When players first unlock the Insects stage of development in The Planet Crafter, insect larvae will start to appear in every corner of the map. However, when the Fish stage is reached, players will need to jump through a few hoops before they can get fish to appear out in the wild.
Much like tree seeds, players will need to start crafting fish seeds by harvesting other types of life from the wild. And while flower seeds are randomly found in shipwrecks and crates, the phytoplankton players need must be harvested from Water Life Collectors. Here's how to get everything set up.
How to Build and Place a Water Life Collector
To unlock the Water Life Collector, players of The Planet Crafter will need to reach an oxygen level of 155 ppm, or parts per million. Once it's available, players can craft the device using two bioplastic nuggets, one super alloy, and three spools of silk. As the name suggests, players will need to place the collector in water, at which point it will start spawning phytoplankton A, B, and C. Just like insect larvae, A is the most common type and C is the rarest.
Water Life Collectors will also sometimes spawn fish eggs. In general, players can expect to find better quality eggs in lakes that have more algae, so build collectors close to Algae Generators.
What to Do with Phytoplankton
Once players have a few samples of phytoplankton, they can add them to the Incubator along with fertilizer and a mutagen to create fish eggs. One fish egg recipe is unlocked right away, and more of them will unlock as the general biomass and animal biomass increase. There are also several hidden fish species that aren't listed in the Incubator database.
Players can then use these fish eggs to populate aquariums and increase the animal biomass of the planet. Over time, this will unlock the Fish Display that lets players show off their fish collection and the Fish Farm, a device that can stock bodies of water with fish.
In particular, players may want to try and create some golden fish eggs. Like golden flowers and golden butterflies, golden fish eggs have the best multiplier of any type of fish, and players have a chance of crafting it by combining phytoplankton C, mutagen T3, and fertilizer. The odds of crafting them are low, however, so be sure to keep a Recycler handy to reset unwanted fish eggs and retrieve the raw materials.
The Planet Crafter is available in early access on PC.