How do you tame / ranch Gnits?

[Gurgel]

They are hostile and they get used up by the Luras. It seems that for Dartles, Rhexes are limited to ones that have produced their egg, but no such limit for Gnits? 

Are Gnits a dead end and do you have to do Lura farming with other flying creatures?

[Epicteus]

You can't tame them but if they sting a critter or a dupe they get a boost to their reproduction

[Electroely]

You just put them in a room with another critter. They feed by stinging critters - or duplicants - every cycle (the victim can't be stung by another Gnit for half a cycle.) Each critter in the room can keep two gnits "fed", giving them a 50%/cycle increase to their reproduction rate, effectively producing one extra gnit egg per cycle (in addition to the eggs the gnits would lay naturally) if you have at least two gnits.

I think dartles are the best for it since both dartles and gnits only require 4 cells of space in the room per critter to avoid overcrowding, so both will lay eggs as long as overcrowding is taken care of. Since gnits don't need any of the usual ranch buildings, you can make the room as big as you can and it'll get flooded with gnits over time.

[Carib94]

They get a boost in reproduction if they sting critter or dupe. So best critters to sting are dartles and surprisingly morbs. Once the gnit stings they get a buff "sting a target" boost their reproduction. so an adult Gnit with this buff will lay 2 eggs before they die, instead of 1 if they dont sting anything. Dupes or Critters stung will get a debuff that will last half a cycle so 1 dupe/critter can support 2 Gnits. Gnits doesnt require any resources and are free to use, only caveat is fps drops lol.

Simply put build infrastructure for them then find their eggs and put them in liquid and just have critters in there for them to sting and in no time the population will grow. 

 

[Gurgel]

18 hours ago, Epicteus said:

You can't tame them but if they sting a critter or a dupe they get a boost to their reproduction

Thanks. That was the missing element. So I will just put a Dartle in there.

Update: Yes, that works. Thanks! May need a bit better documentation though. 

Edited June 9, 2025 by Gurgel

[Tigin]

Gnit-fed Luras can be lucrative, but it's obnoxious to restart a gnit population from scratch if you went gung-ho on them early. (They certainly don't reproduce as fast as real mosquitos) If you want to use gnits, I recommend hoarding them early and placing them somewhere safe as they don't cost resources to maintain - just space

After the Dartle nerfs, tamed dartles no longer have enough calories to lay a replacement egg while glum (they're born with 4.5 cycle stomachs. They'll starve in 22.5 cycles, much less than the 30 cycles needed to produce an egg) Indeed, the only tame land critter that could potentially work without feeding would be Sweetles. However, this will also eventually fail as they all turn to Grubgrubs

This means the only "free" critters left are the cheeky ones - Morbs, beetinies, and wild critters.

Morbs can be used (and is what I use), although setting up the outhouses does take quite a bit of time

Beetinies are challenging because the beetas can occasionally sting gnits to death, but it's probably not too bad if you play on 3x speed

Wild critters are a decent option, and a lot of people end up creating wild animal zoos anyway so might as well put them to good use. 

[Gurgel]

Hmm. Do Gnits sting dupes though exo-suits? That would be a way to still ranch without the negative sting effects. 

[Electroely]

7 minutes ago, Gurgel said:

Hmm. Do Gnits sting dupes though exo-suits? That would be a way to still ranch without the negative sting effects. 

No, Gnits completely ignore duplicants wearing Atmo Suits.