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RuneScoop.com  >  The RuneScoop Skill Optimization Guide for RuneScape       >  The RuneScoop Skill Optimization Guide for RuneScape - Reference

Overview and Goals of the Skill Optimization Guide Explanation of Skill Optimization Guide Activity Description Pages

In order to compare skill activities to determine which ones are the best, we must first determine what makes one skill better than another. Every player evaluates the suitability of training methods based on his or her individual tastes and priorities, but the two most important considerations are generally time and money.

Of course, these aren’t the only issues that players take into account in choosing activities to do. Other factors are also important, such as how enjoyable an activity is, what kinds of equipment it requires, how far they must travel to do it, how risky it is, and how much attention they must devote. But most players place heavy emphasis on training methods that let them get XP as fast as possible, while making them the most money (or losing them the least).

Based on this observation, I’ve defined two primary skill activity ratings, and a third one based on the other two.

Skill Activity Speed or SAS is defined simply as the amount of XP you can get per hour for the activity:

SAS (XP/hr) = XP Value of Activity / Time Taken to Complete Activity

For some skills—like Mining or Hunter—this is directly dependent on the level of the player in that skill. For others—like Herblore—the speed is usually the same in general terms for all players who meet the level requirement, but there may be exceptions. For example, some potions require you to collect untradeable secondary ingredients, which may be easier for higher-leveled players.

In cases where an activity provides XP in more than one skill, there technically is an SAS value for each of those skills. However, for sake of comparison, only the primary skill’s SAS is normally used.

I determine SAS by conducting timed tests and measuring the amount of XP gained. In many cases SAS can be computed by multiplying the amount of XP for a particular activity item (like catching a fish or smelting a bar) and then multiplying by the number that can be completed in an hour.

The Skill Activity Profitability (SAP) of an activity is a simple measure of how much money it makes or loses per hour. It is calculated by adding up the cost or value of input items to get a total for all inputs, then doing the same for outputs. You then subtract inputs from outputs to get SAP in gold pieces per hour:

SAP (gp/hr) = (Value of Skill Activity Output Items – Value of Skill Activity Input Items) / (Time Taken to Complete Activity)

If the number is positive, you are making money; if negative, losing money, and if zero, breaking even. Higher SAP values are better, of course.

In computing SAP, I count as inputs all items required for the skill that are tradeable and can thus be purchased, and use the Grand Exchange median price for them. Remember that even if you get these items yourself, you could buy them, or sell the ones you got, so the price is what they are worth (GE price annoyances notwithstanding). In the case of untradeable items, the time required to gather them is made part of the overall calculation.

SAS measures the speed of an activity in XP per hour, and SAP its profitability or cost in gp per hour. These frequently trade off against each other. Players who want to train faster are willing to pay money (or forego profits) to get that speed. In contrast, slower training options that provide useful end products often yield great profits because players demand those profits in exchange for slower training.

But while SAS and SAP often move in opposite directions, it’s still the case that some activities are much better than others in both scores. And I recognized early on that it would be useful to have a metric that attempts to combine the time and money equations to come up with a measurement of which activities provide the best bang for the buck.

My first attempt at this was to define what I called the Skill Activity Efficiency, or SAE. In cases where activities generally lose money (SAP is less than zero), players want to know how much each experience point is costing them—they often want the option that costs the least gold per experience point. This can be calculated simply as:

SAE_basic [gp/XP] = SAP [gp] / SAS [XP]

This makes intuitive sense: the larger this number (i.e., the less negative), the better the activity is. For example, if activity #1 costs 10,000 gp per hour (SAP = -10,000) but yields 10,000 XP, its SAE_basic is -1 gp/XP. If activity #2 costs 20,000 gp per hour (SAP = -20,000) and yields 16,000 XP, its SAE_basic is -1.25 gp/XP. Item #2 is faster than item #1, but it is less efficient on a gp per XP basis.

However, there are two problems with this formula.

First, it breaks down when methods make money: you can no longer divide speed into money to get a meaningful basis for comparison, when you are measuring profit and not cost. For example, suppose we had activity #3 that made a profit of 30,000 gp per hour and yielded 30,000 XP per hour, and activity #4 that made a profit of 60,000 gp per hour and yielded 60,000 XP per hour. Using the formula above, both would have an SAE_basic of 1, even though #4 is obviously much better!

The second problem is that even when comparing items with costs, the SAE_basic calculation doesn’t take into account the opportunity cost (value) of the time used for the activity. An example of the problem here would be choosing between activity #5 that costs 200,000 gp per hour and provides 200,000 XP, and activity #6 that costs 300,000 gp per hour and gives 300,000 XP. Both would have an SAE_basic value of -1, but it’s pretty obvious that if you’re going to pay 1 gp/XP when training, you’re better off with the option that is faster!

The solution to this is to incorporate the value of time into the calculation, which yields the following altered formula...

SAE_OC = (SAP - OC) / SAS

...where OC is the opportunity cost of the time used for the activity. The value of OC is really a personal one: it represents roughly how much money per hour you feel you can make if you are just trying to earn money, without respect for XP. Since I can’t make an individual table for every reader, I have defined four columns in the activity tables: SAE_100k, SAE_250k, SAE_500k and SAE_1M—these represent SAE values for opportunity costs of 100k, 250k, 500k and 1 million gp/hr respectively. Use whichever column you feel best represents your earning potential.

This is confusing, so I’m going to explain further via some examples.

Let’s go back to activities #5 and #6 as defined above, and see how this new calculation works. First, let’s assume that our value of time is 500k. Then:

SAE_500k (Activity #5) = (-200 - 500) / 200 = -3.5

and

SAE_500k (Activity #6) = (-300 - 500) / 300 = -2.67

Unlike before—where SAE_basic had the same value for these—this new metric shows that activity #6 is better than #5 (it has a smaller negative number). What the number itself represents is how many gp you are paying for each XP, taking into account both the cost of the activity and the cost of the time you are expending.

The real power of SAE_OC is that it helps you understand that in some cases, activities that cost money can be just as good a “deal” as ones that make a profit, if the more expensive activity is fast enough. Let’s take another example: activity #7 earns you 100,000 XP per hour but costs 100,000 gp per hour; activity #8 is slower, giving 75,000 XP per hour, but instead of costing you money, it earns you a profit of 50,000 gp as well. Activity #8 is clearly better, right? Let’s see:

SAE_500k (Activity #7) = (-100 - 500) / 100 = -6

and

SAE_500k (Activity #8) = (50 - 500) / 75 = -6

The two methods are equivalent. How can that be? Well, it comes down to the value of time. After an hour of performing each activity, you’ll have 25k less XP with activity #8 than activity #7, but you’ll be up 150k coins. To even up the XP requires you to spend another 20 minutes at activity #8. During that 20 minutes you’ll earn 16.67 k coins, but lose the 20 minutes worth of time you could earn 500k per hour at, which is 166.67 coins. Subtract 16.67 from 166.67 and you get 150k, the difference in the costs of the two activities. So they are the same (at least using this simplified model).

But what happens if we change the opportunity cost to another figure, say, 100k? Then we get very different results:

SAE_100k (Activity #7) = (-100 - 100) / 100 = -2

and

SAE_100k (Activity #8) = (50 - 100) / 75 = -0.67

This time activity #8 is clearly better—we only can earn 100k per hour making money, so saving 150k to lose 25k XP is a good deal.

And now, the opposite direction, with 1 M/hr as our opportunity cost:

SAE_1M (Activity #7) = (-100 - 1000) / 100 = -11

and

SAE_1M (Activity #8) = (50 - 1000) / 75 = -12.67

You guessed it: activity #7 is better here (when you can earn a lot of money per hour, time becomes more important than what most activities actually cost).

I mentioned earlier that calculating SAE by dividing XP into gp doesn’t make sense when the activity is profitable—in that case, there is no tradeoff between SAP and SAS, and you are better off when either gets bigger. Now that we have brought opportunity cost into the picture, SAE_OC becomes a positive figure only when SAP becomes bigger than the OC value we are using. And again here, we can’t really much much intuitive sense of a positive figure there.

Strictly speaking, if many activities you are considering give positive SAE_OC values, you should consider using a higher OC value. But there is still a need to compare activities when SAE_OC is positive. Thus, I use an alternative calculation that “rewards” an activity both for going faster and for making more profit (where profit is defined as the amount over the opportunity cost value you earn). The formula in this case is as follows:

SAE_OC = ( (SAS ^ 1.5) * (SAP - OC) ) / 100,000,000

The power of 1.5 gives more weighting to method speed than profit, since most players prefer activities that are faster. The “100,000,000” just reduces the numbers to more convenient levels (since otherwise they would be very large).

This number is also better the larger it is, like the SAE_OC calculated for money-losing activities. This conveniently allows SAE to be combined into the same column for skills that have both money-gaining and money-losing activities.

Overview and Goals of the Skill Optimization Guide Explanation of Skill Optimization Guide Activity Description Pages