How to play The Strait

The goal: build your net worth and retire rich

Your score is Total Net Worth: Bank Cash plus the value of your assets, minus debt. Game Center leaderboards rank that one number for each mode.

As your net worth grows, your status climbs. Your current status can fall if things go wrong, but the highest status you reached stays with the run.

1. In Debt
2. Unknown Operator
3. Dockside Hustler
4. Strait Operator
5. Tanker Boss
6. Black Gold Baron
7. Oil Billionaire
8. Strait Tycoon
9. Energy Titan
10. Sovereign of the Strait

Step 1: Choose your mode and your loan

Pick Empire Mode or 15-Minute Sprint, then choose how much starting debt to take. A bigger loan buys more equipment up front but brings harsher repayment pressure. Borrowed cash is operating capital, not wealth: the loan is due after a set number of launches.

Step 2: Pick your tanker

Each tanker card shows cargo value, profit, exposure and World impact. Exposure is what you stand to lose if the crossing goes wrong. Watch for warning signs such as suspicion, the charter and grey cargo.

• Grey cargo is a gray market job. It pays a big premium, but brings higher fines, sanctions risk and damage to World.
• World is the world oil supply meter. When World is low, oil pays more, but danger and collapse risk rise. Clean deliveries help it recover. If World collapses, the run is over.
• Convoys send several ships together for more profit and more risk. You can also reject a tanker, though rejecting clean cargo costs World.

Step 3: Protect the crossing

This is the convoy defense part. During a crossing you tap the water to shoot blockers off the hull. Each manual shot costs a little operating cash. You can also buy four kinds of defense:

• Armed Escort: an escort boat you assign before launch. It fires on its own during the crossing.
• Missiles: an emergency button that clears blockers in a panic moment.
• Chopper Support: air cover that hovers over the crossing and picks off threats for about half the run.
• The Dome: a shield that blocks all incoming hits for five seconds.

Watch for purple jammers. A jammer hit knocks your escorts, missiles, Chopper Support and The Dome offline for a few seconds, so sink jammers first.

Free escort (version 1.1 and later): once per run you can choose to watch an optional video ad to get one Armed Escort at no cash cost. It is available even if you bought Remove Ads, and your score still counts.

The Strait is an oil tanker ship game. You defend ships in a strait, not fuel trucks on a road.

Step 4: Bank the win

Profit from a crossing lands in Op. Cash, the money you spend on shots and defense. Move it into Bank Cash to build your net worth. Moving money between the two accounts costs a 3.5% fee, but debt payments do not.

Banked money is not untouchable. If fines, damage or bad timing leave Op. Cash short, you have to cover the gap from Bank Cash or by selling assets. If you can't, the operation collapses.

Step 5: Watch the market and your debt

Oil prices shift, world supply rises and falls, and markets surge and crash. When your loan comes due, pay it, sell assets, or take one Last Chance Pass. If you still can't pay, the lender calls the debt and the run ends.

Step 6: Buy assets and climb

Spend Bank Cash on gold, bonds, stocks, property, yachts, private jets and private deals. Asset values move with market events, bonds pay interest into Bank Cash, and selling an asset quickly costs you a haircut.

Step 7: Know when to retire

In Empire Mode you decide when to retire rich, or push for one more payout. Retiring locks your net worth for the Empire leaderboard. In 15-Minute Sprint, the clock decides: your net worth locks when time runs out and the last crossing finishes.

Empire Mode or 15-Minute Sprint?

Want the short ranked mode on its own? Read about the 15-minute strategy game with a net worth leaderboard.

Beginner tips from the game

These come straight from the hints The Strait shows players:

• Bank profit after a crossing.
• A triple convoy should start with an escort.
• Stock one emergency missile before accepting another ultra tanker.
• Weak hull? Escort and chopper are worth the spend.
• Huge exposure? The Dome is not overkill.
• Sink purple jammers first, then keep tapping blockers off the hull.