All about Pearl Decoration Scores, I guess

[namhai]

I am unable to find a complete and detailed list about Pearl decoration score system, so I would like to make this post before the beta is over. If you find a better compilation somewhere, or whether I am missing any detail, feel free to reply. My ability to read codes is quite limited, and this post might be too verbose, so apologize in advance.

(updated to live branch v706363)

What is "Pearl Decoration Score"?

To put it simply, this is similar to doing Pearl tasks, but it is after players use Hermit Rehomer to relocate Pearl to mainland. Obviously, it means this is a post Lunar rift gameplay feature, particularly after players have killed all 3 different mutated bosses. As Pearl is relocated, players would be prompted with new tasks to decorate her living space, get points for fulfilling them and unlock new buildings from Pearl's shop. As of writing this, this activity is entirely optional and is not required for boss progression.

What are the rewards?

You unlock each new building in Pearl's shop when your decoration points reach or exceed a certain threshold, and such building would be locked again if your points drop below a different mark.

• Pearl's Light Post: unlocked at 10 points, locked again if below 5 points
• Pearl's Tea Shop: unlocked at 25 points, locked again if below 15 points
• Pearl's Hot Spring: unlocked at 60 points, locked again if below 50 points
• Large Drying Racks: unlocked at 90 points, locked again if below 80 points

There is unfortunately a restriction to where you can build these, which will be explained later.

In addition, the points also affect crafting recipe changes in some buildings, namely Combriner and Pearl's Tea Shop. More on that later.

The mechanics of the decoration score system

• This score system is only enabled if Pearl's house is relocated to mainland (so not on Lunar Islands, nor Moon Quay, nor Pearl's original island)
• (See image below) For most tasks, decor points will be calculated within the highlighted area (wear Turf-Raiser Helm, or hold a pitchfork/a piece of turf to reveal this). Only buildings and objects inside this area are valid for point checking. Take notice that only land tiles are highlighted, and anything on nearby docks or boats or water won't matter.

• Pearl's new buildings, Light Posts, Tea Shops, Hot Springs and Large Drying Racks, can only be placed within this highlighted area. Moving Pearl's house away will render these buildings "abandoned" and non-functional. Putting Pearl's house back in the original location will NOT revert this, with the exception of the Hot Springs. Combriner remains usable outside the area but can only craft tier 1 items.
• The minimum point is capped at 0, while the maximum is capped at 100. Since all penalties have a cap, I guess it might be possible to just outweigh them and still get the max score (like a big MIGHT, I haven't checked how feasible it is yet. Maybe expert base builders will be up to the tasks? )

Tasks and penalties

1. Tasks (which give you points, duh)

• Place beach turfs, max point 15: 
  • Shell Beach Turf: 0.15 points each
  • Moon Quay Beach Turf or Rocky Beach Turf: 0.1 points each
• Unique structures (for each type, only one building is needed. More can be built, but will not give additional points)
  • Pearl's Tea Shop: 10 points
  • Pearl's Hot Spring: 10 points
  • Tackle Receptacle: 3 points
  • Combriner: 3 points
• Tables, max point 15:
  • Empty table: 2 points each
  • Table with items: 5 points each
• Dock pillings, max point 10, each gives 0.5 points
• Potted plants (ferns or succulents), max point 10, each gives 1 point
• Fish Scale-O-Matics, no max point cap.
  • Gives 0.012 points per weight value, if there are more of the same fish then only take the points of the heaviest fish.
  • Gives 20 points if there are fish scale-o-matics of all types of fish. (Technically the game only checks if there are 16 different fish or more, and I think that DST has more than 16??)
• Chairs, max point 8, each gives 2 points
• Drying racks, max point 9. Technically, one slot of rack gives 1 points, so each normal drying rack gives 3 points, each large drying rack gives 9 points.
  • Pearl's own drying racks do not count.
• Pickable plants, max point 10, each plant gives 0.5 points.
  • These include: all types of berry bushes, twig saplings, grass tufts, reeds, banana bushes, monkeytails, stone fruit bushes. They can be withered or unfertilized (oversight?), and Scared Stiff plants don't count.
  • Also include: Fully grown Sproutrocks and Gloomthorns
  • Spiky bushes, cacti ("thorny" plants basically) do not give any points.
  • (Just a funny trivia: The light bulbs and lesser glow berries spawned from Forest Reanimated Skeleton could count towards this criteria, albeit very briefly. Oh, harvestable weeds do too, I guess?)
• Pearl's Light Posts, max point 10:
  • Empty Light Post: 1/3 points each
  • If the Post has light: 1 point each
• Bee Boxes, max point 5, each gives 1 point
  • Pearl's own bee box doesn't count
• Flowers (normal, evil and rose), max point 5, each gives 0.5 points
• Giving Pearl a pet is worth 5 points
  • To do this, a critter has to be adopted at the Rock Den. Then stay near Pearl and hover the cursor over the critter, there should be an option to transfer ownership (by right clicking, typically) 
  • Sadly Walter can't give Woby away , or any critter for that matter
  • You cannot change Pearl's pet after this is done. Choose wisely, it is not like you are committing an old lady and one poor innocent critter to a life-long companionship or anything
• Whether a minimum of 10 tiles of her area is under the canopy of Above-Average Tree Trunk(s) and Great Tree Trunk(s): gives 15 points (my understanding about this is a bit shaky)
• Upgrade Pearl's house to lv5 gives 5 points
• 4 slots of wind charms are available on lv5 house:
  • Pearl's bloomers and stockings: 0 points (in case someone wonders about that)
  • Normal wind charms: 2 points each
  • Winter's Feast exclusive wind charms: 4 points each, if Winter's Feast is active. Otherwise, 2 points each
  • Spoiler

    Wagstaff's Glove gives 8 points. The clipboard cannot be hung, which vexes me...

• When Winter's Feast is active, Pearl's buildings can use Winter's Feast exclusive skins, which give points:
  • Pearl's Place: 2 points
  • Pearl's Hot Springs or Pearl's Tea Shops: 2 points for each building with the skin
  • Pearl's Light Posts: 2 points if all Light Posts have the skin
  • Large Drying Racks: 2 points if all Large Drying Racks have the skin
  • Pearl's bee box and Pearl's single slot drying racks don't give any points with the skin
  • (possible oversight, just ignore this) Items and other buildings with winter skin are also applicable:
    • Tested: Abigail's Flower - sometimes 1, sometimes 1.5 points (shrug)
    • Untested: Hibearnation Vest, Rabbit Hutch (are there more?)

2. Penalties 

Anything that lowers your scores. Listed exceptions, however, will not cause you to lose any points, nor give any.

• Spawners (basically buildings that spawn mobs), capped at -33 points
  • Graves: -3 points each
  • Others: -1 points each. For example, spider dens, pig houses, merm houses, etc.
  • Exceptions: bee boxes, catcoon dens, deep bass shoals (and anybody wearing Polly Roger's or Salty Dog's hat?)
• Junks, capped at -50 points. These include junk piles and any inventory items dropped on the ground, within the highlighted area.
  • Exceptions: shell bells, ice, snowballs, mini glaciers, all vases, end tables, all heavy objects
  • A stack of items only counts as one penalty. For example, a stack of 10 seeds will deduct 0.5 points, but dropping each seed separately 10 times (like by shift + ctrl + right clicking on the seed stack) will deduct 0.5*10 = 5 points 
• Blocked fishing spots, either by docks or boats (Above-Average Trees don't block, surprisingly): -4 points per each spot blocked, -64 points if all spots are blocked. You can check her fishing spots before placing the Hermit Rehomer, or I guess grab a new one and overlap the current house (admittedly, still awkward, but better than nothing)

Like this:

How to check decoration points?

Pearl's own quotes about her satisfaction might feel insufficient for some, and calculating points manually sounds like a pain, so here is an option to use commands (which is only for PC users I guess, sorry future console players):

(Note: Use "hermithouse" instead of "hermithouse2" if Pearl's house is not upgraded to lv5)

Quote

c_announce(c_find("hermithouse2").components.pearldecorationscore:GetDebugString())

or in case you would rather not flood the chat with announcement spams:

Quote

ThePlayer.components.talker:Say(c_find("hermithouse2").components.pearldecorationscore:GetDebugString())

Typically the scores should update itself every 10 seconds, but you can force it to update before you run the check score command above with:

Quote

c_find("hermithouse2").components.pearldecorationscore:ForceUpdate()

Edit: I manage to find a different command that shows the scores with more precision (should have known that beforehand ). GetDebugString() rounds the scores to two decimal places, thus it might not be desirable for someone who wants to work with empty Light Post or Fish Scale-O-Matics points, so to speak. I still leave the old commands as is because "enabled" tag might still be helpful, and people probably already have gotten used to them.

Quote

c_announce(c_find("hermithouse2").components.pearldecorationscore:GetScore())

or

Quote

ThePlayer.components.talker:Say(tostring(c_find("hermithouse2").components.pearldecorationscore:GetScore()))

 

Decoration points and other effects

1. Combriner:

• This building is unlocked after players give Pearl the cracked pearl. From my testing, before relocating Pearl you can only place it down on Pearl's island. It comes with 5 crafting recipes, tier 1 so to speak
• After players relocate Pearl to mainland, combriner placement shares the same restriction with other Pearl's buildings. 
• Upon reaching 40 decor points, 4 new recipes are unlocked at Combriner, 3 of which are upgrades of tier 1 items. If the points get lower than 30, these tier 2 recipes are locked again
• Combriners placed outside Pearl's area are functional but could only craft tier 1 items

2. Pearl's Tea Shop:

The ingredients needed to get tea from the shop are reduced as decor points get higher. There are 3 levels, 25 points when the shop is unlocked, then 50 points, finally 75 points. The tea ingredient costs follow respectively

• Dried petals, evil petals, foliage, lune tree blossom (basically pickable flowers): 8 -> 6 -> 4
• Dried fire nettles, tillweeds, forget-me-lots (all 3 weeds) and succulents: 6 -> 4 -> 2

3. Pearl stays outside when dusk comes:

This is specifically about Pearl's Light Posts and the points gained from it. To put it simply, the points you gain exclusively from the Light Posts have to be 7 points or more. To name a few configurations, 21 empty Light Posts, or 7 Posts with light on, etc...

 

Miscellaneous

• Console command to despawn Pearl's pet
• Highest score in theory
• Tea?

 

TLDR; Pearl tasks return with a vengeance (I like them though)

Edited January 11 by namhai

[Lovens]

Junk piles sound like a terrible mechanic. I really like to decorate with items on the ground, why restrict player creative freedom so much? Some things would look fitting when placed around Pearl's home, such as cookie cutter shells, her own bundles of thanks, cracked pearl, snurtle armors etc. Plus it makes it impossible to do a nice edge trim around the paths. 

Does placing items on the group after reaching max point still apply penalties, or only during the building process? 

[namhai]

I gotta say I don't quite understand the question

While junk penalty sounds terrible when you read about it, it is capped at -50 points no matter how much more "junk" is dropped. You only have to build more decors to reach an effective point of 150, which I believe is something expert builders like you will just breeze past without even realizing it.

I really thought I made that point across... That's my fault I guess

[Lovens]

4 hours ago, namhai said:

I gotta say I don't quite understand the question

While junk penalty sounds terrible when you read about it, it is capped at -50 points no matter how much more "junk" is dropped. You only have to build more decors to reach an effective point of 150, which I believe is something expert builders like you will just breeze past without even realizing it.

I really thought I made that point across... That's my fault I guess

There's only so much decor you can cram into the area without overloading it. It's so easy to make it look "too busy" and over-decorated, especially with how big these new structures are. 

[namhai]

4 minutes ago, Lovens said:

There's only so much decor you can cram into the area without overloading it. It's so easy to make it look "too busy" and over-decorated, especially with how big these new structures are. 

I understand that, your points are valid. I would still suggest you give decorating Pearl's rehome area a try, I am sure you will be great at it

[Cruvimaster]

Once you've placed all of Pearl's structures, you can destroy all the remaining items and decorate however you like. Then the junk won't make any difference anymore.

[BiddoBams]

Thank you so much for this as someone who is terrible at reading code, this helps out a tonne 🙏

[Jakepeng99]

13 hours ago, namhai said:

tasks, but it is after players use Hermit Rehomer to relocate Pearl to mainland. Obviously, it means this is a post Lunar rift gameplay feature, particularly after players have killed all 3 different mutated bosses.

Boooooooo.

[Kesia]

This is very useful, honestly, if I was a wiki editor I would just copy-paste this in the article LMAOO it's very well explained

[Pruinae]

This is 140 points (-50 from the "junk" walter pellets)

This is 150 points (again, -50 from the "junk" walter pellets)

It is really not that difficult... You really only need to build the stuff, no need to cram stuff if you use the entire space.

On these examples you can still get more points by adding more pickables, fish-scale-o-matics, bee boxes (annoying in spring though), and by using winter's feast exclusive wind charms.

This is 177 points. -50 from junk, -33 from spawners (those being the graves)

You can get 20 points if you add the last unique fish to the 16th empty scale, up to 5 more by adding 10 pickables, 5 from bee boxes, and 6 by using winter's feast exclusive wind charms.

The 3 unique fishes missing are Spittlefish, and both of the new years' Kois; using the Kois is better I think, since they weight more, but they are event exclusive. You can add another 2 scales and fill every scale with a unique fish for 4 ~ 5 extra points based on weight.

Basically, as long as you don't block all her fishing spots you should be good.

Also keep in mind that after you built everything, you can even go down to 75 points for the cheaper tea no problem; since the large drying hacks will still be functional.

Edited December 16, 2025 by Pruinae

[namhai]

omg I forgot, @Keknutui, you can check this post of mine. Sorry about the late tag

Feel free to double check any information here

[Keknutui]

33 minutes ago, namhai said:

omg I forgot, @Keknutui, you can check this post of mine. Sorry about the late tag

Feel free to double check any information here

Thank you so much! 

[Dingle]

Thanks for this thread! Getting to 50 points for the tea discount seems pretty feasible. And 25 seems really easy, eventually I will make notes on how to most easily rush the tea shop.

I still just wish the game's content wasn't basically over by the time you unlocked the Pearl 2.0 quest. When I'd get the tea, all I would really have would be Scion.

[gaymime]

11 hours ago, namhai said:

 really thought I made that point across... That's my fault I guess

thankyou for doing the hard work of compiling all this info and for sure you did a good job explaining it clearly!

[Maxil20]

Since people are showcasing their Pearl builds, might as well show the current WIP one on my world that has enough score for all of her luxuries (while sacrificing some function for form):



My goal of this is for Pearl to be the guardian of the Oasis and have a bit of respite against the desert winds. I have a very fortunate world spot to make this work, and gives me use of an area I otherwise would not decorate (I have a meteor field fairly close by, so trying to decorate the entire oasis desert is not feasible).

I adore the drying racks, but I didn't want to overcrowd her area with them, so I put them as far as I could so I could focus on making the inner area look nice. I'll see about adding some potted succulents along the oasis lake while I focus on making the rest of the build spiffy.

I need to work on how I want to do the dock posts a bit more, I plan to at least make them look a bit nicer.

Edited December 16, 2025 by Maxil20

[Sephirona]

Thanks so much for compiling this! I haven't had the time to try the beta so I appreciate being able to plan this out in advance for when I do get the chance to play the content. I moved Pearl to the coast next to my shrine garden and main docks, so it's going to be a little tough to fit everything in while maintaining the look I want, heh. I might just end up throwing a bunch of succulents and pickables into the garden to fit it.

Also, after giving Pearl her pet, is the person who gave it to her able to recruit the same pet again from the den?

 

 

[namhai]

4 hours ago, Sephirona said:

Also, after giving Pearl her pet, is the person who gave it to her able to recruit the same pet again from the den?

Of course, don't worry about it. Here you can see that we are puft buddies!

(the pufts are planning something...)

[namhai]

On 12/16/2025 at 7:34 AM, namhai said:

You cannot change Pearl's pet after this is done. Choose wisely, it is not like you are committing an old lady and one poor innocent critter to a life-long companionship or anything

If anyone is a heartless monster like me, they can try to despawn her pets by using the following command as Remote:

Spoiler

c_find("hermitcrab").components.petleash:DespawnAllPets()

Of course this is just in case someone wants to change their mind on a different pet to give Pearl, or to test things around, or wishes to break the bonds of owner and pet wow you are very cruel I hope you are happy jk. Sadly obviously only works for PC users

Edited December 19, 2025 by namhai
I forgot the "s"

[namhai]

In theory, the highest possible scores players can achieve should be 205.161 (Feel free to double check lol, please. I only took the numbers and used calculator T_T) 225.161 (no more messing up this time, trust ) somewhere higher 225.161, due to the points from skins. This requires enabling both Winter's Feast for the exclusive wind charms and a Lunar New Year event for Dappled Koi and Golden Koi.

The highest penalty is -147 points, so I guess even with the best theoretical scenario, that would be 78.161 in total. Not enough to keep Large Drying Racks unlocked at all time, but teas are still the cheapest.

Of course, that being said, as many people have pointed out, scores could be kept high at first until players have built all Pearl's buildings to their desire, and it shouldn't be too difficult to temporarily remove the penalties to place more buildings. Additionally, at least keeping all fishing spots unblocked is not so big a deal, which brings down the max penalty to -83 points.

About Fish Scale-O-Matics, here is the list of all fish's weights in "oceanfishdef.lua", which I assume should be correct (I am too lazy to verify T_T): 

Edited December 20, 2025 by namhai

[Pruinae]

3 hours ago, namhai said:

In theory, the highest possible scores players can achieve should be 205.161. (Feel free to double check lol, please. I only took the numbers and used calculator T_T). This requires enabling both Winter's Feast for the exclusive wind charms and a Lunar New Year event for Dappled Koi and Golden Koi.

From my tests (the ones with the pictures) and the calculations that I did just after waking up, I got to the conclusion that you can get to around ~215 points. I didn't try to get the highest weight value on the fish, just used the fish scale until I got the heavy fish quote, so its potentially even higher than that. Take my calculations with a grain of salt but I am pretty sure 205 ain't it

[namhai]

57 minutes ago, Pruinae said:

From my tests (the ones with the pictures) and the calculations that I did just after waking up, I got to the conclusion that you can get to around ~215 points. I didn't try to get the highest weight value on the fish, just used the fish scale until I got the heavy fish quote, so its potentially even higher than that. Take my calculations with a grain of salt but I am pretty sure 205 ain't it

I forgot to add 20 pts from all unique fish collected omfg 

This is why I can't be trusted with numbers

Edited December 18, 2025 by namhai

[Pruinae]

1 hour ago, namhai said:

I forgot to add 20 pts from all unique fish collected omfg 

This is why I can't be trusted with numbers

There are so many numbers to add up its easy to miss some @.@
 
ty for compiling all this information and making a well structured forum post! (especially when the forum actively tries to fight against you formatting wise (never use Ctrl + Z it WILL work against you))

Edited December 18, 2025 by Pruinae

[Cruvimaster]

1 hour ago, namhai said:

I forgot to add 20 pts from all unique fish collected omfg 

This is why I can't be trusted with numbers

Your topic is wonderful. Even the DST Wiki wouldn't be as complete as this one. Thank you!

[Dingle]

It makes sense that Pearl sees weeds as good. She'd want them for her tea.

With all this info, I'm mostly thinking of how to order the decor tasks by tiers of "how easy are they to do".

My rough list so far:

EASIEST

3 tables with decorations (15)

4 chairs (8)

20 dock pilings (10)

Combriner and Tackle station (6)

Tea shop (10)

One drying rack plus her racks (9)

10 flowers (5)

Critter den pet (5)

20 bushes/saplings/tufts, or whatever pickables are easiest. Don't even have to fertilie them (10)

This is already 78 points!

I have to look at the costs for a lot of her other things.

Things I'm eyeing for SOMEWHAT EASY: 5 bee boxes for 5 points and her 10 points for lights, or skip those two and just do shell bell turf for 15.

Questions: do withered plants count as pickables? Do farm plants that aren't weeds? What about rotting farm plants?

Pickables are probably the next one for 10 easy points. I'm just thinking of what the easiest choices would be, ideally something that can't attract brightshades. Feeding 10 moongleams to the unnatural portal might be a good contender.

Edit: do brightshades infest unfertilized things?

Edited December 18, 2025 by Dingle
Added pickables to list

[namhai]

26 minutes ago, Dingle said:

Questions: do withered plants count as pickables? Do farm plants that aren't weeds? What about rotting farm plants?

I checked all of these yesterday, hence all bigger and shinier bullet points under "pickable".
Withered, and unfertilized, bushes/saplings/tufts etc still give points.

Farm plants unfortunately don't count because the game checks for pickables that won't be removed when picked, if that makes sense. Weeds ironically "won't be removed when picked", so that is why they give points, only at the stage when they can be harvested that is. I reported that just in case lol, but klei probably won't bother patching it tbh

Edited December 18, 2025 by namhai