Puzzled

[Brucato]

I have an excavation mission that I am not sure how to start it. The mission window says assign a scientist to start excavating, but when I click on the personnel box, it tells me it must be within my empire??? Well I have a Starport there, and all planets have been discovered and research and resource stations have been built. It is clearly within my borders on the galactic map so I dont understand what is going on. I DO have a scientist that is not assigned so its not like I need to recruit a scientist to assign to this mission.

Also, once you assign a scientist to a science ship, is there a way to "unassign" him except to assign a different person?

[Shadow Order]

You need to have your scientist assigned to a science ship, and then they should be available to excavate. They will fly the science ship over to the excavation site and remain in orbit until finished or given other orders. You can also select a science ship with a scientist assigned and right-click on the excavation site to give the order to excavate.

[RCMidas]

There's a unique semi-exception to this: if this is the Sursect system discovered by pursuing the investigation into the background of Exakeides the Vagrosian, which you'll already have used him for three special projects in different systems to get that far, you'll also need to use him specifically to dig up that last site. And with the last DLC, you can in fact dig outside of your borders if you take the Archivism tradition, but that's not the situation you're in from what you've said.

Unassigning a scientist from a ship is usually unnecessary and I don't think there's an option for that exactly. If you need them elsewhere in your empire, such as aboard another ship on the other side of it, you can just select that science ship and assign them to it from where they were. Having a few "spare" science ships at key locations around your empire for rapid scientist responses is something I've gotten used to doing as of a few games ago.

[Brucato]

Thanks everyone. I figured out the problem......commonly known as operator error. When I clicked on the mission from the mission screen (top icon left menu bar). It opened up the missions screen. When I click on the Seeds of Destruction mission it opens up the mission and I click on view site which gives additional information. So I thought I was ON the site at that moment, but I was in another system at that particular time. I neglected to click the camera, top right, which takes you TO the actual planet/asteroid or whatever. When I did that, then I could see the system wasnt completely surveyed and so no starport existed and was not inside my empire's boundaries. A simple oversight like this can cause so much heartburn hahaha. Gotta admit....there is no lack of depth to this game.

[Kalemenos]

Originally posted by Brucato:

So I thought I was ON the site at that moment...

Yes, it's always good to double check that you're on the site you think you are. I don't know whether it's me just rushing, but early game when there are lots of "anomalies" and whatnot,sometimes I presume I'm giving one ship and order in system X, but the game thinks it's a different ship or different system. Or when I just discover a new empire, I click "go to," and it sends me to limbo.

Originally posted by Brucato:

Also, once you assign a scientist to a science ship, is there a way to "unassign" him except to assign a different person?

Not really, but I use this work-around: assign him to a different ship or task, and that empties the ship. Then restore the original scientist to that ship or task - then he's unassigned, and everything else stays the same.