[Lemmings 2] Minimum skills for one lemming (Incomplete)

[GuyPerfect]

This thread was split off from <a href="index0708.html?topic=784.0" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">that other thread</a> because it wasn't cool enough. (-:

Minimum skills required for getting just 1 Lemming to the exit in Lemmings 2 levels.

<span style="font-family: courier;" class="bbc_font">
 -----------------------------------------------
|Tribe    |  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 Total |
|---------|-------------------------------------|
|Beach    |  0  1  2  3  2  4  4  2  6  1   25  |
|Cavelem  |  1  5  1  2  2  2  4  5  2  4   28  |
|Circus   | -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --  ---  |
|Classic  | -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --  ---  |
|Egyptian | -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --  ---  |
|Highland | -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --  ---  |
|Medieval |  4  5  2  3  3  5  4  5  1  2   35  |
|Outdoor  |  0  0  1  1  2  3  2  4  4  1   18  |
|Polar    | -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --  ---  |
|Shadow   | -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --  ---  |
|Space    | -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --  ---  |
|Sports   | -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --  ---  |
 -----------------------------------------------
</span>

[geoo]

Well, it takes 9 to get gold in Beach 9, so just saving one can't be harder than that, can it? EDIT: Can be adapted to work with 6 skills. (Same as gold solution without crowd control and use a roller to bypass the gaps in front of the exit.)
Same for beach 6 btw, gold takes 6 skills. EDIT: Beach 6 works with 4 skills, adapting LemSteven's gold solution.
Just tested, Beach 2 can be improved to 2 skills. Maybe even 1? EDIT: Yup, 1 skill for Beach 2.
Beach 5 down to 2 skills.

But yeah, I like this challenge, and I don't like all the results mixed up for all kinds of different games, so I made this a new topic.
L2 is at least as fun as L1 anyway (if not more!), so I think it deserves it.

[geoo]

Here's Outdoor:


|Outdoor| 1(0)  1(0)  1  1  2  4(3)  2  4  4  2(1)   22(18)  |

See note on Outdoor 1, 2 and 10 in followup post. Outdoor 6 uses nuke+framestepping, but has been successfully executed.

Magic of Mushrooms has a 4 skill solution, but I've been trying a nuke route and I've come 1 or 2 pixels close to saving one using only 3 skills. I think chances are pretty good that it works with 3 skills, but I still need to pull it off. EDIT: Exiters actually explode during their exit animation, and the outdoor animation is kinda long, so I don't know anymore whether this route is really possible. EDIT: works with 3 skills, see followup post.

[ccexplore]

Too bad about Outdoor 6.

Here are some Beach improvements, mostly just minor stuff like no need for crowd control, or borrowing moves from other existing challenges.

Beach 2: 1
Beach 5: 2
Beach 6: 4
Beach 9: 6
Beach 10: 1

Beach 2 and especially 10 could use videos due to execution difficulties, maybe later this weekend.

Beach 2: Yep, you can jetpack all the way to the exit.  Of the two narrow gaps near the level's start, go through the one to the right.
Beach 5: Consider the route with the suction traps.  Remember that the suction trap can only kill one lemming out of a tightly bunched group of them.
Beach 6: Take the 6-skill gold solution, minus the need to free the crowd and to platform over water.
Beach 9: Take the 9-skill gold solution, minus the need for crowd control (so no attractor and the need to free him), and once you reach the bottom, a single lemming can just roller his way to the exit, instead of using 2 platformers or similar to cover up the 2 narrow gaps.
Beach 10: It is very difficult, but indeed possible for the Superlem to get past the handle of the bucket, even though the handle reaches all the way to the top boundary of the level area.  (Indeed, this move had already been used before for another challenge.)

Beach 7 can likely be reduced to 4 using the solution from the undamaged level challenge, I just need to confirm it. [edit: oops, my bad, the solution took one more jumper than I thought, so it would've been 5 anyway and not improving. ]

[geoo]

Managed the 3 skill solution for Outdoor 6! I just read up in the L2 glitch thread that repeated pausing also affects the bomber timing...so I used that to delay the countdown of the lemming that was supposed to enter the exit. Screenshots of my Outdoor stuff attached.
Seems like a very powerful tool for this challenge, at least on theory, in some sense giving you free bombers.
EDIT: Checked Outdoor 10, and there's a 1 skill solution using the nuke. It involves frame stepping probably like 100 times which I couldn't really be bothered to do, but it works in theory.
EDIT: Outdoor 2 as well. 0 skills. Can't be bothered to frame step till the end.
EDIT: Outdoor 1 has potential for this too. EDIT: Yup, confirmed. 0 skills (didn't execute it).
I see potential for this glitch in Medieval in like half of the levels, I'm wondering whether it is starting to break this challenge... I can't really be bothered to try to execute any of them, maybe giving exploders that can only be assigned to the lemming out that has the lowest index? Or just restraining from using this glitch altogether.
I suggest we forbid using the nuke, and put records that use the nuke, even if they have not been executed but if enough evidence is given, in brackets (like I did in my Outdoor record from my post above). The reason I suggest the nuke being the criterion and not frame stepping is that it is well-defined, while frame stepping can happen on accident.

Wow, Beach 10 is nifty, I'll have to take a good look at that. I got the same improvements for the other beach levels as you did (I edited them into my first post at some point). Beach 2 wasn't too hard to execute, just move the fan at full blast to a pixel precise position at some point, and a lot of pausing.

Had a look at Medieval, nothing too special really. Quite a few levels I couldn't even improve over the skill count that achieves gold, but I couldn't see any improvements there.

|Medieval| 4  6  2  3  3  5  4  5  1  2   35  |

[ccexplore]

Cool! I love how a new challenge can put a previously underutilized glitch to such amazing effect.  Now I need to take a fresh look at all the L2 levels again......

I suppose we can separately track solutions which make use of the glitch vs solutions that don't (looks like you're already doing that).  Frame-stepping glitches in general had been used previously in a few levels on other L2 challenges, so I think it makes sense to at least include such solutions on record for this challenge.

=============================

On a separate note, for Lemmings 2 it might also be interesting to report on this thread the related result of "minimum skills total to complete a tribe", in the sense of having to carry over the number of lemmings saved from one level into the numbers you start with on the next.  It's obvious how this would be closely related to the current challenge without necessarily resulting in just the sum of the individual skill counts.

[ccexplore]

Here's a (zipped) DOSBox video for SuperLem-ing past the bucket handle on Beach 10.  Unfortunately my finger slipped and accidentally click on something at some point well after the tricky bit , so it's not a video of the full solution.

[ccexplore]

Beach 7 is 4 skills as it turns out, nothing fancy even.

A runner by itself can get over to the next platform from the starting one, then two platformers can reach the top of the beachhouses.

[ccexplore]

Here's a nuke-with-framestepping solution for Beach 1 that uses 0 skills.  DOSBox movie (zipped) attached mainly to let people unfamiliar with the glitch/technique see it in action (sorry for no sound, but it keeps the file size in line with what's allowed here).  It may be one of few such solutions that remain reasonable to be carried out by a normal person.

In thinking about it, I now start to fully realize what geoo's talking about.  You can theoretically get up to 59 free bombers with this technique, which undoubtedly really undermines the spirit of the challenge.   (Granted, in practice a good number of lemmings are likely to get flung away by the explosions to bad places, so 59 is a bit optimistic even in theory.)

[ccexplore]

Medieval 2 improved to 5 skills:

Crawling FTW yet again.  At that steel block where you normally sand-pour twice to get over, just have one lemming sand-pour once when he just turned from the steel block facing right.

Short courtesy video attached for demonstrating the move in question, though I'm sure I've used it previously in other L2 challenges.

Other than that I see no improvements either for that tribe, ignoring nuke anyway.

[GuyPerfect]

Submission for Cavelem:

Code: [Select]

|Cavelem  |  1  5  1  2  2  2  4  5  2  4   28  |

[ccexplore]

Another somewhat humanly feasible 0-skill nuke-and-framestep solution, this time for Cavelem 3.  (No sound again for file size.)