I actually thought the steel skin would be covered with in insulator layer, such as paper, fiberglass composite, or plastic sheeting, and the gold bonded to tha

I actually thought the steel skin would be covered with in insulator layer, such as paper, fiberglass composite, or plastic sheeting, and the gold bonded to that. Punctures and crushed panels would then be detected by changes in capacitance. And now I'm imagining arcs from improperly grounded inner hulls, so maybe that's not the greatest idea for gold. But if gold resists the barnacle adhesive even a little bit, that's already a major win.