I created an AutoHotkey script for pressing brake for a single frame. Essentially this means that instead of quickly tapping brake button you can just press and hold the button but it works as if the brake was only tapped for a brief time.
Why
Before I haven't really paid much attention to wheelpopping because it has seemed like very tedious thing to do. However after trying it for the first time ever I noticed that I could save 0,1 seconds in WCup811.lev before the first apple so clearly it was too big of an advantage to give to the others. I was able to do the required brake taps manually but as I earlier expected it was really tedious thing to höyl.
I came up with this AHK script idea maybe six months ago and it was shortly discussed in Discord but I remember that the others mans participating in the discussion seemed to generally be against it. The general negativity towards the idea was a bit surprising to me but that was partly to be expected as resistance towards any change is very strong everywhere in life. I felt like I could live without wheelpopping so I just quickly gave up with the idea. However with this World Cup event I had to learn how to pop so I went on to write the script, and for all we know someone could very well already be using such a script without anyone knowing.
This is not the first time something controversial regarding the gameplay is published in Elma scene. Alovolt* patch? Initial reaction. Saveload? Initial reaction. In both cases after a brief while people noticed that maybe Elma wasn't destroyed after all and noticed that they both were actually quite nice additions for the gameplay.
In general many people are not interested in wheelpopping and some would like to see it regarded as a bug and not being accepted in replays. My goal here is not to have personal advantage but to make wheelpopping accessible for everyone (except maybe those who use macOS or some other idiot system that doesn't support AHK) without the regard for how quickly they can tap a single key and how expensive gaming keyboard they have. You will still need the perfect timing when to hit the wheelpop and have the requirements for it: low fps and the wheel rolling in the air before the pop.
* More about alovolt: Originally supervolt meant both rotate buttons being pressed simultaneously after a normal volt. If this was done without having an initial normal volt it was called alone supervolt = alovolt. Not nearly everyone could do alovolt so it was very advantageous to those who could do it. The ability to do it was believed to be caused by the keyboard but now later with more Elma knowledge clearly more of a factor was the fps. With alovolt patch everyone could do alovolt at any time even with fps that wouldn't make it humanly possible with original Elma setup.
How
First you need to download AHK from https://www.autohotkey.com/. Then download the wheelpop.ahk from http://kopasite.net/up/0/wheelpop.ahk.
To use the script all you need to do is run wheelpop.ahk and it will run on the background when you're playing Elma. It won't affect the functionality of the keyboard outside Elma.
Below is the script and how to make it work with your key setup (in the script file itself there are some lines that AHK added automatically, I don't know if they're useful or not but I left them there):
Code: Select all
#IfWinActive Elasto Mania
2::
Send, {Numpad5 down}
Sleep, 30
Send, {Numpad5 up}
return
2::
This part defines what button you want to use for the brake tap. Personally I use number 2, but if you need some exotic button you might need to figure out how to define it in AutoHotkey. RTFM.
{Numpad5 down}
This refers to the normal brake button which for me is Numpad5. Modify this and the up-row to with whatever key you use for braking.
Sleep, 30
Here's the part that defines the time of the braking in milliseconds. For optimal result this should be set to the result of the equation 1000 / fps. In this default code you will see that it is optimized for 33 fps höyling.
Complaints and answers
C: This is cheating!
A: Ok. Then don't use it.
C: But you shouldn't use it either!
A: So what is the problem actually, making a tedious key tapping a bit more convenient to do?This script is not meant to do anything inhuman (unlike alo patch) but just to smoothen the gameplay and make wheelpopping actually enjoyable. If this is problematic I suggest you stop using alovolt button as well and make it manually with both rotate keys as it originally worked before someone decided to release a patch for it.
C: It is totally unfair to brake for an exact amount of milliseconds.
A: There's some truth to this, but let's do some math. The wheelpop is best done (AFAIK) when the brake is applied for one frame and one frame only. With 33 fps that time period would be 30 ms. If you go for a shorter key press the chances are that the brake won't register when the frame changes and if you go for longer keypress there's a chance that you will also hold the brake during the second frame when the wheel has already popped on the ground. Anyway pretty consistent keypress would be 20-40ms which is not so super accurate anymore when you think of it. If you go for high fps and short duration brake taps you won't really be able to time them or notice any pop advantage.
C: Now you can do unfair chainpopping because you can brake for so short time periods.
A: Well you can't really, because it's about how many times you can press the button per second and not for how short time the brake is actually applied. If you create many different brake buttons and spam them with different fingers then sure, but this script does not do that and in my opinion that would be cheating.
C: Now I'm losing my wheelpop records to people who don't have the true popping skill.
A: You had a good run, congrats. Now instead of competing against five people try competing against everyone and see who's the best.
C: What next, one keypress to autoplay the whole level?
A: That's something that could be scripted with Autohotkey, but that kind of activity I would consider cheating. There was a specific Autoplaying program made for Elma sometime in 2004-2005. Karlis spent a ton of time with it to höyl Warm Up. His own world record back then was 14,07 but even with excessive autoplay höyling he could only get 14,10 with autoplay. There's just too much randomness in Elma for autoplay to work. Still I can see it being beneficial for example in short tricky starts of lev and hope that nobody does it (that being said I also think manual höyling is easier than writing down and testing 0,001 second accurate keypresses, but who knows).
That's about it, now go enjoy wheelpopping and including them in your stylefinding! Personally I hope to join u14 club in Warm Up and wish to see many other mans join it as well. If someone can code a real wheelpop patch that reads your fps set in eolconf that'd be perfect.