GreedySeagulls

The seagulls in How to Fish will take a fish off the ground and call it a day. This mod makes them a genuine menace.

They will now snatch what you are holding, pull a fish off your line before you can reel it in, make off with your tools, and fire your own gun while they fly. Shoot one and the whole flock may come for you. Leave the boat unattended long enough and it might not be there when you get back.

Host only. Only the person hosting needs this installed. Everything runs server side and replicates through the game's own networking, so other players see all of it with nothing installed. The one exception is the swarm boss bar, which needs the mod client side to display. Players without it still get the full swarm, just no boss bar.

They take the boat

Give three seagulls the opportunity and they will space themselves along the hull, lift together, and haul it into a slow circuit of the island. Shoot one of them down and it drops.

They take what you are holding

Nothing in your hands is safe. Weapons, tools, radios, fish, whatever you happen to be carrying.

They hold a grudge

Attack a seagull and there is a small chance the flock decides it has had enough. Reinforcements fly in from the horizon and they take turns diving at whoever is closest. It shows up on the boss bar as the combined health of every bird involved, so the way out is to shoot them down. Seagulls only attack with line of sight, so buildings are somewhat safe.

What changed

Stealing. Seagulls now consider items held by a player, fish hooked on a rod once they clear the water, tools and weapons, and anything else you can pick up such as radios. All of it is chance based so it stays an occasional disaster rather than a constant one.

Stolen guns. A seagull carrying a firearm will fire it at random intervals in whatever direction the barrel happens to be pointing. It is not aiming at anyone. The bullets are real, they do the weapon's normal damage, and they will hit whoever is unlucky enough to be in front of the bird.

The swarm. Damaging a seagull has a small chance of enraging the flock, at most once every thirty minutes. Extra birds spawn far out and fly in, then attack in staggered dives from different angles rather than all at once. They will not hit you through walls or a roof, so cover works.

The boat lift. Rare, and needs at least three free seagulls. They gather at grip points around the hull, lift together, and carry the boat in a circle around the island before dropping it.

Getting your things back

Anything a seagull is carrying comes back when you kill the bird. It drops whatever it was holding on the spot. There is no timer, so a determined gull will keep your shotgun until you deal with it.

Configuration

Everything is adjustable in BepInEx/config/dazed.howtofish.greedyseagulls.cfg, grouped into Stealing, Stolen Guns, Swarm Event, and Boat Lift. Chances, cooldowns, damage, speeds, flock sizes, and the boat circuit radius are all exposed.

A few worth knowing about:

To turn any of the four features off entirely, set Enabled to false in its section.

Compatibility

Requires BepInEx 5. Built against How to Fish on Unity 6000.4 with FishNet networking.

The mod resolves the game's internals by name at startup and reports what it found in the log. If a game update moves something, the BepInEx log will name the hook that failed instead of failing quietly.

While a swarm is running the boss bar is borrowed to display it, which suppresses boss fish spawns and boss music for the duration. Set BossBar to false if you would rather keep the bar free.

Changelog

1.0.0

Initial release.

Stealing

• Seagulls can snatch items out of a player's hands, including tools, weapons, radios, and fish.
• Seagulls can pull a hooked fish off a fishing rod once it is clear of the water.
• Tools, weapons, and other holdable items on the ground are now valid targets alongside fish and downed players.
• Every category is chance based and individually configurable.

Stolen guns

• A seagull carrying a firearm fires it at random intervals in whatever direction the barrel is pointing.
• Bullets deal the weapon's normal damage and can hit players. The bird is not aiming.
• Muzzle flash and gunfire replicate to every player.

Swarm event

• Damaging a seagull has a configurable chance to enrage the flock, limited to once every thirty minutes by default.
• Reinforcements spawn far out and fly in rather than appearing on top of the players.
• Birds attack in staggered dives from randomised approach angles instead of moving as one mass.
• Swarming birds respect line of sight and will not attack through walls or roofs.
• The swarm appears on the boss health bar as the combined health of every participating bird.
• The event ends early if every player is down, so respawning is never blocked.

Boat lift

• Three or more free seagulls can gather at grip points around the hull and carry the boat away.
• The boat is held level while airborne and flown in a slow circuit around the island.
• Killing enough of the crew drops the boat and ends the event.

General

• Runs on the host only. Other players need nothing installed except to see the swarm boss bar.