Skipwalking

(Up to Game logic)

The worm walking physics is rather complex in Worms 2/W:A/WWP. There are two basic phases to walking; an "expanding" phase and a "contracting" phase. During the latter phase, very little forward motion is acheived.

This can be exploited. Early on, players discovered that if you rhythmically click the right mouse button while making your worm walk, it can walk faster. The technical reason for this is that right-clicking causes the game to open the weapons panel; input (the arrow key which makes the worm walk) then immediately closes the panel, but the upshot is that input is ignored for one frame (1/50 second). This causes the phase of the walk to be reset, and the slower "contracting" phase is skipped.

The rate at which the right mouse button is clicked makes a big difference. Click too slowly, and there's little gain in speed. Click too fast and the worm will actually advance more slowly. At best, it provides a 1.43× speed boost; jumping forward is a faster way to travel when the terrain allows it.

Some people consider skipwalking — also known as the fastwalk glitch, or "cheatwalking" — to be a disreputable cheat. Others feel that it is a legitimate skill, and a way to reduce the monotony of long walks. It is, however, generally agreed upon that skipwalking should be disallowed in Battle races.

Speed comparison

1.00000x speed with 0.04 sec warmup - Normal Walking 1.00000x speed - Skipwalking slowdown threshold (2.83988 clicks/second; a slower rate yields slow walking) 1.00000x speed - Skipwalking slowdown threshold (6.03283 clicks/second; a faster rate yields slow walking) 1.14263x speed - Optimum Jumping up a 45° slope (period=0.94 sec) 1.43098x speed - Optimum Skipwalking (period=0.22 sec, 4.54 clicks/second) 1.98402x speed - Nearly Optimum Jumping on a flat surface (period=1.32 sec) 2.00000x speed with 2/3 second warmup - Walking with Fast Walk utility 2.00030x speed - Optimum Jumping on a flat surface (period=1.3 sec) 2.32279x speed - Optimum Jumping down a 44.74° slope (period=1.78 sec)

Skipwalking speed comparison

period=0.16 sec: 0.92593x speed period=0.18 sec: 1.18313x speed period=0.20 sec: 1.34259x speed period=0.22 sec: 1.43098x speed period=0.24 sec: 1.35031x speed period=0.26 sec: 1.24644x speed period=0.28 sec: 1.19048x speed period=0.30 sec: 1.14198x speed period=0.32 sec: 1.09954x speed period=0.34 sec: 1.03486x speed period=0.36 sec: 0.97737x speed