So, you found a flat piece of land, plopped down a Palbox, and thought you were set. Most players do that. Then, three hours later, your Cattiva is stuck on a roof, your Berry Plantation is bone dry, and a stray fire raid just turned your wooden dream home into a charcoal pit. It's frustrating. Honestly, Pal world base building is less about making a pretty house and more about managing a high-stress logistics warehouse where the employees are giant blue ducks and fire-breathing lizards.
The game doesn't really explain the pathing AI or the "sanity" mechanics well enough. You're left guessing why your Pals are starving when there's a chest full of food ten feet away. It's usually a collision issue. If you build your walls too tight or put your hot springs in a corner, the larger Pals—looking at you, Alpha Jormuntide—simply give up on life. They glitch. They starve. They get depressed.
The "Flat Land" Trap and Verticality
Everyone hunts for the plateau behind the Desolate Church. It’s iconic for a reason. It’s flat, has ore, and it’s easy to defend. But relying purely on flat ground limits your late-game potential because of how the Palbox radius works. You have a sphere of influence. If you don't build up, you’re wasting half your usable volume.
However, verticality is a double-edged sword. Pals are notoriously bad at stairs. If you make a staircase only one tile wide, a Penking will get stuck every single time. It’s better to build "open-concept" factories. Think high ceilings—at least three walls high—and double-wide stairs. If a Pal can’t do a 360-degree spin without hitting a wall, don't put a workstation there.
Positioning for Raids
Raids can be a joke or a nightmare. If you build on a cliffside, the AI often spawns at the bottom and just runs into the wall until the timer expires. That’s the "cheese" method. But if you're looking for a legitimate defense, you need a "kill box" at the entrance. Forget the wooden defensive walls. They're kindling. Skip straight to stone or metal as fast as possible.
The trick is the gate. Don't just close it. Build a funnel of sandbags and have your high-level combat Pals stationed near the front. When the raid hits, the AI pathing forces them into a narrow lane where your Mossanda can rain down grenade launcher fire. It’s brutal but effective.
Managing Sanity Without Micro-Managing
Your Pals are going to get ulcers. Not literally, but the "Ulcer" status effect is a direct result of low Sanity (SAN). Most people think more fluffier beds are the answer. They help. But the real killer is travel time.
If a Pal has to walk across the entire base to eat, then walk to a hot spring, then walk back to a tree, they spend 60% of their shift just moving. This drains SAN faster than the work itself. Pal world base building efficiency is entirely about "Cellular Design."
- The Kitchen Cell: Put your farm, your feed box, and your cooler in one tight triangle.
- The Industrial Cell: Keep the furnace right next to the ore crates.
- The Relaxation Zone: Keep high-quality Hot Springs near the center of the base, not tucked away in a corner where nobody uses them.
If you see your Pals "Transporting" items for long distances, you’ve failed. You want them to drop an item, turn 180 degrees, and start the next task.
Why Ore and Coal Locations Still Rule Everything
By level 35, wood and stone are irrelevant. You have the Stone Pit and Logging Site. You have infinite resources. But Ore? Ore is the bottleneck. You need thousands of Refined Ingots for Ultra Spheres and Pal Metal.
🔗 Read more: Stellar Blade x NieR Automata: Why the Collab Isn't What You Expected
The best bases are "Mining Outposts." Look for the coordinate -190, -40. It’s a mountain peak with roughly eight Ore nodes and six Coal nodes. It’s the holy grail. But there’s a catch: it’s uneven ground. Building here requires a mastery of foundation snapping.
Pro Tip: Build your foundations over the nodes, but leave gaps. If a foundation covers the exact spawn point of a rock, that rock is gone forever. You have to weave your floors around the resources. It looks ugly. It looks like a construction site in a swamp. But it’s the only way to automate the endgame.
The Problem with Jormuntide
Let's talk about the big guys. Jormuntide (Water) and Jormuntide Ignis (Fire) have Level 4 Work Suitability. They are the fastest at watering and smelting in the game. They are also the biggest "base breakers."
Their hitboxes are massive. They get stuck on trees, they clip through roofs, and they often end up standing on top of the Palbox, unable to move. If you use these Pals, your Pal world base building philosophy must change to "No Roofs." Seriously. Many pro players leave their smelting and watering stations completely outdoors. A roof is just a trap for a Level 4 Pal.
Electricity and the Late-Game Power Pivot
Once you hit the Power Generator stage, your base needs a heart. This is where most people get messy. They stick a generator in the middle of a field and wonder why it’s always empty. You need a dedicated "Battery Pal."
Orserk is the king here. But even an Orserk needs a break. The most common mistake is having only one Pal with Electricity suitability. If they go to sleep, your assembly lines stop. Your refrigerators stop. Your food spoils. Always have a backup "Generator Room" with at least two high-voltage Pals on staggered schedules.
Foundations of a "Forever Base"
You eventually get three bases. How do you split them? Most players do it wrong. They try to make three "all-purpose" bases. That's a logistical nightmare. You end up fast-traveling between them every five minutes to move materials.
🔗 Read more: The 24 Xbox One Dilemma: How to Actually Play Jack Bauer Today
Instead, specialize:
- The Home Base: This is your Breeding Farm and your Storage. It should be pretty. It should be safe. This is where you spend 90% of your time crafting.
- The Ore/Coal Factory: Purely industrial. No beds for you, just beds for the Pals. Every square inch is dedicated to smelting and mining.
- The "Flex" Base: Keep this slot open. Use it for boss farming or as a temporary teleport point near a specific resource you need, like Sulfur or Quartz in the snow biome.
Dealing with the "Pal Stuck" Notification
If you see that yellow text saying a Pal is hungry or struggling, don't run over and try to push them. It rarely works. The fastest fix? Go to the Palbox, drag them into the "Computer" (storage), and then drag them back into the base. It resets their coordinates to the Palbox.
If it keeps happening in the same spot, look at your architecture. Is there a torch there? A decorative plant? Pals have wider pathing bubbles than their character models suggest. Clear the clutter.
Breaking the Wood Habit
The biggest mistake in Pal world base building is the "cozy cabin" aesthetic. Look, wood is easy. It’s everywhere. But in Palworld, fire spreads. A single Incineram during a raid can touch one wooden wall and, within two minutes, your entire base is gone. The physics for fire spread are surprisingly aggressive.
💡 You might also like: Madden 25 Release Date: What Most People Get Wrong
Switch to Stone at Level 18. Switch to Metal at Level 30. Even if you like the look of wood, only use it for interior furniture that isn't near the perimeter. If you must have a wooden house, build it on a raised stone platform so the fire can't climb the "legs" of the building.
Actionable Steps for Your Next Build
- Double-Width Everything: Make your hallways two tiles wide and your ceilings three tiles high. This prevents the "Stuck Pal" syndrome.
- The Feed Box Trick: Place multiple feed boxes. If you only have one, Pals will cluster and block each other. Put one near the mines and one near the beds.
- Vector Planning: Place your storage chests directly next to the resource nodes. Your transport Pals will have a shorter "vector" to walk, increasing items-per-hour significantly.
- The Breeding Loop: Don't put Breeding Farms in your main base if you can help it. They take up a massive amount of space and the Eggs often glitch through the floor if the ground isn't perfectly flat.
- Dismantle to Move: You get 100% of your resources back when you deconstruct a building. Don't be afraid to tear the whole thing down and start over once you unlock better materials.
Efficiency in Palworld isn't about how much you can build, but how little your Pals have to think. The simpler the path, the faster the production. Build for the AI, not for the camera, and you'll stop seeing those "Pal is starving" notifications for good.