• Hail Guest!
    We're looking for Community Content Contribuitors to Stratics. If you would like to write articles, fan fiction, do guild or shard event recaps, it's simple. Find out how in this thread: Community Contributions
  • Greetings Guest, Having Login Issues? Check this thread!
  • Hail Guest!,
    Please take a moment to read this post reminding you all of the importance of Account Security.
  • Hail Guest!
    Please read the new announcement concerning the upcoming addition to Stratics. You can find the announcement Here!

[Fishing] A couple questions if I may

Ning

Journeyman
Hello all. Recently returned old dog here. I added the High Seas content a couple days ago and I'm looking for some opinions.

I've always enjoyed fishing MiBs. The thought of the enhancements and quests might be fun and new ships with cannons and pirates to sink and such sounded cool. Granted the plethora of new heavy fish seems somewhat cumbersome and annoying overall but no biggie.

My question would be are the fish quests really worth devoting that much time to? I can run a box of bottles on foot for 80 grand and an SoT and kill stuff along the way doing trade quests, but spending 15 minutes to sail somewhere for a cup of bait for a fish I haven't figured out if I'd bother with anyway? Are they better as a mission of convenience or something I should focus on?

Is the chance at a power scroll really worth bothering with? All I really care about is fishing up is MiBs which I could do 20 years ago already is all I really care about. Is raising skill above GM going to net me a crapload more serpents or something?

I bought a gargoyle ship, painted her up, and filled her full of cannons. Some day I'll figure out how to use them and sink something. Is there anything from the quests I'd need to do that?

As a younger single guy I had all the time in the world to fart around. I'd spend 2 days in my chair for a sigil defense. Once camped an IDOC for 20 hours to steal the spot even. However, in my 50's with kids and career and such I kinda need to get the most bang for my available game time. If all I'm chasing is a relaxing evening of fishing treasure and water snakes and maybe some eventual pirate treasure, what would your advice be?

Sorry for being long winded, and thanks in advance for your input.
 

Malee

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Welcome Back to the world of fishing. Hmm where to begin?

First, if MIBs are what you enjoy, keep doing those but save all those fish you get to fill those monger orders. Your boat hold allows the use of commodity deeds like your bank box does. When the hold gets full, deed up the fish and stack them at your house or bank. (My fisher has a bank full of fish.) I'm not sure if you catch more serpents at 120 compared to GM - I've been at 120 for years now - that's too far back to remember. I do know if you find a spot with a serpent, keep fishing there - I usually pull up 3 serpents from the same spot.

The fish monger quest can be worthwhile; those 120 scrolls sell for alot (60 mil or more). They are also where you get lava lobster traps to try for the void lobster. You also get lava hooks for fishing up the lava fish and stone footwear for fighting Navrey. Baits can be stacked so you don't have so many lock down spots taken up. I find the rare fish bait works ok, the legendary fish bait not so much. (I once used 1k charges of marlin bait and didn't catch one - even at 120 fishing. A week later I pulled one up as I was sailing to the next monger.) I enjoy trying to fish up the rare and legendary fish and try to beat my own records.
As you do more quests and your fishing gets higher, they will ask for dungeon fish and crustaceans to fill the order. There a few safe spots to fish for dungeon fish - Twisted Weld and the Shame Islands come to mind first.

120 fishing does help when you toss the ancient white nets to get a Scalis to pull up. (This is definitely a group activity and will need at least enough magery to constantly heal others and pets to get credit for killing him.) The white nets also sell for a bit - usually around a mil a piece. Scalis has nice rewards - when they actually drop. The one tile soul forge is a rare drop and sells for around 100mil.

The ship sinking has nothing to do with the fishing skill itself - it's just fun. If you have crafters, the NPC garg ships are great for resources. The Orc ships with the red human captains have resources just not as many or as high a quality as the garg merchant ships. There is a quest for the Orc ships to bind the captains and turn them in. You can get pieces of orc ships this way and when you get all 8 you can create an Orc ship of your own. These ships are great for fighting the other ships; their cannons do more damage so you use less ammo. You will need a few sets of ammo to start with but there is ammo on the npc ships as loot that usually keep you ahead of the demand.

Hope all this helped a little at least. Biggest thing to remember is just have fun. If something isn't fun - stop and go back to what was fun for you.
 

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Also with the cannon, you need a lit torch/match and one other tool in your pack. The match was originally used (and still works) but was replaced by regular torches as making them was a hassle. The other two tools are a swab and a ramrod, but one of them is no longer required (I still carry both so I don't know which).

Fuzes and black powder are made by a crafter. Saltpeter can be bought, or mined (a niter deposit will appear on the first dig, if present). Charcoal is made from boards or logs. Smiths and Tailors play a part as well. So, a crafter mule with smith/tailor/tinker/carpenter/alchemy/cooking/mining (possibly with lumberjacking on a different character - but regular boards are easy enough to get) would be needed on your High Seas account to make your own ammo and guns (plus the carpenter & tailor (IIRC) has bonuses for repairing the ship, and the tinker has bonuses for repairing the cannon, in that they use less material. Ship repairs require wood and cloth, cannon iron ingots)
 

Ning

Journeyman
Well thank you both for your advice! I do have a smith/miner/tink/tailor/carp/fletcher and a scribe/achy/budding imbuer and a lumber pally, but no cook however. I've been enjoying the changes to the SoS chests and pre-loot Gotten one ASoS so far and plan to sit on the white nets until I've made some friends or guildies. Sounds like cannons are the appropriate level of complicated one might expect from UO. LoL. I'll stick with things though and sinking ships does sound like a good time.
 

Gem

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Which shard are you? FCB is active on GL.

Even if not on GL, we have Discord server all are welcome to join:
 

Ning

Journeyman
FCB, that's old school. I'm on Sonoma. I did finally get out to beat up on some pirate ships and darn if that isn't a groovy good time! The advice about commodity deeds for the fish really helped make things a bit less cumbersome as well. As I get more used to the HS content I'm enjoying it. Thanks all!
 

Maldar

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
FCB, that's old school. I'm on Sonoma. I did finally get out to beat up on some pirate ships and darn if that isn't a groovy good time! The advice about commodity deeds for the fish really helped make things a bit less cumbersome as well. As I get more used to the HS content I'm enjoying it. Thanks all!
You might want to hook up with PAS. They do things most every evening and there are plenty of good folks that would help you out with anything you need. They also have a public Discord server.
 
Top