Exploration is an important part of Phoenix. It is used to search for new resources as well as determine where to build outposts. Resources can be classified under three headings. These are mineral based, special and planetary population.

Production converts ores into finished items. As such, new and better sources of minerals are always desired. Mineral deposits can also become exhausted over time, thus forcing searches for new ore sources.

Scanning a planet for minerals is known as Geological Probability Indication (GPI). What this gives is the likelihood of minerals of the type specified being present. The sensor power of the ship also gives an error range in the mineral abundance present. Increasing the sensor power of the ship will reduce the error range, giving a more accurate indication of the ore present.

There are number of ways to GPI a world. The first is a GPI of the entire planet. This takes the average of the ore scanned for over the entire surface area of the world. On a large world, the low general background will swamp a small number of localised deposits. A GPI scan of a designated area can also be conducted. This can be done in order to look at the average over the area. A series of these can be used on large worlds in order to quickly zoom in on a localised deposit by a series of overlapping GPI scans. Scanning rows will allow a ship to sequentially GPI scan every sector in a row for the range of rows indicated. This is slow but does have the advantage of being thorough. Finally a GPI scan can be conducted for a single specific sector.

GPI Scans
GPI scanning is normally conducted from orbit. If the position is landed, then it can only GPI the sector it is located in.

Ores fall into a number of categories. When GPI'ng the player has to select which ore type is being scanned for. Only known ores will be scanned for.

Common
Metals, Basic Elements, Hydrocarbons.

• Excellent Yield - 170+
  
• Good Yield - 150+
  
• Poor Yield - 100-

• Excellent Yield - 80+
  
• Good Yield - 50+
  
• Poor Yield - 30-

• Excellent Yield - 15+
  
• Good Yield - 12+
  
• Poor Yield - 5-

• Excellent Yield - 3+
  
• Good Yield - 1.5+
  
• Poor Yield - 0.8-

• +50% yield
  
• +5/mine environmental effect
  
• +2/mine to excavation of deep core sites
  
• -25% deposit effective size (for every 100mu mined, the stockpile is reduced by 125m)
  
• Mines are 100% visible rather than 10%

• -10% Yield
  
• +25% deposit effective size (for every 100mu mined, the stockpile is reduced by 80mu)

• +1/mines environmental effect
  
• +1/mines to excavation of deepcore
  
• +50% to 10% drop size
  
• +25% deposit effective size (for every 100mu mined, the stockpile is reduced by 80mu)
  
• Mines are 100% visible rather than 10%

• Officers Prospecting Skill
  
• Quality of Survey Equipment
  
• A random factor

• Tectonic Activity of the celestial body
  
• The weather conditions on the planet represented by the optical depth and gravity.

• Yield
  
• Stockpile
  
• 10% Drop
  
• Dispersion
  
• Excavation

Special resources are those that cannot be found through standard actions and require the ship to perform special actions. These are always processed by a human moderator and as such have a real money charge per special action associated with them (Fees). Once a special resource is discovered however, it is added to the data for the game and given a unique identity number (ID#). Once this ID# has been discovered, it can be used by any outpost or starbase in order to exploit the special resources, there is no further need to conduct special actions. As such starbase owners are often prepared to pay for ships to explore the planet for them, rooting out new special resources.

Conducting an expedition to discover special resources is fairly simple. Mapping the surface of the world will produce a map of the various terrains present on the surface of the world. For simplicities sake all terrains of a specific type are considered to have similar ecologies. There may be a few exceptions, although these will be obvious from the results of the explorations.

Armed with a map, ships can then land in each terrain type and perform a 'Surface Exploration'. This will give a description of the terrain surrounding the ship. This may include where appropriate simple descriptions of the flora and fauna or possibly native activity as well as geological features. A surface exploration will not normally reveal any special resources.

Once a surface exploration has been conducted, specific investigations of the features noted in the surface exploration can be conducted. What is believed to be worth investigating is very much open to interpretation by a player. A general rule of thumb though is that abundant special resources are generally obvious. As more and more investigations are carried out, the likely yield and 10% drop for the special resource are likely to drop.

Stockpile
The stockpile may sometimes be shown as infinite. This occurs where the quantity of complexes assigned to exploiting the resource means that it will not exhaust the resource within a 20 year period. As a consequence increasing the quantity of complexes such that the stockpile will be exhausted within a 20 year period will reveal the true stockpile.

Special Resources
They have the same parameters as mineral resources and once discovered are generally treated in pretty much the same way.

They generally also have a 'restock' value. This is the amount of increase in the 'vein' each week. Where a yield is excellent, but the vein is poor, a decent restock may well allow an outpost to exploit one resource for a period of time until it has exhausted the resource, then swap to another, allowing the first resource to replenish itself.
Restock is calculated weekly and may be a fixed amount for example 200mu/week or may be a %. Where it is % it is calculated on the existing stockpile. Examples that have a % restock include organic resources such as creatures where the restock represents their ability to breed. In such cases exploiting the resource may at some point prevent increase of the stockpile.

Origin
Certain items producible by special resource complexes are classed as unique. This means that they are not found on any other world. As such they have an origin, this being the world they are produced on.

Items with origins have a variable value when sold by a starbase to a planetary population. The price that the planetary population are willing to pay is proportionate to the distance between the origin and world where they are being sold.

Example of a series of investigations
The player first landed in a forested region of the planet and performed a surface exploration. From this the player then decided to investigate the trees and the creatures present. These led to further areas that the player thought might be interesting. In the table below, the bold type is the title of the special action presented by the player (they may have put a note about how they intended to perform the investigation). The response written by the referee follows.

Surface Exploration of Forest The forests of Trath are dark cool and humid. The cries of many arboreal creatures can be heard far above in the canopy. There are localised stands of trees. Pine trees primarily forest upper slopes while deciduous trees, overlooking the many small streams, dominate the valleys.
Investigate Trees The trees form ancient groves and although pines are sometimes found in a grove of deciduous trees, the soil chemistry is generally responsible for obvious suitability of each species. ID#:12467 Resource: Hydrocarbons (3) Yield: 120mu 10% Drop: 5 Abundance: 100000mu Restock: 100mu			Investigate Many Arboreal Creatures There are many species present although for the most part they appear to have no exploitable value. One species appears to dominate the valleys. This creature clings to branches, never descending to the ground.
Investigate Pine Tree The pine trees growth to heights of a few tens of metres in height. Beyond their resource as wood, there is nothing specific about these trees. Most are pinecone bearing.	Investigate Deciduous Tree The deciduous trees require plenty of water and considerable amounts of light. There are many fruit trees present although it is found that the arboreal creatures tend to prefer to feast on a fruit that looks similar to a plum. The seeds from the fruit in general are largely voided through the intestinal tracts of the arboreal creatures. ID#:22211 Resource: Fruit (30000) Yield: 100mu 10% Drop: 30 Abundance: 50000mu Restock: 100mu		Investigate Clinging Creature The thick fur of these creatures proves to the be only part of the creature with commercial value. ID#:12241 Resource: Fur (30010) Yield: 40mu 10% Drop: 10 Abundance: 5000mu Restock: 10mu
Investigate Pinecones The pinecones contain an interesting compound that can be exploited as a drug. ID#: 21347 Resource: Trath Pinecone (30225) Yield: 5mu 10% Drop: 1 Abundance: 200mu Restock: 1mu	Investigate Deciduous Plum Analogues These are the favoured food of the arboreal creatures and prove to be a firm favourite with the exploration team. ID#:148711 Resource:Trath Fruit (32170) Yield: 10mu 10% Drop: 2 Abundance: 500mu Restock: 5mu	Investigate Seeds The seeds are collected by the team and after a series of tests are found to have no commercial value

In the example it can be seen that new avenues can be further investigated. There are the streams to look at, possibly some soil samples to take. Further investigation into the other arboreal creatures. A player may even be interested in collecting seeds from the Trath Plum Tree and seeing if they can be planted on other worlds. This though invariably requires the use of research facilities, i.e. the assistance of a starbase or outpost.

The player may even sell the information about the Trath Plum Trees to a starbase built on this world. This will require the two players to contact each other and work out some kind of deal.

Standard Investigations
As well as Surface Exploration and Investigation, there are a number of other special actions that are routinely undertaken.

Surface Exploration – This is conducted while landed on a world. The special action will explore the terrain. To keep things simple, it is assumed that all terrains of the same type are approximately the same.

Investigate XXXX – where XXXX is a specific feature of either a previous exploration or investigation.

Subsurface Scan – This again is conducted while landed and will reveal some aspect of the geological processed involved in the formation of the terrain. It also might reveal some minerals that are not revealed by standard GPI’ing.

Orbital Scan – This is conducted while in orbit. It will generally reveal something about the region of space close to the world. It will detail rings if they are present as well as other anomalous features.

Low Pass Scan – This is again conducted while in orbit. It will reveal some general aspects about the surface and where appropriate the atmosphere. It will also check for anomalies on the surface.

This is an example of the method used to survey a world. Following this will give a very good indication of what is to be exploited on the world.

• Planet Scan – gives map showing various terrains to explore.
  
• GPI World (all ores) – reveals some basics of what can be exploited.
  
• Orbital Scan – always good to check for anomalies.
  
• Low Pass Scan – as above, may also reveal some important features.
  
• GPI areas, rows or sectors for minerals.
  
• Land at each terrain type – then perform the following:
  
• Surface Exploration – gives some idea what to investigate.
  
• Subsurface Scan – geological surveys can prove useful.
  
• Investigate XXX – where XXX is some interesting aspect as revealed by the previous special actions.
  
• Prospect – only if the sector has revealed itself to contain minerals in abundances worth exploiting.

• All special actions should have a single goal.
  
• Keep special actions brief.
  
• Avoid any ambiguity.
  
• Never attempt to circumvent standard actions.