by Clemins » Sun Jul 14, 2024 6:15 pm 
- New learnable skill after getting fishing and farming (Aquaculture)
- Buildable breeding/growout and spawning pools
Buildables
Breeding/growout pool (basically the fish version of a chicken coop)
Cost:
- ~500 stone
- 10 Any metal ingots
- ~200 sand
- (?) Feel free to suggest
Features:
- 10x10 inventory size (slightly bigger than a chicken coop)
- Fish and fry should remain stackable inside the pools
- Fillable with up to 4000l of water, >500l it becomes usable
- Requires either fresh or salt water depending on the fish being farmed, if a fish is placed in a incorrect water, type, it will simply not produce eggs or consume food. (Maybe only fresh water for simplicity sake though.)
Spawning pool (where eggs are hatched into fry)
Cost:
- ~200 Stone
- 80 Sand
- 4 Any metal ingots
- (?) Feel free to suggest
- Only uses fresh water
Features:
- 6x6 inventory size
- Fillable with up to 1000l of water, >100l it becomes usable.
- Eggs will be filled in as a liquid and also have a liquid bar; the inventory is the output where hatched fry go.
- Does not require food and fry do NOT die; they only begin growing and eating once in a breeding/growout pool.
- Generic fish eggs do not work.
(NOTE): Pool Q SHOULD NOT be a factor in fish Q. Only: water Q, swill/food Q, and parent fish Q...
Cost:
- ~500 stone
- 10 Any metal ingots
- ~200 sand
- (?) Feel free to suggest
Features:
- 10x10 inventory size (slightly bigger than a chicken coop)
- Fish and fry should remain stackable inside the pools
- Fillable with up to 4000l of water, >500l it becomes usable
- Requires either fresh or salt water depending on the fish being farmed, if a fish is placed in a incorrect water, type, it will simply not produce eggs or consume food. (Maybe only fresh water for simplicity sake though.)
Spawning pool (where eggs are hatched into fry)
Cost:
- ~200 Stone
- 80 Sand
- 4 Any metal ingots
- (?) Feel free to suggest
- Only uses fresh water
Features:
- 6x6 inventory size
- Fillable with up to 1000l of water, >100l it becomes usable.
- Eggs will be filled in as a liquid and also have a liquid bar; the inventory is the output where hatched fry go.
- Does not require food and fry do NOT die; they only begin growing and eating once in a breeding/growout pool.
- Generic fish eggs do not work.
(NOTE): Pool Q SHOULD NOT be a factor in fish Q. Only: water Q, swill/food Q, and parent fish Q...
How it could work
Basic Concepts
Growth/Consumption Rates
PLEASE NOTE: (Rates are debatable, but please weigh it against your average player fishing rates, anything considerably slower than this will probably not really be worth it.)
- Similar inventory style to chicken coops with a food and water meter where both the food and water Q matter (maybe more formula weight on water Q?)
- Can use existing swill for simplicity, but maybe a fish-specific food?
- Fish can be directly placed into the pools and produce only fish eggs. Fish eggs can only be produced when 2 fish of the same kind are present and the rate at which they produce eggs scales up based on each additional pair of fish.
- The fish do NOT need to be butchered for their eggs, they will just appear inside the inventory like chicken eggs do and automatically stack.
- Water is slowly "consumed" (evaporates); this rate is not effected by the amount of fish present
- Both pools COULD freeze in winter, which stops fish spawning as well as water evaporation and food consumption. But let's be real: winter kills haven, so I would rather the pools either be melted from an external source or just not freeze at all.
- Cave fish do not need pools to be built in caves.
- Fish will not die if food runs out; they simply stop producing eggs. However, if water runs out they will turn into their conjugate dried fish fillets at the same rate as a 10q drying rack, fry will just disappear.
- Fry inventory size will be dependent on the size of the adult fish to avoid inventory issues when they grow into adults.
Growth/Consumption Rates
PLEASE NOTE: (Rates are debatable, but please weigh it against your average player fishing rates, anything considerably slower than this will probably not really be worth it.)
- The normal egg laying rate for EACH PAIR OF FISH should be around ~0.01l to ~0.04l per ~15-30 minutes, or some other amount that doesn't take literal days since this should probably only be a SLIGHTLY slower alternative to fishing on a small scale.
- Spawning pools hatch up to a maximum of 10 fry (0.1l of eggs) per 10 minutes (1 fish/minute).
- Fry will auto-stack and can stack in groups of 5.
- Fry will grow into adult fish in breeding/growout tanks after ~30 minutes. Whole stacks will grow together and remain stacked.
- The rate at which water evaporates from the pools should be slow, I don't have any ideas on any specific rates, but I feel like a full pool should last at least 2 weeks before crossing the <500l (unusable) threshold, but it should evaporate constantly and steadily with or without fish, in my opinion.
- Swill or "fish food" consumption should happen each time:
-A fish grows into an adult
-A pair of fish lays eggs
-(?) A ~12-24 hour "maintenance" tick for each fish in the pool (maybe?)
Other possible small additions
- Farmable lobsters and crab
- Farmable oysters, mussels, razor clams, goosenecks
-(for balance, maybe make farmed versions unable to produce pearls) - New fish type(s) exclusive to aquaculture such as:
Minnows
-Stackable as a fluid
-Possibly could be used as or a combination of: Curio (similar to frog spawn), bait, new food type, fish food/swill, compost, other(?)
Goldfish
-A curio on its own, or combinable with a glass fishtank or something
Crawfish
-Usable meat in crab recipes, lobster should too.
(That way my crawfish farm WILL take off.) - Unique curios such as:
-Silver fish scale
-One-eyed fish
-"Small fry" (fish that doesn't grow up)
-Other/Suggestions(?)
Pros/Cons
Pros
Neutrals
(Could be a pro/con depending on who you're asking.)
Cons
- An alternative to fishing with a more "livestock" approach.
- Focused fish production without the need for node searching.
- Eventually, higher-quality fish than what's caught in the wild, making some foods with fish more viable late game.
- Fry could be added as a bait for fishing fishing, making this a method to also assist fishing if you like doing both.
- An alternative way to complete "catch" quests for both credos and tree quests.
- A new logistic management minigame for the autistically inclined.
- Reliable source of roe for roe stuffing and other roe recipes.
Neutrals
(Could be a pro/con depending on who you're asking.)
- One more reason to never leave the walls.
- Scalable also means, at a certain point, it would be better than outright fishing.
- Bottable, but neutral as fishing already is bottable too.
Cons
- I envision the pools being very large, so very space consuming.
- Lots of inventory management.
- High upkeep (swill/food)
- Time and attention consuming (to maximize production) ((ideally though, it would be forgiving to anyone casually farming fish.))
That's everything I can think of as of now; feel free to make any suggestions! I'll add the really good ones to the OP.
With love and a tender kiss on the forehead,
-Clemins
