Weird, I just tried the other formula for the maximal bonus, and I do see a small difference in some cases, but not in the constant-spending one.
I'll try and check at some point which version of the bonus is correct. The version I'm using seemed to be the most natural to me given the description in the strategy guide (yes, I too finally bought one even though it's overpriced). Anyway, if you ever wondered how much you should seed: Here's how much time and rp are required to bring a tech to 10% discovery chance. The seed and cost are given as a percentage of the
base cost of the tech. Take those numbers with a grain of salt, since we don't know exactly how the rounding works (hopefully, it won't have as big an impact for larger numbers). And you can't fine-tune spending like that anyway. And finally, if a strategy overshoots the target, it's counted as having a higher cost than a strategy that exactly meets the target; that is why in the table, a bigger seed sometimes leads to a lower cost.
| Seed | Time | Cost |
| 1% | 24 | 35% |
| 2% | 21 | 39% |
| 3% | 19 | 40% |
| 4% | 17 | 36% |
| 5% | 16 | 38% |
| 10% | 13 | 44% |
| 15% | 11 | 48% |
| 20% | 9 | 47% |
| 25% | 8 | 51% |
| 30% | 7 | 53% |
| 35% | 7 | 62% |
| 40% | 6 | 63% |
| 45% | 5 | 63% |
| 50% | 5 | 70% |
As you see, you're getting diminishing returns really fast past 20%, but if you need a certain tech by yesterday, you still might want to go higher. In that case, the lesson is to go
a lot higher.
I was not understanding the slowest trickle scenario correctly, with the increasing spending effect as total investment increases over time.
