@reggaemuffin First of all, apologies for the late reply. Secondly, thank you for the clear and concise reply. I understand your reasoning much better now.

At the point that supply is limited (VPxSP), the question is what the "predictability" you strive for means. Does it mean availability or quantitative predictability.

I think to protect minnows against themselves (they are cute sweet, but breakable colleagues ;) and avoid draining out and giving them negative ROI, it would be better to have a dynamic balancing mechanism, for instance by making the cooldown window variable, dependent on the VP of the bot. The constants which are currently in the algorithm are very hard to maintain if for instance the number of votes, the ammount of the votes or the VP changes.

Alternatively you can create a 'success percentage' for the votes cast (only X% of the submissions, get converted into an upvote and the other part returned to the user, with their time slot burnt).

Just some ideas. Thanks again for the response and keep up the good work