OK, I complete the natural gas venting arm (that big thing sticking out on the right, and put a sattelite dish array on the top front/right of the rig. Connected the pipes that were spewing nothing into the nothingness and yadda yadda yadda. (Still have to tweak a few things) Opinion part. I need to create an escape pod/raft for the rig, but not sure how to approach it. The Bryce pic below is just somethig I slapped together. The two other images are the only ones that I could find of escape vehicles for a rig. Which one do you guys think would be better? If I go with the capsule looking one, it will go somwhere under the main deck on the left side. If I go with the boat looking one, it will go on the right side since I will have to model the drop ramps for them and need more space. What say the people?

This is the one I slapped together as a rough idea.

This is my other option, inless someone knows where I can get more resource images.

those second lifeboats i like better

The second one looks great. Have you tried writing to any oil companies or construction outfits that actually build these puppies for real? (Schematics, mock ups,promo prints, etc.) Maybe they would point you to an html, or ftp resource site.

The lifeboats on the slopes are very close to what I've seen before. I think the bits on the top of each boat need to be amidships and the colour needs to be brighter or florescent orange........looking for ref-material for you.

Looks good so far, that flare-boom needs a huge flame.

Have you ever seen how these lifeboats are launched (well they just drop em in the water under an angle), rather impressive i must say.

Bryster, the controls are at the back of the lifeboat, when launched almost the entire boat disappears underwater and pops up again (sometimes these boats have to make a drop of 20 meters or more, that's being dropped from the 5th floor), only the back of the boat stays above water during launch.

Basically it is a rescue method using a big red button saying "Get our arse out of here" and away you are. No other means of rescue gets you faster of an oil-rig than these boats. And with the Piper-alpha disaster (but there are more, Alexander Kielland for example) we know how fast things go wrong on an oil-rig, usually you have a few minutes at the most when it goes wrong.

I suppose you could watch the end of Diamonds are Forever, or the beginning of Armageddon..looks pretty good to me so far.

Attached Link: http://www.boats.dt.navy.mil/pg2/mots25.htm

Here are a couple of links for the 25 man Mark 6. Not deployed it is in a container as shown on the top pic to the left at the first url. The container is cylidrical with flattened hemispherical ends. Roughly it measures a little more than 4.75' by 2.5'. The new mk 8 is a 50 man lifeboat just starting service in the USN. The second url has dimensional data for the deployed mil spec mk6. Not sure if http://www.boats.dt.navy.mil/pg2/mots25.htm http://www.tpub.com/content/administration/12966/css/12966_315.htm HTH Scott

Boy my typing was horrible :) sorry. My unfinished sentence goes as follows... Not sure if these or civilian version are used on rigs. I wouldn't be surprised considering space and maintenance requirements are minimal.

This just keeps getting better and better. The second set of escape pods look the best.

Thanks for the input. ICM - I thought about but haven't tried to contact shell yet, but I think I am going to give them a call or send an email this week. Bryster - If you can come up with any ref material, I would appreciate it. Every little bit helps. Phenom - Thanks for the links. I checked them out and it looks like I may be able to work with it if I need to. Diagrams are always helfull when it comes to modelling. If anyone has any information that they may think could be useful, by all means, send it my way. Thanks again, guys.