[SUG] Projectiles should kill Zombies & Pop Balloons

[WillLem]

From this topic:

The possibility of some projectile killing a zombie is also a cool idea idea, I've suggested that spears or grenades kill zombies before.

[WillLem]

I do like the idea of having more ways to kill Zombies, especially since we have the Kill All Zombies talisman now. I'll definitely look into how possible it is for lems to respond to airborne projectiles, but I do have to ask: if it's going to kill a Zombie, why wouldn't a Spear or Grenade kill a regular lem?

[jkapp76]

There are plenty of games that don't allow "friendly fire," meaning you can only shoot an enemy.

I had something like this in mind when I suggested this. Normal lemmings are missed by the projectile because
the lemming aiming tried so hard to miss his buddy. You might also need to fire a spear through a standard
lemming so that same lemming can walk up the spear a second later. I wouldn't want to interfere with that.

I have not put much thought into what should happen to a zombie that is hit. Probably not explode. Maybe
something like the electrocute animation, he flashes from zombie to normal and disintegrates.

[Strato Incendus]

Agree, friendly fire shouldn’t be a thing. This is still regular Lemmings, not Lemmings Paint Ball — or Worms.

[Floyd Brannon]

I'm trying to narrow down my favorite skills to 3 or 4.

This is one of my top favorites.

[WillLem]

There are plenty of games that don't allow "friendly fire," meaning you can only shoot an enemy.

Yes, OK. Just had to ask the question is all.

I have not put much thought into what should happen to a zombie that is hit. Probably not explode. Maybe
something like the electrocute animation, he flashes from zombie to normal and disintegrates.

Yeah, another thing that needs to be considered. I'd favour utilising the current spriteset, but creating new sprites wouldn't be completely out of the question. I actually think exploding would be a decent enough solution to this - remove the zombie, allow the projectile to continue on its trajectory.

First things first, I need to see if it's even possible for a lem and a projectile to directly interact. In theory, it should be - there are ways to check if a projectile has met terrain, so there should also be a way to check if it's met the zombie map.


EDIT: This proposal has been updated to include the possibility of popping Ballooner's balloons, since it will very likely use the same method of locating a lemming, and an aiborne projectile, and doing something when the two meet.

[Strato Incendus]

IIRC, the spear is indeed capable of popping balloons in Lemmings 2: The Tribes. I remember reading this in a spoiler tag somewhere here on the forums, where I first realised this was some sort of advanced / secret trick in Lemmings 2.

If a spear does pop a balloon, though, would that mean the spear already acts as terrain while in the air? Because obviously, the balloon would pop whenever hitting terrain of any kind. If the spear does act as terrain while in the air, though, then this could also be used to e.g. break the fall of fallers etc.

I don’t quite remember whether the spear already counts as terrain while in the air in the current SuperLemmix version; I guess the easiest way to tell is by looking at the Spearer in clear-physics mode.

[jkapp76]

I think a zombie that is hit by a spear should have its own (hit by spear) animation. Just a freeze and slowly fade would be okay.

If Will decides for the zombie to explode I'd prefer it not make an explosion crator.

Then, what to happen to the spear itself?


*Edit: I just confirmed that in Lemmings2 a spear will indeed pop a balloon. And the spear continues on.

[WillLem]

If a spear does pop a balloon, though, would that mean the spear already acts as terrain while in the air?

In SLX, it doesn't become terrain until it makes contact with terrain, and this will remain the standard behaviour. Detecting airborne projectiles will be for purely Balloon-popping/Zombie-killing purposes.

If Will decides for the zombie to explode I'd prefer it not make an explosion crator.

Exploding gives us a way to remove the Zombie without them just vanishing or even slowly fading, both of which would look a bit odd. But yes, the "explosion" would be purely aesthetic and wouldn't affect surrounding terrain.

Then, what to happen to the spear itself?

To be honest, the way that this feature will likely be implemented will be to detect the airborne projectile; so, the lemming themselves will be the only thing affected - the spear will just continue on its trajectory.

[WillLem]

Got this one sorted today, so this completes the "2.5 Zombie Overhaul"!

Here's a video demo of the result:



This works best, I think. No separate "zombie exploding" graphics are needed, we can just use the explosion animation without applying the crater. For both grenades and spears, the projectile continues on its original path and does whatever it would have done anyway (i.e. create a terrain spear, or a grenade crater).

Great suggestion, Jeremy - I think this perfectly compliments the Kill All Zombies talisman, and gives projectiles another quite satisfying use

Implemented in commits 579431e98, 14f2237c2 and 335e5893a, along with a DoExplosionCrater flag which is now used by both Blasticine and projectile-hit-Zombies to prevent the explosion crater.

[Strato Incendus]

Nice work, WillLem! I guess now it’s finally possible to play Worms in Lemmings…

Also, the old Atari game “Ballerburg” (Shooting Castle?) that I recently mentioned (in the “What was your first Lemmings experience?” thread), if you make the Zombies pre-placed Blockers, so that they remain in one position. Which is technically identical to the “forts mode” in Worms.

Speaking of Worms, though, one question arises for me naturally:
If a Zombie somehow could become a Spearer or Grenader, would this kill normal and neutral lemmings, in turn?

Say, a Spearer or Grenader gets infected by a Zombie during skill performance, and now, this skill is lethal for normal and neutral lemmings.
Everything else would of course require skill-assigner objects that the Zombies could walk through — which you’ve already stated SuperLemmix won’t add.

Unless we make Spearer and Grenader a property that can be given to a pre-placed lemming — much like there can be pre-placed Shimmiers, if I remember correctly (despite my love for Shimmiers, I’ve never actually tried this)? That however would make the Zombie Spearers and Grenaders throw their projectiles right at the start of a level. Which is either useless / won’t pose a threat to the crowd at all — or it’s going to be completely unfair.

[WillLem]

If a Zombie somehow could become a Spearer or Grenader, would this kill normal and neutral lemmings, in turn?

Probably not, honestly. For the reasons you stated, plus I think it's taking the idea a step too far.

Also, even from a point of view of "we probably shouldn't do it, but can we?", I don't think there is a way to know which projectile was thrown by which lemming - only that projectiles exist, and we now have a way to track their location relative to the lemmings onscreen. The potential amount of work that would be required to implement "this particular projectile was thrown by this particular lemming" is way more than the idea justifies, and would probably be very bug-prone. One thing I've learned through SLX development is that it's often the little ideas that don't seem like they'll be much trouble that end up causing the biggest workloads and generating the most bugs!

Meanwhile, from a conversation on Discord:

Does it seem weird that the grenade will blow up the lemming only by grazing it?
---
I feel like the grenade should pop the lemming on contact and have no further travel.

I tried this, and it does work; if the grenade checks for hitting the zombie map, the grenade explodes first, and then the zombie explodes on the next frame. So, the grenade's explosion, and resulting destruction mask, applies at the point of it contacting the zombie rather than continuing "through" the zombie to hit whatever terrain is on the other side.

I'm honestly not sure which I prefer. Conceptually, it does seem like the grenade exploding on contact with the zombie makes the most sense, but we need to take into account that it potentially nerfs the skill's destruction radius, which I instinctively don't like.


Fig 1 - The destruction crater if the grenade detonates on contact with the zombie


Fig 2 - The destruction crater if the grenade continues "through" the zombie and detonates on contact with terrain - note that this is from the same replay, but without the "detonate on contact" behaviour

In both cases, the zombie explodes as soon as it detects the presence of the projectile, and its own explosion doesn't affect the surrounding terrain at all.

I could do with some input on this one. The idea itself is a single line of code to implement, but since it's a skill-and-game-affecting change, it comes down to whether or not we want it. Thoughts?

[jkapp76]

I think I prefer the shallow craters. If you need to kill a bunch of zombies you won't destroy all the terrain as bad.

[WillLem]

OK, 4 votes for detonate-on-contact from a conversation on Discord, let's go with that - it does seem to make the most sense, conceptually. It's easy enough to change it back if people feel it doesn't work for any reason.

Implemented in commit b6fedc669.

[Floyd Brannon]

Okay I'm using this new 2.5.1 version. And I decided to modify some zombie levels to use the spear\grenade so I can blow them up.
This is lots of fun. But I feel that it's only a matter of time until someone suggests what I'm about to say.

Don't hate me for suggesting this. But how about we give the lemming a gun. Or a crossbow. Or boomerang? The ability to fire some type of weapon in a straight line could be great. Lemmings 2 has the bazooka which can actually hit other lemmings and send them flying. And killing zombies would be a small leap for that. The bazooka probably just performs the batter operation from a distance. Just add kill zombies to this and it's a game changer.