Sua tarefa é criar a sequência de destino especificada. Começando com uma string vazia, você terá que adicionar caracteres a ela, até que ela seja igual à que queremos. Você pode adicionar um caractere ao final da sequência com o custo x ou cloná-la com o custo y. O que queremos é a maneira mais barata de fazer isso.

Casos de teste

targetString , appendcost, clonecost -> totalcost

"bb", 1, 2 -> 2
"bbbb", 2, 3 -> 7
"xzxpcxzxpy", 10, 11 -> 71
"abababab", 3, 5 -> 16
"abababab", 3, 11 -> 23

Casca , 25 bytes

φ?ö▼z+:⁴∞²m⁰§:h§δf`€otṫḣ0

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As entradas estão na ordem anexar custo, custo de clone, destino.

Explicação

φ?ö▼z+:⁴∞²m⁰§:h§δf`€otṫḣ0  Two explicit inputs and one implicit.
                           Example: 2, 3, s="abab"
φ                          Make a recursive function and call it on s:
 ?                      0   If s is empty, return 0.
  ö▼z+:⁴∞²m⁰§:h§δf`€otṫḣ    Otherwise do this.
                       ḣ    Prefixes: ["a","ab","aba","abab"]
                    otṫ     Suffixes except the first one: ["bab","ab","b"]
               §δf`€        Keep those prefixes that have the corresponding suffix as substring: ["ab","aba"]
            §:h             Prepend s minus last character: ["aba","ab","aba"]
          m⁰                Recurse on each: x=[6,4,6]
        ∞²                  Repeat the clone cost: [3,3,3,..
      :⁴                    Prepend append cost: [2,3,3,3,..
    z+                      Add component-wise to x: [8,7,9]
   ▼                        Minimum: 7

Python 2 , 112 bytes

f=lambda s,a,c,i=0:i<len(s)and min([a+f(s,a,c,i+1)]+[c+f(s,a,c,n)for n in range(i+1,len(s)+1)if s[i:n]in s[:i]])

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JavaScript (ES6), 123 111 bytes

Toma entrada como (x)(y)(s).

x=>y=>m=g=([s,...r],o='',c=0)=>s?[...r,g(r,o+s,c+x)].map(_=>s+=r.shift(~o.search(s)&&g(r,o+s,c+y)))|m:m=m<c?m:c

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Comentado

x => y =>                    // x = 'append' cost; y = 'clone' cost
m =                          // m = minimum cost, initialized to a non-numeric value
                             //     this is what will eventually be returned
g = (                        // g = recursive function taking:
  [s,                        //   - the input string split into s = next character
      ...r],                 //     and r[] = array of remaining characters
  o = '',                    //   - o = output string
  c = 0                      //   - c = current cost
) =>                         //
  s ?                        // if s is defined:
    [ ...r,                  //   split a copy of r
      g(r, o + s, c + x)     //   do a recursive call with an 'append' operation
    ].map(_ =>               //   iterate as many times as there are remaining characters
                             //   in r[], + 1
      s +=                   //     append to s
        r.shift(             //     the next character picked from the beginning of r[]
          ~o.search(s) &&    //     if s is found in o,
          g(r, o + s, c + y) //     do a recursive call with a 'clone' operation
        )                    //     (note that both s and r are updated *after* the call)
    ) | m                    //   end of map(); return m
  :                          // else:
    m = m < c ? m : c        //   update m to min(m, c)

R , 192 185 bytes

f=function(s,a,c,k=0,x="",R=substring,N=nchar,p=R(s,1,1:N(s)))'if'(!N(s),k,{y={};for(i in c(R(s,1,1),p[mapply(grepl,p,x)]))y=min(y,f(R(s,N(i)+1),a,c,k+'if'(any(y),c,a),paste0(x,i)));y})

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Código desenrolado e explicação:

# s is the current remaining string (at the beginning is equal to the target string)
# a is the append cost
# c is the clone cost
# k is the current cost (at the beginning is zero)
# x is the partially constructed string (at the beginning is empty)
f=function(s,a,c,k=0,x=""){
  # store in p all the possible prefixes of s
  p = substring(s,1,1:nchar(s))
  # if s is empty return the current cost k
  if(!nchar(s))
    k
  else{
    y={}
    # prepend the first letter of s (=append operation) to  
    # the prefixes in p that are contained in x (=clone operations)
    for(i in c(substring(s,1,1),p[mapply(grepl,p,x)])){
      # perform first the append then the clone operations and recurse, 
      # storing the cost in y if lower than previous
      # (if y is NULL is an append operation otherwise is a clone, we use the right costs)
      y = min(y,f(substring(s,nchar(i)+1),a,c,k+'if'(any(y),c,a),paste0(x,i)))
    }
    # return the current cost
    y
  }
}