Fishing: Treasure Hunting of the Sea

[SgtScooter]

arrr! So ye fancy yerself a sailor on the high seas… *cough* *cough*... Ahem, sorry about that.
 
So you’d like to become a treasure hunter of the sea; Excellent! There are hordes of treasure just sitting there on the bottom of the ocean waiting to be found. Even better, fishing is one of the safer ways for players to accumulate a healthy pile of gold. There is still danger, but it’s great reward for the risk. Creager has written a fantastic leveling guide to get you started. I followed it to the letter and it paid off. I’m definitely standing on his shoulders to write this guide.
 
I’d like to focus a little more on what happens after you GM fishing and start finding those wonderful messages in bottles (MiBs). You see, I’m a noob, and I continue to stub my toe on those little details that normal players have figured out long ago. So, my noobish friends, let me draw you a line from point A to B… literally. Even if you know how it all works, perhaps this will inspire some thoughts about how to make your hunt more efficient.
 
Right, so using your diligently attended macro, you’ve hauled up a serpent. You’ll receive a system message informing you that this serpent is holding either a MiB or a treasure map. Creager helpfully pointed out that you have to kill that serpent to loot the item, but I mention it again because my early reaction was to instantly hide and wait until it wandered away. Don’t be a noob like me. Kill that serpent.
 
If the serpent held a tattered treasure map, tuck that away for later use with my treasure hunting guide. If, however, you’ve found a message in a bottle, then the fun fishing can begin! Double click the bottle to receive a waterstained SOS. Double click the SOS to read a message which will contain a set of coordinates indicating where the sunken treasure can be found. At this point you have a few options about how to go retrieve it.
 


This wooden tub is equipped with GPS?
Assuming that you’re using UOAM, yes it is! Right-click the map area of UOAM and select “Edit or Go To Labels.” Go to the “Places” tab. Click the “Add” button. You can name your spots however you’d like, but I name everything simply “A” so they all sort together if I feel like browsing. I also leave the type as “archers guild,” because it’s the default and that’s one less thing to type. The important part is that you click the “Latitude/Longitude” button and enter the coordinates you are given in the SOS.
 

 
Now that the location is entered, select it in the menu and click the “Locate” button. Right-click the new location on the map area and select “Drop or Pickup Marker.” I told you I’d literally draw you a line from point A to B.
 

Start sailing! If the treasure location is very far away, or separated by large land masses, you might consider docking and recalling to a closer location.
You’ll notice that UOAM displays the distance to the location in the number of tiles. The treasure can actually be fished up a fairly good distance away. The exact number seems to vary, but it can be up to just over 60 tiles. You’ll know you’re close enough when instead of fish, you start pulling up some interesting items. See below for more exciting details! Also, it's very important  to delete the UOAM location once you've pulled up the chest.  Otherwise you'll have no idea which SOSs you have completed.

Autopilot too?!
A neat little trick I hadn’t realized until Talia mentioned it is this:
Take a sea chart or a world map. Open it up, click <Plot Course> and drop your pins wherever you want. They will be numbered. Then you drop the map onto the tillerman -- it will drop back into your pack and be reusable since you can clear your plotted course and make another one. The commands should be as follows:

• start: Start along the charted course and continue until finished or stopped.
  
  
• continue: Resume plotted course after stopped.
  
  
• furl sail or stop: Stops current ship movement.
  
  
• goto #: Sail directly to pin # on map, then continue on remainder of plotted course.
  
  
• nav: Asks tillerman which pin # you are heading to on map.
  
  
• single #: Sail directly to pin # on map, then stop.
  

Because the in game maps are so small, this won’t get you to exactly the spot you want to go, but it’ll get you close.
 
Holding out for a bigger haul
Setting sail to your location immediately for one treasure chest generally isn’t the most efficient use of your time. Far better to stockpile your SOSs and knock out a bunch at once. What I like to do after adding the SOS location to UOAM is organize the SOS item by location according to what city UOAM tells me is the closest. The container in which I store my SOSs contains several sub-containers arranged roughly by where they fall on the map.
When one of those sub-containers fills up with enough SOSs or an area of the map becomes cluttered enough by locations (decided arbitrarily by me), I pick up the corresponding bag, recall to a convenient launch location in the area, and set sail. The principles are all the same as with a single SOS, except that you’ll be dealing with the added challenge of what to do with a mountain of treasure all at once. Poor you.
 
Seriously, though, what do I do with a mountain of treasure?
Well, how to go about identifying everything or selling it all off to vendors could really be guides in and of themselves.You’ll have a lot to organize. Perhaps that’ll be my next guide. For now, though, I’ll just say that the smart play is actually to recall each chest out to your house or bank for processing later. Having a mountain of treasure on a boat is a pain, and it makes you an inviting target for pirates (though I haven’t run into any yet). That being said:
 
Here’s why fishing for sunken treasure is awesome:

 
These are some of the extra items you'll recover before pulling up the chest:


 
Lol, SgtScooter, you fish like a noob. My method is much better.
Great! It probably is; tell us about it! I probably have gaps in my knowledge you could sail a ship through. Also, I haven’t had time to develop anything hyper efficient, because I spent too much time staging screenshots. However, I’ll happily update this guide to incorporate other useful ideas.
 
Useful highlights and tips:

• Hiding is an incredibly handy skill to have as a fisherman. There are many wandering serpents and water elementals on the seas, and I’ve lost count of how many I’ve casually slid by without incident because I’m usually hidden while underway.
  
  • Also, you can issue a quick command or two and rehide without aggroing them.
    
• Archery is my favorite method of fighting from ships. Creager already mentioned it, but I’ll mention it again because it’s so important. Serpents can’t melee you if you’re on one of the ship’s middle tiles, and that goes both ways.
  
  • They will still use fire breath and minor spells (including poison! see next tip)
    
  • Magery works just fine, but it’s expensive to train and doesn’t give you that satisfying *thunk* with a hit.
    
• Everything on the water can poison you. Be sure to prepare for it with potions, bandages with 60 healing/anatomy, or spells.
  
  
• You can fish, fight, and bandage all at the same time. In the middle of fishing for a chest and pull up a serpent with a bottle? Keep fishing! It doesn’t save all that much time, but it’s funny to be doing everything at once...especially when you pull up a second serpent.
  
  
• For the love of Poseidon, do not leave the ship with a chest in the tile directly aft of the mast. That’s the spot you will recall to when recalling on your ship key, and a chest will block the location. I’ve done this a couple times, and heading out on another ship to troll for your original ship is a royal pain and will make you feel dumb.
  
  • The chest will often appear at your feet when you fish it up because of its weight.
    • If you don’t stand behind the mast when you fish, you won’t need to worry about it.
      

[Talia]

Good guide!

[Tophu]

Nice work, love the guide