Guts of research costs
From Stars!wiki
The cost of a tech level depends on four things:
- Your research setting for that field (cheap, normal, or expensive)
- The level you are researching (higher level, higher cost)
- The total number of tech levels you have already have in all fields (you can add it up yourself, or look at 'tech levels' on the 'score' screen).
- whether 'slow tech advance' was selected as a game parameter.
in general,
totalCost=(baseCost + (totalLevels * 10)) * costFactor
where
totalLevels=the sum of your current levels in all fields
costFactor =.5 if your setting for the field is '50% less'
=1 if your setting for the field is 'normal'
=1.75 if your setting for the field is '75% more expensive'
If 'slow tech advance' is a game parameter, totalCost should be doubled.
Below is a table showing the base cost of each level.
| Level | Normal | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 50 + 10/level | |
| 2 | 80 + 10/level | |
| 3 | 130 + 10/level | T1 + T2 |
| 4 | 210 + 10/level | T2 + T3 |
| 5 | 340 + 10/level | T3 + T4 |
| 6 | 550 + 10/level | T4 + T5 |
| 7 | 890 + 10/level | T5 + T6 |
| 8 | 1440 + 10/level | T6 + T7 |
| 9 | 2330 + 10/level | T7 + T8 |
| 10 | 3770 + 10/level | T8 + T9 |
| 11 | 6100 + 10/level | T9 + T10 |
| 12 | 9870 + 10/level | T10 + T11 |
| 13 | 13850 + 10/level | T12 + 3980 (T10 + 210) |
| 14 | 18040 + 10/level | T13 + 4190 (T10 + 210*2) |
| 15 | 22440 + 10/level | T14 + 4400 (T10 + 210*3) |
| 16 | 27050 + 10/level | T15 + 4610 (T10 + 210*4) |
| 17 | 31870 + 10/level | T16 + 4820 (T10 + 210*5) |
| 18 | 36900 + 10/level | T17 + 5030 (T10 + 210*6) |
| 19 | 42140 + 10/level | T18 + 5240 (T10 + 210*7) |
| 20 | 47590 + 10/level | T19 + 5450 (T10 + 210*8) |
| 21 | 53250 + 10/level | T20 + 5660 (T10 + 210*9) |
| 22 | 59120 + 10/level | T21 + 5870 (T10 + 210*10) |
| 23 | 65200 + 10/level | T22 + 6080 (T10 + 210*11) |
| 24 | 71490 + 10/level | T23 + 6290 (T10 + 210*12) |
| 25 | 77990 + 10/level | T24 + 6500 (T10 + 210*13) |
| 26 | 84700 + 10/level | T25 + 6710 (T10 + 210*14) |
It's a Fibonacci series up to level 12, then it levels out quite a bit. To get all 6 categories to TL26: (at all normal cost): 4,185,240
This includes the 10/level additional cost, and assumes all tech areas start at TL0.
(Courtesy Bob Martin, with some editing/formatting/additions by other editors)
- S.B.Posey's Spreadsheet has a sheet to quickly calculate the resource cost of tech level gains over multiple tech ares and levels for a given set of starting tech levels.
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