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Fishing guide: the sea reader

What a fisher does

Fishers do not sail from port to port for a price. They read a living sea. The fish map shows 26 real fishing grounds, from the Lofoten and Barents and the Grand Banks to the Humboldt off Peru and the Bay of Bengal, each with the species that really run there and the months they run. You pick a ground, a species and a shift, sail out, fish and come home with a hold.

The grounds are shared. Every trip by every fisher takes a bite, and a ground regrows on its own clock. Reading which grounds are full, which species are in season, and where the crowd has not been lately is the whole craft.

Grounds, species and seasons

There are 13 legal species, each with a price factor and real seasons: Atlantic cod in the first months of the year, bluefin tuna in late spring in the Bay of Biscay, the Balearic Sea and the Strait of Sicily, Peruvian anchoveta on the Humboldt, snow crab in the Bering Sea and the Barents, penaeid shrimp in the Gulf of Mexico and the Bay of Bengal, skipjack all year in the tropics, Cape hake all year off southern Africa, and more. Out of season a species runs at about a third of its strength. Each ground offers trips for its best legal species of the month.

Some grounds are offshore (the Faroe–Shetland channel, the Bering Sea, the Grand Banks, the Agulhas Bank, the Patagonian shelf and others): they need a tier 3 hull or the Deep Charter node. The Southern Ocean is a sanctuary, and fishing there counts against your moral compass.

How Fishing earns: shifts and density

Every trip card offers three shifts: short (1 real hour, about 40% of a day's catch), day (3 real hours, the reference) and long (6 real hours, about 160% of a day's catch, limited by the hold). On a long shift the catch loses freshness unless the holds are cold. Pay covers the trip's fuel and crew plus the value of the catch, which follows the species' price factor, the season and above all the ground's density.

There is no floor. A trip takes 12% of a ground at tier 1, rising to 40% at tier 5, and a ground grows back fully in about a real day and a half. If a ground falls below 10% it collapses: it is closed for three real days, then regrows at half speed from nothing. A ground so empty that the catch would be worth less than a fifth of the trip's costs shows no card at all. A collapse is announced in the sea news.

Landings matter beyond your hold. Fish landed at a port makes fresh produce charters from there pay 15% more for a game day, a liner in port makes fresh fish sell 15% dearer, and a port recovering from a storm pays 30% more for food runs. You can also list a catch on the market for other captains to buy instead of selling it straight to the port.

The illegal side

Three catches are illegal: minke whale (Iceland Banks, Grand Banks, the Sanriku coast, the Agulhas Bank and the Southern Ocean, never the Mediterranean), shark fin (tropical Atlantic, Indian and Pacific grounds) and Black Sea sturgeon for caviar. They pay far more than legal fish and appear as separate cards marked ILLEGAL. Each card shows its Warden risk (45% in policed waters, 15% elsewhere) and its fine, one and a half times the pay. If a Warden boards you the catch is seized, the fine is paid and you lose 25 Elo. Even a catch landed quietly moves your moral compass toward the rogue end. The choice is yours, and it is never hidden.

The hulls

Fishing hulls are the cheapest of any calling at each tier (a Coastal Boat costs about $45,000). The calling earns close to Cargo at the low tiers and pulls ahead at tiers 4 and 5.

The upgrade tree

The Fishing Bridge sharpens your reading of the sea: Sonar I and II, a catch grader, a ground-suggesting Fish Finder and a Season Almanac. Each hull commits to one branch for good:

Risks and counters

The real risk for a fisher is an empty sea. A popular ground fished by several captains can be stripped in an evening, so spread your trips, watch density on the cards, and leave grounds near 30% to regrow. Pirates treat fishing boats as prey like any other ship, though a hold of fish is worth less than most cargo. Storms near a ground are worth planning around, and freshness suffers on long shifts without cold holds.

Your first hour

Open the fish map and look at the grounds within 1,500 km of your home port: green is full, brown is fished out. On your Coastal Boat's board, compare the short and day shifts on the best ground. A short shift lands quickly and teaches you the loop, while a day shift pays better per trip. Land two or three catches, buy Sonar I and Net Handling, and check which species will be in season next month on the grounds you can reach.

Tips

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