The­ory Sim­u­lator: How to Read Res­ults

Guide writ­ten by LE★Baldy, Snaeky, and Gaunter. Con­tri­bu­tions from An­tharion for the ori­ginal sim­u­lator, Xelaroc for the ded­ic­ated con­tinu­ation, XLII, ini­tially, and the [Ex­po­nen­tial Idle Sim Team](ht­tps://​git­hub.com/​ex­po­nen­tial-de­velopers) for the cur­rent sim­u­lator ini­tially, and the many oth­ers whom have de­veloped strategies.

The cur­rent the­ory sim­u­lator was ini­tially made by XLII and is now up­dated by the Ex­po­nen­tial Idle Sim Team. The the­ory sim is run on this web­site. Be­low will go through the in­di­vidual parts of the out­put.

Up­dated The­ory Sim Video by Snaeky

Up­dated The­ory Sim Video by Snaeky

This sec­tion will be up­dated to ac­com­mod­ate the new sim­u­lator and its fea­tures. Please read the link’s in­struc­tions.

τ/​h Act­ive / Idle #

This refers to the $\tau /hour$ that you will gain from the act­ive strategy of that the­ory. This is defined as $log(\tau$ $gained)/publication$ $time$ $in$ $hours$. For ex­ample, if you gain 1e10 $\tau$ over a 2 hr run then your rate for that the­ory is 5 $\tau /hr$. Use these val­ues to com­pare to other the­or­ies if you plan to do act­ive strategies for that fol­low­ing pub­lic­a­tion.

Ra­tio #

This is the ra­tio of the manual:auto for $\tau$ gain (2nd column/​3rd column). For ra­tios closer to 1, you should con­sider only run­ning these the­or­ies while off­line/​idle. For ra­tios much lar­ger than 1, you should con­sider only run­ning these the­or­ies while act­ively or semi-act­ively play­ing the game and not while off­line. This is the reason why T5 is con­sidered an act­ive the­ory and T2 is con­sidered an idle the­ory.

Multi Act­ive / Idle #

This is the op­timal mul­ti­plier that you should pub­lish at for the given act­ive strategy for that single pub­lic­a­tion. The mul­ti­plier can change drastic­ally between pub­lic­a­tions based on the­ory, when vari­ables are pur­chased, and more. You may want to do mul­tiple sim­u­la­tions after each pub­lic­a­tion for some the­or­ies but is not ne­ces­sary.

Strat Act­ive / Idle #

Full doc­u­ment­a­tion of strategies that are not lis­ted here as well as the full col­lec­tion is very long. The strategies can be found in the The­ory Strategies Guide.

Time Act­ive / Idle and Pub Time #

This is the time it took the sim­u­lator to pub­lish for the act­ive or idle strategy. This is a mere ap­prox­im­a­tion for hu­mans due to not be­ing per­fect and due to off­line play.

Δτ Act­ive / Idle #

This will tell you how much $\tau$ is gained between pub­lic­a­tions for the act­ive or idle strategy.

$\mathrm{\Delta }\tau$ is defined as the quant­ity $\frac{{\tau }_{final}}{{\tau }_{initial}}$ or $lo{g}_{10}({\tau }_{final})$ - $lo{g}_{10}({\tau }_{initial})$. Ex: If $\mathrm{\Delta }\tau$ was equal to 1e3 and the start­ing $\tau$ was e100, the sim pub­lished at e103 $\tau$.

You should not pub­lish at this $\tau$ value in most cir­cum­stances. Many the­or­ies can vary from hu­man ex­e­cu­tion due to the sim be­ing per­fect or nearly per­fect at the spe­cific strategy. This is most ap­par­ent most when pub­lic­a­tions are still too fast to do the act­ive strats prop­erly. If you in­put your $\tau$ as 1eXXXX, then you should def­in­itely not pub­lish at this un­less your $\tau$ is ex­actly 1eXXXX and not x.xxeXXXX. Use this num­ber as a ref­er­ence for when to look out for the mul­ti­plier in­stead of an ex­act fig­ure.