If you’ve ever plopped down your first Palworld base right next to a spawn point only to realize you’re miles from the coal deposits you need for mid-game crafting, you’re not alone. I’ve made this mistake myself, picking a beautiful beach spot for my first base only to realize I had to travel 20 minutes every time I needed sulfur for gunpowder. Tons of players pick their first camp spot on a whim, and hit a wall when they realize the location doesn’t fit their late-game needs. Learning how to move base in Palworld doesn’t have to mean losing hours of progress or all the hard work you put into building storage, breeding farms and workstations, either.
Prep Steps to Take Before You Move Base in Palworld
You don’t want to start tearing down your base only to realize you forgot to grab a stack of refined ingots you stashed in a hidden chest, or left a rare Pal assigned to a stationary work post. Taking 10 minutes to prep before you relocate will save you hours of headache later.
Here’s the core prep checklist we follow every time we move bases:
- Unassign all Pals from stationary roles like ranch work, crafting stations or base guarding, and store them in your Palbox first. Pals left assigned to structures you tear down will automatically be sent to your Palbox reserve, but it’s easy to miss a rare Chillet or Blazamut if you don’t check first, especially if you have 15+ Pals assigned to your base.
- Dump all loose resources from workstations, furnaces and ranch outputs into labeled storage chests, then pick the chests up directly. You don’t have to empty chests to move them, but emptying loose items from other structures means you won’t lose rare resources like circuit boards if you accidentally skip a structure when tearing down.
- Collect all placed Pal Eggs, food items and decorative items you want to keep first. These small items don’t show up on the base structure list, so they’re easy to leave behind if you don’t do a quick walkthrough of your base perimeter first.
- Make sure you have at least 20 pieces of wood and 10 pieces of stone in your inventory before you leave your old base. You’ll need these to place a new Palbox at your target location immediately, so you don’t get stuck with no spawn point if you get attacked by a wild boss Pal on the way.
One common mistake we see new players make is skipping the Pal unassign step. If you have a Pal assigned to a base that you delete, they’ll go to your reserve, but if your reserve is full, they’ll be released automatically. That’s a devastating loss if it’s a perfect IV breeding Pal you spent 10 hours hunting for, so double check your Pal list before you delete the old base.
How to Pick the Best New Base Location for Your Playstyle
A great base location for a player who focuses on breeding Pals is totally different from one for a player who prioritizes mining and crafting high-end gear. Don’t just pick a spot because you saw a streamer use it – pick one that fits what you actually want to do in the game.
If you’re a crafting-focused player, look for spots within walking distance of at least two high-value resource nodes, like coal, sulfur or pure quartz. You don’t want to have to run 10 minutes every time you need to restock coal for your furnaces, and having nodes inside your base’s capture radius means your assigned Pals will mine them automatically for you. Aim for locations that are flat and have at least 3000 build points – sloped land limits how many large structures like breeding farms and ranches you can place, and small build point caps will stop you from expanding late game.
For players who focus on Pal breeding and PvP, pick a spot that’s close to fast travel points but far away from common player spawn areas if you’re playing on a public server. Public server players often raid bases close to the starting beach, so picking a spot in the northern or western mountain regions will cut down on uninvited visitors. You’ll also want a spot with a nearby water source, since you’ll need constant access to water for ranches and food production.
We once picked a base spot right next to an Anubis spawn point thinking we’d get easy access to high-level Pals, but we quickly realized the Anubis would attack our base every 10 minutes and kill all our farming Pals. If you do pick a spot near a high-level wild Pal spawn, make sure you have a team of strong guard Pals assigned to the new base before you start moving all your resources over.
Step-by-Step Process to Relocate Your Base Without Losing Progress
Once you’ve prepped your old base and picked your new spot, the actual relocation process is surprisingly straightforward, as long as you follow the steps in order.
First, fast travel or fly your Pals to your new target location, and place your new Palbox down first. You’ll get a prompt to name your new base, and you’ll see the build radius and build point cap for the spot immediately. Don’t delete your old base before you place the new Palbox – if you delete your only active base, you’ll lose any items that are still in your old base’s Palbox reserve, and you’ll have to respawn at the starting beach if you die before you place a new one.
Once your new Palbox is placed, head back to your old base, and start picking up all structures you want to keep. You can pick up any structure you placed with 100% of the materials returned, so you don’t have to worry about wasting resources on structures you built earlier. If you have structures you don’t want to keep, you can either tear them down for materials or leave them behind – they’ll disappear automatically once you delete the old Palbox.
After you’ve picked up all the structures and resources you want to keep, open the old Palbox menu, and select the “dismantle base” option. You’ll get a warning that all uncollected items and structures will be lost, so click confirm only if you’ve already double checked the entire base for items you want to keep. Once the old base is dismantled, all Pals that were assigned to it will be moved to your Palbox reserve, so you can assign them to the new base immediately when you get back.
If you’re moving a large base with 50+ structures, you don’t have to move everything in one trip. You can use a flying Pal like a Jetragon to carry large stacks of resources between bases, or use fast travel points to cut down on travel time. Just make sure you don’t dismantle the old base until you’ve moved all the items you want to keep.
Post-Relocation Tips to Get Your New Base Running Fast
Once you’ve moved all your resources and Pals to the new base, you don’t have to spend hours rebuilding everything from scratch right away. We follow a simple priority order to get the base functional in 10 minutes or less.
First, place your storage chests and label them immediately, so you don’t have to dig through your inventory every time you need a specific resource. Next, place your most used workstations, like the primitive furnace, workbench and cooking pot, close to the Palbox so you can access them right after you spawn. Assign at least 2 working Pals and 1 guard Pal to the base first – the working Pals can start restocking fuel and food while you build the rest of the structures, and the guard Pal will fend off any wild Pals that attack while you’re building.
If you have breeding farms or ranches, place those last, once you’ve cleared the entire build area of rocks and trees. You don’t want to place a ranch only to realize there’s a large boulder in the way that stops your Pals from accessing the entrance. You can use your Pals to clear the build area for you, so you don’t have to waste your own stamina chopping trees and breaking rocks.
One small hack we use to speed up rebuilding is to save your base layout as a custom preset if you’re playing on PC. That way you can place all your structures in the exact same layout as your old base with one click, instead of having to place each one individually. This cuts down rebuilding time for large bases by 70% in most cases. If you’re playing on console, you can take a screenshot of your old base layout to reference while you rebuild, so you don’t forget where you placed your most used structures.
Moving your base doesn’t have to be a stressful, progress-losing chore if you take the time to prep and follow the right steps. A lot of players put off relocating for weeks because they’re worried about losing rare Pals or resources, but if you follow the steps we laid out, you can have your new base up and running in under an hour. Next time you find yourself stuck with a base in a bad location, don’t be afraid to go through the process of how to move base in Palworld – you’ll save yourself way more time in the long run by being in a spot that fits your playstyle.