Materials - Why use steel plating when you could have titanium?

[Azimech]

I frequently wondered why so many creations, like huge plated cruisers, are made using steel - very strong but also very heavy.

A new mod or mod extension utilizing the same part models could let the player choose which material he wants for a particular object.

Compared to steel, the price, mass, heat tolerance, crash tolerance, breaking force and breaking torque may differ. It could also be a way to get rid of the effect of lowering mass - more flexible joints.

On this page there are too many materials to choose from, and it's only one parameter, but it's to give an idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_tensile_strength

Not to make everything too complex, I was thinking of the inclusion of titanium, aluminium, carbon and maybe a few alloys.

Such a mod would be fairly easy to build making use of the KSPAPI extensions.

Any thoughts?

[mattinoz]

Depends if the parts in KSP are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maraging_steel