MS Estonia
The MS Estonia was a cruiseferry that operated on the route between Tallinn, Estonia, and Stockholm, Sweden. She had previously sailed on various routes between Finland and Sweden, changing names, owners and appearance several times over the course of her career. Originally, she was called Viking Sally. Then she was renamed Silja Star, then Wasa King, and finally Estonia. Following her acquisition by the Estline shipping company in 1993, she became a much beloved symbol of Estonia’s independence from the recently dissolved Soviet Union.
In the early hours of September 28, 1994, rough seas broke the Estonia’s bow visor and eventually caused it to fall off. Her bow ramp was pulled open in the process, which left her car deck exposed to the waves. The Estonia capsized and sank within an hour, killing 852 people and leaving only 137 survivors. The majority of the victims became trapped inside the ship as the rapidly worsening list made escape impossible. It was the greatest disaster ever to occur in the Baltic Sea during peacetime.
This is a 1:1 recreation of the MS Estonia, which I’ve been working on for over a year now. It includes most of the ship’s interiors, which I’ve recreated from the Viking Sally’s blueprints, as well as from authentic photographs and video recordings that I’ve managed to dig up from the internet. While not a perfect replica, it should nevertheless give the player a decent idea of what the ship looked like.
The ship is still a work in progress and gets updated every now and then.
- (Required) Low physics detail. Playing on any other setting may prevent the two ship halves from connecting properly on spawn.
- (Required) Infinite electric.
- (Recommended) No engine overheating. The cooling systems are basic and don’t work very well, especially not those of the generators.
- (Recommended) No vehicle damage. This prevents the ship from taking collision damage from its own moving parts.
When spawning this ship, it’s recommended that you don’t stay in the ship’s spawn location while it loads. This will likely cause your game to crash, or at least result in extreme lag. To avoid this, you can use the map to teleport to its spawn location, so that the ship is loaded through the resulting loading screen instead of inside the game world.
- Go to the control room by the engine room. It’s located towards the stern on the deck below the car deck.
- Turn the key in the control panel.
- Flip every switch in the room.
- Start up the generators. The output of each generator needs to be at least 0.20 for the main engines to run. This is an arbitrary limitation that I’ve imposed to create the impression that the generators actually do something.
- Go to the bridge and start up the main engines like you normally would.
NOTE: You can bypass the need to start up the generators by entering the PIN code 1980 on the keypad by the steering wheel. 1980 is the year Viking Sally was launched.
The sinking program requires large waves to work. Specifically, a fluid meter at the bottom of the bow visor needs to be submerged 5 times by at least 3 meters. This step can be skipped by quickly pressing the "Start simulation" button 3 times.
