Talk:Carp

This talk page is for discussing Carp.
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Spawn Rates

Carp should be most likely to be caught in the Secret Woods, casting right next to shore, and not in the Mountain Lake. The location on any the body of water won't matter, thought depth can as some fish are less likely to spawn closer to shore. In the Secret Woods, only one other fish can spawn on non-rainy days, the Woodskip, which has a rate of 36% next to the shore compared to 65% for the carp. So 2/3 of fish caught next to shore in the Secret Woods should be Carp on a non-rainy day, or a bit less than half of fish on a rainy day, when catfish also spawn. MissSlaughter (talk) 15:44, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

But what about the % chance of catching trash?

I think since the Mutant Bug Lair, Witch's Swamp, and Secret Woods all need to be unlocked, the best place in early game may be the mountain lake. If you haven't got a Steel Axe (or better), then your choices are limited. margotbean (talk) 16:05, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

I just went through the code for it with a programmer, and it looks like trash only happens if you fail the check to catch every type of fish available at the time (due to low skill, fish spawning data, and randomness). What does matter is order that the fish are listed in, in addition to the fish data (spawn rate, depth, spawn and depth multipliers), so my initial assumption (weighted random check choosing a fish from those available) was incorrect. But trash never interferes with a fish spawning.

But the current claim that the Mountain Lake is the best place to catch carp is incorrect, as is the stuff about location on the lake. Carp is the first fish that attempts to spawn in the Sewers, so is most prevalent there. It's the 2nd fish to attempt to spawn after Largemouth Bass in the Mountain Lake, and both the Bass and the Carp don't have any increase in their chance of spawning if casting farther, so fishing location within the lake is completely irrelevant (unless fishing in the rain, when Walleye has precedence over Carp in spawning attempts). Carp is also 2nd in the list to spawn in the Secret Woods, and the first fish to spawn there, the Wookskip, is easier to fail the check to spawn, so the Carp will be more frequent in the Secret Woods than the Mountain Lake too.

Additionally, the locations.json file indicates that Carp never spawn in the Cindersap Forest pond. Someone might have confused the "Backwoods" fish data as applying to the Forest, but the Backwoods is the map to the west of the Mountain map, and the data on it is identical to the Mountain data. MissSlaughter (talk) 20:22, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

The part about the forest pond has been on the page since 2016. I have no data before v1.11, but the Locations file hasn't changed since then. I'll remove that location from the page.

You seem to have not read the part I typed about unlockable areas. If you're in early game, then the mountain lake may very well be the best place to try to catch one, which is basically what it says on the page. Please remember to sign your posts with 4 tildes, and thanks for pointing out the forest pond error! margotbean (talk) 22:46, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

The early game/unlockable areas are relevant, but the player can figure out if they're able to access those or not, so it's nice to include multiple options. Otherwise players with access to a better area might be hanging out at the Mountain Lake. I'm going to try to work on a more detailed assessment for the odds for each fish at all the locations on the Fishing Strategy page.

After more untangling of the decompiled code, it does look like I was wrong about the listed order of fish in the locations file being important, as those arrays of fish get properly shuffled before the skill check starts for each type of fish. So the Carp is simply most likely to be caught where there's fewer types of fish, and where other types of fish spawn rarely.

A preliminary look at the data therefore suggests that Secret Woods is the best place to catch Carp, as there's only 1 other type of fish unless it's raining, and never algae. Then the Sewer, which also has two types of algae which have a moderate spawning rate. Even the Bug Lair is probably better than the Mountain Lake, as there's only 1 other fish and 2 types of algae, and algae spawns less than most Mountain fish. So the Mountain lake is probably actually the worst possible location for Carp :-P Hence the problem with it being called the best. But it is the only early-game source, which definitely should be mentioned.

The incorrect data about Carp and Catfish in Cindersap pond looks like it all comes from a single source, which as you noted is pretty old. It's possible that he got his Secret Woods fish confused with his Cindersap pond fish, as Carp and Catfish (which he also mentioned) are 2 of the 3 fish in the Secret Woods. Or his data might have predated the Secret Woods, if that came into the game later, and both sets of fish might have been combined in Cindersap pond. MissSlaughter (talk) 09:25, 28 October 2019 (UTC)