Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
Hydrographics represents liquid SOMETHING on the surface ... doesn't have to be water.
For atmospheres A, B, C you get "fluid oceans" of liquids other than H2O ... which can be all kinds of stuff (organic compounds like CH4, C2H6 or C6H6, oceans made of H2SO4 or Cl2, and so on and so forth).
So Europa would be classified as Hydrographics: 0 because there is no LIQUID on the surface of the moon.
The moon is almost entirely H2O (ice) on its surface crust, but none of it is in free standing liquid form pooling on the surface.
There's plenty of H2O there on Europa ... but it's not a surface liquid (which starships can land on, drink up and fly away with).
The UWP is, after all, primarily concerned with reporting the accessibility of starship fuel for wilderness refueling (and the Agricultural trade classifications).
Same deal with Mars.
Mars has Hydrographics: 0 because there is no LIQUID on the surface of the planet.
The real problem with the Ice Capped trade code is that it's too narrowly defined, since ostensibly Mars ought to count as being Ice Capped. Unfortunately, the Ice Capped trade code was created at a time when premature optimizations of the game system (such as Ice Capped) made sense as a way to shorthand notate mainworlds in systems.
For atmospheres A, B, C you get "fluid oceans" of liquids other than H2O ... which can be all kinds of stuff (organic compounds like CH4, C2H6 or C6H6, oceans made of H2SO4 or Cl2, and so on and so forth).
So Europa would be classified as Hydrographics: 0 because there is no LIQUID on the surface of the moon.
The moon is almost entirely H2O (ice) on its surface crust, but none of it is in free standing liquid form pooling on the surface.
There's plenty of H2O there on Europa ... but it's not a surface liquid (which starships can land on, drink up and fly away with).
The UWP is, after all, primarily concerned with reporting the accessibility of starship fuel for wilderness refueling (and the Agricultural trade classifications).
Same deal with Mars.
Mars has Hydrographics: 0 because there is no LIQUID on the surface of the planet.
The real problem with the Ice Capped trade code is that it's too narrowly defined, since ostensibly Mars ought to count as being Ice Capped. Unfortunately, the Ice Capped trade code was created at a time when premature optimizations of the game system (such as Ice Capped) made sense as a way to shorthand notate mainworlds in systems.
