Ground-penetrating scanner

A ground-penetrating scanner detects and illuminates underground deposits of resources, which can be mined with a deep drill.

Acquisition[edit]

Ground-penetrating scanners can be constructed once the Ground-penetrating scanner research project has been completed. Each requires 150 Steel, 4 Components, 1 Advanced component, 12,000 ticks (3.33 mins) of work modified by the construction speed of the builder, and a construction skill of 8.

Once constructed, they cannot be re-installed, they can only be deconstructed.

They can also be found at mining work sites belonging to non-tribal^[Verify] factions, however as they cannot be minified they can only be used on that map or deconstructed.

Summary[edit]

Ground-penetrating scanners consume 700 W of power and do not function under a roof. Scanning falls under Intellectual work. When operating a ground scanner, there is a mean of 180,000 ticks (3 in-game days) of work to find a deposit of ores. Finding a deposit is guaranteed after 360,000 ticks (6 in-game days) of work. These values are then modified by the Research Speed of the operator.

Each deposit can contain one of gold, plasteel, silver, steel, uranium, or jade with a distribution detailed on the table further below. These found ores can then be mined with a deep drill. Scanners technically create ore deposits. You will never find ores with a deep drill without a scanner, and scanners can find an infinite amount of resources in a given map. The scanner will never generate deposits under terrain that does not naturally support light structures nor beyond the buildable area of the map; deposits that would overlap with these areas will wrap around them instead. Newly generated deposits can overwrite tiles from previously found resources, however. Any natural or artificial structure or floor will be ignored when generating a deposit, meaning deposits can appear under mountains and player bases.

The ground-penetrating scanner can only function in biomes that have suitable drillable resources, which does not include asteroids in orbit or the sea ice biome. A warning will be displayed as a notification in the top left if you construct a ground-penetrating scanner in a biome that does not have suitable drillable resources.

Generated deposits are notified through a letter and they can be seen on screen when selecting either a ground-penetrating scanner or installed deep drill as long as one scanner is powered. The underground deposits are displayed with an overlay that colors each deposit tile on a scale from green to red as resources are extracted.

Mineral drilling example. Hovering the mouse over a deposit tile displays the ore and quantity remaining under that tile.
Deposits are generated avoiding the edge of the map and water tiles.

Ores[edit]

The resources contained in a deposit correlates with the size of the deposit. Each cell of resources contains 300 units of the resource. Below is an estimate of the different deposit sizes:

Resource	Deposit size	Deposit mean	Commonality	Portion size	Avg Deposit Return
Steel	20 - 40	~ 30	4	45	9000
Silver	7 - 20	~ 14	0.5	40	4200
Plasteel	2 - 10	~ 7	1	10	2100
Jade	1 - 5	~ 3	0.5	10	900
Gold	1 - 5	~ 3	0.5	10	900
Uranium	4 - 10	~ 7	1	10	2100

Alternative table:

Resource	1-5	6-10	11-15	16-20	21-30	31-40
Steel	-	-	-	-
Silver	-				-	-
Jade		-	-	-	-	-
Gold		-	-	-	-	-
Uranium			-	-	-	-
Plasteel			-	-	-	-

Analysis[edit]

Ground-penetrating scanners can provide minerals, such as steel and plasteel, indefinitely. These resources can bottleneck mid/late game colonies. Ores are finite, traders only carry a few hundred steel each, and smelters are limited by raiders. Each ground deposit provides an average of 9000 steel. As long as you have a decent miner, a ground scanner or two is a worthwhile investment. Even if you don't have a spare researcher to scan for ores, any idle colonist can be set to research to contribute to the scanning effort.

As you can just scan for more ore, it typically isn't worth it to travel halfway across the map for a single deposit. Other than the power consideration, your deep drillers will have to travel a long way back and forth, and will be less secure against raids. If you do need to travel, you might want to create a bedroom and dining area to reduce walking time. The drill can be put in a room with high beauty, to please the miner.

The ground-penetrating scanner itself is not usable if there is a roof over it, though they can be placed in rooms if you need to regulate the temperature. A minimum of 24 tiles is required for temperature regulation; the 9 tiles of open roof will make heating inefficient, but it is possible. Having a larger room with double-thick walls allows for more efficient heating.
Scanning is considered a Research task. Using a research bench or long-range mineral scanner will always be higher priority, and will be done first whenever possible. If you want pawns to actively scan for ore, you can either turn off any of your hi-tech research benches, or set an allowed area that excludes areas with research benches.

Comparison to long-range scanners[edit]

The long-range mineral scanner can find readily mineable ores on the world map, as opposed to ores that need to be drilled. The long-ranged scanner costs the same research as Deep Drill + Ground Scanner combination, though the former is required to research Starflight Sensors.

Long-range scanners create much less ore (2300 vs 9000 average steel), find ores roughly 60,000 ticks (24 in-game hours) slower, and your colonists will have to leave the map to access it. You'll often need to fight hostile threats, you'll need to get there, and any colonists on the trip aren't defending against colony raids. Many ores are very heavy, meaning pack animals or transport pods are needed to get ore back. But long-range scanners have a few key advantages. You can search for a specific mineral, unlike the ground scanner. It is much faster to mine ores than drill at ground deposits. The ground scanner may create deposits near the edges of the map, making it impractical to actually mine them. And while long-range scanners are prone to ambushes, deep drills are prone to infestation events. In biomes where the ground-penetrating scanner doesn't work, the long-range scanner becomes the only way to find mineable ores.

This makes the ground-penetrating scanner a more general, automated way to get material in the lategame and endgame. If you need specific ores, like plasteel or uranium, the long-range scanner is both faster to mine and faster to scan, but requires all the logistics that come with a long-range scanner. Also, which option to prefer can depend on quantity and quality of miners. Ground-penetrating scanners allow multiple miners to drill at 1 large ore deposit, while long-range scanners are fast enough to mine that a single miner is sufficient.

Ideology[edit]

As scanning rates is dependent on Research Speed, the bonuses offered by both research specialists and the Research precept can make for significantly faster returns. This gives research specialists a niche even once all normal research is complete and may warrant maintaining an NPC ideoligion if it grants access to the specialist. Note however that the opposite is also true: Slow research precepts may considerably slow down the scanning speed.

Version history[edit]

Beta 19 - power usage was significantly reduced from 1500W to 800W. Its build cost was also changed, previously costing 400 steel and 12 components.
1.1.0 - Reworked; previously it showed all minerals on the map instantly. Now it requires work by a pawn and will periodically find new mineral patches, forever. Its power cost was also slightly lowered to 700W.
1.1.2564 - Rebalance. Random find time 4 work days->3 work days. Guaranteed find time 8 work days -> 6 work days. Now displays feedback about the current user's scanning speed, the random scan interval for this user, and the progress to a guaranteed find.
1.6.4518 - Fix: Ground penetrating scanner no longer works on sea ice biomes. Fix: Ground penetrating scanner no longer finds ore under bridges.

Architect

Misc: Caravan hitching spot • Egg box • Grave • Marriage spot • Party spot • Pen marker • Sarcophagus • Tool cabinet • Meditation spot • Nature shrine (Large, Small)
(research): Comms console • Cryptosleep casket • Firefoam popper • Ground-penetrating scanner • Long-range mineral scanner • Moisture pump • Multi-analyzer • Orbital trade beacon • Pod launcher • Stele (Large, Grand) • Transport pod • Vitals monitor • Ship landing beacon