Havan IronOak's Complete Beginner's Guide to Fish Mongering in Naval Action

Naval Action dumps you in the Caribbean flat broke with an unlimited supply of the weakest ships in the game. Assigned the lowest rank possible for the nation you've chosen. There's nothing in your hold, nothing in your warehouse, and nothing in your purse. Captain's chest? Empty. Upgrades area? Empty.

Sure there are ports aplenty with goods aplenty that one may trade and make huge profits but even the cheapest goods cost money and we've got zero. How does one get started?

I recommend fishing and the gentle trade of the fishmonger. It's a tale of fishguts to Glory!

Fishing

Nothing could be easier than to begin fishing.

From the home port screen that you're unceremoniusly dumped into press the big green SAIL button in the top center.

Soon you'll be transported to your ship in the harbor and you should see something like our first picture.

In the left column you'll see a semi transparent column that tells us abourt our vessel.
You could learn all about that and more in http://www.navalactionwiki.com/index.php?title=Havan_IronOaks_Guide_for_Complete_Idiots but we're here to fish and to make some starting money.

Near the bottom of that column, you will see the outline of a fish. (Directly above the word PLAY ) If that outline is just a simple, unchanging, hollow outline of a fish, you're not fishing. Left clcik on it once and you start fishing. You can tell that its working because the outline will pulse empty to full and back.

You CAN just sit in harbor and fish if you like, or you can practice with the W and S keys raising and lowerings sails and the A and D keys turning your vessel to port and starboard.

Be SURE to use the right Mouse Button pan and tilt features to take in just what a beautiful game this is!

Heck you might even get brave and sail to a nearby friendly port. The scenery is certainly worh exploring a bit.

But all we care about for this guide is the fishing. As in the real world, some people are lucky, some are unlucky and the sea has plenty to offer but pretty soon everone catches something. When you do there'll be a message right next to that fish icon telling you what you've snagged. Whatever it is will be put in your hold.

Catch of the Day

Depending on your luck, or the lack thereof, you'll soon find you've caught something or maybe even a few somethings.

Prized Fish

There are a number of Prized Fish that can be sold directly to the shops for 5000 gold per. (Provided that the market isn't glutted.

These include:

• Bull Shark
  
• Eel
  
• Flying-fish
  
• Giant Oceanic Manta Ray
  
• Hammer-Head Shark

If you catch one of these you're in luck. You can sail back into port and sell it for the 5 grand in the shop. However, if the shop is temporarily glutted with the type of fish you've caught, They''l only offer 1 gold for it. Don't accept that! You might wish to just store it in your warehouse and try selling it again later when prices have returned to normal.

Or you might like to try the shop in another port. That works for me.

Sealed Bottles

If you're really and truly lucky you might snag yourself one of these. Sealed bottles contain information about the location of a wreck that you and only you will be able to find and salvage. I've had wrecks yield upwards of 500,000 worth of goods. Get one of these, open it, find and salvage the wreck and your need for fish-mongering will be over for good. --- Or you could sell the bottle to the shop for 100 gold.

Be aware though that only 1 "bottle" wreck will ever appear on your map at a time. If you are lucky enough, to find a second sealed bottle, and unwise enough to open it before you've salvaged the first, the first will be lost forever.

Salt

Often you don't catch a fish but you do get some salt. That's not too bad, salt is frequently sold small amounts of money (~ 28 gold)

Finally - Fish

Pretty much everything else you catch will actually be ...well fish These can be sold as is to the shoppes but the best money can be made with a little fish-mongering

Fish-Mongering

All that's required to make money fish-mongering is a fish or some gold or both and a fish meat market that's not glutted.

Got a single fish?
Remember! If it's one of the Prized Fish find a port that will pay what it's worth. Do NOT convert it as you would common fish.

Assume that the shop menu looks like the one above:
Right click on that common fish and convert it (and all the others of that type) to fish meat and sell it. Viola you've got 25 gold per.

But Don't Stop There

Use your newfound wealth to buy two Tuna that the shop is selling for 10 gold each.
Convert them to fish meat and sell all your fish meat. We're at 255 gold
Buy the last two Tuna and all the Dorado. Convert all that to fish meat and sell it. We're at 960 gold

Not bad for a few minutes work!

Note that I started with the most expensive fish (other than the Prized fish) that I could afford?

They yield the most fish meat and at some point the market for fish meat will collapse.
We want to sell as many at a time as we can until the crash happens.

At some point the market for fish meat WILL collapse, or we'll run out of fish to convert. We can either fish some more and try a different port, or we can turn to trading which multiplies wealth a bit differently.

But for that you''ll have to tune in later for a new guide... Or visit the wiki address that I listed earlier.

Couple of follow-up notes:

• Fish can be converted (processed) to fish-meat aboard the vessel or in port. While fish-meat generally occupies less hold space and is more valuable than raw ordinary fish it seems to weigh about the same either way and on small vessels weight is more of a consideration than categories of cargo. Also it's easier to mess up and convert valuable fish. Until you are familiar with the types of fish that are valuable, it is best to leave them all intact until you reach port.
  
  
• In port put all your valuable fish in the warehouse (or sell them) before cleaning the fish in your hold. That way there is less danger of converting a valuable fish to less than it's worth.

[Flemming DK]

Thanks for the guide, i did not know you could fish at all :)