Personal Computer News


North Sea Oil
By Shards
Dragon 32

 
Published in Personal Computer News #059

North Sea Oil

This strategy/simulation game is written by an offshore engineer. Somewhere in the North Sea is an oilfield; all you've got to do is find it, extract the oil, and reach a target of $100 million. You are cast in the role of Offshore Installation Manager - you're responsible for anything and everything.

To reach that important target, you have a weekly budget of $1 million to spend, and a workforce of 200. You can spend money on drilling parts, maintenance spares, food or berths for replacement crews.

Depending on how you divide up your cash, your crew abroad the rig will starve, get too fat or drilling will stop due to lack of parts. Underspend or overspend means re-doing your sums. Next, you navigate the supply ship out to the oil rig. A chart is displayed with details of wind and tide.

North Sea Oil

Your vessel moves ten knots; the rig is moored 260 miles out, so it should take 26 hours to reach the rig. However, the elements throw you wildly off-course. The more attempts and the longer you need to reach the rig, the more of your supplies are washed overboard.

Once on the rig, the workers divide into drillers, maintenance men and services. The number of wells you can drill is dependent on the size of the workforce and the amount of supplies left on the rig. You can drill for oil wherever you wish, except for the shadows, and different wells have different yields.

Once all the wells have been dug, a page of details about the status of the rig appears. You are told why drilling has stopped and whether you need to allocate some of the next budget to replacement crews. A balance sheet gives you progress - or lack of it. So it's back to Aberdeen, buy more supplies then navigate out to the rig again. A game which requires foresight and planning.

Geof Wheelwright

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