This post got me thinking if perhaps there are actual plamet classes not grounded in copywritten trek(TM).
After doing some searvhing, it turned out that... there is not quite... but there are a number of good similar things that have a great saimulation friendly naming scheme
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_potentially_habitable_exoplanets had a full listing:
- ESI: Earth similarity index (0-1) based mathmatically on radius, density, escape velocity, & surface temperature
- SPH: Standard Primary Habitability (0-1) based on surface temperature & relative humidity to indicate how habitable for primary producers (plants) that the planet is likely to be
- HZD: Habitable Zone Distance (+/-N) Distance from the center of the star's habitable zone, scaled so that –1 represents the inner edge of the zone, and +1 represents the outer edge. HZD depends on the star's luminosity and temperature and the size of the planet's orbit.
- HZC:Habitable Zone Composition Measure of bulk composition, where values close to zero are likely iron–rock–water mixtures. Values below –1 represent bodies likely composed mainly of iron, and values greater than +1 represent bodies likely composed mainly of gas. HZC depends on the planet's Mass & Radius
- HZA:Habitable Zone Atmosphere Potential for the planet to hold a habitable atmosphere, where values below –1 represent bodies likely with little or no atmosphere, and values above +1 represent bodies likely with thick hydrogen atmospheres (e.g. gas giants). Values between –1 and +1 are more likely to have atmospheres suitable for life, though zero is not necessarily ideal. HZA depends on the planet's mass, radius, orbit size, and the star's luminosity.
- pClass: Planetary Class Classifies objects based on thermal zone (hot, warm, or cold, where warm is in the habitable zone) and mass (asteroidan, mercurian, subterran, terran, superterran, neptunian, and jovian).
- hClass: Habitable Class: Classifies habitable planets based on temperature: hypopsychroplanets (hP) = very cold (< −50 °C); psychroplanets (P) = cold; mesoplanets (M) = medium-temperature (0–50 °C; not to be confused with the other definition of mesoplanets); thermoplanets (T) = hot; hyperthermoplanets (hT) = very hot (> 100 °C). Mesoplanets would be ideal for complex life, whereas class hP or hT would only support extremophilic life. Non-habitable planets are simply given the class NH.
Making non-fluffuse of them in GCIII is probably unlikely U'd guess, but maybe an expansion/GCIV could make good use of them to make borders less impermiable. Maybe what makes a great planet for race A B C &D are all slightly/wildly different & instead of just heavy G world/toxic world/etc colonization there could be whole lines that give the researching race the ability to treat planets X above/below their habitable zone as habitable so the same tech might affect different races differently
