I think the main use case for pasting (and also copying) is the multiplayer chat, that's the only instance where I can remember missing it. Maybe level titles as well. The other minor nuisance is that you cannot move the text cursor, it's always at the end of the typing field. That's maybe a bigger issue than copying/pasting.
I guess these are the downsides of rolling your own custom code for these standard UI things...

Quote from: WillLem on July 12, 2023, 02:08:40 PM
I also began attempting to get each frame of the animation by screenshotting, but tbh it would be far easier if someone knows how to extract the .DAT files from L2. I've attached the assets here - VLEMMS.DAT is, I guess, likely to be where the sprites are, but I've also attached the full set of assets just in case. If anyone can help with this, it'd be much appreciated!

P.S. These were downloaded from MyAbandonware, I highly doubt we'd have any problems using these.

I extracted all the L2 graphics long time ago, attached are the ones with lemmings sprites. Not sure which tribe's palette these are using.
I also have all the terrain tiles, objects, cutscenes, etc if that's useful for anything.

All solutions to Underground Club and Fast Food Forest are intended!

I kinda like Simon's solution to Frog Clog, but I decided to replace the platformer with a builder anyway, to eliminate it (see update topic). This also eliminates the other solution by Icho/Armani (which I like less).

Replaced the platformer with a builder in Frog Clog (this by itself should be a sufficient change), and I also removed a miner and added a few jumpers instead.

Frame is the obvious choice given its common usage for the purpose, but there is the ambiguity between graphics and gameplay frame, and being explicit would be cumbersome I guess.

Tick is a good suggestion, still somewhat common for this kind of usage, and concise as well.

Age and count I would never guess that they could refer to ingame frames, they have so many other stronger associations.

Fix for kaywhyn's backroute to Pommes Schranke.

Wow, this is an egregious backroute to Pommes Schranke which looks so painful to execute (when the intended solution is very simple to execute).
Here's a fix where I move the second fry 1 px to the right so your blocker-bomber can't blow through it anymore. (It's also in the update topic).

btw, Pommes Schranke refers to this dish: https://as2.ftcdn.net/v2/jpg/00/58/28/95/1000_F_58289557_DFySSo3h0A0KLKJZU64cuUjoglkM2ne6.jpg

IchoTolot's solution to Hanabi is a bit different from the intended one, but back when I watched it I didn't dislike it enough to fix it, so for now it's just an 'alternative' solution. Maybe I'll fix it in the future, not sure. Btw, Hanabi means 'Fireworks' in Japanese.

Yeah, I'm aware 'The last shall be first' is tedious, and was almost considering to not submit it here... But good job on solving it, looks intended. I wasn't aware of the precise bombing at the end allowing to save 2, that should be fixed though.

Splash or Splat

Attached two solutions. The second one saves a bomber and an extra lemming.

Stop Blowing Up v3: Brute-forced my way through a wall, definitely a backroute.

Swim Team Rush v3: Again, looks like a cheap backroute, even has an extra minute on the clock.

The Magic of Lemmings

I wasn't aware that you can assign jumpers to sliders, until Simon pointed it out to me. Until then, I always had to use an extra exploder to achieve the same thing. That's my bad though. The time limit is really nasty though. My hunch is that my solution is intended, but I spent 30 min to get it work within the time limit, trying to shave off frame by frame by modifying the blocker and miner assignment, usually by just one or two pixels. This was really annoying. I also attached two things I tried that didn't work, one could work with a bit more time though, but again, it wasn't clear whether it could be squeezed into the time limit or not, wasting a lot of time trying. That's why time limits suck, and tightening them to eliminate backroutes makes things more annoying usually... I quite liked the level, it's very clean and simple and yet very though, but the time limit spoils it for me quite a bit, given the experience I had with it...

Quotegeoo's solution to Pimitive Instinct is almost intended. Just a little bit of detail is missing.

I solved the updated version. The change I made seems quite elegant, so maybe intended?

Spoiler

I did save a bomber though, and saved one extra lemming. Also, the previous solution almost still works, maybe you could make the water hole bigger to make it more clear that the previous strategy doesn't work there.

Your new solution to Hanabi is 100% intended!

I went through most of the levels now (excluding the ones posted after the deadline), only missing Internection Cube (made some progress, but then moved on to stay in sync with what Simon was playing) and Magic of Lemmings (still don't have a good idea how to contain the crowd).

I think my favourites so far were Clown Fiesta (seemed completely impossible at first, a lot of interesting ideas to piece together, and yet the execution is easy and not much need for experimentation to see what works and what doesn't. Had a blast with this level.), Primitive Instinct (again, seemed impossible first and a lot of interesting observations to be made, but here a bit more experimentation was needed to determine how many builders are needed for what, and to discover that the lone flimsy root prevents building from the diagonal bar to the wall with 3 builders), and Skyfall (not hard to see what's going on, but somehow very elegant).
Splash or Splat seemed very interesting, but I might have skipped some of the intended steps; the Instrument was cute; Supreme LEMCO Safety Standard had a lot of interesting ideas to find but also a lot of fiddly placements and timings, felt super tight and I might have appreciated some extra leeway.

QuoteI especially had fun playing with runner skill.

I probably have found some intended solutions and backroutes.
I attached replays for all lix levels!

Glad to hear that! I was afraid "The Last Shall be First" may be a bit frustrating due to all the timings to get right. This one and Pommes Schranke are intended, for Hanabi I released a small update to prevent one element of your solution.

Small update to Hanabi.

Quote from: weirdybeardy on January 28, 2023, 08:33:28 PMI think that's the version I already downloaded (it seems to contain all the levels, as well as the L2-fix thingy) - but I might re-download it anyway. I'm using DOSBox via the D-Fend Reloaded front-end, which allows me to play different DOS games by quickly and easily clicking profiles rather than mounting the c: in the DOS prompt every time. I wonder if that's part of what's causing my issues...?

But are you running the L2-FIX.COM (as opposed to L2.EXE)? When I run the latter, I can't progress beyond the first level either, but running L2-FIX.COM includes a crack allowing to progress further.

I don't use any fancy dosbox frontends, and you don't need to do all the mounting stuff. I just run dosbox L2-FIX.COM in the command prompt, or you can just drag L2-FIX.COM onto the dosbox symbol (wherever you have it) to start the game right away.

Quote from: weirdybeardy on January 27, 2023, 10:39:55 AM
I fully admit that I'm just passing the time while I figure out how to get my copy of Lemmings 2 to work properly on DOSBox. At the moment it refuses to load anything beyond the first level of each tribe, and until I get it sorted I won't be able to play Tribes of Steel or Quest From Kieran 2, which I've been *itching* to try since I re-connected with the Lemmings fan community!

You probably have the demo version, which doesn't allow you to go beyond the first level of each tribe.
I think you'll need to run L2-FIX.COM, if I remember correctly? Or maybe it was something else, but give it a shot.
Here's a download that has it: https://www.camanis.net/lemmings/files/games/lemmings_2/lemmings_2_dos.zip

Quote from: Dullstar on December 30, 2022, 02:21:18 AMI will say that cancelling assignments corresponding to a specific Lix is a weak heuristic, as while it *does* cover a case where desyncs are likely, many skills are capable of desyncing *other* Lix (i.e. basically anything that alters pathing) and those desyncs are a big part of why replay insert mode can be annoying at times.

Certainly doesn't cover all cases, but in practice might serve the purpose reasonably well, espcially if you alter somewhat recent assignments and not assignments at the beginning of the replay. Always depends on the use case, and should certainly be better than nothing.

In the future, the same considerations will also need to be applied to the replay tweaker, i.e. desyncs caused by adjusting the frame of an assignment.

QuoteE.g., assignments might cut all future assignments of lix from that same hatch. I still believe (*) is better, but cut-future-of-same-hatch sounds viable enough, too, that I can't easily argue against it.

For single-hatch levels, that's basically having no insert mode. Usually, as a single-hatch level progresses, some worker lix are separated and operate essentially independently (and independent of the crowd), and so there are good use cases for insert mode.

QuoteThe biggest worry remains that I roll out (*) and everybody gets upset over losing assignment-cuts-global-future. That was a reasonable behavior after all and it annoyed mainly on multi-hatch maps.

For a prototype, having an option in the options menu to enable/disable sounds like a good start, it allows people to experiment while being able to disable it if they get fed up. At the same time, you don't have to worry about in-level UI yet.

QuoteIll replya more in depth later. My initial reaction is I like NL's function; two modes: insert mode and non-mode and being able to switch it on or off during play. While insert mode is super useful it has very specific uses for myself anyway, im more often not using it so it would get annoying

QuoteI personally would not want this to be always-on. While I do make use of this mode at times in NL, the majority of the time I would have it turned off - it's essentially an "only when I specifically want it" feature for me. [...]

I think the question to ask here is: why would it be annoying if it was always on? It annoyed Simon when it was still assigning to the Lix whose task you just overwrote, but if the assignments to that Lix were cut, or if all desynched assignments were cut (as Dullstar proposed, something that had come to my mind as well), would there still be instances where it'd be annoying? I think it's hard to know without trying it for a while.
If in the majority of cases this is the behavior you desire, and in the few other cases there's an easy mechanism to cancel the replay, then this is probably good behavior.
Note that I do not see any use case where you actually want to keep the future assignments for the lix whose assignment you just overwrote, because they will be desynched anyway. The one exception is assigning permanent skills, however, you only need to assign them just before they actually take effect, and in that case a desyc of future assignments happens as well. Are there any use cases where you want to keep desynched assignments? If not, Dullstar's proposal is arguably even cleaner, and just cancelling the assignments of the lix you're overwriting is merely a heuristic that is easier to implement (and thus a sensible first step).

It seems cumbersome to me to have it something you turn on and off during play, especially if mentally you need to keep in mind whether it's on or off at a given time. (Tracking a state always takes mental capacity, and to me tracking whether the replay is still going or not is already complex enough, and I don't think I ever consciously look for the visual indicator to check for the state).
Having two different sequences of input actions corresponding to the two seems like it would be less confusing (because it's state-less), and the proposal (simply assign to insert, assign and click somewhere else to cancel) seems to be as simple as it gets and consistent with previous behavior for cancelling replays (and this behaviour will still be needed in the future, e.g. to cancel when backward frame stepping or loading from a savestate).

Also note that if you want to change an assignment to a lix/lemming to a later point in time, this behaviour is already required, as you have to click first to cancel the assignment.
This ties into the discussion in the other topic: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=6120.0 In the context of option (1), the proposed behavior in this topic is simply a practical implementation of insert mode that is consistent with everything else. In the context of (2), whenever you go back to a previous point in time (rewind, load state, restart), future actions are cancelled, and the whole point of this topic is moot as remembering replays (and therefore insert mode) wouldn't exist.

QuoteI think if you want to default to on, it's *extremely* important to have an easy way to cancel the replay, and I'm not sure clicking the air is the best solution here, as it seems like a very easy misclick. I think a hotkey would be better: still possible to mispress, but I would suspect it to be less likely than accidentally clicking the air next to a Lix.

I disagree here. I really wouldn't like to use another hotkey for this, personally, as keyboard estate is really precious and I'm already out of keys within easy reach with all the other hotkeys. Clicking into air has been in place for ages, and I personally haven't had any issues with misclicking. (Admittedly, when you assign a skill it cancels as well currently, so the cursor position didn't matter and now it would, but I'm having a hard time seeing this a big issue. Given the many hotkeys already in place, I think fatfingering the one in question is more likely to me than misclicking, and that's from a user who's very clumsy with a mouse and prefers keyboard wherever possible.)

Managed to skim through the recordings. A few notes:


Stairs bro: Interesting alternative solution which I'd argue is trickier than the intended one.
Merge Sort: Interesting to see you struggle, and somehow finding a solution without fully understanding why it works. There's a key observation about merging (which I thought was obvious, but seeing different people struggle I guess it's not) which, once realized, makes it very clear where and when to place the miners.
Downpour: Used to have timed bombers, so I set the requirement low to make the level not too annoying. Now with instant bombers, it's quite trivial so maybe the save requirement could be raised a bit.
Impetus, Prelude, Lix Cannon: Look like backroutes?

I agree with your assessment that Lovely and Quirky contain some levels which seem too complex for the rank, and maybe it'd have been sensible to make these ranks a bit easier than their are overall. For example, Lovely could contain a few more levels with small skillsets that reinforce the behaviour of certain skills (like Beneath the Lab reinforces that builders turn while platformers do not).
Time to change the road: Used to have a time limit, enforcing a specific idea. Now it's easier, so I think it could be moved down to Lovely. (Could also fix it enforce my initial idea, but in line with the assessment above I'd also support the simple downrank).
100 ways to die: Should this maybe go into Lovely as well?