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/systems/economySystem.ts

@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 import type { GameState, EconomyState, InfrastructureState } from '@ai-tycoon/shared';
 import { FINANCIAL_SNAPSHOT_INTERVAL, MAX_FINANCIAL_HISTORY, REGULATION_COMPLIANCE_PER_CAPABILITY } from '@ai-tycoon/shared';
+import { TECH_TREE } from '../data/techTree';
 import type { MarketTickResult } from './marketSystem';
 
 export function processEconomy(
@@ -27,7 +28,16 @@ export function processEconomy(
   const complianceCost = bestCapability > 30 ? bestCapability * REGULATION_COMPLIANCE_PER_CAPABILITY * (1 + eraIdx * 0.5) / 100 : 0;
 
   const devRelExpenses = state.market.developerEcosystem.devRelSpending;
-  const expenses = infraExpenses + talentExpenses + dataExpenses + complianceCost + devRelExpenses + extraCosts;
+
+  let researchExpenses = 0;
+  if (state.research.activeResearch) {
+    const node = TECH_TREE.find(n => n.id === state.research.activeResearch!.researchId);
+    if (node) {
+      researchExpenses = node.cost.money / node.cost.ticks;
+    }
+  }
+
+  const expenses = infraExpenses + talentExpenses + dataExpenses + complianceCost + devRelExpenses + researchExpenses + extraCosts;
 
   const money = state.economy.money + revenue - expenses;
 

packages/game-engine/src/systems/researchSystem.ts

@@ -30,6 +30,7 @@ function promoteFromQueue(
       totalTicks: node.cost.ticks,
       allocatedResearchers: state.talent.departments.research.headcount,
       allocatedCompute: node.cost.compute,
+      moneySpent: 0,
     };
 
     return {
@@ -52,6 +53,10 @@ export function processResearch(state: GameState, compute: ComputeState): Resear
 
   const newProgress = active.progressTicks + speedMultiplier;
 
+  const node = TECH_TREE.find(n => n.id === active.researchId);
+  const moneyPerTick = node ? node.cost.money / node.cost.ticks : 0;
+  const newMoneySpent = (active.moneySpent ?? 0) + moneyPerTick;
+
   if (newProgress >= active.totalTicks) {
     const completedResearch = {
       ...state.research,
@@ -72,7 +77,7 @@ export function processResearch(state: GameState, compute: ComputeState): Resear
   return {
     research: {
       ...state.research,
-      activeResearch: { ...active, progressTicks: newProgress },
+      activeResearch: { ...active, progressTicks: newProgress, moneySpent: newMoneySpent },
     },
     researchCompleted: null,
   };

packages/game-engine/src/systems/talentSystem.test.ts

@@ -53,8 +53,9 @@ describe('processTalent', () => {
     expect(result.totalSalaryPerTick).toBe(70);
   });
 
-  it('adds 1% of department budget per tick', () => {
+  it('adds 1% of department budget per tick scaled by era', () => {
     const state = createTestState({
+      meta: { currentEra: 'bigtech' },
       talent: {
         departments: {
           research: { id: 'research', headcount: 0, budget: 10_000, effectiveness: 0.5, morale: 0.8 },
@@ -66,10 +67,28 @@ describe('processTalent', () => {
       },
     });
     const result = processTalent(state);
-    // 10000 * 0.01 + 5000 * 0.01 = 100 + 50 = 150
+    // bigtech multiplier = 1.0: 10000 * 0.01 + 5000 * 0.01 = 150
     expect(result.totalSalaryPerTick).toBe(150);
   });
 
+  it('applies startup era discount to budget costs', () => {
+    const state = createTestState({
+      meta: { currentEra: 'startup' },
+      talent: {
+        departments: {
+          research: { id: 'research', headcount: 0, budget: 10_000, effectiveness: 0.5, morale: 0.8 },
+          engineering: { id: 'engineering', headcount: 0, budget: 5_000, effectiveness: 0.5, morale: 0.8 },
+          operations: { id: 'operations', headcount: 0, budget: 0, effectiveness: 0.5, morale: 0.8 },
+          sales: { id: 'sales', headcount: 0, budget: 0, effectiveness: 0.5, morale: 0.8 },
+        },
+        keyHires: [],
+      },
+    });
+    const result = processTalent(state);
+    // startup multiplier = 0.2: (10000 + 5000) * 0.01 * 0.2 = 30
+    expect(result.totalSalaryPerTick).toBe(30);
+  });
+
   it('adds key hire salaries to total', () => {
     const state = createTestState({
       talent: {
@@ -110,6 +129,7 @@ describe('processTalent', () => {
 
   it('combines headcount salary, budget cost, and key hire salary', () => {
     const state = createTestState({
+      meta: { currentEra: 'bigtech' },
       talent: {
         departments: {
           research: { id: 'research', headcount: 4, budget: 2_000, effectiveness: 0.5, morale: 0.8 },
@@ -133,7 +153,7 @@ describe('processTalent', () => {
     });
     const result = processTalent(state);
     // headcount: (4 + 6) * 5 = 50
-    // budget: 2000 * 0.01 + 3000 * 0.01 = 20 + 30 = 50
+    // budget (bigtech 1.0x): 2000 * 0.01 + 3000 * 0.01 = 50
     // key hires: 15
     // total = 50 + 50 + 15 = 115
     expect(result.totalSalaryPerTick).toBe(115);

packages/game-engine/src/systems/talentSystem.ts

@@ -1,14 +1,16 @@
 import type { GameState, TalentState } from '@ai-tycoon/shared';
+import { ERA_BUDGET_COST_MULTIPLIER } from '@ai-tycoon/shared';
 
 const SALARY_PER_HEADCOUNT_PER_TICK = 5;
 
 export function processTalent(state: GameState): TalentState {
   const departments = { ...state.talent.departments };
+  const budgetMultiplier = ERA_BUDGET_COST_MULTIPLIER[state.meta.currentEra] ?? 1.0;
 
   let totalSalary = 0;
   for (const [id, dept] of Object.entries(departments)) {
     totalSalary += dept.headcount * SALARY_PER_HEADCOUNT_PER_TICK;
-    totalSalary += dept.budget * 0.01;
+    totalSalary += dept.budget * 0.01 * budgetMultiplier;
   }
 
   for (const hire of state.talent.keyHires) {