Terraria's Gone Fishing

The latest update to Terraria came out late last week, and I must confess that I've spent way too much time this weekend trying to master the new fishing mechanics. Hence the lateness of this post.

Fishing has proven to be a lot of fun, but also quite time-consuming. The exact mechanics of it all have proven elusive, even with a large community of people trying to figure it all out. But with some help from one of the beta-testers, here's a quick rundown of how it all works:

• First, obviously, you need a fishing pole. Some simple ones can be made from wood or iron, but the better ones are rarely sold from particular NPCs or as a reward for completing a high number of fishing quests (see below).
• Second, you need bait. The logical choice are the insects and worms that typically are found around your base - butterflies, fireflies, grasshoppers, even scorpions. You can also be rewarded better bait from the aforementioned fishing quests.
• Finally, a number of factors determine what you'll catch:
  
  1. Quality of your fishing pole
  2. Quality of your bait
  3. Biome where you are fishing
  4. Time of day
  5. Whether or not a fishing quest is active
  6. Amount of water where you are fishing
  7. Random luck

Fishing is also made more interesting by the presence of a fisherman NPC. Each day, he requests that you bring him a particular fish. You have until dawn the next day to complete this task, and the requested item seems to only be available when the quest is active. Upon completion, you are awarded with some loot, usually fishing related. The exact rewards seem to be random, but definitely improve the more quests you complete.

And of course, perhaps the best reason to go fishing is the opportunity to defeat the new boss and gain some new shiny loot...

Thanks for reading.