It is shockingly fun. I had started a Tyranny playthrough after realizing I had that in my steam library, and didnt know... and its pretty fantastic. yet... 100% distracted by this game, and this is the one that I think about more when not playing.
Some cons to keep expectations in line.
its Early access. and its shows. This is much like Conan exiles at release. Which exploded in popularity.. but the game was not finished, and ultimately that had to hurt the long term of the game. the vast majority of that 3m, or conans 2m? don't periodically check back on the game every 6m to see it improve or see it when it finally releases properly a year or more later. Bannerlord, same deal too.
Base building atm is a bit rudimentary. all squares, no triangles. ok set of deco, but needs more. A bit more pokemon interact is needed as well. swimming, flying around. sitting on chairs, etc. like, theres just the hot tub, beds, and various crafting benches atm?
end game? right now. the fun is all about "gotta collect them all". where is the fun after you do?
there is pokemon upgrades, and breeding. so that should add some longevity.
combining those two might add a ton. the guide mentions biome specific varients of pokemon. if THEMEING your base would cause biome adaptation, or breeding that would be very interesting. I'm not sur how many bases you can make. at least 2.
2nd base tips.
pal box inventory is shared. no need to worry about transferring each over. pal box LEVEL is also shared. Pal WORKER is not. so, 11 pals in base 1? can have 11 more working in base 2.
you'll probably have noticed the large flat areas with 7-8 rings of iron in the more centralized locations. thats.. kindof obviously where you want a 2nd base.
Little reason to hesitate on these. go get a mining base up and running.
General storage is not shared between bases. you will need to haul that iron. that said of course, the pal box has instant fast travel from base to base.
mining pals will mine that loose ore. but not very quickly. its worth it just for the fast travel to the ore rings. they will respawn, so don't build over them. I don't think the anti-respawn is a large radius like in conan, I think its LITTERALLY right on top of them. I put torches really close to some rocks/ore, and they respawn just fine.
Capturing pokemon is the main source of exp. go ahead and capture dupes. its like 1-5exp on kill, 200-500exp on capture(until the 8 cap). not sure how much after the cap.
storage is pretty large don't worry about it too much. you can SELL extra pokemon for gold, butcher them for double resources, or merge them to star up pokemon later.
the merging. you take 1 pokemon of a type, then dissolve 8 others to boost the stats of pokemon 1. I've heard the amount increases with each star. i've only done it once so far with my shiney daedream.
pokebox storeage suggestion.
leave pages 1 and 2 empty. when you capture pals, they get sent to the pokebox starting from the first page..
q once, last page. use this page for your active party alternates.
q twice. neutral pals.
third page. neutral again. theres alot so they need 2 pages.
fourth page. dark.
fifth page. ice. (or dragon)
sixth fire,
seventh, grass
eight ground
nine elec.
ten water.
this leaves 3 pages spare. so, it allows new pokemon to go into empty tabs to be sorted. it allows quick access to your party alts. and then it has them sorted by elemental weakness. might help your remember.
which is, neutral is weak to dark. Dark is weak to dragon. dragon is weak to ice. ice is weak to fire. fire is strong to ice and grass, weak to water, grass is strong to ground, ground is strong to elec, elec is strong to water.
I personally didn't give dragon its own tab.