why are crab pots so bad?

[deathmage390]

i wonder why crab pots are so bad? without the upgrade it costs 3 iron, with upgrade 2 copper. neither option is really any good. buy from willie is 1.5k each. even upgrading all the "bad" fish into sashimi making the minimum 75g t still isn't worth using.

admittedly you can theoretically get a large quantity of them, but it still takes time to manage them. its a 1/day item that you have to have bait unless you get the lvl 10 skill (you want the trash for recycle).

so it comes down to getting ~20 fish to pay back willie the 1.5k, or recycling a crap ton of trash bags to get back the iron. even with copper costs you have to get 10 ore which is about 2-4 nodes of copper.

even then its only 1 item a day. you can go fishing and get normal fish for = or more gold, trash, and TREASURE CHESTS! in about the same amount of time you would spend on many crab pots.

then XP; 5 for crab pots, 3 for fishing trash, 8 MINIMUM for carp, everything else is even more.

i get some people don't like fishing (probably due to early game) but crab pots don't even actually help with that due to low XP, 1/day use, and not being able to catch actual fish for bundles/ sale.

[Keeper Of Monsters]

If you are really bad at fishing (like I was at first on my first playthrough) but able to finish crab pot bundle (or just plain buy a couple of pots from Willy) those few pots can help you to get through those first few levels of fishing and then you can buy better rod and what do you know - you don't suck as much anymore!
Plus early game those refined quartz you get from CDs and glasses are not a bad thing, plus you can get cloth from newspaper way before you get the barn or coop upgraded - and that's useful for one of community bundles.
And normal fishing takes time - a lot of time. Pots are low XP but it just requires checking them once a day - fast and easy.
Bottom line - pots are a blessing for those who don't like fishing and in the early game. I don't think it has much meaning after that. But it's the same with a cave too, both mushroom or bats, and bulleting board requests also: I mean, when you roll in upwards from 10k gold of daily income from farming - even "bigger" gold reward from one of those doesn't mean much considering you have to spend time and effort to get it.
And after all - you don't have to use them after you get ingredients for a few recipies where it's really needed.

[I Kinda Fail]

They have several niche uses. I wondered the same thing months ago, then forced myself to try them out for an extended period to see how good they were.

1. Without the crab pot perk, overall, I'd say they're only good for... gathering trash, maybe, if you want to make like 3-5. WITH the perk, the copper bars are very easy to get, and more worth it.

2. On a good day in the mines, you can easily get 100+ copper ore, enough for 50 crab pots. Personally, I wouldn't go above 50 per game file. 50 is enough to fill up those 2 little islands at the mountain lake, and there's room to put down a few recyclers and a bank chest.

3. Early game: The crab pots, via recyclers, give refined quartz. Quartz itself isn't rare, but it saves coal - something I'm always lacking early on. I typically save the fish, but recycle all the garbage. The newspaper can sometimes turn into silk, to either make a windmill, turn into fishing tackle, or just sell for cash. The torches, if you're like me, can be plopped all over the map, behind bushes and trees, to light the areas up at night without needing a glow ring, allowing for another magnet ring or something better.

4. Mid game: The fish can become sashimi or quality fertilizer. The fertilizer is GREAT for crops like melons, or potatoes, or whatever - that way you don't need to use your kegs or jars. I try to keep my kegs working on my hop supply, and berries become jelly; potatoes and melons and whatnot get quality fertilizer and get gold star sell bonus, usually. Sashimi is also a pretty good food for both the deep mines and the skull mines. The cactus fruit in the desert are even better, but you can't reliably get those in mass quantities.

5. Late game: This is where the crab pots suffer. By this point, you've probably got kegs and/or jars for at least 5k profit per day. Quality fertilizer becomes less useful when you need more regrowing crops. Your farm is mostly automated now, so you've got time to fish, if you want to for XP. Sashimi has likely been outclassed by better foods by this point, like cheese, hops, cactus fruit or other cooked dishes. The sashimi is still an overall liked gift, so you may as well use it if you have it. However, harvesting the crab pots will seem a lot less useful at this point; however, once you reach level 10, it's sliiightly different.

6. The two level 10 perks: The first one makes it so you don't ever need bait. No more grinding the mines for bug meat, or heading to the beach to buy some for Willy. The pots just become another quick daily chore, if you're in the area. The other perk is arguable more or less useful. You don't get garbage anymore, so you lose out on potential coal, iron, silk or quartz. However, it rapidly improves the rate at getting sashimi, and improves overall profit since you're now getting more fish - either for selling, cooking, or making fertilizer.



I don't think crab pots are useless, but they could definitely do with some more love.
1. Let us use wild bait to guarantee fish instead of trash, before reaching the level 10 perk.
2. Add fish nets, to add some "low level" fish to our catches - clams, sardines, minnows, oysters, cod, etc.
3. Balance out the river catches - ocean has crabs AND lobster, both worth 100g+, but the river averages out to 53g per catch. Ocean averages out to 75g per catch. Add another fish to the river worth like 100-150g.
4. Add "Deluxe crab pots" made from hardwood and gold that add star-quality to the catches, to increase their value.


TL;DR: Crab pots aren't worthless, but they do become a lot less useful at a certain point in the game. Good for fertilizer, good for profit, and sashimi, which is good for the mines and gifting. Compared to normal fishing, it's more versatile, but normal fishing makes more direct profit.

[KellyR]

I think they're expensive because they just keep working forever. I actually took the Luremaster profession at level 10 fishing, because hey, after the initial investment, they're now 100% free, permanent, eternal sources of goods.

May take a while to pay off their cost, but honestly I focused primarily into farming and preserve jars, so I'm raking in giant mountains of cash, and 1500 for a crab pot is a blip I wouldn't even notice.

[Buffmania]

Your math is off on the break-even point. Selling off the better fish and sashimi will take at most 20 catches (1500/75). If you buy bait it'll take at most 22 catches (1500/70).

If my calculations are accurate you'll catch trash 38% of the time.

When you consider the increased direct purchase prices starting in year 2 recycled trash is a cheap and easy way to get some otherwise tedious resources. Recycling a bag of trash will save you anywhere from 100-750g on resources you didn't have to expend money, stamina or other resources to get.

Assuming that the distribution of trash items is equal, the resource drop rates are as follows:

cloth(1) 2%
stone(1-3) 8%
coal(1-3) 11%
wood(1-3) 15%
torch(3) 18%
refined quarts(1) 40%

[deathmage390]

thanks for the notice on the error, must have double tapped the 0 key on accident. changed it back to 20 which was what it was supposed to be. however that means you use 3/4 a season to repay willy (not to mention early 1.5k is a fairly hefty sum. (~1/3 of your t3 gear).

the thing with time investment is that while it takes between 2-14 seconds to "hook" a fish while fishing (basicallcy 0-3 seconds with bubbles) depending on where you fish you can get 75 (sashimi)-200g (sometimes more). pulling from crab pots can take pretty equal amount of time. same distance to walk but considering you can only harvest 3 (5 at a corner) before moving down by the time you do that several times its pretty equal to fishing time sink wise due to clunky use (picked up pots so many times).

as for bad early levels, yes it sucks but in order to buy pots you have to be lvl 3, and the bundle you need to get lucky. i admit that i am resonably good at the fishing minigame. i am lvl 9 by the end of my first spring, every play through now (damn legend i will catch you 1st spring!!!).

i don't even factor rebaiting into my time/cost system due to the fact if you load up on pots you NEED that skill due to bug farming (just check all the early floors for quick kills).

i will admit refined quarts is definitly a premium item but you still get it fishing, trash cans, and the probably 3 pots you still have from bundle. end of spring 1 i tend to have about 30-50. from fishing it up during early fishing.

when it comes to sashimi/fertilizer you can still use most all the carp/ sunfish/ bream/ anchovy/ herring/ and sardines if you took if you took 15% treasure gain. and lets face it the treasure is a massive boon; museum stuff, bundle parts, ores, rings, gems, geodes, gear, bloody prismatic shards.

not to mention when you land a treasure chest it multiplies xp by 2.2 which means carp, lowest xp @8, gives you 18xp and bullhead, highest all time all season @18, gives 40!

[Jonathan J. O'Neill]

pulling from crab pots can take pretty equal amount of time. same distance to walk but considering you can only harvest 3 (5 at a corner) before moving down by the time you do that several times its pretty equal to fishing time sink wise due to clunky use (picked up pots so many times).

Don't use right click to interact with the pots. It's been about a week or two since I last played due to burnout but you MIGHT need to hold something in your hand, as wells. Something like a sword. It'll keep you from picking up the pots.

[Crash [LV]]

You can use crab pot to catch stuff needed for one bundle.

Other than that I stopped using crabpots, because of their huge resource usage, i.e., you have to replenish bait often, but you don't get out much income out of it.

[Bad Aim Bodyshot Barry]

if you have alot of cash, resorces and patience you can line the beach with crabpots AND have like 30-50 recycling machines going. sell everything besides wood and stone, turn the iron with the coal you get from trash into bars, sell them. turn the fish into sushimi as most fish from crab pots will make a profit when turned into sushimi, this can make you anywhere from 50-100K per AND is the best gold for the day (what i mean by that is that in a single day producing it gaves the most gold)

[Scy]

I got all my refined quartz cuz of crap pots, they are good for that.

[KellyR]

For me, they make sense. I invest in Preserve Jars early, so by Summer or Autumn of year 1, 1500gp is a nothing cost, for something that I can go check whenever I have free time, that essentially generates resources from nothing, in exchange for a resource that's effectively free (Bug Meat).