What actually affects fishing outcome?

[Vahvapito]

I have been trying to figure out if different spears have better outcomes with fishing. Yesterday I made a character with near perfect (98%) fishing skill and set out to test different tools.

I made it to rapids and fished three game days, ten times each day, with each of these: javelin, small trident, trident, and wide trident, each of normal quality. ( I had to take break days and first did two days with each tool, then one more day with each because results were inconclusive).

In three full days of fishing, I caught 2 salmons with javelin, 3 with small trident, 5 with trident, and 5 with wide trident.

It seems, trident and wide trident are more useful but I don't think my test is very reliable because I don't know what other factors affect fishing outcomes. For example, I caught almost half of the fish on the frist days of fishing (7 out of 15 total were caught on the first days).

I tried to keep the fishing spot the same but I don't know if the spot gets "dry" after a while which would skew the result towards the first fishing tool used. I also don't know if some spots are just inherently better than others, or if fishing too much will anger the spirits and reduce my catch. I should repeat the test by save scumming by copying the character folder and repeating each try with same conditions but that was too tedious for me.

I know a lot of mechanincs in the game are ambiguous on purpose so it does not become too "gamey" but I would still like to know what ways I can affect my fishing outcome. I don't have much fishing experience in real life but I feel that when I was a kid, the most important factor in getting catch was finding the right spot. You might get nothing all day untill you find the perfect spot and then reel them in as fast as you can.

Does anyone have any experience what affects fishing outcomes in the game?

[JP_Finn]

Location! e.g. You won't get salmon from small lake. I have not done thorough testing, but I'm near certain depletion is not implemented.
Good fishing spots, like real life, are closely guarded secrets. Some shorelines work great, namely rapids and rivers. Often, as well as IRL, fishing the 'drop' or edge-of-deep seems to have potential for good catch. In-game: next to where the gradual water depth graphics are set to darkest blue.

Fishing skill. Haul is dramatically more for 50% skill than 25%. 80%+ can go wandering with rod and not worry about starvation.

Fishing equipment. Nets are kings. Fishing rod can yield all types present at the location, depending on bait. Tridents produce medium-large fish. Wide>standard>small>spears>staves>clubs>rocks.

Standing with water spirits. All take and no give, will decrease good spots to ok, ok to meh, and meh spots to catchless. (like everything spirits related, there's only speculation outside the dev chambers) I'd wager a guess that your testing might've been skewed for that. If my character hits a dry spell and can't catch any fish, I'll stop fishing for few days to a week. First fish I catch (with a mod, cut up some chunks and single piece) will be sacrificed. Next fishing attempts generally produce fish again.
Remember that roasted fish becomes "land sacrifice", so leave those roaches and perches uncooked. Unless really starving.

I have the following in use, you can add it in any diy_xyz.txt file, not in cookery_xyz.txt
As there's no mechanism to retain the actual fishes nutritional values without cooking it, which would remove the small fish characteristic 'use the whole roach/perch as bait', all fish baits get nutritional values of perch. Takes 1 pound of fish, gives 4 pieces 1/4 each. So catching a single pike, you won't lose whole fish to sacrifice, but just a chunk. Keep 3 chunks for later baiting and most of the fish for roasting for supper.

Spoiler: show

Code: [Select]


.Cut fish bait. (4) "Perch" [effort:1] [phys:hands,arms] *COOKERY* /5/ |-2| [noquality] [patch:5]
{Knife}
{Raw fish} #1# [remove] [ask_num] [name:%s chunk] [patchwise]
[WEIGHT:0.25]
[TYPE:food]
[PRICE:0.07]
[SPOILAGE_DAYS:4]

[PALU]

Depletion: As far as I understand, depletion is implemented on some level. Over fishing of a small lake will deplete it (I believe I've seen that at some time many years ago: fish was back after having waited for a significant amount of time), while you obviously can't deplete the sea (using the tools available, and large powered trawlers are not available).

However, I have no idea whether there is any depletion logic implemented on the smaller scale of fishing spots and areas around them.

[Vahvapito]

Thanks, this is very useful knowledge.

I knew that some fish could only be caught in certain places but I was not sure if specific locations matter for the amount of fish caught.

It is very possible my standing with the spirits could have impacted the result. A lot of that catch rotted to make it worse. I don't actually know if letting fish or meat spoil will decrease your standing with the spirits but I just like to think so. Catching more than I can use is kind of wasteful.

Does anyone know if time of year impacts the fishing in game? In game encyclopedia mentions salmon being common in rapids during spawning season (which I think should be in fall) but I have caught plenty of them at other times too.

[PALU]

I don't think wasting resources affects the standing with the spirits, but the amount taken (regardless of if it rots later or not) does, in particular if you don't sacrifice sufficiently (and it's still possible to take more than it's possible to compensate for with sacrifices).