Hm, I think it would be best to focus getting rid of a skill slot and cull the swimmer hatch - or make a 2nd hatch and limit the swimmer hatch to 1 lem (even though that fix is a bit dirtier).
Doh, of course! Why didn't I think of it before? Instead of a swimmer hatch, I could have preplaced Lemmings with the swimmer ability! I haven't used preplaced Lemmings since the very first LDC I participated in, LDC #22, with your R2 of just NL skills and no classical features, and so you can tell that I'm not used to them at all, particularly since I've been more careful with my more recent levels with not using pickups as fixes! Apparently I didn't learn all there is to take away from playing your United pack
So, thanks for the reminder!
You're close, though. My intended route requires two swimmers, not one
So, for V12 a bit of an overhaul:
- Entrance is no longer a swimmer hatch and instead there are now two preplaced Lemmings that are swimmers.
- Changed up the wooden staircase near the entrance, as I discovered shortly after uploading V11 that Armani's cheesy backroute still works with a minor adjustment.
- More steel added to prevent getting under the trap, which is another major source of backroutes
Again, not confident that these changes will be enough, and it might not be possible to enforce my solution completely. If it turns out to be so, then I will accept some variants here that I would consider close enough. Not yet, though