Geosurveys and GeoTeams

[clement (OP)]

In a recent game, I was performing Geosurveys and had Mars come up as empty. No big deal, happens a lot. But then nearly every other body in Sol came up empty.

Since I had no where for my Geo Team to go, and I was just spreading out of Sol, I put them on Mars to see what happened. They started finding TN minerals and after a while ended up find a huge amount of minerals of almost every type. For most of them it was 1M+ minerals generally at .1 concentration.

To test it out, I ended up surveying Mercury, Venus, Luna, Mars, and Triton, all of which were originally scanned as empty by a ship and ended up find lots of low concentration minerals on each.

Is this an expected result of the Geo Survey mechanics? That a Geo Team on a body scanned as empty of TN minerals can find minerals? Or is it a bug/exploit?

clement

[xeryon]

Reasonably normal.  When a team scans a planet they either find more materials, better accessibility or both.  In the case of a large body you should have relatively good chances of success.  Since you are starting from 0 materials and 0 accessibility your chance of finding something new is pretty high.

[Theokrat]

Will change quite drastically in the upcoming  version though. As I understand it then survey teams will only be able to find one deposit (i.e. one mineral)

[clement (OP)]

I had always understood that when a ship w/ a Geo Survey module scanned a planet, that if it did not find any minerals in that scan then the planet was truly empty.

If a ship failing to find minerals still means there could be minerals that could be found by a Geo Team, it changes the dynamics somewhat, since that means that all those empty planets are now worth putting a Geo Team on.

[xeryon]

All those empty planets always have had the possibility of minerals.  Some more, some less.

That said, things are going to change a bit soon.

Theokrat: I don't think that is quite right.  There is more documented on it in Steve's threads but the system will change to one where the geo teams will 'unlock' the full mineral potential of a planet.  Ship based survey's will find a certain range of materials, or even none, and the ground based teams come in and find the rest.  The team skill dictates how quickly and thoroughly they will find the minerals.

[hikkiko]

in current version you can scan object by ship, then by team.  once team find nothing no more minerals can be found there.  a trained team has very low chance to find nothing so you can have unlimited source.  in new version you can survey object by team only once, but team can find several deposits.  iirc the stronger team - the faster it work

[TheDeadlyShoe]

as i understand it, right now  a geosurvey team makes rolls every cycle to find something at random accessibilities and quantities modified by the body size.  After a successful roll, they also have a chance to declare the survey completed; theoretically they could keep finding minerals at a planet forever if they keep failing the completion roll.

The chance to succeed at a roll is also modified by body size which is why tiny asteroids take forever to survey.

IIRC, In the new version, the survey teams will keep making rolls until they succeed at the survey, at which point every mineral gets rerolled once.  The way bodies interact with survey times will also drastically improve.

[hikkiko]

iirc body size affect only speed of survey and the size of deposits. there is only 1 roll, if it successful - you have some resources, if not - no more resources can be found, this roll affected by team experience, so high lvl team can find many deposits, while low lvl will mark the body as empty one

[Garfunkel]

Otherwise correct but there are two rolls - first one to see if the team finds anything, the second whether they will continue or not.

[Person012345]

I think what TDS said about the completion roll only coming after a successful mineral roll is correct. I do not recall ever having a team complete other than immediately after they discover a new deposit.

[ShadowLop]

It would be interesting if deposits would require certain ratings to discover. Like having some deposits as rating 100, some as 120, some more as 150, etc. So a team with rating of 130 would find the deposits rated 100 and 120, but would miss the 150 and declare the planet empty, BUT if you bring in a 160 rating team (either a different one or the same one later one) they would be able to discover the missed 150 rating deposit.

Not sure how the game would keep track of or display that data though...

[hikkiko]

new geo mechanic would be much simpler... team rating will speed up geosurvey; only 1 geosurvey per body. this way your lvl 200 team can survey a system twice faster than lvl 100 team

[Khanti]

Aurora 6. 21

What are expected time in days/months for Geo Teams to survey a planet/moon?
I dropped off Geo Team on Luna and it passed some 6 months but nothing happened.
Should I give them additional order to start working?

[Jorgen_CAB]

Just give them time. The larger the body then generally the more time it takes for them to conclude a mineral survey. If the teams experience is low it will take longer, if it is high then it is faster.

[Nibelung44]

sorry, I have posted a similar question in the Academy, but here is probably the best place.

I have 3 geo teams, they are all crappy... Is it still a good idea to put them all of them on the same planet, or am I screwing myself by using poor teams that will fail the 'magical roll' ?

Ratings are 93, 60, 50... Total is 203. Is it equivalent to a super team of 200?