Prospecting

Prospecting in the Star Wars Combine is attempting to find a Raw Material deposit. RM deposits are on every planet and theoretically can be found in every square, however only 1 deposit can be found per square at a time. If the current mineral deposit has been completely mined out the server will re-roll a new deposit on the square which may later be discovered by Prospecting .

Requirements for Prospecting

• Be in the square you wish to prospect.
  
• You must be on the surface of a planet or inside a city to prospect (or above in the atmosphere if using FK-7 speeders).
  
• Be assigned as pilot of a prospecting vehicle.
  
• Be inside the assigned prospecting vehicle.
  

Recommendations

• Have a high Computer Operations skill while prospecting, as this helps against missing deposits.
  
• Use a squadron of 12 prospecting vehicles (yours plus 11 NPC piloted vehicles) when prospecting, so that you can pool your sensors.
  
• Do not initially use all 12 vehicles. For some strange reason the server will not allow another chance for a deposit to be detected if a scan using either more sensors or a greater CompOps skill has already occurred. For example, if you scan with a CompOps of 4, with 12 Groundhogs, you will have a 0% chance of finding a deposit if you scan afterwords with 12, 11, 10, (etc.) vehicles. Likewise, a following prospector with a skill of 4 or lower also has a 0% chance for discovery since the maximum has already been reached no matter how many sensors they use. However a CompOps level 5 prospector will have a chance of discovery since his chance improves upon the previous scans. If a prospector with a CompOps of 5 scans a square with 12 Groundhogs and fails to discover a deposit, currently it is impossible to ever discover a deposit on that square. Therefore it is recommended to scan with the fewest sensors and lowest CompOps skill in the beginning if you would like to discover the deposit under a specific square. However while this method nearly guarantees a Raw Material deposit under every square it is very time consuming and costly since each scan will cost at least 10,000 credits.

==Equations==
Chance of finding = ( 1 + Total Sensors^(Comp Op/30+0.05) ) * Terrain Prob
Sensors: Mining Resource Sensors of Vehicle or Ship scanning
Comp Op: Computer Operation Skill of scanner
Terrain Prob: As follows
Cave 10%
Mountain 10%
Rock 8%
Crater 8%
Desert 5%
River 4%
Jungle 4%
Swamp 4%
Forest 3%
Gas Giant 3%
Grassland 2%
Ocean 2%
Glacier 1%
Volcanic 0%
Sun 0%
Black Hole 0%

Use this chart to figure out exactly what chance you have of discovering a deposit. Find your CompOps level and find the number of FK-7s or SX-65 Groundhogs, and that is your modifier to multiply by the terrain Percentage.

For example: A Prospector with a Computer Operations skill of 4 controls 11 FK-7s, and is scanning on Jungle Terrain. Using the chart his modifier is 3.367 multiplied by the terrain probability of Jungle, at 4. So his chance at finding a deposit is 13.468%

Time Taken for Prospecting = {[( 24 / (Total Sensors/(120 - NPC))0.1) - LOG(9 - Comp)((Comp + NPC + 1) * Total Sensors)] / LOG10(Speed + 1)} / 1.2
NPC: Total NPC working helping with the Prospecting
Total Sensors: Sensors of Vehicle or Item scanning
Comp Op: Computer Operation Skill of scanner
Speed: Speed of Vehicle or PC

Cost of Prospecting = 10000 * (1 + Tax + Crime )
Tax: Tax Level of Planet
==Current Prospecting Vehicles==

• FK-7 Airspeeder (10 sensors)
  
• SX-65 Groundhog (40 sensors)