Add research money costs, longer research times, era-scaled talent costs, and persona strategy

Research now costs money (drained per-tick) with ~2.5-3.5x longer durations by category.
Early-game talent budget costs reduced via era multiplier (startup 0.2x → bigtech 1.0x).
New seed-driven PersonaStrategy with 8 axes of variation for meaningful multi-run testing.
CI multi-run switched from greedy to persona strategy.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

packages/game-engine/src/data/techTree.ts

@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'startup',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: [],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 0, compute: 5, ticks: 60 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 0, compute: 5, ticks: 150, money: 2250 },
     effects: [{ type: 'cost_reduction', target: 'energy', value: 0.25 }],
   },
   {
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'startup',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: [],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 0, compute: 5, ticks: 60 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 0, compute: 5, ticks: 150, money: 2250 },
     effects: [{ type: 'cost_reduction', target: 'failure_rate', value: 0.5 }],
   },
   {
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'startup',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: [],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 0, compute: 10, ticks: 90 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 0, compute: 10, ticks: 225, money: 3375 },
     effects: [{ type: 'unlock_rack', target: 'a100', value: 1 }],
   },
   {
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'scaleup',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: ['advanced-gpu-arch'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 40, ticks: 240 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 40, ticks: 600, money: 30000 },
     effects: [{ type: 'unlock_rack', target: 'h100', value: 1 }],
   },
   {
@@ -49,7 +49,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'bigtech',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: ['next-gen-gpu'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 5, compute: 200, ticks: 480 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 5, compute: 200, ticks: 1200, money: 240000 },
     effects: [{ type: 'unlock_rack', target: 'b200', value: 1 }],
   },
   {
@@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'agi',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: ['frontier-compute'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 10, compute: 500, ticks: 900 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 10, compute: 500, ticks: 2250, money: 1125000 },
     effects: [{ type: 'unlock_rack', target: 'custom', value: 1 }],
   },
   {
@@ -69,7 +69,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'scaleup',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: ['advanced-gpu-arch'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 30, ticks: 200 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 30, ticks: 500, money: 25000 },
     effects: [{ type: 'unlock_rack', target: 'amd', value: 1 }],
   },
   {
@@ -79,7 +79,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'scaleup',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: ['quantization'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 20, ticks: 150 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 20, ticks: 375, money: 18750 },
     effects: [{ type: 'unlock_rack', target: 'inference', value: 1 }],
   },
   {
@@ -89,7 +89,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'agi',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: ['frontier-compute'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 8, compute: 400, ticks: 720 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 8, compute: 400, ticks: 1800, money: 900000 },
     effects: [{ type: 'unlock_rack', target: 'gb200-nvl72', value: 1 }],
   },
   {
@@ -99,7 +99,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'scaleup',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: ['advanced-cooling'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 25, ticks: 180 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 25, ticks: 450, money: 22500 },
     effects: [{ type: 'unlock_feature', target: 'liquid-cooling', value: 1 }],
   },
   {
@@ -109,7 +109,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'bigtech',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: ['liquid-cooling-tech'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 5, compute: 100, ticks: 400 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 5, compute: 100, ticks: 1000, money: 200000 },
     effects: [{ type: 'unlock_feature', target: 'immersion-cooling', value: 1 }],
   },
   {
@@ -119,7 +119,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'scaleup',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: ['network-engineering-i'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 3, compute: 40, ticks: 240 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 3, compute: 40, ticks: 600, money: 30000 },
     effects: [{ type: 'unlock_feature', target: 'infiniband', value: 1 }],
   },
   {
@@ -129,7 +129,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'startup',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: ['advanced-cooling'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 1, compute: 15, ticks: 120 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 1, compute: 15, ticks: 300, money: 4500 },
     effects: [{ type: 'unlock_dc_tier', target: 'medium', value: 1 }],
   },
   {
@@ -139,7 +139,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'scaleup',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: ['dc-engineering-ii'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 3, compute: 60, ticks: 300 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 3, compute: 60, ticks: 750, money: 37500 },
     effects: [{ type: 'unlock_dc_tier', target: 'large', value: 1 }],
   },
   {
@@ -149,7 +149,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'bigtech',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: ['dc-engineering-iii'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 6, compute: 150, ticks: 600 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 6, compute: 150, ticks: 1500, money: 300000 },
     effects: [{ type: 'unlock_dc_tier', target: 'mega', value: 1 }],
   },
   {
@@ -159,7 +159,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'startup',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: ['redundancy-protocols'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 1, compute: 10, ticks: 90 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 1, compute: 10, ticks: 225, money: 3375 },
     effects: [{ type: 'cost_reduction', target: 'test_failure_rate', value: 0.25 }],
   },
   {
@@ -169,7 +169,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'scaleup',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: ['redundancy-protocols'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 20, ticks: 150 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 20, ticks: 375, money: 18750 },
     effects: [{ type: 'cost_reduction', target: 'network_failure_rate', value: 0.4 }],
   },
   {
@@ -179,7 +179,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'bigtech',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: ['network-engineering-i'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 4, compute: 80, ticks: 360 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 4, compute: 80, ticks: 900, money: 180000 },
     effects: [{ type: 'cost_reduction', target: 'network_failure_rate', value: 0.5 }],
   },
   {
@@ -189,7 +189,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'scaleup',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: ['network-engineering-i'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 3, compute: 40, ticks: 240 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 3, compute: 40, ticks: 600, money: 30000 },
     effects: [{ type: 'efficiency_boost', target: 'network_uplinks', value: 1 }],
   },
   {
@@ -199,7 +199,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'bigtech',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: ['network-engineering-ii'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 5, compute: 100, ticks: 400 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 5, compute: 100, ticks: 1000, money: 200000 },
     effects: [{ type: 'efficiency_boost', target: 'network_repair_speed', value: 0.4 }],
   },
   {
@@ -209,7 +209,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'agi',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: ['network-fast-repair'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 8, compute: 250, ticks: 600 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 8, compute: 250, ticks: 1500, money: 750000 },
     effects: [{ type: 'efficiency_boost', target: 'network_hot_standby', value: 5 }],
   },
   {
@@ -219,7 +219,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'scaleup',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: ['dc-engineering-ii'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 25, ticks: 180 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 25, ticks: 450, money: 22500 },
     effects: [{ type: 'efficiency_boost', target: 'pipeline_speed', value: 0.2 }],
   },
   {
@@ -229,7 +229,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'scaleup',
     category: 'infrastructure',
     prerequisites: ['advanced-gpu-arch'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 30, ticks: 180 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 30, ticks: 450, money: 22500 },
     effects: [{ type: 'efficiency_boost', target: 'training_speed', value: 0.2 }],
   },
 
@@ -241,7 +241,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'startup',
     category: 'efficiency',
     prerequisites: [],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 0, compute: 8, ticks: 75 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 0, compute: 8, ticks: 188, money: 2820 },
     effects: [{ type: 'efficiency_boost', target: 'inference', value: 0.15 }],
   },
   {
@@ -251,7 +251,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'scaleup',
     category: 'efficiency',
     prerequisites: ['quantization'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 25, ticks: 180 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 25, ticks: 450, money: 22500 },
     effects: [{ type: 'capability_boost', target: 'all', value: 5 }],
   },
   {
@@ -261,7 +261,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'scaleup',
     category: 'efficiency',
     prerequisites: ['quantization'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 20, ticks: 150 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 20, ticks: 375, money: 18750 },
     effects: [{ type: 'efficiency_boost', target: 'tokens_per_flop', value: 0.3 }],
   },
 
@@ -273,7 +273,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'startup',
     category: 'generation',
     prerequisites: [],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 0, compute: 10, ticks: 90 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 0, compute: 10, ticks: 225, money: 3375 },
     effects: [{ type: 'capability_boost', target: 'all', value: 10 }],
   },
   {
@@ -284,7 +284,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     category: 'specialization',
     branch: 'reasoning',
     prerequisites: ['transformer-v2'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 3, compute: 40, ticks: 240 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 3, compute: 40, ticks: 720, money: 36000 },
     effects: [{ type: 'capability_boost', target: 'reasoning', value: 15 }],
   },
   {
@@ -295,7 +295,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     category: 'specialization',
     branch: 'coding',
     prerequisites: ['transformer-v2'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 3, compute: 35, ticks: 210 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 3, compute: 35, ticks: 735, money: 36750 },
     effects: [{ type: 'capability_boost', target: 'coding', value: 15 }],
   },
   {
@@ -306,7 +306,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     category: 'specialization',
     branch: 'creative',
     prerequisites: ['transformer-v2'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 3, compute: 30, ticks: 210 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 3, compute: 30, ticks: 735, money: 36750 },
     effects: [{ type: 'capability_boost', target: 'creative', value: 15 }],
   },
   {
@@ -317,7 +317,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     category: 'specialization',
     branch: 'multimodal',
     prerequisites: ['transformer-v2'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 4, compute: 50, ticks: 300 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 4, compute: 50, ticks: 1050, money: 52500 },
     effects: [
       { type: 'capability_boost', target: 'multimodal', value: 20 },
       { type: 'unlock_product_line', target: 'image', value: 1 },
@@ -331,7 +331,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     category: 'specialization',
     branch: 'agents',
     prerequisites: ['reasoning-enhancement', 'code-generation'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 6, compute: 100, ticks: 480 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 6, compute: 100, ticks: 1680, money: 336000 },
     effects: [
       { type: 'capability_boost', target: 'agents', value: 20 },
       { type: 'unlock_product_line', target: 'agents', value: 1 },
@@ -346,7 +346,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'startup',
     category: 'safety',
     prerequisites: [],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 0, compute: 8, ticks: 90 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 0, compute: 8, ticks: 270, money: 4050 },
     effects: [
       { type: 'safety_boost', target: 'models', value: 10 },
       { type: 'capability_boost', target: 'reputation', value: 5 },
@@ -359,7 +359,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'scaleup',
     category: 'safety',
     prerequisites: ['alignment-research'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 3, compute: 40, ticks: 240 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 3, compute: 40, ticks: 720, money: 36000 },
     effects: [
       { type: 'safety_boost', target: 'models', value: 10 },
       { type: 'capability_boost', target: 'reputation', value: 5 },
@@ -372,7 +372,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'bigtech',
     category: 'safety',
     prerequisites: ['interpretability'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 5, compute: 80, ticks: 420 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 5, compute: 80, ticks: 1260, money: 252000 },
     effects: [
       { type: 'safety_boost', target: 'models', value: 15 },
       { type: 'capability_boost', target: 'reputation', value: 10 },
@@ -388,7 +388,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     category: 'specialization',
     branch: 'coding',
     prerequisites: ['code-generation'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 20, ticks: 150 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 20, ticks: 525, money: 26250 },
     effects: [{ type: 'unlock_product_line', target: 'code-assistant', value: 1 }],
   },
   {
@@ -398,7 +398,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'startup',
     category: 'efficiency',
     prerequisites: [],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 0, compute: 3, ticks: 45 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 0, compute: 3, ticks: 158, money: 2370 },
     effects: [{ type: 'unlock_feature', target: 'developer-relations', value: 1 }],
   },
   {
@@ -408,7 +408,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'startup',
     category: 'efficiency',
     prerequisites: [],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 0, compute: 3, ticks: 45 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 0, compute: 3, ticks: 112, money: 1680 },
     effects: [{ type: 'unlock_feature', target: 'enterprise-sales', value: 1 }],
   },
   {
@@ -418,7 +418,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'scaleup',
     category: 'efficiency',
     prerequisites: ['developer-relations'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 15, ticks: 120 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 15, ticks: 300, money: 15000 },
     effects: [{ type: 'efficiency_boost', target: 'sdk_coverage', value: 0.3 }],
   },
   {
@@ -429,7 +429,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     category: 'specialization',
     branch: 'agents',
     prerequisites: ['agentic-architecture'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 4, compute: 60, ticks: 300 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 4, compute: 60, ticks: 1050, money: 210000 },
     effects: [{ type: 'unlock_product_line', target: 'agents-platform', value: 1 }],
   },
 
@@ -441,7 +441,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'scaleup',
     category: 'efficiency',
     prerequisites: ['inference-optimization'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 25, ticks: 150 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 25, ticks: 375, money: 18750 },
     effects: [{ type: 'unlock_feature', target: 'request-routing', value: 1 }],
   },
   {
@@ -451,7 +451,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'scaleup',
     category: 'efficiency',
     prerequisites: ['request-routing'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 3, compute: 30, ticks: 180 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 3, compute: 30, ticks: 450, money: 22500 },
     effects: [{ type: 'unlock_feature', target: 'priority-queues', value: 1 }],
   },
   {
@@ -461,7 +461,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'scaleup',
     category: 'efficiency',
     prerequisites: ['inference-optimization'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 20, ticks: 120 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 2, compute: 20, ticks: 300, money: 15000 },
     effects: [{ type: 'unlock_feature', target: 'request-batching', value: 1 }],
   },
   {
@@ -471,7 +471,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'bigtech',
     category: 'efficiency',
     prerequisites: ['request-routing'],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 4, compute: 60, ticks: 300 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 4, compute: 60, ticks: 750, money: 150000 },
     effects: [{ type: 'efficiency_boost', target: 'auto_scaling', value: 0.2 }],
   },
 
@@ -483,7 +483,7 @@ export const TECH_TREE: ResearchNode[] = [
     era: 'startup',
     category: 'efficiency',
     prerequisites: [],
-    cost: { researchPoints: 0, compute: 5, ticks: 60 },
+    cost: { researchPoints: 0, compute: 5, ticks: 150, money: 2250 },
     effects: [{ type: 'efficiency_boost', target: 'data_quality', value: 0.2 }],
   },
 ];