I'm brand new as well but I have spent days pouring over and devouring everything I can get my hands on, so I think I can answer that but others may give better answer. From what I'm seeing "average" ranges from 3-5% per trade.
Your initial investment doesn't impact how many pairs you trade with. I'm 2 days in trying something similar to what your doing. I gave Gunbot only .05 for testing/tweaking. I set max trade at 1/10 or .005 so ten trades could potentially be open at any given time.
I'm trading 10 pairs and in 36 hours with Gunthar's default
"How I Run" settings Gunbot has only bought 10 times and sold 4 times so I have 6 "slots" or "max trades" available.
Once I get my feet wet and build more trust with Gunbot then I will allocate more. So far I'm thoroughly impressed with operation but there is a learning curve to be sure.
To save time for Gunthar and yourself, set up a 2nd Poloniex account now, generate API keys for both accounts, give Gunthar BOTH API keys. I did it after purchasing and had to pester Gunthar a second time to add 2nd API key, better to do it now.
You will use this 2nd account exclusively for Gunbot and you can continue using your primary as normal. This way you and Gunbot don't step on each other's toes trading and it makes accounting much easier. You just fund your 2nd wallet from your 1st (I recommend LTC for fastest/cheapest transfer).
You can optionally link it to your 1st (it only took me a couple of minutes to do, must use separate email or alias). When you go to link the 2 accounts do it from your current (original) account and your current (original) account will become the primary. The 2nd (new Gunbot) account will become a child account of your primary. 2nd account will inherit your Tier level instantly so you don't have to reverify. The only caveat to linking is your withdrawal limit is imposed on pair of accounts (you don't get to withdraw double amount).
I had very few trades first 12 hours because of 422 timeouts until I stopped, implemented ELECTRIC_WIZARD's timing tip, and restarted. I would do this before your first launch...
In your Gunbot folder you will also find a file called ALLPAIRS-params.js and yes, these settings will affect all your pairs.
I recommend you include the following lines between the curly-braces (that is these: { }):
BOT_SLEEP_DELAY: ((1001)*90*(Math.random()*0.3+0.7)),
BOT_MAX_LIFETIME:999999999,// overall bot lifetime(koef*min),
BOT_ON_FAIL_DELAY:((1001)*120*(Math.random()*0.3+0.7)),
This randomizes your pairs so to minimize them all calling Polo at once, which will reduce your '422' and '429' error codes at times of peak server traffic. If you are suffering from these, you will want to increase the numbers between the asterisks, so perhaps 90 becomes 120 and 120 becomes 180, or you can experiment like the newly-weds you are until you find what works best for you.
