How to tame boars?

[kangirigungi]

I do not understand how I could tame a boar. I herded one into a pen, threw some raspberries in, then waited, slept in my house, even went for a day doing something else, but it's still frightened and is running around. What can I do for it to calm down, eat, and become tame?

[Helios]

You see a yellow heart over the boar then you know its in taming.

[kangirigungi]

It's not simply a stupid mechanic but also counterintuitive. Since the game is still in early access, it's not too late to change it. Even a simple indicator of the progress of taming would help, at least I know that I'm not doing something that I shouldn't.

[Foxglovez]

Originally posted by kangirigungi:

It's not simply a stupid mechanic but also counterintuitive. Since the game is still in early access, it's not too late to change it. Even a simple indicator of the progress of taming would help, at least I know that I'm not doing something that I shouldn't.

Did you not bother to read the several times in this thread, including the post directly above yours that you LOOK FOR YELLOW HEARTS COMING OFF THE TOP OF THE BOAR to see that it is taming. And big clue, they are not running around screaming. Sheesh. RTP!
Taming is fine as it is. Or get a mod.

[kangirigungi]

No, I haven't seen any yellow hearts. The boars are just standing there doing nothing.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by kangirigungi:

It's not simply a stupid mechanic but also counterintuitive. Since the game is still in early access, it's not too late to change it. Even a simple indicator of the progress of taming would help, at least I know that I'm not doing something that I shouldn't.

There is a status display with percentage tame but if you get close enough to see the status you alert your creature that you are trying to tame. You can also tell by looking at the hearts coming up from the creature. The closer it gets to being tamed the greener the hearts get.

Originally posted by kangirigungi:

No, I haven't seen any yellow hearts. The boars are just standing there doing nothing.

Build your pen away from fires and build an exterior wall of some kind (like a stake wall) around your base so that other creatures (like greylings) can't spawn nearby or can't get within sight range of your creatures and alert them. Make sure that there is food that the tameable creature will eat (for boars; berries, mushrooms, excluding the yellow mushrooms, carrots, turnips, or onions) within 6 meters of all your boars. Get far enough away from your creatures that you are out of sight range and wait for them to stop being alerted (exclamation point over their heads goes away).

When that happens go into sneak mode and approach the pen. If you are out of their sight range you will have a dash "eyecon" on your screen. Keep approaching until the icon changes to give you a partially open eye and you should see yellow hearts start to come up from your tameable creatures. If you get so close that the "eyecon" changes into a fully open and alert eye your creatures will alert and you'll have to leave their sight range again and wait for them to calm down.

Once you have those distance measuring sticks you can do other base related tasks (cooking, smelting, building, farming, etc.) between those distances and the creatures will eventually tame without any more specific attention from you on the taming task.

On a brand new start, as soon as I have a hammer and a stone axe I'll build a double pen, throw some raspberries in each side (they won't despawn as long as you leave the work bench that let you build the pen in place and outside the walls of the pen so the boar(s) won't attack the workbench) and lure one boar into each side of the pen. Once you've done that the work bench will keep greylings from spawning and killing your boars. You can wander outside the sight radius of your boars and gather other materials and you can build your first lodge outside of the boar's alert range but inside their sight range and they will tame while you build. If you build a lodge big enough for a bed, fire, and some storage your first 2 boars should be tame by the time you are done building. Once they are tame you can go into the pen(s) and knock out the interior wall so that they will breed.

[󠄉󠀁󠀁󠁿󠁿]

Tamed two boars in 20 days fed him berries just to a troll come by and throw a rock decimating my dreams and ambitions.

[kangirigungi]

Nope, it doesn't work. I put the boars in a pen, surrounded my entire base with a fence so no monsters would get in. I threw some food in the pen, which is still there. I approached the boars in stealth mode to about 20 meters. They are just standing at the corner of their pen, doing nothing, no symbol appears over them. I even left the game running for at least 10 minutes, but still nothing happens.

[Mharr]

Originally posted by Foxglovez:

mechs are possible, in fact probable to intuit and to figure out but you have to want to and maybe do some work

I believe this thread now contains enough confused people to confirm that taming is not in fact intuitive.

[Maelstrom]

The food needs to be within 10 meters or so, if you have a larger pen try throwing in two food piles. They also have to not be alerted, if they can see you or a mob or a fire they won't tame.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by Maelstrom:

The food needs to be within 10 meters or so, if you have a larger pen try throwing in two food piles. They also have to not be alerted, if they can see you or a mob or a fire they won't tame.

The food for the boars has to be within 6 meters. My barns are all 12 tiles x 12 tiles so I have to throw food in 4 different places in the barn to make sure they can all eat.

[kangirigungi]

I threw in more food, and now they are taming. Yes, it is indeed not intuitive.

[Kursor1]

Originally posted by kangirigungi:

If I leave the area, does the taming time get reset or does it continue where it left off? I don't want to just stand there doing nothing, but if I do anything else, even if I don't venture far, I'll inevitably step outside the area from time to time.

As someone said, the taming timer continues where it left off when you return, BUT the eating timer does NOT, so make sure you grab all their food off the ground before you leave camp or be prepared for it to all be gone by the time you get back.

[Foxglovez]

Originally posted by Mharr:

Originally posted by Foxglovez:

mechs are possible, in fact probable to intuit and to figure out but you have to want to and maybe do some work

I believe this thread now contains enough confused people to confirm that taming is not in fact intuitive.

We who have played the game a long time do forget things like making your first pen small. But indeed, I must admit that not everything is intuitive about taming. It's a mini-game and should be treated as a puzzle to solve. If taming boars makes you cranky then just don't bother. If things didn't take time to either do or figure out the game would last about 10 minutes.

[Draven Darkmire]

Originally posted by kangirigungi:

What's the minimum distance they need to be away from fire? Maybe that's my problem.

Another question: do boars respawn? As I understand, monsters do respawn.

#1 - When you build a workbench you can see the outline of how far it reaches. I use that as my measurement and never have a problem.
#2 - Yes, boars have the same respawn mechanics as any other mob.

Not asked here but referred in other places, the boars can't have a line of sight to you during the taming process otherwise they become spooked. Use the solid wooden fences and not the cheap one.

[avatar.zero]

Originally posted by Draven Darkmire:

Not asked here but referred in other places, the boars can't have a line of sight to you during the taming process otherwise they become spooked. Use the solid wooden fences and not the cheap one.

^ This is important. They don't have to see you or you them, you just need to keep close enough. Having blockers between you is perfectly fine and will not interfere with taming, but will help make sure they don't spot you and get alerted (yellow icon) or frightened/aggroed (red exclamation).