1) Do Cloners count towards the amount saved?
2) You start with 25 of each skill at the start, and carry over what you don't use to the next level each time?
3) We don't get to choose the order in which the levels are played?
1. Yes, they do.
2. Your entire set of replays for the 20 levels, combined, must not use more than 25 of each skill.
3. I'll most likely distribute the selected levels in a pack where they're ordered alphabetically, but there's no reason why the order matters in the first place. What matters is the total amount of lemmings you save - this is specifically
not an L2-like case where you carry over lemmings from one level to the next. You can pick and choose which levels you actually complete, if you are not able to complete all of them with the skills you have.
I'd also suggest making the save requirement for each level 1 lemming.
It is perfectly acceptable to have some levels where you do not save
any lemmings, although a 1 lemming requirement might be good for technical reasons re: replay autosaving.
It has also come up on Discord; should entrants be allowed to pick the same skill twice (for the 2nd constructive / destructive selection and/or the free-choice selection), and get 50 of that one skill at the cost of sacrificing an extra skill type?
My initial reaction to this is "no, it must be 8 different skills with 25 uses each". However, I'm open to this. The questions that then arise are:
- Should there be a further penalty to the quantity? (eg. perhaps if you pick the same skill twice, you get 40 (10 less) instead of 50; or if you pick it three times, you get 55 (20 less) instead of 75?)
- If allowed, what do we do about Cloners? This could lead to the very situation that I wanted to avoid by making Cloners compulsory - that it becomes almost obligatory to pick Cloners to become competitive. One option could be that for a 2nd pick of Cloners, your lemming count is penalized by the number of extra Cloners you have. Another could be simply that Cloners are an exception to "you may pick the same skill twice in lieu of an extra skill type".
- For the constructive / destructive skills, which already allow you to pick a second one in
one of those categories, would this extend to "you can pick the same skill
three times", or would it be limited to double?