VCS wonder metal?

So, is the VCS represented in game just too expensive to be practical? There seems to be too much of a gap between carbon steel and VCS, as far as COADE is concerned, for it to be incorporated into most steel products.

This is actually something I've been meaning to bring up for a long time. I suppose now I am obliged.

Personally I think VCS tensile given at over 5 GPa may be an error. Two entries offering such numbers can be found on Matweb, and only there to my knowledge, not that my knowledge is extensive by any means. In any case, most steels have numbers in the 500-1200 MPa range. If a decimal were missed out when typing a number like 520.5 MPa, you would have 5205 MPa which is 5.205 GPa. Since the period is not a standard A-Z 0-9 alphanumeric character, there is a slightly heightened likelihood of such an omission occuring during the transposition from manufacturer's specifications to online resources.

Consider also the prime purpose of the steel – tools. Tools tend to be compressed against things rather than tensioned (again, to my knowledge) but the high tensile strength may be a side effect of the raising of more desirable properties. And yet if it is, well, many steels cited as high-strength fall between 2 and 3.5 GPa tensile, and no higher. Militaries have apparently been funding the development of maraging steels with strengths in excess of 3 GPa, and it's somewhat doubtful that they would bother if VCS was already so effective at lower cost (I say only somewhat doubtful because government-funded bodies tend toward exhorbitance).

On the other hand, 5 GPa steel seems perfectly conceivable for a future society to produce, making the whole matter a bit of a moot point, except for the fact that no other materials have such an "add 50% to the stats because future" benefit.

I was informed that many tool steels are not usable for military applications as their strength dramatically changes at super cold temperatures.

Many alloys do not work in large melts, as the various elements seperate via different specific gravity during extended melts. Manufacturing costs rise dramatically if exotic production processes are required.

Finally, ehile VCS may have higher tensile strength than HY80 (structural/hull steel for modern USN ships) it's stiffness is barely any higher, and for the purpose of building large ships, materiel stiffness is just as important as UTS. Infact, high UTS materials without correspondingly high stiffness is pretty much only useful for armor, which is currently mostly disfavored in modern warfare.

I thought VCS was supposed to be high speed steel, like drill bits and such, not harbor freight hammer handle mild steel. I'd be more worried about brittle failure then bending a drill bit, bits are pretty damn hard.