Forgotten Grotto: Does Time of Day Matter?

[lindsaysoderberg]

I took my level 10 Fisherman sim to the Forgotten Grotto at 11:38 PM on a Wednesday in sim-time, and I had him "Examine Water" in all three fishing spots.

Each time it said, "[Sim Name] can't seem to get a read on these fish. Maybe try again later."

Does anyone know if time of day, or anything else for that matter, influences the fishing conditions in Forgotten Grotto?

Thanks 

[Playalot]

Same thing with my level 10 fishing sim. I went for a few different visits each at different times of day etc but the result was the same. I tried different emotions as well, even with very focused I still didn't get anything different.
Same in S.Glades and often even in Willow park pond!
Yet I don't remember this happening before. Maybe it got changed in the last patch!? Either way he was still able to catch all the fish he needed to there. I just used Carl's fishing guide to figure out what bait to use.

[Joria]

You just have to start out by actually fishing in those spots.   Don't worry about which bait you use just pick one.  After you've fished for a few minutes and hopefully caught something, stop fishing and examine water again and you should get a message like, "These fish will bite on anything as long as it's expensive", (I think that's the wording), or "Fish here really like amphibians", which means use frogs.  I had the same thing happen so just started fishing and after I caught one and tried examining the water again, voila it was there.

[_Annika_]

I suspect the 'expensive' part is gems and metals. I was trying to find specific baits in the code (with not much luck) but I did discover that they are listed as baits, and they are available to use in the bait list.

[DarkWalker]

I suspect the 'expensive' part is gems and metals. I was trying to find specific baits in the code (with not much luck) but I did discover that they are listed as baits, and they are available to use in the bait list.

The expensive bait is simply the generic message if the bait isn't among the ones it has a specific message for. In the fishing.fishing_interactions file there are specific messages for frogs, small fish, medium fish, fresh fruit, fresh flowers, and organic; if the fish requires anything else, it will result in the "expensive" message. I believe currently the only different thing a fish might require is large fish as a bait, but I could be wrong, and future content could bring fishes that ask for inorganic bait.

Baits work as hidden buffs. If you have extracted the tuning files with the tuning name somewhere in the file name, do a windows search for "file:*buff*bait" without quotes and you will find every bait buff.

For reference, you have small, medium, and large fish; frogs; fresh flowers and fresh fruit; metals, crystals, and elements; and rotten fruits. You also have two bait groups, trash and organic. The groups are set manually, though; an object that is part of one bait group will have the group explicitly set.

As for what counts as each kind of bait, that info is hidden away in the COBJ files as numerical references to tags. I'm still using S4PE 0.2a, so I'm not sure if newer versions identify that element, but if you look at the element named Unknown 5 in a COBJ file, it's a list of numerical references to tags in the tag list (instance 0xd89cb9186b79acb7, type 0x03b33dd, gets extracted to the tun folder). The kind of bait is one of the tags (or, rather, multiple; for example, seems like any kind of fish, fruit, flower, or frog also count as an organic bait)

I don't offer a list this time because I've yet to make something to spit a nice list of which object has which tag, so I would have to do a manual search and... well, with over 10k objects, that is a more than daunting proposition. More so because I would have to keep cross-referencing with the numerical codes of the buff list.

[lindsaysoderberg]

Well, I have completed the fish collection, and what I've found is that the type of bait is actually much, much less relevant in The Sims 4 than in The Sims 3. In fact, MANY fish can be caught without any bait at all.

Goldfish, actually, along with Guppies, were really hard for me to catch until I stopped using any bait.

I never had to use anything other than fruits, vegetables, fish, and frogs as bait, no gems, etc. The "expensive" comment may be referencing Treefish, which are the most reliable way to catch (and almost the only way to catch) the Piranha (in Willow Creek Park Pond).

[_Annika_]

I'm not very familiar with programming so the tuning files for Sims 4 are a bit beyond me. Sims 3 tuning files were easy to find, understand and alter. I did notice some of the bait files popped up under buffs in the xmls. I use Notepad++ and search files in the specified folder. If you extracted the files into separate folders the search does not take quite as long if you know where you want to be looking. I did notice what I think you mean about numerical tags. Everything in the files seems to have tags. I did find one file that may list what those tags are though - \tun\S4_03B33DDF_00000000_D89CB9186B79ACB7, that is, if I'm on the same track.

[lindsaysoderberg]

@Playalot, I found that what you described is actually what happens.

When I enter the grotto, I get the "try back later" message from each fishing spot. After fishing for a bit, I try again, and I get the message about fishing with amphibians from the sign at the center fishing spot. It's probably a bug, I guess.