Feature Spotlight: Auto-Care — What Twenty-Four Hours of Care Actually Buys
Auto-care is the part of the PP Shop that keeps working when you don't. Four timers hold one pal's hunger, happiness or HP (or all three) at full for twenty-four hours, and the game tops the meter back up every half hour whether you are logged in or not. It has never had an article of its own, and it deserves an honest one, because a timer is only worth what the meter it holds is worth. The short version, which the rest of this article earns: auto-care buys time, not power.
The Four Timers
Open your dashboard and tap the round gem button in the bottom-right corner. That opens the PP Shop panel, and Auto-Care (24h) is its last section, folded shut until you tap the title. Everything in the panel applies to one pal: the one named under Applying to: at the top.
Those are the prices the shop's own price list returned this morning. Each timer runs for twenty-four hours from the moment you buy it, and it does not fill the bar at that moment. Every half hour, on the hour and the half hour, the game first works out how far every pal's bars have fallen, then sets each meter a running timer covers back to full. So the first top-up arrives at the next half-hour mark, and the last at the final mark before the day runs out. If a bar needs to be full right now, the Instant Care row at the top of the same panel is for that.
Three rules hold it together. A pal can have one timer of each kind running at a time; ask for a second and the shop answers “Auto-care already active for this type,” so a running timer cannot be extended, only bought again once it ends. Running timers are listed above the buttons with the time they have left, and the bundle shows there as All Care. And the charge and the timer go through together or not at all: if the timer cannot be written, your PP is not taken.
Check the name before you tap
The toolbox buys on the first tap; there is no confirmation step. A timer stays with the pal it was bought for, so make sure the pal under Applying to: is the one you mean.
What Each Meter Is Actually Worth
The 36-Hour Clock covers the two bars in full; this is the part that prices a timer.
Happiness sets a multiplier on EXP: ×1.10 at 80 or above, down to ×0.80 at the bottom of the bar. It never multiplies NP, and no game's score reads it. Hunger only matters at zero, where an empty bar drains HP at 1% of your pal's maximum a minute, down to a floor of 10%, until you feed it. Above zero, a hungry pal and a full one are the same pal. HP carries over from one battle to the next, so a pal that came out of the last fight hurt goes into the next one hurt. No arcade game reads it.
Hunger and happiness both fall from full to empty over 36 hours. For happiness, that means a full bar drops out of the top band after about seven hours on its own, and loses less than two points in any half hour, which is why a pal on Auto-Happy sits in the top band for the whole day.
When mood actually counts
The multiplier is read at the moment EXP is paid: when a game ends, when a battle ends, and when you wake a resting pal. Nothing pays EXP while you are away, so the bar only has to be high while you are earning.
The Honest Arithmetic
Every timer has a cheaper way to hold the same meter, and most have a free one.
Auto-Happy, 6 PP. That is six Instant Happy refills at 1 PP each, and one refill keeps a full bar in the top band for about seven hours, so even topped up around the clock, the top band costs four of them. Petting is free: each pet adds 3 to 8 points (a little more when the bar is low), on a 45-second cooldown, and the bar only has to be high while you are earning, which is when you are there to pet. On a day you cannot log in, a full bar multiplies nothing; what the timer buys is a pal already at the top of the bar when you come back.
Auto-Feed, 8 PP. That is four Instant Feeds at 2 PP. The free option is better still: Sybil's Soup Kitchen brings every pal you own up to 92 hunger once a day, for trainers holding under 100,000 NP across wallet and bank. A full bar takes 36 hours to run out, so a feed before you leave covers a day away on its own. Auto-Feed earns its price on a longer absence. The 36-hour fall only starts when the timer ends, so a pal on Auto-Feed does not reach empty until about sixty hours after you bought it.
Auto-Heal, 10 PP. That is a little over three Instant Heals at 3 PP. The Healing Springs are free: every hour, Soothing Waters heals part of what every one of your pals is missing, and once every twenty-four hours Deep Restoration brings one pal all the way back. Resting heals 1% of maximum HP a minute, though a resting pal sits out battles. And HP only drops in battle and at zero hunger, so on a day away with a fed pal it does not drop at all. Auto-Heal's day is a battle day, when each half hour hands back whatever the last fight took. (The AP Shop sells something else called Auto-Heal: bought with Achievement Points rather than PP, it brings every one of your pals below half HP back to full, once a day. It is not this timer.)
Put the three together and the pattern is plain. On a day you can log in and look after your pal, a timer is the most expensive way to hold any of its meters. It earns its price in the hours you cannot spend on care: the long absence for Auto-Feed, the long battle day for Auto-Heal, and for Auto-Happy, the days you would rather not think about it.
The Bundle, and Mixing Timers
The bundle costs 18 PP against 24 for the three singles bought separately, and 18 is exactly Auto-Feed plus Auto-Heal. If you would buy those two anyway, happiness comes along for nothing.
Two interactions are worth knowing before you mix them. Buying the bundle switches off any single timer already running on that pal. Nothing goes uncared for: the bundle starts later and runs its own twenty-four hours on all three meters, so it covers every hour those singles had left. A single bought first only works until the bundle arrives, though, so if you know you will want all three, start with the bundle.
The other way round, a single bought while the bundle runs is allowed, because the shop only refuses a second timer of the same kind. While the bundle runs, the single adds nothing, since both set the same meter to full. When the bundle ends, the single carries on for the rest of its own twenty-four hours, so bought late in a bundle's day it works as an extension for that one meter.
One timer, one pal
Each timer covers only the pal it was bought for, so three pals take three timers. The Soup Kitchen's meal and the Springs' Soothing Waters work on every pal you own at once.
What Auto-Care Never Touches
No timer pays EXP of its own; Auto-Happy only holds the multiplier for EXP you earn by playing, battling and resting. No timer touches bond: petting adds a little every time you do it, and a timer never pets. No timer touches NP: mood never multiplies it, and nothing in auto-care pays any. And no timer touches a score, because no arcade game reads hunger, happiness or HP. Auto-care holds three meters at full and nothing else. It buys time, not power.
Where to Go Next
The 36-Hour Clock is the full account of both bars, the five mood bands and petting. The Complete Guide to Pal Care walks through the free daily routine, the Soup Kitchen and the Healing Springs, that already does most of what a timer does. The Healing Springs spotlight has both free heals in detail. And Premium Points Explained covers where PP comes from, if you are weighing a timer against everything else PP buys.