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 for the cur­rent sim­u­lator, and the many oth­ers whom have de­veloped strategies.

This guide is cur­rently un­der­go­ing change. Keep in mind, strategies may change.

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

Be­fore you start #

The cur­rent the­ory sim­u­lator is made by XLII and is run on a web­site. Be­low will go through the in­di­vidual parts of the out­put.

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.

\(\Delta\tau\) is defined as the quant­ity \(\frac{\tau_{fi­nal}}{\tau_{ini­tial}}\) or \(log_{10}(\tau_{fi­nal})\) - \(log_{10}(\tau_{ini­tial})\). Ex: If \(\Delta\tau\) 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.