It has been some time, I know, I know. But hey, here are some news to dis­tract you!

• First some good news: Gilles re­leased an up­date (1.4.30) which fixed the game for newer An­droid ver­sions!
• Amongst the mul­ti­tude of fixes we un­for­tu­nately have some­times bugs with of­fi­cial CTs. Hope must not be lost though, there will be a fix at some point!
• We got an­other player above ee70k (duh, you could see that in the rank­ings but still)
• A new player (#4 on iOS 佐藤あま846592) has ar­rived to an­noy JR again by tak­ing the top spot for T1. JR will cease everything un­til he has his place back
• If any­body misses any cal­cu­lat­ors on replit, yeah so far no help. But good news: the sim 3.0 by XLII (still in de­vel­op­ment) can be used here: ht­tps://​tre­dec.git­hub.io/​sim-3.0/
• I don’t know from where he has the en­ergy but NGZ has ad­ded an­other 200 mil­lion minigame stars to his already in­sane 1 bil­lion
• De­velop a CT they said. It will be easy they said. (Okay, that is something no one ever said). Any­way, Propfeds is so into it, he star­ted to write re­search about his own CT. If that is­n’t some un­ex­pec­ted con­sequences of play­ing EI
• We are al­most run­ning out of places on the SL lead­er­board for people who fin­ish it. We are at 7 com­ple­tions now!
• Someone might use his work on an­other guide for his col­lege ap­plic­a­tion. Good luck!
• We have people com­plet­ing Riemann-Zeta, prob­ably the CT with the most de­vel­op­ment time. Con­grat­u­la­tions to all of them!
• People ap­ply heavy maths to solve CTs, re­gard­less if they are of­fi­cial. Great job on solv­ing the best pos­sible value for 14 up­dates in Col­latz Con­jec­ture (and no, I can­not ex­plain that fur­ther)
• I got #1 for T3 by us­ing the ad­vanced strategy of sac­ri­fi­cing CT pro­gress for TA. Well, be­ing away changes things, does­n’t it? Just wait un­til I get my e600 T8 on my main save :(

In cus­tom the­ory news:
Find­ing cus­tom the­or­ies be­sides the of­fi­cial ones is no easy thing. Luck­ily we have a doc­u­ment con­tain­ing links and in­form­a­tion about a large num­ber of cus­tom the­or­ies in dif­fer­ent stages of de­vel­op­ment: ht­tps://​docs.google.com/​spread­sheets/​d/​1_VILoIE8qOx­Gi7UD-HiDKH95uKir­G­zL2Ujn­Hva2c­aBo/ \

There might be up­dates about what was ad­ded in the fu­ture but keep­ing track of that might not work out so per­fectly. Just look for your­self for now :)
Just to pro­mote it, here is the the­ory of the month: Lemma Garden.
Go ahead, find it in the sheet and play it!

Thanks to Jo we now have this nice info about dis­tri­bu­tion of play­ers in cer­tain f(t) ranges:
70000: 2
69000: 13
68000: 16
67000: 21
66000: 28
65000: 39
64000: 55
63000: 60
62000: 72
61000: 84
60000: 84
59000: 113
58000: 102
57000: 95
56000: 104
55000: 112

Ac­tu­ally Jo has a lot of data, so there is much po­ten­tial for fur­ther in­form­a­tion. As a teaser here are three facts about Janu­ary:

• birrel69 has the highest f(t) gain of the Top 50 (on An­droid) with ee309
• Gen man­aged the highest in­crease in f(t) in a day with ee139
• ad­equateryan in­creased f(t) the most times with 19 changes

Ob­lig­at­ory plea for feed­back: 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.

So after once again avoid­ing the rank­ings in fa­vor of news for a bit (and be­ing ex­tra late any­way; not in this edi­tion but over­all), it is fi­nally time for the up­date!

Janu­ary 2024 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. HeadedArt26 (Playspout) - ee70512:

If you ever looked at the record sheet you should know him because he’s literally on top everywhere there (well, except apparently 7/​8 of the original theories on main save).

Also pretty active here on the server, 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 Playspout lose some motivation and allow someone else to get close? So could you slow down please?

There is one challenger now and his pace seems a bit slower. So who knows, what will happen?

2. Vin­tage­Sur­fer­56606 (kinger55) - ee70400:

He has discovered the main reason to be on the server: the tau bot^^ Well, that joke lost its meaning a lot of months ago but it is hard to let go^^

Else he’s not really participating (unless I ask for a tau update and recently not even then…) but he’s a force on the leaderboard for sure. He certainly figured out CTs and firmly planted himself in the Top 3 now.

Having distanced everybody else, the question remains: can he do the same for Playspout in the future?

3. (+1) Eld­rail (AfuroZamurai) - ee69852:

Always a bit difficult to write about oneself^^ Activity here is more in phases but at least pretty regularly (so hopefully dailyweekly), 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.

I did get #1 in the rankings last year but without actually ever being #1…! Too bad Playspout showed up again before the cheater ahead of me was removed. I guess I’ll have to keep hunting!

Note: hunting can be defined broadly and this absolutely inefficient phase of idle is certainly just a long-term plot to regain my #1 spot for real. Totally.

Well, yeah, about that… I’m back to being the Idle Lord and have found my fun in that. Still trying though, just not very hard. I even managed to push f(t) a bit. Watch out everyone ;)

4. (+1) colinc719 (?) - ee69815:

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 and made clear Top 10 was just a step on the way. I feel scared…

Having overtaken me already in-between, I feel it is only a matter of time before Top 3 is their spot.

5. (+1) Reck­on­Crew (Reck­on­Crew) - ee69774:

They have all their messages on the server from a single day about 33 months ago, which is an achievement in itself I guess^^

Actually cannot find them anymore, maybe because of the Discord name update? Or maybe because Discord sometimes doesn’t want to actually search.

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^^

6. (+4) birrel69 (birrel) - ee69756:

The rival of d4Nf6Bg5 (or rather the involuntary rival). While at first falling behind, he has long made his move and passed him for a rising spot in the rankings.

He popped up on the server to announce his entry into the Top 20, only to be overtaken again before the rankings was made. For now he’s safely in utilizing the same strat of having 2 saves.

Sometimes he shows up and exchanges some words with his rival, staying committed 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!

After being on the edge of the Top 10, he has turned on overdrive. Scary stuff, with no end in sight so far.

7. Gen­Er­a­tion­Na­tion (Gen) - ee69661:

With a heavy hard I have to report that the Juggernaut has slowed down and maybe no longer is the Juggernaut. Still pretty strong though^^

Maybe not at the absolute top for CTs (though I think in terms of efficiency he actually is or at least very close) and maybe suffered a bit in originals but still going strong enough with accel (the madman^^) to have more f(t) than one would expect.

It is still so weird to see him lower but to be fair: rankings have always changed over time. I wonder where he’ll settle down…

8. d4N­f6Bg5 (d4N­f6Bg5) - ee69614:

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 in the Top 20 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.

After a looong time he has managed to combine two things: overtaking birrel and doing it while entering the Top 10. Congratulations!

Top 10 persisted but birrel eludes him ones more. Will he catch up again?

9. (+4) In­tel­lec­tu­al­Power­112 (NG­Z001) - ee69524:

Over a year ago he already had an honourable mention. I wrote:

Let’s hope at some point in the future he can enter the rankings to join his friends on the leaderboard (XLII already showed the way^^)!

He was far behind but with his activity and passion I wasn’t surprised to finally see him enter the Top 20!

Back then he started to appear a bit more in the server and especially for custom theories. He certainly continued this trend.

Very impressive minigamer, second to probably none, having passed 1 billion minigame stars by a fair margin.

Equally impressive in custom theories, second only to Playspout and not by much.

Here is one player I can see rise more and more, with the Top 10 only the beginning!

10. (-1) Up­Artz (?) - ee69468:

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

They were already out of the Top 20 and were often on the edge but because of that I’m even more impressed by their fighting spirit, seeing the gap closing to actually entering the single digits! Applause for reaching the Top 10!

11. some gib­ber­ish I won’t even try type­writ­ing[name may change any second] (nubest) - ee69419:

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!

Potentially her competitors are too active now, though she is still pretty high up. Maybe its the cat emojis^^ Or the elaborate strategies which are surely not active because nub only idles, sure.

Looks like the competition isn’t making life easy but never count her off!

12. (-9) Adam­H99 (nemesis) - ee69402:

Found the server some while ago and no longer an unknown! Looks like he is going fast and steady, there we have someone on a mission…

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!

I’m pretty sure he had the number 1 spot for a brief while in-between, so good for him (and time to stop)!

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.

Also come back please to Discord and share your secrets…

Also has not updated for quite a while. Oh no… I hope he didn’t read the strikethrough parts and took them by heart :(

13. (-1) hot­ab1 (hotab) - ee69270:

I have a vague feeling he shouldn’t have been in when I first included him but well, now he’s in for sure.

Right now he’s the one player listed on all 8 main save theories on the record sheet (wow).

I’ll be interested to see if he can keep up the pace or if pushing T6 will cost him at some point. Note: always push theories. Wait, that seems pretty obvious.

14. (+1) Ara­mak­iSH (?) - ee69114:

Another mystery person. I knew they were already somewhat close before stopping to update f(t) for over 2 months. I guess this is also a way to reappear!

Outside of this I have no idea about them at all. Maybe they’ll show up somewhere (or somebody else knows more). For now it’s just admiring the rise and see if it will be a future problem to write about^^

The future is here but not like I have anything to add…

15. (-1) Fi­nalul­tima (Fi­nalul­tima) - ee69097:

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! Though others aren’t here to settle down either…

Looks like maybe this was the height for now. But okay, little activity could mean a burst coming later. Or the competition is too brutal.

16. (new) EdgeOf­Dreams (EdgeOf­Dreams) - ee68933:

Another new entry! And this time an active Discord user - at least this was somewhat true when the last rankings came out. Hopefully this wasn’t it…

A lot of messages were in channels helping newer players, so sad to see no messages since October.

Currently the holder of the T7 main save top spot by a decent margin.

17. ad­equateryan (ad­equate ryan) - ee68928:

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… Or no talk and fall… This is covering every change, so my work here is done.

18. (new) Ab­soP­erf (?) - ee68893:

This time I can only say that they hovered near the Top 20 for a long time. Active play with lots of pushes seems to finally be the recipe for progress.

There is no server presence, so nothing more to say so far.

19. (new) NeirinD (Neirin) - ee68770:

Third new entry, this is definitely a record. While the leaderboard name seems to be changing quite often (I know at least three different ones), they have a server account as well.

Not too much messages but hey, that is still more than 0 of others!

The following quote describes life here very well: “it’s very slow now”. I hope it is not too slow for an exit next time!

20. (-2) Melv0r (Melv0r) - ee68741:

I have a vague feeling he should’ve been already in a month before I included him, considering my notes on f(t) but hey, he’s here now!

It has been a while since he was seen on the server, with messages dating back to 2021 making him an old veteran but still below a hundred messages. But what matters for this ranking is not activity in the server (though still nice) but activity in the game. And there he fought his way up and up until he got into this prestigious list.

Now it’s time to see if he can hold his place! Close shave but for now he stays.

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

21. (-2) jgaumer (jgaumer) - ee68726:

The most recent addition to the Top 20! It is even someone on the server - with a whooping 3(!) messages dating back to 2021.

It has been a long time since asking for variable autobuy amounts (looks like switching from x25 to x1 or max has helped) but besides showing up here, I know nothing.

Since the start of the year at rank 26 or higher, so no sudden stellar uprise (though +3 to get here is nothing to scoff at). Will that be enough to stay? Yes for now!

Well, that is that. Nothing new I know but for now the race is lost. But as the distance isn’t so great, the chance for a comeback seems still high enough.

23. (-7) Black­Seal94 (Black­Seal) - ee68575:

Seldom seen here but was always great to see him update his insane T6 stat (good old times…)^^ Custom theories had kind of awoken him to be more active on the server, which was nice. Nowadays activity is going down all around…

He was so high on the ladder and now it’s going down. Can he turn it up a gear or was that it?

Unfortunately another one of the old ones has fallen. My hope of an awakening is low because the last update has been a while.

26. (-6) An­thari­on1988 (An­tharion) - ee68349:

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^^) from time to time.

The times where he actually got back into the Top 10 are long gone and now the moment another former #1 is dropping out is getting closer. But not all hope is lost still!

I fear hope is lost at some point after all. He fought long but now I think it will be the final mention of him here on this list :(

1. (on iOS) neasi_cz (neasi) - ee69408:

A not that new face anymore on the top of the iOS leaderboard! Having overtaken Phask and finally getting to rank 1 after a long hunt, he’s fast increased his lead.

He is not that active on the server but not unknown either. Maybe we’ll see him more in the future?

It might be possible we have in him somebody who is ready to challenge the established overall Top 10 hold by Android players, though it is still to early to say that. But still, he did once again reach his all-time high of #12 on the combined leaderboard.

I have to say: I’m rooting for him!

2. (on iOS) アケローン川に住む入道坊主 (?) - ee68599:

There isn’t much I can say except he has been playing catch-up since quite a while until finally getting on here.

My glorious Japanese skills were enough to read the first part as “Acheron river”. Seems the rest means a (young?) monk living there, according to my research.

Or I could wait for someone to provide a better translation: Nyūdō monk who lives on the Acheron River (no guarantee for being right).

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 the iOS play­ers are tech­nic­ally in the Top 20 rank­ings (or rep­res­ent the top of the iOS lead­er­board):

I don’t have a player but I guess a shoutout to all who still be­lieved in news hap­pen­ing, so here they are again! Thanks for not los­ing hope!