Geological team skill points

[Haji (OP)]

Greetings, I have a question: what does skill points do in the case of geological survey team? Do they increase the amount of resources the team finds? Or are the resources preset at the start and the skill points only influence how fast a team finds those minerals?

And I apologise if this question was answered.   I did a rather quick and dirty search, but I did not found anything. 

[GhostOfGod]

I may not be 100% correct on this, but based on my experiences and reading Geo Survey Team skill points affect 3 things:

1) The probability of actually finding anything during a cycle. Lower skill teams have a lower chance of discovering new/more supplies of minerals on a system body. I believe this also includes the chance of increasing availability of a mineral.

2)When your team makes a new mineral discovery the amount found depends on the skill of the team. A good team has a better chance of striking it rich.

3)Every time your team makes a mineral discovery they have a chance of declaring the survey complete, at which point any system body has all the minerals it ever will (without SM). So a good team will be more likely to continue searching after a new discovery, whereas a bad team may call it quits after only one find.

The above is why people often send their teams out to more distant planets for training first. Since a planet's minerals can't be improved once a survey has been completed it makes sense to train them on some worthless asteroids. Once they're quality, usually around 150 skill, the team can be moved back to more easily mined planets.

[Haji (OP)]

Thank you very much for the answer.

[Marthnn]

A little bit more details on the wiki : http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Mineral_Generation

Team skill does not influence deposit quantity, only the body itself does. Asteroids and small moons might give 1000 or 2000 deposits, while earth-like bodies might give 100 000 or 200 000.

Team skill does influence chances of finding a deposit, but small bodies have very small chances even at skill 300 (the max).

To minimize the chances of declaring the survey complete, the team needs to have a skill of 140 or greater. This is not influenced by body size.

Small bodies have smaller deposits, but higher accessibilities.
Large bodies have larger deposits, but smaller accessibilities.

[GhostOfGod]

Team skill does not influence deposit quantity, only the body itself does. Asteroids and small moons might give 1000 or 2000 deposits, while earth-like bodies might give 100 000 or 200 000.

Team skill does influence chances of finding a deposit, but small bodies have very small chances even at skill 300 (the max).

Ah ha, that makes sense. Thank you for correcting me.

[Lost Wookie]

Teams also sometimes increase the accessibility of a resource.   Does anyone have any numbers on how/if team skill affects the chances of that happening?

Edit: Accessibility increase is one of the potential outcomes of a geo-team survey check, but is it weighted for team skill? Are my higher skill teams more likely to increase accessibility, or are the odds of mineral increase vs.  accessibility increase fixed?

[Marthnn]

Does anyone have any numbers on how/if team skill affects the chances of that happening?

From what I understand of Steve's posts and the wiki, once a team finds a new deposit, the mineral generation process is run just like when you discover a new system, but for one random mineral. The result is compared to what's already present. If new quantity is higher, old quantity is adjusted (added minerals is capped at a given value). If new accessibility is higher, old accessibility is adjusted. Both can be improved at the same time, but it's all random.

[Brian Neumann]

From what I understand of Steve's posts and the wiki, once a team finds a new deposit, the mineral generation process is run just like when you discover a new system, but for one random mineral. The result is compared to what's already present. If new quantity is higher, old quantity is adjusted (added minerals is capped at a given value). If new accessibility is higher, old accessibility is adjusted. Both can be improved at the same time, but it's all random.

I think Steve changed that in a more recent version.  The amount of minerals you get is fixed and dependant on the type of body, but in the range that the body would usually get.  For example for terrestrial worlds I normally get 100,000 tons of a mineral.  The accessibility is also checked as you said, and if the new accesibility is higher than the old then it goes up.  This can be really usefull when you have almost mined out a planet as you will not only get a significant amount of minerals, but the accessibility may very well jump up a bit from the nearly .1 amount that it had fallen to from the heavy mining.
Brian

[Marthnn]

I think Steve changed that in a more recent version.  The amount of minerals you get is fixed and dependant on the type of body, but in the range that the body would usually get.  For example for terrestrial worlds I normally get 100,000 tons of a mineral. 

I'm pretty sure the amount you get isn't fixed but capped. What's the chance your team finds 4,253,011 Duranium, compares it to the current amount of 4,197,310 and finds out an additional 55,701 can be added to the body deposit? No, they will either find 7,000,000 or 2,000,000 and add the capped quantity of 100,000 tons or nothing at all. I have seen teams occasionally find a random number of new minerals, while other finds on the same body were exactly 100,000.

Anyways, I've just read the new post from Steve about geology teams in the next version 5.7. This will all change soon.

[Brian Neumann]

Yup, everything will be changing soon based on Steve's new post.  Be interesting to see how it works in actual play.

Brian