Mineral surveys

[chrislocke2000 (OP)]

Hey all

As i understand it the chance of finding minerals on any body is based on the skills of the survey team and calculated at the point that they do the survey rather than any pre-generated level when a system is generated.

Question is is this the same for when I'm using geo survey ships in the first instance?

I'm trying to work out if I would be better off placing my officers with the best survey skill in the survey ships in the fist instance and then worry about creating a geo survey team later down the track when they can perhaps increase what has already been found.

[Brian Neumann]

When your ships are surveying a system they will only find what is pregenerated.  The bonus that the officer gives does speed up how fast you finish surveying a particular body.  I usually find that this is not a significant saving on time however.  It does give those same officers a chance to improve their survey skills, which can be usefull.

Your geo survey teams are finding extra minerals that the ships are not capable of finding.  They work like you said, with a fixed chance also based on their skill that they can not find any more minerals.  The higher the team rating the more they will tend to find.  They also have a much better chance of finding minerals on terestrial bodies instead of asteroids.

Brian

[chrislocke2000 (OP)]

Ah great, handy to know. I've started a few games and have seen some fairly substantial variations in the level of minerals I find in Sol and was hence wondering if that was because of who was doing the surveys rather than what had been pre-generated.

Makes for quite different game starts, my plan on this go was to turtle up in Sol and commit to getting the local infrastructure and industry built up but with such poor deposits it looks like Im going to be forced back into early exploration.

[Steve Walmsley]

When a survey team makes a successful find minerals roll, which is based on their skill level, a random mineral is selected with Duranium being twice as likely to be selected as any other mineral. Once the specific mineral is known, the same mineral generation check that was used during system generation is used again. If the result indicates the selected mineral has a higher amount or accessibility than the current deposit, the deposit is updated accordingly, with a limit of 100,000 extra (200,000 for Duranium)

So while a team's chance of carrying out a mineral generation check is based on their skill, the actual chance of finding something during that check is based on the same parameters used during system generation.

Steve

[sloanjh]

the same mineral generation check that was used during system generation is used again.

And it's important to be aware that different systems (and bodies) can have vastly different abundance probabilities.  Also, homeworld minerals use a different algorithm that's designed to emplace a moderate amount of (almost) everything.  That probably explains the variability you were seeing.

John

[Peter Rhodan]

hey Steve

given there are planets with like 20,000,000 or more of some mineral or other doesn't the 100,000 max limit seem a bit small?
I was thinking you could scale it to the planet or body so on a planet with 1-3 million ton ranges (for instance) then the found deposit would be in that range too - I had a planet with 6,000,000 tons of Duranium that found another 100,000 tons - seemed a bit silly

[Erik L]

hey Steve

given there are planets with like 20,000,000 or more of some mineral or other doesn't the 100,000 max limit seem a bit small?
I was thinking you could scale it to the planet or body so on a planet with 1-3 million ton ranges (for instance) then the found deposit would be in that range too - I had a planet with 6,000,000 tons of Duranium that found another 100,000 tons - seemed a bit silly

Part of the low initial amounts is to get the player off the homeworld and out exploring.

[voknaar]

Dumb question i'll add, do multiple geo teams stack their ratings or is only 1 used?

[Mini]

Iirc, all the geo teams get their own chance to find additional minerals, but also their own chance for there not to be any more minerals to be found. You would get more total minerals out of a planet by only using the highest rated team there.

[Erik L]

Iirc, all the geo teams get their own chance to find additional minerals, but also their own chance for there not to be any more minerals to be found. You would get more total minerals out of a planet by only using the highest rated team there.

Multiple teams increase the chance of no more minerals being found greater than increasing the chance of finding minerals.