I think by now you've figured out that unpredictability is the last thing the NeoLemmix community at large would want to be added to the game .
I know, but there
has been talk of bringing something completely new and different to the table, so...
The Sleeper...
This can already be done - and is already being done - with the Blocker on many advanced levels, and the Blocker is perfectly sufficient for this.
Sure, but I thought that it might be preferable to spamming a level with Blockers and Walkers, both of which
can be backroute-prone. That said, I've recently seen a few such levels (i.e. using Blockers with Walker pickups) and they're actually not that backroute-prone at all! I guess it depends how it's done.
the Resetter...
Usually, this would be applied after the path for the crowd has been prepared. Meaning, the way from the hatch is already safe.
Actually (and this is the distinction I'd make with the Resetter),
I think they should reset to the place where they landed, and not simply re-spawn from the hatch. That way, if terrain and stuff has changed around/beneath the entrance hatch, it could potentially start them off on a totally different route (after having picked up pickup skills that allow this, for instance).
And in turn, if there's still some work to be done on the side of the hatch, why not simply have a lemming from the crowd do it, instead of teleporting the worker back to the hatch? There's no need to enforce everything being done by the pioneer - in fact, a lot of players might consider that somewhat boring, because "pioneer" levels sometimes get frowned at by the more advanced players here. (Because those levels involve crowd containment rather than flow control.)
To be fair, at no point in my suggestion did I specifically mention that the Resetter would always be used for pioneer lemmings; I just mentioned a lemming that's in immediate trouble.
In actuality, with this skill,
any lemming can be transported immediately back to their landing spot. I'd say that actually opens up more possibility for levels with multiple-workers; by all means, lemmings from the crowd could suddenly become more useful if a worker lem is off doing something else in another critical part of the level.
Furthermore, Icho's idea that the Resetter has
Possibility of permanent skill reset as well
would also
distinguish it further from a teleporter, or simply another transport skill.
So in other words, maybe there're only 4-5 different angles the spear is ever at despite the trajectory itself being smooth parabola. At various points in the trajectory, the spear's angle would abruptly go from one angle to the next.
Maybe the spear could be animated such that there are multiple angles, and so it appears more smooth. Upon landing, it can take a more fixed pre-determined angle, and if accompanied by a "poing" sound and a quivering of the spear in it's landing place, it would be fairly undetectable as having varied slightly from its trajectory in-flight.
Here's another idea just whilst we're riffing:
The Bowler - throws/rolls a large bowling ball which, upon contact with terrain, scatters pieces of terrain whilst leaving a hole the same shape as the bowling ball: essentially, a projectile skill that's both destructive
and constructive. This is just a seedling idea at this point: in principle, this could be developed into something very usable.