Fishing Theory

Introduction

This page is dedicated to theories about fishing. This includes Fishing Skill, Fish, Lures, Player Skills, and Catching.

This page was created out of reason for better understand of fishing. The wiki pages on fishing were full of scattered information and lacking in mechanics of fishing. This page is to help clear up things and help people understand fishing better. Although this is not full proof information, it is a beginning for a greater understanding.

To avoid misconceptions and false information, please add the facts only. The bottom of this page contains a data section which the categorizing of fish cycles should go. Data that also proves or disproves information should be posted in the data section below the fish tables.

Fishing Skill

Fishing skill is learned from the school of body and is level 1 at the time. Overtime a player's fishing skill increases. This increase may take weeks/months of fishing before it will increase, but when this occurs it's usually in multiple increases at a time. The exact amounts needed are unknown.

Higher levels of fishing skill are required to catch rare fish.

Testing at level one fishing skill
These Test were done with a Level 3 Character, with Level One Fly Fishing. He had 22 Speed, and 13 perception.
Very Limited Lure Selection, 14 max at times, 10 normally (all common insects only)
Very First Session
It appears only two fish per type are capable of being caught per lure at any time.
Not Quick Enough Message appears a lot and seemed to eliminate the fish from the group. ( My guess is rolling a dice, with bad odds )
Odd Fish Caused 5 Fresh Lures to be lost Back to Back
Size seemed to be a major factor in success, smaller sizes were caught more rapidly and larger cycles seemed to fail nearly always. Which means it's better to fish at the starts and ends of a fish cycle then in the middle.
Fishing for a whole day, I caught 4 different "uncommon" fish: Ayu (size 25) , Bay Lobster(size 27), Nile Mackerel(size 31), and River Crab(size 23), the size is the biggest catch. All common fish were caught as well
Third Session
Same Stats as first and second sessions
Over 150 Fish Caught but still hard to get fish, most times no success the first 1-3 casts, then one catch.
Caught much bigger fish this time (Ayu Size 37, River Crab Size 34)
The Not Quick Enough Message didn't show up for (River Crab and Ayu) but begin to appear a lot for(Bay Lobster)
Recognized clumbsy fish and caught twice, Rainbow Cod. Had success under 20%.
Caught Ribbonfish with nearly no failure messages at all 4/4. (Speed Fish, food went away and couldn't catch anymore).
Hooking fish in a lures group is still very hard, but did get 3 River Crabs back to back

Fish

Grouping and Rarity

Teppy announced there is 49 different species of fish. Seven of these are the common fish. Which leaves 42 fish that are not.

The common group includes: Abdju, Carp, Catfish, Chromis, Perch, Phagrus, Tilapia. For most lures, you will catch some of these types fish throughout the day.

Uncommon fish require Speed, Fishing Skill, and possibly Perception.

Speed fish are the second most common fish you will catch. If you do not have sufficient speed, you will see the message "You almost caught a unusual fish, but were not quick enough." The requirement is not sharp: if you have almost enough speed, you will have some chance of catching this type of fish.

Skill fish are the next in rarity. If you have insufficient fishing skill, you see "You almost caught an odd fish, but you were too late recognizing the bite." You may also need speed to catch some of these fish. This type of fish is impossible to catch with fly fishing 1.

The third fish requirement yields the message "You almost caught a strange fish, but this rod was just too clumsy." This is currently believed to indicate that higher perception is required.

Last thing to note is the difficulty of catching vary among fish. Observations against two speed fish showed at 25 speed: 16 deben pancake loach and 22 deben tigerfish both were unsuccessful. 1/3 Rate on tigerfish and 0% on pancake. Observation against the same two with 28 speed showed 100% success.

Cycles

All fish except the common 7 have a daily cycle (when in season). The cycle for a given fish species peaks at the same time of game day for all lures, with the fish size reduced on either side of this time. Fish and lures that give very large peak sizes are therefore available for much longer periods of time than those peaking at small sizes.

For example, in Year 3 Akhet II, River Crab peaked at 40+ deben sizes in a certain location, and so were available for 16 game hours per day. Sea Urchin peaking at 9 debens was only available for 2 game hours on a single lure in Akhet II, but much longer and on more lures in Akhet I with higher peak.

Lures

Each fish has a "best lure" that gives the largest size of that type of fish when used. Lures other than the best give reduced fish sizes.

Uncommon fish have peak sizes that change each game month, and may be zero indicating that the species cannot be caught that month. These peaks can be up to about 40 debens in that fish's best month, while common fish peak at about 9 debens (16 with pyramid bonus).

Player Skills

Speed is a confirmed variable in catching fish. Certain uncommon fish have a high speed that is required. Common fish require at least zero or greater, if negative, you will always receive quickness messages. Tests against (Tigerfish) resulted in 25% chance with 4 speed, and 100% at 27 speed.

Perception increases the chance of success against fish who cause the clumbsy message. Tests against (Ivory Knifefish & Spoonfish) resulted in a 1/6th chance with 18 perception, and 50% at 34 perception. However Rainbow Cod also give this message, and the same chance of catching (~30%) was observed for both perception 7 and perception 28.

Fly Fishing skill enables you to catch "odd fish", with many types of fish impossible to catch with skill 1.

Catching The Fish

Fishing has different variables that are used throughout a cast of a lure. These include Fishing Skill, Speed, and Perception, but may include others.

1) There is a chance of making a successful cast based on your Fly Fishing skill. This is roughly 40% at skill 1, 90% at skill 6, and 100% at skill 9. Failure of this check leads to the message "You didn't catch anything."

2) A species of fish is determined from those available to be caught with that lure at that time of day. This is usually (but not always) the species that has the largest sizes available. If there are no fish available you will see the message "No fish bit."

3) The species may have requirements such as skill, speed, or perception. These are checked against your current stats and skill and an appropriate message given if the check fails.

4) If all of the above checks pass, you will see "Caught X Deben Fish."

Size of Fish

Each time an uncommon fish is selected in step 2, the size of future catches of that species drops for that avatar. For common fish, the size drops by more but is recovered faster. If the size drops below 1 deben (before pyramid bonus) then that species is removed from the pool of available fish until its size recovers to 1 or more.

Experimental results appear to show that the rate of recovery is 1/10th of the drop per successful cast (i.e. any result but "You didn't catch anything"). Uncommon fish appear to drop by 0.92 for each catch, while common fish drop by about 7.

Data

This section is dedicated to both mapping the fish groups and cycles, and data that proves or disproves information about fishing.

Location

Position on the map matters, quite a lot. Doing some experiments near camp along the nile yielded big size differences at specific boundaries. One such boundary was at 1024 north: Nile Mackerel in the 1000-1023 range were consistently 7 db larger than standard "at home" sizes, while being 3 db smaller than "at home" size in the 1025-1050 range. More work will be needed, but it is very suspicious that 1024 is a power of two (1024 = 2¹⁰). Perhaps similar changes are present at other boundaries divisible by large binary powers.

Further work shows that multiples of 128 coordinates (2⁷) are sharp boundaries for large changes in fish size: up to ±10 debens has been observed so far. There may also be smaller changes at multiples of 32 or 64 coordinates.

Fish Cycles

This chart shows collected data on peak fish sizes and their best lures (out of the 44 I have available). The sizes likely apply only to my camp, but the times and lures should be more widely useful. - Tamutnefret

Due to the size differences, other locations may have other fish or miss out some of the smaller ones here.

Akhet III (preliminary)

Fish	Max Size	Best Lure	Peak time	Notes
Bay Lobster	25	Orchid Hopper	07:15	Speed
Nile Mackerel	36	Nippleworm	11:22	Speed
Tigerfish	22	Bristleworm	12:14	Speed
Queen Lionfish	20	Feather Midge	12:44	Fishing skill
Tilefish	13	Woodmoth	17:30
Cherry Bonefish	19	Mud Asp	20:10	"Strange fish"
Ayu	40	Camel Weevel	21:55
Spiny Dogfish	18	Clay Slug	22:26
Rainbow Cod	27	Ash Centipede	22:52	"Strange fish", Speed
River crab	36	Woolly Aphid	23:38

Graphical chart

Some of the data that were collected on Akhet II-2:

Akhet III:

Previous table

Season/Month	Speed Fish	Percp Fish
Shemu IV	Medusafish, Moonfish, Queen Lionfish, Rivercrab, Sea Urchin, Pancake Loach, Tigerfish	Ivory Knifefish, Spoonfish
Akhet I	Ayu, Medusafish, Moonfish, Nile Mackerel, Pancake Loach, Queen Lionfish, River Crab, Sea Urchin, Tigerfish	(None)
Akhet II	Ayu, Bay Lobster, Medusafish, River Crab, Nile Mackerel, Tigerfish, Queen Lionfish, Pancake Loach, Sea Urchin, White Oniontail	Rainbow Cod, Great Knucklefish
Akhet III	Ayu, Bay Lobster, Nile Mackerel, River Crab, Queen Lionfish, Spiny Dogfish, Tigerfish, Tilefish, White Oniontail	Cherry Bonefish

Rare Fish Info

This data was plotted from on the cooking graph. This is just a few of the possible combinations, as it seems most fish have more then one combo. If you wish to check these or for others just open the cooking graph. What you are looking at is if the three fish would intersect with a parallel line.

To spawn a rare fish the two combo fish must be active at the same time. This will spawn the rare fish as long as they are both active. Once one of the fish finishes its cycle, the rare fish goes too.

Sea Urchin and Ayu are both active this month (Year 3 Akhet II). Has anyone caught an Oxyrynchus? Also, what exactly is a "rare fish"? The previous description on this page was not at all useful as some fish would be considered rare in some months and not in others. For example any of Rainbow Cod, Sea Urchin, or White Oniontail could be considered "rare fish" this month. - Tamutnefret

Some additional information could be useful here. Given we meet the criteria for a "rare" fish spawn (stats, location, a suitable combo, etc...), what sort of lure should we use to find these spawns? One of the lures that catches one the "combo fish"? A lure that catches both types of the "combo fish"? Or a different lure altogether? -Myn 09:52, 11 May 2011 (EST)

Rare Fish	Required Fish and Lure
Yellowfin Snapper	Bay Lobster + Queenlion Fish (Corkscrew Asp Lure)	Bay Lobster + Pancake Loach (Desert Millipede Lure)
Ribbonfish	Spiney Dogfish with active Abdju Connection) (Feather Midge)	Bay Lobster + Medusafish (Rose Swallowtail)	Nile Mackerel with active Phargus Connection) (Ash Centipede?)
Spotted Sea Cucumber
Cherry Bonefish
Orange Sponge Fish
Oxyrynchus
Giant Crayfish

The Fishing Map

The Fishing Web

The fish web is a stripped down copy of the Food Graph(thx to tefnut for the work). This data shows the connections between fish and why lures spawn rare fish. After more review of my own data and Tamutnefret post of the lures time table, I have mapped out the current month.

This is a picture of the connections for the current month of (Akhet II Year 3)

When looking at the graph you can see how the fish are grouped. The seven common are the first tier of fish. Then you have "spawn" fish such as Rivercrab, Tigerfish, Ayu, Queen Lionfish, Nile Mackerel The next group is the fish such as Spiny Dogfish, Bay Lobster. Medusafish, White Oniontale. Then finally is the rares such as Yellowfin Snapper and Ribbonfish. The rares spawn when an two fish overlap. Each of the connections to a rare has one lure. This month both rares have two lures and extended times.

I'm still not sure which fish you consider "rare". The fish with the least lures this month seem to be Spiny Dogfish, Sea Urchin and Rainbow Cod, but you list Spiny Dogfish in the third group (not rare) above, and also listed both Rainbow Cod and Sea Urchin as not rare in a previous chart. - Tamutnefret

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the data! And thanks to Luck for finding this information :)