Hello Brian,

I imagine that key to modeling a rope is in creating an accurate single twist at the correct angle. I just created this 'quick and dirty' test in few seconds using a single squashed sphere arrayed along a curve using the latest features in Beta 2 (4 Aug).
To get something more accurate I should need to study an actual rope. I suppose the real question is do you want a model to resemble a rope or actually create a rope? The latter will be difficult and resource heavy. And if the model you want has multiple strands then it really will require some planning!
There is some really sound advice already on this thread.

Ray