Deadliest Catch Season 1 King Crab

Dutch Harbor, Alaska: I took command of the Fish Bait, a 99 foot crab boat that has a 150 pot capacity and a 170,000 lbs tank capacity. The crew I hired for this first outing is: Buster (Deck Boss), Tom (Engineer), Josh (Medic), Mike (Bait Boy) and Kayl (cook). At the dock I took on no additional fuel or crab pots and loaded the maximum allowable bait of 1,250 lbs.

The opening balance on the books for Fish Bait is $100,000. The bait purchase of $750 made the “Set Sail” account balance $99,250. These things are important to note when playing Alaskan Storm as it is possible to run out of the money needed to make required repairs during an offseason, and if that happens the game immediately ends and the career is over.

Deadliest Catch King Crab Season II

The second season of the Shellfish or “Green Machine” as I refer to her starts in Dutch Harbor on Wednesday, November 8^th. I begin this season with an account balance of $188,897. This amount is derived by taking the amount I left harbor with at the start of last season, $67,511 and adding to it the profits earned of $191,983 for a balance of $259,494 (less the forced automatic deduction for Structural Maintenance and Upgrades of $70,000 and $597 in miscellaneous expenses).

On top of the forced structural charge (from prior experience with this game it cannot be avoided) I add  upgraded hydraulics for $60,000, a large tank pump for $15,000, kitchen amenities for $4,000, crane maintenance for $24,000 and finally $5,000 for electrical work. This $108,000 in additional costs for the boat drops my account balance down to $80,897.

Deadliest Catch Opilio Crab Season I

This outing is the second of my career on the Shellfish, and the first opie crab season to go in the books. I started my career with $100,000 equity in the company and netted $293,257 in profits at the end of the last season. Less $10,352 in expeditures prior to getting underway (fuel, pots and bait) this gave me a season ending balance forward of $382,905.

Starting the first opie season of my career (the second season overall) brings me to the Maintenance and Upgrades menu for the first time. This will be a feature between seasons from this point forward and represents the largest expenditures a boat captain/owner will experience during a career. In this section many items can be selected which directly affect the game play.

Deadliest Catch King Crab Season I

This post will be the first entry in my new career in the game Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm. If you are unfamiliar with this life simulation, I suggest that you read my previous blog post in which I got back into the game after an absence of over a year. I learned a great deal in that dry run (no pun intended) as well as a subsequent test season that told me some important things about how to handle the game.

For this effort I started the career on intermediate difficulty which encompasses the following: pots payload and ice buildup have a reduced effect, chances of breakdown are slightly reduced, crab schools move and deplete at a slower rate, chances of crew injury are reduced and crew morale and fatigue go down slower. Based on previous experience with this game, this is enough of a challenge.

King Crab Season One (Career Abandoned)

Sometime yesterday I jumped over to my Windows XP gaming rig and when there I started a fresh career in Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm by developer Liquid Dragon Studios and designer Greenwave Games. The game was released in the summer of 2008; however I did not stumble across it until some three years later. After spending a ton of time in this life simulation, I hung it up out of frustration.

That frustration was/is born from the absolute monotony of the game: I have never been (and never will be) a Bering Sea fisherman, however if the show is even the slightest indication of how things go along in a day-in day-out basis, then this game fairly nails it. Completing just a single season of King Crab or Opilio Crab can take several hours of game play even if cruising in “Fast Time” to your next string.

Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm Notes

After playing through several seasons, there are some things of note: The season - King or Opie - never seems to last more than 4-5 days. After you hit 100 hours, expect the season ending in 24 hours notification to be right around the corner. It seems the game will fine you for fishing out of season if you have pots in the water not yet pulled when the season ends. I have not yet pulled into harbor after the season ended but with no pots in the water when it ended, so I hope the game doesn't fuck you there.

But given the fines, you might as well pull the pots anyway and be paid for the catch because you are going to be fined. My biggest season was when I was hauling pots (dropped before season end) after season end and had a huge take. In port upgrades offers advanced survival suits and a life raft. I never bought them, but I did have a fire onboard the Polar Bear, and although the game showed each crewmember with a survival suit icon, and there was a covered orange life raft in the water, and I got the Sig Hansen pop-up video saying it was my decision when to abandon ship, click as I may, there was no option I could find to tell the crew to fight the fire, abandon ship, or anything else.