Pacu Ranching Is Dead for Non-DLC Owners

[UISSD]

After the Aquatic Planet Pack DLC update, the Fish Feeder no longer provides happiness to critters when feeding them Algae or Seeds. The building that now provides happiness has been changed to the Aquatic Grooming Station. This marks a major shift in Pacu ranching strategy. All pre-DLC Pacu modules will need to add an Aquatic Grooming Station to maintain their previous output.

However, the Aquatic Grooming Station is exclusive to the Aquatic Planet Pack DLC. This means that once the DLC goes live, players who do not own the Aquatic Planet Pack will essentially have to say goodbye to Pacu ranching.

[blakemw]

I think the idea is to use Pacu Treats to get Pacu happiness. I think that makes pacu ranching a bit less effective than with the old balance, but it should still work fine.

[UISSD]

2 hours ago, blakemw said:

I think the idea is to use Pacu Treats to get Pacu happiness. I think that makes pacu ranching a bit less effective than with the old balance, but it should still work fine.

Pacu Treats only provide 2 happiness points, leaving Pacus with only 1 happiness point in the end. Due to this change to the critter happiness mechanics, the reproduction efficiency of Pacus fed only Pacu Treats is less than one-third of what it used to be. Furthermore, players who own the DLC can further increase efficiency by using Pacu Treats along with the Aquatic Grooming Station, potentially surpassing pre-DLC Pacu module performance. Players who do not own the DLC are simply treated as second-class citizens.

Edited Thursday at 02:25 PM by UISSD

[gigamoi]

Agreed. The aquatic grooming station should be moved to base game IMO. It's not like this building was the central point of this DLC's value proposition.

[Sasza22]

On 6/11/2026 at 5:18 PM, gigamoi said:

Agreed. The aquatic grooming station should be moved to base game IMO. It's not like this building was the central point of this DLC's value proposition.

Or just make the regular grooming station submersible so the advantage of the aquatic one is that it doesn`t need foundations. Outside the dlc dupes can`t swim so the floating grooming station is pointless anyway.

[stedam]

On 6/13/2026 at 1:43 PM, Sasza22 said:

make the regular grooming station submersible

This is the solution. 

[UISSD]

 

30 minutes ago, stedam said:

This is the solution. 

 

It has been fixed. Clearly, Klei doesn't want non-DLC players to ranch Pacu.

 

Edited Monday at 04:17 PM by UISSD