You might not consider the best base locations in Palworld until you unlock the option to place a second Palbox. Of course, you can move your base before you reach that point, but a second home is handy, especially once you hit the stage where you start needing more and more ingots to keep progressing.
There are a few things you can do to make moving your base a little easier too, if you're determined to take the plunge and switch up your neighbourhood—you'll find some tips for that below too. So if you're looking for a new place to set up camp, whether that's starting from scratch on a second home, or moving an existing one, here are three ideas for base locations, depending on your needs.
Best base location for ore and coal farm
First up, is a potential base location where you will never need to worry about finding ore or coal again. It's almost directly north of the Plateau of Beginnings but you'll need to get through some areas with level 20-30 Pals to reach it. Thankfully, you can avoid most trouble with a flying mount.
The area is high up on a mountaintop, but you don't need any special clothing to survive there. The area is littered with both ore and coal deposits and there are a couple of Mossanda that spawn in the area at around level 25 but they are easily avoided and won't respawn once you place the Palbox.
Speaking of which, finding an area flat enough to place the Palbox can be challenging but as you're not going for aesthetics when setting up base here, you can just build it wherever it lets you. If you're having trouble, I found restarting the game can help.
This area doesn't have an amazing amount of space, but it's ideal for a second, small base that can focus on production. I have four workers set up on mine: two for mining, and two for transporting and berry farming. With a wooden chest for the gathered materials, a food bowl set down, and a few beds placed, you can leave them to get on with it and fast travel back now and again to pick up your goods.
Lakeside retreat for defensive play
Discovered by ZippyFishy over on Reddit, this next area is surrounded by cliffs and is on the shore of a lake with only one path leading to it. It's right next to the Jormuntide boss which is level 45, but it doesn't come near this area so you don't need to worry about it gatecrashing your base.
What you also don't need to worry about here are the occasional raids you get on your base. Since moving here, I've only had one raid group successfully make it to my camp—the road leading to it is pretty long so many of them seem to give up before they even reach you. The ones that have more staying power are all coming from one direction, so they're much easier to deal with and you can set traps or other defensive structures if you want to eliminate even that threat.
Resource-wise, it has a sulphur deposit, some trees, and a few sources of stone in the area, so it's not without other merits—you've got your ore farm base for that anyway. This location looks nice too, which is always good for the soul.
Keeping up appearances with a scenic base
This one is subjective but you could do a lot worse than this base on the southern side of Marsh Island. You can access it pretty early on without too much worry about the local Pals turning on you, though do be wary of the wandering Mammorests that often patrol this area.
You're close to a beach, which is great for capturing stunning sunsets, and the large stone arches that punctuate the sky in the area make for an interesting backdrop to any base you might want to build here.
Resource-wise, there are plenty of trees for wood collecting, and quite a bit of stone too. There are many huge flat areas to choose from, so your base won't be at all restricted by the natural landscape and you'll be able to spread out—unlike the other two base locations above, though they obviously have benefits that are missing here. There's also the occasional ore deposit if you want to collect some early on.
How to move your base
If you're anything like me, you'll have planted your Palbox before you ventured much further than your initial spawn point. As you've explored more of the world and added more Pals to your collection, it's natural that you might be reconsidering your choice of neighbourhood. So how do you go about moving your base?
It's a relatively simple, if time-consuming process—depending on the size of the base you want to move, obviously—but this can be made much easier if you can have a second base, which unlocks at Base Upgrade level 10. You should also keep five Cattiva in your party while moving to increase your weight capacity by 50 each.
To move your base to a new location, ideally, you want to:
- Place a second Palbox at your new location.
- Add as many Cattiva to your party as you can.
- Start transferring materials from chests using the Palbox fast travel.
- Dismantle buildings and crafting stations and move them to your new base.
- After all else is done, dismantle your original Palbox.
You can dismantle crafting stations and buildings by accessing the Build menu, and then hitting the C key to enter Disassembly mode. When you hover over the item you want to take down, it should turn yellow, then use the left click to disassemble it and have the materials returned to your inventory. It's also worth noting that disassembling your Palbox will destroy certain buildings—anything that can't be placed outside a base.
If you want to move your base but don't have access to a second Palbox, you'll need to follow the steps above but use any nearby fast travel points to transfer all your resources and materials. This may or may not be too much of an issue, depending on where the nearest one is.
