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Posted by: Shadow
« on: March 17, 2010, 10:32:41 PM »

Quote from: "IanD"
In a moment of spare time I wondered on the chemical symbol for the trans-Newtonian elements. Below are the chemical symbols for the trans-Newtonian elements I came up with. I will leave the chemistry for someone else. :x
Posted by: UnLimiTeD
« on: March 16, 2010, 06:11:02 PM »

Side-question: Is the chance to find new minerals the same for any kind of body, so, has an asteroid the same chance of new minerals a planet has?
Also, it seems to me by now that minerals are just added to the current amount, instead of taking the higher value.
I figures I just misunderstood the explanation, any input on this?
Posted by: Hawkeye
« on: March 16, 2010, 11:21:22 AM »

Quote from: "sandman662"
Sort of an odd question within a question, but here goes:

It seems that you can instantly create teams on any of your colonies.  I have a survey team in a system they finish their work, I disband them and then create them on a new colony.  Is there any penalty for doing this instead of moving the team with a ship?

The question within a question is:  I know that you can instantly create a ship using the Fast OB... is that "cheating"?  And if so, is the insta-moving my teams "cheating" as well?  I am learning the game (very slowly) but discovering many things that seem to be in the game that you can "just do" and it sorta feels dirty.

Thanks for any insight.

Yes and no :)

It´s basicly the same as the "assign to any place" checkbox for officers. Which assumes, your bureaucracy takes care of shipping the officers where they are needed, so you don´t have to shuttle them around yourself.

Personaly, I don´t do it for teams.
For one, I usualy have only a small number of teams and they change their workplace only rarely. Second, I would have to disband them, when they have finished work on, say Mars, and could instantly reform it at Titan. This, indeed, would feel like cheating. Therefore, I form the teams on earth and then move them via spaceship wherever they are needed.
Posted by: sandman662
« on: March 16, 2010, 10:55:07 AM »

Sort of an odd question within a question, but here goes:

It seems that you can instantly create teams on any of your colonies.  I have a survey team in a system they finish their work, I disband them and then create them on a new colony.  Is there any penalty for doing this instead of moving the team with a ship?

The question within a question is:  I know that you can instantly create a ship using the Fast OB... is that "cheating"?  And if so, is the insta-moving my teams "cheating" as well?  I am learning the game (very slowly) but discovering many things that seem to be in the game that you can "just do" and it sorta feels dirty.

Thanks for any insight.
Posted by: Another
« on: March 13, 2010, 02:38:14 PM »

If it is indeed chance based with an average of about 1 year then you can get no results in 10 years if you are unlucky or results in the first 5 days if you are lucky. It is normal to get highly deviating times. Geology surveys are not reliable in short term (about 10 years). They are still a nearly free and safe way to get some extra mineral deposits.

As far as I know gas giants can not be colonized at all and you need a colony for any team.
Posted by: randal7
« on: March 13, 2010, 01:26:06 PM »

What is a reasonable time for the first survey to take? I put a team w/skill level 90 on an asteroid and after almost 3 years still had no result. Moved to Phobos, two more years with no result. Moved to Ganymede, results in less than a year. I'm trying to train them up on insignificant bodies as suggested above. Am I just having bad luck on die rolls, or should small bodies really take several years as opposed to around 1 yr for terrestrials?

As a side note, can you survey a gas giant with a team?
Posted by: Balibar
« on: February 03, 2010, 11:23:33 AM »

Have the mechanics of geology survey changed since the last post?  As I understand it, a team with skill of 50 or less will have a 100% chance of having the survey done after the first return.  A team with skill of 140 or more has a 10% chance of having the survey done after each return.  If these are correct, then would it be a good idea to send the team off to asteroids for 'practice' and wait until the skill is 140 or more before doing the survey on Earth?
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: September 12, 2008, 09:27:32 AM »

Quote from: "IanD"
Geology teams are wonderful! Once they reach 150+ they never seem to ?survey out? a location. If you start your teams at 130-135 it doesn?t take them long to reach 150.

 I have found the normal progression is to find up to several megatons initial, then several tens of megatons, then hundreds of megatons. I find accessibility less likely to increase, but give a team enough time.... :D
Yes, it has become apparent that geology teams are too powerful :lol:

Duranium ? Du
Neutronium - Nu
Corbomite - Cb
Tritanium - Tr
Boronide - Bo
Mercassium - Me
Vendarite - Ve
Sorium - So
Uridium - Ur
Corundium - Cn
Gallicite ? Gl

Regards[/quote]
Interesting idea! It won't probably won't be used as part of game mechanics but it adds to the fiction background.

Steve
Posted by: IanD
« on: August 28, 2008, 05:44:45 AM »

Geology teams are wonderful! Once they reach 150+ they never seem to ?survey out? a location. If you start your teams at 130-135 it doesn?t take them long to reach 150.

 I have found the normal progression is to find up to several megatons initial, then several tens of megatons, then hundreds of megatons. I find accessibility less likely to increase, but give a team enough time.... :D .

In a moment of spare time I wondered on the chemical symbol for the trans-Newtonian elements. Below are the chemical symbols for the trans-Newtonian elements I came up with. I will leave the chemistry for someone else. :lol:

Duranium ? Du
Neutronium - Nu
Corbomite - Cb
Tritanium - Tr
Boronide - Bo
Mercassium - Me
Vendarite - Ve
Sorium - So
Uridium - Ur
Corundium - Cn
Gallicite ? Gl

Regards
Posted by: sloanjh
« on: August 16, 2008, 04:52:09 AM »

The original proposal was acc = (amount remaining)/(initial amount).

Steve tweaked this so that acc only begins to drop when amounts are getting low, e.g.

acc1 = min(1, 2*(amount remaining)/(initial amount))
acc = max(0.1, acc1)

The second line (by making sure acc never drops below 0.1) ensures that a mineral will be "mined out" in finite time.

The reason for doing this was to give players a "soft landing" as e.g. Duranium runs out.  In the early games, a planetary economy would be charging along with the same mining production as on Day One, then the next week the mining rate would crash to zero.  The technobabble is that the first material mined is the easiest to get to (think of all the techniques used to squeeze oil out of old wells today).

IIRC, asteroids and comets don't have this slow drop in accessibility - they always stay at 1.0 or 0.9.  The idea here was that they're small enough to be fully accessible.

ERIK - I'm pretty sure the post on this is long gone - this went in very early on (e.g. V0.4).

John

Now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure that asteriods and
Posted by: Father Tim
« on: August 13, 2008, 11:10:59 PM »

I believe it's half.

100% - 50% of mineral remaining --> no change

Below 50%, a mineral's accessability degrades linearly from its original value down to 0.1.  It never goes below 0.1 (so a mineral that was originally 0.1 doesn't degrade).

I can't remember if the linear degradation is calibrated to hit 0.1 acc at 0 tons left, or 0.0 at 0 tons (but in actuality stopping at 0.1, wherever that point happens to be).
Posted by: Erik L
« on: August 13, 2008, 02:00:45 PM »

Quote from: "IanD"
Quote
Accessibility degrades the closer to zero you mine a mineral.

Thanks Eric, my games had never lasted long enough before to ever see this feature. I was a little surprised to see all the other minerals down at 0.1 when they had 25-35K tons left. At what percentage left of a mineral deposit does the accessibility start to fall?

Regards


I'm not sure. I believe there's a post in here somewhere that explains it more fully. I'll see if I can find it.
Posted by: IanD
« on: August 13, 2008, 03:35:53 AM »

Quote
Accessibility degrades the closer to zero you mine a mineral.


Thanks Eric, my games had never lasted long enough before to ever see this feature. I was a little surprised to see all the other minerals down at 0.1 when they had 25-35K tons left. At what percentage left of a mineral deposit does the accessibility start to fall?

Regards
Posted by: Erik L
« on: August 12, 2008, 11:27:15 AM »

Quote from: "IanD"
I'm not sure whether the following is a feature, a bug or my unstable Aurora installation.

I created a geologist team on Earth, they found a few million tons of soruim and corbomite missed in the initial survey and then went off to do other things. It was only when the Homeworld got down to approximately its last 19K tons of duranium that I noticed that the accessibility was down to 0.49 and falling every turn, while every other mineral but sorium and corbomite was down to 0.1 accessibility. The sorium and corbomite stayed at the accessibility assigned by the geo survey team, which may just be a coincidence. Anyone have an explanation?

Regards


Accessibility degrades the closer to zero you mine a mineral.
Posted by: waresky
« on: August 12, 2008, 10:37:59 AM »

dnt know:(
hope Steve answer or some others experts.
see ya