Better How to Fish

Expands How to Fish with randomized creature sizes, meaningful stat scaling, multiplayer competition, visible health bars, and permanent fishing-rod progression.

Main features

• Every hookable fish, shrimp, crab, and other catch receives an individual size from x1.00 to x25.00.
• Normal bosses and island bosses also receive randomized sizes, even when the base game normally skips randomized weight.
• Size scales the creature's visual model, maximum health, direct contact damage, and sale value.
• Compact world-space health bars show exact synchronized values such as 20 / 20 above non-bird creatures.
• Health bars follow creatures smoothly every rendered frame and remain compact on giant catches.
• A polished catch card shows the creature model, exact size, and original catcher's name.
• The original catcher receives the catch card even if another player lands the killing blow.
• A persistent Top 3 HUD records the three largest individual catches in the current save.
• When a catch enters the Top 3, every player in the lobby sees its announcement.
• Kill rewards display the applied size multiplier and use the creature's real scaled value.
• Every weapon-upgrade box, including the tutorial island box, supports up to 255 saved melee-sharpness and bullet-damage levels with continuously increasing prices.

Fishing-rod upgrade workbench

Each island automatically receives a workbench near its seller NPC or selling area. The placement system checks nearby ground and obstacles so it does not intentionally block the shop.

Approach the table with a standard fishing rod or crab fishing rod and press E to purchase an upgrade. There are 25 levels:

• Luck improves the size distribution and makes rare giant catches more likely.
• Every level grants +5% reeling speed.
• Higher levels grant cumulative sale bonuses.
• Upgrade 2 grants +10% sale value.
• Progress is saved per Steam account and synchronized with the host.

At 10 luck, the exact x1.00 chance falls from 70% to 40%, while the chance of x7.00+ rises from 0.03% to 0.30%.

Base size chances

Sizes use 0.01x increments, so values such as x1.12, x1.23, x3.57, and x14.86 are possible.

Multiplayer

Install the mod on every client in the lobby. Creature size and health use the game's synchronized state, while rankings, upgrade levels, and ranked-catch announcements are synchronized with the host.

UI configuration

Use the controls directly in game. Your choices are saved automatically to BepInEx/config/com.reysher.howtofish.giantfish.cfg:

• Use the − and + buttons at the top of the Biggest Catches HUD to resize it.
• Use its HP button to show or hide creature health bars.
• Use the − and + buttons at the top of a New Catch card to resize future cards.
• The same values can be edited manually through ShowCreatureHealthBars, RankingHudScale, and CatchCardScale.

The inspection panel also displays the saved size of fish and other supported catches.

Community

Join the Better How to Fish community on Discord: https://discord.gg/bYAmZvZCV

Installation

Install through Thunderstore Mod Manager or r2modman. BepInExPack is installed automatically as a dependency.

For manual installation, extract the package into the game directory so this file exists:

BepInEx/plugins/GiantFish/GiantFish.dll

Español

Better How to Fish añade tamaños aleatorios de x1.00 a x25.00 para pescados, gambas, cangrejos y jefes. El tamaño aumenta la escala visual, vida, daño directo y precio de venta. Incluye barras de vida sincronizadas, tarjetas de captura 3D, ranking Top 3 multijugador y una mesa automática de mejoras de caña con 25 niveles de suerte, velocidad de recogida y bonos de venta. Las cajas de mejora de armas funcionan en todas las islas, incluida la del tutorial, y permiten hasta 255 niveles guardados de filo y balas con precios crecientes.

Todos los jugadores de la sala deben instalar el mod para ver y utilizar correctamente sus funciones multijugador.

Development disclosure

This mod was developed with substantial assistance from OpenAI Codex. The package was iteratively tested in-game by the author, compiled against the game's managed assemblies, and validated with automated size-distribution tests.

Changelog

1.1.6

• Moved the workbench resize controls above the panel so the sale percentage cannot cover them.
• Moved the catch-card controls inward so they remain inside the screen and card bounds.
• Added working keyboard resizing: press - to shrink and +/= to enlarge the currently visible HUD.
• Fixed the inspected Value by applying the rod sale bonus at the game's native value-rendering method.
• Biggest Catches is now destroyed while the main menu is open and rebuilt after entering a game.

1.1.5

• Made every resize control clearly visible with a HUD SIZE label and high-contrast ASCII - / + buttons.
• Fixed the inspection panel showing both Value and a second Sale value line.
• The vanilla Value field now directly displays the final rod-bonus selling price.

1.1.4

• Restyled every mod HUD except Biggest Catches to better match the vanilla interface.
• Added persistent − and + controls for the rod-workbench prompt.
• The workbench prompt now hides during pause and killscore animations.
• Creature size is integrated into the vanilla killscore line instead of using an overlapping popup.
• Inspection values, catch cards, and killscore rewards now display the real selling price after the player's rod sale bonus.
• Added a configurable vanilla inspection style (VanillaInspectSizeStyle) and removed the decorative size separator.

1.1.3

• Added in-game resize buttons to the Biggest Catches HUD and New Catch card.
• Added an in-game HP button to show or hide creature health bars.
• The UI choices persist automatically in the BepInEx configuration.
• Added each creature's saved size to the vanilla inspection panel.
• Added the community Discord link to the mod description.

1.1.2

• All mod-owned HUD labels, upgrade prompts, size rewards and diagnostic messages now default to English.
• Existing save identifiers, player names and base-game language settings are preserved.

1.1.1

• Fixed remote players being rejected before a rod-upgrade purchase reached their personal wallet.
• Rod upgrades now resolve the buyer from the owning FishNet connection and never inspect teammates' balances.
• Added clear server log reasons for any future rejected rod purchase.

1.1.0

• Expanded melee sharpness and gun bullet upgrades to 255 persistent levels per weapon.
• Generated levels continue increasing damage and use progressively increasing prices.
• Purchases remain on the game's original server-authoritative paths for NoSharedMoney compatibility.

1.0.5

• Health bars now visibly drain from right to left as creatures lose HP.
• Kept the green/yellow/red health colours and exact current/max HP text.
• Prevented health-bar creation errors while the game UI is still loading.

1.0.4

• Fixed rod upgrades stopping when NoSharedMoney is installed.
• Workbench purchases now validate and charge the interacting player's personal wallet.

1.0.3

• The workbench HUD now shows current cumulative luck, reeling speed, and sale bonuses.
• Catch cards now show the catcher's current rod level and all three rod bonuses.

1.0.2

• Made the catch card substantially smaller and less intrusive.
• Added the captured creature's size-scaled sale value to the card.

1.0.1

• Fixed bosses spawning with only their hardcoded base HP instead of full scaled HP.
• Workbench purchases are now charged and validated by the authoritative server.
• Luck is now applied when the catcher and equipped rod are actually known.

1.0.0

• Public release as Better How to Fish.
• Random creature and boss sizes from x1.00 to x25.00.
• Size-scaled health, direct damage, visuals, rewards, and sale value.
• Smooth synchronized world-space health bars.
• Private catch cards and global ranked-catch announcements.
• Persistent multiplayer Top 3 ranking.
• Automatic island workbenches with 25 fishing-rod upgrade levels.
• Luck, reeling-speed, and cumulative sale-bonus progression.