Auto-Petter

Auto-Petter

Type	Tool
Sold By	JojaMart
Cost	50000g

The Auto-Petter is Joja's answer to the daily round of the Barn, a boxed machine that pets every animal inside a building each day. It keeps mood high and stops the slow slide in friendship that comes from nobody paying attention, which is exactly what an Auto-Grabber farm needs. The honest description printed on the box admits it cannot replace a human hand, and the numbers bear that out: a machine pet is worth roughly half the friendship of the real thing. JojaMart sells it for a sum that only makes sense late, and the Community Center route has to find one in Skull Cavern instead. For a farm with several full buildings it is the piece that finally makes the animals look after themselves.

Use

Setting one down inside a Barn or Coop is the whole installation. Every animal in the building gets petted each day without anyone walking in.

Mood is where it shines. Animals gain about the same mood boost from the machine as they would from a hand, and mood is what the game checks when it decides the quality of the morning's produce. Gains from the machine stack with gains from petting by hand, so doing both is better than either.

Friendship is the compromise. A machine pet is worth a smaller number of friendship points than a pet by hand, roughly half. An animal that gets both on the same day receives the full amount, exactly as if it had only been petted by hand. What the machine guarantees is that the number never falls for lack of attention, which is the trap an automated farm would otherwise walk into.

Some losses are outside its reach. An animal that goes unfed loses friendship, and so does one left outside overnight, and no amount of petting makes up for either. Feeding and shutting the door are still the farmer's job, or the Deluxe building's.

Placement follows the same rule as the grabber. The box can sit anywhere and does nothing outside a Barn or Coop, and lifting it again means striking it with a tool or clicking at it repeatedly.

Upgrades

There is one model and no ladder above it. The machine arrives complete and never needs anything.

Getting hold of one is the difficulty. The clean route is JojaMart, which stocks it after the Joja Community Development Form is complete, and that route costs the Community Center. For a farm that restored the Community Center instead, the machine has to be found. Skull Cavern treasure chests are the likeliest place, with a small chance per chest, so it means deep runs with luck food and a good daily fortune. A Golden Mystery Box can also hold one, at longer odds. Monsters in the Mines drop them during the Danger In The Deep quest and again after the Shrine of Challenge is switched on.

The Auto-Grabber is the natural partner. That machine takes the produce and the Auto-Petter keeps the animals content while it does, and a building with both plus a Deluxe upgrade needs only emptying.

Notes

Hand petting is still worth a few seconds on the way past. Doing both on the same day gives the full friendship gain, so the machine is best read as a floor under the relationship rather than a replacement for it.

The mood boost from the machine ignores the Coopmaster and Shepherd professions, which otherwise help the animals along. Those professions still earn their keep elsewhere, in incubation times and in coat growth.

One machine covers every animal in the building it sits in, so the plan on a big farm is one box per Barn and Coop, bought as the money allows.

All Tools

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	Image	Cost
Advanced Iridium Rod		25000g
Auto-Grabber		25000g
Auto-Petter		50000g
Axes	-	-
Bamboo Pole		500g
Fiberglass Rod		1800g
Golden Scythe		-
Hay Hopper		-
Heater		2000g
Hoes	-	-
Incubator		-
Iridium Rod		7500g
Iridium Scythe		-
Milk Pail		1000g
Pans	-	-
Pickaxes	-	-
Scythe		-
Shears		1000g
Training Rod		25g
Trash Cans	-	-
Watering Cans	-	-