how do i feed pips

[sea jay]

i cant find arbor trees anywhere and the pod hasnt given me any, im on cycle 107 and they are starving is there another way to feed them?

[madcow]

Nope. All you can do without trees is keep them wild (wild critters don't need to eat). At least until you hit space and find a Living planet. If your seed has a Living planet. Otherwise, its just a matter of waiting for the Pod to print an arbor seed.

[sea jay]

dammit, ty

[intenselygoodtime]

When you do finally get one from the Printing Pod, use a storage container to send it to a locked room with the Pip, and at least a few tiles of natural un-modified dirt. (Helps if you planned ahead for a "natural park", including a critter feeder and critter dropoff.) The Arbor tree will need a 3x3 grid ABOVE that dirt in order to grow its branches up and out.

Good luck!

[ewpayne]

keeping digging towards the cracked natural tiles in hopes of finding one. keeping digging (grinding).

[VA gamer]

How valuable is the pip overall?

I get that they can make "natural" plants, but is that really so useful in the grand scheme?

[intenselygoodtime]

Originally posted by VA gamer:

How valuable is the pip overall?

I get that they can make "natural" plants, but is that really so useful in the grand scheme?

If you want to save on agricultural activities/time, and if you can plan ahead and carve out a large section of your starting area with "natural dirt", then their net-savings over the whole game is massive.

In my current game, I carved out a rather large room in ~1/3 of my starting area the shape of a large capital "E", with a locked entrance door in the ~middle. Same guidance as above: Critter dropoff, natural park landmark, storage container ONLY for the seeds I want planted there (especially Arbor), and just about the whole thing is dirt. Between that and the Pacu tank just under the printer (door-floor on either side for freshly-printed Pacu to flop down through), I've got a nice low-effort set of farming interns.

...and they're adorable, too.

[Prometheus]

Pips also poop dirt. Plan, simple, room temperature, massively useful, dirt. Since they eat the tree directly (like Dreckos) they are very easy to maintain too.

[lydiaprower8]

Pips also eat Thimble Reeds. That's what my Pips have been living on.

[The Queen Salis]

Originally posted by lydiaprower8:

Pips also eat Thimble Reeds. That's what my Pips have been living on.

yes, however they need to eat A LOT MORE of Thimble.
A single wild arbor tree with 5 branches (there will ONLY BE FIVE) can sustain more pips than a number of farmed thimble reeds since each branch has an independant growth percentage that gets monched AND they eat less of that percentage per day than they do of a thimble.

[fractalgem]

True, feeding pips thimble reed is mostly useful for keeping at least one alive until you can get arbor trees going, or for getting cuddle pips...but it IS an option to keep in mind.