Lists have been updated for October 25th NP ratios. As always, please report any mistakes.
Considering how much trouble it is to make up a score sender list, I thought I'd share mine with you guys.
I played all the games, stuck the times in a spreadsheet, put in this month's ratios, and calculated which games were most profitable for the amount of time you took to play them. Then I put those games in the order of most to least profitable and entered scores that were the highest you could get without either going into the high-score tables, sending an impossible score, playing past 1k, or getting reviewed.
I'll attach three versions--a three-hour list, a five-hour list, and a ten-hour list. Those are only average times. The times and scores have been randomized, and so the NP gained will be somewhat random as well.
I plan to update these when the NP ratios change. If I happen to be in the mood, anyway.
Some cautions: --The bug in the score sender program right now will cause some of the scores to fail, which means you'll earn less or take longer (depending on whether you want to re-send the scores after the list finishes). Whoever fixes this bug will be hailed as a Neocodex hero, but until then we'll just have to live with it. --This list includes sponsor games. If these are not available in your area, remove them. --Using the same list as somebody else is dangerous. I recommend you randomize the order of the games, remove some, add others, and generally make this list your own, rather than using it as-is. --Yes, these lists take a long time. That's because the times and scores are realistic. These lists don't do anything you couldn't do if you were sitting at your computer playing these games yourself. --The game of the day jumps in profit every day, usually enough to make it worth putting on at the very leas the 3h and 5h lists. I am not obsessive enough to take this into account, so you will have to do it yourself. --Regarding Meerca Chase: I am using mod 8. Meerca Chase is only mod 18 if you are on the extreme mode, which isn't really realistic. Feel free to change the mod if you play some other difficulty level. --I've done my best to proofread these lists properly. If you find any mistakes, please inform me ASAP so I can fix them and re-post.
Updates:
Spoiler
9/16: Added "Grahamfuls" sponsor game to 10 hour list; edited scores to allow for some scores to be slightly over the 1k limit. 9/25: Updated for new NP ratios. 10/25: Updated for new NP ratios. Removed "Dracula's Maze" sponsor game, added "Memory Match". 10/26: Updated 8h list to correct a minor error. Re-download is recommended.
Spreadsheet for calculating your own score list:
Spoiler
I'm going to upload the spreadsheet I have been using to calculate these. If you can use Excel, you can use this. It's not fancy.
Instructions for using the spreadsheet:
Entering a new game: Enter the game's NP ratio, the maximum safe score, the modulus for the game's score, and the points per second. (This last has to be found out by playing the game. There is a mini calculator on Sheet 3 of the spreadsheet; just enter the time you took to play the game and the score you got, and it will give you the points per second value.) These cells are highlighted in orange.
The spreadsheet will calculate the rest for you, including min and max scores and times. It will then put the proper numbers into the spreadsheet columns O through Z. These columns contain the format for the Neocodex score sender.
This spreadsheet calculates scores based on the assumption that you will earn about the same number of points per second. Be careful with games where this is not true, and set the times and scores manually, or at least check to make sure the scores make sense.
Choosing scores to send You don't want to send all the scores for all the games; it simply takes too long. So you want to check which games are most profitable. That depends on the NP ratio every month, so sort the games by the "NP/sec" column. I recommend using the Custom Sort feature for this, so you can exclude the header. The higher the NP/sec figure, the better the game is. The spreadsheet will pick the minimum out of either the 1000 NP score + 10% or the maximum legit score as the higher value of the score range, and will use the points per second to calculate how long the program should wait to send the score. Some simple math should tell you how many scores you want to send. Usually, the top twenty or thirty games give you a good chunk of the total NP theoretically available.
Creating your SS file To get the scores into a text file, copy the relevant lines from the columns O-Z section (I've highlighted this in pink) into a plain text file, probably with Notepad. But you aren't done yet; this file will have lots of tab stops in it that you need to remove. You could do this manually, but there's an easier way--copy the whole file into Word (you had to use the plain text first because that removes the extra Excel formatting, though you could use Word's special functions to copy as plain text for the same effect). Then you can do a search-and-replace for the character ^t (that's the format for the tab character) with nothing in the replace box, and copy it back to your Notepad. This resulting file will send each score once. Copy-and-paste the file twice more if you want to send it three times.
All usual score-sending precautions apply.
Oh, and since Excel costs money, you can probably also do this with Open Office or similar. If anybody has the time to do it, people would probably be grateful if you posted your own score files for other people to use. Please do; it doesn't take very long at all.
By the way, if you're a programmer, this Excel file could totally serve as the basis for an auto-updating score sender which automatically enforces safe times. All it would have to do is search the game page for the score ratio every month and update its calculations appropriately.
Hey--I can't be on here long, I just have internet at the library now. (College student--pay for internet access in your dorm room, or go to the library to use it, etc.--naturally library frowns on your playing games)... I just wanted to ask if there is any interest in my updating the SSL monthly, or if you guys can easily do that on your own with the posted spreadsheet.
Not playing Neo much anymore, but nothing's stopping me from plugging in the new NP values each month. I'd just have to test any new games that came out that month, really. So I could do that from the library. Just not during finals week, because then all the computers are booked up with people doing last minute term papers, and it'd be dickish of me to take one up with recreational stuff.
Edited by MysteryMunch, 05 October 2012 - 04:41 AM.
Hey MysteryMunch, thank you for your work. I'm not too sure how to update the spreadsheet. You say something about a program that'll update itself? or We have to manually input the update? Thanks =]
Oh, since I'm kinda new to this, is it safe to use the same SSL everyday? Isn't it suspicious if we use the same sheet and also having the same or similar total play time everyday =/
How do you manage that?
You update the spreadsheet by changing each game's NP ratio every month and letting the spreadsheet recalculate which games are more profitable or less profitable. What I was talking about (a program that could update itself) was a suggestion to programmers--if someone were making a score-sender list maker, they could easily get the program to update itself by using those times and getting the NP ratios from the games pages every month. I'm not a programmer, so I can't do that, but I can see how it can be done.
Re. safely using the same SSL: You'll get away with it as long as you don't do anything to get your account flagged. The real giveaway would be if you sent the same scores and the same times for each game; but this list has ranges, so the score sender can generate a random number within those ranges.
There are several things you can do to change your list: You can add or remove games and use the "randomize" option on the score sender to change the order of the games. You can lengthen a few times randomly (don't shorten them). Generally try to make the list mimic your game-playing behavior. You want the program to do essentially what a human can do--nothing unrealistic, either in terms of unrealistically good or unrealistically consistent.
Luckily, I now have access to the Internet a little more reliably, and I should be able to update the lists for this month.
Edited by MysteryMunch, 21 October 2012 - 02:53 PM.
What gets changed every month is the NP ratios; therefore the list gets a little less profitable if it's out of date, but it's still safe to use because the scores are all realistic. So, yes, the scores to send do get changed, but only because of things like last month a score of 800 got you 1k, and now a score of 1200 is necessary, which takes longer and may bump the game off the list... That kind of thing.
Anyway, I have the lists updated for October's NP ratios, and testing is done.
ETA: Seriously, I can't program well enough to do it, but I can see the potential here for a safe score-sender that works much like Abrosia, by automatically generating safe score lists for you, mimicking the behavior of Joe Average neopets user. It would be an interesting project for anybody who can do it. Just sayin'.
Edited by MysteryMunch, 25 October 2012 - 05:07 PM.
ETA: Seriously, I can't program well enough to do it, but I can see the potential here for a safe score-sender that works much like Abrosia, by automatically generating safe score lists for you, mimicking the behavior of Joe Average neopets user. It would be an interesting project for anybody who can do it. Just sayin'.
Already on it That's why I asked.
So really what happens is the game hasn't changed, nor have the 'realistic scores', just the amount of NP you get from sending the same scores. Just wanted to be sure I wouldn't have to change the scores I send every month. I'll put some logic in to check that the flash game hasn't changed- if it has, then don't do the game, that sort of thing.
3hr.txt 4.04KB
162 downloads 80k
