Prospectors and resource discovery

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VGN only

There is a chance, every turn, that in a region with at least one existing but hidden resource, one resource is discovered (and can thus be exploited later with a farm or mine).

The legitimate owner of the region has a base chance (even without unit) to find such a resource, before prospectors can be used. This will depend of the Discovery Chance they have, for a given resource. These chances (for each resource) are entered with the script command ChangeResDiscovery

This command works exactly as the ChangeIntrProd command: you specify a resource alias, a percentage, and a list of faction tags involved in the command (if there is no faction tag specified, i.e the command has only 2 params, then this is the currently selected faction).

If no resource has been found and there is one that is hidden, then prospectors can be used.

A prospector is a unit containing at least one element with one the prospector attribute:

• ProspectorNatOrga*
• ProspectorColOrga*
• ProspectorNatNorg*
• ProspectorColNorg*

The attribute must comes with a value, i.e *ProspectorColOrga* 4, will be 4% chance to discover in a colonial region an organic resource (cattle, dye)

Norg means Non-organic (mineral, like ore, or diamonds, oil, etc.=)

Nat means National (more specifically in this case non-colonial, i.e national or metropolitan but not national)

If the region is a non colonial region, then if the owner is an organized nation, the prospector must be in friendly terms with the nation. If the region is a colonial region or owned by a tribal/disorganized nation, then all prospectors (of all nations) can prospect this turn.

Only one prospector can succeed in finding one resource in a given region over one turn.

The chance of finding a resource is increased (if not zero) by +1% per 5 xp (exported variable resProspectorXPForPerc) of the element bearing the attribute.

Finding a resource nets 10 xp to the prospector (exported variable resProspectorGain)

Prospectors can only find a resource if their owning nation have at least 1% to find such resource in their national territory, even if the % is not used actually (i.e it is possible to add from the start as an hidden resource rubber, and wait for a specific tech to give some nations a % chance to find rubber).

Side note: As the prospectors gain xp, it is possible to allow via their TrainUpg to upgrade automatically to another type of prospector (with a different look, 'experienced prospector').

When a resource is discovered, the discovery is broadcasted with a message to all nations of the globe (as VGN only has a single list of discovered resources per region, not one list per region and per nation). There are 4 different messages, for flavor purposes.