A simple basket/net with bait that closes itself when pushed from inside. Could be made with several pieces of string, one bait and some wood to hold it in place.
The idea here is to make it almost functionally equal to fishing with the primitive pole - however an automated/passive, more expensive way.
How it would work:
The trap would be a buildable object on shallow water. Traversable by all (to prevent the blocking of rivers).
When built, it has an "idle" animation - you can load it with bait (right clicking with bait on hand) and then it becomes "active".
While active, it tests for fish just like fishing does - chance is also based on the quality of the trap (materials, capped by survival + dex). It also has the chance of breaking (needs string to repair) or the chance of a fish getting the bait without being caught (needs a new bait) just like fishing poles.
However, if nothing wrong happens, it will eventually catch a fish and the animation will change to notify people. You just approach it, get your fish and reload it with more bait if you wish - Profit!
Oh, caught fish should have a little tiny chance of escaping from time to time, to prevent huge trap fields visited every week or so that will be full of fish. The idea is to make fishing less time consuming but still require your attetion every half an hour or so.
Why?
Fishing is time consuming - as many other chores are, true - but there's a lot of gameplay value in giving options to exchange one way of doing things for another. So this is the "Not so time consuming way" to fish in early game, useful for hermits, lone players, etc... But it has to have its own downsides:
- It is more expensive material-wise
- Unless you get water in your claim, your traps will require some attention to not be griefed upon/destroyed/have the fish stolen/etc.
- It can be made so that it can only get small fish. Larger fish could require a bigger, more expensive trap made with plant fibre, for example.
Thoughts?
