Some interesting mechanics / notes on how they work with the new skills that may be of use to level designers. Some of these are shown in the tutorial levels, or in "Stone Hot Sacrifice":
Walkers
- You can assign a walker to any of the following: Walkers, Blockers, Platformers, Builders, Stackers, Bashers, Miners, Diggers.
- If you assign a walker to a lemming that is already walking, it turns around. (I believe this is the same as in Lix.)
Swimmers
- If a swimmer enters the water below the surface, it jumps up a few pixels instantly, then slowly floats towards the top.
- For the most part, a swimmer functions the same way as a walker, but on water instead of terrain. This includes that it will jump up a small ledge if it encounters one, and can transition to climbing if it encounters a taller wall.
- A swimmer can be assigned the Bomber or Stoner skills. Bomber does not do any destruction if used while swimming (intentional, not a glitch), but Stoner functions as normal.
- The Exhaustion gimmick does not have any impact on Swimmers.
Gliders
- Gliders will turn around and continue gliding if they hit a wall.
- Gliders that meet updraft objects (the Sky set has these) will move upwards instead of downwards, though at a slower rate.
- You can assign a glider to a lemming mid-fall, just like with floaters.
- A lemming cannot be both a Floater and a Glider. You can have both skills on the same level, but not on the same lemming.
Mechanic
- Mechanics take 43 frames to deactivate a trap.
- A mechanic can only deactivate a trap while the trap is idle (not currently killing a lemming).
- A trap deactivated by a mechanic is permanently deactivated; the effect is not temporary.
- Mechanic is a permanent skill just like Climbers, Swimmers, Floaters and Gliders - one mechanic can deactivate as many traps as he encounters.
- The Exhaustion gimmick does not have any impact on Mechanics.
Stoner
- Stoner functions more or less identically to bomber, except for creating terrain instead of destroying it.
- Even in a player that uses timed bombers, Stoners are still instant.
- As implied by the first point, you can use a Stoner in mid-air.
- If you use a Stoner on flat ground (and even in most cases on slopes), Climbers will not be able to climb over the resulting terrain.
- A lemming that dies by becoming a Stoner does indeed count as killed for the purpose of the Karoshi gimmick.
Platformer
- Platformer can only be assigned in locations where at least one pixel of their first step is not already solid terrain.
- A platformer will stop if, while moving horizontally, there is a solid pixel either one or two pixels above his platform.
- A platformer will also stop if an entire brick is placed where there is already solid terrain; but not if even just one pixel of it was previously empty space.
- Platformers *are* affected by the Lazy Lemmings gimmick.
Stacker
- A stacker cannot be assigned in a location where the pixel below the leftmost pixel of their first brick is not solid.
- The stacker shares the builder's animation, there is no dedicated graphic for it.
- Stackers place their steps much more rapidly than builders or platformers do.
- Stackers' steps are three pixels wide, and they place 8 steps.
- Stackers will stop if the leftmost pixel of a brick they place is already solid terrain; they do not care about the other two.
- Stackers *are* affected by the Lazy Lemmings gimmick, making it almost impossible to actually make use of them in such conditions.
Combinations of permanent skills (Climber, Swimmer, Floater, Glider, Mechanic)
- The name "Athlete" now applies to a lemming with any two permanent skills.
- A lemming with three permanent skills is called a "Triathlete".
- A lemming with four permanent skills is called an "X-Athlete". This was originally going to be "Superathlete", but it barely fit in the space and looked weird.
- Five permanent skills is not possible as Floater and Glider are mutually exclusive; but if it did happen, it would still just show as "X-Athlete".
Currently there's no way to tell exactly which skills an athlete / triathlete / X-athlete has, unless the skillset only allows for one possible combination that acheives the name in question (for example, if the level doesn't have Floaters or Mechanics, then a triathlete is obviously Climber + Swimmer + Glider). If anyone has any suggestions for how differentiating them should be implemented, let me know.