Rank­ings & News Janu­ary 2023

Guide writ­ten by AfuroZamurai. Con­tri­bu­tions from the Amaz­ing Com­munity.

Main Rank­ings Page

Janu­ary 2023 #

News #

The wait for one of the sev­eral CTs ready for re­view to be tested and ap­proved con­tin­ues but at some point Gilles has to awake from hi­berna­tion, right? Right? starts cry­ing

• Cheater alarm! Un­for­tu­nately Gilles has been un­avail­able lately, so in the last few days we got a cheater on the iOS lead­er­board and an­other one for the An­droid lead­er­board. They will ob­vi­ously not be in­cluded in here and for now ig­nored un­til Gilles pulls out the ban ham­mer and re­moves them.
• An­other mile­stone has been breached: e6800 tau on a main save! Right now even twice, first by Playspout (who did it last year as I men­tioned in the 2022 re­view) and a while later by Gen. Who needs new CTs? con­tin­ues cry­ing
• We had a race for the first per­son to reach e500 tau from of­fi­cial cus­tom the­or­ies on a main save. The com­pet­i­tion was fierce between XLII and Playspout. It came down to the last tau but des­pite heroic ef­forts from XLII there can be only one per­son and so it was Playspout who claimed an­other first! Still con­grat­u­la­tions to XLII for be­ing #2!
• Press F to pay re­spect to JR1 who has pushed T1 very much com­pared to his ac­tual f(t) and then got know­cked down from his throne first by me and then by Adam­H99 when we re­dis­covered that mans crazy stats just after he re­claimed his #1 spot. I won­der how many days of TA he has to in­vest now…
• Not much else is hap­pen­ing for the game be­cause the grind is long and without new CTs (cries harder) pro­gress is slow­ing down while we have dis­covered and done so much already it starts to get ex­po­nen­tially more dif­fi­cult to ex­pand (or at least feels like it)
• But we had fun with quizzes! Sev­eral people de­signed quizzes for dif­fer­ent top­ics (game re­lated trivia, the­ory re­lated know­ledge, even a quiz by me about the rank­ings) un­til we had a quiz about pre­vi­ous quizzes.
• Not the most rel­ev­ant news but I was ill and thus have delayed the rank­ings for a new re­cord time. I hope to get back on track by do­ing an earlier rank­ings in Feb­ru­ary!

This is also the first in­stall­ment of the rank­ings and news which is only here and was cre­ated only for the web­site (dis­count­ing the 2022 re­view which is at least not the usual thing)!

If any­one has ideas, please let me (and/​or the guide team) know. If you have cri­ti­cism do it as well. If you don’t want to end up in any news/​rank­ings out­side the server, then con­tact me so I could either ex­clude or an­onymise you.

See you else­where soon!

Rank­ings #

So after once again avoid­ing the rank­ings in fa­vor of news for a bit (and be­ing ex­tra late any­way), it is fi­nally time for the up­date!

Janu­ary 2023 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) Eld­rail (AfuroZamurai) - ee67602:

Al­ways a bit dif­fi­cult to write about one­self^^ Activ­ity here is more in phases but at least pretty reg­u­larly (so hope­fully daily), in the game I do like my idle the­or­ies (who could’ve guessed?). Fa­vour­ite phrase: Time for act­ive the­or­ies I guess^^ (while not do­ing that un­til I set my­self a chal­lenge). Also loves chess.

Yay! Fi­nally #1! Okay, I guess in a sense it is kind of funny that right now there is a cheater above me, so I’m only #2 when open­ing the lead­er­board be­cause without Gen and Playspout play­ing nice I would have no busi­ness be­ing here any time soon. Well, I’ll still take it :)

2. (-1) HeadedArt26 (Playspout) - ee67498:

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, do­ing everything ima­gin­able! Ad­ded fun fact: did ee50000 without T9. I won­der if there is any­thing he is­n’t act­ive in^^

Playspout is the Ling Ling of Ex­po­nen­tial IdleAct­ive with 40 hours a day (and more saves than any per­son should have) and still search­ing for new the­ory strats and writ­ing and and and. Hav­ing es­tab­lished a firm lead the only ques­tion to re­main seems: will Gen still try again or will Playspout lose some mo­tiv­a­tion and al­low someone else to get close? So could you slow down please? The an­swer is: yes and no. Gen is try­ing but not show­ing, Playspout is let­ting people closer and he has­n’t lost mo­tiv­a­tion or slowed down, so don’t be fooled.

3. Adam­H99 (nemesis) - ee67491:

Found the server some while ago and no longer an un­known! Looks like he is back to fast and steady, get­ting pretty close to me ac­tu­ally.

So for quite a while now he is con­sist­ent in do­ing hard­core act­ive push­ing and so I just hope he loses mo­tiv­a­tion he con­tin­ues to go strong. Good at minigames! Hope­fully not too good in catch­ing up…

Also whatever EI ster­oids he’s on, I think I’d need them too^^ I mean at some point he’ll have to pay the price of not over­push­ing but that spirit is com­mend­able.

4. (+2) Vin­tage­Sur­fer­56606 (kinger55) - ee67377:

He has dis­covered the main reason to be on the server: the tau bot^^ Else he’s not really par­ti­cip­at­ing (un­less I ask for a tau up­date) but he’s a force on the lead­er­board for sure. He cer­tainly figured out CTs and firmly planted him­self in the Top 5 un­til Adam showed up. If I had to bet I’d say he’ll get at least Top 3 one day! Not that any­one above would want to give ground though.

5. Black­Seal94 (Black­Seal) - ee67306:

Sel­dom seen here but al­ways great to see him up­date his in­sane T6 stat (dis­count­ing Playspout who should­n’t count any­ways)^^ 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 ;)

He had turned on CT over­drive but as the new CTs lose their power he’s back to catch­ing up. Un­per­turbed by the switch­eroo around him, though the fight to stay in the Top 5 got cer­tainly harder.

6. (-2) Gen­Er­a­tion­Na­tion (Gen) - ee67017:

While he can­not con­sist­ently keep up the 1000 mes­sages per month, the Jug­ger­naut is not stop­ping any time soon, neither in­game, nor in the server. Don’t be de­ceived by his stag­nant \(F(t)\), he’s ac­tu­ally very close to Playspout!

Maybe not at the ab­so­lute top for CTs (though I think in terms of ef­fi­ciency he ac­tu­ally is or at least very close) but still go­ing strong enough with ac­cel (the mad­man^^) to keep closer to Playspout than he should. If this will be enough to get back his #1 can be doubted though he will try it.

7. Fi­nalul­tima (Fi­nalul­tima) - ee66851:

While they showed up a day be­fore the rank­ings they got into the Top 20 in “real” Dis­cord con­ver­sa­tions (after some month of talk­ing with the tau bot!) activ­ity is still al­most neg­li­gible but happy to have them and look­ing for­ward to see­ing more!

Amaz­ing fast pro­gress and now the gap to close is pretty big. Still an im­press­ive achieve­ment get­ting here and after see­ing their dis­tri­bu­tion I have no doubt it is fully de­served!

8. some gib­ber­ish I won’t even try type­writ­ing[name may change any second] (nubest) - ee66799:

She has been a 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. She also likes to call hax and people bad which seems to cor­rel­ate with her or­tho­graphic skills.

Un­for­tu­nately life came in the way and be­sides a pause on the server her lead­er­board place­ment was suf­fer­ing for it. For­tu­nately she is now back! And what a state­ment to get back into the Top 10 and even climb­ing! Maybe its the cat emo­jis^^ Or the elab­or­ate strategies which are surely not act­ive be­cause nub only idles, sure.

9. (+1) colinc719 (?) - ee66786:

They were maybe the biggest sur­prise when en­ter­ing the rank­ings, shoot­ing up from some­where I can­not even re­mem­ber dir­ectly into the Top 20 and never look­ing back. We can­not even know more about them be­cause it looks like they are still not on the server. Maybe the fu­ture will give us more (so far not). For now they just entered Top 10 after first dis­ap­pear­ing for a bit from the lead­er­boards com­pletely.

10. (-1) TRE­DEC42 (XLII) - ee66781:

I don’t even know where to start but he’s do­ing amaz­ing in­game and out of the game! Rising more and more thanks to his CT prowess (in ab­so­lute val­ues cur­rently #2), ori­ginal the­ory push­ing, the newly reached in­sane 1e9 stars and lots of push­ing. To add to that he’s a minigame re­cord hunter, sim pro­gram­mer, CT bal­an­cer, helper and very act­ive on the server!

Really happy to see him enter the Top 10 for a rank­ing and not only for a short time! Go ahead and rise some more! I heard he’s ready to cash in and start the hunt, so my ex­pect­a­tions are high^^

11. (+1) spqcey (ran­dom­name) - ee66759:

No idea what the name means but not that ran­dom of a per­son^^ We have an­other minigame mas­ter with a very im­press­ive 2.55e8 minigame stars. Not only that but he’s also pretty act­ive in the realm of col­lect­ing data in sheets like the the­ory strats, vari­able power or (sadly in­act­ive for now) the tau graph­ing sheet and the \(F(t)\) sheet. He’s pretty act­ive on the Dis­cord server and a very im­press­ive cus­tom the­ory mas­ter.

When Top 10?

12. (-1) An­thari­on1988 (An­tharion) - ee66705:

The ori­ginal le­gend, long­time #1, cre­ator of the ori­ginal 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.

It was a sur­prise but a wel­come one to see him back in the Top 10 and stay­ing! Now the com­pet­i­tion sadly got him but no reason to give him up. Go­gogo!!!

13. (+2) Up­Artz (?) - ee66599:

Seems to be act­ive on Red­dit but not here, though this is un­clear.

They were already out and are of­ten on the edge but be­cause of that I’m even more im­pressed by their fight­ing spirit, look­ing for­ward to their next month! Still here and ahead by a de­cent mar­gin! Time to change the dir­ec­tion we’re look­ing?

14. (-1) Reck­on­Crew (Reck­on­Crew) - ee66586:

They have all their mes­sages on the server from a single day about 21 months ago, which is an achieve­ment in it­self I guess^^

Not much else to say ex­cept they are pretty stable, mainly gain­ing a place now and then (and some­times los­ing one). I do like stable play­ers for this rank­ing^^

He did give me some work by switch­ing places but at least he re­mains mainly in the same rank­ings group (which is now ir­rel­ev­ant but whatever)^^

15. (+1) ad­equateryan (ad­equate ryan) - ee66468:

Entered a few month ago. But who do we wel­come into our ranks? I have no idea as they are seem­ingly on the server but with a whoop­ing 0 mes­sages so far. While I al­ways feel a bit of sad­ness see­ing vet­eran play­ers fall, I do like new play­ers com­ing in, show­ing all is fluid and you can catch up.

Now I won­der if they’ll stay or even rise or maybe even more sur­pris­ingly start to talk on the server! So far only rise and no talk… Or no rise and no talk…

16. (-2) SnaekySnacks (SnaekySnacks) - ee66399:

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^^ Due to his work he’s been less act­ive lately (which seems still pretty act­ive to me). You’re do­ing a great job though! Same goes for his own cus­tom the­ory idea (EF) which got im­ple­men­ted with the help of pea­nut and XLII.

Des­pite all this dis­trac­tions he’s still con­sist­ently in the rank­ings! Now I’m even look­ing for­ward to him en­ter­ing the Top 10 for the first time (in my rank­ings, in between he already reached it). Okay, so close but yet so far… Don’t drop :(

17. har­u­maki200 (har­u­maki) - ee66344:

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 held true here very well. For a while they had stopped play­ing com­pletely but now grind­ing is back on the menu! Wel­come back!

18. (new) birrel69 (birrel) - ee66115:

The rival of d4N­f6Bg5 (or rather the in­vol­un­tary rival). While fall­ing be­hind, he now made his move and passed him for a first time entry into the Top 20! He popped up on the server to an­nounce his entry into the Top 20 in Decem­ber, only to be over­taken again be­fore the rank­ings was made. This time he’s savely in util­iz­ing the same strat of hav­ing 2 saves. Today he once again showed up and com­mited to the strategy of not shar­ing in­form­a­tion, in­stead pre­fer­ring to use what we find to bet­ter climb. Well, its not like any­thing is forced and in the end it de­pends on how you play your save, so on you go!

19. (-1) Juan­nTitor (JuanT­itor) - ee66065:

On the server it looks like a lot of bot com­mands lately but from time to time he pops up for some other com­ment.

For quite a while he’s fight­ing really hard for his place in the rank­ing and has been out and back again. His comebacks must be a re­cord, right?

Top 20 streak: 4! Danger: me­dium!

20. d4N­f6Bg5 (d4N­f6Bg5) - ee65985:

He’s been on the server and the rank­ings hunt for a while. A long while ac­tu­ally. Ac­cord­ing to him surely every day he was­n’t here too long.

If you know chess nota­tion you can de­duce from his name he’s a chess player (you can go as far as al­low him his self-pro­claimed ex­pert status given his 2500+ lichess rat­ing^^). As I’m something of a chess player my­self I already like that^^

Be­ing driven by his de­sire to fi­nally reach the rank­ings but hindered by com­pet­i­tion, long times for small gains and not much de­sire to ac­tu­ally cash in on the act­ives, he de­cided to do a first here at the top (at least as far as we know): he split his saves. One of them is go­ing for the long haul and the other - this one - got the the­ory auto­mator run­ning 24/​7 for the short-term gain. Well, it did pay off I guess…

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

21. (-2) Fire­burn­er80 (Gull Dew­cat) - ee65981:

His in-game activ­ity seems to mir­ror his server activ­ity: prefer­ably idle (though he is an old vet­eran who was some­what act­ive back in the days). He did idled out of the rank­ings be­fore but already showed the fire for a comeback. The fierce com­pet­i­tion has got him again but be it just out of nos­tal­gia I hope he can turn the heat back on and claim his place in the Top 20 again.

An hon­our­able men­tion goes to #

1. (on iOS) Phask (Phask) - ee66378:

Long­time leader on the iOS lead­er­board and ac­tu­ally in the Top 20 over­all if com­bined. For quite some time it looked like he ac­tu­ally might be pretty close to the Top 10 on An­droid but lately he fell pretty hard. Since some time ago he star­ted fight­ing back, now be­ing at #17 in the com­bined lead­er­board. 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.

It will be in­ter­est­ing if he can come fully back at some point (des­pite CTs which seem to be the reason to lose the touch a bit), would be sad to see iOS drift­ing fur­ther away from the Top 10 (though the next con­tender neasi_cz is mak­ing a ser­i­ous push and is cur­rently not only in the com­bined Top 20 but close to claim­ing the #1 spot on iOS!).

And in the end it is of course time for the “real” hon­our­able men­tion (please nom­in­ate someone with a reason for fu­ture in­clu­sion of play­ers if you have some­body in mind) as Phask is tech­nic­ally in the Top 20 rank­ings:

??. Un­known (Tick­leTh­eP­anda) - un­known:

Not ex­actly the epi­tome of an act­ive mem­ber of the server with a whop­ping 3(!) mes­sages, 2 of them to “in­tro­duce” him­self after he done the deed which se­cured him a place here:

Our panda here has been the per­son to start the guide web­site, be­ing re­spons­ible for a lot of it, mak­ing the host­ing pos­sible and all of this without tak­ing much credit (at least he al­ways has a men­tion on the guide web­site). What a hero!

While I know noth­ing about his re­la­tion­ship with the game and his pro­gress, this shows you can have an im­mense im­pact any­way! Thanks for your ser­vice!

As it turned out to be quite the un­der­tak­ing to write this month edi­tion (as al­ways, even after the re­lo­ca­tion this is­n’t writ­ing it­self), we had some \(F(t)\) changes. Luck­ily for me it was ac­tu­ally only one small up­date which had no in­flu­ence on any ranks!