Why CMM Composites are so important?

[SkadiTango]

Could someone please explain all the fuss about CMM Composites? Why are they considered so important and sought after compared to every other materials/commodities when it comes to colonization?

Also, why is it so complicated to understand how they’re produced? I’ve read the other posts, but I’m left with more questions than answers.

Thanks in advance!

 

[ruifo]

Because they are only produced in planetary grounds, and that adds to the flavor mix for colonization materials picking ?

 

[PilotB]

Could someone please explain all the fuss about CMM Composites?

Mostly history, CMM are well understood now but the thread has evolved and people still make the same mistakes.

CMM are only produced by surface refinery ports. They are needed in large quantities and consumed by other economies in large quantities. For many months CMM were The bottleneck in the supply chain. The supply is still fragile you're likely to lose your CMM supply long before you lose steel or titanium but they're not rare anymore. Early on you'd often have to take partial loads of CMM because supply was too low to fill a whole T9 and you needed 15+k of them. That's where this thread started as people had to try figure out the rules by trial and error. Now it's just us yelling stop trying to build refineries on icy bodies.

 

[Tess R Act]

Could someone please explain all the fuss about CMM Composites? Why are they considered so important and sought after compared to every other materials/commodities when it comes to colonization?

Also, why is it so complicated to understand how they’re produced? I’ve read the other posts, but I’m left with more questions than answers.

Thanks in advance!

taking that as a technical question, I assume CMM stands for "Carbon Metal Mesh"-Composite.
Such Composites take the advantages of both compounds favorable properties, hence beeing both leightweight, flexible, iso-& insulating and durable. Makes sense to use them in space-engineering as much as possible - same applies in avionics btw....

About production: usually they are laminated together under rolling-pressure and heat (carbon-baking), utilizing large rolling-rigs/furnaces, which would explain why, same as ceramic omposites, you get them at surface stations only - large space required as well as high enegry consumption.
The exhaust fumes you also don´t want to have in a space-station.....

 

[Morbad]

I hear the microplastics they shed are required to incubate githyanki eggs.

 

[Shurimal]

Now it's just us yelling stop trying to build refineries on icy bodies.

You can actually do that and get plenty of CMM-s along with Al, steel, Ti, ceramic composites, polymers, liquid oxygen, surface stabilizers etc. But you need to build a Scientific surface port--not a Civilian one--to get rid of the planetary influence. You do lose Insulating Membranes, but it's still quite good.

 

[Astrofizzix]

CMM composites used to be produced in fairly low quantities early in the colonization patch. They’ve since greatly bumped up the quantities since then.

I’d say insulating membranes are the new hotness.

 

[Kira Goto]

You do lose Insulating Membranes

You don't get those at surface ports anyway. Space only.