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Offline ccexplore

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the Lix user feedback thread
« on: February 01, 2012, 03:42:13 AM »
I want to split off some of the stuff off the "community level set" thread to here, so there's a more concise list of issues that came up when people started to use Lix to create and play levels, and to give a more proper place for that kind of feedback.

First, a summary of all the issues that have came up on that other thread:

[note: many of these are not from me, and in many cases the feedback are not from me either.  Think of this first post as a transcription and summary of all user feedback that has transpired on the other thread.  I tried to list everyone's, if I missed something, just re-post your  feedback on this thread]

  • (editor) no guide on what the buttons mean?
feedback: You get mouse-over text with "?" turned on.  Maybe "?" should be default.
Maybe there should be a permanent status bar for that sort of text?
  • (styles) lack of one-way walls
feedback: you can get equivalent setups with careful use of steel.  But may look into implementing in future.
  • (windows) using Alt+Tab to switch in/out of editor cause editor to get stuck unrecovery in "Add Steel" screen
feedback: remapping Tab takes care of the problem.  Suggest to change default editor keymappings to avoid Tab.
  • (editor) some objects (ie. thin rectangles) can be hard to drag in editor because the mouse must point to a non-transparent pixel
feedback: perhaps an option where hit-testing is based on the bounding rectangle and z-order, and disregard transparency?
  • (styles) lack of hazard objects (eg. slower traps)
feedback: geoo etc. may look into creating more in future
  • (editor) request for guideline tool (eg. max safe-fall distance)
feedback: ccexplore took a stab at creating a set of such objects.
Some concerns with making them as decorations vs terrain, may want a "guideline" as a separate object type?
  • (linux) exit, save without filename, program hangs
feedback: Simon acknowledge bug and will fix
  • filepaths in replay makes it tricky to download and view replays
feedback: recommend convention to save all "community set" levels to levels/single/lixlfpack
may also look into future option to embed level data into replay file
  • (styles) lack of 12px/24px blocks
feedback: arguably less useful than 16px/32px blocks, but will consider.
  • tutorial level for batters too hard
feedback: noted, will look into making level less intimidating
  • editor: no good substitute for Cheapo/Lemming's "Blue" (aka Crystal) style [ie. Rhapsody in Blue]
feedback: circus style? (not suitable in Proxima's case)
will take into consideration when creating more styles later, after expanding on existing styles.
  • handling of levels with missing objects/pieces due to style change?
feedback: instead of refusing to load level, allow anyway but with warnings?
  • difficult stretching bridges in Lix
feedback: "bad habit" from Lemmings, avoid in level design if possible, use builder queuing instead
if necessary, use zzz mode and retries to ease difficulty
  • don't like replays reverting to normal speed "too early" and starting out paused
feedback: (not much in ways of suggestions for now)
  • (editor) Lix "underworld" style missing some important terrain from original (eg. spikes, chains, glowing red rocks, etc.)
feedback: geoo will look into trying to add them
  • it's easy to accidentally scroll down when selecting skills.
feedback: disable border scrolling, use right-click scrolling instead
  • different number of lemmings coming out of each entrance
feedback: interesting but may be too radical a change, may need to display how many will come out from each entrance, and probably a tutorial level
for now, suggest multiple overlapping entrances as a workaround
  • (styles) dessert-/candy-themed style
feedback:  will consider after some existing styles are expanded out
  • (styles) special graphics levels something to consider for community level set
feedback: (not much in ways of suggestions for now)
  • confusion regarding "time achieved" displayed (it's the time achieved in the best-rank solution, not the best-time achieved amongst all solutions)
feedback: maybe better text/display (eg. maybe display "best ranked solution" with all relevant stats including skill counts etc.)
  • can't assign climber/floater to a blocker
feedback: (not much follow-up for now, should be looked into to make sure no bug)
  • confusion with replays crashing the game or saying "game is too new"
feedback: (not much follow-up for now about the crash)
for game-version mismatch, maybe allow replay but with warning
  • some issues with selection priority
feedback: more investigation perhaps? although  Proxima worked around the issue in his own level
  • no mini-map (for jumping to different locations in level quickly)
feedback: try right-click scrolling as an alternative
  • Lix can drown when their head hits the bottom part of a water object, even though they are standing below water.  Especially strange when the part of water in question is actually covered up by steel.
feedback: maybe steel should take precedence over water?
or perhaps water detection should be revised to not be so head-based?

Offline ccexplore

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #1 on: February 01, 2012, 03:49:05 AM »
Okay, latest feedback for me:

Consider a way to allow objects to indicate be drawn in front of terrain, instead of always behind like right now.  Alternatively (and equivalently?), a way to allow terrains to indicate be drawn behind objects, instead of always in front of like right now.

Context:  water.  Consider the case of a pole-like terrain that is meant to extend all the way down to the bottom of a pool of water.  Examples can been seen in original Lemmings levels as well as I'm sure plenty of custom Lemmings/Cheapo levels.

Right now the pole will be drawn over the water, so it doesn't look submerged at all and basically looks rather weird.  You could try cutting it off around the water surface but obviously as the water surface is neither perfectly straight nor stationary, it looks weird that way too.

Offline Simon

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #2 on: February 01, 2012, 04:15:58 AM »
Great work compiling these.

I keep similar lists on real-life paper, but mostly with stuff that also makes it to IRC. The game documentation regarding bugs and wishes is currently out of date, too.

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Offline Clam

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #3 on: February 01, 2012, 04:52:24 AM »
  • confusion regarding "time achieved" displayed (it's the time achieved in the best-rank solution, not the best-time achieved amongst all solutions)
feedback: maybe better text/display (eg. maybe display "best ranked solution" with all relevant stats including skill counts etc.)

I'd prefer to have separate records for most saved / least skills / least time, and leave out the 'best-ranked solution' altogether. Ranking solutions is always going to be subjective (are extra lems saved really worth more than skills/time?), but also this method would make it much easier to track scores for challenges.


Consider a way to allow objects to indicate be drawn in front of terrain, instead of always behind like right now.  Alternatively (and equivalently?), a way to allow terrains to indicate be drawn behind objects, instead of always in front of like right now.

Context:  water.

This might also be a useful workaround for the guideline objects. Maybe a distinct 'guideline' type would be preferable still, but this way should be useable enough, and less work to implement.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #4 on: February 01, 2012, 10:40:30 AM »
On the skills button bar, the icons for builder/platformer and for the fling/non-fling bombers look too similar, it's quite easy for people to mix them up and accidentally select one when they mean for the other.  Yes, I know keyboard-savvy people like Simon and geoo will be unaffected, but from Clones experience we know that we're likely to get more singleplayer fans than multiplayer, and combine with not having a real hotkey system in the original Lemmings series, I believe the skill buttons will still be a frequent way for many Lix players to pick skills to assign.

For builder/platformer, either make it more clear that the builder is making diagonal stairs, or the platform is making horizontal platform.  As an example, the L2 platformer icon I think looks more obviously horizontal and somewhat more distinguished from the builder.  I'll grant you that barring some radical changes like using a different color altogether for platform bricks (even then that may get overlooked in the heat of things), builders/platforms will always have higher potential of getting mixed up, and maybe in singleplayer with the pausing and replays and what-nots, it's not that big a deal.  All I know is that I've mixed them up more frequently than I care to admit during MP playing :XD: (granted, you're supposed to use hotkeys in MP anyhow).

For the two bombers, obviously it would help to have more clear indication of flinging, in addition to just the barely larger explosion graphic. ;)  The obvious thing would be to put a tumbling lemming overlaying on top of the explosion graphic for the fling version.

Offline Proxima

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #5 on: February 04, 2012, 01:55:20 AM »
Wanted feature: right-click overrides builder queuing. At the moment it is impossible to assign builder to a walker lemming if there is a builder within the cursor, unless you turn off builder queuing altogether.

Offline Simon

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #6 on: February 04, 2012, 02:14:27 AM »
Don't hold RMB if you wish to do this.

For builder assignments, the default behavior is to assign to the highest-priority non-builder. Holding RMB overrides this and queues onto the current builder instead.

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Offline finlay

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #7 on: February 04, 2012, 10:39:38 AM »
Are you able to reassign whatever function the RMB has? I haven't been playing Lix recently, but when I do it'll be on my Mac laptop with only one goddamn button – there are ways to imitate a RMB click but you can't do them at the same time as a LMB click.

Offline Simon

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #8 on: February 04, 2012, 01:53:44 PM »
Noted it.

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Offline Nortaneous

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #9 on: February 04, 2012, 11:09:38 PM »
Is there a way to start a new level besides going into a folder that doesn't already have a level selected?

Offline Proxima

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #10 on: February 04, 2012, 11:23:23 PM »
Yes, the top-left button in the editor control panel, with the "New Document" icon. Curiously, it doesn't have a hotkey, and isn't available in the options tab for having a hotkey assigned to it.

Offline Nortaneous

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #11 on: February 05, 2012, 12:40:58 AM »
Ah, okay.

Also, one of the things I'm noticing about the themes is that there aren't really any large pieces, like the pillars in the marble set. I'm trying to remake this level, and I'm not seeing anything I could replace the pillar there with, except bricks, which would be ugly.

Offline mobius

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #12 on: February 13, 2012, 04:04:07 AM »
I noticed recently that you can't make a blocker a climber or floater. Was this intended? If so I'm curious why. While it's not a major issue that I can see, it could come in handy in certain situations. i.e. if you free the blocker and use him to do other stuff.

Also, just wanted to add, I'm finding it hard to adjust to the whole basher's tunnel height thing. I really like it the old way.

on a positive note, I just want to say, I'd like to marry the person who created the entire 'replay' function. :D  As already said, this makes doing 'tedious' tasks; calk walk.

also, I found a useful tool for a builder step guideline; the wooden steps in Simon/wood. Idk if this was intended but there 12 bricks the same size as the builder steps, & I've been using them as a guide.

EDIT: here's something important I forgot; WOuld there be any likely hood of changing the fast forward buttons so there hold down instead of toggle? In other words, you have to hold down the button to fast forward (like in Revolution). I personally find this better for two reasons. One; you usually don't fast forward for long amounts of time and pressing once it just easier imo. Two; it's much easier to make a mistake when toggling on and off.
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Offline Proxima

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #13 on: February 13, 2012, 01:07:03 PM »
Consider a way to allow objects to indicate be drawn in front of terrain, instead of always behind like right now.
At the moment you can't even get objects to draw in front of eraser pieces. This is extremely inflexible, because in fact I can't see why you'd ever want an eraser piece to cover an object, so this just means you can't have objects and eraser pieces in the same vicinity.

When restarting a long level, nearly always you're going to want to press ultra fast-forward. Nuke is located right next to it, and even a single click on nuke aborts the replay so you have to assign all skills again.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #14 on: February 13, 2012, 08:16:03 PM »
Also, one of the things I'm noticing about the themes is that there aren't really any large pieces, like the pillars in the marble set. <snip> and I'm not seeing anything I could replace the pillar there with, except bricks, which would be ugly.

I do agree that in general, many of the styles are suffering from an under-representation of non-brick terrain.

As a suggestion, the best way to try to get new terrain pieces incorporated is to create them yourself.  Then pass them onto geoo/Simon for inclusion.

I noticed recently that you can't make a blocker a climber or floater. Was this intended? If so I'm curious why. While it's not a major issue that I can see, it could come in handy in certain situations. i.e. if you free the blocker and use him to do other stuff.

It turns out original Lemmings also disallows assigning climber and floater to the blocker.  This may differ though in other games of the series.  It was suggested that it may be on purpose, on account that you may be more likely to assign to a walker, and if he's near a blocker you don't want to accidentally have the blocker take priority over walkers when assigning skills.  However, that argument sounds rather theoretical and I'm not convinced how often the situation would come up during actual play (maybe more so in MP?).  At the same time, it is also the case that in almost all situations, you can just assign the climber/floater after the blocker is freed instead of before, or maybe do the assignment before the Lix is made blocker.

EDIT: here's something important I forgot; WOuld there be any likely hood of changing the fast forward buttons so there hold down instead of toggle? In other words, you have to hold down the button to fast forward (like in Revolution). I personally find this better for two reasons. One; you usually don't fast forward for long amounts of time and pressing once it just easier imo. Two; it's much easier to make a mistake when toggling on and off.

I kinda like the current system better.  I'm not sure I entirely agree with "you usually don't fast forward for long amounts of time", I think you'll often do that at the end of the level when you're waiting for the crowd to exit.  I know for a fact that having to hold down the button to fast forward in Revolution often annoys me.  When I use FF in Lix, rather than toggling to stop, I usually stop FF by pausing and unpausing.

That said, if enough people want this, I supposed Simon can consider making this an option.  Or perhaps the input handling could be changed so that you need to double-click to toggle FF on.

At the moment you can't even get objects to draw in front of eraser pieces. This is extremely inflexible, because in fact I can't see why you'd ever want an eraser piece to cover an object, so this just means you can't have objects and eraser pieces in the same vicinity.

According to geoo, this is a bug in the editor right now.  When you actually play the level, the object will get drawn in front of eraser pieces.  The editor bug is basically an artifact of the editor using a non-background color to display eraser pieces.  I think it was done that way because the editor currently requires you to click on non-background pixels of terrain in order to select it, which would make eraser pieces unselectable if they were faithfully rendered in the editor as background.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #15 on: February 15, 2012, 10:19:41 AM »
This sorta belongs to the "community set" thread as well, maybe more so there.  But putting it here so it doesn't get too lost amongst the flood of levels and revisions expected on that thread.

This is inspired by geoo's modified version of Clam's "builder's cracks" level.  The (or "a") solution in a sense involves pixel counting at one part.  In the original games, due to the low resolution of the graphics, pixel counting is for the most part not too hard to do, at least for small distances.  However, with Lix's higher-resolution graphics, I wonder if it will become more difficult for players to learn details like exactly how many pixels makes a step passable vs not passable, and whether we may need some sort of tutorial-style level to help with that sort of thing.

And yes, there's the magnifying glass, but even with that, I'm still unsure if it makes things much easier, because the Lix graphics tend to use smoother gradients of colors that may make it somewhat trickier to see the individual pixels, depending on the terrain you need to do the counting on.

I suppose there are often ways to measure things in-game (for example, matching the height to number of bricks on a build bridge), so the player is not necessarily completely helpless in that regard.  It just seems like a harder to acquire skill in Lix.

Offline geoo

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #16 on: February 15, 2012, 02:14:08 PM »
I never count individual pixels, and I didn't do in this level either. In blocky levels, I don't find it harder to estimate things than in the original game, I actually have less trouble than in the original if things are 16-aligned.

I usually think in low-res pixels still, the main unit being 16 lo-res pixel blocks. Fall distance is 4 of them minus 1 pixel (a builder's brick), a bomber has a five second timer and during one second he falls a little less than 4 blocks, and walks a little less than one block. Walking up is 6 px like in the original, a bridge is 12 px, so if you build against a block, the remaining step will be 4 px and therefore walkable. Two bridges are 1.5 blocks high, a cuber is half a block, etc. If everything is aligned, you can get very far using just these estimates.
In case of bumpy terrain, just like in the original, it happens that the cursor is about the size of one block (slightly less), so for approximate measurement what I do is using the cursor. The big issue with bumpy terrain is that whether a certain hi-res structure can e.g. be walked up depends on whether it is aligned to the 2-grid or not, so with bumpy terrain one should make sure that things that look walkable are walkable as well, in order not to mislead the player.

In the tutorial levels, I intended to give some of these estimation hints, because I think they are useful and make playing require less trial and error. Once they are done, I'll also try to get some of my friends who aren't into Lemmings try them.

Offline Nortaneous

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #17 on: February 17, 2012, 03:46:31 AM »
Not sure where to put this, so. Three- and four-way pipe connectors for the abstract set.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #18 on: February 17, 2012, 10:44:58 AM »
In blocky levels, I don't find it harder to estimate things than in the original game, I actually have less trouble than in the original if things are 16-aligned.

Agree.  To be clear, what I mean is that someone who's new to Lix and Lemmings may not know that the blocks are usually 16 lo-res pixels and how that relates to some of the other distances.  An interesting wrinkle is that because the Lix diggers dig twice the amount per stroke in Lix, it may be possible for example for someone to initially mistaken 8 rather than 7 (in low-res pixels) as the cutoff point for walkable step.

I'm not too worry though because tutorials should help a little, and I expect plenty of levels that don't require such detailed and precise knowledge to solve.

Offline ccexplore

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #19 on: February 17, 2012, 10:49:50 AM »
The brazier and torch objects in the sandstone style need to have their transparent pixels sorted out, right now many of the background pixels around the flames are black rather than transparent.  In addition to working against non-black backgrounds, it will also become relevant if support is ever added for objects drawn in front of terrain.

Offline mobius

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #20 on: February 18, 2012, 12:17:24 AM »
in the graphics department, do we have any very thin pieces like those in the marble set of Original Lemmings? So far all I've found is pipes and thin blocks in a few different sets but none are thin enough. I'm trying to make this level that requires some almost exactly like that, and I can't use eraser pieces either (you'd understand if you saw it). I could make the graphics myself I just need to know the instructions on that topic. Can they be made in paint?
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Offline Proxima

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #21 on: February 18, 2012, 12:36:35 AM »
You're sure you can't use eraser pieces and then use the "background" and "foreground" commands (by default T and G) to layer the pieces as desired? That's what I (rather laboriously) did to build Toccata... (Incidentally, these should really be called "send back" and "bring forward" as that's just what they do -- calling them "background" and "foreground" gives the misleading impression that there are two distinct layers, rather than it being possible to shuffle pieces into any layering sequence.)

Incidentally, regarding the above discussion of pixel counting, I happened to look at my Mac ONML manual last night, and I noticed, on the "Some of the things to look out for" page, this statement: "Lemmings will die if they fall from a height greater than about 160 [hi-res] pixels." This is so far off the correct figure, I can't help wondering what happened. Were they trying to avoid players coming to depend on pixel counting? ???

Offline Nortaneous

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #22 on: February 18, 2012, 03:05:46 AM »
All of a sudden, Lix is very slow to redraw the window (as in, usually just doesn't), but only when the window is in focus; when I tab over to something else, it works fine. This started earlier today, and I've already tried deleting the folder and reinstalling. Anyone have any idea how to fix that?

Offline geoo

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #23 on: February 18, 2012, 03:50:04 AM »
Nortaneous: I have no idea what could cause that issue so suddenly. Perhaps Simon can help you there, he also knows a bit more about how Allegro works I think.

I had actually made triangular pipe pieces in the meantime that could be used as junctions (pretty small ones, so small that the border drawn around them in the editor makes it hard to see how they are oriented), though now that you made these, I can include just these as well, they are probably easier to work with, thanks.

The brazier and torch objects in the sandstone style need to have their transparent pixels sorted out, right now many of the background pixels around the flames are black rather than transparent.  In addition to working against non-black backgrounds, it will also become relevant if support is ever added for objects drawn in front of terrain.
Well the thing here is, as I have no partial transparency, I have to pick a color against which to blend it, which obviously has to be black. So even if I give those pixels that are close enough to black full transparency, those that are somewhat lighter will still stand out against a lighter background, as they were blended against black and not that specific background color (you can see this especially well if you have two overlapping buzzsaws, the one with higher priority looks like it has some black border around it). So thinking I can't fix that anyway, I went the lazy route and just kept even the basically transparent pixels black.
If you think making these full transparent though gives an improvement nevertheless, I can do that though. Same with the steam, etc.

Quote
in the graphics department, do we have any very thin pieces like those in the marble set of Original Lemmings? So far all I've found is pipes and thin blocks in a few different sets but none are thin enough. I'm trying to make this level that requires some almost exactly like that, and I can't use eraser pieces either (you'd understand if you saw it). I could make the graphics myself I just need to know the instructions on that topic. Can they be made in paint?
Basically, as Proxima said, using eraser pieces should always work, and usually you can even remedy the effect of things looking cut off using the no-overwrite trick.
Anyway, what will be included in the next version (in the construction set) is something resembling a platformer's platform to some extent (both as normal terrain and steel, just like the staircase in that set), so that's about as thin as it reasonably gets. I attached the bitmap file to this post so you can see what I'm talking about.
That said, you can always make your own tiles and ask them to be included if they look decent enough.

I honestly didn't even know the functionality of moving things to front/high priority and back/low priority were called like that. Yeah, something like Proxima suggested seems more appropriate as a name.

Offline mobius

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #24 on: February 19, 2012, 02:57:23 AM »
I'd be glad to put my art skills to work for Lix, the only thing is I'd rather devote my time to designing some levels, I don't have time to do both. but I think I'm going to make a few bmps of very thin pieces (not only for myself but for everyone). I'll use your attached file as a guide and upload em here. You or someone will have to do the conversion to whatever and such because I don't how to do that.

The thing is with this level I'm making; using eraser pieces would take more time than it would for me to just make my own terrain. Although, Proxima's level Tocatto, wow, u put a lot of work into that  :thumbsup:. I just don't have the time for that, and this level would require a lot of it and not a lot of copy/pasting will be possible either.

any color/design preferences? I was thinking of making a striped bar, much like in OL but maybe different colors
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Offline Simon

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #25 on: February 19, 2012, 03:11:09 AM »
You're very welcome to design terrain pieces, even if it'll be just a few. geoo's abstract style is pending for the next Lix release as well.

The best pieces tend to be whichever can be combined with several popular terrain sets. Striped bar sounds like it'd fit best into high-tech or rainbow-style levels, but this'll depend on the colors of course. :) Can't tell before I've seen it.

Nortaneous: No good idea how to remedy that. >_> I use RAM bitmaps for everything instead of video memory bitmaps (altering this is a pain at this point). Try setting a smaller resolution. 0 x 0 will use the same as the regular desktop resolution, try 640 x 480.

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Offline Nortaneous

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #26 on: February 19, 2012, 05:05:17 AM »
That didn't work. It lags just the same windowed, by the way. I guess I'll just add this to the list of reasons why I really should switch back to Linux.

Offline mobius

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #27 on: February 19, 2012, 10:15:25 PM »
here's a set of thin pieces I made quick in paint. there 4 pieces of a 2x8, 16, 64, and 128 pixel long. (bmp files) I also made the same in dark grey to go with the "underworld set". Of course I'm not sure what it will look like up against it if it's no good I can modify it.

EDIT:  a few things I noticed when using these.

-First of all, I didn't know all I had to do was put them in a name folder (I put them in geoo) and they would work. I was thinking there was a whole complicated process invovled.
-A digger can successfully dig down through 2 pixel gaps in this material. He doesn't 'fall'. That is if you stack it as in "Four Lemmings and a Funeral". (while a miner cannot, he falls and continues walking (like original lemmings was)) this is just another by-product of the digger. I was still surprised by it though.
-If anybody uses these; be careful if you have them stacked closely like I mentioned above don't have snap to 16 held or they will shift together. (that goes without saying I guess)
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Offline Nortaneous

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #28 on: February 22, 2012, 04:15:04 AM »
I'm running Archbang now, and when I tried to run Lix, I got the error "error while loading shared libraries: liballeg.so.4.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory", although I managed to get it to work by downgrading allegro to 4.2 and linking the resulting file /usr/lib/liballeg.so to /usr/lib/liballeg.so.4.2.

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #29 on: February 22, 2012, 10:40:17 AM »
Yep, I only link the networking lib statically. Allegro 4.x has a weird problem when linking statically, sound will not work. :/

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Offline ccexplore

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #30 on: February 24, 2012, 10:59:24 AM »
Consider a way to allow objects to indicate be drawn in front of terrain, instead of always behind like right now.  Alternatively (and equivalently?), a way to allow terrains to indicate be drawn behind objects, instead of always in front of like right now.

Okay, now I found out in Brickout C2 that entrance hatches and exits are apparently always drawn behind other types of objects.  Oy. :XD:  Is there any technical reason that those things can't just respect the z-order like the rest of the objects?

Offline mobius

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #31 on: February 24, 2012, 05:21:34 PM »
Using Simon's water, I made acid. It probably doesn't look quite right though, because I need to see it in action. In other words I need to be able to play it which I don't know how to do. (I might be able to do that with Fireworks(?) but I rarely use that program) I don't think the bubbles will look right. Besides arranging them differently I may need to draw them differently. Also I'm not sure about the different shaded line at the top. I made it change color over time like in Revolution.

 If you like the idea tell me how to make it look better (I use Paint right now). I was also thinking about making quick sand or something. Just to add some variety.
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Offline Nortaneous

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #32 on: February 25, 2012, 03:46:08 AM »
Is there a way to get diagonal lasers outside of making 1px laser segments? Anyway, here are the diagonal wood pieces for the goldmine set, edited from the plank supports. I would've cut them down to a size that would make them fit with the other planks, but at least from my testing, they're actually more annoying to work with that way.

edit: Here's a gif of the acid. You can see things in action with GIMP, which I think exists for Windows if that's what you're on. The bubbles just show up in random places; they should change position only gradually over time, so they look animated (moving) instead of thrown on haphazardly in Paint. Some variety in the types of water available would definitely be a good idea, though, as would variety in the ground and ceiling traps; we don't have many of those, and the 10-ton thing is tricky to position. I might take a shot at that later.

Offline mobius

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #33 on: February 25, 2012, 04:18:59 AM »
I'll fix it later. I'm just bad at visualizing that sort of thing without aid. I just wanted to get an idea if this was wanted in the game.
everything by me: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5982.msg96035#msg96035

"Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away."
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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #34 on: February 25, 2012, 06:43:56 AM »
Both the water and 10-ton trap were made way back in 2005 or 2006. They have several problems: The cell-shading drawing style simply doesn't fit with the modern tilesets. They looked better among the other terrain pieces I made, but I consider even those inferior to the other tilesets. The water has an additional problem with the flowing animation; the waves seem to move back and forth.

And they're horribly to place, they were made when the possible grid sizes were 1, 2, 10, or 25, not 1, 2, 8, 16, with 8 being changable into anything by the user.

There's actually a need for better water, Matt's sawteeth water isn't popular either, except with highly abstract styles.

-- Simon

Offline mobius

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #35 on: February 25, 2012, 08:04:45 PM »
here's version 2, I tried to make it flow better this time. Somehow I think I got the bubbles too close together, I'm not sure. Once again I couldn't preview it myself. I dont have GIMP. and fireworks is so annoying, I hate that program. For some stupid reason Windows photo viewer doesn't even play moving GIF files, so to view them I have to do it in a web browser. ><img src=" title="Angry" class="smiley" /> I have Virtual Dub but I don't think that will work, I may try though.



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"Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away."
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Offline geoo

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #36 on: February 26, 2012, 05:28:02 AM »
Err, why aren't you just viewing it in Lix?
Put .W before the file extension, put it in some level and check whether the animation looks smooth.

Offline finlay

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #37 on: February 26, 2012, 03:28:20 PM »
The pulsating from dark to light green is a bit annoying.

Offline Proxima

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #38 on: February 26, 2012, 05:35:03 PM »
It seems to be impossible to set the initial view to the very bottom of a vertical scrolling level, no doubt due to the small difference in size between the game and editor toolbars.

Along with the earlier suggestion of reversing the behaviour of normal and right-click when assigning multiple builders (i.e. it would be more consistent if right-click selected another lix, normal click queued the current builder) it would be nice if right-click prevented queuing completely. This would be helpful when you have a single builder who's about to turn round, and you want him to build immediately in the opposite direction.

I still find the way replays automatically change speed very annoying, particularly when I get near the key part and instinctively try to turn fast-forward off, end up turning it on and have to replay all over again. Can this feature at least be turn-offable?

Offline Simon

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #39 on: February 26, 2012, 09:09:06 PM »
Both are sensible ideas, will note them down. Especially the replay speed change can be considered a case of the game wanting to be smarter than the user, and thus should be togglable.

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Offline Nortaneous

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #40 on: February 27, 2012, 04:48:23 AM »
A third level of zoom would be useful, at least in the level editor.

Offline finlay

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #41 on: February 28, 2012, 09:47:06 AM »
Just held escape for longer than a millisecond and it exited the program... this should at least be disabled on the mac version, where quitting the program is universally cmd+Q. Or perhaps just making it have to register distinct key presses for you to 'escape' more than once, instead of interpreting holding it down as pressing it more than once.

Also, based on what you said earlier – that the latest version is January, the mac is a bit out of date.

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #42 on: March 04, 2012, 05:43:59 AM »
finlay: It turns out this happens on Windows as well, so it's probably something Simon should look at.

And about the Mac version's progress, it now uses 2012-01-07's codebase :)
About the long delay - I didn't have a proper way to integrate changes from Simon's repository and that kept me off it for a while. But I talked with him on IRC today and we decided on a hopefully better solution.
My Mac OS X port of Simon's game, Lix: http://asdfasdf.ethz.ch/~phil/

Offline Proxima

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #43 on: March 07, 2012, 05:26:38 PM »
I've noticed some bugs with the display of how many Lix are under the cursor. In the attached replay (the level is You Have to Build a Bridge, currently the latest post in the community set topic) stop at 2:45 and watch the climber on the far right. When he falls down into the crowd, the display will say "3 Walkers" and doesn't tell you that one of them is an athlete. Likewise, during the platforming, the display vacillates between displaying "Platformers" and "Walkers". And the end of platforming is displayed as "Shrugger2s".

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #44 on: March 11, 2012, 12:57:59 AM »
Phil is the nice person who builds the game for Mac users.

The levels in question are rather old, they were the first which were built with Matt's terrain. Several entrance and exit graphics have been altered since to fit a 16-pixel grid, usually by adding space at their sides. This dislodges them in very old levels. We haven't overhauled them yet, multiplayer and other people's packs were the center of attention usually.

-- Simon

Offline Simon

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #45 on: March 17, 2012, 07:47:36 AM »
Implemented in the current version in 2012-03-20:
  • Diggers don't turn on hitting steel.
  • Edit 2012-03-20: Ascender never skips ahead by an additional 1 lo-res pixel anymore. All horizontal lo-res pixels are visited once.
  • Basher relics lowered as in the following image, this will prevent the lixes from walking out of a basher tunnel sunk into the ground by 16 hi-res pixels = 8 lo-res pixels = 4 current digger swings.


-- Simon

Offline Simon

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #46 on: March 22, 2012, 11:09:26 AM »
On the Lix site, there is now a Bug tracker and a Wish list. I'll probably implement bug statuses and similar things in the future. (Right now, they're just separate topic listings.)

These should be used instead of doc/bugs.txt or the initial post here, simply to get everything together in one location. Everybody can write things without making an account -- this is the main reason I preferred to roll this custom solution instead of using github's bug tracker or something.

-- Simon

Offline ccexplore

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #47 on: March 26, 2012, 08:10:04 PM »
Sounds good.  Should I still keep this thread open or should I lock it now?  Not sure if this thread still has any purpose not already covered by the new features on the Lix site?

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #48 on: March 27, 2012, 09:35:16 AM »
Best is probably a note in the initial post. :) I don't have strong feelings either for or against locking, do as you wish. Locking is cleaner, not locking it might lead to slightly more feedback.

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Offline Proxima

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #49 on: April 06, 2012, 12:53:25 PM »
Last night, geoo gave me a zip file of levels including the originals and Mr Zurlinden's sets -- these contain 120 levels of which many are blank. I painstakingly went through and deleted all the blank ones. Today when I opened Lix they were all there again.  ???

Offline Simon

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #50 on: April 06, 2012, 01:01:51 PM »
If you put complete .DAT archives into the level tree, they will be extracted on starting the program.

If you don't want the blank levels, run the game once and exit again. Delete the .DAT archives, run the game again, and delete from the game the blank levels.

Use hotkeys for deletion and confirmation (default are [G] and [Space]).

Edit: Game shouldn't extract empty levels in the first place, noted this down.

-- Simon

Offline Proxima

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #51 on: April 06, 2012, 01:44:11 PM »
OK, thanks. For anyone who wants it, I've attached a ZIP file of the Zurlinden levels with all blanks and all duplicates removed. (There are 30 actual levels in the set.)

Just finished playing the Fun levels in Lix. On Level 29, the exit is too low and you have to use a digger to reach the trigger area. Is this accurate to the DOS version? (It certainly doesn't happen on the Mac.)

Offline Proxima

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #52 on: April 10, 2012, 03:38:08 PM »
I'm sure that when the game and level set are finished, we'll run a review thread similar to the threads for the original Lemmings games.

Lix's image exporting capability, which I tried out for the first time just now in the Community Level Set thread, is almost perfect for this. Time limit is displayed as "overtime", which I remember you said is a multiplayer setting. One vital stat is missing from the image -- number required to save.

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #53 on: April 10, 2012, 04:13:40 PM »
It's a consequence of the levels not knowing whether they're single- or multiplayer.

I will simply hard-wire the exporter to use singleplayer terminology for next release. The level format should be changed at some point, too much stuff calls for individual hatch/exit options.

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Offline mobius

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #54 on: April 10, 2012, 09:22:30 PM »
It's a consequence of the levels not knowing whether they're single- or multiplayer.

I will simply hard-wire the exporter to use singleplayer terminology for next release. The level format should be changed at some point, too much stuff calls for individual hatch/exit options.

-- Simon

are you saying you are going to modify the way entrences and exits work in the next update?

on another note: last time (which was a week ago) I looked at your site (the Lix site) the messages didn't quite make sense to me. In the wish list and the update lists; it seemed like the English parts and German parts were not translations of each other but saying separate things. The answer is I probably just didn't look at it right.
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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #55 on: April 13, 2012, 02:16:21 PM »
Go into a directory in which no level is selected; press Edit to start a new blank level; make some changes; press the "exit editor" button. Lix will ask you if you want to create a new level. When you enter the filename and press Enter, Lix crashes.

Offline Simon

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #56 on: April 16, 2012, 12:57:59 AM »
I just released a new version with several bugs fixed, both physics bugs and other problems. See bug tracker or github commit list for details.

I renamed bitmap/ to images/ and converted all "official" images to .png. If you have terrain which neither geoo nor me is tracking, then you have to copy that manually into images/ (no need to convert to .png). Also, I renamed replay/ to replays/, again you can copy over your old stuff (but I had physics changes in the current release, so it's not as important to keep old replays).

Proxima: I could reproduce the problem (editor exit & save), this isn't fixed in the just released version, but I will do something about it. New versions will be out quicker than the current one when they don't have physics changes.

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Offline geoo

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #57 on: April 16, 2012, 03:47:03 AM »
The dlls for png support are missing right now.

You can get them here meanwhile: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43603680/dlls.zip
Extract them into the bin/ folder.

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #58 on: April 16, 2012, 09:35:25 AM »
Yep, thanks. I've reuploaded the full game package with the DLLs included now.

(Actually, I don't make a bin/ directory in the Windows package, the executables and DLLs simply sit in the Lix root dir. Could change that if it gets too untidy.)

-- Simon

Offline mobius

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #59 on: April 20, 2012, 02:18:38 AM »
I thought I remember reading something about the fast forward behavior in replays. Currently during a replay if you ff it will stop on it's own after a few seconds. I can kinda understand the reason for this (if there is one that I'm thinking it is) but I don't like it. it's really pissing me off right now when I'm testing out my levels. What usually happens is I end up stopping the ff after it automatically does and then if goes back on and I have to start over  ><img src=" title="Angry" class="smiley" />.

so this isn't just a negative post, all the new updates are really swell  :thumbsup: .
(I felt like using the word "swell")
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Offline Proxima

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #60 on: April 20, 2012, 02:22:45 AM »
Go into Options; uncheck "Replay ends: normal speed".

The only question is whether this should be off by default, as it's not very easy to find  :P

Offline Proxima

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #61 on: May 30, 2012, 02:09:15 AM »
I was experimenting with a change to the level "A Soulful Bounding Leap". I decided against it, so I used geoo's replay and the "Extract level" function to retrieve the previous version of the level. When I went back into the level select menu, I got the bracketed tick and "Level has been edited" in place of the usual statistics -- and they remained even after I completed the level again.

Offline Simon

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #62 on: May 30, 2012, 05:05:27 AM »
Noted it, will investigate when I'll be doing some development again.

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Offline Proxima

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #63 on: June 01, 2012, 12:19:28 AM »
There seems to be a problem with exploding climbers in the current version. If their fuse runs out when they are just below the top of a wall, they fall instead of exploding where they are.

Offline mobius

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #64 on: June 06, 2012, 03:48:50 AM »
I have no idea how difficult this is to alter so whatever...

I'd really like it if when in windowed mode, the cursor isn't stuck inside the Lix window. So ever time (which is often) I need to click on something outside of Lix, I need to click the 'windows' button to open the panel or the volume nob to 'exit' and etc. [using the tab switch feature isn't possible because of glitch which ccexplore mentioned already]

----------------
Also, I complained about this in the chat room and apparently nobody else has this problem (?) but the latest version of Lix uses a large amount of CPU for me. It used to be around 50% but now it's around 25%. I swear I didn't change anything idk why it got better but i think it fluctuates. Anyway this just doesn't seem normal.

just for the record I'd rather have the first problem solved before the second.
everything by me: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5982.msg96035#msg96035

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #65 on: June 06, 2012, 09:19:41 AM »
First problem: Move mouse really, really hard and quick, to get outside the window in one frame.

I reset the mouse position to the center all the time to allow infinite mouse movement for right-click scrolling, and Allegro doesn't provide the raw mouse input.

Second problem: I think I already do most of the stuff usually advised for Allegro 4 programs. This is an old problem with has already annoyed people on their forums. I might still play around with this someday. It doesn't help either that I do all graphics with the CPU.

-- Simon

Offline mobius

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #66 on: June 11, 2012, 02:03:35 AM »
in Multiplayer mode, it would be really nice to be able to see what skills you have in the level preview screen. When playing new it makes it really tough when you don't know because you begin and have basically 1 second to look at what skills you have before the level begins.

Secondly; I like that you can choose how to arrange the skill bar when you make a level; however it has a definite down side:
when playing multiplayer (even if you use hot-keys) it means every level you have to memorize where all the skills are. You need to look at them to see how much you have. And even in single player, it's not a big deal but would be nice if they were more unified. That said; I like the feature but would not at all groan if you got rid of it and had a 'fixed skillbar'

I'm assuming part of the reason was because all 15 skills didn't fit on the screen? There's gotta be other ways around this. If I come up with any good ideas I'll post em.
everything by me: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5982.msg96035#msg96035

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Offline geoo

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #67 on: June 11, 2012, 01:38:37 PM »
Learn hotkeys, issue solved. :P

I like to have this freedom of arranging the skills, though I agree that some commonly accepted conventions could be nice.

I usually group them by skill type, putting the skills that have no effect on terrain (climber, floater, runner; walker, jumper, batter) to the left, those that create terrain (builder, platformer, cuber) in the middle and those that remove terrain (basher, miner, digger) to the right.
I think I'm less consistent with the blocker and bomber, due to tradition the blocker is linked with the bomber, so I put them between the first and second group, where they are also in the original skill panel.

Offline Proxima

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #68 on: June 11, 2012, 04:02:02 PM »
It's an interesting discussion topic, both for SP and MP levels. 8)

My habit is to start with the traditional 8 skills and then place any others at the end. Since walkers or batters often replace bombers for the function of removing blockers, I put them in the bomber slot if bombers are absent (e.g. Little Viennese Waltz). It's also fairly common that a level has all the classic 8 except floaters; then I either put something else in the floater slot (Goblin City) or move climbers right and leave the leftmost space blank (From the Other Side). If a level has both builders and platformers I put them together and shunt the digging skills along one place; if there are only platformers, of course they usually go in the builder slot, unless putting them with the miscellaneous skills makes a neater pattern (You only get one bash at it). However, on the rare occasions when I'm using all 12 of the "modern 12", or 11 of them plus one other, I put them in "modern 12" order.

I also like the feature that you can include a skill but give zero of that skill; I use this to emphasise that a particular skill is absent (Thomas the Climber, floaters); on the hard version of a level, to emphasise the removal of a particular skill from the easy version (Lixster Quadrille, floaters and miners); very occasionally, to create a pattern (Cry for me, which originally had 42 climbers, creating the pattern 42-10-4-2-1-0).

Anyway, getting back to multiplayer. TM and I have agreed to be each other's training partners, and had our first session last night :) It was a success, overall, though a few points stood out. TM already mentioned not being able to see the skills before play. One round was a failure because TM thought the builders were platformers, leading him to take an inferior route; this ended up being not much fun for either of us, and a lot of time was essentially wasted. On the same level (Rubix's King of the Castle) the exits are so high that the lix icons indicating which is which are off-screen; of course it was easy to guess that each group of lix would be assigned to the further exit, but not knowing this for certain made things awkward, and made it easier to forget in the heat of battle.

So far, my favourite map is Rubix's Crossover Combat, although TM handily beat me on that one by digging potholes in my route in too many places :D

Offline mobius

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #69 on: June 12, 2012, 02:38:53 AM »
I don't really care much about the skills pallet; there isn't much to do about it considering the number of skills. I'm just saying that; I don't really see what's so great about being able to arrange the skill bar any way you want.

I'm asking advice more than anything here. I'm running into the same problem I did when playing other multilayer games like Team Fortress. You usually only have 3 weapons to choose from but I would still often pick the wrong weapon and screw up because of it.
In Lix you have 15 skills. I think in maps with a lot of skills I pick the wrong skill more often then picking the right one. I doesn't really have a lot to do with learning hot keys; I just can't think fast enough.
everything by me: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5982.msg96035#msg96035

"Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away."
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Offline Simon

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #70 on: June 12, 2012, 03:24:53 AM »
You want to select skills subconsciously. This requires quite a period of training, during which errors will be made all the time, with improvement coming only slowly. I can't tell whether this investment is worth it, that's something you have to decide for yourself.

Practising a lot with Proxima sounds really good though, it should make the initial error-heavy time much more enjoyable.

Crossover Combat is a map I've enjoyed a lot, I should play it more often. It's intended to be a team map, but it's a good strategical map for normal 1v1 as well.

-- Simon

Offline Proxima

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #71 on: July 06, 2012, 01:17:12 AM »
In the current version, previously queued builders aren't restored when walker is assigned (they are with other skills).

Offline Simon

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #72 on: July 06, 2012, 05:20:04 PM »
Noted it, sounds easily fixable.

-- Simon

Offline mobius

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #73 on: August 08, 2012, 08:49:08 PM »
Thanks for fixing the graphics issue that I had, whether it was intentional or not.

I was playing multiplayer and noticed something. There’s no priority selection when attempting to give multiple skills to a lix (e.g. builders and platformers)
Allow me to elaborate;

First I made 1 lix a builder in a large group of walkers. Then I clicked a few more times with the intention of giving that lix 3 or 4 more builders but instead simply made 4 more lixes builders. Maybe you already tested this and found this to be the best way, but I’d think it would be nice the other way. e.i. have priority on worker for builder and platformer; if you have assign multiple checked. If you need to select a walker, simply right click.
Of course there is a downside I suppose; if you wanted to select a different worker, but that happens whenever you have two different workers close to each other
everything by me: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5982.msg96035#msg96035

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Offline ccexplore

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #74 on: August 09, 2012, 04:59:57 AM »
I know I've been off Lix for a while, but I could've sworn what you said have been mentioned before somewhere here (or possibly in IRC).

However, I think especially in MP, you are actually usually better off with the current behavior, in critical situations where you need to "mass spam" builders to a bunch of closely spaced lixes all about to meet their doom.  In comparison I wonder how relatively often you would need to queue a few builders to one lix while there are a couple more under the cursor.

Perhaps having a ("queue mode") key that can be pressed to temporarily modify the assignment scheme?

My habit is to start with the traditional 8 skills and then place any others at the end.

I don't quite remember how I've done it on the very few levels I've posted, but I think in most cases I either stick with the "traditional" order, or in specific cases (especially with mostly non-classic skills), I may intentionally scramble the order to (admittedly very weakly) obfuscate the solution. :evil:

Offline Simon

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #75 on: August 09, 2012, 05:55:55 AM »
Priority inversion (hold RMB) allows to queue builders even in a bunch. Default is to assign to non-building workers, then to walkers, then to builders.

If people feel it should prefer builders without priority inversion, I'll add an option. But remember that options clutter the menu if too few people use it.

The skill order in the panel can be a can of worms. Clones has always the same 12 skills and thus no problem with ordering. I've talked about this with geoo once, and we both felt we should keep the nice large skill buttons in Lix for new players.

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Offline Clam

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #76 on: August 09, 2012, 09:52:15 AM »
Interesting point about the skill icon ordering. I like to put mine in a consistent order, loosely based on the original 8 setup and more or less logical:


Yes, that black background is pretty sweet, ain't it? (:

Exceptions are when the order of skill usages required is obvious, and anything else would only annoy the player, for example my level The Turnaround Compendium. Similarly, in any level with a death-drop start (IIRC there aren't any of these in my set), the first skill should of course be floater :)

Offline mobius

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #77 on: August 11, 2012, 03:39:41 AM »
If you try to select a skill that’s run out, it automatically goes to the next one. This is nice, but it should play a sound or flashing lights or something to let you know. When you run out of the skill, a sound playing would be good too.

Yes I know ‘I should be watching my skill pallet’ but if I was perfect I would also be a millionaire. If you look at other games, any game with any kind of “ammo” a sound often plays when you run out. Half-Life for example; a game that has a much simpler arrangement; you have one tool and one number that counts down. Yet, the game designers still added in that feature to let you know when you run out.

----------------

I still really don’t care for the skill pallet set up. However, I’ve been thinking about a way around it;
an option that allows you to have a pre-arrangement for yourself, a ‘mask’ that the skills can fit into when you open a new level. That way everybody can have the arrangement they want. Obviously Idk if this is possible but I’m trying to think of anything better.

Hotkeys solve the issue of pressing the buttons, but not looking at your skills to see what you have and how many.
I’ve gotten much better at picking the correct skill, but still get frustrated when I look down to see what skill I have and nothing is where I expect it to be.

Even if you’ve played a level before, taking some time to look at the skills pallet to see what you have, having to take extra time because the skills are arranged in a different order is a waste of time. When a newcomer comes into a game and on every level the basic tools of the level, something that is generally a constant in most games, confuses them every time, they’ll get frustrated quickly. It’s a major distraction and annoyance really because in MP time is money. I know that sounds harsh, but I’m saying what I’ve specifically read in Game Informer already. People don’t like that.
In any program, the toolbar is something you arrange for yourself and it’s always the same, or always the way you want. Imagine if every time you opened up Photoshop, all the tools; paintbrush, eraser etc. were all in a different order and you had to spend a little time searching for them.

The gamer that plays constantly probably won’t have trouble with this, but it could deter regular’s or casual gamers immensely.
[This is only an issue with MP really. I don't find much problem with it in Single but that's me]

I’m rambling on a lot, but I’m just trying to contribute in making it the best way possible. I really think a lot of people won’t like that feature. And then I could be completely wrong.
Lix is a very complex game and a lot of care should be taken into deciding exactly how these issues are dealt with. (<that’s me trying to sound professional right there  ;P).
everything by me: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5982.msg96035#msg96035

"Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away."
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Offline ccexplore

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #78 on: August 11, 2012, 05:39:01 AM »
Hotkeys solve the issue of pressing the buttons, but not looking at your skills to see what you have and how many.
I’ve gotten much better at picking the correct skill, but still get frustrated when I look down to see what skill I have and nothing is where I expect it to be.

That's a fair point.  Only that since there are only 12 slots but 15 skills, it is not possible to guarantee that a skill will always be placed at the exact same location of the toolbar on every single level.  However if there is a user-defined order, the game can at least try to honor it to its best abilities and make the skills appear mostly around the same few buttons from level to level, instead of having it possibly all the way on the left on one level and all the way on the right on another.  Is that good enough, or does it still sound like there's still room for confusion?  And what about levels with fewer than 12 skills (some much fewer):  are gaps in the toolbar good or bad?  if no gaps, then is it okay that the skills can wind up quite far away from its "ideal" position?  (eg. say you want digger as far to the right as possible and climber as far to the left as possible.  Then in a level with only climber and digger, either they each stay on their end of the toolbar [gaps], or else one must come visit the other [no gaps]).

Warning player of low number of skills is not a bad idea, if not already done in some manner.  I'm not 100% convinced that letting you know when the skill hit 0 is all that useful (isn't it just a little late by then?), but I guess it's easy enough to do programming-wise.

Offline Simon

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #79 on: August 11, 2012, 09:02:36 AM »
This is an issue indeed. Ideas so far:
  • Use smaller skill buttons. Allows for >= 15 skills in fixed order, but visually less appealing, and bad for non-hotkeyers (among which are all newbies).
  • Fix an order or let the user specify one, and reorder the skills. This needs an algorithm for the gaps. Very few drawbacks otherwise, as just a few maps need specifically ordered skills.
  • Write the number of the current skill below the mouse cursor, always visible. To check the amount left of any skill, hit its key.
  • Play a warning sound whenever no nonempty skill is available for the pressed key.
If a skill is empty and you press its hotkey, the next skill will be selected only when you've assigned the key to multiple skills. Multiple skills per key isn't perfect right now, because the number of key hits depends on the content of the skill bar. The workaround is to refrain from multiple skills per key as much as possible right now.

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Offline Clam

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #80 on: August 11, 2012, 10:57:48 AM »
Quote
  • Fix an order or let the user specify one, and reorder the skills. This needs an algorithm for the gaps. Very few drawbacks otherwise, as just a few maps need specifically ordered skills.
I like this idea very much. There could also be an option to gather the skill icons on the left (so all gaps are at the right), right, or in the middle with gaps on both sides. I've noticed different level designers have different preferences here (eg. I prefer middle, geoo seems to favour left).


Quote
  • Play a warning sound whenever no nonempty skill is available for the pressed key.
In addition to this, you could play a different sound on assignment when you have few or no uses of the selected skill after the assignment. For example, you could do the following:

- Select a skill you have less than 5 of -> warning sound
- Use a skill and have less than 5 after assignment -> assignment sound + warning sound
- Attempt to select a skill you have none of -> empty sound
- Use the last instance of a skill -> assignment sound + empty sound

The empty sounds would work for SP too (warnings maybe not so much, that could get tiresome :P)

Offline Proxima

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #81 on: August 11, 2012, 12:25:23 PM »
I know I've been off Lix for a while, but I could've sworn what you said have been mentioned before somewhere here (or possibly in IRC).

I brought it up on the first page of this topic :)

Priority inversion (hold RMB) allows to queue builders even in a bunch. Default is to assign to non-building workers, then to walkers, then to builders.

If people feel it should prefer builders without priority inversion, I'll add an option. But remember that options clutter the menu if too few people use it.

I feel that would make more sense; by far the most common need for priority inversion is when you have (at least one) walker and a worker under the cursor, so one is likely to think of it as an "assign skill to walker" feature -- especially for players coming from L1, in which the RMB does exactly that. So it feels off that in this one instance, its functionality is switched.

Talking of options, I discovered the reason I was doing so badly at "Ghetto Wars". Lix has an option "Never assign batter to exploders", and this is on by default. I'm sure the pros have a need for this option, but it's likely to bewilder newcomers, so I'd suggest making it off by default.

Offline Proxima

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #82 on: August 11, 2012, 01:58:01 PM »
Partly finished conversion of Insane Steve's "Diagonal Part 2" to the new terrain. Note that the steel block under hatch 3 appears behind the overlapping terrain piece; pressing G (bring forward) does not fix this. This happens near coordinates (0,0) on wraparound levels.

(Easy to fix in this case -- I just moved the entire level 16px left -- but I still thought it worth noting that this bug exists.)

Offline Proxima

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #83 on: August 11, 2012, 02:52:55 PM »
V (hotkey for "add pieces to selection" mode) does not work; when pressed, the button is momentarily highlighted, as though this mode had been entered and immediately exited. Also, when you press A (duplicate) while in "add pieces to selection" mode, 99 times out of 100 the next thing you want to do is move the duplicated terrain, so it would be most useful if pressing A automatically exited this mode.

Offline mobius

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #84 on: August 11, 2012, 05:55:49 PM »
I personally don’t mind gaps in the skill bar (e.i. a gap where a skill would normally be that isn’t present in that particular level) I actually think it helps stress that this skill is missing. The skills don’t have to be necessarily in an exact position, but I feel they should have some order. The major problem I was running into is I’d look down for a blocker and the blockers were all the way over to the right and at first I thought there were no blockers.

I like option 2 best. Your right about the size of the skill icons is good now. Plus, having all 15 skills present in any level might be too much really. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that most people can handle up to 10 tasks or remember 10 things at a time or something like that. Personally, the 8 skills are simple to remember and access and even levels with ~10, having platformers or walkers or a few extra is okay for me. But a lot more just seems too much to handle.

I'm trying to think of other games that have something like this. What I'm thinking about (I don't know if it's exactly what you had in mind) is that in the options menu you order the skills for yourself; however you want. Then upon playing someone's level no matter what order their skills are in they get arranged to your arrangement.

--------
on the sound issue,

number below the cursor sounds nice, however, I’d worry about that getting in the way or being distracting. Of course, I’d have to see it first to decide that.

If a skill is empty and you press its hotkey, the next skill will be selected only when you've assigned the key to multiple skills. Multiple skills per key isn't perfect right now, because the number of key hits depends on the content of the skill bar. The workaround is to refrain from multiple skills per key as much as possible right now.

That’s strange, I don’t have any keys assigned to multiple skills at all. I must have simply been pressing the wrong key then, so forget that argument. :XD:
Anyway, a warning sound when you select the empty skill would probably be more useful than when it runs out, if you would only do one or the other.

Something else; to add to what Clam said, something that Pokemon did; the color of the numbers changes to yellow, orange and red when it gets low.


In addition to this, you could play a different sound on assignment when you have few or no uses of the selected skill after the assignment. For example, you could do the following:

- Select a skill you have less than 5 of -> warning sound
- Use a skill and have less than 5 after assignment -> assignment sound + warning sound
- Attempt to select a skill you have none of -> empty sound
- Use the last instance of a skill -> assignment sound + empty sound

The empty sounds would work for SP too (warnings maybe not so much, that could get tiresome :P)

yeah in SP that might get annoying. Your idea might be a little too noisy, but again we’d have to test it out before we judge. But sounds or something should definitely be included
everything by me: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5982.msg96035#msg96035

"Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away."
-Hakuin Ekaku

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Offline Proxima

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #85 on: August 20, 2012, 01:05:58 AM »
Replay showing climber/bomber problem I noted earlier.

Offline Prob Lem

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #86 on: October 04, 2012, 12:37:48 AM »
I hope that I'm posting this in the right place...

I encountered an apparent bug in the 32-bit Linux version of Lix, when trying to run it on Xubuntu 12.04, running on a netbook with an AMD C-60 APU for its guts (the Asus 1225B, to be specific, if that's useful information at all).

When starting in full-screen mode, the mouse pointer instantly hops to the upper-left corner of the screen, and, when moved, it seems to keep getting dragged most or all of the way back up there by some unknown force. It was nearly impossible (and took about ten minutes) to select the language that I wanted to use and then manage to exit the program, since there didn't seem to be any key combination that could be used to break out of it.

For some reason, it's fine if run in a window - a shame that that's not the default, but it's no big deal. :P

As an aside, will the sound issue for the 32-bit Linux build be addressed any time soon? I'd love to play it with audio, and I can't even run the Windows build under WINE to work around this (it just comes up with the loading screen, and then WINE throws an unhelpful error and nothing else happens). :P

Offline Simon

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #87 on: October 04, 2012, 02:43:08 AM »
I do some workarounds with Allegro's (the library I use for graphics and input) mouse code, to allow for infinite mouse movement. Next version (currently busy with real life) will have a switch to use the simplest possible mouse code, at the cost of right-click scrolling.

Plain ESC should quit the game during language selection and name entry, will note that down and add that. Currently, there is the combination Shift+ESC, which exits the game unconditionally from absolutely anywhere (including the editor, where you can lose data), but this is not explained in the game.

Sound issue on 32-bit Linux: I ssh onto a 32-bit text-only machine and compile the game there, and I can't test it anywhere. Should you happen to be a programmer, you can try to compile the game from source on your machine, you will probably get sound then.  doc/linux.txt has the build instructions. Maybe this will fix the mouse issue as well, but that seems a more prevalent problem, e.g. also on Win 7.

-- Simon

Offline Prob Lem

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #88 on: October 04, 2012, 06:08:52 AM »
I do some workarounds with Allegro's (the library I use for graphics and input) mouse code, to allow for infinite mouse movement. Next version (currently busy with real life) will have a switch to use the simplest possible mouse code, at the cost of right-click scrolling.
Aha. Thankyou muchly for the info. :)

Quote
Plain ESC should quit the game during language selection and name entry, will note that down and add that. Currently, there is the combination Shift+ESC, which exits the game unconditionally from absolutely anywhere (including the editor, where you can lose data), but this is not explained in the game.
That's interesting, and thanks for the info, again. It wouldn't respond to any keys at all, in my case, though I have no idea why.

Quote
Sound issue on 32-bit Linux: I ssh onto a 32-bit text-only machine and compile the game there, and I can't test it anywhere. Should you happen to be a programmer, you can try to compile the game from source on your machine, you will probably get sound then.  doc/linux.txt has the build instructions. Maybe this will fix the mouse issue as well, but that seems a more prevalent problem, e.g. also on Win 7.
I'm not a programmer (I use Linux, usually with Xfce, because it works much better for me, and because it suits my way of working much better than other OSes do :P), but I have occasionally compiled things when necessary in similar situations before (it hasn't always *worked*, but I'm always happy enough to give it a try!). If I have the time, I might give that a shot. I'll let you know the results if I do. :thumbsup:

EDIT: Ok, I compiled it myself, and it did indeed fix the audio issue! Thanks very much for that tip. :D I did have to also install libpng-dev and libtool, in addition to the libraries specified in the Linux build instructions, but it went nice and smoothly after that - it was the easiest and most hassle-free compilation I've ever done. Thankyou very much for writing clear instructions, and an evidently good makefile. :) The mouse issue was not fixed by this, but I wasn't expecting it to be - and I wanted to play it in a window anyway!

One last question: Is there currently any means to have the Lix window grab and release the mouse-pointer? I found that it kept going out of bounds while I was playing the game. :P If not, would it be audacious of me to request that feature? (With a redefinable hotkey for releasing the mouse-pointer, if possible.)

Offline Simon

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Re: the Lix user feedback thread
« Reply #89 on: October 10, 2012, 07:20:07 AM »
Thanks for accolade, I've striven to use as few nonstandard libs as possible to minimize hassle. ;-) Will add libpng and related libs to the instructions, they're fairly recent additions. The makefile usually grows from working ideas copied over from other makefiles, I wouldn't know how to write this exact makefile from scratch.

When I'll do the mouse workaround, I'll see whether the release key is still necessary. Maybe Alt+Tab or similar key combinations work in order to switch away from the window.

(Still really busy in real life. I'm also rarely on IRC.)

-- Simon