Am I supposed to trawl for fish using a net or just sit there?

[casperorillian]

Im having a hard time actually using the fishing net, I have a boat and everything that works, and I can lower the net in the water but Ive yet to pick up a fish in the net either by standing still or trawling, is there anyone who can offer advice?

[Captain]

trawl, go to hot spots. Did you start a new save?

[casperorillian]

Originally posted by Captain:

trawl, go to hot spots. Did you start a new save?

I did indeed, started a new sandbox world just to make the boat. Not sure how I find hotspots yet, I cant get the fish finder to work

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

To trawl, you need a few things:
1: You need a large net. Fish are actually fairly spaced out.

2: You need to be moving at the right speed. Usually ten to twenty knots. Too slow and nets just kind of dangle in place. Too fast and they fold up like a tortilla.

3: You need the right areas. While in general fish are everywhere, they do concentrate in certain places, before accounting for hot spots.

Take my coastal trawler. Look how I built the net array...
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3245371256


This is a coastal fishing boat. Net depth will never be greater than 40 meters, because that's as long as those winches get. So trawling in 300 meter waters is unlikely to do me any good. There's a good 260 meters of water column my net will never reach. But if I sail it to about 500 meters around one of the random islands, set a waypoint up on the island, and put the boat into an orbit (part of the boat's AP), I can circle that island with the net out and deployed and haul in 40 or so fish in about ten minutes.


Mind you, how your net sets up is determined by a few factors.
- Arrangement of net-anchors at spawn. The wider they're spaced on the build screen, the bigger the net-mesh will be able to be.
- Extending-retracting the nets via the nodes on the anchors. You want full extension, as the net then gets MUCH bigger.
- How far out the net-lines (winch cables) allow the anchors to get. The cables/lines can actually drag the anchors together if you reel them causing the net to sack-out instead of form a wall.
- How fast you trawl. The faster you go, the more the net rises in the water collumn, so just adjusting speed in that sweet range of 10 to 20 knots can raise or lower the net.


Grab my boat (shameless plug of course), give it a test. I KNOW it works, as I test extensively. Learn from it.


EDIT: Also, the fishfinder seems to work intermittently. Not the microcontroller, but rather, detection seems to happen in bursts. The community has commented on that, and we're not sure if that's intentional or a bug.

[casperorillian]

Oh awsome thanks for the examples. I have tried making my own boat and the net was always too small for my tastes, the extend and retract buttons dont seem to work for me but thanks for giving me a ship I can rip off take inspiration from.

[Anwaan]

To get a bigger net, make it as big as you can in the workbench. In the starter bay, you can make a net that can reach 40+ meters in height and/or width depending on how you set it up. You do need winches for the best effect.

[Captain]

https://youtu.be/qPYxnlYX0Z8

[Anwaan]

Captain in for the win!