It’s a good idea to keep a mental list of easy ways to refill your basic needs in ICARUS. These come handy after unexpected deaths, when supplies run low, or when traveling and settling new areas.
Fishing should definitely be on the list for easy food maintenance, especially so on lower levels. Fishing is pretty much essential for efficient low-level food buffing, and is a great way to ensure your food supply. It will continue to serve as a backup for higher level missions in the Forest and Desert Biomes: for example, when you forget or can’t carry Raw Meat or when you respawn with an empty inventory and your hunger meter at the critical level.
Cooked Fish restores a small amount of health when consumed, but is also a source for a cheap and useful low-level stomach buff that increases your Max HP and Stamina (it uses up a unique slot). An important reminder: getting into the habit of stockpiling and consuming a variety of food sources will be of massive advantage on your long treks into the wilderness.
And, if you are not sold on Fishing yet, here is one more for you: If you learn to deal with piranhas and Poison efficiently (see “Getting Poisoned”), you can learn to harvest a couple of stacks of fish (20-40 fish) in about ten minutes! This compares to and even surpasses the meat yield you would get when hunting animals in dangerous zones on higher levels.
Also, keep in mind that lakes slow land animals down, so they make for an excellent hunting trap as well – especially handy when being chased by a Bear.
How Do I Fish in ICARUS?
You do not need any special tools to fish in ICARUS. Just yourself and your trusty knife (even a Stone Knife will work perfectly). Alternatively, you might enjoy using a basic Wood Bow and a stack of cheap Stone Arrows.
Using a Knife
Find a large lake in the Forest or the Desert (not all lakes in the Desert contain fish).
Dive in with a knife and stab at fish. You will kill with just one hit at a short distance.
Pick the corpse up right away. If you missed any, swim to the surface and you will find them floating up there.
If you find it hard to chase fish under water, here are two suggestions:
Stick to shallow areas: high mobility will allow you to outrun any fish swimming nearby. You can pick up the bodies very quickly this way as well.
The shore is an obvious choice for shallow areas, but try getting on top of the underwater rocks in the middle of the lake, too!
Go after piranhas: Unlike other fish, these will come right at you! Managing poison might become an issue, however, so do check out our section on “Getting Posioned”!
Using a Bow
Using a bow with some Stone Arrows is another method you can try if chasing fish is an issue for you. You do not need anything more than the lowest arrow tier to kill any fish on first hit. So, if your concern is losing some arrows, Stone Arrows will be very easy to craft in large batches. Note: you can recover most, if not all of your arrows from fish corpses.
With a bow, swim towards a school of fish.
Dispatch all of the fish, one by one, and take on a few more you can spot nearby.
Swim to the surface and pick up the bodies you produced, along with your arrows.
Alternatively, if you find a convenient group to target, you can shoot a plenty of fish right from the shore. Yet, if you are getting some damage from piranhas while underwater (they can be a little sneaky), the next section is for you!
Getting Poisoned
If you are feeling uncomfortable about catching fish in ICARUS, I would assume that’s because you had a bad experience with piranhas and their stacks of Poison. Poison slows you down with every stack and drains more and more of your health, so things can get out of control quickly.
It’s easy to ignore the bounty of lakes because of piranhas. However, if you practice and learn to deal with piranhas efficiently, lakes will become your new favorite seafood restaurant!
Buffing up: To prepare, you can eat a health-regen food, like a Cooked Fish or Cooked Meat. This will help you negate 3-4 stacks of Poison. Piranhas have a low base attack, so even 5-10 hits from these stinky teeth will barely scratch your health bar.
Forget the bow: You don’t need to waste arrows on this: piranhas will serve themselves right up and your knife has a pretty solid reach, so you can dispatch piranhas long before they get to you.
Piranha Genocide: their respawn rate isn’t very fast, so you can easily cull the lake’s piranha population in just a few minutes.
Hunting Stance: Just like with hunting on land, you can minimize the rate of piranha sneak attacks by keeping a wall or shore on one side, making it one less direction from which predators could have surprised you. So, circle the outskirts of lakes while you are fishing! (Remaining submerged while doing so will give you best visibility.)
If you need to take a break and want to speed up your health regeneration, simply cuddle up to a heat source to get the Warm and Cozy status effect, which includes a bonus to health regeneration. Eat a piece of cooked food to increase your health regen even more!
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Mila Grish
Dedicated contributor at EIP Gaming and a part-time collector of books she will never have time to actually read. Jumps on the newest releases just as quickly as on the uncovered dusty collections from the basement. For her, shiny graphics can never be an excuse to not have a polished player experience or an immersive story.
