Pals are useful creatures in Palworld. Not only can they help you in battle, you can assign Pals to your base to do basic chores. They’ll light fires, smelt ore, generate materials, and even defend your borders. For those that are just starting, it might not be immediately clear how this all works. Once you get the hang of it, though, you’ll be swapping and changing your assigned Pals all the time.

To assign Pals to your base, you first need a couple of things: a Palbox and Pals. A Palbox is available on the Level 2 of the Technology tree. This acts as the center of your base, allowing you to build structures within the circumference (indicated by a blue ring). Slap down a Palbox wherever you want your base and build it using 1x Paldium Fragment, 8x wood, and 3x stone.

Once the Palbox is built, you need to catch some Pals. Go get a few you like the look of and then return to base. Approach the Palbox and press the button that corresponds with the Palbox Management Menu (this is the F key on PC).

In this new screen, you will see all the Pals in your current Party – these are the ones you caught. Put them in the center box to store them in the Palbox. Now, in the center box, select ones you want to work around your base and put them in the bottom box, “Pals at the base”. They will appear near the Palbox and start wandering around looking for work. Their icons will also show a little hammer when they’re doing something.

You can change and remove who is assigned to your base whenever you want. Just grab them from the bottom box and put them in storage. This is especially important if you have a specific task you need done quickly, like smelting a bunch of ore into ignots.

Now that you know how to assign Pals to your base, you can really dig deep into the automation. Set up some logging and mining points and make sure they’re all happy with beds and food. Take a look at our Palworld page for more help running your base.