Geo-survey teams refusing to geo-survey?

[Gothmos (OP)]

Hey, I'm about 9 years into my first game and the only planet I've been able to geo-survey has been Earth.

When I first created my team, it was done so on Earth so i can understand that.  What I don't understand however is how when I shipped the team out to my first mining base they didn't find anything for atleast a year (I moved them elsewhere at that point in hopes of getting a different result).  Is this due to that I didn't leave them there long enough? What is the average time a geosurvey may take?

I've tried manually moving the teams in my cargo ships as I said, as well as disbanding the team where they are and making a new team consisting of the same members on the target planet.  (This was the method suggested in a tutorial)

If anyone has some advice on how to use the geosurvey teams, that would be much appreciated.

[wedgebert]

Where was your first base located? The 5.6 survey mechanics are based (in part) on the mass of the object being surveyed, such that mass is inversely proportional to the average time it takes to survey. So planets like Earth, Venus or even moons like Titan will typically survey pretty quickly whereas asterioid and coments can years or decades to survey.

You're doing it correctly though, just have a team on the surface of the body and eventually something will happen.

[Gothmos (OP)]

My first base was a small asteroid (the mass is lsited as 9.  36E-5 where as Earth's is 1, I assume this is a realtive scale). 
The team was on there longer then they took on Earth to find something and with a difference of 10^5 i think that time would be sufficient from what you've said. 

They're currently on Proteus with a combined rating of 105, how long should it take to survey this moon? They've been there for atleast 2 years by now. 

Edit: Wow, just after I posted this they've finally found something :O (14K neutronium at 0. 9).  Thanks for the help I guess :3
I'll try not to be so premature next time.

[xeryon]

Smaller bodies take absurd amounts of time to survey.  Be patient.  To help out have your teams improve their skill on larger "junk" bodies in the system before you have them survey more useful bodies.  With their skill level lower they will not find as many new deposits before declaring the survey complete.  An unskilled team can pretty much ruin a high potential world.

[metalax]

Note that this only applies to the current and earlier versions. From the next version, 5.7, onward the skill of the team will have no effect on how many minerals are found only the time it takes to complete the survey, due to the changes to how geosurvey teams work.

[xeryon]

Yes, 5.7 will greatly improve the survey mechanics.

To summarize 5.7: orbital scans can find a portion of the bodies capacity, ground based teams can find the rest of the minerals possible and their skill level determines the speed that they discover the rest of the materials.  This came about due to the logic of:  how can a team of scientists permanently "ruin" the finding of materials?  If they are incompetent they might take an eon to find everything, but wouldn't cause irreversible damage.

[Gothmos (OP)]

Thanks for the advice guys, one note though.   I hadn't fully noticed the inverse part of the proprtionality which may have been the heart of my confusion. 
That sounds kind of couter intuitive to me, shouldn't more mass = more area to survey = longer to survey?
Is there a reason for the inverse proportionality?      (The system proposed in 5. 7 sounds very sensible to me. )

In regard to your advice on surveying the more useless bodies first, is there any way to use the disband, reform at destination method for bodies that don't have colonies on them (as in no previous installations or anthing) ?  The teams/academy tab only lists 'populated' bodies. 


Edited due to ninjas

[Bgreman]

In regard to your advice on surveying the more useless bodies first, is there any way to use the disband, reform at destination method for bodies that don't have colonies on them (as in no previous installations or anthing) ?  The teams/academy tab only lists 'populated' bodies.

You can add colonies to bodies in various methods, but the F9 screen works for it.  Click the body in question, then click "add colony."

[Gothmos (OP)]

You can add colonies to bodies in various methods, but the F9 screen works for it.   Click the body in question, then click "add colony. "

Worked a treat, thanks. 

I couldn't find a similair process for removing colonies once I had finished their geo-survey (So I don't confuse them for an actually valuable body).  Am I just missing an obvious button?

[xeryon]

Well, technically, you should be using ships to move your teams around.  There is an alternate though: If you select the body you want to survey and create a colony on it (don't transfer people or infrastructure or anything).  From the population and production overview screen if you highlight the new 'colony' to survey you can go to team creation and create the team directly on that colony.  It's sort of cheating, but that's up to you to decide how much micromanagement you want to have for jockeying teams around.

You can then delete the completed survey colony from the overview screen as well.  Although I find it easiest to leave the colony there as a placeholder for completed survey locations.  The info page will say "Completed".  Unless you rename the body it won't tell you that anywhere else.

[Redshirt]

No excuse not to drop them off.  I present the "Hermes" class Courier:

Code: [Select]

Hermes class Courier 2500 tons     232 Crew     288.2 BP      TCS 50  TH 360  EM 90
7200 km/s    JR 1-50     Armour 1-16     Shields 3-300     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control 1     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 100%    IFR: 1.4%    Maintenance Capacity 72 MSP

J2500(1-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 2500 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 1
Ion Engine E8 (6)    Power 60    Fuel Use 80%    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres    Range 90.0 billion km   (144 days at full power)
Beta R300/12 Shields (2)   Total Fuel Cost  24 Litres per day

This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes Use your industry to pre-build the engines and you can whip one of these out quickly.  You'll probably only need one- I keep mine parked in orbit till needed.  It can ferry teams to Neptune in a day.

[xeryon]

If you want super cheap just build a "Shuttle".  One engine, one fuel tank, one jump drive if you feel inclined.  I pulled up Steve's Nato vs Soviets game and pulled this guy out:

Pegasus class Shuttle    500 tons     49 Crew     44 BP      TCS 10  TH 25  EM 0
2500 km/s    JR 1-50     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Life 29.28 Years     MSP 55    AFR 2%    IFR 0%    1YR 0    5YR 2    Max Repair 12 MSP

Blohm + Voss F600 Military Jump Drive      Max Ship Size 600 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 1
Nuclear Thermal Engine E10 (1)    Power 25    Fuel Use 100%    Signature 25    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 180.0 billion km   (833 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Go anywhere - semi-quickly.  It's a military engined shuttle (not a FAC) and has a maintenance cycle such that you just dispose of it rather then maintain it should the need arise.  This is what I build.