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Helgoland Underwater Laboratory

The Helgoland Underwater Laboratory was constructed in 1968 by Dräger for the Biological Institute of Heligoland (BAH), and operated by the Society for the Promotion of Nuclear Energy in Shipbuilding and Naval Technology (GKSS), from 1969 to 1981. It was donated to the German Oceanographic Museum in 1998, where it is currently on display.

The main habitat contains a heater, two diving suits, assorted survival equipment, a lot of hand painted signs, and more. You can use the legs to level the habitat out if it is on uneven terrain, the controls are located on each individual leg.

In addition to the main habitat, several miniature self-contained stations, called depots, were positioned nearby, and could be used by divers as a rest point. The complex also consisted of a chamber that could be used to practise underwater welding and salvage techniques, and a hydrophone array. Electricity, compressed air and communications were provided to the habitat via a life support buoy.

To operate the Life Support Buoy - Turn on the two breakers, coolant and fuel pumps; set the governor to at least 0.5; turn on the starter; turn on the umbilical breaker and lower the umbilical. The umbilical attaches to the underside of the habitat, look for a grey electrical connector. WARNING - Thanks to the 1.0 update, cables sometimes become completely rigid unless you detach and reattach them, so make sure to do that!

The depots are equipped with some survival gear, a space to recharge diving suits, and flashing lights to aid in locating. They have a very small battery so you must connect an electrical cable between them and the main habitat to provide uninterrupted power. There are six anchors on the exterior of the habitat. WARNING - Also thanks to the 1.0 update, the player hitbox while swimming is much larger than it should be, making entering the depots more difficult than it was before the update. I provided padded seats to aid in getting inside them but it's still very clunky.

The welding chamber contains, well, welding torches, some other equipment and a space to recharge diving suits. Like the depot, this has limited power so make sure to connect it to the habitat. Also like the depot, 1.0 made it more difficult to enter and exit, so I provided seats and handles to aid in getting inside.

The included mission spawns the entire Helgoland complex off the east coast of the Sawyer islands, in about 20m of water. To spawn the mission - open the mission in the editor, test the mission, and a marker will appear showing you the location of the mission. WARNING - The mission doesn't entirely work properly for various reasons; sometimes the depots or welding chamber will fail to appear, or the habitat will be partially flooded. To fix these issues, just respawn the mission until it works.

I recommend the use of GERUNIMO's RV Sabina to visit the habitat!

I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it!