BetterTames
Taming overhaul: pet protection, tames follow you through portals and into dungeons, teleport to you, follow/stay all keys, level up from kills, feed from chests, taming and breeding timers. Works wit
About this mod Author’s original text
BetterTames
A taming overhaul. Tames recover instead of dying, come with you through portals and into dungeons, teleport back to you when they get lost, gain stars from kills and eat from your chests. Adds follow/stay all keys, taming, breeding and growth timers, and settings for taming time, growth time and breeding. Works with every tameable creature, modded ones included, and syncs with ServerSync.
Features
🛡️ Protection
- A tame that would die lies down and recovers instead [Configurable]
- It gets up at full health after 60 seconds [Configurable]
- While recovering it takes no damage, enemies ignore it, and it doesn't eat or breed
- A butcher knife still kills it
- Left Alt + E turns protection on or off for the tame you are looking at [Configurable]
- The name above its health bar is blue when protected, yellow while recovering
❤️ Healing
- Tames heal from empty to full in 1 hour [Configurable]
🌀 Teleport
- A following tame teleports to you when it falls 30m behind [Configurable]
- When you die, every tame that was following you teleports to where you respawn
- Left Alt + H teleports every follower to you [Configurable]
- Following tames come with you into dungeons and back out. Big tames, like lox, wait outside [Configurable]
- Tames near you come through portals with you [Configurable]
🐺 Commands
- Left Alt + F: tames within 30m follow you [Configurable]
- Left Alt + G: tames following you stay [Configurable]
- Any tame can be told to follow or stay, not only the ones the game allows [Configurable]
🥩 Taming
- Every creature takes 30 minutes to tame, modded ones included [Configurable]
🐣 Breeding
- A tame gets pregnant after 3 love points [Configurable]
- Breeding stops when 6 of the same kind are within 10m [Configurable]
- Offspring grow up in 30 minutes [Configurable]
- A newborn has a 25% chance to be one star above its parent, up to 2 stars [Configurable]
- A recovering tame doesn't breed, and doesn't count as a partner
⭐ Stars
- A tame that kills an enemy has a 10% chance to gain a star, up to 2 stars [Configurable]
- +5% for each star the enemy has over the tame [Configurable]
- A tame that gains a star is healed to full [Configurable]
🍖 Feeding
- Hungry tames eat from player-built chests within 10m when there is no food on the ground [Configurable]
- Creatures you are taming do the same [Configurable]
- Only eat from chests that hold nothing but food they eat [Configurable]
- Dungeon and world chests are never touched
⏱️ Timers
- Time left to tame, shown as paused while the creature is hungry or frightened [Configurable]
- Time left in a pregnancy, or the tame's love points [Configurable]
- Time left before offspring grow up [Configurable]
- Time left for a recovering tame
⚔️ Tames fight their own kind
- A tamed wolf fights wild wolves that are attacking. The game normally keeps them on the same side [Configurable]
- Calm wild ones, and ones you are taming, are left alone
Installation
Install with your mod manager, or drop BetterTames.dll into BepInEx/plugins.
Configuration
Everything below can be changed in-game with Configuration Manager, or in BepInEx/config/xtav1m.BetterTames.cfg.
General
| Setting | Default | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Lock Configuration | On | Only server admins can change the settings |
| Tames Fight Their Own Kind | On | Tames fight wild creatures of their own kind that are attacking |
Timers
| Setting | Default | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Show Taming Timer | On | Time left to tame |
| Show Breeding Timer | On | Time left in a pregnancy, or love points |
| Show Growth Timer | On | Time left to grow up |
Taming
| Setting | Default | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Taming Time | 30 | Minutes of feeding to tame a creature |
Breeding
| Setting | Default | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Love Points Needed | 3 | Love points before a tame gets pregnant |
| Growth Time | 30 | Minutes for offspring to grow up |
| Crowd Limit | 6 | Breeding stops wh
Install & use Install: BepInEx plugin
- The archive from playbuff is the mod itself — usually a BepInEx plugin (a .dll or a plugin folder once unzipped).
- Recommended: use a community mod manager (such as r2modman) — pick this game, import the mod, and the manager sets up BepInEx and its dependencies for you.
- Manual route: install the BepInEx loader in the game folder, then drop the unzipped .dll or plugin folder into BepInEx/plugins/.
- Launch the game — the BepInEx console logs every plugin it loads; seeing this mod in the log means it is installed.
Mods with listed dependencies need those installed too, or they will not load. Options are usually changed in-game or in the plugin's config file. In multiplayer, the host and every client need the same mods installed.
Install these first, or the mod will not work: