A Statistical Look at the Neocola Machine

     The Neocola Machine is well known for handing out many Dr. Sloth-themed booby prizes and occasionally releasing an ultra-valuable Transmogrification Potion, but just how likely are you to get each prize? Does the color of Neocola Token you use make a difference? What about how many times you press the red button?

     I tested more than 1000 Neocola Tokens, using every possible combination of inputs multiple times, and complied the results to determine if there were any trends in the data. For about half the tokens I recorded detailed information on what combination was used, how many Neopoints were received, and what prize was awarded. Without further ado, here are the results!

     Does the color of the Token make a difference?

     Yes for Neopoints, no for prizes.

     It seems like Red Tokens will award the most Neopoints, with an (adjusted to remove outliers) average of about 200 Neopoints per play overall. This is compared to the Green Token which awarded an average of 156 Neopoints and the Blue Token which awarded an average of only 117 Neopoints per play. This may not seem too significant, but since at the time of writing all the Neocola Tokens cost about the same to buy, it’s most worth your money to purchase Red Tokens.

     Another interesting phenomenon to note is that any large Neopoint payouts (5,000+ np) I received came from Red Tokens, and invariably came with a Non-Sticky Sticky Hand, although the sample size is too small to determine if this was mere coincidence or not. Therefore, from a strictly Neopoint perspective, Red Tokens are your best bet, but you will still be operating at a loss. Neocola tokens cost about 800np each at the time of writing, therefore you’re losing an average of 600np per play even with the best token.

     But does the color of the token make a difference in the prize you receive? Of the data points collected on prize outcome, it seems that color does not have a statistically significant effect on the likelihood of receiving a certain prize. While it is possible that there are minor differences in your chance of winning certain prizes from different color tokens, the likelihood of receiving each booby prize seemed mostly similar across each color. The likelihood of winning a specific booby prize each play hovers between ~7-11% with a few exceptions that are not significant enough to indicate a trend.

     Does the kind of soda you select make a difference?

     Yes! It seems like it definitely does. The average number of Neopoints for each soda is listed below, with an adjusted average listed for Dehydrated H20.

     Dr Slother: 103

     Diet Doom: 131

     Na’cho Cola: 156

     Smite: 152

     Alt-Tab: 167

     Minion Maid: 176

     Mountain Poo: 188

     Dehydrated H20: 217

     As you can see, there’s a general trend suggesting that the further down the drop-down list you go, the more Neopoints you will receive. Additionally, every large payout (5,000+ np) came from none other than Dehydrated H20. If we include those large payouts in our average, Dehydrated H20 averaged 353 Neopoints per play! This value is much higher than Dr. Slother, and Diet Doom. For the remaining sodas, all averaging between 152 and 188 Neopoints per play, it is unclear if there is a meaningful difference between them. In any case, the results are clear, Dehyrated H20 is the way to go! No large differences were seen in the prizes obtained from the different sodas.

     Does the number of times you push the red button make a difference?

     It looks like it does too! Below are the average Neopoint rewards for each button press, with 3 times adjusted for outliers.

     0: 156

     1: 81

     2: 166

     3: 245

     10: 163

     42: 150

     It’s clear, that even with outliers removed, that pressing the button 3 times awards the most Neopoints. And pressing it once will yield the worst results. Unlike the Red Token and The Dehydrated H20, pressing the button three times wasn’t the only way to get a large payout of Neopoints. Receiving 5,000+ Neopoints appears to be independent of the number of times you push the red button, but I’d go with pushing three times just to be safe. Similar to the sodas, no large differences were seen in the prizes obtained from pushing the buttons differently.

     What about the other prizes?

     “Rare” prizes included the Baby Space Fungus, which seemed to drop about 0.5-1% of the time. In all my tokens I only received one robot petpet, a Griefer (so cute) and I received precisely one Virtupets Brand Doomsday Device.

     Now I know what you’re really here for. You want to know how likely you are to receive a Transmogrification Potion, some of which can be sold for millions of Neopoints. It has always been known that receiving one is very rare, but just how rare is it? It appears to be EXCEEDINGLY rare. In the 1032 times I played the Neocola Machine for this specific article I never once received a Transmogrification Potion, nor have I in the other few hundred times I’ve played just for fun. From a statistical standpoint, this indicates that there’s a roughly 70% chance that the likelihood of getting a Transmogrification Potion is less than 1 in 1000 plays.

     Is it worth it?

     Let’s say right off the bat that if you’re looking to win Neopoints from the machine don’t play the Neocola Machine. But what if you’re looking to profit off of a Transmogrification Potion? For the sake of the argument, I’m going to generously assume that 1 in 1000 tokens will give a Transmogrification Potion (even though I think it’s likely rarer than that.) You buy 1000 tokens at 800np each, spending a total of 800,000np. Let’s assume then, that you get an average of 150 Neopoints back per play, so now you have 150,000 np. And you have one Transmogrification Potion. Assuming that the Neocola Machine awards all Transmogrification Potions at the same rate, the average resell value of a Transmogrification Potion is 770,000 np (if you exclude the value of the Draik Transmogrification Potion). Therefore your total winnings, assuming 1 in 1000 tokens give a Transmogrification Potion, is 920,000 np. This yields a net profit of 120,000 np. But remember how I said there’s a 70% chance that the drop rate for a Transmogrification Potion is worse than 1 in 1000? More likely than not your profit will be at very best breaking even. And what if you do get a Transmogrification Potion, but it’s one only worth 100,000 np? In that case you are at a heavy loss. In order to be profitable from the Neocola Machine you’d have to play somewhere in the order of magnitude of 10’s of thousands of times. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have that kind of time on my hands.

     So is all hope lost? No! I’ve heard stories of people getting a Draik Transmogrification Potion on their third play! And plenty of people getting theirs around 50 plays, but it’s all just luck. In conclusion, if you want to make Neopoints quickly with little up-front investment, the Neocola Machine is not the way to do it, but if you’re going to play, use Red Tokens, buy Dehydrated H20, and press that red button three times! Who knows, you might be the person to get the Draik Transmogrification Potion, and I certainly hope you’re luckier than I was.

     Good luck!