SuggestionAdd repeats to ground survey sites.
Refers to mechanics from this post by Steve:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg107705#msg107705Repeating ground survey sitesAdd a new value to ground survey sites when generated, for number of times the ground survey can be repeated on that planet. (I'll call this
Repeats)
Ground survey can repeat as long as the ground survey site's repeats is 1 or more.
Each time the ground survey is completed, the repeats is reduced by 1, and the survey points needed to complete are reset.
When repeats reaches 0 the ground survey potential is exhausted and is removed.
Changes to ground survey completionThe multipliers (
Step 2 from Steve's post) based on potential should be reduced.
If a mineral deposit is generated by the ground survey and a deposit of that mineral already exists on the system body, the existing deposit is increased (not replaced) by the amount rolled, and the accessibility is increased by one tenth of the accessibility rolled.
(Sidenote: the current 'replace' approach rewards holding off on doing a ground survey until all deposits are exhausted.)
The "HalfOriginalAmount" and "OriginalAcc" should be increased by the same values.
Increasing difficulty of repeated ground surveysAdd a new number to system bodies, called "Ground surveys completed".
The number of survey points required to complete a ground survey increases by the number of ground surveys already completed on this planet.
The deeper you go, the slower it gets.
So a survey site with a high number of repeats will take a long time to fully survey.
System / Planet generation changesWhen generating a ground survey site, roll for number of repeats it has based on diameter and density of planet. (Larger and more dense planets have a higher number of repeats).
On average repeats should be around 3 for a Earth sized / density planet.
3 repeats should give roughly the same total reward (in terms of amount) as a ground survey currently does.
You should end up with the same total bonus amount, but more spread between minerals.
Repeats distribution should be similar to potential distribution. I.e: 3 repeats << 60%, 2 or 4 repeats << 20%, 1 or 5 repeats << 10%, 6 repeats << 6%, 7 repeats << 3%, 8 repeats << 1%.
Add global modifiers for minerals and ground survey potentialAdd a game settings global modifier to Mineral abundance. This is a global multiplier. Whenever system abundance is used in a calculation, multiply it by this as well. Default: 100%
Add a game settings global modifier to Ground survey abundance. This is a global multiplier to the frequency of ground survey sites, and the number of repeats per survey site. Default: 100%