Neopets: Habitarium Hints

Here's a bit of silliness for you!!

The Eldest got me hooked on some of the games on the Neopets website back when she was an only child. She stopped playing a long time ago, moving on to World of Warcraft and other, hipper games, but I still enjoy a good round of Destruct-o-match or Sutek's Tomb. I've also maintained a pet (Samoa Cookies) and a Habitarium. I've been playing the Habitarium off and on for a while, so I know the ropes. Recently The Wild Child was logged on when I sat down at the computer so I checked out his Habitarium and let me tell you, it was a sad, sad sight. He had 2 P3s, both soldiers, no eggs, and one Larnikin nester from Professor Clodbottle. He had next to nothing stored up in his storage building. At least he had a storage building! He also had a house and a couple of nests. I've managed to build him up from that to a decent store of resources, two pages of eggs, and several new P3s. They are all busily working away toward The Wild Child's goals of new buildings and upgrades. He's advanced a level too.

I wanted to help him out more quickly so I looked up strategies on Google, but after reading them over I realized they were just plain wrong! Well, they may have good advice if you are using Neo Cash or if you interact with Neo Friends, but I don't do that. My Habitarium (and The Wild Child's) is a closed system. Since I disagree with what I've found for strategies, I'm going to put my own out there in internet land. I'm not going to go into any detail about what the upgrades do or technical stuff; Google has plenty of good advice about that.

Here's what I did to help out The Wild Child and grow his Habitarium:

1. I don't remember what you start out with as far as buildings, but you need at least a storage building, a house, and a nest. Work for those first.

2. Put that nester to work! Make eggs and harvest them; do not hatch them unless you absolutely have to. These little P3s die all the time and you need the eggs to replace them. They especially die when you don't play the game every day. When you leave it for a while then go back to it, you'll come back to an empty Habitarium. (Although that's when Professor Clodbottle will give you new nesters.) (Oh, and when they die, they turn into gems; make sure to click on those and harvest the points.)

3. Set your goals. Take a look at the items in the shopping bag and decide which resources you need to buy the item you'll want next. You'll always need food, both the kind that makes the P3s "a little less hungry" and the kind that makes them "a little less tired". You'll also need nectar droplets since that helps when they are wounded. (That's when the top status bar goes down when you are looking at a particular P3.) (Once you are able to purchase a hospital and barracks the nectar isn't as necessary.) You'll need grass, pollen, and water for those items. If you decide you want a building or upgrades then you'll need to gather wood, stone, and mud. Some of the decorative items can be useful as well. I like the fencing since it can protect the sides of buildings and pen those little P3s in when you want them in a certain area.

4. This is probably my best tip, and one I didn't see on the strategy web sites. You can help your P3s work efficiently if you move your storage unit by the resource you are working to harvest. If you play around with it you can set it up so that the resource goes directly into the storage unit and the P3s don't waste time walking back and forth. If you need wood, move the storage unit almost on top of the trees. Let the workers harvest wood for a few moments and see if they are putting the wood directly in or taking time to walk the wood in. If they are still walking the wood in, then you have to re-position. I've even used fencing to hem workers in, especially by the rocks, so that they don't walk between loads. If you have a lot of P3s or a lot of eggs, you can hatch more workers than usual to build up a particular resource. I wanted to upgrade my barracks recently so I needed more rock so this is exactly what I did and I had the upgrade in no time.

5. Place your buildings strategically. I have most of my buildings around the perimeter with stone or other buildings or fencing along the side. I figure it makes it harder for the bad bugs to damage them if they can only get to one side.

6. Don't waste time on the seed hammers to fix damaged structures. The P3s are good at repairing damage; it just takes a few minutes no matter how extensive the damage is. When I open my Habitarium I take the P3s out of the barracks and houses and set them down in front of the various buildings and nests to get them started on repairs.

7. Always keep some of the P3s in the houses or barracks so you always have a fresh batch to rotate out. If I have 6 soldiers, for instance, I'll have 3 out at any given time and 3 sleeping. If the bad bugs invade while I have the game open I can quickly pull out more soldiers. If I have 3 stored up while the game is closed, then I have 3 at the ready when I open it up again.

8. Always have soldiers out and about! Those bad bugs can really damage your resources.

9. Use all 3 varieties of P3s to make it easier to keep track of them. When you get to where you can have 20 plus P3s it gets confusing to know which ones you've checked on and which you haven't. It's just a little easier if you have all 3 varieties going. I even have 3 houses; I'll use one for larnikins, one for pinchits, and one for mootixes. Make sure to check on each P3, too. If you're familiar with the game this is one of the basics you should know how to do already, but if you're a newbie, you click on the P3 you want to look at and their status shows up in the round thingie. The top bar is health, the next bar is food, and the bottom bar is sleep. You want all 3 bars full! To get the top bar full they need nectar, to get the middle bar full they need to eat something that will fill them up, and to fill the bottom bar they need to eat something that will make them less sleepy. Putting them in a house, barracks, (for soldiers), or the hospital will also help. Make sure to check on the workers if a bad bug has been near them; they are quick to sustain damage if they are caught in the crosshairs. I try to move the workers away from the bad bugs and let the soldiers handle the fighting since the soldiers are hardier. The nesters are never near the battles since they are all on their nests making more eggs for you, right?!

10. Always upgrade! Upgrade the nests, the houses, the barracks, the P3s, everything! It makes them all work better. I love it when the houses can hold a gazillion P3s. I rarely have as many P3s hatched as I'm allowed, but it's nice to have the sleep/recovery space when it's needed. If you absolutely had to forgo one upgrade, I wouldn't upgrade the hospital. Since I don't battle with other Neo Friends I don't have that many injuries so it isn't as necessary.

11. Speaking of sleep space, make sure you have enough space in the houses/barracks for most of the P3s you have hatched. You can switch them out in shifts, but sometimes you need to find space for more of them if they are all tired at once. I'll even put them in the hospital sometimes if I need the room, just to manage the little buggies.

Well, there you have it, one of my guilty pleasures. I shouldn't be wasting time on Neopets but every now and again it's a fun diversion, so if I can get a blog post out of it I might as well. ;)