The drop modules dedicated exclusively to survey teams and a single use planetary shuttle are an interesting idea. Forgive me if this is covered somewhere and I missed it, but how many colonists does a shuttle seat? I'm assuming from the description of its use that the entire survey team returns to the colony ship with it, so maybe 6 to 10 people? I imagine the crew would consist of something like the following: a pilot, copilot, radio operator, doctor/medic, engineer/technician, security specialist, botanist, wildlife biologist, geologist, meteorologist, and… I don't know. What do you think? I realize the team would likely have been chosen by the command crew, but an interesting variation on the colony game would be to give the players a team already assembled in cryo, packed away in one of the shuttle drop modules.

That's a good question!

At the very least I'd imagine a botanist, biologist, geologist, meteorologist and engineer. A chemist might make sense to: someone to test for contaminants in the air or soil. Some sort of agriculturalist might also be important. Of course they'll need a pilot to fly the shuttle back into orbit, but in a longer survey mission taking weeks or months, that might be too specialized of a role by itself. After all, what would a specialized pilot do for months as they wait to fly back up? I'd imagine that one (or likely several) of the others have pilot training as well and can step up when the time comes. Security is in a similar position.

As far as how many people are sent out on the survey mission? 6 to 10 makes sense. I'd imagine that they'd want to keep the number as small as is reasonable, given the need to chemical rockets to get back into orbit.