And that's not nearly enough. The fencer is already one of the more redundant NL skills,
I have no idea where you are coming from here.
We have near to no upwards mobility and the fencer (and the laser blaster) is exactly providing that.
If you would say that a miner does the same it's just wrong as you need to get a lem up and around first for that.
I would say the complete opposite: The fencer is one of the least redundant skills in NL!We already have fencers,....for making shimmier-friendly tunnels
That is wrong as a fencer tunnel is too narrow.
The fencer is already one of the more redundant NL skills, and turning the laser blaster into just another fencer at a steeper angle would make it a very disappointing 20th skill.
Here you are completely disregarding the aspects of a very fast digging speed and more importantly
range. The steeper fencer would just be a small part of the applications and I think you are underestimating the 45 degree angle here and the difference it can make.
Especially since, from the above discussion, it seems the only reason the 1:1 slope is even being considered is to make it shimmier-friendly?
Aligning angles and widths of skills to be compatible to other skills is highly benefitial in general. When mechanics naturally intertwine with each other the game just plays much better and we have more combinations to choose from.
Miner, fencer and builder angle for example.
Skill overlap is bad because this is a candidate for the 20th skill and very likely the last new skill. "Another, slightly different fencer" really isn't something I can get behind when we could have had something completely different like the mortar or slider.
That's why I stated that the fencer at a wall situation is the
only bigger overlap. With this measurement, for example, that one overlap is too much the slider needs to be disregarded instantly as there we have even more overlaps (floater, glider, updrafts,...etc) and it's basically just the skills we already have and nothing really different.
We most likely cannot avoid 1 or 2 overlaps with a new skill.
Yes, we should minimize that number as much we can, but here it should be just this one that is from the slightly bigger nature.
"Another, slightly different fencer"
Again, this only holds true if you completely disregard the speed and range aspects. Especially range here and with a shimmier compatible angle this aspect only increases in importance.