Thanks for the update, namida! I understand your points against the Grenader. I'm just wondering: What makes this skill so much more backroute-prone in NeoLemmix that doesn't apply to the Mortar / Bazooker in Lemmings 2: The Tribes?
Maybe it
does apply to the L2 skills? Not many people here have ever even tried making custom L2 levels.
That said, one obvious difference -- and it has been mentioned before -- is that the L2 skills have knockback, making them harder to use at close range. Since the Grenader and Spearer are most interesting when used at long range, limiting their short-range capabilities seems like a sensible way to make them less backroute prone. It's just hard to think of a suitable way to do this in NL, since we are certainly not going to introduce knockback.
We've already considered and rejected the other obvious possibility, that a grenader's explosion should be lethal. (And since that would prevent the grenader being used as a blocker-release tool, I would now be against that even if it were still up for discussion.)
I had a brief thought, inspired by the grenade from
Worms, that the grenader's projectile could bounce back (or fall straight down) if it hits a wall too soon. But that introduces a weird special case, and would be prone to abuse, and even if it caused fewer backroutes, they would be more pernicious ones because they'd be harder for the designer to spot. (In short, this idea is a complete non-starter.)
Other than that, I can't think of anything. I think we have to accept that if we keep the Grenader, it can be used close up as well as at range. That does make me like it a bit less, but I think it's still very much worth keeping.