Enchantment

Overview
Enchantment is a mechanic that resets the Mage's Power back to its base value, putting everything spent in a pool to be Reclaimed, and giving bonuses.

What bonuses exactly?
Damage gets multiplied by 1.2 each time, the research rate multiplier is 1.1 and researches cost reduction factor is 1.25.

How much Power does it cost?
Umm, that's really complicated. As TopCog balances almost everything on expected quantities, it can vary a lot. The cost is equal to the expected Power the player will have at Zone Z (Z being the target zone for the Enchantment) divided by the expected bonus given by the Research affecting it. The formula is Z = 2 + E*1.1, E being the Enchantment level. Therefore, the game expects you to be able to enchant every 1.1 Zones. Bear with me, we're not done with expectations.

What's Reclaiming?
That's the way of going back to the level of Power the Mage had before enchanting. Reclamation Time is first found with this decision tree for d (seconds): if (enchantLevel <= 20) d = e * 30 * 60; else if (enchantLevel <= 40) d = (e - 20) * 15 * 60 + 20 * 30 * 60; else if (enchantLevel <= 80) d = (e - 40) * 6 * 60 + 20 * 15 * 60 + 20 * 30 * 60; else if (enchantLevel <= 100) d = (e - 80) * 15 * 60 + 40 * 6 * 60 + 20 * 15 * 60 + 20 * 30 * 60; else d = 24 * 60 * 60; It is then multiplied by the expected reclamation rate bonus.

And then power is given back with this formula: P(t) = (P_r-P_0) * B^(t*r-t_m*R) + P_0 P Current Power P_r Reclaim Power (the total amount you spent on the enchant) P_0 Starting Power = 100 t reclaim time, in seconds t_m Max Reclaim Time -> follows a non-linear formula, starts at 30 minutes goes up to 24 hr at zone 180 r Reclaim Rate bonus R Expected Reclaim Rate bonus B Reclaim Base = 1.001 after around zone 10 of so, greater than that in lower zones Since P(t) is a function, the inverse function exists, being time as a function of Power, t(P). Each second, t(P) is solved to find the current reclaim time. Then the new power is solved for as P(t+1). When you return from idling, it's the same method, just P(t+idle_time). If you gain Power while reclaiming, it just increases P, which causes t to jump ahead more than 1 s.