Teams

Teams allow to conduct various projects across the Empire. There are four types of teams: Xenology, Diplomatic, Espionage and Survey. Each team comprised of up to five leaders, from all areas of your officer corp - scientists, navy, ground and administration. Xenology is used when exploring and utilizing ancient alien ruins; diplomatic helps improve relations between you and another Empire; Espionage is used to increase your knowledge and understanding of another Empire and Survey is used to find more minerals, or increase the accessibility of minerals on a planet/asteroid/comet.

Mechanics

Teams assignments are accessible from the Teams/Academy tab located within the Population and Production window F2. When assigning teams only those leaders with the relevant bonus will appear in the list. Assigned 'Team rating' effects it performance in the field, and is equal to the sum of the appropriate bonuses of its members.

As teams go about their work, it is possible for individual members to drop out due to death or illness, so periodic checks are recommended. If anyone dies or retires, you can replace them either by disbanding the team and reassembling the squad, or assigning officers to a team via the Officer Corps window.

Teams can be transferred to their destination via ships. They do not require any cargo space and any ship can transfer them. When assigning leaders to Teams selecting a population location before creating the team, will cause the team to appear at that location. A time saver if you want to set up a geological survey at a prospective new mining colony. To move an existing team in this way, select it, disband and then create it again in the new site.

Types of Teams

Espionage

Espionage teams are led by Civilian Administrators and Officers. Used to increase your knowledge and understanding of rival Empires. They gather information on enemy ship designs, missile designs, system maps, gravitational survey results and other important information. They can be killed in action when operating on an alien world.

Diplomacy

Diplomacy teams are led by Civilian Administrators and Officers. Help to improve relations between you and another Empire; Diplomatic teams try to help your relations with other empires.(NPRs). Their location is not relevant to their assignment. Once created, they are activated in the Intelligence/Diplomacy window Ctrl + F5.

Xenology

Xenology teams are used to explore ancient alien ruins discovered via orbital survey. They study ruins until they learn enough about the alien species to permit recovery to begin.

Xenology teams are led by Scientists and Officers. The team skill is 'Xenology bonus', so you will need five team members with decent survey skills on site.

Geology

Geology Teams carry out more detailed survey of planets, trying to find any mineral deposits that might have been missed by the orbital survey. They may find a new deposit of a mineral that has previously been mined out, additional deposits of an existing mineral or even a way to increase the accessibility of an existing mineral. One or more successes are possible but more often than not the results fail to produce any positive results.

• Geology teams may be staffed by Scientists and/or Officers with some degree of survey skill.
• The work in doing any geological Survey is meticulous, so five team members with at least some degree of survey skills are required.
• The higher the team's skill, the faster they finish the survey. (The chance of completing a survey team check during one year is based on a combination of planet size and team skill. The formula is (1000 / BodyRadius^(1/3)) * (TeamSkill / 100) )
• The team's skill has NO IMPACT on what is found, only on how quickly the survey can be completed.
• While involved in their surveying efforts, members of the team may gain a small amount of experience and survey skill regardless of whether new deposits of minerals are discovered or not. Interestingly enough it seems that when one member of the team learns something, all 5 do.
• Ground based Geology surveys are limited only to bodies that have been preliminarily been surveyed from space.
• Failure to find anything from space does not preclude the ground based team from finding minerals on bodies previously thought to be barren.

In order to survey the mineral resources of a system body, a geological team only has to be dropped on the body. Dropping a geological team on a planet will automatically create a new colony if this planet was empty. Obviously, gas giants are not a valid destination. The survey will take place automatically, you don't have to give specific orders to your team.

Once the survey is done, the Geological Team Survey Completed field (F2 screen, Summary tab) will be set to 'Yes'.

Backstory Babble

Said one Geo-Survey Veteran after his first success in over 100 tries. "Well, at least we never lost any minerals! And I've learned a lot that will help me when I finally qualify for a survey ship." The veteran "rock hound" went on to add " I don't know how the tradition started but you know many of us on the Ground Based Geo-Survey teams never actually go to the bodies we are tasked with surveying. Most of the REAL work involves reviewing the mountains of data collected by the orbital geo-survey ships. Sure, some of the old school rock-hounds still insist on traveling to the bodies they're tasked with, but most of us younger folk are quite content to sit in a small office here in the capital. The bureaucracy humors the old school folks a bit too much I think. Did you know we're actually listed on the colony rosters just as if we actually were on the planets? I like tradition as much as the next guy but it has caused me some grief I can tell you. Have you ever been to the the inter-steller dead letter office? My mail seems to get routed way to the back of beyond on an almost weekly basis.