[Lemmings 2] What skills can't you live without for gold?

[ccexplore]

Sports 5:  <snip>so this leaves 3 stompers and 1 jumper.

I now have a 2-stomper solution.  (The 1 jumper remains.)

And completely unexpectedly, due to my discovery of the glitch that allows you to survive the bouncing ball of death via framestepping, I now have a no-jumper solution for Sports 5!

I've simply attached the DOSBox video for this one.  Unfortunately while the video makes it look so easy, in fact it's incredibly timing-reliant and very difficult to replicate.  The spoiler section has additional explanations.

Since there's still no way to do frame-stepping with 100% reliability, I've taken an approach of trying to avoid having to do frame-stepping for every lemming to make sure each survive the fall through the ball (yes, the ball will kill even falling lemmings, and the trigger area's unexpectedly tall). 

Unfortunately, the timing that allows survival without frame-stepping every lemming through the ball seems to be incredibly specific, and may be affected by the side effect that sometimes the ball still advances by one frame unpredictably despite the frame-stepping.  I can only offer the advice of trying to follow the video as exactly as possible and hope that it works out for you.  If not, you'll have to compensate by managing every lemming that falls through the ball, frame-stepping as needed to make sure they all survive (I find in my setup that if you don't frame-step and did not get the lucky timing shown in the video, about 1 out of every 4 lemming will be killed.)  Good luck.

In fact, I've found that even when you manage like the video to get things to a state where you don't have to frame-step anymore, you have to avoid fast-forward the game from that point.  Something with the fast-forward will somehow mess up the timing and causes lemmings to get killed again while falling through the ball.  Man, the ball sure is glitchy......

[edit: D'oh!  the video is too big for attachments (6 MB).  I'll try lemmingswelt and see if that works...]
[edit2: zip file of video tentatively uploaded to fileden: http://www.fileden.com/files/2010/7/15/2915232/Sports5_nojumper.zip]

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And in case anyone's wondering about Sports 1, unfortunately right now the most reliable framestepping technique is still not reliable enough for me to successfully manage any Sports 1 solutions meaningful to this particular challenge thread.   Maybe in the future.  But I do have a working Sports 1 solution for some other sort of challenge.

[LemSteven]

I think it's time to bring this thread back to life since we're not done with it yet.  I did some work on the first half of Space, and here's what I came up with:

Space 2: 1 platformer is needed to clear the exit path.  Everything else is pretty easily avoidable.

Space 3: I'm not certain about this one because I don't know what skills are used in ccexplore's min-skill solution.  Regardless, it looks like 1 platformer, 1 fencer, and 1 stomper are all required.  If the min-skill solution requires anything like jumpers, those will have to be added, as well.

Space 4:  This is another fun level that comes down to none.  I've included a couple hints on how to eliminate stompers and club bashers.  The other skills shouldn't be too difficult.

Space 5:  The min-skills solution uses just a ballooner, a roper, and a bomber.  The ballooner can be eliminated easily, leaving just 1 roper & 1 bomber.

Space 4 no stomper:  Use mortars to achieve the same general effect as a stomper.

Space 4 no club basher:  I ended up using the crawling trick to get up a couple of floors in the "vortex" to where you can drop down to the thing that looks like a flying saucer on the far right side of the level.  From there, I mortared into the far right wall and stomped down to the exit.

[ccexplore]

Thanks, I've updated the table in the first post of this thread with your results, and I'll try to add/improve some results in the future as well.

I'll have to review my min-skill Space 3 solution, but I'm 99% sure it did not use any jumpers, just the 3 core skills you listed.

[LemSteven]

And here's the rest of Space:

Space 6: The runner is not needed in the standard solution because there is enough time to get by without it.  The hopper is also avoidable, but it looks like everything else from the min-skills solution (1 filler, 1 shimmier, 1 climber, & 1 spearer) is needed.

Space 7: None.  All skills can be removed pretty easily in separate solutions.

Space 8: The stomper, stacker, and two laser blasters from the min-skills solution all appear to be necessary.  The rock climber can be substituted with a stacker in the Tarzan route.

Space 9: The presence of a crawling route and the variety of different building skills allow everything but ropers to be eliminated.  I've got it down to 2 ropers.

Space 10: The glue pourer and at least one jumper appear to be needed.  A few bazookas are also required, but I'm not sure how many.  Everything else is avoidable.

[ccexplore]

Sorry for the delay.  I've updated my tables for Space 6-9, and I will update the table for Space 10 once I do a check for how many bazookas.  I'm busy though, so that may not happen for a few days, we'll see.

[LemSteven]

Christmas is just over two weeks away, and it is freezing cold outside where I live, so I figure now is as good a time as any to look at the Polar tribe.

Polar 4:  This is an easy level, so it is only appropriate that the result is an easy none.

Polar 5:  Given the large variety of explosives and other ground removing skills, those can all be eliminated fairly easily.  Fillers are easily avoided, as is the jumper.  That leaves just ropers, and so I came up with a relatively routine result of 2 ropers.

Polar 6:  The three-skill solution uses a thrower, a stomper, and an attractor.  The thrower can be avoided using a club basher and then stopping him with a filler or jumper.  The attractor is also avoidable because you can make a holding cell for the crowd.  This leaves just 1 stomper.

Polar 7:  The four-skill solution uses a jumper, two platformers, and a bomber.  The bomber is easily avoided, and you can fling someone over the first gap to avoid the jumper.  I've also eliminated the platformers by using the other skills to bridge the gaps (see hint), so the final result is none.

Use a stacker and two throwers to deal with the first gap, and use two archers for the second gap.  Some precision is needed in the placement of these skills to ensure that the gaps are completely bridged.

[ccexplore]

Finally updated with latest results.  Also, Space 10 now has results put in as well, I verified that 2 is sufficient for number of bazookas.  I think I explained the idea already in the min-skills thread but repeated below:

Get a lemming into the right half of the pit below the entrance, and have him bazooka away the barrier in the middle of the pit, after every lemming has come out.  The bazooka will eliminate the barrier, fling your lemming out the pit, and compress the rest of the crowd on the left half of the pit (by flinging them against the left wall of the pit) to a smaller spread.  The compression makes it possible to fling everyone out with a 2nd bazooka (fired on the left wall of the pit when the crowd's very close to it).

[LemSteven]

Oops... 

Change Polar 5 to 2 ropers.  I don't quite know what I was thinking when I posted my result earlier.  Anyway, here's what I have for the rest of Polar:

Polar 8:  Jumpers, throwers, and the magno-booter are all easily avoidable.  Since you can lose up to three lemmings and still get Gold, the two fencers can be replaced with exploders.  The result is therefore 1 exploder and 2 platformers.

Polar 9:  The min-skills route uses a roper, an archer, a superlem, and two builders.  The roper and archer can be avoided in the standard solution, and the superlem can be replaced with a skier+jumper in the beginning.  I also elminated builders in a variant of the min-skills route (see hint), so the result here is none.

Polar 10:  The level can be completed with just twisters and glue pourers.  Twisters are avoidable if you take the upper route, so I've got a result of 2 glue pourers.

Like the first gap, the second gap can also be crossed with just one archer.  The gap up by the exit can be covered with the last two archers.

[ccexplore]

Ok, I'm slowly getting back into the game of this.  Here's my first new result in months:  a no-platformer solution for Polar 8.

I'll try to explain better later today, for now, a quick summary below, and you can try to piece together the details in the attached screenshots.

The idea is to fling the entire left crowd over to the right with an explosion, so that the left lemmings end up taking the same path to the exit as the right lemmings.

To fling, we must compress the left crowd down to a much more flingable size.  This is accomplished with a setup of throwers that is reminiscent of what I did in Highland 4.  The first thrower you can done with someone from the left entrance, but the 2nd thrower you'll need to do with someone from the right entrance.

[LemSteven]

I just finished working on a few Classic levels, and here's what I came up with:

Classic 4: The minimum skills route uses a digger, a basher, a blocker, three builders, and two miners.  I can eliminate one of the miners using a slight variation of this route (this loses one lemming, but that is still good for Gold).  The digger and blocker can be eliminated using the regular route.  I'm still left with 3 builders, 1 miner, and 1 basher that I haven't been able to avoid.

Classic 5: Unfortunately, I haven't found anything better than the minimum skills solution, which uses 1 blocker, 1 builder, 5 bashers, 1 miner, and 1 digger.

Classic 6: 

• No climbers, floaters, or bombers are used in the min-skills route, and blockers are easily avoided, as well. 
  
• Diggers are not too hard to avoid if you take the higher route just before the small pool of water.  This involves sending a floater down and catching the others with bridges.  Miners can be avoided in a similar manner.
• You need one builder to clear the pool of water, but builders can be avoided elsewhere.
• I also eliminated bashers by using a climber/miner to deal with the final obstacle.

The result for Classic 6 is therefore 1 builder.

[ccexplore]

Oops... 

Change Polar 5 to 2 ropers.  I don't quite know what I was thinking when I posted my result earlier.

As it turns out, a 1-roper solution does exist for Polar 5!  A well-positioned, well-aimed roper is just barely possible to reach the island with the penguin.  See attached screenshots.

[ccexplore]

Space 8: The stomper, stacker, and two laser blasters from the min-skills solution all appear to be necessary.

There was some confusion here with regards to the min-skill solution for Space 8.  Originally I did use a stacker, but that proved to be unnecessary and later I reported that Space 8 can be done with 4 skills only (2 laser blasters, 1 stomper and 1 rock climber).  So this takes out the stacker.

The stomper can also be eliminated in the standard solution.  Typically it is used either to create a path for someone from the left entrance to get onto the chain, or to make sure no one heads right when you laser at the bottom part of the level.  The former you can take a different path, and the latter can be done without skill usage by relying on timing.  I've attached screenshots for such a no-stomper solution.

So final result for Space 8 is just the 2 laser blasters.

As for Space 9, the crawling just requires 1 roper and 1 platformer to set up, and the rest of the crawling solution can easily be done without ropers (see spoilers below for one approach).  So it's just 1 roper for Space 9.

Stack against the steel block to get up to it, but make sure to stop the stacking (eg. via a dummy filler) after 8 stack-bricks, so the crowd can later get over the stack and onto the steel block using a builder.  Hero build and platform to reach the place where you set up crawling.

[LemSteven]

There was some confusion here with regards to the min-skill solution for Space 8. 

That confusion resulted because the score was never updated on the original post in that thread.

Anyway, I took a brief break from Classic to improve on an earlier result:

Polar 1:  No Glue Pourer.  Once again, the fling proves to be quite powerful.  The basic idea here is to fling everyone over the pit that you would normally glue pour over.  Some of the specifics on how to do this are given in the spoiler below, but be warned that it took me dozens of tries to get the timing right even after I had the general idea down.  But anyway, the result for Polar 1 is now improved to None.

Wait for everyone to come out of the entrance hatch, and then use two bazookas to blast out of the pit you're initially stuck in.  In the process of doing so, the crowd must be bunched down to a flinging-friendly size.  Next, make one lemming a runner, and make him a flame thrower to get to the right side of the level.  This runner then uses two more bazookas from the steel (or just above it) to blast free the path to the exit.  I also used a mortar to widen the gap.  The runner ultimately ends up in the pit, hopefully getting there several seconds before the rest of the crowd.

This is where the timing gets extremely hairy.  The runner has to fire a mortar at the far left edge of the pit, while the crowd is just above him about to fall in.  If the timing works out right, the entire crowd should be flung to the exit, except for the runner.  Fortunately, there are still two mortars left.  I used the first one from the left side of the pit, facing right, which obliterated the overhang.  The last mortar is used in the same place, facing left, and it flings the runner to the exit.

[ccexplore]

Nice work!   I've attached screenshots of a successful attempt I have, following your spoilers.

[LemSteven]

And here's the rest of Classic:

Classic 7:  The min-skills solution uses a blocker, a digger, and three builders.  The blocker is not needed in the 100% solution, and one of the builders is avoidable, leaving 1 digger and 2 builders.

Classic 8:  The min-skills solution uses a blocker, a builder, two bashers, a miner, and a digger.  All I was able to eliminate was the blocker, using the 100% solution.  This leaves 1 builder, 2 bashers, 1 miner, and 1 digger.

Classic 9: 

• Floaters and bombers are obviously not needed
• Blockers are avoidable without too much difficulty
• The basher and miners aren't needed due to the large number of diggers
• The climber can be avoided using a variant of the min-skills solution

This leaves just builders and diggers, and I've got those down to 4 builders and 1 digger.

Classic 10:  My latest min-skills solution uses a builder, a blocker, two climbers, and either a basher or a miner.  The blocker is obviously not needed, and I've also eliminated one of the climbers (see hint), leaving 1 builder & 1 climber.

Climb up the left side, and have the climber mine right before he exits.  If done properly, the climber won't exit, but the crowd will be able to exit when they walk up his tunnel.  This saves a builder, which can be used in place of a climber on the right side of the level.