Rubber
| Rubber | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Properties | |
| Type | Polymer |
| Made With/By | Chemical production |
| Difficulty of Production | Medium-Hard |
| Exists in Reality | Yes |
| Atomic Number | N/A |
Rubber is a type of synthetic polymer. It has elastic properties, unlike plastic, another type of polymer. Rubber has many useful applications, for example, in the production of various forms of improved armor and hazmat suits, and as a gating material for most post cracked oil machines.
Production
As mentioned before, this is a material that can only be produced after a catalytic cracking tower has been built. This is because the main ingredient – unsaturated hydrocarbons – is only (initially) produced in such a tower.
Unsaturated hydrocarbons can be produced by either cracking crude oil and refining it, or as the direct product of cracking natural gas.
Rubber is then made in a chemical plant with the following recipe:
| Inputs | Outputs |
|---|---|
| Template: Rubber
Duration: 5 seconds |
 500mB      |
Alternate, later methods also exist for producing rubber in an acidizer:
| Rubber from Sour Gas + Latex |  25mB  
|
|---|---|
| Rubber from Cadmium + Fish Oil |  250mB
|
Uses
Rubber has many uses, including as a replacement for latex in all recipes that require that. Initially, that may not be desirable, but as rubber is considerably easier to automate, it will likely quickly supplant any uses of latex, like in the production of conveyors and pneumatic pipes, used commonly in said automation.
| x64 Conveyors |  
|
|---|---|
| x8 Pneumatic Tubes | 
|
| x24 Pneumatic Tubes | 
|
It also has uses in crafting certain machines, and in these cases can't be replaced with latex. A notable example is the ZIRNOX, which is most players' first nuclear reactor.
| ZIRNOX |      |
|---|
Trivia
- Rubber is not the same as latex, as latex is natural, although there are many kinds of natural rubbers in real life.