So I was curious as to what effect Technology Rate and Galaxy Size have on technology research costs. A crap ton of math later, I have the following handy table and set of formulas in case anyone else is interested.
The following data assumes a base cost of 200TP (base cost taken from TechTree.xml).
Tiny
- Very Slow - 391
- Slow - 193
- Normal - 135
- Fast - 107
- Very Fast - 89
Small
- Very Slow - 404
- Slow - 199
- Normal - 139
- Fast - 110
- Very Fast - 92
Medium
- Very Slow - 416
- Slow - 205
- Normal - 144
- Fast - 114
- Very Fast - 95
Large
- Very Slow - 449
- Slow - 221
- Normal - 155
- Fast - 123
- Very Fast - 103
Huge
- Very Slow - 483
- Slow - 238
- Normal - 167
- Fast - 132
- Very Fast - 110
Gigantic
- Very Slow - 522
- Slow - 257
- Normal - 180
- Fast - 143
- Very Fast - 119
Immense
- Very Slow - 542
- Slow - 267
- Normal - 187
- Fast - 148
- Very Fast - 124
TP costs as a function of Technology Rate
- Very Slow- 290%
- Slow - 142.75%
- Normal - 100%
- Fast - 79%
- Very Fast - 66%
Note: This is meant to be read as a comparison from Normal. So TP costs at Fast are 79% of Normal and TP costs at Very Slow are 290% of Normal.
TP costs as a function of galaxy size
- Tiny --> Small - +3.25%
- Small --> Medium - +3.25%
- Medium --> Large - +8%
- Large --> Huge - +7.5&
- Huge --> Gigantic - +8%
- Gigantic --> Immense - +3.8%
Note: This is meant to be read as a percentage increase from the previous galaxy size. So TP costs increase by 3.25% when you go from Tiny to Small and TP costs increase by 8% when you go from Medium to Large.
Interesting observations
- At no combination of galaxy size and technology rate is the TP cost actually equal to the base cost in TechTree.xml. The closest you can get is Small/Slow where the TP cost is 199 and base cost is 200.
- None of the percentage modifiers from base values are even numbers. I take this to mean that the Stardock developers hate even numbers, and thus I hate them, just a little bit. Maybe like 3.25% of maximum hate.
- If you double-check my math you'll notice rounding errors sometimes that make the numbers off by one. This is because my percentage values are a bit approximate. I tried to be as precise as possible, but my love of even numbers caused me to try to stop at as few significant digits as possible to get accurate values.
