Geologic Survey Teams - what's the best way?

[Havan_IronOak (OP)]

I understand that Geologic survey teams can take a closer look at planets, moons, et al and possibly find more minerals than the orbital geo scans detected.

In my first game I set up a team with a rating of 165 using the best survey officers I could find.
I ferried them from Luna to Mercury and then on to a couple of asteroids. They didn't find much but I did get a couple messages saying they'd improved their skills.

Somewhere along the line I lost them!
Although I'm almost certain that I only placed them on bodies marked for colonization they started showing a blank location field so I couldn't disband the team.  I could reassign them to other roles but when I tried to reform a team with them afterward the blank location came back.

This time around (second game) I've formed a team directly on the colony I wanted to survey. They found nothing on their first colony.
I disbanded the team and reformed it on the second colony. Again nothing
Lather/rinse/repeat five times so far. Nothing additional found. No skill advances.

My questions...
1) Any idea how to "recover" my lost team from game 1? I would like to continue it a bit.

2) Is my forming/disbanding/reforming the team causing them to not gain experience and become better? Or has my my second strategy just been unlucky so far?

Suggestions?

[83athom]

Teams can only be on colonies, you didn't check hard enough I'm sure. The reason it won't work now is that the team's members are still on the same body. One way to find them is to use the "Search by skill/location" and scroll through the colonies (easy way to do it is to use the scroll wheel while the pointer is over the box).

[Havan_IronOak (OP)]

Follow-up question...

The Wiki says that the chance that a geology team will finish a survey in a given year is a function of the body's size and the skill of the team.
( The formula is (1000 / BodyRadius^(1/3)) * (TeamSkill / 100)

Does skill play any role in their chance to find additional minerals?

[Steve Walmsley]

Follow-up question...

The Wiki says that the chance that a geology team will finish a survey in a given year is a function of the body's size and the skill of the team.
( The formula is (1000 / BodyRadius^(1/3)) * (TeamSkill / 100)

Does skill play any role in their chance to find additional minerals?

No, skill only affects completion time.

[Havan_IronOak (OP)]

Thanks for that speedy reply. I'll see that that's reflected in the wiki.

The wiki also says "Members of the team will gain a small amount of experience each time new deposits of minerals are discovered. "
Is that a given or just an additional chance at a skills increase?
Is the chance to gain a skills increase higher for members who are actively surveying a body than those who have finished a survey?
Does dissolving a team and recreating it elsewhere have any impact on skill increases versus ferrying the team around in a shuttle?

Is there any possibility that a body found to have NO minerals by the orbital scan will find some if a land based team is sent in?