Water from ROVER and Power Generator( Proposal of draining water that is created as product in equipement that use methane as fuel )
This is how methane is used as a fuel:
CH4 + 2O2 --> CO2 + 2H2O As you can see - water is one of the products.
(there is a small fraction of CO and C as a product also).
CO2 is released to the atmosphere, since we have no practical use for it.
H2O however is priceless on mars.
I propose that it should be condensed and gathered on tanks.
The equipement that uses methane are: Power Generator and ROVER.
From every mole of oxygen you load onto them, you would gain one mole of water.
We do have the technologies to condense that water easily,
like WAVAR (
http://hyperkat.com/litterbox/index.php?topic=342.0), halit water condensation,
higroscopic water adsorption etc..
In theory, we have technologies that could gather even 99,99% of water produced that way.
But since it's a game, counting random losses of water in production proces and becouse synthesizing
water isn't the primary function of rover and PG, we could asume that 90% of water could be recycled.
That means for every mole of oxygen you load you would get back 0,9 mole of water as a by-product.
Where would it ba gathered?
Both rover and power-generator, would have a third tank - water tank. It would gather the producted water.
Since synthesizig water in that way is a very long proces, and accounting
water-transport problems (piping, logistic problems) water would be stored only in those tanks (not transported automaticly)
and player would have to drain them every now-and-then, to gain some extra water. It would be another job to for the players to do.
What would hapen if the water tank was full?
The machine wouldn't stop. The excess water would be just released to martian atmosphere, and be lost forever.
