COMPANIONS – COMPLETE FEATURE GUIDE
**Credit: Shavick**
IMPORTANT
Companions is available in the **public version of Asylum** and is also undergoing closed beta testing.
The system is still being expanded and balanced. Some features may change as development continues.
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OVERVIEW
Companions allows survivors to tame, raise, command, breed, develop, and care for animals.
Depending on their profile, companions can:
- Follow or stay
- Guard locations
- Fight hostile enemies
- Remain passive
- Gain experience and level up
- Improve their stats
- Build bond and trust
- Grow through age stages
- Breed and produce offspring
- Inherit parental traits
- Evolve into stronger forms
- Require food and water
- Appear on the map and compass
- Be revived after death
Companions provide powerful support but still require protection and care.
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TAMING
TAMING METHODS
Animals may support:
- **Knockout taming**
- **Passive taming**
- Either method
Available methods depend on the animal’s configuration.
KNOCKOUT TAMING
1. Craft compatible tranquilizer ammunition.
2. Apply sedation until the animal’s K.O. meter fills.
3. Approach the immobilized animal.
4. Feed it valid taming food.
5. Continue feeding when the cooldown allows.
6. Reach full taming progress before it wakes.
Sedation gradually decreases while the animal is unconscious.
Additional sedatives can extend the available taming time. Some foods may provide both taming progress and sedation.
If the animal wakes before taming is completed, it may become aggressive and lose its taming progress.
> Fully visible collapse animations are planned for a future update.
PASSIVE TAMING
1. Hold valid passive-taming food.
2. Approach carefully while crouched.
3. Allow the animal’s fear to decrease.
4. Feed it once it is calm enough.
5. Continue until taming is complete.
Standing near an awake wild animal may increase fear. Crouching helps calm it.
Unconscious animals lose fear rather than gain it.
FEAR AND TRUST
Fear and trust affect how wild animals react to players.
Fear may be affected by:
- Standing or crouching nearby
- Moving inside the trust zone
- Attacking or startling the animal
- Leaving it alone
- Knocking it unconscious
- Existing trust
Higher trust allows safer interaction and may reduce defensive behavior.
Fear is temporary and resets when the animal unloads.
TAMING FOOD
Valid taming foods are configured per animal and taming method.
Different foods may provide different amounts of taming progress. Supported items display their taming or sedation values in the tooltip.
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OWNERSHIP AND COMMANDS
OWNER-ONLY CONTROL
Only the owner can use a companion’s radial command menu or change its behavior.
RADIAL COMMANDS
Available commands may include:
- Follow
- Stay
- Passive
- Aggressive
- Guard Location
- Enable or disable XP sharing
- Show or hide tracker
- Pet
- Feed
- Give Water
- Feed / Water
Commands depend on the companion’s profile, age, ownership, behavior, and the player’s held item.
Passive-only animals cannot become aggressive.
Young animals may have restricted access to combat, guarding, or XP sharing.
FOLLOW AND STAY
- **Follow:** The companion travels with its owner and may assist in combat.
- **Stay:** The companion remains near its current position.
PASSIVE AND AGGRESSIVE
- **Passive:** Avoids combat.
- **Aggressive:** Attacks valid enemies while following or guarding.
Some companion profiles are permanently passive.
GUARD LOCATION
Compatible companions can guard an assigned area and attack valid hostile targets inside their combat zone.
Passive-only and young animals may not support guarding.
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COMBAT
Combat-capable companions may defend:
- Their owner
- Themselves
- A guarded location
Targeting protections prevent companions from intentionally attacking:
- Their owner
- Friendly players or entities
- Other valid tamed companions
- Targets outside their allowed combat behavior
The AI includes protections against abandoning targets, wandering away during combat, remaining stuck in outdated tasks, and continuing to attack after switching to passive behavior.
Combat behavior continues to receive improvements.
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LEVELING AND STATS
Companions gain experience through combat and other configured systems.
Leveling may provide:
- Increased health
- Skill points
- Improved combat ability
- Evolution progress
- Access to additional progression
SKILL POINTS
Skill points can improve supported stats such as:
- Health
- Health regeneration
- Melee damage
- Movement speed
- XP gain
Purchased upgrades are permanently saved.
BOND
Bond represents the relationship between a companion and its owner.
Bond may increase through taming, feeding, petting, combat, and other positive interactions.
Owner damage and future neglect systems may reduce bond.
A future update may allow companions with extremely low bond to return to the wild.
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AGE AND GROWTH
AGE STAGES
Companions progress through:
- **Infant**
- **Juvenile**
- **Adult**
- **Elder**
Age affects size, available commands, resource consumption, and future roles.
Most wild animals spawn as adults. Infants are currently produced through breeding.
AGE RESTRICTIONS
Infants may be unable to use:
- Aggressive behavior
- Guard Location
- XP sharing
Juveniles may remain unable to guard or share XP until adulthood.
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BREEDING
REQUIREMENTS
Compatible adult companions may breed when the following conditions are met:
- Compatible species
- Opposite genders
- Close enough together
- Neither animal already has a partner
- Female is not already pregnant
- Breeding cooldown has expired
- Nearby companion population is below the limit
MATING AND PREGNANCY
Valid partners perform a timed mating action.
Temporary partner assignments prevent overlapping breeding attempts.
After successful mating, the female becomes pregnant. Pregnancy progress is displayed on the companion interface.
When gestation completes, an infant companion is produced.
Pregnancy and breeding cooldowns persist through restarts.
OFFSPRING INHERITANCE
Offspring inherit traits from their parents.
Selective breeding allows players to improve animals across multiple generations, while weaker traits may also be passed down.
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FOOD AND WATER
NEEDS
Tamed companions have persistent:
- **Food**
- **Water**
Both values appear on the companion panel and are saved and synchronized in multiplayer.
## CONSUMPTION
Standard adult consumption:
- **Food:** 50 points per in-game day
- **Water:** 100 points per in-game day
Age modifies consumption:
- **Infant:** 2x
- **Juvenile:** 1.5x
- **Adult:** 1x
- **Elder:** 1x
FEEDING
1. Hold a valid consumable.
2. Look at your companion.
3. Open the radial menu.
4. Select the available feeding action.
Possible actions:
- **Feed**
- **Give Water**
- **Feed / Water**
The option remains hidden when the held item cannot affect the companion’s current needs.
One item is consumed after a successful use.
CONSUMABLE VALUES
Companions use the item’s normal food and water values.
This allows:
- Food-only items
- Water-only items
- Mixed consumables
- Items with negative water values
- Items that increase one need while reducing the other
FEEDING ICONS
The radial icon identifies the held item’s effects:
- Fork: food only
- Water drop: water only
- Large fork and small drop: more food than water
- Large drop and small fork: more water than food
- Equal fork and drop: equal values
STARVATION AND DEHYDRATION
At `0` Food:
- Health regeneration stops
- Companion loses 5% maximum health per in-game hour
At `0` Water:
- Health regeneration stops
- Companion loses 10% maximum health per in-game hour
At `0` Food and Water:
- Damage stacks to 15% maximum health per in-game hour
Health regeneration resumes once both needs are above zero.
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Evolution
Some companions can evolve after meeting configured conditions.
Requirements may include:
- Bond
- Level
- Age
- Kill count
- Specific target kills
- Biome
- Time of day
- Blood Moon status
Evolution may require every condition or any one condition.
The evolved companion retains:
- Owner
- Custom name
- Behavior
- Bond
- Leveling progress
- Stat progression
- Stat multipliers
- Tracking preference
The evolved form is fully healed after transformation.
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PRESTIGE
Companions that reach level `100` can choose to **Prestige** instead of evolving.
Prestiging:
- Resets the companion to level `1`
- Preserves its existing stats and stat upgrades
- Preserves ownership, name, bond, behavior, and other progression
- Allows the companion to level from `1–100` again
- Continues XP scaling as though the companion were progressing beyond level `100`
- Awards one Prestige star
A companion can currently earn up to **5 Prestige stars**.
Prestige and evolution are separate progression paths. When both options are available, the player must choose one. A companion cannot both evolve and prestige from the same completed progression stage.
Prestige is intended for players who want to continue developing a favored companion without replacing it through evolution.
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REVIVAL
Dead companions can be restored with a **Companion Revival Bandage**.
Revival preserves important progression, including:
- Ownership
- Name
- Level and stats
- Bond
- Evolution data
- Breeding data
- Food and water
The saved companion data is rebound to the revived entity.
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TRACKING AND VEHICLES
TRACKING
Owners can toggle each companion’s map and compass marker with:
- **Show Tracker**
- **Hide Tracker**
Tracking is owner-only.
Last known positions persist after unloading and restarting.
VEHICLES
Supported companions may temporarily travel with their owner in a vehicle.
The system manages tracking and respawning to prevent duplicate companions and invalid positions.
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HUD AND UI
FOLLOW HUD
The follow HUD displays actively following companions and may include:
- Name
- Health
- Current status
It hides automatically when no relevant companions are following.
COMPANION PANEL
The target panel may display:
- Name
- Health
- Level
- Bond
- Food
- Water
- Age
- Gender
- Skill points
- Evolution progress
- Breeding and pregnancy progress
- Taming progress
- Sedation
- Fear
Displayed information depends on the companion’s current state.
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SAVING AND MULTIPLAYER
Companion data persists separately from the live entity.
Saved information includes ownership, progression, behavior, age, gender, breeding, evolution, needs, tracking state, and last known position.
Important systems are server-authoritative, including:
- Taming
- Feeding
- Needs decay and damage
- Ownership
- Leveling
- Breeding
- Evolution
- Revival
- Behavior changes
- Stat updates
Relevant information is synchronized to connected clients.
All multiplayer users should run matching Companions DLL versions.
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CURRENT LIMITATIONS
- Not every animal supports every system
- Some AI behavior is still being refined
- Several animals still use generic sounds
- Wild zombie animals only receive companion systems when explicitly configured
Existing companions should remain intact after updating.
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FUTURE PLANS
- Automatic food and water troughs
- Animals seeking nearby troughs
- Hunger-based combat penalties
- Benefits for well-fed animals
- Increased needs during pregnancy and nursing
- Infant feeding behavior
- Farming, guarding, and other animal jobs
- Expanded genetics
- Additional evolution paths
- Species-specific sounds
- Expanded fear and trust behavior
- Starvation and dehydration warnings
- Further multiplayer improvements
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QUICK GUIDE
Tame
Knock out or approach calmly
Feed valid taming food
Complete the taming meter
Care
Monitor Food and Water
Feed and hydrate regularly
Revive the companion if necessary
Progress
Gain experience
Level up
Spend skill points
Build bond
Evolve