Gatherer: Fisher and Farmer

Fishing and farming used to stay passive in classic UO. UORoots adds orders, collections, a catch moment that needs attention and weekly contests to them.

Where to start

If you are going to play a gatherer with a new character, the Gatherer branch of the Traveler's Road walks you through it in order: buying tools, gathering resources, selling to the right merchant and delivering your first Trade Order. At the end you keep the Friend of the Earth title and a regular order cycle. → Traveler's Road

Skill gain depends on the spot: after 30 strikes in 10 minutes within 4 tiles of the same spot you gain no more skill. While your skill is low, one vein can last longer than 30 strikes. When you hit the limit you get a warning; move a few steps away. Fishing is outside this limit; moving when the fish run out is enough. → World and Basic Rules

Weight limit and backpack capacity

There are two separate numbers that confuse people; they are different things:

The total weight in the status window includes what you wear and the backpack's own weight; so it is normal to see a number well above your weight limit.

If you gather with a full backpack: wood stays in the tree, ore in the vein, fish in the water — nothing is lost. You get the warning "Your pack is full: the resource stayed where it was."; make room and carry on where you left off. (Extras such as a rare bonus log/stone are not given on that strike either.)

Fisherman and farmer orders

The gatherer branch of Trade Orders. Left-click a fisherman or farmer → Trade Order.

• The reward comes to your backpack as gold; every delivery gives gatherer reputation (labor ÷ 100: farmer 1, fisherman 3–5). Gatherer reputation is separate from craft reputation: 25 → Known Gatherer, 75 → Respected Gatherer, 150 → Master Gatherer; each tier gives a personal, colored straw hat → Titles
• Rare fish: any of the valuable, wondrous, truly rare or highly peculiar fish counts. It comes up with a small chance on every cast; it can also be caught on the docks or the shore.
• The fisherman and the farmer do not ask again for something from their last three orders (refused ones count too); if very few products suit you, it can come again.
• If your Fishing is 80+, fisherman orders can give reward items (a message in a bottle, a special fishing net) → Order Rewards
• For produce the NPC also sells (fish, cotton, flax, pumpkins, carrots, cabbages, onions), the amount asked is set so that buying it from the NPC costs more than the reward: gathering it yourself is always more profitable. For example, a carrot order asks for at least 44 carrots (132 gp from the farmer, 120 gp reward).
• An order always pays more than selling what you gathered to an NPC (tailors buy cotton and flax at 5 gp each, the farmer buys pumpkins at 5 gp).
• Fish and produce that other players sell to NPCs do not show up in the NPC's resale list.
• Where to find it: the Where line of the order window and the Quest Tracker name the nearest field for the product ("grows in a field west of Britain"); the tracker shows the direction to that field. For fish orders it says where to catch them. A farmer only asks for produce that has a field nearby (within 600 steps).

Fields

Crops grow in the fields by themselves; double-click a plant and the produce drops at your feet. A new plant grows in place of the one you picked; the more valuable the produce, the fewer plants and the slower they grow:

Where the fields are (Felucca):

• West of Britain: wheat, turnips, carrots, cabbages, onions, cotton, flax, pumpkins
• The farms northeast of Trinsic: flax, pumpkins, cotton, wheat
• Moonglow island (the fenced fields south and southeast of town): cotton, flax, pumpkins
• Around Skara Brae: wheat, cabbages, carrots, onions, cotton
• The Yew farms: wheat, flax
• The Britain–Trinsic road: flax, cotton, pumpkins, wheat

Registers

Traveler's Journal → Registers. Every new kind that comes into your own hands is written in the register; as the register fills, you earn new titles.

Fisherman's Log — 10 entries

An entry is written when you bring it up with a fishing pole yourself.

Gardener's Log — 17 kinds + 13 colors

• Double-clicking a matured plant in your backpack or your house writes its kind and color in the register.
• Kinds: the first-generation kinds (campion flowers, fern, tribarrel cactus) come from seeds dropped by Boglings and Bog Things in the swamps. The other kinds come from cross-pollinating two kinds: in the Traveler's Journal, pressing each kind's card tells you which two kinds to cross.
• Colors: first-generation seeds come out plain, red, blue or yellow.
  • Two primary colors give the color in between: red × blue = purple, blue × yellow = green, red × yellow = orange.
  • Two plants of the same color give the bright version of that color (red × red = bright red).
  • Every cross with a plain-colored plant gives plain.

Titles

The big catch

When a valuable catch takes the bait, it needs your attention:

1. A message comes: "Your line twitched!" or, for a rare catch, "Your line suddenly went taut, something strong is on it!"
2. Cast your line into the water again within 6 seconds.
3. If you cast in time: "You pulled in the line just in time!" — the catch is yours. If you do not: "The catch slipped off the line and fled into the depths!"

A catch that gets away does not count for the register, orders or contests.

Weekly contests

Traveler's Journal → Contests. Two contests concern gatherers; the week closes on Monday at 00:00 Istanbul time:

All contests, rewards (10,000 / 5,000 / 2,500 gp, a trophy and a badge for the top three), tie and participation rules → Order Rewards and Contests