Cooking Bell Timer

Cooking Bell Timer is a simple quality-of-life cooking helper for How to Fish.

Instead of repeatedly picking up and inspecting your fish, clam, seagull, or other cookable food to check the cooking multiplier, the mod gives you an easy visual timer directly on screen.

Just put the food on the fire and watch the bar.

Visual cooking timer

As soon as the item begins cooking, a horizontal progress bar appears on screen and follows the cooking multiplier toward the perfect 1.50x point.

The overlay gives you a quick visual reference without needing to open the item's inspection view.

While cooking normally, the bar transitions through:

green → yellow → orange → red

The current cooking multiplier is displayed above the bar.

1.45x marker

The bar has one simple marker at:

1.45x

This gives you an easy visual warning that the item is getting close to the perfect cooking point.

Bell at 1.48x

When the food reaches:

1.48x

the mod plays a single bell sound.

The bell is deliberately quiet enough to work as a notification without overpowering the game's audio.

In v0.3.9, the default bell playback volume is 0.27, which is 30% of the previous 0.90 volume level.

The bell only plays once for the current item.

Perfect cooking point

The target is:

1.50x

The overlay continues updating so you can visually time when to remove the item from the heat.

Burning indicator

If you leave the food on the fire past the 1.50x peak, the overlay stays visible instead of disappearing.

Once the item begins burning:

• the normal cooking colors are replaced
• the entire bar starts brown
• the bar gradually darkens toward black
• BURNING appears above the bar in yellow text
• the displayed multiplier continues updating as the food burns

This makes it easy to tell at a glance that you have passed the ideal cooking point.

Why use Cooking Bell Timer?

Normally, judging cooking progress means repeatedly checking or inspecting the food.

Cooking Bell Timer gives you a much more convenient alternative:

• put the food on the heat
• watch the progress bar
• use the 1.45x marker as your visual warning
• listen for the quiet bell at 1.48x
• remove the food around 1.50x

You can keep your attention on the game instead of constantly inspecting the item just to see its cooking multiplier.

Burning multiplier behavior

The normal cooking side from 1.00x to 1.50x is unchanged.

After the food reaches the perfect 1.50x peak and continues cooking, the game begins reducing the multiplier. Cooking Bell Timer now mirrors that falling side at the same gradual rate as the rising side:

raw cookness 1.00 = 1.50x
raw cookness 1.10 = 1.45x
raw cookness 1.20 = 1.40x
raw cookness 1.50 = 1.25x
raw cookness 2.00 = 1.00x

This prevents the burning overlay from dropping much faster than the actual in-game multiplier.

Audio

The mod uses only one sound:

sounds/
└── ding.ogg

There is no sizzle or tick-tock audio.

Configuration

Configuration file:

BepInEx/config/ponyfisher.howtofish.cookingbelltimer.cfg

Default settings:

BellThreshold = 1.48
BellVolume = 0.27
Overlay.Enabled = true
Overlay.Width = 560
Overlay.Height = 32
Overlay.BottomOffset = 235
Overlay.HideDelay = 0.90

BellVolume = 0.27 is intentionally a new setting name. Older versions used Volume, so an old saved 0.90 value will not override the quieter v0.3.9 default.

Multiplayer

Cooking Bell Timer is a client-side visual/audio helper.

Each player receives an independent overlay and bell only for food that player placed on the heat. Other players' cooking does not trigger your timer or bell. The bell is local two-dimensional audio and cannot be heard by proximity.

It does not modify:

• cooking speed
• item value
• the game's cooking mechanics
• multiplayer/server cooking values

Changelog

0.3.13

• Updated the Thunderstore package thumbnail.
• Gameplay and mod functionality are unchanged from 0.3.12.

0.3.12

• Fixed local-player detection for game builds where Player.LocalPlayer is a field.
• Restored the overlay and bell after v0.3.11 rejected all synchronized cooking events.
• Retained per-player filtering so each player receives only their own timer and local bell.

0.3.11

• Fixed multiplayer timers appearing only for the host.
• Each client now tracks synchronized cookness only for food last handled by that client's local player.
• The host no longer receives overlays or bells for food cooked by other players.
• Bell playback remains local, two-dimensional, and independent on every client.

0.3.10

• Fixed the burning-side overlay multiplier falling too quickly after 1.50x.
• Left the confirmed 1.01x -> 1.50x cooking-side mapping completely unchanged.
• Burning fallback now decreases at 0.50 multiplier points per raw cookness unit instead of 1.50.
• Example: raw 1.10 now displays 1.45x instead of dropping far too quickly.
• Kept the brown-to-black BURNING visual state.
• Kept the 1.45x marker and one-time bell at 1.48x.
• Kept the quieter v0.3.9 bell volume.

0.3.9

• Reduced the bell playback level to 30% of the previous volume.
• Previous bell volume: 0.90.
• New default bell volume: 0.27.
• Renamed the audio config setting to BellVolume so older saved Volume = 0.90 settings do not keep the bell loud.
• Updated README to reflect the current bell-only version of the mod.
• README now explains Cooking Bell Timer as a convenient visual alternative to repeatedly inspecting food while cooking.
• Kept the 1.45x visual marker.
• Kept the one-time bell at 1.48x.
• Kept the brown-to-black BURNING overlay after the 1.50x peak.

0.3.8

• Reconverted the exact supplied bell MP3 to OGG and replaced the prior bell asset.
• Bell still triggers once at exactly 1.48x on the rising side.
• Overlay no longer disappears after passing the 1.50x peak.
• Added BURNING state after the peak.
• Entire progress bar changes from brown toward black while burning.
• Added yellow BURNING text above the bar.
• Burning overlay continues updating the displayed multiplier.
• Normal overlay still has only one marker at 1.45x.
• Added runtime search for a direct game cooking-multiplier member before using the fallback burn mapping.

0.3.7

• Fixed overlay appearing only when the item reached the 1.50x peak.
• Corrected interpretation of public Item.Cookness: it is raw cooking progress, not the displayed multiplier.
• Added exact rising-side mapping: displayed multiplier = 1.00 + Cookness * 0.50.
• Overlay now starts near 1.01x as soon as cooking begins.
• 1.45x marker corresponds to raw cookness 0.90.
• Bell at 1.48x corresponds to raw cookness 0.96.
• Raw cookness above 1.00 is treated as overcooked and produces no bell/overlay.
• Bell-only audio behavior remains unchanged.

0.3.6

• Removed sizzle audio entirely.
• Removed tick-tock audio entirely.
• Uses only the user's bell sound.
• Bell plays once at 1.48x.
• Simplified overlay to one marker at 1.45x.
• Overlay now reads public Item.Cookness directly rather than applying an approximate conversion.
• Bar fill and displayed number are both driven by the exact same cookness value.
• Keeps green -> yellow -> orange -> red gradient.
• Items already over 1.50x remain silent.

0.3.5

• Moved the cooking overlay higher on screen.
• Changed progress fill to a smooth green -> yellow -> orange -> red gradient.
• Sizzle now runs until 1.35x.
• Tick-tock now starts at 1.35x.
• Bell now starts earlier at 1.45x.
• Improved one-shot bell handling so repeated cook updates do not interrupt or restart it.
• Kept no-overlap single-AudioSource behavior.
• Kept pause/resume behavior when removing and returning the same item to heat.

0.3.4

• Added the user's custom tick-tocking sound.
• Replaced the previous ding with the user's new bell ding.
• Sizzle now loops from 1.00x until 1.30x.
• At 1.30x, sizzle stops immediately and tick-tock begins.
• At 1.49x, tick-tock stops immediately and the bell ding plays once.
• All stages use one AudioSource so sounds cannot overlap.
• Removing an item from heat pauses the current sound.
• Returning the same item to heat resumes audio from the exact paused position.
• Burnt/overcooked items above 1.50x remain silent.

0.3.3

• Fixed compile failure caused by HideImmediately() being placed in the wrong class.
• Moved HideImmediately() into CookingOverlay.
• Keeps the 0.00-1.00 internal cookness to 1.00x-1.50x displayed multiplier mapping.
• Keeps burnt/overcooked sound suppression.
• Keeps custom sizzle and ding sounds.

0.3.2

• Fixed the cookness-to-visible-multiplier conversion.
• The game's internal cookness runs approximately 0.00 to 1.00 while the displayed multiplier runs 1.00x to 1.50x.
• Overlay now starts at the beginning of cooking instead of after 1.50x.
• 1.35x ding now corresponds to raw cookness 0.70.
• Sizzle plays when cooking actually begins.
• If an item is already past the perfect 1.50x point / overcooked, the mod suppresses all cooking sounds and hides the fresh-cook overlay.
• Keeps the user's custom sizzle and ding sounds.

0.3.1

• Fixed cooking detection using the wrong reflected numeric member.
• The mod now reads the game's actual synchronized Item._cookness.Value.
• Overlay now begins while the multiplier is rising from 1.00x toward 1.50x.
• Sizzle now triggers at the real start of cooking.
• Ding now triggers at the real 1.35x multiplier.
• Keeps the user's custom sizzle and ding sounds.

0.3.0

• Reworked cooking tracking so the mod continuously watches the item after cooking starts.
• Fixed the visual progress overlay not appearing/updating reliably.
• Added the user's new sizzle sound.
• Added the user's new ding sound.
• Removed the old tick-tock cue.
• Ding now triggers at 1.35x.
• Progress bar now displays markers at 1.35x and 1.50x.
• Removed compile-time dependency on Assembly-CSharp/FishNet for more resilient builds.

0.2.0

• Added horizontal cooking progress bar.
• Added live cooking multiplier display.

0.1.0

• Initial audio-cue version.