The Methane Gas Canisters are here to stay, for this reason:
Ezer'Arch said:
Then we would have 2 kinds of containers: Canisters of liquids, and Cylinders for gases, but it would add more things to bear in mind and we don't have many kinds of gases to justify a container only for gases.
My concept is that the Methane Gas canister is like LNG, under high pressure so internally it's (barely) liquid at room temperature. Like this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/LP_gas_cilinder.jpg It's named a "Methane Gas" canister because it's gas that goes into it and gas that comes out of it when you release the pressure.
The Gas Liquefier cools gases to low temperature and also does some additional (unspecified) process which transforms methane into a stable liquid form known as "fuel".
The canister which is suitable for crude oil magically transforms into: a canister suitable for rocket fuel; a pressurised cylinder suitable for LNG; and a Dewar vessel suitable for super-cold liquid oxygen or liquid nitrogen. It's an
abstraction for gameplay purposes, c'mon guys.
At a future stage (GC4?) it's likely that liquid methane will be added to the game as there are lakes of it on outer planets / moons. I have not yet decided about liquid hydrogen and liquid helium, as I don't think those are naturally found anywhere in the Solar System, and industrially it's a different process to make and store them, they are uncommon outside research laboratories and hospitals - in contrast LNG, liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen can easily be made industrially and bought. As my old science teacher used to say, "liquid nitrogen is the same price as milk".
I think the existing names are good names as they should make it clear to most players how to use the canisters, like Methane Gas goes into the Gas Liquefier, and Liquid Oxygen (etc) comes out. NEI also covers it.
As with many of the other recent additions, what this really needs is a high quality page on the Wiki to explain it all ....