New Analog Keyboards for Roping

[Impossible]

In the last few years, people came up with a special class of keyboards focused on competitive games - analog keyboards.

it all started with wooting, and other brands (namely razor) caught up too.

The idea of analog buttons is that, just like on gamepads, each button has a degree of pressing, instead of discrete pressed/not pressed

at first glance, this sounds useless, except perhaps for racing sims (where it allows to turn/gas smoothly), but people came up with several common use cases for analog switches. one of them is "rapid trigger"

here's how it works:
on a regular keyboard, you need to press down a key quite a bit, until around the midway point of the switch, in order to activate it and register an input. After that, if you want to register another input, you have to let the key travel up above this midway point, in order to deactivate it, and then you need to press it down again. If a key is fully pressed down (bottomed out) and you let go just a little bit, but not enough to reach the midway point and deactivate the keypress, and then you push it back down, it won't trigger another input. You can test this yourself, simply press down one of the keys on your mechanical keyboard all the way, then very lightly lift up your finger so the key goes up just a tiny bit, and then press it down again. This counts as 1 long keypress (like how you would hold down for a slider), not 2 keypresses.

Meanwhile, with rapid trigger, every movement that presses the key downwards, no matter how small (as small as 0.1mm) will trigger a keypress, and every movement that lets the key travel upwards (as small as 0.1mm again) will deactivate the key. So you can basically bottom out, then let the key come up only a tiny distance, then press it again, and it will trigger 2 keypresses now instead of 1.

here's a good video example of how it works https://youtu.be/BSlKt7m7xXk?t=55

This feature exploded in some gaming communities. namely community of Osu, from which I took the description of rapid trigger. It's also very popular in online FPS and almost any games where you need to be able to quickly tap and react

Rapid Trigger basically allows players to register clicks by just "waving" the button


I was wondering if any of yall had heard/tried these keyboards in worms.

another interesting feature of analog keys is that, if desired, you can set them up so that they basically register 2 clicks. (and yes, those keyboards are considered cheating in some communities too, which is another interesting topic)

that is, when the button is pressed lightly (say, the key is pushed down 30% - you can actually set up and actuation point of each key with analog keyboard), 1 click is registered, then, when the key is pressed 90%, another click is registered.

this would allow, for example, to shoot rope with a light tap, and remove it by pushing the button further

but even without this, the ability to instantly release the key seems very useful in worms. I remember the problem of many double tapers was that they pressed the second button when they hadn't released the first one yet, so some of their clicks didn't register. rapid trigger theoretically fixes that issue.

Another interesting feature of analog keyboards is the "snap tap". it's mainly used in online fps.
what it does in short is when you have the left and right keys (or up and down) pressed at the same time, the keyboard only registers the key that is pressed harder. Thus, you can change the direction of movement instantaneously by pressing one of the arrows a little harder

It's not hard to guess why this is popular in online shooters, but it's also useful for roping, at least in theory. many movements in TTRR require incredibly fast switching of the arrows. same for trick races (if anyone still plays that..)

I wonder what your thoughts are on this

[rUNaW4y]

In the last few years, people came up with a special class of keyboards focused on competitive games - analog keyboards.

it all started with wooting, and other brands (namely razor) caught up too.

The idea of analog buttons is that, just like on gamepads, each button has a degree of pressing, instead of discrete pressed/not pressed

at first glance, this sounds useless, except perhaps for racing sims (where it allows to turn/gas smoothly), but people came up with several common use cases for analog switches. one of them is "rapid trigger"

here's how it works:
on a regular keyboard, you need to press down a key quite a bit, until around the midway point of the switch, in order to activate it and register an input. After that, if you want to register another input, you have to let the key travel up above this midway point, in order to deactivate it, and then you need to press it down again. If a key is fully pressed down (bottomed out) and you let go just a little bit, but not enough to reach the midway point and deactivate the keypress, and then you push it back down, it won't trigger another input. You can test this yourself, simply press down one of the keys on your mechanical keyboard all the way, then very lightly lift up your finger so the key goes up just a tiny bit, and then press it down again. This counts as 1 long keypress (like how you would hold down for a slider), not 2 keypresses.

Meanwhile, with rapid trigger, every movement that presses the key downwards, no matter how small (as small as 0.1mm) will trigger a keypress, and every movement that lets the key travel upwards (as small as 0.1mm again) will deactivate the key. So you can basically bottom out, then let the key come up only a tiny distance, then press it again, and it will trigger 2 keypresses now instead of 1.

here's a good video example of how it works https://youtu.be/BSlKt7m7xXk?t=55

This feature exploded in some gaming communities. namely community of Osu, from which I took the description of rapid trigger. It's also very popular in online FPS and almost any games where you need to be able to quickly tap and react

Rapid Trigger basically allows players to register clicks by just "waving" the button


I was wondering if any of yall had heard/tried these keyboards in worms.

another interesting feature of analog keys is that, if desired, you can set them up so that they basically register 2 clicks. (and yes, those keyboards are considered cheating in some communities too, which is another interesting topic)

that is, when the button is pressed lightly (say, the key is pushed down 30% - you can actually set up and actuation point of each key with analog keyboard), 1 click is registered, then, when the key is pressed 90%, another click is registered.

this would allow, for example, to shoot rope with a light tap, and remove it by pushing the button further

but even without this, the ability to instantly release the key seems very useful in worms. I remember the problem of many double tapers was that they pressed the second button when they hadn't released the first one yet, so some of their clicks didn't register. rapid trigger theoretically fixes that issue.

Another interesting feature of analog keyboards is the "snap tap". it's mainly used in online fps.
what it does in short is when you have the left and right keys (or up and down) pressed at the same time, the keyboard only registers the key that is pressed harder. Thus, you can change the direction of movement instantaneously by pressing one of the arrows a little harder

It's not hard to guess why this is popular in online shooters, but it's also useful for roping, at least in theory. many movements in TTRR require incredibly fast switching of the arrows. same for trick races (if anyone still plays that..)

I wonder what your thoughts are on this

Impo, didn't we discuss this topic quite a bit during 10 past years? What is new?

[Impossible]

Impo, didn't we discuss this topic quite a bit during 10 past years? What is new?

oh yea, we discussed a lot of things related to keyboards and roping.

I remember when ttrr scene was still hot, it was very popular to put paper under the spacebar to shorten the travel distance of keys.

I remember the drama with kaleu when it turned out that he had an elaborate cheat that allowed him to shoot rope without waiting for the releassse of the previous click.

however, analog keyboards are a new thing. wooting kickstarter was only 8 years ago, and general public got access to such keyboards only few years ago. it's a very fresh thing, it didn't exist 10 years ago.

yet it allows to do the same stuff we discussed, at the keyboard software level. like setting up an actuation point for each key, instead of physical paper. or setting up rapid trigger instead of kaleu's wk module cheats.

i also wonder if such thing, implemented on a keyboard level, can still be considered as cheating? and if everyone starts to use them?

[TheKomodo]

I've got a Wooting 60HE and a Wooting 80HE and they are both incredible to rope with, best keyboards in the world for roping imo.

A bit wild to get the hang of but once you do, it really releases your potential, I've been accused of fingerrolling so much and I don't even fingerroll I use one space and tap normal lol.

[Impossible]

I've got a Wooting 60HE and a Wooting 80HE

You've got both 60he and 80he?? Wow, that's amazing. Why did you need both?

You should show us videos with tapping in worms!

Now that I think about it, analog keyboards must be also cool for bng, as you can release the shot key immediately. Is 'rapid trigger' the reason, why people accuse you of fingerolling?

[TheKomodo]

I've got a Wooting 60HE and a Wooting 80HE

You've got both 60he and 80he?? Wow, that's amazing. Why did you need both?

I bought the 60HE first as at the time I thought it's the only version available, I didn't realize they have a full 100% version. Though I am glad because I bought a TWO HE and it was way too sensitive and had extra taps when pressing and was impossible to rope on the way that I tap. So I sent this back.

The 60HE is the perfect keyboard for pure racing schemes as you need limited keys, but it's too small for battle schemes like Intermediate, WxW, Roper, BnG, Hysteria, Aerial etc as you really need the F keys as well as the numbers and the tilda key.

So I got a 80HE as it's the perfect size for WA!

It has the same issue as the TWO HE though which frustrates me, it's WAY too sensitive when you put the actuation point and rapid trigger way down because it feels like the spacebar is a bit heavier and doesn't spring back up as fast as the 60HE so you get these extra taps. However, I've found a sweet spot by raising the actuation point between 0.8mm and 1.2mm and having the rapid trigger at about 0.4mm.

On my 60HE I have the actuation point at 0.5mm and the rapid trigger actuation at 0.15mm and the spacebar bounces up faster meaning I don't get extra spacebar presses which can ruin your turn.


I wish the 80HE was as good as the 60HE here but my experience is the 60HE is the most superior keyboard of all for roping as you can have the actuation point so low your taps become ridiculous.

You should show us videos with tapping in worms!

This is the initial video of the Wooting 60HE:

Though skip to 44:16 to skip the setup of the keyboard and this is where I start talking about rapid trigger and implement it to show off how finger rolling can work very well.

Then eventually I go back to roping my usual way and you still see how fast the scrolling is.


I also did a live stream of the Wooting 80HE but I messed up the settings while I was roping so I wasn't happy with it so just deleting it. But it's equally as fast as the 60HE.

Now that I think about it, analog keyboards must be also cool for bng, as you can release the shot key immediately. Is 'rapid trigger' the reason, why people accuse you of fingerolling?

Yes the Wooting works very, very well for individual notches in WA, which is useful in all schemes such as Boom Race, Intermediate, Hysteria, Aerial, BnG, Grenade Wars, Elite etc.

Nah, I've been accused of using scripts and macros for roping since 2000 since I started doing double handed taps:

[Impossible]

Nice! Looks like wooting is indeed really good for roping. Do you know any other wormers who have switched to wooting or simillar analog keyboards?

[Anubis]

Nice! Looks like wooting is indeed really good for roping. Do you know any other wormers who have switched to wooting or simillar analog keyboards?

My custom mods to my KBs were basically like these rapid trigger analogue keyboards. I could just slightly touch them and they would tap. Kinda proud that some backwater invention I had 20 years ago is now a breakthrough technology.

[TheKomodo]

Yeah the 80HE is differnt than the 60HE, I don't know what happens but if you have the settings too low you get double fires on the spacebar which is horrible... I won't lie I'm a little bit disappointed in the 80HE when it comes to high speed taps like the 60HE, but in general it's still an amazing keyboard capable of amazing things if you find the sweet spot.

My issue is I twitch in such a way that's very heavy on the spacebar... I might try swapping the switches actually try the 60HE switch on the 80HE.

Edit - I switched out the spacebar switch from 60HE with the one in 80HE and it works a lot better now!

[Kaleu]

Impo, didn't we discuss this topic quite a bit during 10 past years? What is new?

oh yea, we discussed a lot of things related to keyboards and roping.

I remember when ttrr scene was still hot, it was very popular to put paper under the spacebar to shorten the travel distance of keys.

I remember the drama with kaleu when it turned out that he had an elaborate cheat that allowed him to shoot rope without waiting for the releassse of the previous click.

however, analog keyboards are a new thing. wooting kickstarter was only 8 years ago, and general public got access to such keyboards only few years ago. it's a very fresh thing, it didn't exist 10 years ago.

yet it allows to do the same stuff we discussed, at the keyboard software level. like setting up an actuation point for each key, instead of physical paper. or setting up rapid trigger instead of kaleu's wk module cheats.

i also wonder if such thing, implemented on a keyboard level, can still be considered as cheating? and if everyone starts to use them?

1. It was never a cheat and never will be. It still require the same amount of skill to play, changes nothing the game physx, it just increase taps speed.
2. Not elaborated by me, was public available in TUS forums posted by Zippo I think, and it's not a wormkit module, it was an autohotkey script.
3. Stop flaming past with stuff like this. Using half-truths, and provoking negative thoughts about me with people who don't know the story.
4. f@#! you.

[Sensei]

I remember the drama with kaleu when it turned out that he had an elaborate cheat that allowed him to shoot rope without waiting for the releassse of the previous click.

1. It was never a cheat and never will be. It still require the same amount of skill to play, changes nothing the game physx, it just increase taps speed.

As a spectator and someone that hasn't been involved in Kaleu's AHK story, just wondering.. What are you trying to say here?

Are you telling us that being able to use 2nd rope without letting go of the 1st one isn't a cheat!? Or you're telling us you didn't use such kind of a script?

[TheKomodo]

Damn Kaleu goes from 0-FU faster than his autohotkeyscript can fire 2 ropes.

I have a serious question though, because I can't really even remember this...

If it's not a cheat, why was it banned? Are you telling us we're all allowed to use this because it sounds like a massive advantage to me for top tier ropers if they learn to control it right, especially in TTRR.

[Impossible]

f@#! you.

i'm sorry kaleu i didn't want to hurt your feelings.

I remembered this in the context of the new keyboards. modern keyboards basically have its own implementation of ahk script you used.
someone above asked if this had been discussed before, and so the drama about the script naturally came up.

now that you've put the question that way though. It's been so many years, why don't you just admit that such script was a cheat? Ofcourse, you were a skilled players and could compete without the cheat just as well, no one doubts that. but faster tap speed is still a very serious advantage over the other players. isn't it naive to argue with that?

I've personally practiced a lot of bad things in this game, I've probably offended a lot of people, used aliases, used macros in first years. I regret doing all of this. I was a dumb child. but I am ready to admit this. why not do the same?

[TheKomodo]

but faster tap speed is still a very serious advantage over the other players. isn't it naive to argue with that?

Well, it's only an advantage for top tier players who are good enough, you give a script to a noob or even average player and it's not going to help them beat other top players because they still don't have enough experience moving around fast and consistent anyway.

It's like this wooting keyboard being OP for taps, it's only OP for top tier players and people who can either finger roll or twitch extremely fast. People with average skills just aren't fast enough to take advantage of it's features and speed.

However, the wooting still has other features which can help even lower level players such as dynamic keystroke. For example you can set up enter to select a weapon then fire it in one keypress, it's not a macro because it's not 1 signal doing multiple things, it's a continuous analogue signal that activates at different pressure points.

You can even do crazy jetpack shots in hysteria as well with it.

[Kaleu]

I remember the drama with kaleu when it turned out that he had an elaborate cheat that allowed him to shoot rope without waiting for the releassse of the previous click.

1. It was never a cheat and never will be. It still require the same amount of skill to play, changes nothing the game physx, it just increase taps speed.

As a spectator and someone that hasn't been involved in Kaleu's AHK story, just wondering.. What are you trying to say here?

Are you telling us that being able to use 2nd rope without letting go of the 1st one isn't a cheat!? Or you're telling us you didn't use such kind of a script?

Yes I used it. And I can name so many people that uses it today just by looking their roping, but for me it doesn't matter, it's not a big deal.

For me it isn't a cheat, it won't make someone go from Zalo to Mablak in terms of roping, it changes nothing but tap speed, the real skills are in the arrows control and game mechanics knowledge, not tap speed.

f@#! you.

i'm sorry kaleu i didn't want to hurt your feelings.

I remembered this in the context of the new keyboards. modern keyboards basically have its own implementation of ahk script you used.
someone above asked if this had been discussed before, and so the drama about the script naturally came up.

now that you've put the question that way though. It's been so many years, why don't you just admit that such script was a cheat? Ofcourse, you were a skilled players and could compete without the cheat just as well, no one doubts that. but faster tap speed is still a very serious advantage over the other players. isn't it naive to argue with that?

I've personally practiced a lot of bad things in this game, I've probably offended a lot of people, used aliases, used macros in first years. I regret doing all of this. I was a dumb child. but I am ready to admit this. why not do the same?

Your message demonstrates a skewed and simplistic view of the situation, and I disagree with it on several levels. First, labeling the script a "cheat" without understanding its context or purpose is disingenuous, to say the least. Many tools, including scripts like the one mentioned, were created to improve gameplay or meet specific needs within the limitations of the game, and this does not automatically equate to unethical behavior.

Secondly, it's unfair and condescending to suggest that someone should "admit" to something just because you've decided to project your own experiences and regrets onto the situation. The fact that you have used macros or practiced behavior that you consider bad does not give you the moral authority to judge others. Each person has their own path and reasons, and not everything is comparable.

Thirdly, the insinuation that the script in question represented "a very serious advantage" disregards important nuances, such as the player's general skill level or the consensus of the community at the time. Before labeling something as "naive" or "cheating", you need to take a closer look at the historical factors involved. I have already adressed my opinion towards that here.


In other words: I was too young to understand what cheating was. Literally no english skills to defend myself. In my conception I was just removing a hardware limitation as I had a very poor condition and a horrible computer even for an old game.
I will admit it's a cheat when the majority of Ukrainians admit Russia is right. Do you think it's fair to agree only because someone says so?

Damn Kaleu goes from 0-FU faster than his autohotkeyscript can fire 2 ropes.

I have a serious question though, because I can't really even remember this...

If it's not a cheat, why was it banned? Are you telling us we're all allowed to use this because it sounds like a massive advantage to me for top tier ropers if they learn to control it right, especially in TTRR.

The problem isn't whether you consider something to be cheating or not.
What matters is whether there's a way to detect it and stop people from using it, because there's no way to rely on common sense for these things.
Banning something that can't be detected only encourages people to seek it out.

And I also think that people are confusing the fact that what was actually banned was the AUTOHOTKEY in general, because a macro that I was using in the match against Random00. Which pressed the T key automatically. Correlating both ocurrences.
About the script for the taps, it didn't really have a conclusion apart from banning autohotkey scripts, but again, there's no way to detect it, so it was allowed again!