Aquaponics and Fish Breeding

Aquaponics for Vintage Story

Bring fully simulated fish farming to Vintage Story. Breed fish, manage their habitats, collect eggs, and use their waste to automatically fertilize farmland once a day to a minimum level based on ammount of fish.

How It Works

• Build a Pond using Pond Blocks and create a fully enclosed water structure.

  • All Pond Blocks must be touching (corners count).

  • The pond network must also touch farmland for fertilization to work.

• Catch fish using a Fish Bucket.

  • New Recipe: 1 Wooden Bucket + 1 Fish Food

  • This prevents buckets from being consumed when shift‑clicking other recipes.

• Feed fish with Fish Food (1 dry grass + any fruit or vegetable).

• Fish now have proper genders and breed naturally.

  • They seek mates, lay fish eggs, and follow a more realistic lifecycle.

  • Instant spawning has been removed.

• Once your pond reaches 10 fish, it begins fertilizing nearby soil daily.

  • Fertility is maintained at a minimum threshold, scaling up to 75% nutrients at 50 fish.

• Right‑click any Pond Block to view pond stats, fish count, and system information.

New Features

• Fish Feeders Automatically dispense Fish Food to nearby fish, similar to troughs. Great for large ponds or automated setups.

• Rebuilt Fish AI

  • Natural mating behavior

  • Egg spawning

  • Correct gender assignment

  • Temporary fix for fish AI stopping when leaving/re‑entering a chunk. HOLD RIGHT CLICK ON POND TO CYCLE FISH TO BRING AI BACK. GAME LIMITATION TO KEEP FISH AI ON ALL THE TIME. GAME IS SET TO DESPAWN FISH WHEN OUT OF A CHUNK FOR A CERTAIN AMMOUNT OF TIME. I DISABLED THE DESPAWN BUT THE GAME ENGINE FORCES THE FISH INTO THIS HALF DEAD STATE WHERE ITS ALIVE BUT ITS AI IS OFF, FISH BUCKET RESETS THAT BUT KEEPS ALL STATS OF THE FISH.

Crafting

• Pond Blocks

  • 3 Rammed Earth + 1 Clay → 4 Pond Blocks

  • Designed to be moderately expensive because a maxed‑out pond can generate up to 75% fertility per day.

Balance & Progression

• Early Game: Slow growth, manual feeding, and small ponds.

• Late Game: Automated feeding, egg production, edible fish, and highly fertilized farmland create a powerful, sustainable farm loop.

Technical Notes

• A pond can support up to 5000 water blocks.

• Right‑click a Pond Block to view the entire connected pond network.

• The pond must be fully enclosed and touch farmland for fertilization to function.

About Development

I’m still new to Vintage Story modding, so if you run into issues, please leave a comment and I’ll patch it quickly.

The Fish Bucket currently uses a simple placeholder texture because the base game bucket couldn’t pick up fish correctly. As I improve, I may replace it with a proper model.

Current Roadmap

• Improve fish movement and pathfinding

• Permanent fix for AI disabling when chunks unload

• Expand egg‑laying behavior

• Additional polish for Fish Bucket visuals

Thank You

Huge thanks to everyone who has tested, reported bugs, and given feedback. This mod has grown because of your help.