Guides/How to domesticate a Beefalo

By TheGreatMav

All info here is a distillation of this post: http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/65795-can-we-get-a-beefalo-domestication-full-info-thread/?do=findComment&comment=739540 I take no responsibility for veracity of information.

TIME TO DOMESTICATE:

A beefalo has 375 total hunger, and a beefalo consumes 300 hunger per day (4 dragonpies).

1 twig = 1 berries; and 1 grass = 1/2 berries. So, don't bother (not for purposes of feeding).

Every 10 seconds: if the beefalo has hunger > 0 OR is being ridden, it gets a small positive "tick" towards domestication. You can get 48 of these per default day, since the default day lasts 480 seconds.

Every 48 "ticks" = 5% domestication. So a beefalo that never goes fully hungry (hunger always above 0) will be domesticated in 20 game days. If you also brush the beefalo once per day, this will reduce to 15 days. You can only get the brushing bonus up to once per day.

Due to a current bug, the beefalo tendency only updates on server restart or when beefalo is fully domesticated, so don't get sad if after 19 days and 76 dragonpies it still looks normal.

TENDENCIES:

Ornery (more dmg): beefalo has to hit alot and/or get hit a lot. Damage doesn't matter, only number of hits. Hint: go for bees.

Rider (more riding time): spend a lot of time on the beefalo.

Pudgy (sanity aura): beefalo has to eat when not very hungry (above 50% food-in-belly). Food hunger value is what counts.

The beefalo asks for food (screaming animation) when hunger is low (under 45%). So whenever he stops asking for food you should stop feeding it if you don't want a pudgy one. If you want an ornery one, whatever time you spend on the beefalo should be focused towards getting hit and hitting (and not just riding around, else you get rider).

You need a lot of points in tendencies, and you need main tendency to be larger than the sum of the other two. If you don't, you will get a "default" beefalo upon domestication (medium dmg, medium riding time, etc. No sanity aura)

GETTING ON THE BEEFALO

Regardless of domestication level and tendency, beefalo has to be obedient to allow you to mount. Everytime you feed it something or brush it, it gets more obedient. Feeding (any food he eats, including grass/twigs) increases obedience by 10%. Brushing increases by 40%. I think we all agree that it's way cheaper to give it 4 twigs than to use a brush, right? Right. Obedience decreases by 1% every 10 seconds, so as soon as you feed a wild beefalo its obedience starts dropping (and will be at 9% for 10 seconds, then 8% for 10 seconds, and so on).

10% obedience: allows you to put a saddle

40% obedience: keeps the saddle

50% obedience: allows you to mount

So, besides properly feeding you beefalo, you should always give you beefalo some cheap food before trying to saddle and mount.

STAYING ON THE BEEFALO

Obedience does not dictate how long you can stay mounted. The time you stay mounted is dependent on domestication level (which isn't very obvious). Also: shaved beefalos and mating-season beefalos allow you less time on the saddle; completely domesticated beefalos allow you more time on the saddle.

Ex 1: A completely wild, not shaven, not in heat beefalo allows 15 seconds of riding.

Ex 2: A fully domesticated, not shaven, not in heat beefalo allows 800 seconds of riding.

Yes, you read that right. That's almost 2 days of in-game time.

KEEPING THE BEEFALO DOMESTICATED

Feed it a few grass/twigs every day and ride it for at least 10 seconds every day. That should be enough. If you choose to abandon your loving pet, here is how you recover:

Remember that every 10 seconds the game checks to see if the beefalo is fed? Each of these is a "tick". Every day you don't feed it, the beefalo loses 2.5 ticks x the number of days it hasn't been fed. So on the first day it hasn't been fed it loses 2.5, on the second it loses 5, on the third it loses 7.5 and so on. You need to add these up (so 3 days is 15 ticks: 2.5 + 5 + 7.5), always round up, and feed it 7 hunger value for every tick (so 3 days = 105, or 1 dragonpie + 1 fistfull of jam).

(fistfull of jam IS A THING, because you can use ice to make it).

TL;DR

1) 4 dragonpies per day (stop feeding when the beefalo stops screaming for food, and resume when it resumes screaming for food);

2) everyday that passes you will be able to ride it for more time. Feed it a lot to get a pudgy, ride it a lot to get a rider, get stung a lot by bees to get an ornery.

3) in 20 days it will be fully domesticated (or 15, if you use the brush everyday, once per day, on it);

4) Give it 6-7 twigs or grass before saddling and mounting. Unless you dismounted recently, in which case you can probably get away with 1-2.

5) do step 4 everyday and ride for at least 10 seconds, and you beefalo will maintain domesticated status.

EXTRA

1) health recovery on beefalos is multiplied by 4.

2) walking cane works, apparently

Huge, HUGE thanks to DarkXero from the klei forums. God knows how long we would take to figure this out if he hadn't said it all. None of this was discovered by me, and as far as I know he deserves all the credit for getting this info out. I just distilled his information to my preferences. Check out his post:  http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/65795-can-we-get-a-beefalo-domestication-full-info-thread/