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Palicos are really great sailors. No, seriously.

Just like you can go on quests to defeat monsters, once you have at least five Palicos recruited aside from your primary Palico, you can send them out on their own mini quests to acquire materials for their own armor and gear, called Scraps.

This feature is called Meownster Hunters and is meant to be as endearing as possible. To send them out, either go to the sign on Sunsnug Isle or talk to the Housefelyne.

Meownster Hunter quests have three difficulty levels based on how far your Palicos will travel, from Near to Far. In order to embark upon the hardest difficulty, you must have enough Provisions , which is noted when you are selecting a route. Provisions refill automatically at the rate of one provision per quest that you yourself complete.

When selecting your Palicos, you can only select Palicos in reserve. Any Palico set as a 1st Stringer cannot go out on a Meownster Hunter quest. Switch around your Palicos to pick the right ones.

Palico Level: A weak Palico will only hinder your progress. Train up your Palicos before sending them out.

Palico Specialty: Meownster Hunter is a lot of rock-paper-scissors. Certain monsters have a certain color, red, blue, or yellow. Red > Blue, Blue > Yellow, Yellow > Red. If a quest has a lot of blue, then take Palicos that have specialties colored red!

Palico Equipment: Make sure your Palicos have some equipment on them so they don’t lose HP quickly.

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If you don’t want to play the minigame, the Housefelyne will handle everything for you.

Once your Palicos embark upon the quest, you have two options. Either you let the quest play out automatically, or you can control the quest through a cute minigame.

If you want to let the quest handle itself, select your options through the Housefelyne. Alternatively, if you are selecting options at Sunsnug Isle, you can press START and skip.

If you choose to play the minigame, however, there are a few controls you will have to master. When the Palicos first encounter a monster, many icons will pop up associated with a button that can be anything on the d-pad or the buttons A, B, X, or Y. This is where the rock-paper-scissors game will come into play.

You can’t pick all the icons at once, you can only pick one. Choose the one that has an advantage over the monster’s color. That will do the most damage. Afterwards, pick up your rewards, and use it to make better gear (or something…)!

If you play the minigame, you do not have to cycle a quest to get the rewards, but you must wait at least a day (a quest) anyways for Provisions to restore.