the issue with serpent spawning is, if they spawn behind you, at night, during a storm, at max sail speed, with rain and waves, you might never see each other. the times you run into each other are a subset of the total spawns.

as for spawn rules - serpents can spawn during storms or at night, or both. night spawns despawn at day. storm spawns do not despawn.

when you occasionally encounter a sea serpent in clear skies and broad daylight, it means that it spawned a while ago in a storm, you didnt notice each other, and it stayed there until you finally saw it when passing by the same area again.

serpents will go back to their spawn point if they dont hit anything in 30 seconds. defensive retreat, to punish campers. you can let it hit your boat, or hit you, every 20-25 seconds or so to refresh the cooldown if you are trying to lure it to shore. so, it is worth marking serpent spawns in case it retreats, so you know where to look. once you kill it, you can remove the marker, as the spawn point only pertains to that specific serpent.

If you manage to harpoon one at night and drag it on shore, will it despawn before your eyes or the mechanics actually make them "run away" in order to despawn them ?

there are still daytime spawns , the only change ive seen is the chase rate - they used to give up after one minute of chasing you if they didnt hit you , now they seem to give up after about 30 seconds , which makes it harder to lead them to shore - you need them near shallow water to get the scales
i dont hunt them specifically - i go on trips to find mushrooms and collect the serpents on the way there and back , the most ive seen in a row was 3 -
expert tip - frost arrows

Originally posted by Nyu:

their are fixed sea serpent spawns and random. if you find one midday remember that spot (mark it) they will respawns every few days again near that.
atleast thats how it was before mistland.
night and storm they just have alot higher spawnrates to appear randomly

Serpents never has fixed spawn points
Only global spawns of 5% at night ( + 5% if rain or storm ) each 64mx64m fields

Originally posted by cookie:

there are still daytime spawns , the only change ive seen is the chase rate - they used to give up after one minute of chasing you if they didnt hit you , now they seem to give up after about 30 seconds , which makes it harder to lead them to shore - you need them near shallow water to get the scales
i dont hunt them specifically - i go on trips to find mushrooms and collect the serpents on the way there and back , the most ive seen in a row was 3 -
expert tip - frost arrows

Serpents dont have "Normal" daytime spawns , only if raining or storming in daytime ,that serpent will stay there until you hunt her , maybe can be confused by a daytime spawn but surely was spawned when you passed in that zone when rain

And night time spawns will despawn in daytime :(

some that killed me when first playing using raft.
they often stay more or less around where they was last time. maybe a bit of change.
you likely have to sail to them, going over U pockets of sea between land is how I find some.

some locations it seem to take a while to spawn, else sail to new areas.

I was just mapping and got caught in the ocean at night with a storm and the game dumped them on me back to back 4 in a row. So have 2 people if you want to 'farm' them because the game will abuse their spawn rates

Originally posted by DarthTanyon:

Originally posted by Nyu:

their are fixed sea serpent spawns and random. if you find one midday remember that spot (mark it) they will respawns every few days again near that.
atleast thats how it was before mistland.
night and storm they just have alot higher spawnrates to appear randomly

hmm did not know about the fixed spawns.. good to know..

tbf that was before mistland update and maybe i just had a great ocean who gave me always 2 serpeants every few days near the spots i marked.
so maybe its false information.
it only worked on the daylightspawns.

their are fixed sea serpent spawns and random. if you find one midday remember that spot (mark it) they will respawns every few days again near that.
atleast thats how it was before mistland.
night and storm they just have alot higher spawnrates to appear randomly

Originally posted by Nyu:

their are fixed sea serpent spawns and random. if you find one midday remember that spot (mark it) they will respawns every few days again near that.
atleast thats how it was before mistland.
night and storm they just have alot higher spawnrates to appear randomly

hmm did not know about the fixed spawns.. good to know..

it is best to keep sailing around until you find them. They don't really wander unless chasing the player. They have a chance of spawning under the right conditions as you load new cells, but will essentially just swim in small circles where they spawned unless you notice them and get close enough. The night spawned serpents will also despawn with dawn, so if you dont notice those ones when they do spawn you may never notice them at all. So if farming for them, you have to sail around to get them to spawn to begin with and they will not really go far in search of the player unless they are actively already after the player.

it's more effective to sail around, as they spawn outside of your POV. Going out at night during rain or storms is correct

They are almost impossible to "farm" they are the creature that is there when you don't want it and not there when you do.. I have killed 5 in the 80 hours on my server and I have done the majority of the exploration.. I was attacked by 2 in a row once then didn't see one for like 100 in game days.. they should add a bait that lures it.

I sail all the time, so I see them all the time, but I just don't find enough mushroom to make the stew. I have a stack of 50 cooked sea serpent waiting for mushroom, and several stacks of stew waiting to be eaten.

If you're out in storms and/or at night, they are actually quite common, but not as common as the Leviathan. Those things stack up like cord wood. I'm constantly having to avoid and/or hop on them and make them go away. I recently had 3 so close that I was able to jump between them when I was getting them to sink. Those really are navigation hazards!