geology teams

[andrea69 (OP)]

I started my first game with conventional start, I mean pre trans-newtonian. My first geology survey team did a very good job both on Earth and on Mercury, but then I built a second and a third military academies, and formed other three geology teams. I expected at least to double the rate of mineral deposits discoveries, but that is not happening at all. Now the rate of discoveries is less than it was with just one team. How does that work? Is the time needed dependent on the body you are surveying? As an example, I stationed a team on an asteroid for 3 years, and no discoveries at all. My first team on Mercury discovered a mineral deposit every few months. The same team, that now has a skill of 200, is now spending his time on Phobos, making parties, it seems.

[Ashery]

Highly dependent on the body.

The exact formula I cannot say, however.

There've been times where I was getting nearly a discovery every five-day with my 300 team when they were on a body that had several hundred million total minerals (Almost all with 0.1 accessibility, though). I can say for certain, though, that smaller bodies (especially asteroids) will be surveyed at a much slower rate than bodies closer to Earth's size.

I'll also throw in that quality beats quantity in terms of geology teams. Although I've been experimenting with sending a low/mid level team along with asteroid miner and seeing if I can score some "free" resources.

[Din182]

There's only a small chance (around 1% I believe) of a geology finding resources in an increment. So, you can go years without finding anything, and then get a bunch of discoveries in a short period of time.

[Herode]

Do we know the relationship between team's geology score and success rate ?

[Hawkeye]

Do we know the relationship between team's geology score and success rate ?

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I have added a new type of team for v3.1, the Geology Team. This team carries out more detailed survey of planets, trying to find any mineral deposits that might have been missed by the orbital survey. They may find a new deposit of a mineral that has previously been mined out, additional deposits of an existing mineral or even a way to increase the accessibility of an existing mineral.

The team skill is Survey, so you will need five team members with decent survey skills. The mechanics are fairly straightforward. When a team is on a system body during the 5-day increment, it makes a mineral deposit check. This is done using the same base mineral discovery chance as when a new planet is being created with two modifiers, the skills of the team/100 and a the proportion of a year. So over a year, a team with a skill of 100 should have approximately the same chance of generating a mineral as when the original mineral deposit check was made. Depending on how this works in testing, I might drop this chance a little.

If a mineral is generated, the program picks one at random, although Duranium has twice the chance of any other mineral. If this mineral does not exist on the planet, a new deposit is generated using the normal mineral generation process for that type of planet. If it already exists, a new deposit is generated and compared to the existing deposit. If it is larger, then the mineral amount on the planet is set to that of the new deposit but using the existing accessibility. If the new deposit has a higher accessibility then the existing deposit, the existing deposit is changed to the new accessibility, regardless of whether the amount is also changed.

Every time additional minerals are added to the planet, or a deposit is changed to higher accessibility, a check is made to see if the geological survey team decides that further surveys are futile. This check is equal to 150-Team Skill with a minimum of 10, so a team with a skill of 140 or above will minimise the chance that surveys will miss potential deposits.

This was based on a post regarding random events in the suggestion thread by Haegan2005

Steve

Note: the amount of new minerals generated is now capped, as geo-teams used to create tens of millions of tons on some planets, which made it totally unnecessary to leavy your homesystem, ever.
Also, this was in 3.1. I think the rules are still basicly the same, but can not guarantee it.

[andrea69 (OP)]

Thanks for the answers.
I created the other geology teams just as backups, and used them on asteroids/moons without value, just to train them. If Ashery is right that should be the reason why I noticed the slower rate of discoveries. Just to experiment more, I moved also the best team to Mars moons, and as I said they stopped to make discoveries, too.
It seems training on asteroids was not a good idea.

[Ashery]

I'd say it's not a good idea to use asteroids if you're expecting them to train quickly. If you happen to have several officers lying around with decent survey bonuses, there's really no reason not to place'em on asteroids that you're currently mining or expecting to mine later on.

I wouldn't really bother with otherwise empty bodies unless you're absolutely desperate for minerals, though. Even if it's just for practice.

[andrea69 (OP)]

I wouldn't really bother with otherwise empty bodies unless you're absolutely desperate for minerals, though. Even if it's just for practice.

I agree. I will train only on asteroids I intend to mine from now on.

[Father Tim]

The actual math involved in mineral generation means that the 'rate of discovery' is inversely proportional to the mass of the system body - so your Geo team will make discoveries MUCH faster on a 1G planet than on a 0.003G asteroid.

[andrea69 (OP)]

That's now clear, thanks.