6.8 KiB
Quality, condition & breeding
What looking after a fish well adds up to, and where fry come from.
Six tiers of quality
Quality is what your care adds up to over a fish's whole life. Every meal moves it toward a mark made of five things: the meal on time (45%), clean glass (10%), clear water (15%), comfortable temperature (15%) and its home (15%), which is pieces of its own habitat and others of its kind to school with. Timing is judged against that species' own hunger clock, so a three-minute goby and a three-day boxfish are measured by their own rhythm, and brine shrimp always counts as on time. A meal counts for the time it kept the fish fed, so feeding the same fish again and again adds nothing. Meals from an auto-feeder count too. A growing fish stops at silver.
Once a fish is grown, its quality moves slowly. In a good home it holds, or climbs toward gold over a few days; in a neglected one, with green glass, cloudy or cold water and none of its habitat, it slips, slowly: even there a gold fish keeps its gold for about a week. Water also sets a ceiling: below 70% water care can't lift a fish to gold, and below 50% not to silver either. The ceiling itself never takes a tier away.
Where a fish lives matters too. Every species has a home, reef, rock, sand, weed or wreck, and every decoration and plant belongs to one. Two or more pieces of its home and two others of its kind make its home complete. With two or more pieces a fish also gains quality a fifth faster; with none, a little slower. A crowded aquarium, a fish in poor health or one just placed gain more slowly. The Quality tab of the fish card lists what paces its gains, starting with its last meal: the pace of that food, whether the fish loves or dislikes it, or the food that would pace it.
When a grown fish is sold, the time since its last meal counts as if it had just eaten: the fed time that meal gave it lifts its quality, and any hunger since takes it down. Its card shows the tier it would sell at now.
A matched decor set in the aquarium (3 different pieces of one set, see Decorating) adds 5% to how fast every fish there gains quality.
- Plain · where every new fish starts.
- Bronze · fed reasonably often, or well fed in a poor home.
- Silver · fed on time in a decent home.
- Gold · the highest tier care alone can reach, earned once the fish is grown and kept in a good home.
- Diamond · sometimes born to two gold parents, then raised well.
- Purple diamond · sometimes born to two diamond parents, then raised well.
- Obsidian · not a tier but what an adopted fish wears: priceless, never sold and never passed on.
Where fry come from
Fish breed on their own. There is no button: a grown male and female of one species, both in good condition and both rested, may lay an egg in your aquarium whenever there is room for it. A bred egg hatches after twelve hours.
A fish rests two days after a clutch, and the same pair waits a week before spawning again. If the chance comes up while the aquarium is full, it passes. Nothing is stored and nothing is owed.
Each egg from two gold parents has a one-in-four chance to be born a tier above the care it receives. From two diamond parents it is one tier half the time and two tiers one time in ten. That head start is the only way into diamond and purple, and it is only a head start: a fry left hungry slides back down like any other fish. Tap a bred egg before it hatches and choose Incubate to keep it warm until thirty-six hours: from gold parents it is then one tier half the time, and from diamond parents one tier seven times in ten and two tiers one time in five. An egg from parents below gold gets a one-in-five chance to start at bronze instead, which is care, so it still stops at gold. Turn on Auto-incubate eggs in Settings to do this for every bred egg as it is laid, even while you are away.
Every egg remembers its mother and father, so its card shows its family. An adopted parent breeds by its own quality, as before it was adopted, and its fry are ordinary fish. See Your fish’s card.
When a pair lays an egg, hearts rise over the two parents and the egg glows as it settles. A note names the parents, with a button that opens the egg’s card; several eggs at once make one note. Eggs laid while you were away are counted when you come back.
Conditioning
Every aquarium has a Conditioning Box: a small clear box clipped inside the glass near the surface. It is free, and it arrives as a gift when a fish in that aquarium first reaches silver. Tap it in the water, or open it from Build & Buy's Equipment tab, pick a fish and how long it rests, and it swims back out a quality tier higher.
Sure takes the box's full time (48 hours at first) and always lifts one tier, with a 5% chance of two. Fast takes a third of that time and works 60% of the time; if it doesn't take, the fish can go in again. Only a fish below gold that was not born with a head start can go in, and never past gold. The fee is half the fish's plain sale value, paid as it goes in.
The box starts with room for one fish. Level 2 (2,500 coins, from keeper level 15) fits two and shortens a stay to 36 hours; level 3 (10,000 coins, from level 30) fits three at 24 hours. While a fish rests it can't be sold or moved, but it still gets hungry: tap the box with food, or use Feed on its card.
What a fish is worth
A grown fish sells for its species' value, then its quality, then three smaller terms. Tap the sale value on its card to see each one.
Colour: every fish has one of six colours, rolled when you buy the egg and passed from a parent to most fry. Sand and kelp sell at the plain price, bleach ×1.1, teal ×1.2, ink ×1.35 and the rare coral ×1.6.
Age adds to the price of a fish kept fed after it is grown, quickly at first and more slowly later: about +10% after 7 fed days, +19% after 15, +31% after 30 and the full +35% after 45. Only fed days count, by hand or from a feeder: a grown fish left hungry does not age. At 7 fed days a fish becomes Mature, at 30 Seasoned and at 90 an Elder. An Elder adds +5% more, wears silver on its fins and swims a little calmer; the other titles add nothing to the price. The price breakdown on its card always shows its fed days and what is still to come. Each bred generation after the first takes 2% off, never more than 10% in all, and a parent bought from the shop starts the line again.
In the game: https://fishies.lol/wiki/mechanics/quality · Fishies 0.8.24
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