PalworldGame guides
Improve Base Sanity in Palworld
What drains and restores Pal SAN at your base, which 1.0 facilities cut the loss, and the Pal hunger setting on a server.
Every Pal working at your base has a SAN value, Palworld's version of sanity. Let it run low and the Pal works worse, gets injured and can end up depressed. This guide covers what drains SAN, what restores it, the facilities Pocketpair added in 1.0 to cut the drain, and the server setting that touches it.
Checked against Palworld v1.0.5 (Pocketpair's latest patch notes, 15 September 2026), October 2026.
What drains SAN
The wiki's Sanity page lists the main causes:
- Work. The page says "Work generally reduces Sanity", by an amount that depends on the work type, the station and the work intensity set in the Monitoring Stand.
- Hunger. "Pals lose Sanity when being very hungry."
- Sleeping without a bed, which lowers Sanity.
Pocketpair has also removed one drain. Its v0.7 notes say all Pals no longer lose SAN when taking damage, and the 1.0 notes repeat it for base Pals and party Pals.
What happens when SAN is low
The wiki says Pals take breaks to recover as it drops, working at low Sanity "may cause Pals to become injured", and a long stretch of low Sanity causes the Depression affliction. paldb.cc lists a Depressed condition that slows work and movement, with High Grade Medical Supplies as the cure.
How to raise or protect SAN
Give Pals proper beds. The wiki says Pals recover Sanity while sleeping in beds, especially better ones.
Build a Hot Spring. Both the wiki and paldb.cc say it restores SAN for Pals taking a break there. The wiki says the High Quality Hot Spring does the same.
Upgrade the Monitoring Stand. Pocketpair's 1.0 notes describe the High-Quality Monitoring Stand and the Ancient Monitoring Stand as keeping every function of the standard stand "while also reducing SAN depletion for base Pals". The wiki and paldb.cc agree. They reduce the loss and do not restore SAN.
Add a Clinic. The 1.0 notes added the Clinic and Ancient Clinic. Depending on the Medicine Production suitability of the Pals you assign, they "can reduce SAN depletion and suppress illness among base Pals". paldb.cc describes the same effect.
Feed the right food. The wiki says some foods give Sanity directly or reduce the drain, and that you can feed them from the Command menu.
Pocketpair's 1.0 notes describe World Tree passive skills as powerful but costly. One example is Demon's Hand: work speed goes up 90%, but SAN value decreases more easily. Weigh that cost before you put such a Pal to work.
Hunger and your server settings
Hunger drains SAN, and the World Settings tab has a Pal hunger drain slider in the Survival group, with a default of 1. Pocketpair's settings docs describe the key as "Pal hunger depletion rate multiplier".
Every key is in Palworld server settings explained. Changes apply after you save and restart.
Related guides
Palworld Work Suitability Explained
The 12 work suitability kinds, how the 1.0 levels rise to 10, and the best Pals for each kind where the wiki and paldb.cc agree.
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Fast Travel to Your Base in Palworld
How fast travel to a base works in Palworld 1.0 with Great Eagle Statues and towers, plus the Fast travel setting if players cannot use it.
3 min readUnique Breeding Combinations in Palworld
All 80 unique parent pairs and 22 same-species rules that the wiki and paldb.cc agree on, and how to check a pair in the Breeding tab.
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