Complete Scallop Dredging Guide

A complete guide based on my own personal experiences from scallop dredging. Includes plotting, dredging and manual gutting. Results may vary for you based on your game difficulty, crew skill, knife tier and current scallop habitat populations.

Changelog

v1.2 - 22/11/2023
- Formatting changes

v1.1 - 30/04/2022
- Added 'Manual Gutting' section
- Formatting changes

v1.0 - 25/12/2021
- Published 'Scallop Dredging Guide'

Attention

I recommend trying the in-game scallop tutorial first to get a basic understanding of the games mechanics.

This guide was created while operating the Viking Power but works well with all 3 of the scallop vessels.

Plotting your course

After you have found a good scallop habitat tip from one of the ports make your way out to sea and stop close by to the scallop grounds you have chosen.

1) Next, what i like to do when i'm looking at the scallop grounds on my map is to picture the habitat tip as the centre of the possible fishing grounds. Imagine an area around the habitat tip like below. This is now your potential dredging area for scallops.

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2) On the left hand side of your map use the 'Personal Digital Assistant' to place 4 custom scallop locations at the top, sides and bottom of the scallop tip and your envisioned area like below.

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3) Now, using the autopilot at the bottom of the screen make a path from the top scallop marker and make your way clockwise or anti-clockwise joining the markers together.

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4) Continue making your way around until you have reached the centre and you should have an autopilot course that almost resembles a web.

Dredging

1) Move to the first marker and drop the dredge bags. Once they are on the seafloor turn on the autopilot and set the speed to 5.5 knots. This will keep your ship between 4 - 7 knots depending on waves and cargo weight. This seems to be the optimal operating speed for scallop dredging.

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2) Keep a worker on the cranes at all times so the dredge bags are always on the seafloor or you risk not catching scallops if they rise back up as the seafloor gets deeper on your plotted course.

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3) Once the bags are full pull them back in and get the scallops sorted, gutted and stored away and lower the dredge bags back down to the seafloor. Keep using the autopilot set to 5.5 knots for a more automated process. Continue the operation until your ship is full or you are satisfied with the total catch onboard.

If you reach the centre of the plotted web course before your hold is full then simply redraw it or repeat the process at a new scallop habitat location depending on the population of the current habitat you are fishing.

(Optional) Manual Gutting

Manual gutting quality will depend on what knife you are using and what area of the scallop you insert the knife into.

These are the gutting results from my own trial and error.

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Using this information i collected we can now test our gutting quality in each scenario.

5* quality when inserting the knife just below the top.

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1* quality when inserting the knife into the middle of the scallop.

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5* quality again when inserting the knife just above the bottom.

Getting paid

When you are ready, return to the port of your choice based on current scallop prices and enjoy the payday.

[Rubinelle]

They may have updated the sorting now, because today I got a crew with level 6 scallop sorting on the first scallop dredger and got 1502kg. It could be luck since the second one was 1291kg, or the boat, but it's something to consider nonetheless

[MADTSOIIDAE]

just to clarify on average i'm getting 40% less scallops when using the crew sorting

[MADTSOIIDAE]

if you wanna fill your boat up quickly sort the scallops manually. the Crews scallop sorting skill only increases their speed not their accuracy.

the crew sorting is a bit broken and i'm little annoyed at the fact i spent 400K testing it
if i sort manually i will get 1200kg-1500kg
is i let the crew sort i will get 700kg-1300kg rarely will i see 1400kg

Tested with the ocean scout, over 200 full nets

[Froggy]

Noice thanks for sharing. Been trying to come up with a scheme that works. I will give it a try using the double dragger I bought.