Survey Team - What am I doing wrong

[PzKenny (OP)]

Hi All,

I have some problems with Geological Survey Teams.  So far in every game (version 7. 1) I created the team will only find minerals on the first body I sent them to, but nothing on the rest.  I have read it is very hard to find additional minerals (or access) using the survey team, but I find it strange I always find them on the first body I sent them to and nothing on the other bodies.

I have played this game in the past (version 6. 4. 3) and never had this problem.  Am I doing something wrong?

Kind Regard,

PzKenny

[Bryan Swartz]

When you say 'always', how many times has this happened?  How many other bodies have you come up empty on? 

[davidr]

Now this has been mentioned , I think this may be a bug as my Geology Team ( v7.1 ) are also neither finding any new deposits nor increasing any availability on any planet . moon , asteroid or comet  and they have traveled the length and breadth of the Sol System for 9 years. Perhaps this problem should be taken up with Steve for a pronouncement of either a bug or WAD.In previous versions my team would sometimes find minerals or increase the availability. However with the increased minerals on Earth from V7.0 perhaps not finding any deposits is indeed WAD.

DavidR

[83athom]

The chance, amount, and availability increased by geological survey teams are determined by their skill. Have you waited long enough with the team on a body to say "No new minerals were discovered...", and what skill is your team? The best way to increase the teams skill before you survey important bodies is to survey asteroids and moons before planets that have decent amounts, that way they have a higher chance to find something and at a greater amount. And as of 7.0 (waiting for 7.2 before upgrading) I have surveyed multiple bodies and have increased the amount on about 1/3 to 1/2 of them. And if this indeed a bug in 7.1 you guys are finding, better geo-survey Venus first.

[Prince of Space]

The chance, amount, and availability increased by geological survey teams are determined by their skill.

I don't think that's true:

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=4835.msg49115#msg49115

Survey team skill should only affect how quickly they finish the survey. It shouldn't affect the likelihood of successfully finding new mineral deposits or higher accessability on the surveyed body.

Regarding the original question, if your survey teams are finding deposits on only the first body they survey, then you are experiencing better success than I am in my 7.1 game. I can't say I've ever been entirely satisfied with the geological survey team mechanics, but it is entirely in keeping with the rules as known for the luck of the dice to just be against a certain empire.

It's a bit like the coin flipping scene from Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, sometimes. The player, like Tim Roth, may conclude that there's something wrong with the game, but it is a possible outcome for the RNG to keep disappointing you. Without better insight into the game mechanics in action, I can only conclude that the mechanic is unsatisfying, rather than broken.

[Zincat]

I am quite sure that nowadays survey team skill has no effect on what you find, just on how fast you do.

It was changed some versions ago. Before it worked like said, and you wanted high skill teams only. Now it no longer matters.

Also, I don't think there's anything wrong with surveying in 7.1. In my game, which is rather long by now, I have found quite a bit of new minerals.

Like 7 millions accessibility 0.7 Sorium on Ganymede. I'm terraforming that, no questions. Or, some 230 millions total in various minerals with high accessibility 2 jumps from earth. On a cost 2.0 world. I'm terraforming that too XD


Most likely PzKenny suffered from a bad streak of luck...

[PzKenny (OP)]

Thanks for all the replies.  Here is some more info as some of you requested.

My Survey teams had a level between 160 and 218 when they started the first survey.  I have survey a minimal of 10 bodies per game (with the highest more than 20) and always with the same result.  First body I do find minerals (and team gets XP) and the rest not.  I do get the message that they finished the survey (and body is marked as survey).  It also takes some time for them to survey each body (depending on the type of body).

I know the survey mechanism is random, but what bothers me the most is that they find minerals every time on the first body they survey.

Tomorrow I will do a little test if time permits.  I will start a new game and just before I create a Survey team I'll make copy of the whole game.  Then survey 20 bodies and write down the results.  Restore the backup and survey 20 bodies again (in a different order).  I will do this 5 times and see what the result is.


PzKenny

[Bryan Swartz]

Suggestion as a workaround;  perhaps disband the team and reform between surveys?  Annoying for sure, but just as a workaround until Steve can get to fixing it(if indeed it is a bug as it is sounding like). 

[sloanjh]

Tomorrow I will do a little test if time permits.  I will start a new game and just before I create a Survey team I'll make copy of the whole game.  Then survey 20 bodies and write down the results.  Restore the backup and survey 20 bodies again (in a different order).  I will do this 5 times and see what the result is.

This might not give the result you expect, even if the game is WAI.  My recollection is that new mineral amounts are rolled when the survey is completed, not when the body is generated.  So you'll probably get randomly different results no matter what.  I would try NOT using a different order for the different survey shots first.

John

[PzKenny (OP)]

This might not give the result you expect, even if the game is WAI.   My recollection is that new mineral amounts are rolled when the survey is completed, not when the body is generated.   So you'll probably get randomly different results no matter what.   I would try NOT using a different order for the different survey shots first.

John

Hi John,

I know the minerals the survey team finds are "created" while surveying, but I want to see if I find minerals every first planet and if I will find any additional minerals on the other bodies I survey after the first body.

PzKenny

[db48x]

Tomorrow I will do a little test if time permits.  I will start a new game and just before I create a Survey team I'll make copy of the whole game.  Then survey 20 bodies and write down the results.  Restore the backup and survey 20 bodies again (in a different order).  I will do this 5 times and see what the result is.

PzKenny

Sounds like a pretty good experimental design. Which bodies will you survey, and in what order will you survey them?

[PzKenny (OP)]

Hi everybody,

I have tried to do the test, but had a few issues that possibly made the results unreliable.  The main problem I encountered was dying team members during surveys and since I am not sure what the impact would be I decided to end the test after the second run.  I do have to say I did not encounter the problem I had before of finding only minerals on the first body surveyed, so I don't think there is a bug and I was just very unlucky.

I was very lucky with the generation of the starting minerals.  I had selected 5 bodies (Europe, Venus, Mercury.  Mars and Luna), but made the mistake with writing down the numbers for Europe so I removed it from the list leaving only 4 bodies.  I still wanted to share the results with you guys so I attached a picture of my sheet.  The rating of the survey teams changed because better members were available when I changed bodies or the team gained XP (which I noted in the sheet with the XP gain).  But it looks like on a 5 planet (remember I did survey 5 planets) you do get at least 1 gain in minerals or accessibility.  I also noted that the time it takes to survey a body differs a lot.  On the first run I did survey Europe, Venus and Mercury before my GEOSurvey Ship was finished surveying all the other planets and moons.  On the second run I wasn't even finished with the first planet (Venus).

I hope this gives all of you a little more insight about how Survey Teams work.  At least I have learned a few thinks from this endeavour.  I am going to start a new game and hopefully I am as lucky as this start was, but probably not.  Thanks everybody for the tips and suggestions.

Kind Regards,

PzKenny

[db48x]

I hope this gives all of you a little more insight about how Survey Teams work.  At least I have learned a few thinks from this endeavour.

Even with partial data this is pretty good. We can see that the minerals on a planet are still randomly determined when the survey team finishes the job rather than when the planet is created. There's not enough information to see whether team skill has any effect on the minerals found (as was apparently the mechanic a few versions ago) or if it affects the (average) survey time (as its intended to work).

Thanks for taking the time to check this out!

If anyone wants to build on this in the future, I recommend automating it. Do the same type of many-worlds analysis by restoring to the same game state between tests, but write an automated script to advance time until it writes a log at the end of the year, then parse the log to see if the team finished. Once you find that the job has finished, record the new minerals found (if any) and time to completion and then restore the save to repeat. By doing it only on one planet but with several different team ratings you'll be able to see which of the two variables team skill affects.

[Havan_IronOak]

Not sure if it's a related issue or bug or if perhaps I'm just misunderstanding something.  (I'm on my first play-through - if I'm making an obvious error, please just tell me)

I formed a geo-survey team and they found nothing on their first planet.  (Luna)  Sent them to a small asteroid and they did find something. 
However the team seems to have gone walkies.  They are NOT appearing on any of my listed colonies and are not on the asteroid I left them on (no pick-up order available)  Just to be sure I looked at every ship on my register and every colony on my list.  They don't seem to be anywhere. 

I CAN see them on the officers list with (with a blank location field).  I can re-assign them to other duties.  But I can't create a new team or dissolve the old one.  Any ideas?