Good and Bad Boats and Crews.

andy123321 (INT1)

Hi Fellow Fishers...  I have noticed that some boats are very difficult to fill with an efficient crew.   The level 6 Runabout I usually send to sea with two empty spaces, as it is fully crewed with less than max.   The Norfolk Wherry level 6 is very good at 8 Thermic Boxes, 2 James, and 1 Russel, to catch over 130 fish.

Another good combination is the level 4 Runabout, and if you don't need to rush ( i.e. overnight.)  you can leave the Travel Time Crew on the dock.

I like to think of the Crew as The Mechanic, The Deckhands, and the Captain.

.

Corvid (GB1)

hated the wherry tbh

trawlers and skipjacks (with many configurations of crew etc) are the way forward if you're able to build and upgrade them

buddy194 (US1)

I'd love to hear everybody's views on this as it is the situation I'm currently trying to figure out.

I have 4 motorboats, 4 wherries, 3 skipjacks and 3 trawlers.  I got rid of my runabouts because they just seemed to fill in a space between motorboats and wherries that didn't need filling.  But except for the motorboats I've done almost no upgrading.  I want to keep 4 boats that I can make extremely fast - and now I'm thinking a well upgraded runabout might be better than the motorboats.  (More slots)

Anyway, I hope a lot of people with a lot of experience share on this thread so I can find out how to better get the fleet that does what I want.

Corvid (GB1)

if you want to raise your FXP, keep it one boat short so you can build and demolish motorboats quick and easy for pennies to get good FXP when you're in the mood

garybaldy (GB1)

Its worth noting that on motorboats, if you are catching valuable fish e.g. lobsters and above, it is worth using freezers or even large freezers to boost the capacity, and changing the fish time crew to suit.
As an example, a level 6 motorboat with 4x John,1x Russell and 4 freezers will catch 48  fish . With lobsters this is worth  $875000 and with swordfish/salmon/cod it nets nearly $1,800,000 , which pays for its upgrades in 2 trips .

andy123321 (INT1)

Must admit, I never thought of using the 'wrong' crew or apparatus.   I find the use of Chum can just bring the fish caught up to the boat's capacity.

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Margaret20166 (GB1)

Maybe as this game goes on, we will all end up with 14 Trawlers... 

But will there be any fish left to catch...  ?

24-KL0V3R (US1)

Maybe in real life we might be in danger of fishing our oceans dry, but in Big Farm...like magic...poof...more fish...woohoo! 

JVD (US1)

@FarmerCli (US1) LOL, but not when you need them... but like poof/magic, more of something does appear!!!!

I love fishing!!!!

24-KL0V3R (US1)

Me too!  It is the best thing that GGS has added to Big Farm! 

buddy194 (US1)

Having a more or less complete fleet, it's interesting that planning how to fish out pools in the least time has become a big part of the strategy.  More pools fished out = More pools spawned = More Swordfish pools for your big boats.

I'm going through so many Brigittes, Ians, Roys and Large Freezers on my Runabouts it's almost funny.  Sure it's more expensive, but there's so much money in Deep Sea fishing that a hundred thousand bucks one way or the other in production costs just doesn't make any difference.  And especially not when I can fish out an extra Swordfish pool or two in a day.

The Fishing Region is quite the brain teaser strategy game.  I'm glad GGS added it.

Griffith (INT1)

Only Runabout and Trawlers seem to be most efficient imo. motorboat is awful, wherry is so so, and skipjack is bad too (unless can't make trawlers).
This is just my opinion though.

JVD (US1)

I agree @Griffith (INT1) and the more you upgrade them the better!!!

My trawlers are wonderful, load em up brigettes, roys and some chum and I fill them without losing any fish, I empty holes quickly and am making money hand over fist!!  Because of this I have been able to do various upgrades I thought might never get done, not that I am in a rush, just because of the time it takes to make farm cash... 

Fishing Region is definitely a gift from GGS and again I thank them for it!!!

SophiaLorraine (US1)

I'm a bit perplexed at the aspect of putting the wrong crew, storage boxes, etc.....on boats........Does the penalty not matter in these cases?  Or does the haul of fish counterbalance the penalties and you STILL make money?  Someone tell me how this works, because I've been putting the correct people and accessories on the correct boats and doin' really REALLY great......???  I'm hearing now you can do it wrong and do better!!  haha!  ok......

Damaria3 (US1)

I am right with you there @SophiaLorraine (US1)  I just keep putting the correct things  and not going to worry myself over what could be and confuse myself, if it is working great dont try and fix it. 

SophiaLorraine (US1)

Thanks Damaria.........I think I agree with you!  If it ain't broke, don't fix it!  

garybaldy (GB1)

Usually, it works best using the suggested crew and storage . Motorboats and runabouts have low capacity, and when fishing for expensive fish, the extra you can catch using freezers/large freezers greatly improves your profit, but you will need to fish for longer to fill them, hence using other fishing time crew.
With skipjacks and trawlers, the trip time can get very long if you use the suggested fishing time crew, so by using other crew, you can get more trips in, eg if you can get 2 trips in 24 hours rather than 1 trip of 15 hours which comes back while you are offline , you will get more fish . 
The best thing about this part of the game, apart from the dollars of course , is that  you can fix it to suit your own schedule , personally I try to send my skipjacks and trawlers out  morning and evening, except for the furthest swordfish area.

buddy194 (US1)

The great thing about Deep Sea is that you're going to make a lot of money no matter how you do it.

But don't think of using the "wrong" crew as being a penalty.  Just think of it as different options.  Maybe you're going to a 7-hour pool and you want the boat back in 10-hours so you can use it again over night.  Using the "correct" crewman might add 6 hours of extra fishing time to the boat, but you really only want to add 3 hours of extra fishing time - so use a crewman who only gives 3 hours extra time.  

Your production costs may go up or down by $30 or $40 thousand dollars, but that's nothing compared to the $3 or $4 million you're going to receive when the boat gets back.

That's another advantage of having the Skipjacks and Trawlers - you're almost always adjusting down.  The biggest changes come from adding equipment made for Skipjacks and Trawlers to motorboats and runabouts, especially using the Large Freezers.  Wherries are almost always better with the "correct" crew - except maybe for Fishing Time crew.  

Now, all that being said, you have to like doing the math and figuring out all these details for each boat's trip to mess around with all that stuff.  There's a lot to be said for just adding a Fishing Time crewman, a couple of extra Fish Per Hour guys and a few coolers and sending the boat out without worrying about what the math adds up to.  You're going to make a ton of money anyway, so why sweat it?  

Shay1968 (US1)

When you send the boat out if nothing is in red text you are good to go. 

Here is a quick guide I use to send my boats out. It is setup to catch the maximum amount of fish for each level for each boat with minimal cost and without excessive time.  I do not use travel time saved, specific fishing gear, or any hazard equipment. I simply load my boat with coolers, fish per hour, and fishing time. Sure, I might lose a few fish here and there to hazards, but this is quick simple and easy and makes up for the fish I would lose out on anyway with using an extra spot (or 5) for hazard equipment.  Because how would you decide exactly which one to use??  If you use all 5 then you have wasted ALL of your slots on a level 1 Motorboat or almost half your slots on a Level 6 Trawler. So you would get much less fish anyway.  Everyone has their own style of fishing, But if you need a little extra help you can check out the link below.

<span><a title="Link: https://1drv.ms/x/s!Aoep86hEH7JvhFn30Eqc7AfUg4yI" href="https://1drv.ms/x/s!Aoep86hEH7JvhFn30Eqc7AfUg4yI">https://1drv.ms/x/s!Aoep86hEH7JvhFn30Eqc7AfUg4yI</a></span>  = Dockyard Quick Guide  <Microsoft OneDrive .. safe site

I also have made a fish per hour/capacity calculator that I can use to adjust the amount of travel time, capacity, or fish per hour depending on the amount of fish in the pool or if the HWE is present and I want to get a new hole opened up quickly but mostly so I do not waste extra gear and have the best possible outcome for a specific need.

andy123321 (GB1)

I think I have found the most harmonised boat of all; its a level 5 TRAWLER.  

Loaded with 3 Roys, I Victor and 7 boxes it is capable of catching 281.65 fish, and the capacity is 281 fish.....   

So we only 'waste' 0.65 of a fish... !

Lylu (INT1)

BTW - fractional fish are always rounded down in my experience

Scifi (GB1)

Does anyone know what happens to the fish that are caught in excess of the capacity, are they thrown back in the pool alive, or does it reduce the pool stock.

Maybe fractional fish get fed to the seagulls...

JVD (US1)

As far as I can tell, they remain in the pool

Scifi (GB1)

Sorry to answer my own question, but I just did the experiment, to send out a boat without any extra capacity.

It only fished out as many fish as it could hold, even though the crew could have fished out much more.

( So it's not a quick way of emptying pools.)

JVD (US1)

I am not sure of the answer? all boats will only come back  with the capacity it can hold with or without extra equipment... 

what happens to the fish caught in excess as you asked above? did you resolve that?

Southern (US1)

JVD (US1) said:

I am not sure of the answer? all boats will only come back  with the capacity it can hold with or without extra equipment... 

what happens to the fish caught in excess as you asked above? did you resolve that?

Not sure what you mean by "Excess", @JVD (US1).

Once the boat is full (to capacity), it immediately stops fishing and returns to the dock. So even if you have a Trawler fishing for 6+ Hours (by using Victor), if the boat fills its freezers in 2 hours, it stops fishing @ 2 hours and returns to the dock.  It won't just sit there and try to catch "excess" fish..

JVD (US1)

@Southern (US1)  my question/response is to the OP as below his question

"Does anyone know what happens to the fish that are caught in excess of the capacity, are they thrown back in the pool alive, or does it reduce the pool stock."

It is not my question, just trying to understand what is being asked.... my answer was that I believe they remain in the pool...

Southern (US1)

JVD (US1) said:

@Southern (US1)  my question/response is to the OP as below his question

"Does anyone know what happens to the fish that are caught in excess of the capacity, are they thrown back in the pool alive, or does it reduce the pool stock."

It is not my question, just trying to understand what is being asked.... my answer was that I believe they remain in the pool...

Guess I don't understand the question either then, since there is no "excess" (unless we're talking about fractional fish, like 241.28 or something.   Cuz if the boat is equipped to catch "241" fish, it will only catch 241 fish; when it reaches 241, it stops fishing and returns to the dock, even if that only takes 2 hours of the 6+ hour fishing time you may have equipped for.

That's why if I'm emptying a spot, I'll fill up a trawler with 6 or 7 "Roys", just to empty that spot in an hour, rather than 3 hours (or whatever).. The boat gets back sooner, and I can send it back out again quicker.

(it may not be the most cost efficient, but when I'm just emptying a pool I'm usually going for speed).

JVD (US1)

Southern (US1) said:

Once the boat is full (to capacity), it immediately stops fishing and returns to the dock. So even if you have a Trawler fishing for 6+ Hours (by using Victor), if the boat fills its freezers in 2 hours, it stops fishing @ 2 hours and returns to the dock.  

forget about excess fish, I have yet had a boat come back earlier than the indicated travel/fishing time that was indicated when I sent it out and filled it's capacity... now that is an issue/bug that I need fixed... my boats do not return that way!!!

JVD (US1)

I think we are talking semantics... how you have your boat loaded... roys, coolers etc... But I know before I send a boat out,  when it will be back and with what...

It will not come back sooner then what you have it equipped with... or am I wrong on this?

JVD (US1)

To me excess is the one's lost to "shark attacks" or other... this generally occurs because you have overloaded a roy or something to exceed the boats capacity and not having enough coolers to expand the capacity... 

But  a boat will not come home sooner than I expect based on what I equip it with... that I know of and if it does, please tell me why

thanks