Ill 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
I 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.
I 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.)