Guide: Viirin's guide to pets (has spoilers)

[viirinsoftworks]

Will update more when I experiment on my own to learn more. Below is what I got so far.

--------------------Starter Pet-----------------------
Each race gets their own starter pet. I started as Novakid a few times and the starter pet has the ability to be various colors. Take that to mean what you want. As a Novakid, I've had both neon blue and neon green. The neon blue was after I installed a mod, so that might affect things.

-----------------Capture Balls---------------------

Three ways to get them that I found so far (no idea if it can be a Reward Bag drop or not).

-Treasure Chests- all kinds, possibly. I got 3 in the chest at the end of the Floran Trial the first time I did it, but that was it. Haven't seen it in other chests, so guessing its a rare.
-NPC Quest- Sometimes an NPC will ask you to tame a pet for them. I've only seen Poptop requests so far. The reward will be a pet the NPC caught (got a bird and a ghost so far) plus another capture ball you can use on something else of your choice. I do NPC quests all day just for the possibility that someone will ask for me to do this, but so far it seems like only one NPC per game will do it. (I said so far)
-Craft- You can make these for 6 durasteel and 1 diamond in a Pet Station, which you can make if you max out your first crafting station.

--------------Farm Animals-------------
You can buy various eggs from a guy in the Outpost. Different prices for different pets; new things don't appear so its already stocked to max when it opens, which is before you get to it. So have some money and get some fluffy animals.

------------Capture Ball pets-------------
Okay, so I've read various things. I'll only say here what I know to be true from my own experiments done within the past 2 weeks (as of this post).

-Pets lose huge amounts of stats when caught, or increased to a certain point. Someone said their stats are related to yours, but I don't know if that's true or not. Damage, however, is not affected by being tamed. The monsters in the mining mission are excellent ranged attackers!
-I haven't tried on a full health pet, but 45% and lower. If you miss, pick up the ball and throw it again and hope you hit. Make sure everything else in the area is dead and you can find the ball if you miss, just in case. You don't wanna lose the ball OR miss the monster you're trying for and hit something crappy standing behind it.
-Big monsters can be tamed. You know the adult poptop at the bottom of the mine on the first planet you get to? It can be tamed. I have one.
-Critters can be tamed. I caught a spider on a dark world because I thought it was adorable.
-Not all monsters have their names displayed on their capture ball.
-Reward pets have the name of the NPC who gave it to you in their description!
-Reward pets are named monsters, but in the field, they might only be named "pet" despite actually having a name.
-Lugging a pet healing station around with you isn't a bad idea. Be smart about this.
-You can use your capture ball when a pet is already out in order to call it back, or to switch pets. You can only have one active pet at a time, sadly enough.
-Dead pets are unsummonable without healing them at a pet healing station (build it from the pet station). Trying to use the ball anyway, it just shakes and sounds broken.
-You CAN heal a pet while it is out. It doesn't eat or rest, but it is affected by healing water. I bring a little with me everywhere I go, once I find some.
-Big monsters: They don't heal. The adult poptop I have? I beat the heck out of him and then stayed away from the mine until I had a ball to catch him with. There ARE other planets with the same type of mine, if you're lucky to find them. Adult poptops spawn 5 poptops by themselves while wild; you can mine poptop trophies because of this. But beware! I played for 4 days straight and also logged out and back in, and the thing still hadn't healed. So don't kill them if you plan to catch them- they don't respawn and don't heal. Unless caught/heal station or heal water (works on wild ones too).
-Yes, you CAN catch a monster almost at 50% health while its underwater in heal water. I caught a taroni this way.
-NPCs that ask for you to catch a pet for them don't seem to be willing to join your crew. I keep trying to get this avian chick to join my crew with her poptop, but no dice so far.
-NPC pets are on your side- which is possibly bad. If you steal and a guard gets told about you, and there is an NPC's pet monster nearby, the pet will kill everyone in opposition to you, but they won't be attacked back! Useful if you wanna kill a village without using your own hand. Not that I would...
-Wild dogs are passive, but can attack. As with NPC monsters you caught and traded, allied dogs (they are by default) will attack NPCs without being attacked.
-You can catch dogs at full health easily. They keep their names (at least the one I caught did, he's Rex).
-Because big monsters only spawn when a world generates and don't heal, when injuring them, don't use DoT weapons (poison or fire damage over time). Make sure you control their exact hit point loss as best you can so you don't kill them, unless you intend to.
-Pets caught have the proportional hit points they had when caught. If you are really far away from having a pet healing station and you tame something right before it dies? Well it probably only has a couple hit points until you heal it in one of the two ways I've said repeatedly, but will do again below.
-Yes, you can catch quest monsters. When caught, they drop the items you were supposed to "get back" from them. The quest compass is kinda glitchy at that point, but just collect the items and go back to whoever gave you the quest. The quest objective will update itself before you get there.
-Unsummoning a pet is easy. Just use their ball and they'll desummon, so they can be healed by you later without needing the healing station (if you have healing water somewhere. Seriously have a small lake on a planet that rains and you have infinite healing water).

--------------------Healing A Pet-------------------------------
Use a shallow pond of Healing Water (or convert normal water into Healing) or use a Pet Healing Station.

----------------------Experiments to conduct----------------------

Do pets level when they kill 20 monsters?
Do pet stats relate to the player's stats?
Do pet stats level when they kill 20 monsters, but use the player's stats as an adjustment to their own as a base?
Can you catch sharks?
Can you catch bats?
Do dogs attack once tamed?
Can you catch your own starter?
Can you catch a farm animal like a Robot Chicken?

[kyorinrin]

Supposedly they are like your crew members and scale to your current gear. Although I don't know if they fixed the pets when they adjusted the crews as well.

I kind of gave up on them as anything useful for combat as soon as I had my first one die on me in 2 hits and couldn't be rez'd without endgame crafting. Really pised me off actually.

Handy guide for beginners though.

[viirinsoftworks]

Thanks, Bookworm!

Experiment:
Can you catch starter pets? No.

Do pet stats relate to player stats? Yes. I got better equipment and watched pet stats while equipping it. There's a difference.

[MongooseCalledFred]

I think you can also heal pets via medic crew members.

[Evilcheesewheel]

Durasteel, not duranium.

[viirinsoftworks]

Cheese: Corrected.
Mongoose: I just got a medic so I'll try with that. (Yep they regen on the ship if you have a medic)

Also, yes you CAN catch sharks. Summoning them outside water is sad- they just flop around. It's expected though.

Corrected: No, you can't catch quest "oversized" creatures, but you can catch the adult poptop. I haven't seen any other big worldgen monsters or I'd try on that too.

[Kampbell]

Also, why when capturing cute critters, like the crystal prism cute eye thing in Ice planet, or the snowball lil' penguin, It says "some undescriptable horror"?

[viirinsoftworks]

Karlitos, it isn't just those. Almost everything I caught says that. I think that's the default for any monster that isn't a specific named species (Poptop, Taroni, Adult Poptop) that also fit its standard color pattern.

[Kampbell]

Originally posted by viirinsoftworks:

Karlitos, it isn't just those. Almost everything I caught says that. I think that's the default for any monster that isn't a specific named species (Poptop, Taroni, Adult Poptop) that also fit its standard color pattern.

Ty. I just..... thought It was weird that kawaii Critters have that tooltip.

[ShunTheWitch]

The fish (large and small) can be caught albet annoying at times, and bats are captureable, flying monsters are not as good as you would think however as they will more or less "hover" i caught 3 flying ones before trying them out one was a worm that did a little sonic spin and then lunge towards the enemy was entirely useless and attacked so rarely as opposed to before capture, but i got a ranged flying creatures and he proved a little useful as he pumped extra dps from behind me. your fish monsters will not die outside water and are generally best for a gaint display.

[viirinsoftworks]

I just got a mod that lets you collect monsters with a game rifle to stuff them and put them on display. It doesn't keep the monster's color code, but its at default. Anyway, I bring this up because I'll be able to make a nice list of known monster identification cards for everyone to peruse.

[Violeta]

The first mission at the mining moon base, the reward chest next to the crystal miner has a high chance of having 2 capture pods. Otherwise I think you get 20 throwing blocks. Its repeatable either way.

[Filthy Goon]

i have a few pet suggestions for those who have no idea what to catch
Avian sentry: found in the avian story mission it flies around, twirls its head before firing a slow moving shot at enemies, since its slow you can easily lure or throw enemies into it for a decent 50 damage (unaugmented while wearing tier 6 armor)
Failed Apex experiment (atleast thats what i like to call it): long story short, hes super slow but get too close and he lunges for a whooping 160 damage! found in the apex mission and occasionally in abandoned apex facilities.
Bone bird: actually quite rare since ive only ever run into them once and I dont know if the structure was part of a mod or not, basically a flying version of the moontant, spits blood, might be better off finding a randomized bird with the same ability but it looks cool and its small so it can fit in small spaces.
Apex drone: the little guard drones in apex labs one for each door, can only charge so it damages itself but boy is it fast!
Adult poptop: Already disscussed, its huge, its mean, and it has a huge swipe attack ripping anything to shreds.

[AbsynthMinded]

I opt for the large special monsters you get by climbing a pillar of dirt till you reach the upper atmosphere. Theres a great guide for the top 5 Pets and general Pet info.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyTG2FttEHc

[TheSuit]

You should add where to get \ craft a pet healing station.
Otherwise nice post.

[viirinsoftworks]

I can do that, Suit :) I'm still experimenting, but I plan on editing my OP to be a little easier to skim through. But I can add that.