Hi Community!
I'm using the ProX AIO Keyboard (Which is the ProX you can either use as touch or mechanical keyboard).
Today, I decided to give touch a try and see how I fare with it in comparison to mechanical keys.
After playing some time, I noticed, that I successfully tapped some burst circles even though my fingers felt like having tapped one time less than required.
I decided to look into that some more and long story short: When touching the metal plate with a very specific area of my finger (that is much lower than the usual area I would touch it when tapping normally), this can cause a very fast burst of key inputs.
Having a result of over 10 taps/s by just slightly touching the metal plate was easily achievable. I sometimes even got 20 to 30 (after realizing what's happening I tested this in graveyard, of course. I also did not pass any maps that affect my rank using touch).
I have my theory what's happening here on an electrical level, so I also tested touching the edge of the metal plate et voila: I could sometimes achieve over 50 ghost taps/s (physical explanation for that behaviour at the end).
Conclusion: Touch function of ProX AIO may lead to additional ghost taps from time to time making it unsuitable for ranked plays. Addionally it could be abused to cheat higher taps/s rates (even though it's hard to hold a steady rate, it could probalby be abused with proper training). Personally, I will not use the touch functionality for ranked maps anymore.
I hope that any automated reports that may have been triggred by the built-in anti cheat will not be used against me (as I have not abused it to achieve anything).
King regards,
Tauronan
Edit: I will now inform the creator of the ProX. I also have an idea on how to fix this issue (may only be possible for future generations of the ProX) which looks as following:
Instead of determining between "touch" and "not touch", the Chip should distinguish between multiple levels of "touch" (no touch, very light touch, light touch, medium touch, etc.). One could then program a hysteresis that requires a minimum decrease of the touch level followed by another inimum increase to register another tap. The right hysteresis should be hardened by sophisticated testing to ensure, that the various effects discussed in this post are all much weaker and can not cause ghost taps.
By programming a relative "touch level" hysteresis on could achieve an adaptable system that works reliable with different finger sizes and tapping styles.
Physical explanation (only for fellow nerds who really want to know):
After measuring between USB-GND and metal touch plate, I could observe a ~5kHz pulse frequency. This is being generated by the Atmel-Chip within the ProX AIO to check, if something touches the plate or not. Unfortunately, when only slightly touching the plate, the measured signal is blurry, so it's somewhat random whether a touch is being registered or not.
One could easily imagine that in this state, anything could influence the result, such as: Human heart pressure, 50Hz net frequency and many more (depenging on a lot of factors the human body may act as a weak antenna for electrosmog and other signals. This is, of course not something special about the human body but a natural effect that any elecitrcally conductive object can have).
Concerning the increased effect at the edge/corner of the metal plate, there are two possible explanations (which may both apply at the same time):
1. It's easier to create a very specific contact area/skin resistance when touching the edge compared to the middle area.
2. A voltage level is caused by a difference between the eletrcial field strength within two objects. In other words, voltage and electical field is physically connected to each other. Now remember, that the Conctroller within the ProX AIO pulses the metal plate with an electrical signal of ~5kHz. Hence, the electrical field inside the plate follows this change.
However, Corners and edges causes the electrical field to increase (which is why a lightning protector works best, if it's a sharp spike on top of the roof: it concentrates the electrical field in that spike kinda drawing the lightning strike towards it).
Hence, a number of electrical effects influencing the actual ghost tap frequency are increased as well.
Please not, that this is only a very simplified explanation not taking all physical effects into account. I did not want to write a novel, though.
I'm using the ProX AIO Keyboard (Which is the ProX you can either use as touch or mechanical keyboard).
Today, I decided to give touch a try and see how I fare with it in comparison to mechanical keys.
After playing some time, I noticed, that I successfully tapped some burst circles even though my fingers felt like having tapped one time less than required.
I decided to look into that some more and long story short: When touching the metal plate with a very specific area of my finger (that is much lower than the usual area I would touch it when tapping normally), this can cause a very fast burst of key inputs.
Having a result of over 10 taps/s by just slightly touching the metal plate was easily achievable. I sometimes even got 20 to 30 (after realizing what's happening I tested this in graveyard, of course. I also did not pass any maps that affect my rank using touch).
I have my theory what's happening here on an electrical level, so I also tested touching the edge of the metal plate et voila: I could sometimes achieve over 50 ghost taps/s (physical explanation for that behaviour at the end).
Conclusion: Touch function of ProX AIO may lead to additional ghost taps from time to time making it unsuitable for ranked plays. Addionally it could be abused to cheat higher taps/s rates (even though it's hard to hold a steady rate, it could probalby be abused with proper training). Personally, I will not use the touch functionality for ranked maps anymore.
I hope that any automated reports that may have been triggred by the built-in anti cheat will not be used against me (as I have not abused it to achieve anything).
King regards,
Tauronan
Edit: I will now inform the creator of the ProX. I also have an idea on how to fix this issue (may only be possible for future generations of the ProX) which looks as following:
Instead of determining between "touch" and "not touch", the Chip should distinguish between multiple levels of "touch" (no touch, very light touch, light touch, medium touch, etc.). One could then program a hysteresis that requires a minimum decrease of the touch level followed by another inimum increase to register another tap. The right hysteresis should be hardened by sophisticated testing to ensure, that the various effects discussed in this post are all much weaker and can not cause ghost taps.
By programming a relative "touch level" hysteresis on could achieve an adaptable system that works reliable with different finger sizes and tapping styles.
Physical explanation (only for fellow nerds who really want to know):
After measuring between USB-GND and metal touch plate, I could observe a ~5kHz pulse frequency. This is being generated by the Atmel-Chip within the ProX AIO to check, if something touches the plate or not. Unfortunately, when only slightly touching the plate, the measured signal is blurry, so it's somewhat random whether a touch is being registered or not.
One could easily imagine that in this state, anything could influence the result, such as: Human heart pressure, 50Hz net frequency and many more (depenging on a lot of factors the human body may act as a weak antenna for electrosmog and other signals. This is, of course not something special about the human body but a natural effect that any elecitrcally conductive object can have).
Concerning the increased effect at the edge/corner of the metal plate, there are two possible explanations (which may both apply at the same time):
1. It's easier to create a very specific contact area/skin resistance when touching the edge compared to the middle area.
2. A voltage level is caused by a difference between the eletrcial field strength within two objects. In other words, voltage and electical field is physically connected to each other. Now remember, that the Conctroller within the ProX AIO pulses the metal plate with an electrical signal of ~5kHz. Hence, the electrical field inside the plate follows this change.
However, Corners and edges causes the electrical field to increase (which is why a lightning protector works best, if it's a sharp spike on top of the roof: it concentrates the electrical field in that spike kinda drawing the lightning strike towards it).
Hence, a number of electrical effects influencing the actual ghost tap frequency are increased as well.
Please not, that this is only a very simplified explanation not taking all physical effects into account. I did not want to write a novel, though.