How to Adopt a Pet Companion

Craft Creature Pellets: You need 60 Carbon to craft 1 Creature Pellet. These are the standard food for adoptable creatures.

Find a Suitable Species: Approach creatures to see if you have the option to feed them pellets. If you can, they are viable for adoption. Most adoptable species are mammalian or dinosaur-like.

Adopt and Bond: Feed a suitable creature pellets. You will likely need to feed it at least one more time before you can adopt it. Immediately after adoption, pet your companion to increase its happiness. Feed it more pellets to alleviate hunger. Regular attention and feeding are crucial to ensure your companion follows you; severe neglect can lead to abandonment.

Manage Companions: Access the Companion Register from the Creatures tab in the quick access menu. Here you can abandon pets (no negative consequences, but bonding starts from scratch), command them to stay, go to a specific location, or follow you. You can also summon or dismiss them. Companions outside your current location will be summoned as holograms. A high helpfulness stat increases their likelihood of following commands and performing tasks like mining or item retrieval. You can equip a mining laser accessory for your pet to mine specific resources.

Create New Companions: Well-fed companions may lay eggs after a gestation period (usually 24 hours). If the egg is viable, it will hatch into a descendant. For customized companions, use the Egg Sequencer on the Anomaly. Here you can use materials like Growth Hormones (adjusts size/weight), Gene Splitters (alters anatomy), Dye Injectors (influences color), and Neural Calibrators (determines trait increase/decrease rate) to customize appearance and traits.