Rope Knocking (scheme)

(Up to Scheme ideas)

Game setup
Scheme
Rope Knocking: Download View scheme settings
Map
Specially-designed map (examples: [1], [2], [3], [4] and [5])
Worms
8 worms per team; for small to medium sized maps, 1 team each. For big maps, maximum number of teams.

Invigorate your inner spatial fire roping through a freefall knocking worms left and right. Can you Pinball that enemy worm out of the map? Can you Super-knock those three enemy worms and plop them? Rope Knocking is a scheme that transforms your roping skills into a deadly weapon where you’re not limited by one weapon-based attack; you can knock and plop as many times as you want in one turn.

Rope Knocking introduces a new style of play to WormNet with a variety of complex rope knocking techniques, unique maps designed specifically to rearrange worms for knocking, and new physics options never explored at length in gameplay that allow instantaneous travel across massive areas of space (unlocked in v3.8 update). If you’re a roper, prepare to have your skills challenged as this scheme offers an evolving list of new techniques to acquire.

See the scheme in action here.

Scheme details

Rules

Officially, there are no rules. However, the intended way to play is to focus on rope knocking and plopping worms with an optional weapon-based attack at the end of the player’s turn. Newer players who attempt to only use weapon-based attacks will quickly find that this is untenable, as one can knock many worms in a turn, but due to the sparsely placed worms a weapon-based attack will usually only plop one or two worms at a time and end the turn.

How to host manually

The scheme and a sample map are available for download on WMDB under map #35659 or at "Game Setup" template on this page.

How to host with HostingBuddy

1. Host a normal game in the lobby with HostingBuddy, with the command: !host normal “Rope Knocking”
2. Enter the game, then change the scheme to Rope Knocking with the command: !wsdb 12833.
3. Turn on TestStuff mode with the command: !version ts. (This allows worms to hang from the rope between turns as well as several other features).
4. Choose a map from the Worms Map Database with command: !wmdb 35659. The numbers for more Rope Knocking maps are available at Swordfish profile. (Numbers are visible in the html address of the map page.)
5. Make sure to select full 8-worm teams, as worms tend to plop quickly. For small to medium sized maps, you will want around 1 team each. For big maps you will want the maximum number of teams.
6. Start the game with the command: !start, all players must light up their light bulb.

Optional variations

• If you want to turn on Hyper Rope Knocking, use the command: !maxropespeed 0. Alternatively, this command will give you a better balance between normal/hyper mode: !maxropespeed 32767.99998.

• You may also turn off mines and objects on the terrain with the command: !mines 0.

Detailed scheme specifications available here.

Gameplay

Rope Knocking is unique in that strong roping skills are converted to an attack that, when wielded well, can be a deadly threat plopping many worms. The objective simply is to use a variety of rope knocking techniques to knock the enemy’s target worms through a map until they plop in the water in a 30-second turn. Rope knocking techniques are partially derived from those used in advanced roping schemes such as Big Rope Race, Warmer, etc. If you’re new to roping, start with ‘Essential Roping Techniques’ below. If you’re advanced see the Rope knocking techniques section.

Essential roping techniques

There are a few things to keep in mind while roping in this scheme. The first is that you should always press F8 to activate your parachute as your second item (in the box over your worm’s head) after you latch on to a wall with a rope, as the parachute will then auto-activate to save you from falls that would end your turn.

The second is to ensure when you first latch your rope onto the wall or ceiling, that you keep roughly a 45-degree angle. This will help you connect with the wall when you shoot your rope again in the majority of cases. However, to be good at the scheme, you need to be cognizant of your worm’s rope angle even if it should change, because sometimes you will need to know it to save you when you are parachuting towards the water and you need to activate your rope to save you (You can do this by selecting the rope in the box with F8 then pressing spacebar twice quickly). You will need to know where your rope is going to shoot out so that you can position your worm to connect the rope with a surface.

As well, keep in mind that you can use low gravity to affect the physics. This will help you move farther distances, and also when used with low-powered grenades it will make worms fly further. Keep and mind if you knock your head your turn will end.

Rope knocking techniques

Standard-knock

If you had any experience playing this game, you’re probably familiar with this. The Standard-knock is employed by simply swinging your worm towards a target worm, and letting go by pressing space at the last moment before hitting the worm. The result is that you knock into the target worm and with your shared momentum, you both fall over a ledge. Your parachute will catch you, but the target worm will fall to another level or to its death in the water. The Standard-knock is speed-limited in schemes like Intermediate or Shopper, but in Rope Knocking you will not take on damage by knocking faster.

Pinball

Derived from the rope trick of the same name, this knock is possible by swinging your worm into the ground in an opposing direction from the target worm at a nearly 90-degree angle. Just after you bounce back from the ground you can let go of the rope with the spacebar, and you will be projected towards the worm, knocking it horizontally. Angle is very important for this move, so it may take time to get the hang of it.

Mexi-knock

This technique was often used in the early days of rope-knocking, but can still be effective today. To do a Mexi-Knock, the target worm must be at the top of a steeper peak of terrain. You must push your worm off one of the sides of the peak and control the momentum, and let go with space at the right time when your trajectory is directed in an arc that will hit the target worm.

Lift-off

If your worm is on a steep ledge and it’s tougher to knock in other ways, you can latch your rope to the ground right next to the worm and enter a closed loop of fast motion between the worm and the ground. If timed right, when you let go you will knock the other worm causing both worms to fly off the ground chaotically.

Swoosh-knock

Swing the worm over onto the platfrom where the targets are from its edge (or from elsewhere) to knock them hard to water.

Pump

The Pump is useful for flinging your worm through horizontal tubes (see: Maps & history) to knock worms trapped there. To activate it you must latch your rope onto the ceiling of the tube, and swing fast up against the ceiling so that your worm enters a closed loop of motion back and forth, much like in Super-Knocking below. When your worm is vibrating fast, let go with space, and the worm will get caught in the tube and soar through it, hitting any other worms in its path and knocking them down to lower levels or water. This can also be done when a worm is trapped at the bottom of a vertical tube especially if there is a wall opposite the worm, which is common near the water on most maps. As well it can be used in any area where there is a corner with a worm in line of sight, as on spikes, the yellow Worms Armageddon symbols, or other flat surfaces.

Super-knock

When a worm is resting on a surface with some space between it and a wall or another worm, you can use that space to ignite a “Super-knock.” To do this accurately you must swing into that space with some momentum and allow your worm to quickly catch in a closed loop. Once your worm is moving back and forth fast, let go with space, and your worm will knock fast into the other worm. In the Standard mode this achieves a faster speed than most other knocks.

Hyper-knock

New in v3.8 with Hyper-knocking enabled, Hyper-knocking is an extremely volatile technique that can ignite your worm as if it is on steroids, plopping dozens of worms, but heads up: it’s quite unruly so use with caution. Using one of the above techniques will activate Hyper-knocking, but it can also be activated by sliding your worm into a corner or up close to another worm. When the worm ‘catches,’ in a closed loop acquiring hyper-speed potential, simply let go with space, and the worm will explode at an insane speed. Keep in mind that angle is very important when using the Hyper-knock; the wrong angle can actually transport you to a completely different part of the map, so you may have to experiment until you find the right technique. (Hyper-knocking must be activated in game setup, see How to host with HostingBuddy for details).

Last Resort

Pro-knockers are accustomed to maximizing their rope knocking potential. The knocking doesn’t have to end after a weapon-based attack, in fact it’s pretty common to see a player end their turn with a weapon-based attack and STILL knock a worm(s) into the water. This could be suicide, but it’s still possible to survive, if you have cue shark accuracy.

Advanced movement around the map

Surfing

Most maps with a big opening for water have secret ‘surfing’ corners used in the Standard mode, that you can use to surf the water fast and get to the other side of the map. This takes some practice, but you must catch your worm in the surfing space located usually at the far bottom right or left side of the map, allow your worm to pick up momentum as in the Super-knock (below), then pull up and let go with the spacebar at the same time. When you do this right, you will surf. In most cases, be sure to have your rope selected as a second item and press Enter to have the rope shoot out at a 45-degree angle at the right time to catch the wall or ceiling on the other side. Although, you may need a parachute to land depending on the situation. This is an advanced roping technique, so it may require some practice. Note that if worms get stuck in the surfing space, use a well-positioned grenade to get them out. *Note: Currently, surfing is impractical in Hyper-knocking mode.

Tube transportation

The Pump (See: Rope knocking techniques) can be used for getting around the map fast. You can use it in big horizontal tubes designed for this, or even vertical tubes (although it is less successful). See Pump above for details on how to do this. In a vertical tube, the technique requires you to latch on to the side of the tube for a pump.

Advanced parachuting

It’s worth noting that this scheme is made better with some parachuting techniques possible with the TestStuff mode. One of the big ones is employing the parachute mid-air with the Enter key. To do this you must have the parachute selected with your F8 key so that it shows in the box, and use Enter to activate it. You can do this over and over if you have to travel down a big distance quickly, but it takes some practice and requires a combination of F8 and either Spacebar or Enter depending on the situation. Advanced players are able to do this with ease. You can also select different weapons with the F-keys and use them mid-air, but it’s more difficult and is usually impractical. You can also activate your parachute by pressing F8 twice to save you if another worm you have knocked hits you in the air and disables your items. This is difficult and requires practice which is hard to emulate because the situation happens randomly.

Tactics

Keeping as high as possible

Since in this scheme the only way to kill a worm is drowning it, keeping worms on the top is generally a good idea, because they will demand more rope knocks to meet the water. This may consume too many turn-time, though (depending on the situation focusing on the knocks may be better). Besides that, some maps have death holes on the sides, so the top might be too dangerous to stay sometimes.

Avoiding allied piles and taking advantage of enemy piles

Selecting the right worm to play may make the difference in a game. Usually if allied worms are piled you'd want to play with one of these worms to get it out from there and avoid enemy worms performing multi-kills. The same way, if there are many enemy worms together, you should aim on them to economize knocks killing many worms at once.

Hiding near the water

Rope knocks near the water are dangerous, they often are difficult (sometimes impossible) to be performed without sinking the worm being controlled. So, hiding near the water (using batty rope for example) will force the opponents to spend the turn using a weapon to kill the hidden worm (instantly activating the retreat time) or will force them to sacrifice a worm.

Maps & history

Maps are crucial to the gameplay of the scheme, because they are designed in a way to redirect worms for further knocking. As such, they have been integral to the evolution of the scheme. A full list of maps is available at Swordfish profile.

Created by Swordfish, the scheme began in March of 2017, as an experiment of knocking worms off swords in the water. With the TestStuff mod, it was apparent that worms could be knocked off spikes at blissfully high velocities without ending the player’s turn, which led to ‘Mexi Knocks’ and utilization TestStuff mode’s ability to traverse the terrain fast with low gravity and manual parachuting. This led to experimentation on more mountainous terrain maps, where the ideal angle for worms to fall on (and be redirected) was discovered.

The scheme transitioned to closed tall maps In June of 2017, with “SnakesAndLadders2” map. These maps introduced several fun attributes, such as ‘side-plops’ (holes cut in the side of the maps that worms can be knocked out of while screaming “Nooo!”), ‘hanging hides,’ (hiding by hanging just under ocean waves to force an weapon-based attack, as a knock was not possible), ‘fall tubes’ (long tubes that, when knocked, the worms fell through to reach lower levels closer to water, and ‘ceiling hides’ (Corners built into the ceiling that worms can hang in to hide, making it harder to reach and knock them). These maps showed a more long-term potential for the scheme as they were fun to play and amassed attention from good players.

The scheme expanded map size in October of 2017, where the attributes above moved to larger-scale maps like “Space Series 1” map. These maps offered a little more freedom for roping while allowing for bigger teams which meant more worms to knock while flying around. The most significant new development in these maps was the refining of the ‘Super-knock,’ and the creation surfing areas for fast transportation across the water and sometimes even up into higher levels of the map, as in the “Heaven/Hell” map, where the player can literally fly from hell up to heaven. With surfing areas being closed-in, lower-powered grenades were introduced to knock out worms that might become stuck in there, but these grenades could also be used as an attack.

Eight months later, in July of 2018, the scheme became significantly refined with maps like “Worms Armageddon Pinball” map These maps achieved a long-term playability factor and are still playable today. At this level, much more attention was paid to how the worms fall for subsequent knocks, and a few new terrain styles were developed such as the ‘tube hold’ (a space that catches worms at the end of a vertical tube that requires them to be knocked again, the ‘horizontal tube” (a tube that collects worms that are knocked; a pump will allow the player to travel fast through the tube knocking the worms), and ‘spikes,’ which worms randomly are placed on at the start of the game, and can be knocked off quickly by using a pump.

The scheme took a jump into hyperspace with the Worms Armageddon 3.8 update, where the “Space Series 3” map introduced uncapping of maximum rope speed (a suggestion by Nicholaus04). This optional addition to the scheme offers a new aspect to gameplay that hasn’t been explored before in any other scheme: the ability to traverse large distances instantaneously. The tweak opens new interesting possibilities for maps. The door is open for the brave map creator to experiment with new scenarios, as there are possibilities yet to be explored.

Credits

Hats off to the Worms Armageddon developers for creating the best game of all time. Here is a list of awesome Rope Knockers: Cleroth, RichUK, MagnusS3, Slayin, Ninjatron, Kociao, Stoner, Trentmoller, Kirill-Gamer, HardTarget, SiD, Irtis, Ivank, NutriWorms, Los Masa, micro, Redjohn, Vlad, Rafal, goom, LordPiti`tr`LR and Swordfish (Scheme/Maps creator).

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