At the risk of cracking open another can of annelids, do you guys know whether the %s under discussion refer to a statistical probability or a statistical distribution? Those are two fundamentally different ways to express the likelihood of finding any one material but they both use percentages. Seems to me the Composition stat is an indication of statistical distribution, but it could very well be (and most likely is) related to the entire planetoid, which means, if Stellar Forge is true to physics, that the 13.8% metal in Para Handy's example above would be primarily concentrated at the core, making any use of that number to determine surface composition (and thus also probability) for metals rather vague. Cosmically vague, pardon the pun.
The list of %s seems more like a breakdown of statistical probability, which would also take into account any non-native depositions from meteorites. The thing about statistical probabilities is that they are like slot machines -- every pull of the handle has the same chance of coming up 4 cherries, but it is a slim chance. So maybe you hit the As jackpot five times out of 100 instead of 2.6 times, it does not mean the percentages are inaccurate, just that you got lucky. The only way to check the percentages for accuracy is by taking an absurdly large sampling, greater than 50% of the entire planetoid. Plus, if generation of available resource features is procedural instead of fixed over the entire planetoid at the moment of instancing, that whole effort would be wasted, as the game is then a local affair, with the probabilities changing as you change location and new resource instances crop up.
So, all the numbers could very well be very accurate, but we Commanders are still left with little more than a "very rough guide to what is there and of course what is not."
You have nailed it Chip.
As I already tried to present.
There are multiple percentages at work here.
There is the percentage of the composition of the body and in the case of the Materials that is the percentage of the percentage of the body that is metal which would include the meteorites.
Then there is the percentage probability of finding something and that is weighted by:
1. the RARITY of the material.
AND
2. The percentage probability of finding the type of formation/meteorite that would contain that material.
Over the coarse of any large set of attempts the success rate should even out at the mean for the combination of all the percentages.
On the other hand it is possible to have a run of luck and hit on the extremes (both NEVER finding something and having it run out your ears) several times in a row.
Now, based on several people observing that they think they have better success finding meteorites on icy bodies, there could also be an unknown additional DEV inserted twisted percentage based on type of body, ie, icy, rocky but I cannot think of any scientific support for making such a differentiation. BUT, there is scientific support for the distribution of the percentage metal on the bodies around the star based on the star type. Some star types would be more likely to produce higher metal content planets/moons.
I think PH, who apparently has spent a lot of time wandering around on low metal planets looking for something that, while not rare, is not abundant, and not finding any has just had the Statistics Force smile on them to get the total statistical balance back into harmony.
This of course is heresy to a pure mathematician but to us lay people, it appears to happen and the people that run casinos depend on that belief to keep the losers coming back.
Me, I will keep playing the percentages and if I am looking for Tellurium I will go to system "X" in my spreadsheet. .8% of 100% should make it about twice as common as 1.3% of 32.9% in either system "D" or "H".
