TRIESTE – Batyscaphe
A bit of history :
The Trieste is a deep diving research batyscaphe, built in 1953 by the engineer Auguste Piccard.
It is composed of a large tank of gasoline, an un-compressable fluid, used as a buoyancy chamber and an observation pressure sphere, made to hold two persons. This way, the whole vehicle can dive freely, without being attached to a surface vessel. The design is based on previous similar submersibles, such as the FNRS 2 and 3. After a serie of dives in the mediterranean sea, under the supervision of the French Navy, the Trieste was later sold to the US Navy. After this, it was fitted with a new sphere for the crew, as well as some updated equipments, in preparation for the dive.
In 1960, Jacques Piccard, a scientist, (the son of Auguste) and Don Walsh, a marine biologist and officer in the navy piloted the Trieste to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest place known on Earth. This point, baptised « Challenger Deep » was only reached 4 times in history
Trieste still holds the record of the deepest diving submersible.In April 1963, the Trieste was modified and used in the Atlantic ocean to search for the missing nuclear submarine USS Thresher. In August 1963, Trieste found the wreck off the coast of New England, 2,600 m below the surface.
Today, it’s possible to see the batyscaphe at the National Museum of the United States Navy
In game I tried to recreate this mind blowing contraption the best I could.
Like the real one, only the sphere is accessible.
In order to have an enjoyable experience aboard the Trieste in stormworks, you will have to spawn it via a mission, above an interesting point, or a deep one. The deepest zones can be found in the Arctic. Be sure to follow the following list before diving !
- Be sure to close and seal the access tunnel
- Close the batteries breakers on the right pannel in the sphere
- Lock the access hatch
- Flood the access tunnel
- Fill the ballast 1 to max capacity
- Fill the ballast 2 to about 3200 liters of water
From now you should be starting your descent towards the abyss
To regulate the speed, you will have to drop some of the lead pellets. Be careful, those are precious, and you don’t want to dump all of them in the middle of your plungee ! Once you reached the bottom, coming back to the surface is the simplest : Just release the hoppers and you will ascend back to a more safe and welcoming environement…
If you don’t want to manage the ballast by yourself, I added a few features to make the dive easier.
Under the left seat there is a switch, flip it and the Trieste will automatically fill itself until it reaches neutral buoyancy. You can then use the trim tanks to dive ! Of course those weren’t present on the real one, and it works even without them.
GOOD TO KNOW
- Once filled, the ballast cannot be emptied until you respawn the craft. Proceed with caution when filling them !
- Keep in mind this is a batyscaphe and not a submarine. You can only move using the propellers, and maneuverability isn’t the key word here. Try to limit the movement to strict necessary
- The sodium spotlight take a while to warm up, turn them on before you hit the bottom !
- The different instruments in the sphere can give you a precise estimation of how far you are from the bottom, but keep in mind everything is balanced with water, therefore it has a lot of inertia, brake before the last 10 meters !
Finally, A huge thank to GERUNIMO for giving so much information and being so nice during the development of the Trieste, go check his work of course, he makes the best stuff out there !
Revisions:
Old revisions of this mod are available below. Click the link to download.
