Servofishing

Servofishing is just fishing for robots. Because for some reason, the Orb Vallis doesn’t have any normal fish, it has a strange mixture of mechanical fish, a combination of boxy Corpus fish robots and smooth, sleek Orokin fish creatures that have been swimming in the coolant waters for hundreds of years and have suddenly been dragged out of the water so us Tenno can turn them into scrap. I’ve already brought up fishing, both on the Orb Vallis and on the Plains of Eidolon before, but lately my new favourite thing is to sit on my lazy yellow ass and spend hours electrocuting little robots.

Catching Servofish is similar to catching normal fish, except you need to electrocute them at the right moment. The process of Servofishing is genuinely slower than normal fishing because of this, as you have to play the mini-game of clicking on the right spot. The spawn rates are about the same and the stun on a successful catch does mean that other fish don’t always run away, but it is still slower and a lot of the fish, especially Brickies and Tinks, are pretty small and wriggly.

Still, Servofishing is peaceful, and there’s always plenty to catch. There are three main ‘habitats’ where you can find fish – in the massive lake with the coolant tower in the middle, inside ponds in caves and everywhere else. All the rivers and ponds, big and small, count as ‘ponds’ and spawn the same fish. I should point out, it’s not actually water you’re fishing in, but coolant gel.

Most of the time you will see Tinks alongside a handful of Recasters and Tromyzons (the most common Orokin Servofish) in ponds and rivers, Sapcaddies in the big lake and Scrubbers and Mirewinders in cave ponds. During the 4-6 minute period of ‘warmth’ (the Orb Vallis’s awkward equivalent of day time), you can find Brickies and Eye-Eyes in ponds and rivers and Echowinders, Krillers and Longwinders in the big lake. There are also two rare Orokin fish that spawn in cave ponds, but only if there is a hot spot nearby.

What is a hot spot? Well, just like in the Plains of Eidolon, you get randomly chosen areas that spawn more fish. But on the Orb Vallis, these look more like glowing yellow-green pools, bubbling on the surface of the coolant. This stuff though is kinda hard to see through, so it’s worth investing in some luminous dye. Thankfully the dye and the fish-calming stuff from Cetus both work no problem on the robot fish you find on Venus, but if you want bait for a specific kind of fish, well, you’re somewhat out of luck. You have to buy individual baits, one at a time, from the Business back on Fortuna, you can’t get a blueprint and make baits as you need them.

Is buying individual baits compared to buying blueprints better? At first, you’d think no, but the Cetus blueprints are all required and each tier of blueprint requires parts of fishes from other tiers. With Servofish, you can ignore the majority of baits and just buy the baits for fish you need.

And frankly, there are only two baits you need, the baits for the rare cave fish.

But that’s the nicest thing about Servofishing. I don’t need to use any baits at all. I’ve caught every single type of fish without using any baits. Yes, even the rare fish. The baits are just there to speed things up. You also only ever need one fishing rod, the normal shock rod you can buy from the Business. The other, more expensive rod only really increases the stun range and duration.

There are also a ton of different spots you can fish from. The coolant lake has plenty of places that are unaffected by wandering Corpus, and there are plenty of caves and rivers you can hang around at. Turns out though, my favourite spot for catching both lake fish and river/pond fish is just outside the lift to Fortuna.

As for cave fishing? Well there are lots of caves, lots of really, really nice caves that are also filled with ores and gems, but my personal best choice for cave servofish is in the far south eastern corner, right next to the massive fallen Orokin tower. It’s not a big cave but it’s filled with water and there’s often a hot spot in there too.

Really, the only problem with Orb Vallis Servofishing is that Corpus patrols are really weird. While you’ll be fine most of the time, sometimes those damn Corpus just won’t leave you alone.

Or worse, they just stand outside cave entrances, particularly the most isolated caves, then get all angry and surprised when they see you come out. I know why I’m at that cave, but does that random patrol know what it’s doing there? And of course, rather than trying to talk things through, the Corpus always decide to open fire.

Way to ruin a pleasant fishing experience, Mr Corpus #8519.