Fishing differences by planet

NMS Worlds NMS Worlds - Help A Fellow Traveller
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I’m pretty annoyed at the usual sources, because no one seems to say anything about this. I started out thinking that there might not be anything to say, but I just can’t believe that.

So, first, to dispense with what is being said, by Captain Obvious everywhere…yes, I know, on hot planets you catch hot fish and on cold planets you catch cold fish, etc etc etc.

What I am suspecting is that every planet (system?) has some sort of ‘fishing quality variable’ spawned into it. What I think that means is best explained by why I think it exists.

I have a base that I have called my ‘main base’ for some time. As opposed to my other bases, it has extensive cooking and refining facilities. I do a lot of both things, so I’m there a lot. I also fish while things run their course (other than while experimenting, I generally run things in full batches) so my main base is seriously built for fishing. I use my bait count like a timer to tell me when to go back to reload, so I have a sort of ‘100 at a time’ load bait/unload fish routine.

Long story short, I know what sort of catch to expect from 100 baits. It does vary with type of bait, but I can adjust and predict pretty accurately…at that base.

I recently built a new main base, in a different biome, obviously looking to catch the different kinds of fish because I have all the humid biome fish. Here’s where the problem appears.

I have spent 400 baits and caught zero legendary fish. At my old main base I would not go 100 baits without at least two or three legendary fish. I caught 100 fish bare hook and didn’t draw zero on legendary fish, so drawing zero in a hundred four times in a row with different pretty good baits, is too much of an anomaly to just be ‘bad luck.’

I think there is a planetary variable involved, and this planet has a bad one, where my old planet has a good one.

Thoughts? Knowledge? Rumors?

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I can’t speak to fishing - I don’t do it - but there’s a good / medium / bad (or small / medium / large) mechanic applied in almost every other sphere of planet and system generation.

You’ll see it in system economies, in weather, in NPC building distribution, in the size and frequency of resource deposits, in flora and fauna numbers, in system conflict levels, and probably in a host of other things I couldn’t be bothered to to dig out of my tired old brains.

I would be very surprised to find HG hadn’t applied the same system to fishing.

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Yep. I am not surprised either. I wonder if they have one variable applied to everything or are the variables applied to each category separately…and if this next update deals with digging up bones and reassembling them, that may also be affected.

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It’s definitely applied differently - so, for instance, an economy can be rich, middling, or poor - and conflict level can be violent, sporadic, or peaceful - but there’s no correlation between the two. Systems can be poor and peaceful, rich and violent, rich and peaceful, etc. There doesn’t seem to be any connection.

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Very good point.

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We all could test that theory…

  • catch 100 fish at our main fishing base (Tim already knows that outcome)
  • catch 100 on the other water planets in that system
    And then we compare.

Legendaries exist at each depth (or rather, in all sizes), so we should not need to calibrate and all pick a fishing spot that’s 50m deep, is that a correct assumption? The datamining thread only had tables about fish biomes/sizes/daytimes, it didn’t mention system variables. Would dataminers spot such variables or do they have to make a targeted search?

At least it would tell us whether the “variable” is the same within a system, and whether our systems are dramatically different or not.

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We would also all need to use the same bait, or at least bait with the same value for rarity adjustment. I’m getting ready to do a 100 run at my new base using bionic lures. At my older main base Toddumptious did two hundred bait runs with bionics and caught six legendaries one time and eight the other. If I get two or less I think it is safe to say that there is some planetary/system variable being applied.

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Okay, Bionic Lure it is.

This is what my freighter has been waiting for all its life! :face_with_steam_from_nose: I, the captain, will enter the bridge, command to open the storage, take out the hoarded ingredients, put them in refiners, and properly craft the heck out of stuff!! Finally useful!

(Don’t tell my freighter the products will be fed to fish.)

(PS: My freighter is a Star Destroyer shaped one that’s called Star Reviver. Its hobbies are growing flowers, hoarding, and teleporting exocraft.)

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I would like to claim that I made an effort fishing until this guy shoved me off…

203C65~1
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But it’s not true. I am very sorry to say, fishing more than 20x in a row is not for me. :smiley: it’s a beautiful planet and I had a stream on but.. I’m not cut out for this job… You will notice I got only 19 of 20 because someone texted me and I got startled.

This is my result with bionic lure, pretty good.

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The key to fishing is that it is a “while I…” endeavor. I fish while I…run my nutrient processors. I fish while I…do necessary refining. I fish while I…need a break from sorting through my storage units. I fish while I…entertain guests at my fishing lodge (okay, that’s a new one). Most refining is actually too fast for fishing, but the long grind of goop into nanites…each step is about fifteen casts if I just step outside, ten if I go to a nearby ‘fishin’ hole.’ A full eight minute run of the nutrient processors might be twenty casts…but otherwise, yeah, I don’t do more than about twenty at a time either.

Notably, I have also found that if I play late at night and get into some unplanned mayhem with sentinels or pirates or whatnot it’s easier to get to sleep if I go back to my base and catch a few fish before I bail out.

By the way, that critter seems to really like you. It even put on that striped shirt that matches your outfit before giving you that big hug…

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I am not quite sure on the full details for ‘scoring’ fish. There are certainly a few things to be found in the files, mainly the ‘gcFishingGlobals’ in this case.

  • BaitRarityBoostTotalScore with QualityScaling for Junk, Common, Rare, Epic, and Legendary.
  • QualityWeights for Junk, Common, Rare, Epic, and Legendary.

There also appears to be a distribution (multipliers) for quality, based on the type of Bait used (BaitDataTable).

  • RarityBoosts multipliers for some specific Products for Junk, Common, Rare, Epic, and Legendary.

Then of course the bait values as shown in-game, which is not present in the files, but requires trying them all.

  • Rarity, Size, and Type (Notes)

Lastly, each biome will have fish from a general pool, as well as the biome specific pool, to draw from. For the ‘Legendary’ quality, each of these pools always has a single legendary of each of the 4 sizes. That means there should then always be 4 shared general legendaries, and 4 biome specific legendaries. Do note that some biomes share pool; Swamp and Toxic, Weird and RGB, Scorched and Lava.

I have not been keen to look into the specifics, as it would indeed require a lot of testing to learn more. Creating the bait values in a sheet (Product Table), is about as far as I have been willing to take it, as I have been able to automate a great deal of this. Not to say I am not curious to possibly figure out more, so I do welcome any proper research data :roll_eyes:

To be honest though, I have not seen any indication of planet/system specifics other than the above mentioned data I found involved with ‘scoring’. I can however imagine how the general presence of water with the range of depth a planet may have, could influence the results. It would likely be impossible to catch a Colossal Legendary on a planet that only provides puddles of water, unless you cheat the terrain by digging deep holes to fish in.

Either way, I’ll be keen to follow this topic. Feel free to ask me to look for further or updated data in regards to fishing. I have only been keeping some of it updated due to a lack of personal interest in fishing itself. Love the mechanics involved, but they have for a great part been unclear so far.

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I think that variations due to bait are pretty clearly laid out. The specific math is hazy, but as soon as you put something in the ‘bait box’ it gives you clear numeric scores. I don’t know how big a factor the bait quality is in relation to the underlying factors that determine what a catch is. Using the same ‘fishing area’ the by far best numeric value of the bionic lure yielded 7% legendary catches, while the bare hook no bonus at all yielded 1%. Sample size isn’t huge, but it seems reasonable. That suggests that bait is significant, but not overpowering compared to the underlying factors.

Things like depth of the water will certainly affect the overall catch. As you say, can’t catch colossal fish in a puddle. I am pretty sure though that it will have minimal effect on the catch distribution, since eliminating the colossal legendary possibilities also eliminates the other colossal fish possibilities. In deep enough water you have eight possible class S out of 42 possible fish; 19.05%. In water too shallow for colossal or large fish you have four class S out of 26 possible; 15.38%. The addition of one extra medium and two small to class C and one medium and one small to class B has an effect, but certainly doesn’t overpower your chances to land legendaries.

Conditions will have an effect. If you only fish at night, and two of the available eight S class in the water are day specific that is going to affect distribution in the overall catch. Maybe the most significant factor there is ‘storm fish.’ As an example, my base is on a planet with pretty much perfect weather, so fish you can only catch in a storm are completely eliminated from the distribution.

Before applying variables for bait, and limiters that eliminate certain fish (day, night, storm) every planet starts with the same distribution of 42 fish. A ‘hot’ (and all the synonyms) planet will have 21 hot fish, while a toxic planet will have 21 toxic fish, but the overall distribution is always 7xC, with 3xS, 2xM, a large and a colossal, 6xB, with 2xS, 2xM, a large and a colossal, 4xA and 4xS, both one of each size. Distribution across the ‘anywhere’ fish is the same.

My observation based opinion is that there has to be some planetary factor. My plan for testing this theory is to fish extensively on multiple planets, eliminating the known factors that would affect distribution of catch; ie same biome, same bait, always fish in deep enough water to support the full distribution, (I’m trying to decide on) picking either day or night and avoiding storms (definitely, frequency of storms will impact how often you fish in the larger ‘storm included’ pool, so it will create a planetary difference…day/night I think will tend to just even out over a large sample size). Of course, I thought about embarking on this testing program about the same time the expedition thing came up, but I will get to it.

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