We were playing TI with the expansion the other night with 5 of us and for fun we went with the 8 player board. I think 2 of the players managed to have 6 planets with a Technology specialty. The Law that Technology Specialty applies to any color passed. We couldn't figure out if they would have to pay any resources or not reducing the cost of Buying tech from 6 to 0. I poured over the FAQ ( that i so conveniently have printed off with my game ) and couldn't find an answer.

Am i missing something or would you only have to pay a strategy allocation?

In this situation, you only have to pay a strategy allocation to get your tech.

It's happened to me a couple of times, it's good fun!

Not too surprising when you use a map that big - with that many resources and planets out there, it's likely you're going to get way more stuff in play.