Krillion Scoring Explained: The Math Behind Points, Tiers and Depth

Your daily Krillion score is one addition: seven tier scores summed, then multiplied by ten for dive depth. A dive graded 100 + 85 + 60 + 30 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 300 points = 3,000 meters. Everything below is arithmetic you can verify against any sheet in our answer archive.

One dive, one sum

Take a dive that touches every tier once and busts the last prompt — a gem (100), a Deep Cut (85), a Rare (60), a Schooler (30), a Too Clever (15), a Plankton (10), and one answer the roster did not recognize (0):

The six fixed values

Every valid answer earns exactly one of these scores — there is no partial credit and no in-between. The bar shows each tier's share of a perfect 100-point prompt; the numbers next to it carry the same information.

Score your own seven rounds

Pick the tier you hit in each round; the sum and depth update as you go:

For your tier mix and the ocean zone your total reaches, use the full score calculator.

The floor, the middle, and the ceiling

The bounds are exact. All Plankton: 7 × 10 = 70 points (700 m). All Schooler: 7 × 30 = 210 (2,100 m). All Rare: 7 × 60 = 420 (4,200 m). Perfect: 700 (7,000 m). These landmarks make the tier gaps visible: moving one answer from Plankton to Rare is worth +50 points — five full all-Plankton prompts' worth of progress in a single swap. Moving one from Rare to Deep Cut is +25. The math explains why the strategy in our strategy guide is "eliminate Plankton first": the bottom of the ladder is where the points leak.

One point, ten meters

The depth conversion is a flat 1:10 ratio. A perfect 700-point dive is 7,000 meters — deliberately calibrated to the ocean's hadal zone, the trenches below 6,000 meters. That's the entire theme: Plankton float in sunlit surface water (100 m per answer), while a One in a Krillion answer drops you a full kilometer in one word. The conversion also gives you an instant intuition for scores: multiply by ten and ask "which ocean zone is that?" Sunlight zone ends at 200 m, twilight at 1,000 m, midnight at 4,000 m, abyss at 6,000 m.

A hypothetical risk calculation

Suppose a candidate earns 85 points with probability p and otherwise earns zero, while an alternative earns 30. Its hypothetical expected score is 85 × p. The two options break even at 30 ÷ 85 ≈ 35.29%. At an assumed 50% success rate, the first option averages 42.5 points.

Those probabilities are assumptions, not measured player performance. The model also ignores other possible grades. A saved roster supplies point values; it does not tell you your chance of recalling or correctly entering an answer.

How much does a missed prompt cost?

The loss depends on the result it replaces. Missing a 30-point answer costs 30; missing an 85-point answer costs 85. Two upgrades can recover more or less than that loss:

• 30 → 0: 30 points lost.
• Two 60 → 85 upgrades: 25 + 25 = 50 gained, enough to offset that 30-point loss.
• Two 10 → 15 upgrades: 5 + 5 = 10 gained, which does not offset it.

There is no universal rule that one zero outweighs any two improvements. In the example above, four Rare scores and three Schooler scores total 330; one Deep Cut and six Plankton scores total 145. Those totals describe those particular outcomes, not a guarantee about tomorrow's results.

Use the calculator above to compare complete seven-question totals. For the decision before typing, use the first-answer checks. For a past result, match the date and question in Answer Lookup.