Rank­ings & News Feb­ru­ary 2022

Guide writ­ten by AfuroZamurai. Con­tri­bu­tions from the Amaz­ing Com­munity.

This was ori­gin­ally writ­ten on Dis­cord so the text may be con­fus­ing. It is kept this way to pre­serve the ori­ginal posts how they were.

Main Rank­ings Page

Feb­ru­ary 2022 #

News #

The first rank­ings after cus­tom the­or­ies got re­leased!

So be­fore I’ll get to the rank­ings it is ap­pro­pri­ate to re­cap the re­lease of the first two of­fi­cial cus­tom the­or­ies and the sub­sequent races which saw some really close fights for reach­ing mile­stones (in the truest sense of the word).

Com­ing along with the new up­date was the Wei­er­straß Sine Product, made by xelaroc (already known by an hon­or­able men­tion and now - slight spoiler - as part of the Top 20) as the first cus­tom the­ory avail­able to be played. As it also adds to the real tau a lot of the ded­ic­ated people star­ted from the minute the up­date dropped and powered through for hours to reach the Auto­buyer, de­vel­op­ing new strategies along the way. To fully grasp the ded­ic­a­tion: it took over 7 hours of mostly act­ive play to get there! In the end it was a mat­ter of minutes but we got the fol­low­ing res­ult:

1. Playspout
2. spqcey
3. Phazer (iOS!)
4. Gen
5. Snaeky

Af­ter­wards the fight con­tin­ued but at some point people needed to sleep (at least for a while) and dif­fer­ences grew. In the back­ground the “threat” of the second of­fi­cial the­ory was loom­ing the whole time as it was very closed to be­ing re­leased, thus in­ter­rupt­ing on the WSP grind.

Fi­nally after 7 long days the second of­fi­cial the­ory dropped: Se­quen­tial Lim­its by el­lip­sis (see the hon­or­able men­tion from Novem­ber 2021!). At that point the Top 9 (known val­ues) had sur­passed the e70 tau mark, with Playspout and XLII bat­tling it out just in front of Gen.

Im­me­di­ately all at­ten­tion was switched and a new fight began. The au­thor star­ted great but was soon over­taken. After a while it was found in­de­pend­ently by the same two play­ers who topped WSP (XLII and Playspout) and Snaeky that the more idle-themed the­ory could be played act­ive by swap­ping mile­stones. No rest could be al­lowed un­til more mile­stones were ac­quired, only end­ing at the time when all mile­stones were reached. Sur­pris­ing to many the act­ive king Playspout was ac­tu­ally beaten this time by XLII who achieved the goal first after 3 and a half days and con­tin­ues to lead this lead­er­board since then.

Now the growth has slowed down and eagerly awaited is the next of­fi­cial the­ory though none knows when it will be time for a new push nor in which the­ory.

Rank­ings #

These events cer­tainly shook up the po­s­i­tions. I’m curi­ous to see what happened, so time to get to it. Feb­ru­ary 2022 Top 20 on the lead­er­board, their \(F(t)\) at the time the list was com­piled and their Dis­cord con­nec­tion (Dis­cord names in brack­ets are not their nick­names!):

1. (+1) Gen­Er­a­tion­Na­tion (Gen) - ee61417:

“Only” a bit above 10002000 mes­sages here but if there is any­one who can chal­lenge wind it has to be Gen^^ Re­cently he really star­ted to at­tack for #1, we’ll see if either his or wind an­nounced re­duce in play time will have more im­pact.

Well, that aged great^^ We saw that a com­bin­a­tion of cus­tom the­or­ies and free time made the dif­fer­ence and al­lowed Gen to not only catch up but even over­take the long time #1 to be only the 4th num­ber one (dis­count­ing ones due to glitches etc.) since a lot of months after An­tharion took over when ee50000 was still far away. Dur­ing this heroic un­der­tak­ing he also man­aged to pass 6000(!) tau, maybe be­ing the first to do it.

Now he is the one be­ing chased, so it will be in­ter­est­ing to see if he can ce­ment and keep his spot or the chaser will re­claim the throne.

2. (-1) GrimJu­ni­per­55831 (wind) - ee61348:

The le­gend, whose pres­ence here is not that rare but usu­ally not daily, un­for­tu­nately even rarer these days. Of­ten he com­plains about the­or­ies be­ing too act­ive, though he has them all way too high xD He also man­aged to get to the ee60k lead­er­board cap be­fore cus­tom the­or­ies, in­cred­ible!

Him an­noun­cing he’ll re­duce time spent should mean he’ll only be a bit more hu­man I guess^^ That aged rather poorly, as this also might be the reason he could­n’t keep up with the top play­ers for cus­tom the­or­ies and lost his #1 place to Gen. I really wished I could talk to him be­fore but so it is a big mys­tery how near he is to Gen and what this might mean for the fu­ture. Let’s hope for an ex­cit­ing battle for the crown!

3. (+1) HeadedArt26 (Playspout) - ee61002:

If you ever looked at the re­cord sheet you should know him be­cause he’s lit­er­ally every­where there (still hold­ing him off from T2/​T4 for now^^). Also pretty act­ive here for quite a while! Ad­ded fun fact: did ee50000 without T9.

Playspout is the Ling Ling of Ex­po­nen­tial IdleAct­ive with 40 hours a day, so it sur­prises me more that he only now really over­took me. Ac­tu­ally he’s catch­ing up his idle the­or­ies nowadays which al­lowed him for some amaz­ing cus­tom the­or­ies play. The only ques­tion re­mains: can he make ground on our Top 2?

4. (-1) Eld­rail (AfuroZamurai) - ee60940:

Al­ways a bit dif­fi­cult to write about one­self^^ Activ­ity here is more in phases but at least pretty reg­u­larly (so daily), in the game I do like my idle the­or­ies (who could’ve guessed?) and push­ing \(F(t)\). Fa­vor­ite phrase: Time for act­ive the­or­ies I guess^^ (while not do­ing that).

I paid my new mod ex­ist­ence with the third place and totally did­n’t get over­taken by Playspout be­cause he’s the bet­ter player or I can’t play cus­tom the­or­ies as well as oth­ers.

This does­n’t mean I’ll give up or fo­cus solely on chess as I hope my long term en­dur­ance will al­low me to catch up in the fu­ture. In the mean­time I already feel Black­Seal breath­ing down my neck, so time for act­ive the­or­ies ;)

5. (+1) Black­Seal94 (Black­Seal) - ee60654:

The old T6 cham­pion and ac­tu­ally climb­ing the lead­er­board, which is im­press­ive at these heights! Sel­dom seen here but al­ways great to see him up­date his in­sane T6 stat^^ Cus­tom the­or­ies have kind of awoken him to be more act­ive here, which is nice. It also made him more act­ive in the rank­ings, which is not so nice ;)

His speed is pretty amaz­ing and he left An­tharion in the dust so far. He cer­tainly wants more but will he ac­tu­ally get more? We’ll see!

6. (-1) An­thari­on1988 (An­tharion) - ee60576:

The ori­ginal le­gend, long­time #1, cre­ator of the tau sim­u­lator and sadly not that act­ive any­more (both in the game and on the server), though we can still see him (and he’s cer­tainly not given up^^) quite reg­u­larly. So far he has still some lead to those be­low him, so no drop ex­pec­ted any time soon.

My last state­ment is­n’t that wrong but with cus­tom the­or­ies it might be harder for him to keep up with his re­duced activ­ity. I still hope - and be it just for nos­tal­gic reas­ons - that he picks up the pace again.

7. (+1) har­u­maki200 (har­u­maki) - ee60283:

So far with the low­est amount of Dis­cord mes­sages but at least still here^^ Cus­tom the­or­ies re­quired some posts but that was it some­what sadly.

Activ­ity on the server is no where equi­val­ent to activ­ity in­game and this holds true here very well. Con­tinu­ously on the rise, cus­tom the­or­ies proved to be a fur­ther boost. Now it will be hard to pro­gress more but maybe old le­gends will be pulled down soon nev­er­the­less?

8. (+12) Adam­H99 (nemesis) - ee59928:

Re­cently found here on the server and no longer an un­known! So far it was fast and steady wins the race - and now he is here in the Top 10, just a month after barely en­ter­ing the Top 20. Also worth a men­tion: he is in the Top 10 for all minigames, get­ting the fi­nal ones dur­ing the last months!

We can watch his ca­reer with great in­terest, won­der­ing if there will be a ceil­ing now or the climb can still con­tinue!

9. counix86 (counix [pre­vi­ously Ar­thurbdn]) - ee59853:

Ba­sic­ally not act­ive, ex­cept for a short time when the french glitch happened and cata­pul­ted him to the top. Well, let’s just say his T2 is like a year ahead of its time… Really look­ing for­ward to the point when I get his value on my side save to see how long it took^^

It looked like he’s not act­ive enough any­more to keep up but he ac­tu­ally kept his place after cus­tom the­or­ies came out, which is a test­a­ment to his still on­go­ing mo­tiv­a­tion. If that will be enough? We will see in the next rank­ings.

10. Rem­m­oire (Keynez) - ee59846:

Has been seen already but not 100% cer­tain what their name is here on the server. From the us­age of the !tau com­mand it looks like the given name has to be cor­rect, though they have yet to talk to oth­ers than the tau bot since April 2021. Nev­er­the­less they’re cer­tainly a con­stant on the top of the lead­er­board.

In the re­cent times no places changed but the gap to the place above closed, so the rise seems to con­tinue.

11. Reck­on­Crew (Reck­on­Crew) - ee59674:

They have all their mes­sages on the server from a single day about 11 months ago, which is an achieve­ment in it­self I guess^^

Not much else to say ex­cept they are still where they left off. While this is im­press­ive dur­ing these chan­ging times no pro­gress in re­gards to Top 10 were made while the gap top to the chasers shrank quite a bit. So I ex­pect a drop next rank­ings, which is maybe a pre­dic­tion which won’t age well but at some point I need to be brave^^

12. (+5) people­above­meishax [pre­vi­ously nubest lol] (nubest) - ee59626:

She shot up the ranks and entered the Top 20 not that long ago. Long time mem­ber of this server, with quite a lot of mes­sages a name to know. Maybe not the founder but ex­cess­ive user of a rather un­usual kind of text emoji: ouo and vari­ations of it.

This month she won the close race against Snaeky, win­ning their long time con­test for now, which may com­fort her over the break­ing of her apple (which is neither to eat nor with iOS). The race never stops, so time to over­clock the nubest.exe! As she closes in on higher play­ers her name could con­sidered to be fac­tu­ally wrong, though it is still un­clear whether Top 10 is a real­istic goal in the near fu­ture.

13. (+5) SnaekySnacks (SnaekySnacks) - ee59602:

Had a hard time not to think of sneaky but okay^^ Maybe the most act­ive per­son on the server [cita­tion needed]. Also known for his con­tri­bu­tions to the guide and an­swer­ing ques­tions seem­ingly every­where and everytime^^ Help­ing is in his blood and so he helps nubest with their friendly battle. After 2 months be­hind it is maybe time to be ahead the next rank­ings?

He did the pro gamer move and re­mained one place be­hind nubest by get­ting that ex­tra ee1 over Slacker. But re­gard­less of this tiny gap, cus­tom the­or­ies provided a boost to get the Top 10 cam­paign go­ing again, I’m very in­ter­ested to see where both of them end up!

14. (-1) Un­be­liev­ableSlacker (Slacker) - ee59601:

Prob­ably slack­ing too of­ten (sorry, could­n’t help it) but he was pretty act­ive on the server for a while some time ago. Never give up the hope to see him again - which proved right as he came back with some activ­ity after cus­tom the­or­ies re­leased!

While ob­vi­ously not slack­ing enough to fall down much he was still not able to with­stand the at­tack of the duo. Hard times may come in the fu­ture but if he ever stops that slack­ing, who knows what is pos­sible?

15. (new) xelaroc (Alex­Cord) - ee59458:

He is a very act­ive mem­ber of this com­munity here and even more in the game in re­spect to the minigames. An in­sane 406 mil­lion(!) total stars (over 260 mil­lion of them minigame stars) are un­rivaled and very im­press­ive. Now he also made him­self a name with his own cus­tom the­ory which got ap­proved and ad­ded as of­fi­cial to the game. Def­in­itely an over­due and de­served new entry into the Top 20!

And what an entry it was with cus­tom the­or­ies boost­ing him so much he jumped im­me­di­ately to rank 15! His activ­ity makes me as­sume he’ll rise even more in the fu­ture, I’m look­ing for­ward to more Ex­po­nen­tial Idle with him!

16. (-9) Vin­tage­Sur­fer­56606 (kinger55) - ee59403:

He has dis­covered the main reason to be on the server: the tau bot^^ Else he’s not really par­ti­cip­at­ing but he’s a force on the lead­er­board for sure. Re­cently he has been chal­lenged by Black­Seal and he seems to be los­ing that fight. Will he make a comeback?

I kept that ex­tract from last month in be­cause it is a per­fect ex­ample how cus­tom the­or­ies shook up the rank­ings: not only did he lost that fight, he dropped out of the Top 10. Who­ever man­ages to enter the Top 10 should never be un­der­es­tim­ated but if he can’t im­prove his cus­tom the­ory game be­fore the next ones come, he’ll have a hard time to keep his place on the rank­ings.

17. (-1) Juan­nTitor (JuanT­itor) - ee59402:

On the server it looks like a lot of bot com­mands lately but from time to time he pops up for some other com­ment. You win some, you lose some. He seems to al­tern­ate each month. So one place up for next month?

bet­ter not let me pre­dict any­thing be­cause it is a place down. Though what is def­in­itely needed to be men­tioned: 16-19 are only ee4(!) apart, so this snap­shot is not really in­dic­at­ive of what will hap­pen soon. I won­der how he’ll fare in this group.

18. (-6) Fire­burn­er80 (Gull Dew­cat) - ee59400:

His in-game activ­ity seems to mir­ror his server activ­ity: prefer­ably idle. Long time around this spot, maybe he’ll get the fire back and re­claim his old Top 10 spot? Looks harder now as he seems to lose more but maybe the fire will burn again?

Same as for the surfer: the fire might still burn but not enough to com­pete with the stronger cus­tom the­ory play­ers (at least I’m as­sum­ing this is re­spons­ible for most of the move­ments this month). I won­der if he will catch him­self or if his fire will burn out. We’ll see in a month!

19. (new) spqcey (ran­dom­name) - ee59399:

No idea what the name means but not that ran­dom of a per­son^^ We have an­other minigame mas­ter with a very im­press­ive 1.38e8 minigame stars. Not only that but he’s also pretty act­ive in the realm of col­lect­ing data in sheets like the tau graph­ing sheet and the \(F(t)\) sheet. He’s pretty act­ive on the Dis­cord server and is cer­tainly a wel­come ad­di­tion to the rank­ings!

As the re­lease of cus­tom the­or­ies has shown he’s cer­tainly one of the top play­ers in that re­gard, so not a sur­prise he entered the top 20 by a mar­gin. He’ll still have to learn the pro strat of not to end his grad just be­low the grad mark when in a close group (which could’ve given him po­ten­tially 3 ad­di­tional places with prob­ably min­imal ef­fort) but his rise will most prob­ably con­tinue and he’ll sur­pass them reg­u­lar­ily dur­ing the com­ing month.

20. (-6) Con­vo­lutedEarth28 (?) - ee59318:

Not much to say ex­cept a vague feel­ing I should know who this is but I don’t. Cool name though^^ Maybe we’ll know more at some point in the fu­ture? They gained like ee30 \(F(t)\) on Slacker dur­ing the last month, so an­other swap might be due soon.

Well, a swap oc­curred but not the one an­ti­cip­ated and wanted by them. Cus­tom the­or­ies can be harsh but at least they still re­tained a place in the rank­ings. Now it re­mains to be seen if they can re­cover and fight for more or just for stay­ing in the rank­ings with strong chasers be­hind.

Some enter the list and so some have to leave the list as well. Here are our fallen fel­lows from this month:

22. (-3) Up­Artz (?) - ee59199:

Seems to be act­ive on Red­dit but not here, though this is un­clear. Never really no­ticed this name be­fore start­ing the rank­ing but cer­tainly up was ap­pro­pri­ate^^

The re­lease of cus­tom the­or­ies has hit him hard, as he now trails #20 by about the same amount he pre­vi­ously had more. On the other hand he’s the player who has got­ten back once be­fore after drop­ping out, so the last word has not yet been spoken!

23. (-8) pm­loikjuy­hbn (pm­loikjuy­hbn) - ee59132:

What an ab­om­in­a­tion of a name xD In­act­ive on the server since middle of June 2021, so not much is known about them ex­cept their de­vel­op­ment after the rank­ings star­ted.

Two months ago they dropped a lot but last moth they were able to pick up the pace again to re­gain at least one spot. Re­cov­ery? Cus­tom the­or­ies say no. Their growth was too min­is­cule to keep up with the faster de­vel­op­ments, so for now they’re out, though their fluc­tu­ations at least in­dic­ate a pos­sib­il­ity of a comeback.

An hon­or­able men­tion goes to #

1. (on iOS) Phask (Phask) - ee59696:

Long­time leader on the iOS lead­er­board and ac­tu­ally in the Top 20 over­all if com­bined. Looks like he ac­tu­ally might be pretty close to the Top 10 on An­droid (cur­rently #12)! He’s also on the server, though his act­ive times are some months ago. Also known as the cre­ator of the first Tau data col­lec­tion sheet.

As I’m an An­droid player it is hard to keep track of what he’s do­ing but his con­sist­ency to stay close to the Top 10 over­all means he has­n’t lost his edge, though while he kept the gap, newer An­droid play­ers re­placed the old chal­lengers, which might spell trouble for him.

An­other hon­or­able men­tion (chosen not that ran­domly from a list of can­did­ates - please nom­in­ate someone with a reason for fu­ture in­clu­sion of play­ers if you have some­body in mind):

24. TRE­DEC42 (XLII) - ee59110:

Most prob­ably just in time to get that hon­or­able men­tion be­fore he’ll enter the Top 20 (no pres­sure^^).

If there is someone to as­so­ci­ate with nail­ing the new cus­tom the­or­ies and really tak­ing the stage it has to be XLII (as presen­ted in the cus­tom the­ory write-up above). Not only that, he’s one of the fast­est rising play­ers, who is pretty im­press­ive across the board: lots of stars (and minigame stars) and even ap­pear­ing on tau lead­er­boards for the ori­ginal the­or­ies. His activ­ity in the server is a nice bo­nus on top, so I’m happy to have him here and hope­fully in the rank­ings in the fu­ture!