How do monsters spawn in SS? Does it change up every time I dock somewhere? I ask this because I’m trying to hunt Lorn-Flukes, only the game (or the flukes themselves) seems to have the preternatural ability to sense when I need fluke cores to progress with stories and vanish entirely. I’ve gone through three captains after switching over to Merciful mode and seen the accursed things twice.
As a further note, I have faithfully been searching the areas around the Fathomking’s Hold, Aestival and the Chelonate, so I’m in the right area for them.
Three captains and you’ve only seen them twice? Sounds like a…fluke. Okay seriously though, there is a way to quickly encounter lorn-flukes. It borders on being an exploit, but when you’re trying to rack up those 77 secrets for the Zong of the Zee, you take what you can get.
Lorn-flukes always spawn in the same locations (the ones you’ve noted, plus near the Empire of Hands), but they have a low spawn rate; I’m not sure exactly what causes them to appear. But what you can do is dock at one of the nearby locations, then travel to the spawn area. If there’s no fluke there, return to port, wait for the game to auto-save, exit to the main menu, and then Continue your current game. Every time you start the game it resets all spawns, although this does not guarantee a fluke will actually spawn so you may have to repeat it several times (i.e. travel to the spawn area, return to port, exit to menu, continue game, etc.). Since each reload only takes a few seconds and the spawn locations are all fairly close to ports, you can usually cajole a fluke into appearing after a minute or so (usually after around 3-4 reloads).
You can also use this trick when hunting for other rare spawns like Mt Nomad, The Eater of Names, and The Tree of Ages. On merciful mode, you can also dock, look for a fluke, and if you don’t see one then simply reload the game. However, reloading a save often causes a weird glitch (at least for me), which teleports my ship to another port. Your mileage may vary.
It worked! I had to reload a couple of times, but I finally got another lorn-fluke! Now I can actually finish the Principles story! Thank you so much!
You’re welcome! Happy hunting.