Dredge - Getting a New Hull for My Fishing Boat

In my last post on Dredge, I helped some locals by completing some quests like transporting building materials for the builder and delivering a package to the Marrows from a scared Courier. I also completed reading a new book.

But I still had an unread book called The Engineer's Companion that the builder gave us. Looked important so I started reading it. It is a passive thing, you just have to start reading and by spending time doing our activities and on our journey we read it passively. Might take a few days, both nothing we can do about it.

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Just on the north of Steel Point (the Builder's place), there were some cliffs and small islands. I went there to see if I could find a rare fish...remember, we have a lot of active quests for catching rare fish.

I saw a turtle swimming there. This was the first time I was seeing a turtle in this game. I don't think you can catch them but going along with it was fun.

On one of the islands, we saw an old guy with an SOS sign. He was stuck there for 2 weeks! Good thing I decided to roam here.

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He went overboard from a ship and got washed away here. Now, he wanted to get to the Little Marrow, so we picked him up in our cargo. Along the way back, we checked on our Crab Pots and found an Inverted Husk. That was rare.

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It is really funny how you transport people around, they are 3x2 rectangles and should be placed on your cargo along with all the other equipment and catch.

We dropped him to the Little Marrow, and he was happy. At the same time sad that he didn't have anything to reward us with. But he had a ring and gave us as for our trouble. This sold for a good amount too, close to 100 dollars as far as I remember.

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The next couple of days, I fished some Stingrays in the Marrows and sold them to the Fishmonger. We needed more money to buy better equipment for our boat.

Along with fishing, I dredged a lot and found a couple of research parts. This is like gold here. Super useful and needed to unlock better rods, engines, nets etc.

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I found a massive key in the ocean. This was an Ornate key and one of the items that the collector would love.

For now, I put it safely in my storage.

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I used the research parts to unlock the Basic Trawl Net. This was a good way to catch fish passively. But it was so damn slow and caught only a few fish in the whole day. However, some of the advanced nets were much more efficient and faster.

The next upgrade I had my eyes on was a big one. A new Hull that gives 5 new storage spaces. You don't know how much limiting the storage is in this game. You are constantly carrying a full inventory and have to come back to either sell your fish or put logs and scrap metals in your storage.

A tier 2 Hull would also unlock new upgrades like more engine space and net slots so I can use advanced rods. However, the items required for this upgrade were not available. I was missing a couple of 'bolts of cloth' and one metal scrap. Later, I got the metal scraps but the bolt of cloth was yet to be found.

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I dredged out some more research parts, the next day and spent them on Improved Trawl Net. This had better yield and more capacity, I think. I had built up some good cash from the recent fishing expeditions so, I instantly bought the net and installed it on my vessel.

I tested it the next day. It has its own storage space which is such a relief. But it still feels significantly slower than catching fish from rods. I should not be complaining about a passive way to catch fish even if it is quite slow lol.

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The book was completed as well. And just a day after completion, we got one more book from the Trader. I realised I should explore a bit more and not spend all of my time here fishing and trying to upgrade my boat. But the fishing and upgrading part of the gameplay is so addictive. Each upgrade improves some aspect of your game and makes you feel like you are making good progress.

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I had my eyes on upgrading my rod to the Versatile Rod which catches coastal, shallow, mangrove and volcanic types of fish with just one rod. But it required 4 research parts to just research and then I had to buy it and had enough slots in my cargo where I could fit this rod.

That will be my short-term goal for the game. After I have this rod installed in my vessel then I will go out and try to catch all those types of fish. The last time I was in Mangrove, I couldn't catch those fish there because I had no rods that caught those fish. This time I would be more prepared for that challenge.