Fishing Farm for 1.4!

Beartopus

Terrarian
I've updated my fishing farm for 1.4! It's bigger than the pre-1.4 version, but the results are awesome:


The idea is that you stand on a platform to select your biome, then fish to the left for underground fish or to the right for surface fish. This works because it's your fishing bobber's height, NOT your height, that determines the "depth" of your fishing. But it's YOUR biome, not your bobber's biome, that determines the fishing biome. This setup covers every possible fishing quest location except cloud, caverns, and ocean (I have teleporters to each in by base).

The full build:

My .wld file:
FOR A VERSION WITH BOTH CORRUPTION AND CRIMSON, I made one here (but haven't made a build guide yet): MASTER.wld

So it's kind of like a Venn Diagram, on each platform your biome detection radius will contain ALL of the blocks for the desired biome, and only SOME of the blocks for the other biomes. For a more technical breakdown, see PapaBear's excellent showcase on this topic.

WARNING: This is pretty unforgiving, if anything is off by even one block it might break the whole farm. Please follow the directions carefully!
WARNING#2: DO NOT BUILD THIS NEAR THE OCEAN, biome detection works differently near the ocean and it tends to break artificial biomes. It's not clear why...

Step 0: Gather materials. You'll need 1500 sand, 1500 snow, 240 mud, at least 2 jungle grass seeds, at least 2 mushroom grass seeds, 125 hallowed bricks (can be added later if you're pre-wall), and 432 crimson or corruption depending on what world you got. You'll also need 176 glass and a whole lot of platforms.

Step 1: Dig down to "Level Surface", which is the border between the surface and the underground (use a depth meter if you're not sure where this is). If you want to see the background like in the GIF I posted, you'll need to use a hammer to break the natural background. NOTE: I suggest building this off to the side of your "hellevator". You'll need to dig 90 blocks sideways from your hellevator, at Level Surface.

Step 2: Place the 7 platforms as shown in the finished farm. The bottom row should be at 4' Surface, the second row at 12' Surface, and the top platform at 20' Surface. Each platform is 3 blocks wide, and there are 3 spaces vertically between each row. From here on out, I'll call your bottom-middle platform the "center platform".

Step 3: Build the pools. They need to contain 300 blocks of liquid, the size and shape don't really matter as long as the surface is at the correct height. Mine are 17 wide by 20 tall (for the underground pools)or 21 tall (for the surface pools). If you're not comfortable changing the dimensions, just copy mine. Start by placing 22 glass blocks directly below the middle of the central platform.
Then add 17 platforms to the right of the top glass block, and 17 platforms to the left of the SECOND from the top glass block.
Square up each pool by adding 18 glass blocks to the left and right of the bottom of the pillar, then building up.
Repeat this for the honey and lava pools - again 17 platforms wide and 20 or 21 bricks tall. (NOTE: don't use glass platforms for the lava pool, use hell brick or anything else immune to lava).
THE HEIGHT OF LAVA/HONEY DOES NOT MATTER, so you can build these wherever you want, I did it to the side of the existing pools just for aesthetics.
When you stand on the two lower pools, your height should be "Level Surface". When you stand on the higher two pools, your height should be "2' Surface".

Step 4: Dig, dig, dig! This is where things get tedious. From your center platform, you need to dig out an area 75 blocks above, 67 blocks below, 90 blocks to the left, and 90 blocks to the right of the central platform. I had my server of 6 folks all work together and we knocked it out in no time. If you want to go really crazy, fill the whole thing with glass walls so nothing can spawn in your farm. This took me FOREVER, so it's not for the faint of heart.
Now fill the pools! I recommend filling each pool until it overflows, just to make sure it's completely full. It's important that the two water pools be COMPLETELY full or the surface of the water won't be at the right height. Use the water duplication glitch to save time, it works for lava and honey too.
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Step 5: The snow chunk. Starting from the edge of the bottom left platform, build 33 blocks left and then 29 blocks down (double-counting the corner, meaning the corner block counts towards both your length and your width... so you're using 61 blocks to make this). I recommend you use a ruler to be certain you got it right, it should say "33x29" when highlighted. Place a single platform at the bottom.
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From here, place a single block of snow. This block will become the top-right corner of your chunk of 1500 snow blocks, which should measure 30 blocks high by 50 blocks wide. Surround this chunk with platforms and it's done for now. TO HELP YOURSELF WITH THE NEXT STEP, extend the bottom platform (the one below the snow) all the way to the right of your giant square. That way the sand blocks have something to land on as they are placed.
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Step 6: The sand chunk. Same process as snow but mirrored. You'll build 33x29 to the right of the bottom-right platform, then place a platform just like before.
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If you extended your platform over from the underside of the snow chunk, you'll already have something for the sand to sit on. Make your 30 tall by 50 wide chunk of sand, same as you did with snow. Again, surround it with platforms to stop junk from growing.
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Step 7: The mushroom chunk. This time we're measuring from the left side of the upper-left platform. Build 33 blocks left, then 59 blocks up (again double-counting the corner for a total of 91 blocks) and place a platform at the end.
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Next we need 100 mud blocks for the mushroom biome. We're trying to get mushroom grass, which cannot grow on a block that is surrounded on all sides by mud, so we're using a row of mud 2-blocks thick in order to expose each block of mud to the air. Make the chunk of mud 50 blocks long by 2 blocks high, with the bottom-right block resting on the single platform.
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Plant at least one mushroom grass seed in the chunk, and let them spread. DO NOT place platforms around the mud until the mushroom grass has grown everywhere - the platforms can prevent mushroom grass from growing. When the grass has grown everywhere, you do need to surround the mud with platforms to prevent things from growing.
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Step 8: The jungle chunk. Measuring from the right side of the upper-right platform, this time we're going 13 blocks right then 59 blocks up (double-counting corners as usual, total of 71 blocks used for this), and again placing a platform at the end. Your mushroom chunk should be at the same height as your jungle chunk!
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Now again we'll need a chunk of mud 2-blocks thick to expose each block to air, but this time it'll be 70 blocks long for a total of 140 mud blocks used.
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Just like with the mushroom, next we plant at least one jungle grass seed then wait for it to spread everywhere. DO NOT PLACE THE PLATFORMS AROUND THE MUD UNTIL THE JUNGLE GRASS FINISHES SPREADING. But do make sure to place those platforms. It's important. I swear.
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Step 9: The hallow chunk (if you're pre-wall and have no hallow yet, just use something non-corruptable like ash as a placeholder). Starting from the top-middle platform, build 55 blocks straight up. NO PLATFORM THIS TIME, corruption/crimson and hallow won't grow anything we need to worry about.
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Once you're 55 blocks up, build a chunk of pearlstone 25 blocks wide, and 5 blocks tall, centered on the pillar you just made.
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Step 10: Corruption or Crimson (whichever you have in your world): Build a chunk directly above the Hallow chunk, this time 144 blocks wide and 3 tall, "centered" on the middle of the farm (it's an even number so you cant center it exactly in the middle, but that's OK... for this one you can be off to the left or right by a couple bricks and it won't matter. The height DOES matter.)
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If everything went correctly, there should be a 3-block air gap between the corruption/crimson chunk and your jungle chunck / mushroom chunk (to prevent spread). Make sure everything lines up!

Step 11: THE COMPLICATED PART. We're almost done. This step adds a left and right boundary to each biome, and prevents them from overlapping with each other. Don't sweat the technical details here, just follow the instructions.

First, from the snow chunk, place 8 torches on the top platform (as a guide) starting at the top left. Then dig out a single snow block.
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Now do the same, but mirrored, to the sand chunk.
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Now we're going to put that single snow block into the hole in the sand chunk
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...and put that single sand block into the hole in the snow chunk
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Now, above the single sand block and above the single snow block, place a mud block. Plant a JUNGLE seed above the single sand block (in the snow chunk), and plant a MUSHROOM seed above the single snow block (in the sand chunk). Use the pics! As always, we also need to place a platform over the mud blocks to stop stuff from spawning.
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Step 12: The last bounding blocks. Remove the 2 innermost torches from above the snow and sand chunks, you should now have a row of 6 torches. Above the innermost torch, build two platforms up, then place a single hallowed block. Repeat on each side. Again, use the pics as your guide!
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Step 13: The final step! We need to remove ONE block from the mushroom chunk, ONE block from the jungle chunk, and TWO blocks from the hallow chunk. It does not matter which block, I just remove one from the corner. Copy the pics if you're not sure which one you want to remove. Also, be sure to move the platforms in the mushroom and jungle chunks as needed.
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Step 14: You're done! I like to decorate the 7 platforms with backgrounds to show what biomes they are, but you do whatever you like. Maybe add teleporters to the caverns, sky lake, and ocean? (that definitely helps). Build the fisherman a house next to the farm? Do whatever! Just be sure to test the platforms to make sure the background changes as you move from platform to platform. The background transition might be a bit laggy, so be patient. If something isn't working, bust out your ruler and go back to the guide, I'll bet you that something is off by just a block or two. PLEASE double-check your farm against my .wld file if you're having trouble. I've used my farm to complete every fishing quest out there so I know it works (as of 14.0.5 at least).

I'm skipping over most of the technical details because I'd end up writing a book to describe it all, like how the middle biomes actually start exactly one block above the platform below them in order to allow the 3-block airgap around evil chunks to prevent the crimson and hallow from spreading, or how the shape of each biome chunk doesn't actually matter as long as the outermost edges stay on the same vertical and horizontal planes, etc. If anyone cares to understand that stuff please hit me up, I'd be happy to discuss.

Anyway, I hope this covers everything and I hope you enjoy!

EDIT 6/7: Fixed a typo I made with the required number of crimson bricks (i put 142x3 instead of 144x3), the pictures were correct but I typed the wrong length. Sorry!
EDIT 6/8: Changed my username from Off by 1 (which was just a joke referencing my experience designing the fishing farm) to Beartopus (the name I've been using in Terraria since forever). Sorry for any confusion that causes <3

EDIT 6/24: For those of you who wanted a version with both corruption and crimson, I got it working! Check it out here (to the right of the base): MASTER.wld
EDIT 6/25: Attaching screenshot with my notes, this is what I use to quickly re-create the farm in a new world
 

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this is beautiful work Off by 1
super tight biome delineation design and clever use of the bobber height to cut out the moving around for different fishing elevations ^_^
looks like there is interest in seeing if it's possible to work in the ocean and second evil biome into your design too
lovely, lovely design ! (read this in a very appreciative, impressed tone of voice :D )
 
Hey, I literally just created this account to thank you. From the bottom of my heart thank you! I just finished building your farm in my world. I havent really tested it yet but I was able to fish the quest fishes so I think it should work. (I also haven't added a hollow biome yet because I am still in Pre-Hard mode)

Here is a picture
 
Hey, I literally just created this account to thank you. From the bottom of my heart thank you! I just finished building your farm in my world. I havent really tested it yet but I was able to fish the quest fishes so I think it should work. (I also haven't added a hollow biome yet because I am still in Pre-Hard mode)

Here is a picture
Awesome!!! Seeing you make it has made this all feel worthwhile. I like your changes to honey/lava too.

It looks like your mushroom chunk is too low by one layer, it should be at the same height as the jungle chunk (see my build pic for reference). Im worried that this will break your tundra platform. Scoot it up!! :)
 
I will have to say your farm is awesome. I just completed building it in my world along with making my own modifications to the overall setup of it (Okay, maybe no modifications at all, but enclosed like a proper room of my base. :p
8UBMYvX.jpg
I may end up attempting to further control the corruption chunk up top so I don't have the corruption on the surface which is not too far above this farm.
 
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I will have to say your farm is awesome. I just completed building it in my world along with making my own modifications to the overall setup of it (Okay, maybe no modifications at all, but enclosed like a proper room of my base. :p
8UBMYvX.jpg
I may end up attempting to further control the corruption chunk up top so I don't have the corruption on the surface which is not too far above this farm.
Wow! Very cool, especially the meteor makes the pools look awesome. Great build :)
 
@Off by 1:
Wonderful guide!
Was quite helpful in starting to set up my own fish biome farm.


And to try and give back by helping questions from others:

@Kisk:
To add the second evil biome, just do the following:
1: Create a fourth platform in the middle above the third.
(Same three space spacing, then platform as the rest)
2: Increase the height of the ceiling by 4.
3: Above Evil Biome 1, have one empty space, then have the three rows of Evil Biome 2.

@Sephiroth:
1: Remove a block from the Evil Biome (When standing on the middle of the evil biome blocks, you should now no longer see the Evil Biome backgrond. If you still see the evil biome background, keep removing blocks one by one until you no longer get the evil biome background.)
2: Put one Evil Biome block so it is 25 blocks below the bottom of the middle pool. (This would be measured from the bottom of the floor under the pools.)
3?: If also combining with 2nd evil biome (as note to Kisk above), the block for 2nd evil biome goes 21 blocks below botton of middle pool.

@Kisk:
Ocean needs 1,000 tiles of water.
You could do this by having a pool 20 deep (so same depth) and 50 wide as a fifth pool by the side.
I would recommend finding where the transition to Ocean happens for your world size and then aiming to have the middle of the honey / lava (depending on which is on ocean side) at the transition point. This way all the water pools would be fully ocean / non-ocean.
As the wiki indicates that all ocean fish are surface / sky, the water level should match the surface pool.
 
@Kisk:
To add the second evil biome, just do the following:
1: Create a fourth platform in the middle above the third.
(Same three space spacing, then platform as the rest)
2: Increase the height of the ceiling by 4.
3: Above Evil Biome 1, have one empty space, then have the three rows of Evil Biome 2.

Nice! Thanks for working that out <3

@Sephiroth:
1: Remove a block from the Evil Biome (When standing on the middle of the evil biome blocks, you should now no longer see the Evil Biome backgrond. If you still see the evil biome background, keep removing blocks one by one until you no longer get the evil biome background.)
2: Put one Evil Biome block so it is 25 blocks below the bottom of the middle pool. (This would be measured from the bottom of the floor under the pools.)
3?: If also combining with 2nd evil biome (as note to Kisk above), the block for 2nd evil biome goes 21 blocks below botton of middle pool.

Unfortunately that won't work... it creates a "chicken-and-egg" problem with the Hallow. Adding one evil brick below the farm means you now have to add one hallow brick to make the hallow biome, which means you then have to add another evil brick to make the evil biome, which means you then have to add another hallow brick, etc etc. :(

The evil biome must be either the highest or the lowest chunk, because it has much more than the minimum number of bricks to make an evil biome (in order to cancel out the hallow).

The only way to avoid hallow/crimson/corruption being near the top of the farm is to move all of them below the farm, and to do that you'd have to flip the whole thing upside-down. You'd basically be swapping the bottom row of platforms with the top platform - so the first row would be only evil in the middle, second row would be normal, third row would be tundra/forest/sand. You'd mirror-flip every biome chunk and move it all up by one brick (so the top of the new sand/snow biome would be one block above where the top of the crimson biome is in my guide). Kinda wonky looking... but it'd work.
 
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@Beartopus:
Hmm. You are correct about the moving of the blocks and the issue with Hallow. My current game is not yet in Hardmode, which is why I didn't see the impact yet.

Not sure if the best solution will be either:
- 1: Move the Hallow or Evil section below. You could still move the evil blocks below and adjust the Hallow section. This would have a side-effect of an area below the farm showing as Hallow. (Still solves the original issue of the biome change on the surface, but moves the impact elsewhere.)
- 2: Instead of a top central block, split it into a top right / top left section. If done right, this should be able to be done so that the biome only changes for the three columns of the platform. While this would still have a spot on the surface affected, it would be reduced to three columns which would minimize the impact.

Once my game gets to Hardmode, I will likely take more of a look at one of the approaches. If I remember, I'll try and report back with which one I did and the changes I made for it.
This may be a bit though as I'm doing other tasks in the game... and it's my secondary game currently.
 
This is really convoluted, but I think the best method would be a combination of your 2 ideas. It would require moving the sand and snow chunks, so you could add a bottom-bounding block for the mushroom and jungle biomes (currently there are no bottom bounds for shroom/jungle since there's no platform directly above them). Then you could make the bottom-middle platform the hallow platform, to allow for room to make the third row have 2 platforms - one side crimson and one side corruption. It'd be a major redesign, one of these days I'll try to build it just to see if I could fit it all in. I haven't ever had a reason to try since the setup I made covers all the fishing quests... which was really my only goal in the beginning :)
 
Quick note for utility:

You can use Hive Blocks placed with the Hive Wand in place of Jungle Grass for a more easily placed and easier to control Jungle Biome. Not to mention not needing to wait for the jungle grass to spread. This is was added in 1.4.

Just watch out when mining them back because some will become bees and others honey.
 
Thanks for the amazing guide @Beartopus !! May I ask for help here though: I just finished building this in my world, and I can't seem to trigger the Desert biome even when I'm standing on the desert biome platform. What am I missing here?
Capture 2020-06-13 15_05_37.png
 
Im in the world at the fishing location. It's blood moon and enemies are not spawning? how did you prevent all enemy spawns? not even flying enemies.

edit: omg i just noticed the background is all glass walls.
 
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@mememan sorry you're having issues! Your picture LOOKS spot-on, but it's tough to tell without using the ruler. Could you upload your .wld file, or if you're playing on a server message me the address and I'll drop by?

The only thing that visually looks weird to me is that you have 7 torches on each bottom chunk (there should only be 6), but that shouldn't break the desert biome so I'm not sure what the issue is :(
 
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Over on the other Fishing thread, it has been reported there are problems with biome block detection when there are some blocks on the ocean biomes (outer corners of the world).

If you stand directly on top of the sand, does it turn into the desert biome? If not, its a matter of biome block count, such as the above notice or perhaps a cactus having spawned as you dropped sand and you have one less sand than the amount required (yes, it happens...)
 
Over on the other Fishing thread, it has been reported there are problems with biome block detection when there are some blocks on the ocean biomes (outer corners of the world).

If you stand directly on top of the sand, does it turn into the desert biome? If not, its a matter of biome block count, such as the above notice or perhaps a cactus having spawned as you dropped sand and you have one less sand than the amount required (yes, it happens...)

Oh man this might be the it. I built this right next to my ocean biome (my Angler lives here to maximize happiness). When I stand on top of the sand about halfway, it turns into the ocean biome. I might have to move everything 20 blocks or so to the left.... Thanks for the heads up!
 
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