, like screenshot A).  After exactly 13 stomps, assign basher to a walker lemming standing at the very right edge of the stomper tunnel (but still facing right).  You can do this if you keep your mouse cursor as far right as possible while still touching the lemming (screenshot B).  Now wait for 5 more stomps and then assign stacker to the stomper, to stop the stomping at a specific elevation (namely 4 below the nearby steel block to the right) (screenshots C, D). Let the basher platform over the water, then have him walk back to join the crowd (screenshot D).

Have someone in the crowd left of the stack bash to the right once nearly everyone is in the pit.  If you follow the exact timings given in the screenshot, you can ensure the basher faces right by assigning it just before the last lemming starts falling into the pit (screenshot D).  The result is screenshot E, where due to the quirky way the steel stops your basher in mid-bash, it results in a step that leads up onto the earlier basher tunnel.  (We might not need to do it like this, but having the steel stop the bashing like this does prevent the crowd from getting too spread out, as they would milling around a lengthening bash tunnel.)

Now as shown in screenshot F, have the front lemming of the crowd start bashing at the position shown.  This should later result in a lemming in the crowd overtaking the basher in mid-stroke, so that the overtaking lemming momentary steps up to the transient step created in the middle of a bash stroke (screenshot G).  Assign him basher and you'll have created the steps needed to get up to the base of the pillar (and above the steel) using only bashers (screenshot H).  Have a lemming in the back of the crowd bash across the pillar, jump down (see screenshot I for position to start jumping from), platform across the gap after he turns to the left, and finally use the two bombers to complete the path to the exit (screenshot J).  You have plenty of time to do this before the rest of the crowd catches up.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #37 on: May 02, 2010, 01:34:03 PM »
It took some effort, but finally I found a way to eliminate the glue pourer and the mortar for Egyptian 10, leaving a final result of none for that level.  Both involve a new solution route which is explained in the hint (I will start by saying there's crawling).

Quote from: hint
For both the no-mortar and the no-glue-pourer solutions, the route to the exit involves getting the crowd to the bottom-left opening of the pyramid.  At that area, notice the 45-degrees slope of the ceiling.  Imagine the 45-degrees slope of a sand-hill placed immediately against the slope of the ceiling, and you should realize it's a great way to create a crawling trigger spot, allowing the lemmings to crawl up onto the sides of the pyramid facing right, where their walking eventually leads to the exit.

Quote from: no mortar solution details
This solution consists of 5 tasks, done roughly in the order presented below (some tasks may be best done at the same time):

[letters in brackets refer to screenshots you can look at]

A) set up lower left exit of pyramid for crawling:  use a shimmier and a hopper (a la ClamSpammer's hopper glitch) to get a lemming outside the pyramid [A-C].  He will end up heading left [E].  To prevent him from heading left all the way to oblivion, make him shimmy just before he falls off the left side of the pyramid [H, I], or alternatively, make him pour sand once he's on flat ground to turn himself around.  The latter method wastes a sand-pourer but is probably a better choice (despite not used in my screenshots), because if you make a mistake in the rest of this task, you can hop the lemming off the peak of this sand hill to reach the wall at the left, where as a rock-climber it will turn your lemming back around to the right.  Once the lemming is facing right, assign him rock climber for later.

Now use sand pourers and optionally some glue pourers to create the sandhill crawling setup described in the hints.  The screenshots [J thru O] show a way to do it using 2 glue pourers and 4 sand pourers.  However, it can also be done using just 5 sand pourers alone, or perhaps a little more forgivingly, 5 sand pourers + 1 glue pourer.  I think the 5 sand pourers + 1 glue pourer way may actually be better, because this saves you a glue pourer you can use for task E.  In all cases, make sure to let the lemming take one step up after each pour, to prevent him from being turned around by the sand he finished pouring (though as explained earlier, if earlier you did the sand-hill-on-the-left thing instead of shimmying to turn around, then I guess it's not as big a deal to get turned around here).

After your last sand-pouring, if you're lucky, the sand-hill will properly connect with the side of the pyramid allowing you to directly walk up to it to rock-climb it [screenshot O].  If not, then you should still be able to assign hopper to the lemming to hop him onto the wall, where as rock-climber he will climb up it.  Anyway, you're done with that lemming now, he'll be able to exit on his own.

B) Allow the crowd to get out of the first pit area:  you can use 4 sand pourers + 1 glue pourer for this.  Use the first 3 sand pourers to create a sand hill near the left wall of the pit, a sandhill whose peak is almost at the height of the bottom edges of the little squares on the pit's top [D-F].  Then pour glue to basically fill up the entire left side of the hill up to the height of the peak [G, H].  Finally use the 4th sand pourer to make the hill just high enough for escape to the left [P].  You may want to defer this though until you complete all the other tasks (so that the crowd's path to the exit is fully complete).

Although there may be slightly more optimal ways to escape the pit, the method above, particularly using the glue pourer, minimize the chance of having lemmings trapped in the area below the little square on the upper-left corner of the pit.

C) Allow the crowd to get across the next area:  just use 2 glue pourers [F-H].

D) Turn the crowd around so they don't head towards the trap to the right:  a single sandhill is just barely tall enough to block the hallway leading into the trap, if you start pouring at a pixel-precise location [I, J].

E) Get the crowd out of the final pit area:  the terrain is identical to task B, so again you can use 4 sand pourers + 1 glue pourer.  If you are out of glue pourers, you can also just use 4 sand pourers actually.  See screenshots [P-S].  Notice how without the glue pourer, there's a "hole" in the area immediately below the little square at the pit's upper-left corner, which for task B could result in trapped lemmings.  Together with the glue pourer making the final sand pouring more likely to get high enough, I'd recommend using a glue pourer on this if you haven't run out.

Quote from: no glue pourer solution details
This solution consists of 3 tasks, done roughly in the order presented below (although you'll need to actually need to start task B at some point while still handling task A):

[numbers in brackets refer to screenshots you can look at]

A) set up lower left exit of pyramid for crawling:  use a shimmier and a hopper (a la ClamSpammer's hopper glitch) to get a lemming outside the pyramid [1-4].  He will end up heading left [5].  To prevent him from heading left all the way to oblivion, make him shimmy just before he falls off the left side of the pyramid [6, 7].  Also assign rock-climber to the lemming.  Now use 5-7 sand pourers to create the sandhill crawling setup described in the hints.  Make sure to let the lemming take one step up after each pour, to prevent him from being turned around by the sand he finished pouring.  (See screenshots [10-15] for a pixel-precise example of how I did it.)  After the final sand-pourer, use a hopper to hop the lemming onto the nearby wall [15] so he can rock-climb up it to reach the side of the pyramid.

Save this lemming for task C as well.

B) set up a sand-hill (more like a sand-slope) at where the trap is, so lemmings can escape that pit heading to the right and down into the bottom of the pyramid:  you need a second hero lemming to handle this.  Like in task A, use a shimmier and a hopper to get a lemming outside the pyramid.  However, to prevent him from hopping left once he escapes the pyramid, assign him jumper (see screenshot [8] for the exact moment to do so) to stop the hopping, such that he will resume walking heading to the right [9].

Assign this lemming slider to allow him to head into the tunnel that's immediately below where the crowd is [16].  After he slides down the hole in the floor but before he release his grip and drops down [17], assign him shimmier to make him shimmy across to the right [18].  He will then slide down the wall he's heading towards [19]; after that, simply let him fall and he's now in the pit where the trap is [20].  Now use about 6-7 sand pourers to create a slope tall enough to allow him and the crowd to eventually escape heading to the right, where they can fall into the bottom of the pyramid [24].  [Your first sand pourer there obviously should cover up the trigger area of the trap.]

Note that this lemming will head to the exit via the same path as the crowd's, so make sure you have the crawling setup from task A ready in time for this lemming.  To prevent this lemming's slider ability from making him turn left back into the tunnel again when he comes off the right side of the pyramid, make him a hopper at the appropriate time [30, 31].

C) Once your rock climber from task A has move off the right side of the pyramid, make him pour a sand hill to turn himself around [22, 23], so he can head into the tunnel immediately below the crowd, where he can mortar to free the crowd [26].  To navigate around the holes in the floor, use hopper to jump the lemming onto the wall nearby so he can climb it [24,25].  You need to do the corresponding maneuver after he mortars [26,27], to lead your rock climber to exit the pyramid from the same tunnel he enters.  (You do NOT want your rock climber to take the path the crowd takes, because rock climbers cannot crawl.)

Once rock climber's out of the tunnel, he'll naturally make his way to the exit eventually, so you won't have to worry about him anymore.

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #38 on: May 02, 2010, 10:37:48 PM »
Wow!  Those solutions (especially Egyptian 10) are quite impressive!  :thumbsup:

My latest area of focus has been the Highland tribe.

Highland 5:
  • The pole vaulter and builders are obviously not needed/
  • Platformers and club bashers can be eliminated by using builders instead.
  • The first jumper can be avoided by having one lemming build out of his holding cell and then club bashing through the bridge.
  • The second jumper can be avoided by platforming such that the lemming drops down onto the chain when he's done.
  • The final result is therefore none.

Highland 6:  The two laser blasters and the two ropers are the only non-movement skills available, and they all apper to be necessary.  All of the other skills (surfers, jumpers, hang gliders, and the ballooner) are avoidable:
  • Surfers & jumpers:  Not used in the minimum skills solution.
  • Ballooner:  Simply use a hang glider instead.
  • Hang Gliders:  See spoiler.

Highland 7:  I got this down to a single platformer in the minimum skills thread.  This platformer is avoidable by using a bunch of stackers to deal with the gap that you would normally have to platform.  Unfortunately, this solution can easily get quite messy, and the cannon pause glitch only complicates matters -- if you pause at the wrong time, it can easily ruin the attempt.  But anyway, the result here is none.

Quote from: Spoiler
Highland 6 No Hang Glider:  Make a lemming from the left entrance a ballooner while he is walking left.  Blow him to the right and pop the balloon such that he lands on the steel.  Use surfers to get past the two pools of water on the left and laser blast to free the crowd (make sure the crowd gets hurt upon landing).  The leader should stay significantly ahead of the crowd such that he can fire a rope to avoid the left trap.  Everyone from the left entrance should now be able to reach the exit.

Make one of the lemmings jump over the exit and fire a rope to the ledge above and to the right of the right trap.  Now let him walk up this rope and laser blast to free the right group of lemmings.

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #39 on: June 27, 2010, 09:39:10 AM »
There hasn't been much action here in a couple of months, so lets see if I can get some started again.  Finishing up Highland:

Highland 8:  The four-skill solution requires two platformers, a basher, and a laser blaster.  The platformers are easily avoided by using jumpers instead, so I've got it down to 1 basher and 1 laser blaster.

Highland 9:  There's not much room for variation from the standard solution here, so it appears that 1 Icarus wings, 1 attractor, 2 flame throwers, and 2 platformers are all required.

Highland 10:  A three-skill solution exists using an attractor, an exploder, and a ballooner.  The 100% solution avoids the ballooner and exploder. and I've managed to eliminate the attractor using another solution (see hint).  So the result here is none.

Quote from: Highland 10 No Attractor Hint
One mortar holds the crowd back, while two lemmings go ahead.  If necessary, use jumpers to ensure that there isn't too much distance between these two lemmings.  They will fall in the water, but the first lemming explodes, "rescuing" the second lemming and sending him to the rock wall on the left, which he should get hurt on.  This lemming platforms 2x to cross the water, and then the other mortar is used to release the crowd.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #40 on: June 29, 2010, 09:41:13 AM »
Yeah sorry, I've been a bit busy lately with real life, and I figure what with summer vacation and World Cup happening, I'd leave the challenges alone temporarily if everyone's too distracted to work on any.  You'll note though that at least I'll keep the scoreboard up to date.

Anyway, I've taken a look w/ the latest levels.  Here's an improvement for Highland 9, which indeed turned out to be more tricky that appears if you try to vary from the standard solution.

Highland 9: no Icarus wings

See attached and screenshots.  Below spoiler explains in slightly more detail:

Quote from: spoiler
Use attractor to hold all but one lemming, who will float down and blast through the first wall it runs into w/ flamethrower.  Also make him rock climber.  Now when he's near the right end of the level, at the position shown in screenshot A, make him flamethrow the slope.  While flamethrowing, assign him runner and highlight the jumper in preparation for future skill assignments.  When the lemming starts running and reach the location in screenshot B, make him jump.  He will sort of "land" inside the ceiling, turn around (screenshot C), and then take a step up onto the ceiling over the top (screenshot D), from where you can jump him again (screenshot E) so he grasp onto the steel wall to the left as rock climber (screenshot F).

Once he's up top, he can jump over the exit so he can reach the place you normally get to using the wings and fanning, where you can complete the solution the standard way.

I also see some a potential no laser solution with Highland 8 (no, not the Tarzan solution), but it'll be troublesome and take some time to successfully execute... :XD:

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #41 on: June 30, 2010, 04:02:44 AM »
I thought of that route for Highland 9, but I didn't have any luck trying it out.  Good job!  :thumbsup:

Anyway, in honor of the World Cup, I figured I'd take a look at the Sports tribe:

Sports 3:  The minimum skills solution uses 3 platformers, an attractor, and something to release the attractor.  The attractor can be eliminated thanks to the large number of jumpers, which you can use to hold back the crowd.  Also, the second platformer can be replaced with fillers, so I'm left with 2 platformers.

Sports 4:  1 roper appears to be necessary to create a path for the crowd.  Everything else is avoided quite easily.

Sports 5:  The intended solution uses three stompers, a jumper, and a filler.  The filler can be avoided by using the direct backroute, so this leaves 3 stompers and 1 jumper.

Sports 6:  ccexplore's 4-skill solution uses a fencer, a super lemming, a roper, and a platformer.  The super lemming is easily avoided, and I've also eliminated the platformer and fencer in separate solutions (see hints).  The result is therefore 1 roper.

Quote from: Hints
Sports 6 No Fencer:  A platformer holds the crowd back while one lemming goes ahead.  He has to platform the gap to the right of the exit and explode on the non-steel part of the ceiling over the crowd.  The crowd then needs just one well-aimed roper through the exploder's crater to get to the exit.

Sports 6 No Platformer:  This is quite similar to ccexplore's minimum skills solution, except that the fencer explodes at the far left edge of the level.  The exploder's crater sets up a place where you can set up the crawling trick with just a roper, although you'll have to use jumpers to delay the crowd so that they stay away from the blast radius.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #42 on: June 30, 2010, 09:54:39 AM »
Good job with Sports 6.  Now an improvement on Sports 4:

Sports 4:  1 roper appears to be necessary to create a path for the crowd.

Here's a no-roper solution.  Disclaimer:  due to its utter repetitiveness, I technically haven't confirmed it in its entirety, but I feel I executed enough of it (see screenshots) to show that it works.  This is just like the 3-skill Medieval 9 solution, where (discounting the hard-to-reproduce glitch of totally messing up the dragon) it'd take superhuman patience to actually execute.

Quote from: hint
Pay attention to the distribution of skills...  Yep, you see how tedious it would get?  Actually it's even worse than you think, as nearly every single one of those skill assignments has to be all done at pixel-precise locations.

Quote from: spoiler
First, the easy part:  using 2 shimmiers as jumper-substitutes, get the first lemming outside and left of  the entrance area (screenshots A, B).  This gets him well ahead of everyone else.  When he's about to fall to his death on the tennis racket, use a jumper (screenshot C) so he lands safely (screenshot D) on the higher handle part of the racket.

After he falls off the racket handle onto lower ground, and before he falls into water, make him dive (screenshot E).  He'll land safely just on the left edge of the checkered block (screenshot F), where he can platform to reach the exit (screenshot G).

Now, the repetitive part:  It'd be nice if you have 60 divers, then all you need to do is to make everyone dive down onto the checkered block.  But instead you have 60 jumpers.  But that actually works too, if you jump each lemming immediately after they get up from the fall off the racket handle (screenshot H).  Jumping from that position will allow them to remain facing left as they fall, landing safely on the left edge of the checkered block (screenshot I-L).  But unfortunately, you must do each jump at that exact, pixel-precise location; otherwise they will reflect off the wall on the left and end up facing right instead.

Oh yeah, sorry about having 60 lemmings in the screenshots.  Yes, I freely admit I hacked the save file so I have a "all levels unlocked" savegame letting me reach every single level (I thought I had an old savegame from ages ago that does have every level, but somehow it's been lost), and no, I'm too lazy to actually make the number of lemmings reflect reality (which would mean I think 57 or 58 lemmings maximum on any level past Sports 1).  Obviously this has no impact on the solution though.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #43 on: July 04, 2010, 01:23:15 PM »
Having a little more time at the weekends, I managed another Sports improvement:

Sports 5:  <snip>so this leaves 3 stompers and 1 jumper.

I now have a 2-stomper solution.  (The 1 jumper remains.)

Quote from: hint
It's possible to use the filler to trigger the pouring lemming to crawl, up the left wall of the pit directly below the entrance trapdoor.

Quote from: detailed solution
1) Wait until the 4th lemming out has landed, then look for the next lemming to turn around at the left wall of the pit and has taken one step to the right (see screenshot A, time 8:52).
2) Pour at that exact position, and this will cause the lemming to crawl up the left wall of the pit after he finishes pouring (screenshot B).
3) Then let him take 4 steps forward before making him stomper (screenshot C), basically maximizing the width of wall he can stomp away. 
4) After he made his third stomp, look for the next lemming to turn around at the right wall of the pit.  At that exact moment (screenshot D; use the animation frame of the stomper as a reference), make the lemming jump to the left onto where the stomper is, keeping the mouse cursor as far to the right as possible to ensure you assign to the correct lemming (again see screenshot D).
5) Wait for the jumper to land and take one step, then assign him jumper again (screenshot E; use the animation frame and position of the lemming falling out of the entrance as reference).  In making that skill assigment, take care to keep the cursor position low, exactly as given in the screenshot.  If all goes well, you will jump the jumper rather than the stomper, and he will just barely get up on top without leaping too far left.
6) Now have him stomp away the remaining width of the wall (screenshot F), stopping the stompers with jumpers when appropriate, and you're done! (screenshot G)

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #44 on: July 05, 2010, 12:54:46 AM »
Good job once again!

Now to wrap up Sports:

Sports 7:  It appears that all four of the skills in the minimum-skill solution are required, which are 1 magno booter, 1 balloner, 1 laser blaster, & 1 platformer.

Sports 8:  This one unsurprisingly took a while to complete, but the end result was worth it.  Every single skill can be eliminated in separate solutions, which gives us a final result of None.  Most of the solutions are fairly straightforward, but I've provided hints and a spoiler for a couple of the tougher ones.

Sports 9:  1 Roper.  I shouldn't have to explain this one.

Quote from: Hints
Sports 8 No Fencer: Use the sliding trick to get up to the top of the tall steel wall that you would normally fence underneath.  The rest should be straightforward as long as you budget your skills well enough.

Sports 8 No Builders: This one was quite tough, as it requires you to be extremely conservative with the remaining building supplies.  I ended up taking an "upper route" by fencing to the billiard table to avoid some of the gaps below.  From the pool table you need just two stompers, a platformer, and a pole valuter (to stop the last stomper) to reach the exit.  Every single one of the remaining skills (except the builders, of course) was needed for the left side.  See the spoiler for the detailed solution.

Quote from: Sports 8 No Builders Spoiler
The first lemming stacks next to the protruding steel block while facing left.  When he has laid exactly six bricks, make him a SuperLemming and direct him to the small notch at the very top of the giant green wall on the right.  Make him an archer in this notch and fire an arrow so that it lands at an angle on top of the steel block that you stacked next to.  Now immediately make the leader a stomper; there must not be any terrain on the left side of his hole.  Make him a fencer when he is 3/4 of the way down the third large block.

If the fencer was started at the right time, he should go under the tennis racket and ball, and stop between the billiard cue and table.  Let him hit the table and turn around, and then platform when he gets back to where he started fencing.  When he goes back to the right, make him stomp right next to the billiard table.  The rest of the route to the exit uses a platformer, a stomper, and a pole vaulter, and should be straightforward.

Now you still have to free the crowd.  Make one lemming a SuperLemming and direct him to the arrow that the leader fired earlier.  Make him platform from the top of this arrow.  When he hits the pipe, fire an arrow so that the lemmings will be able to reach the top of this pipe.  Now go back down to the crowd and make a right-facing lemming stack right next to the first stacker's bricks.  Stop him with a pole vaulter after he lays three bricks, and the crowd should be free to head to the exit.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #45 on: July 28, 2010, 01:15:16 PM »
Sports 5:  <snip>so this leaves 3 stompers and 1 jumper.

I now have a 2-stomper solution.  (The 1 jumper remains.)

And completely unexpectedly, due to my discovery of the glitch that allows you to survive the bouncing ball of death via framestepping, I now have a no-jumper solution for Sports 5!

I've simply attached the DOSBox video for this one.  Unfortunately while the video makes it look so easy, in fact it's incredibly timing-reliant and very difficult to replicate.  The spoiler section has additional explanations.

Quote from: spoilers
Since there's still no way to do frame-stepping with 100% reliability, I've taken an approach of trying to avoid having to do frame-stepping for every lemming to make sure each survive the fall through the ball (yes, the ball will kill even falling lemmings, and the trigger area's unexpectedly tall). 

Unfortunately, the timing that allows survival without frame-stepping every lemming through the ball seems to be incredibly specific, and may be affected by the side effect that sometimes the ball still advances by one frame unpredictably despite the frame-stepping.  I can only offer the advice of trying to follow the video as exactly as possible and hope that it works out for you.  If not, you'll have to compensate by managing every lemming that falls through the ball, frame-stepping as needed to make sure they all survive (I find in my setup that if you don't frame-step and did not get the lucky timing shown in the video, about 1 out of every 4 lemming will be killed.)  Good luck.

In fact, I've found that even when you manage like the video to get things to a state where you don't have to frame-step anymore, you have to avoid fast-forward the game from that point.  Something with the fast-forward will somehow mess up the timing and causes lemmings to get killed again while falling through the ball.  Man, the ball sure is glitchy......

[edit: D'oh!  the video is too big for attachments (6 MB).  I'll try lemmingswelt and see if that works...]
[edit2: zip file of video tentatively uploaded to fileden: http://www.fileden.com/files/2010/7/15/2915232/Sports5_nojumper.zip]

======================

And in case anyone's wondering about Sports 1, unfortunately right now the most reliable framestepping technique is still not reliable enough for me to successfully manage any Sports 1 solutions meaningful to this particular challenge thread. :(  Maybe in the future.  But I do have a working Sports 1 solution for some other sort of challenge.

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #46 on: November 27, 2010, 07:25:30 AM »
I think it's time to bring this thread back to life since we're not done with it yet.  I did some work on the first half of Space, and here's what I came up with:

Space 2: 1 platformer is needed to clear the exit path.  Everything else is pretty easily avoidable.

Space 3: I'm not certain about this one because I don't know what skills are used in ccexplore's min-skill solution.  Regardless, it looks like 1 platformer, 1 fencer, and 1 stomper are all required.  If the min-skill solution requires anything like jumpers, those will have to be added, as well.

Space 4:  This is another fun level that comes down to none.  I've included a couple hints on how to eliminate stompers and club bashers.  The other skills shouldn't be too difficult.

Space 5:  The min-skills solution uses just a ballooner, a roper, and a bomber.  The ballooner can be eliminated easily, leaving just 1 roper & 1 bomber.

Quote from: Hints
Space 4 no stomper:  Use mortars to achieve the same general effect as a stomper.

Space 4 no club basher:  I ended up using the crawling trick to get up a couple of floors in the "vortex" to where you can drop down to the thing that looks like a flying saucer on the far right side of the level.  From there, I mortared into the far right wall and stomped down to the exit.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #47 on: November 28, 2010, 12:30:28 AM »
Thanks, I've updated the table in the first post of this thread with your results, and I'll try to add/improve some results in the future as well.

I'll have to review my min-skill Space 3 solution, but I'm 99% sure it did not use any jumpers, just the 3 core skills you listed.

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #48 on: December 01, 2010, 05:58:34 AM »
And here's the rest of Space:

Space 6: The runner is not needed in the standard solution because there is enough time to get by without it.  The hopper is also avoidable, but it looks like everything else from the min-skills solution (1 filler, 1 shimmier, 1 climber, & 1 spearer) is needed.

Space 7: None.  All skills can be removed pretty easily in separate solutions.

Space 8: The stomper, stacker, and two laser blasters from the min-skills solution all appear to be necessary.  The rock climber can be substituted with a stacker in the Tarzan route.

Space 9: The presence of a crawling route and the variety of different building skills allow everything but ropers to be eliminated.  I've got it down to 2 ropers.

Space 10: The glue pourer and at least one jumper appear to be needed.  A few bazookas are also required, but I'm not sure how many.  Everything else is avoidable.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #49 on: December 06, 2010, 09:40:13 PM »
Sorry for the delay.  I've updated my tables for Space 6-9, and I will update the table for Space 10 once I do a check for how many bazookas.  I'm busy though, so that may not happen for a few days, we'll see.

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #50 on: December 10, 2010, 07:08:35 AM »
Christmas is just over two weeks away, and it is freezing cold outside where I live, so I figure now is as good a time as any to look at the Polar tribe.

Polar 4:  This is an easy level, so it is only appropriate that the result is an easy none.

Polar 5:  Given the large variety of explosives and other ground removing skills, those can all be eliminated fairly easily.  Fillers are easily avoided, as is the jumper.  That leaves just ropers, and so I came up with a relatively routine result of 2 ropers.

Polar 6:  The three-skill solution uses a thrower, a stomper, and an attractor.  The thrower can be avoided using a club basher and then stopping him with a filler or jumper.  The attractor is also avoidable because you can make a holding cell for the crowd.  This leaves just 1 stomper.

Polar 7:  The four-skill solution uses a jumper, two platformers, and a bomber.  The bomber is easily avoided, and you can fling someone over the first gap to avoid the jumper.  I've also eliminated the platformers by using the other skills to bridge the gaps (see hint), so the final result is none.

Quote from: Hint
Use a stacker and two throwers to deal with the first gap, and use two archers for the second gap.  Some precision is needed in the placement of these skills to ensure that the gaps are completely bridged.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #51 on: December 12, 2010, 04:23:38 AM »
Finally updated with latest results.  Also, Space 10 now has results put in as well, I verified that 2 is sufficient for number of bazookas.  I think I explained the idea already in the min-skills thread but repeated below:

Quote from: 2 bazookas to get everyone out (highlight to read)
Get a lemming into the right half of the pit below the entrance, and have him bazooka away the barrier in the middle of the pit, after every lemming has come out.  The bazooka will eliminate the barrier, fling your lemming out the pit, and compress the rest of the crowd on the left half of the pit (by flinging them against the left wall of the pit) to a smaller spread.  The compression makes it possible to fling everyone out with a 2nd bazooka (fired on the left wall of the pit when the crowd's very close to it).

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #52 on: December 12, 2010, 05:00:32 AM »
Oops...  :-[

Change Polar 5 to 2 ropers.  I don't quite know what I was thinking when I posted my result earlier.  Anyway, here's what I have for the rest of Polar:

Polar 8:  Jumpers, throwers, and the magno-booter are all easily avoidable.  Since you can lose up to three lemmings and still get Gold, the two fencers can be replaced with exploders.  The result is therefore 1 exploder and 2 platformers.

Polar 9:  The min-skills route uses a roper, an archer, a superlem, and two builders.  The roper and archer can be avoided in the standard solution, and the superlem can be replaced with a skier+jumper in the beginning.  I also elminated builders in a variant of the min-skills route (see hint), so the result here is none.

Polar 10:  The level can be completed with just twisters and glue pourers.  Twisters are avoidable if you take the upper route, so I've got a result of 2 glue pourers.

Quote from: Hint
Like the first gap, the second gap can also be crossed with just one archer.  The gap up by the exit can be covered with the last two archers.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #53 on: December 13, 2010, 03:28:46 PM »
Ok, I'm slowly getting back into the game of this.  Here's my first new result in months:  a no-platformer solution for Polar 8.

I'll try to explain better later today, for now, a quick summary below, and you can try to piece together the details in the attached screenshots.

Quote from: spoiler
The idea is to fling the entire left crowd over to the right with an explosion, so that the left lemmings end up taking the same path to the exit as the right lemmings.

To fling, we must compress the left crowd down to a much more flingable size.  This is accomplished with a setup of throwers that is reminiscent of what I did in Highland 4.  The first thrower you can done with someone from the left entrance, but the 2nd thrower you'll need to do with someone from the right entrance.

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #54 on: December 14, 2010, 05:44:56 AM »
I just finished working on a few Classic levels, and here's what I came up with:

Classic 4: The minimum skills route uses a digger, a basher, a blocker, three builders, and two miners.  I can eliminate one of the miners using a slight variation of this route (this loses one lemming, but that is still good for Gold).  The digger and blocker can be eliminated using the regular route.  I'm still left with 3 builders, 1 miner, and 1 basher that I haven't been able to avoid.

Classic 5: Unfortunately, I haven't found anything better than the minimum skills solution, which uses 1 blocker, 1 builder, 5 bashers, 1 miner, and 1 digger.

Classic 6: 
  • No climbers, floaters, or bombers are used in the min-skills route, and blockers are easily avoided, as well. 
  • Diggers are not too hard to avoid if you take the higher route just before the small pool of water.  This involves sending a floater down and catching the others with bridges.  Miners can be avoided in a similar manner.
  • You need one builder to clear the pool of water, but builders can be avoided elsewhere.
  • I also eliminated bashers by using a climber/miner to deal with the final obstacle.

The result for Classic 6 is therefore 1 builder.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #55 on: December 14, 2010, 12:55:23 PM »
Oops...  :-[

Change Polar 5 to 2 ropers.  I don't quite know what I was thinking when I posted my result earlier.

As it turns out, a 1-roper solution does exist for Polar 5!  A well-positioned, well-aimed roper is just barely possible to reach the island with the penguin.  See attached screenshots.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #56 on: December 16, 2010, 01:16:34 AM »
Space 8: The stomper, stacker, and two laser blasters from the min-skills solution all appear to be necessary.

There was some confusion here with regards to the min-skill solution for Space 8.  Originally I did use a stacker, but that proved to be unnecessary and later I reported that Space 8 can be done with 4 skills only (2 laser blasters, 1 stomper and 1 rock climber).  So this takes out the stacker.

The stomper can also be eliminated in the standard solution.  Typically it is used either to create a path for someone from the left entrance to get onto the chain, or to make sure no one heads right when you laser at the bottom part of the level.  The former you can take a different path, and the latter can be done without skill usage by relying on timing.  I've attached screenshots for such a no-stomper solution.

So final result for Space 8 is just the 2 laser blasters.

As for Space 9, the crawling just requires 1 roper and 1 platformer to set up, and the rest of the crawling solution can easily be done without ropers (see spoilers below for one approach).  So it's just 1 roper for Space 9.

Quote from: spoilers (as if you need it)
Stack against the steel block to get up to it, but make sure to stop the stacking (eg. via a dummy filler) after 8 stack-bricks, so the crowd can later get over the stack and onto the steel block using a builder.  Hero build and platform to reach the place where you set up crawling.

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #57 on: December 16, 2010, 05:17:56 AM »
There was some confusion here with regards to the min-skill solution for Space 8. 

That confusion resulted because the score was never updated on the original post in that thread.

Anyway, I took a brief break from Classic to improve on an earlier result:

Polar 1:  No Glue Pourer.  Once again, the fling proves to be quite powerful.  The basic idea here is to fling everyone over the pit that you would normally glue pour over.  Some of the specifics on how to do this are given in the spoiler below, but be warned that it took me dozens of tries to get the timing right even after I had the general idea down.  But anyway, the result for Polar 1 is now improved to None.

Quote from: Spoiler
Wait for everyone to come out of the entrance hatch, and then use two bazookas to blast out of the pit you're initially stuck in.  In the process of doing so, the crowd must be bunched down to a flinging-friendly size.  Next, make one lemming a runner, and make him a flame thrower to get to the right side of the level.  This runner then uses two more bazookas from the steel (or just above it) to blast free the path to the exit.  I also used a mortar to widen the gap.  The runner ultimately ends up in the pit, hopefully getting there several seconds before the rest of the crowd.

This is where the timing gets extremely hairy.  The runner has to fire a mortar at the far left edge of the pit, while the crowd is just above him about to fall in.  If the timing works out right, the entire crowd should be flung to the exit, except for the runner.  Fortunately, there are still two mortars left.  I used the first one from the left side of the pit, facing right, which obliterated the overhang.  The last mortar is used in the same place, facing left, and it flings the runner to the exit.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #58 on: December 16, 2010, 10:28:27 AM »
Nice work! 8) :thumbsup:  I've attached screenshots of a successful attempt I have, following your spoilers.

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #59 on: December 20, 2010, 05:22:47 AM »
And here's the rest of Classic:

Classic 7:  The min-skills solution uses a blocker, a digger, and three builders.  The blocker is not needed in the 100% solution, and one of the builders is avoidable, leaving 1 digger and 2 builders.

Classic 8:  The min-skills solution uses a blocker, a builder, two bashers, a miner, and a digger.  All I was able to eliminate was the blocker, using the 100% solution.  This leaves 1 builder, 2 bashers, 1 miner, and 1 digger.

Classic 9: 
  • Floaters and bombers are obviously not needed
  • Blockers are avoidable without too much difficulty
  • The basher and miners aren't needed due to the large number of diggers
  • The climber can be avoided using a variant of the min-skills solution

This leaves just builders and diggers, and I've got those down to 4 builders and 1 digger.

Classic 10:  My latest min-skills solution uses a builder, a blocker, two climbers, and either a basher or a miner.  The blocker is obviously not needed, and I've also eliminated one of the climbers (see hint), leaving 1 builder & 1 climber.

Quote from: Classic 10 Hint
Climb up the left side, and have the climber mine right before he exits.  If done properly, the climber won't exit, but the crowd will be able to exit when they walk up his tunnel.  This saves a builder, which can be used in place of a climber on the right side of the level.

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #60 on: July 31, 2014, 07:35:39 AM »
After three and a half years of neglect, I've finally decided to put some more attention to this challenge, and I was able to get Classic 1 done to None.  It turns out that the crowd can reach the exit via the small wooden staircase at the far right by using a combination of digging skills to prepare the route for the crowd (no sliding necessary).  This eliminates the two builders previously thought to be needed.

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #61 on: August 04, 2014, 08:23:01 AM »
And here are some results from Medieval:

3: 1 stomper -- The 3-skill solution from the min-skills thread uses a stomper, an exploder, and a roper.  The exploder is avoided using the 100% solution, and the roper is not needed in the intended route, leaving just the stomper.

5: 2 bombers, 2 builders, & 1 club basher -- The same as the min skills result.  I haven't found a way to eliminate any of these skills.

6: 3 twisters & 1 platformer -- Mostly based on the min skills result, except that one less twister can be used by going the regular way.

7: None -- The min-skills solution uses just a stomper and three fencers.  Although the stomper can be eliminated easily, the no-fencer solution actually works out to be a tough challenge.  See hint for details.

Quote from: Medieval 7 No Fencers Hint
It is possible to trigger crawling by using a stomper+jumper+archer+platformer.  This can be done twice to get past the two tall towers in the beginning, and the remaining skills are sufficient to complete the rest of the level.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #62 on: August 04, 2014, 08:04:43 PM »
Thanks, all results updated in OP now.  Totally didn't realize there were still many levels with no reported results yet, I guess "neglect" sounds about right. :XD:

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #63 on: August 06, 2014, 03:31:05 AM »
And here are some results from Medieval:

3: 1 stomper

I'm 99.99% sure at the moment that a no-stomper solution is possible as well.  This is a fairly simple route that catapaults every lemming, making use of the pause glitch for cannons/catapaults to speed up the process so you don't run out of time.

And indeed, the reason it's almost but not exactly 100% confirmed is because on my last attempt, the very last lemming still ran out of time (and an exploder is used so I do need to save that lemming for gold).  However, I did have 5 spare jumpers and it was pretty close time-wise, so I'm fairly sure I can make up for the time with the spare jumpers.  Will update this post once it's confirmed, but for now I feel comfortable updating the result already in the original post.

I notice the glitch post I linked to didn't quite explain how the glitch speeds up the process of lemmings using a cannon/catapault. (although it's pretty obvious when you see the glitch in action).  There's probably already an explanation somewhere on this forum since I think it had been used previously in other challenges solutions, but I can't find it so I'll just quickly (re?)explain here:  basically you pause as soon as a lemming starts entering the cannon/catapault, and wait a few seconds.  The following will happen, depending on the object in question:

- for the catapault, it will start the firing animation immediately after you unpause.  The lemming itself doesn't actually get thrown until the normal time after it finishes its "climbing into catapault" animation (ie. its movement becomes decoupled from the catapault's firing animation, which basically happened early as a result of the glitch); however, the catapault becomes available for use again once it finishes its firing animation, so this glitch makes the catapault be able to accept incoming lemmings faster than normal--indeed at the given release rate of Medieval 3, the glitch makes it just fast enough to accept incoming stream of lemmings with basically no skips.

- for the cannon:  [caveat: following description may have some inaccuracies since I have to recall from memory]  The cannon will actually continue and finishes its firing animation while the game is paused, even though the lemming itself does not move or animate during the pause.  So when you unpause, it is possible for the cannon to have finished firing already even though the lemming hasn't actually finished climbing into the cannon yet!  In this case (and unlike the catapault), the lemming actually can only get shot out at time of the firing animation, so by making the firing happen during pause, we effectively "skip over" the firing and cause the lemming to get stuck in the cannon instead.  But again, the cannon becomes available for use by next lemming faster this way.  You can "unstuck" the lemmings by making the cannon fire again normally, without the influence of pausing, and all the previous stuck lemmings will all get shot out alongside the lemming that actually triggered the firing.

Offline LemSteven

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #64 on: August 06, 2014, 06:42:17 AM »
^ Good catch there.  I had assumed that there was not enough time to get everyone to use the catapult, even with the pause glitch.  Evidently that is not the case.

Anyway, here are the remaining Medieval levels:

8: None -- At first glance, it appears that stompers, bombers, and platformers are all necessary, but this turns out not to be the case.  I've provided hints below on how to get rid of each one.

10: None -- Each skill can be eliminated in separate solutions without too much difficulty.

Quote from: Medieval 8 Hints
No Stomper: Use your five bombers to break through the first obstacle, drop down the balloon shaft, and platform to the gray ledge underneath the exit.  From here, use platformers and fillers to get everyone to crawl to the exit.

No Bomber: The same general idea as the no stomper solution, except that you'll have to send one lemming down and balloon up to the other side of the initial wall.  From here, the remaining eight stompers are just enough to break through the wall.

No Platformer: Use a bomber to fling an attractor-compressed crowd over the gap.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #65 on: August 07, 2014, 12:02:34 AM »
OP updated.  I've also fully confirmed no-stomper for Medieval 3, with attached screenshots.  Turns out I probably don't even need the spare jumpers, I just need to be as flawless as possible with the execution of the pause glitch for the catapault, making sure that there are basically no breaks at all in the incoming stream of lemmings for catapault usage.  The screenshots show for example at least 13 seconds left on the timer in this successful attempt.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: Lemmings 2: What skills can't you live without for gold?
« Reply #66 on: August 07, 2014, 05:52:16 AM »
5: 2 bombers, 2 builders, & 1 club basher -- The same as the min skills result.  I haven't found a way to eliminate any of these skills.

I finally get a 1-builder solution working for Medieval 5.  It's conceptually simple but took forever to find the pixel-precise places I apparently need to assign certain skills in order for the solution to actually work out successfully, so I'm not surprised it was hard to find and confirm.  I've attached a set of screenshots depicting the moves.  Screenshot A and E are where the skill assignments need to be exactly where the screenshots tell you to do them at.  Also as seen in screenshot B, it is probably important for the second lemming out to get affected by the attractor as soon as possible without walking too much farther, so that he doesn't become separated from the rest of the crowd later.  So you might need to restart at the beginning if things don't work out with that lemming (given the "randomness" with how much time it takes before each lemming reacts to the attractor).