pacu taming speed

[Filipe Pfluck]

I understand nerfing pacus. I also appreciate that now there is a grooming station for aquatic critters. That means you can boost their happiness further and that means more eggs.

But now it takes way too long to tame a pacu without the grooming station. It takes 20 cycles, and a pacu only lives for 25.

What if the fountains also decreased wilderness like the critter feeder? That way a pacu that ate and drank would lose 15% wilderness a day and would be tamed in a much more reasonable 6.6 cycles. 

[AugyBear]

Requiring all aquatic critters to be groomed to be tamed seems like an intentional design decision, but now I'm curious how folks who don't get the Aquatic Planet Pack will be able to tame Pacu.. is the Aquatic Grooming Station going to be made part of the base game? Will people without the DLC still have the old Fish Feeder mechanics?

If we use the Fish Feeder +Aquatic Critter Fountain solution, that would mean folks without the DLC would have to use Brackene to tame Pacu. That would require setting up a Sleet Wheat, Pincha Peppernut, or Nosh Bean farm before you can tame Pacu, which seems like a lot of effort for a critter that now only produces Fish Fillets.

I'm wondering what their planned solution is..

[gigamoi]

It would make sense to add the aquatic grooming station to the base game then. The DLC's value proposition doesn't lie in this building itself.

[Filipe Pfluck]

11 hours ago, AugyBear said:

seems like an intentional design decision,

then they should probably buff them a bit because they seem not worth it now. (especially the jawbos) But I could be wrong

 

11 hours ago, AugyBear said:

is the Aquatic Grooming Station going to be made part of the base game?

Yes I think it will. 

Edited May 25 by Filipe Pfluck

[Senthe_]

On 5/25/2026 at 5:26 AM, Filipe Pfluck said:

But now it takes way too long to tame a pacu without the grooming station. It takes 20 cycles, and a pacu only lives for 25.

 

It doesn't matter how long they live, they should still pass their exact wildness % to their offspring. A pacu at 20% wildness will lay an egg with 20% wildness, and the resulting child should then get tamed in only 4 days.

[Filipe Pfluck]

On 5/26/2026 at 9:51 AM, Senthe_ said:

It doesn't matter how long they live, they should still pass their exact wildness % to their offspring. A pacu at 20% wildness will lay an egg with 20% wildness, and the resulting child should then get tamed in only 4 days.

wait does this mean I can tame the pacus once (with the grooming station to make it fast) and then once they are tame I can destroy the grooming station and every generation of pacu will remain tamed? with just the critter feeder

[Twiki]

Yes - that's true for every critter. Tame critters only lay tame eggs.

The grooming station is for happiness as well as taming.

[Senthe_]

On 5/28/2026 at 4:54 AM, Filipe Pfluck said:

wait does this mean I can tame the pacus once (with the grooming station to make it fast) and then once they are tame I can destroy the grooming station and every generation of pacu will remain tamed? with just the critter feeder

Yes, taming is permanent. But it also has its own disadvantages. I'm not playing on the beta branch, but if Pacu taming works now like taming land critters, and considering reproduction and metabolism now seem to scale with happiness linearly, you probably want to keep the grooming station for the happiness boost. 

See wiki for taming details (written before the DLC, some of the numerical info is not accurate anymore, but basic mechanics should be roughly the same): https://oxygennotincluded.wiki.gg/wiki/Critter#Wildness,_taming_and_ranching

Edited May 29 by Senthe_