My first shot at a guide for ARK. For now, for newbs, complete guide with embedded links found here: My Google Drive. <- 3Mar20, this Link is broken. I’ll check it out eventually.
20Apr16- Updated, added emphasis on acquiring Dino Guard Dogs.
8Jan2016- Added info on managing Save Folder size in the Starting Game section.
* 6Sept- Added blurb in controls about stopping ground shake. Added blurb about picking dinos up under Taming Section and Taming Note 2.
* 2Sept15- Guide Established.
Sections
This Guide
Is a compilation of tips, links, info copied from web sites usually with associated links, and my own observations. I started this game Aug 2015 and am still a newbie. Most of the items in this guide are valuable to know as a newbie.
ARK Overview
ARK is an incredible sandbox game that can be played solo or on a multiplayer server. This guide was started as a compilation of links and info for new players. Sept 2015, I’m still a new player.
The setting is a large tropical island. You find yourself waking up on the beach in your undies. How did you get there? It’s a mystery. There are no quests, there is a crafting tree that dictates all of your early actions as far as gaining skills. Start out by beating a tree with your fist and get some thatch, make a stone pick. From there it’s all good.
Heads Up
Something you should know about. This game is tough. You are going to die a lot, but there are ways to mitigate this. Solo play is the most flexible, but may be lonely. A non-dedicated server can be set up, but I’ve never tried it and do now know how well it will perform if you invite 10 friends to play. I’m sure it depends on your hardware.
Before you commit to an Official or Private Server, make sure you understand it’s settings. Things like harvest rates and timing times are under control of the Admin. Some servers leave those settings at the default “1.0”, while others have factors accelerate to 3x, 6x, or even 10x.
Regarding Taming (August 2015 in Alpha status) You Want Dino Guard Dogs!
Why mention this early? Read on. Taming is explained in a following section with more detail, I’d like to advise you of one of the harshest realities of ARK.
At standard settings a low level Dino takes about 15 min, requires, say 5 containers of narcotics and might need upwards of 40 steaks to get it tamed. You may think this sounds excessive, feeding this little dinosaur 40 stakes in 15 minutes? They must be mini-steaks, a bite each. Honestly it may sound silly, but that is not hard to do.
However, you might think I’m kidding when I tell you at standard settings, the length of time to tame a top level dino could be anywhere from 6-10 freaking hours. This is after it’s been knocked out, when you go into drugging and feeding mode allowing it to slowly become tamed. Huh? Yes, its true. It’s one of the most mind boggling game realities I’ve ever run into as why would a developer punish players with this kind of requirement. Fortunately, I think the Devs have recognized this problem and allow server settings to be relaxed at the discretion of the server Admin. As I said in a solo game, you can fix this. And out there in private/unofficial servers, you’ll find some with relaxed settings. I have no idea if there are any relaxed official servers to be found.
Links:See Google Drive Link top an bottom of this article
* ARK Survival Evolved Forums
Gamepedia.com World Map At this link you can create a private map.
ARK Creatures List
ARK Dinosaur List
Crumplecorn.com Taming link:
Engram Tip for Other Solo Players when Playing Locally
Cooking
Weapons
Console Commands
Guide Links:
ARK Survival Forums: Solo Play Guide V0.10 - Level 1-20 Walkthrough
ARK: Survival Evolved Starter Guide
ARK Gamepedia Tips and Tricks
ARK Gamepedia Taming
Beginner’s Taming Guide
25 Tips You Tube Video
Primary Controls
*WSAD- Move
*Crouch- C.
*Jump- Spacebar.
*E- Use. (In water can be used to drink).
*Fire- Left Mouse Button
*Alt Fire/Throw- Right Mouse Button
*Fists (toggle) -Q
*Iron Sights/Alt Fire- Right Mouse Button.
*Melee- LeftControl?
*Toggle Weapon Attachment- N.
*Reload- R.
*Run- Left Shift.
*X- lie down to recover stamina
Secondary Controls
*Consol- Tab
*Drop Item- O
*F- Access container or mount inventory
*H- HUD
*Backspace- Hotbar toggle, HUD Toggle!
*I- Inventory
*Map- M Note: if you are in third person view, you may have to zoom in to see anything on the map.
*Place Map Marker- P Note Aug2015: Map does not allow you to set your current point, by simply designating it. It appears that you have to look at the map, type in your lat/long and name it.
*Selfie Cam- Right Alt.
*V- Craft Tables
*Zoom- Mouse Scroll. Zoom in and out of 3rd to 1st person view.
*FPS- type "stat fps" into the console (default "tab").
*Gamma # where # = 1 to 9 example "gamma 3" alters the darkness in the game so you can see at night.(Doesn't work on official servers anymore)
Whistles for pets
All Follow- J
Follow One- T
Stop All- U
Neutral- minus - (Neutral)
Passive ; (Semi-Colon)
Attack My Target = (equal)
Attack This Target . (period)
Starting Game
Managing the Size of the ARK Save Folder- Listed prominently in this guide, but can be dealt with later. As time goes by with solo game saves, the Saved Game folder will grow dramatically reaching 2.5GB or more.
Look in the Steam>SteamApps>Common>ARK>ShooterGame>Saved>SavedArkslocal folder. Initially you will notice 5 files in this folder- LocalPlayer.arkprofile, LocalPlayer.profilebak, TheIsland.ark, TheIsland_AntiCorruptionBackup.bak, TheIsland_NewLaunchBackup.bak.
However as time goes by, more TheIsland.ark files will appear with dates attached to them. These extra files are old save files and can be deleted with no adverse effect on your solo game progress as long as you don’t delete TheIsland.ark file! This will substantially reduce the size of the “save” folder.
* How to Have Multiple Single Player Save States
- Listed prominently in this guide but can be dealt with later. Create a folder called something like ARK Backups outside of the Steam App folder.
- to: Steam>Steam Apps>Common>Ark>ShooterGame>Saved
- 5 Folders there: ClientPaintingsCache, Config, LocalProfiles, Logs, SavedArkslocal.
- Do this anyway you want, but as an example create a subfolder, call it Save 1, and copy these two folders to the Backup folder.
- For a fresh start, after backing up as described, delete the contents of those two folders, but keep the folders.
To restore, move the backed up files back into the game directory from where you got them.
* Starting Game- First check out options.
ARK Settings: Make some choices at the start of your solo game. These can be changed any time you start up so don’t sweat standard settings for your first time out.
Difficulty Slider-
Explanation of Local Host / server Settings Slider @Reddit.com
* Max Structure in range: The number of player built things that can be placed within a hard-coded range?
* Day cycle speed: The speed the day & night goes on, the higher the number the faster.
* Day time speed: The speed the day goes on, the higher the number the faster.
* Night time speed: The speed the Night goes on, the higher the number the faster.
* Dino damage: The damage a dino can do. The higher the number the harder a dino can do damage.
* Player damage: The damage a player can do the higher the number the harder a player can do damage.
* Structure damage:The damage a structure can take the lower the number the harder it gets to damage it.
* Player resistance: Basically a damage modifier. If you increase the slider the selected entity type will take more damage. Yes, that's right, it is counter-intuitive but higher numbers mean less resistance...poorly named sliders.
* Dino resistance: See Player Resistance.
* Structure resistance: See Player Resistance
* XP multiplier: The amount of Experience a character gets while gathering experience the higher the number the faster.
* Taming speed: The speed you tame a dino, the higher the number the faster.
* Harvest amount: Amount of resources gained per action.
* Character Water drain: The lower the number the slower a character has to drink water.
* Character food drain: The lower the number the slower a character has to eat.
* Dino character food drain: the Lower the **number the slower a character dino has to heat if you want to tame a dino do not put it on 0 it will not drain its food down.
* Character Stamina drain: The lower the number the slower a character has to recharge their stamina.(run energy)
* Dino Stamina character drain: The lower the number the slower a dino has to recharge their stamina.(run energy)
* Player character health recovery: The higher the number the faster you recover.
* Dino character health recover: the higher the number the faster dino's recover.
* Dino count: The higher the number the more dino's will be on the map.
* Harvest health: Health of trees and rocks. The higher the health, the harder to harvest.
* PvE structure decay period: The length of time a structure remains after its owner logs off. This prevents PVE servers from becoming cluttered with crap from inactive players.
Resources respawn period: ?
Options Menu
Camera Shake- Stop camera shake when big things walk by by adjusting the slider in-game under Options.
Join ARK to join a server or pick Host/Local to play Solo or...
Choose Non-Dedicated Server to invite a friend to play with you. I’m not sure what happens when you play once as solo, switch to non-dedicated server, then back to solo as far as game progress and what you still own. I assume you’ll own everything you had before, but that’s an assumption.
Create Your Character
The South Coast is reportedly the best place for newbies to start. Select this on your Character screen before launching into the action.
OK, I’m on a beautiful Island in my Undies. What do I do now?
Welcome to the brave new world. You wake up on an island in your undies, surrounded by dinosaurs and after briefly scratching at the strange icon on your wrist, you take a look around. Ooh, look at that majestic Brontosaurus! It’s beautiful and then... your world turns green and your dead....Lol. Ok It’s not that bad. Let’s proceed with basics.
If You’ve Played Other MMOs with Dangerous Critters
You’ll note these dinos have no labels that advise of their level or how dangerous they are like a red exclamation point over them. Labels will appear when you are very close to them advising of their name and level, but if they are dangerous, they will be attacking you at that point. Remember you are in a starter zone, so it’s not going to be instant death, but you won’t have to wander far before things get even more dangerous than where you started.
Stay on the beach at first because there you have view range. Bad things can hide obscured by the bushes and rocks.
Have a Drink but don’t swim if you can help it
There likely will be water near by. Resist the temptation to take a dip, unless it’s absolutely necessary. Carnivore type fish called Megapiranha, if they get your scent, will kill you in a couple of chomps. Is it possible to swim across a body of water and not die? It’s a 50-50 proposition. However you can go stand in the water and press E to take a drink. Later you can research and make a waterskin (Level 3) to haul some water with you, but it’s basically one drink and over time it leaks. “E” is your friend!
Harvest Berries
* If you are by bushes, press “E” to harvest berries. As far as I know these are mostly edible. Dont’ eat Narcoberries because they put you to sleep. Berreis will mostly increase your hydration and offer some food value. Note on the Inventory page (I), on the bottom right are your stats including hunger and hydration.
* Collecting- Spam E- walk around hitting E and you’ll grab all sorts of stuff. However, if you are looking for something specific like fiber, you’ll miss a lot of it by running. Stop at a plant and E it until it falls apart to get all it has to give.
Avoid Small Upright Dinos Until You Plan on Taming One
You might turn around and come face to face with a Parasaur. Don’t faint, they are big, like 9’ tall with a ridge on their head, but harmless. But steer clear of any smallish upright dinos, called Dilophosaurs made famous in Jurassic Park, (the Movie), the one that spit on and then ate Dennis Nedry in his jeep. If by chance your world turns green, you got spit on, run like hell (hold the Shift Key) until you get your vision back. It takes about 5 sec to regain vision.
Your Map
Get out the Map (M), you may have to use your mouse scroll button to see what’s on the map. Mark the map as to where you started by selecting (P), eyeball the map and mark your Latitude (up and down) and Longitude (left/right) and give it an easy name. So you’ll have no doubt where your starting point was after your DEAD, lol. The thing to know is that the marker goes where ever you tell it to go, so if you mess up your coodinates, the marker could be anywhere. Later in the game there is a GPS which makes things easier.
The Grim Reaper
Before launching your character, the first order of business if you have not all ready done this is come to terms with the fact that you will die... a lot. When this happens, choose a random respawn location (until later when you get a bed).
If and when you think you may die, get out into the open so if you have stuff want to retrieve, you’ll be able to find your body. Note that after a relatively short period of time, you body disappears and is replaced by a backpack. But that too eventually disappears. If you were running frantically though the bushes when you expired, good luck finding your body. As a rule avoid dying in the water. It can be especially tough finding your body/backpack in the water and when carnivores fish are close by.
Run From The Bugs!
Some of the most lethal and dangerous critters in this game to a low level player are the ants and the dragonflys. They bite and sting. At least you can run from the ants, but it seems that when you slight a dragonfly by appearing around a carcass it has claimed, it and a swarm will chase you for miles. Sure, try to whack it and see how long it takes and if you manage to survive the encounter. If desperate, escape insects by diving under water but stay in the shallows.
Having trained a group of Dilo guard dogs on occasion, I have done well by crouching in my pack and letting them take care of these flying hazards. If you run, you are exposed and your pack won’t nearly be as effective killing them. But I’ve been in situations where I have both ants and dragonflies attacking me simultaneously- very very bad.
Engrams Rule!
There are no quests in ARKO. Virtually everything you do is guided by Engrams which can be accessed on the Inventory Page (I) along with Character info. On the right side of the page Engrams can be selected for learning. Over on the left of this page is an inventory section and a crafting section which if clicked on at the top, shows what Engrams have been learned. Down at the bottom is a hot bar. You can drag weapons here, and Engrams. If you press and hold the mouse button on an Engram in the hotbar, it will show you what you need to make it and what you have or don’t have (green or red).
* Important Emgram Milestones
Spear L2
Campfire L2
Thatch Foundation L2
Storage Box L5
Narcotic L5
Parasaur Saddle L10- Note the Founder Parasaur Saddle Skin is just a skin to make the saddle look pretty. You still have to build the saddle. Same for the fancy Founder Hat if you have one.
Hide Clothing L15
Bow L15
Wood Fence Foundation L15
- Large Storage Bin L15
- Raptor Saddle L15
- Trike Saddle L20
- Tranquilizer Arrow L20
- Stego Saddle L30
Make a Tool/Weapon
Make a Stone Pick. This is not intuitive but punch a palm tree until you have gotten 1 stone, 1 wood, and 10 thatch. Run around pressing “E” and you will pick up a stone. Select the Stone Pick Engram in your list of Engrams and research it, or put the Stone Pick Enram into your hot bar and click it to create a pick. if the Engram is in the hot bar, this is not the pick. You have to open inventory and move the pick from Inventory into the hot bar which btw is also an inventory slot.
Once you have a the Pick make a Stone Hatchet. Note that there is a primary resource created by using the pick on boulders, which creates mostly flint and some rock. In contrast the Hatchet used on boulders creates mostly rocks and some flint.
Underwear is sexy but not the best for long term survival
Now you are on your way. You’ll feel really good when you make your first pair of pants! Research clothing, gather fiber from plants along with the berries. Note, clothing and all gear degrades as time goes by. Periodically check your stuff and repair it. Clothng must be unequipped to be repaired.
Give Me Steak!
You can kill Dodos to harvest Meat and Hide. Note the Hatchet will harvest more Hide and the Pick harvests more Meat. Good luck with the Parasaurs and Phiomias. Whack them and they will bolt, but you are strategic and lucky, you’ll get on their opposite side from some large rocks and when hit them, they will bolt and possible get hung up in the rocks. Note: ARK has a lot of pathing issues and animals getting stuck in rocks and trees and even half way in the ground. You can almost plan on it and use that when hunting.
You can eat Raw Meat in a pinch, but it lowers your health by -5 for every piece you eat. This stat is recovered over time. Raw Meat spoils in 10 min. Mostly eat berries until you research a Campfire (L2) The Fire needs both wood and fresh meat to be put in it and it is ignited by pressing “E”. Then relish some Cooked Meat. Note that cooked meat spoils in 20 min, however, for all perishable items, a game mechanic allows one piece of a particular item to spoil at a time. So if you have a stack of 20 cooked steaks, you’ll lose only 1 every 20 min.! Spoiled Meat has value for making narcotics. If you need more spoiled meat faster, separate it into stacks of 1.
Storage and Shelter
Research a Storage Box. Research and build a Thatch Hut, starting with the Thatch Foundation (L2)Note that for many items if you change your mind and demolish something, you may not get the resources back. Hint, a Door Frame is place before the Door is attached and you must be in first person view (mouse scroll) to attach the door.
You Need Protection. Plan on Taming Diloposauruses ASAP- See Taming Section.
Fauna, Flora, World Links
Gamepedia.com World Map At this link you can create a private map.
ARK Creatures List
ARK Dinosaur List
Crumplecorn.com Taming link: To calculate taming time. Note, you must take into consideration server setting. Is taming set to 1.0 or 3.0?
Spam E- walk around hitting E and you’ll grab all sorts of stuff. But to get all there is to get out of a plant, stand there and harvest until the plant falls apart.
* How Much Do You need? Put a recipe for in your tool bar and holding the number for that slot down shows how much of each ingredient is needed. After you make the item, open Inventory (I) and drag the actual item to toolbar to use it.
Primary/secondary Harvesting- Axe gets more wood than thatch from a tree, more stone than flint from a rock, more hide from a dino. Pick gets more thatch, more flint, and more meat.
Dino Inventory- To drop, hover over item and press “o”.
* The Gathering Grind
Fibers and Berries - Plants, not trees. Tamed herbivore can be used to harvest berries by left clicking on plant while your riding the beast.
Meat and Hide - Gathered from all dead creatures.
Thatch and Wood - Gathered from trees by punching, pick, hatchet, or some dinos. Punching, picks, and dinos like Trikes and Brontos get more Thatch than Wood. Hatchet and Mammoths get more Wood.
Flint and Stone - Gathered from rocks by pick, hatchet, or some dinos. Get more Flint using picks and dinos like Anklyo. Get more Stone by using the hatchet or picking it up off the ground.
Chitin and Keratin - Chitin is gathered from various creatures like Spiders and Scorpions while Keratin is gathered from others like Carbonemys, Stegos, and Trikes. Using a Hatchet or creature like the Sabertooth will get you more of both.
Metal and Obsidian - Metal from rocks with gold streaks or solid gold, usually found on mountains and in caves. Use a metal pick or Anklyo to get more Metal. Metal makes metal ingots. Obsidian is gathered from smooth black rocks found in the same places and harvested the same as Metal. Obsidian is mainly used in the Fabricator to craft other materials like Polymers.
Silica Pearls and Oil - Pearls are gathered by hand while Oil is gathered most effectively by pick. Both are found underwater, Pearls only at the bottom and in caves, Oil at medium to deep waters and in caves. Pearls are used for crafting things like the Spino Saddle and Electronics. Oil is used to craft some items, used in the preserving bin along with Sparkpowder to turn Cooked Meat into Jerky, or combined with Hide in a Refinery to make Gasoline. Gas in needed to run things like the Electrical Generator and Fabricator.
Plants
*This may change as the game advances, but right now, there is no rhyme or reason to what kind of berries come off of which plants. (Aug 2015)MejoBerry- Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Parasaur, Carbonemys, Phiomia, Brontosaurus, Gigantopithecus
Narcoberry- put you to sleep and make black die with it.
Making Narcotics- When you learn how to make Narcotics, you will not end up with a building engram like you have for items like clothing or weapons. After you build a mortar and pedestal, you’ll find the recipe there in a drug folder. Place the items for the recipe into the Motar, for Narcotics, at a ratio of 5 Narcoberrys per 1 spoiled meat. Double click the recipe folder, the recipe for Narcotics should appear, click or double click that and you will make narcotics!
What do Herbavores like to eat? I tamed a Parasaur and I put in a variety of berries. It ate all the MejoBerrys first!
Using Dinos to harvest berries: All the berry eaters can harvest. When by a plant or tree, Left Click and your beast will harvest. The goods end up in it’s inventory. My understanding is the Trike and Stego are the best. They can fight. Parasaurs, I know when I attack them, they run. Now that I can ride one, I may try to see if it can fight something small.
*Pro Tip: Increasing your harvesters melee damage, increases their yields when they harvest stuff. Higher Melee damage = increased loot
Crafting Building Stuff
Emgrams- Crafting Recipes gained through progression.
Equipment
All equipment degrades over time. Be sure you keep a regular eye on your gear. It would not be smart to start a taming cycle if your slingshot is at 10% health.
Quick Repair- If it breaks, select the number of the item in your toolbar to repair if the required materials are in your inventory.
*Craft tools quickly- after you make it once hold left shift and the number of the item in your toolbar to make again.
Simple Bed- can be renamed through the radial action menu. This will make it easier to sort through multiple beds when selecting a respawn or fast-travel location.
* Hide Sleeping Bag Appears on Map, can be used to mark a location, resource heavy, and can only be used once.
Motar & Pedestal
Mortar & Pestle plus recipes
* Water Skin- Stand in water and hit E key to fill it up. It slowly depletes and as far as I know shows no fill level. Select it in the hotbar to use it.
* Building
First Person View: Some items like doors, chests, beds, require you to be in first person view.
Dino Corral- Level 20 unlocks foundation to place fence.
Upgrading a Building- No need to disassemble a structure. Parts can be upgraded in place by placing new part (wood) over the original thatch part.
Lighten your load by building components in your inventory before you take them home. This makes no sense really, but it works.
Taming/Pets
Transponder Tracker and Node (15July 2015)
Tame an Ape:
Taming Link- @ARK Gamepedia
Heads Up- Already discussed possilbly long taming times at top of guide.
* Beginner Taming In A Nutshell
- When first starting out, taming consists of knocking an animal out with Slingshot ideally, or fists, then feeding it meat (carnavore) or berries (herbavore), and drugging it with narco berries or narcortics, until it’s tame. Hopefully you recognize the danger of trying to whack a carnivore on the nose with your first while it’s trying to kill you.
- Crumplecorn.com Taming link: To calculate taming time and quantities. Note the multiplier to account for server/solo game settings.
- For Berry Eaters That Bolt- The Parasaurs and Phiomias can be maneuvered so when they bolt they get hung up in the rocks so a few more whacks with the slingshot and they will be out.
Animal Inventory: Note, this is not intuitive as a new player, but all animals have an inventory, kind of like a built in backpack. They can carry items there, and they can access food you’ve given them from their inventory. While they are knocked out, they can eat the meat you’ve placed in their inventory automatically. Every so often their head will raise off the ground and they’ll make a little chompy, gulpy sound. If you go check there will be less one meat in their inventory. This is not intuitive either, but feeding them narcotics and drugging them during the taming process is accomplished by placing a bowl of narcotics in their inventory, selecting it (by clicking on it) and choosing “remote use”. (in their inventory). This feeds it to the animal. Review all the steps before you try to tame.
* Taming Steps
- In Advance: Learn the Mortar and Pedestal and Narcotics Engram. Mix up your narcotics. made in the Mortar and Pedestal using spoiled meat and narcoberries at a ratio of 5 berries to 1 spoiled meat.
- Step 1: Locate the animal and knock it out preferably with a slingshot, although my understanding, it’s possible to do so with your fists, (which may be a challenge for a Dilophosaurus that is fighting you).
- Step2: Open the animals inventory (E key), placing Fresh Meat (5 pieces) and 1 Container of Narcotics
- Close the Animal’s Inventory and step back until you see a blue box by the animal. There will be a purple Toper Bar, and a brown Taming Bar. The Taming Bar should go up, the Torper Bar will slowly come down........
- When the toper level drops to 50% add more narcotics. n the animals inventory, select the Narcotics container, and select “remote use” to put this into the animals. syste.
Taming Note 1: For a low level tame, in a pinch you can use the sling shot to whack a stone off their heads to keep their torper up. However this slows the taming process, the resulting damage (more so than using narcotics or narco berries reduces the number of levels they will gain during the tame, and probably won’t work for higher levels without a lot of extra meat. I used the whack method on a L3 Dilo.
Taming Note 2: When out in the world taming while accompanied by tamed dinos, this can present a challenge. The process of taming by knocking down a dino with tranquilizer arrows, is an attack. If the pets with you are in “neutral” or “attack your target” mode, they will attack the animal you want to tame. Your taming target will end up dead, not good!
Unfortunately the only method I’ve seen of controlling this is to put them into passive mode. The caution is that if you must keep track of your tamed dinos. If they are attacked they won’t fight back and will eventually die. Recently I allowed a L100 Trike die in this fashion. Once things got out of my control, I should have returned to me tamed pets immediately and put them on “neutral”.
- Taming Alternative Strategy, Picking Wild Dinos Up- Pteradons can pick up Dilophosauruses and people for transport. Dilophosaurus’s are not that hard to tame so you probably won’t go to the trouble of snagging them with Pteradons. But the Argentavis can pick up Raptors. You’ll find that Raptors are so fast it’s very hard to knock them out while they are attacking you, until you get the higher stun gun. Players will use the Argentavis to go snag a Raptor and drop it into a taming pen, in a safe location. They they can easily drug and tame it. Note: Being able to pick up wild dinos is a server setting. Depending on the server, you may not be able to pick up wild dinos, but I believe in the solo game it’s on by default.
* Dilophosaurus- At standard server settings: Need: Min 34Narco , min 4 fresh meats, and a Slingshot.
- Dilophosaurus- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilophosaurus The first good fighter. 6 of these at low levels is a huge help.
* Ride a Dino Make a saddle and put it into the tamed dino’s inventory saddle slot. If you have a founder’s saddle, that is just a skin that can be applied to a Parasaur saddle.
* Gathering Resources while Riding a Dino Herbavores collect things like berries, thatch, or wood. Carnivores gather meat, hides, and other misc items. Whether meat , wood, or berries, they are more efficient at it, than you are. When riding left click on the item or critter you want to attack, if it’s a bush, you’ll collect plant materials.
Taming Videos
Tame a TRex:
Hippo Taming:
Hunting, Fighting Critters
*Diloposaurus- They spit. Drop back zigging and zagging, when they stop and expand their hoods strafe sideways.
*Pack Hunting- If you are low level and hunting with a tamed dino like a Dilo or a pack of Dilos, while the target is being attacked, if you also attack, ideally with a spear or ranged weapon, my experience is that it will turn to face you. If you keep it’s attention, without taking too much damage, your dino{s) will less likely be killed. If the target is a Trike, avoid the horns.
*Torpor- Some creatures will increase your torpor which is represented by a small stars icon above your EXP meter on the right and a purplish border on your screen. If this increases too much you will be knocked unconscious and unable to do anything. Torpor also rises when you attack when out of stamina.
- Where there is one Raptor or Dilo, there most likely are 2 more right behind it.
Maps and Mods
Add an Alternate Map- Log into Steam, ARK, select Steam Workshop. In the category list, pick maps. When you click on a map, a checkmark will appear and will download into your game.
However if you are playing solo games, loading in an alternate map, and creating a new character will alter your Local Player profile, wiping your character progress in the initial map. At least this happened to me.
To prevent this occurrence, BE SURE to backup your Saved Game files in the Saved: SavedArksLocal as follows: LocalPlayer.arkprofile, LocalPlayer.profilebak, TheIsland.ark, TheIsland_AntiCorruptionBackup.bak, and TheIsland_NewLaunchBackup.bak, and store in a save place.
Cheating
I won’t judge you. This is a game, do what’s fun and if that includes shortcuts so be it. Too much effort can be lost and the bottom line this is a game, not some test of manhood. One thing I can’t abide by is not having a backup. This can be accomplished in the solo game. Most of this can’t be done as a player on a server, unless you are an Admin.
Consol Commands
Advanced Game Commands-
How to Have Multiple Single Player Save States- This is not cheating imo. See more in the Starting Game Section.
* Admin Sever Commands
To use the Admin Commands, Logging in as Admin: Hit “tab” key, or whatever you have bound your console key to and type> enablecheats <password>, example = enablecheats 123
* ARK Spectator Command- cheat enablespectator
* Need Something in Particular? Ark.Gamepedia.com Data Values
Open the console with “tab”. To give an item : " admincheat GiveItemNum <item_id> <quantity (1/100)> <quality (0/100)> <blueprint (1/0)> " Example from the link: GiveItemNum 1 1 1 0 will give you Simple Pistol and GiveItemNum 1 1 1 1 will give you blueprint of Simple Pistol. Not sure but for getting the blueprint, I’m thinking that 0= false, and 1= true in the above example.
Give me some drugs man! I don’t care for that description. For the above, you need a space between each number. Try this- to get ten Narcotics, (Item no.123) you type this command into the consol: GiveItemNum 123 10 100 false (explanation: item 123, space, quantity: 10, space, quality: 100, space, type: false)
Now I’ve not done enough experimentation with this so quality may not apply to narcotics and maybe “false” does nothing and it’s the 1 or the 0 that counts as the last part of the command above asking or not asking for an item blueprint.
- Gives Yourself 50 of all Resources> giveresources First enable cheats (above) by logging in as Admin. Press Tab and typ in command giveresources <return>.
This 50 resources command might not be as helpful as you think, it does not include food like narcoberries, it will encumber you, and just maybe I don’t know the full capabilities of how it could work. As I’ve used it, I need to be in front of an empty cabinet or I have to dump a lot of it on the ground before I can move.
- No Item Number use this: Giveitem <blueprint_path> <quantity (1/100)> <quality (0/100)> <blueprint (1/0)
For example to get a metal Railing use this command:
Giveitem "Blueprint'/Game/PrimalEarth/CoreBlueprints/Items/Structures/Metal/PrimalItemStructure_MetalRailing.PrimalItemStructure_MetalRailing'" 1 100 1, where 1= quantity, 100= quality, 1= blueprint yes. No ID item info found at: http://ark.gamepedia.com/Entity_IDs
Give Yoursel BluePrints example for pistol use path from ID page: giveItem "Blueprint'/Game/PrimalEarth/CoreBlueprints/Weapons/PrimalItem_WeaponGun.PrimalItem_WeaponGun'" 1 1 0
Tranq Dart "Blueprint'/Game/PrimalEarth/CoreBlueprints/Weapons/PrimalItemAmmo_TranqDart.PrimalItemAmmo_TranqDart'" 40 1 0 (40 darts)
* Where is the Game User Settings ini file? Used to alter settings in the game. If you are concerned, make a backup copy of this file before altering any settings.
- Find it here: \Steam\steamapps\common\ARK\ShooterGame\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor
Difficulty Offset> Set to 4 for higher level dinos. It should be reflected on the Difficulty Slider- After setting this use the cheat destroywilddinos after you change the setting.
Taming SpeedMultiplier> To speed up taming which for a high level dino at default settings can take 6-10 hrs as has been reported, change the value from 1.000000 to 6.000000 or 10.000000.
Summon a Creature-http://ark.gamepedia.com/Entity_IDs
* Breeding
-https://www.reddit.com/r/playark/comments/3p3i2x/faster_breeding_in_singleplayer/
You can adjust the settings below in the Game.ini file located in
steamapps\common\ARK\ShooterGame\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor
New Server Game.ini configurable values (copy and paste into game.ini):
[/script/shootergame.shootergamemode]
MatingIntervalMultiplier=1.0
EggHatchSpeedMultiplier=1.0
BabyMatureSpeedMultiplier=1.0
Info:
MatingIntervalMultiplier (reduce to allow mating more often)
EggHatchSpeedMultiplier (Increase to speed up hatching)
BabyMatureSpeedMultiplier (Increase to speed up growth)
Edit: I also have Dino Food Drain turned way down, which may be making my babies eat a lot less as well. All I know is they don't seem to eat much at all.
End of Cheating
... Complete Guide with links at My Google Drive. <- link broken.
Updated 20 Apr 16
ARK Quick and Dirty Guide for New Players
![f4e64a9e-be9a-4290-9b36-cb4c771c13f5.png]()
Updates
20Apr16- Updated, added emphasis on acquiring Dino Guard Dogs.
8Jan2016- Added info on managing Save Folder size in the Starting Game section.
* 6Sept- Added blurb in controls about stopping ground shake. Added blurb about picking dinos up under Taming Section and Taming Note 2.
* 2Sept15- Guide Established.
Sections
This Guide
Is a compilation of tips, links, info copied from web sites usually with associated links, and my own observations. I started this game Aug 2015 and am still a newbie. Most of the items in this guide are valuable to know as a newbie.
ARK Overview
ARK is an incredible sandbox game that can be played solo or on a multiplayer server. This guide was started as a compilation of links and info for new players. Sept 2015, I’m still a new player.
The setting is a large tropical island. You find yourself waking up on the beach in your undies. How did you get there? It’s a mystery. There are no quests, there is a crafting tree that dictates all of your early actions as far as gaining skills. Start out by beating a tree with your fist and get some thatch, make a stone pick. From there it’s all good. Heads Up
Something you should know about. This game is tough. You are going to die a lot, but there are ways to mitigate this. Solo play is the most flexible, but may be lonely. A non-dedicated server can be set up, but I’ve never tried it and do now know how well it will perform if you invite 10 friends to play. I’m sure it depends on your hardware.
Before you commit to an Official or Private Server, make sure you understand it’s settings. Things like harvest rates and timing times are under control of the Admin. Some servers leave those settings at the default “1.0”, while others have factors accelerate to 3x, 6x, or even 10x.
Regarding Taming (August 2015 in Alpha status) You Want Dino Guard Dogs!
Why mention this early? Read on. Taming is explained in a following section with more detail, I’d like to advise you of one of the harshest realities of ARK.
At standard settings a low level Dino takes about 15 min, requires, say 5 containers of narcotics and might need upwards of 40 steaks to get it tamed. You may think this sounds excessive, feeding this little dinosaur 40 stakes in 15 minutes? They must be mini-steaks, a bite each. Honestly it may sound silly, but that is not hard to do.
However, you might think I’m kidding when I tell you at standard settings, the length of time to tame a top level dino could be anywhere from 6-10 freaking hours. This is after it’s been knocked out, when you go into drugging and feeding mode allowing it to slowly become tamed. Huh? Yes, its true. It’s one of the most mind boggling game realities I’ve ever run into as why would a developer punish players with this kind of requirement. Fortunately, I think the Devs have recognized this problem and allow server settings to be relaxed at the discretion of the server Admin. As I said in a solo game, you can fix this. And out there in private/unofficial servers, you’ll find some with relaxed settings. I have no idea if there are any relaxed official servers to be found.
Links:
* ARK Survival Evolved Forums
Gamepedia.com World Map At this link you can create a private map.
ARK Creatures List
ARK Dinosaur List
Crumplecorn.com Taming link:
Engram Tip for Other Solo Players when Playing Locally
Cooking
Weapons
Console Commands
Guide Links:
ARK Survival Forums: Solo Play Guide V0.10 - Level 1-20 Walkthrough
ARK: Survival Evolved Starter Guide
ARK Gamepedia Tips and Tricks
ARK Gamepedia Taming
Beginner’s Taming Guide
25 Tips You Tube Video
Primary Controls
*WSAD- Move
*Crouch- C.
*Jump- Spacebar.
*E- Use. (In water can be used to drink).
*Fire- Left Mouse Button
*Alt Fire/Throw- Right Mouse Button
*Fists (toggle) -Q
*Iron Sights/Alt Fire- Right Mouse Button.
*Melee- LeftControl?
*Toggle Weapon Attachment- N.
*Reload- R.
*Run- Left Shift.
*X- lie down to recover stamina
Secondary Controls
*Consol- Tab
*Drop Item- O
*F- Access container or mount inventory
*H- HUD
*Backspace- Hotbar toggle, HUD Toggle!
*I- Inventory
*Map- M Note: if you are in third person view, you may have to zoom in to see anything on the map.
*Place Map Marker- P Note Aug2015: Map does not allow you to set your current point, by simply designating it. It appears that you have to look at the map, type in your lat/long and name it.
*Selfie Cam- Right Alt.
*V- Craft Tables
*Zoom- Mouse Scroll. Zoom in and out of 3rd to 1st person view.
*FPS- type "stat fps" into the console (default "tab").
*Gamma # where # = 1 to 9 example "gamma 3" alters the darkness in the game so you can see at night.(Doesn't work on official servers anymore)
Whistles for pets
All Follow- J
Follow One- T
Stop All- U
Neutral- minus - (Neutral)
Passive ; (Semi-Colon)
Attack My Target = (equal)
Attack This Target . (period)
Starting Game
Managing the Size of the ARK Save Folder- Listed prominently in this guide, but can be dealt with later. As time goes by with solo game saves, the Saved Game folder will grow dramatically reaching 2.5GB or more.
Look in the Steam>SteamApps>Common>ARK>ShooterGame>Saved>SavedArkslocal folder. Initially you will notice 5 files in this folder- LocalPlayer.arkprofile, LocalPlayer.profilebak, TheIsland.ark, TheIsland_AntiCorruptionBackup.bak, TheIsland_NewLaunchBackup.bak.
However as time goes by, more TheIsland.ark files will appear with dates attached to them. These extra files are old save files and can be deleted with no adverse effect on your solo game progress as long as you don’t delete TheIsland.ark file! This will substantially reduce the size of the “save” folder.
* How to Have Multiple Single Player Save States
- Listed prominently in this guide but can be dealt with later. Create a folder called something like ARK Backups outside of the Steam App folder.
- to: Steam>Steam Apps>Common>Ark>ShooterGame>Saved
- 5 Folders there: ClientPaintingsCache, Config, LocalProfiles, Logs, SavedArkslocal.
- Do this anyway you want, but as an example create a subfolder, call it Save 1, and copy these two folders to the Backup folder.
- For a fresh start, after backing up as described, delete the contents of those two folders, but keep the folders.
To restore, move the backed up files back into the game directory from where you got them.
* Starting Game- First check out options.
ARK Settings: Make some choices at the start of your solo game. These can be changed any time you start up so don’t sweat standard settings for your first time out.
Difficulty Slider-
Explanation of Local Host / server Settings Slider @Reddit.com
* Max Structure in range: The number of player built things that can be placed within a hard-coded range?
* Day cycle speed: The speed the day & night goes on, the higher the number the faster.
* Day time speed: The speed the day goes on, the higher the number the faster.
* Night time speed: The speed the Night goes on, the higher the number the faster.
* Dino damage: The damage a dino can do. The higher the number the harder a dino can do damage.
* Player damage: The damage a player can do the higher the number the harder a player can do damage.
* Structure damage:The damage a structure can take the lower the number the harder it gets to damage it.
* Player resistance: Basically a damage modifier. If you increase the slider the selected entity type will take more damage. Yes, that's right, it is counter-intuitive but higher numbers mean less resistance...poorly named sliders.
* Dino resistance: See Player Resistance.
* Structure resistance: See Player Resistance
* XP multiplier: The amount of Experience a character gets while gathering experience the higher the number the faster.
* Taming speed: The speed you tame a dino, the higher the number the faster.
* Harvest amount: Amount of resources gained per action.
* Character Water drain: The lower the number the slower a character has to drink water.
* Character food drain: The lower the number the slower a character has to eat.
* Dino character food drain: the Lower the **number the slower a character dino has to heat if you want to tame a dino do not put it on 0 it will not drain its food down.
* Character Stamina drain: The lower the number the slower a character has to recharge their stamina.(run energy)
* Dino Stamina character drain: The lower the number the slower a dino has to recharge their stamina.(run energy)
* Player character health recovery: The higher the number the faster you recover.
* Dino character health recover: the higher the number the faster dino's recover.
* Dino count: The higher the number the more dino's will be on the map.
* Harvest health: Health of trees and rocks. The higher the health, the harder to harvest.
* PvE structure decay period: The length of time a structure remains after its owner logs off. This prevents PVE servers from becoming cluttered with crap from inactive players.
Resources respawn period: ?
Options Menu
Camera Shake- Stop camera shake when big things walk by by adjusting the slider in-game under Options.
Join ARK to join a server or pick Host/Local to play Solo or...
Choose Non-Dedicated Server to invite a friend to play with you. I’m not sure what happens when you play once as solo, switch to non-dedicated server, then back to solo as far as game progress and what you still own. I assume you’ll own everything you had before, but that’s an assumption.
Create Your Character
The South Coast is reportedly the best place for newbies to start. Select this on your Character screen before launching into the action.
OK, I’m on a beautiful Island in my Undies. What do I do now?
Welcome to the brave new world. You wake up on an island in your undies, surrounded by dinosaurs and after briefly scratching at the strange icon on your wrist, you take a look around. Ooh, look at that majestic Brontosaurus! It’s beautiful and then... your world turns green and your dead....Lol. Ok It’s not that bad. Let’s proceed with basics.
If You’ve Played Other MMOs with Dangerous Critters
You’ll note these dinos have no labels that advise of their level or how dangerous they are like a red exclamation point over them. Labels will appear when you are very close to them advising of their name and level, but if they are dangerous, they will be attacking you at that point. Remember you are in a starter zone, so it’s not going to be instant death, but you won’t have to wander far before things get even more dangerous than where you started.
Stay on the beach at first because there you have view range. Bad things can hide obscured by the bushes and rocks.
Have a Drink but don’t swim if you can help it
There likely will be water near by. Resist the temptation to take a dip, unless it’s absolutely necessary. Carnivore type fish called Megapiranha, if they get your scent, will kill you in a couple of chomps. Is it possible to swim across a body of water and not die? It’s a 50-50 proposition. However you can go stand in the water and press E to take a drink. Later you can research and make a waterskin (Level 3) to haul some water with you, but it’s basically one drink and over time it leaks. “E” is your friend!
Harvest Berries
* If you are by bushes, press “E” to harvest berries. As far as I know these are mostly edible. Dont’ eat Narcoberries because they put you to sleep. Berreis will mostly increase your hydration and offer some food value. Note on the Inventory page (I), on the bottom right are your stats including hunger and hydration.
* Collecting- Spam E- walk around hitting E and you’ll grab all sorts of stuff. However, if you are looking for something specific like fiber, you’ll miss a lot of it by running. Stop at a plant and E it until it falls apart to get all it has to give.
Avoid Small Upright Dinos Until You Plan on Taming One
You might turn around and come face to face with a Parasaur. Don’t faint, they are big, like 9’ tall with a ridge on their head, but harmless. But steer clear of any smallish upright dinos, called Dilophosaurs made famous in Jurassic Park, (the Movie), the one that spit on and then ate Dennis Nedry in his jeep. If by chance your world turns green, you got spit on, run like hell (hold the Shift Key) until you get your vision back. It takes about 5 sec to regain vision.
Your Map
Get out the Map (M), you may have to use your mouse scroll button to see what’s on the map. Mark the map as to where you started by selecting (P), eyeball the map and mark your Latitude (up and down) and Longitude (left/right) and give it an easy name. So you’ll have no doubt where your starting point was after your DEAD, lol.
The thing to know is that the marker goes where ever you tell it to go, so if you mess up your coodinates, the marker could be anywhere. Later in the game there is a GPS which makes things easier.The Grim Reaper
Before launching your character, the first order of business if you have not all ready done this is come to terms with the fact that you will die... a lot. When this happens, choose a random respawn location (until later when you get a bed).
If and when you think you may die, get out into the open so if you have stuff want to retrieve, you’ll be able to find your body. Note that after a relatively short period of time, you body disappears and is replaced by a backpack. But that too eventually disappears. If you were running frantically though the bushes when you expired, good luck finding your body. As a rule avoid dying in the water. It can be especially tough finding your body/backpack in the water and when carnivores fish are close by.
Run From The Bugs!
Some of the most lethal and dangerous critters in this game to a low level player are the ants and the dragonflys. They bite and sting. At least you can run from the ants, but it seems that when you slight a dragonfly by appearing around a carcass it has claimed, it and a swarm will chase you for miles. Sure, try to whack it and see how long it takes and if you manage to survive the encounter. If desperate, escape insects by diving under water but stay in the shallows.
Having trained a group of Dilo guard dogs on occasion, I have done well by crouching in my pack and letting them take care of these flying hazards. If you run, you are exposed and your pack won’t nearly be as effective killing them. But I’ve been in situations where I have both ants and dragonflies attacking me simultaneously- very very bad.
Engrams Rule!
There are no quests in ARKO. Virtually everything you do is guided by Engrams which can be accessed on the Inventory Page (I) along with Character info. On the right side of the page Engrams can be selected for learning. Over on the left of this page is an inventory section and a crafting section which if clicked on at the top, shows what Engrams have been learned. Down at the bottom is a hot bar. You can drag weapons here, and Engrams. If you press and hold the mouse button on an Engram in the hotbar, it will show you what you need to make it and what you have or don’t have (green or red).
* Important Emgram Milestones
Spear L2
Campfire L2
Thatch Foundation L2
Storage Box L5
Narcotic L5
Parasaur Saddle L10- Note the Founder Parasaur Saddle Skin is just a skin to make the saddle look pretty. You still have to build the saddle. Same for the fancy Founder Hat if you have one.
Hide Clothing L15
Bow L15
Wood Fence Foundation L15
- Large Storage Bin L15
- Raptor Saddle L15
- Trike Saddle L20
- Tranquilizer Arrow L20
- Stego Saddle L30
Make a Tool/Weapon
Make a Stone Pick. This is not intuitive but punch a palm tree until you have gotten 1 stone, 1 wood, and 10 thatch. Run around pressing “E” and you will pick up a stone. Select the Stone Pick Engram in your list of Engrams and research it, or put the Stone Pick Enram into your hot bar and click it to create a pick. if the Engram is in the hot bar, this is not the pick. You have to open inventory and move the pick from Inventory into the hot bar which btw is also an inventory slot.
Once you have a the Pick make a Stone Hatchet. Note that there is a primary resource created by using the pick on boulders, which creates mostly flint and some rock. In contrast the Hatchet used on boulders creates mostly rocks and some flint.
Underwear is sexy but not the best for long term survival
Now you are on your way. You’ll feel really good when you make your first pair of pants! Research clothing, gather fiber from plants along with the berries. Note, clothing and all gear degrades as time goes by. Periodically check your stuff and repair it. Clothng must be unequipped to be repaired.
Give Me Steak!
You can kill Dodos to harvest Meat and Hide. Note the Hatchet will harvest more Hide and the Pick harvests more Meat. Good luck with the Parasaurs and Phiomias. Whack them and they will bolt, but you are strategic and lucky, you’ll get on their opposite side from some large rocks and when hit them, they will bolt and possible get hung up in the rocks. Note: ARK has a lot of pathing issues and animals getting stuck in rocks and trees and even half way in the ground. You can almost plan on it and use that when hunting.
You can eat Raw Meat in a pinch, but it lowers your health by -5 for every piece you eat. This stat is recovered over time. Raw Meat spoils in 10 min. Mostly eat berries until you research a Campfire (L2) The Fire needs both wood and fresh meat to be put in it and it is ignited by pressing “E”. Then relish some Cooked Meat. Note that cooked meat spoils in 20 min, however, for all perishable items, a game mechanic allows one piece of a particular item to spoil at a time. So if you have a stack of 20 cooked steaks, you’ll lose only 1 every 20 min.! Spoiled Meat has value for making narcotics. If you need more spoiled meat faster, separate it into stacks of 1.
Storage and Shelter
Research a Storage Box. Research and build a Thatch Hut, starting with the Thatch Foundation (L2)Note that for many items if you change your mind and demolish something, you may not get the resources back. Hint, a Door Frame is place before the Door is attached and you must be in first person view (mouse scroll) to attach the door.
You Need Protection. Plan on Taming Diloposauruses ASAP- See Taming Section.
Fauna, Flora, World Links
Gamepedia.com World Map At this link you can create a private map.
ARK Creatures List
ARK Dinosaur List
Crumplecorn.com Taming link: To calculate taming time. Note, you must take into consideration server setting. Is taming set to 1.0 or 3.0?
Spam E- walk around hitting E and you’ll grab all sorts of stuff. But to get all there is to get out of a plant, stand there and harvest until the plant falls apart.
* How Much Do You need? Put a recipe for in your tool bar and holding the number for that slot down shows how much of each ingredient is needed. After you make the item, open Inventory (I) and drag the actual item to toolbar to use it.
Primary/secondary Harvesting- Axe gets more wood than thatch from a tree, more stone than flint from a rock, more hide from a dino. Pick gets more thatch, more flint, and more meat.
Dino Inventory- To drop, hover over item and press “o”.
* The Gathering Grind
Fibers and Berries - Plants, not trees. Tamed herbivore can be used to harvest berries by left clicking on plant while your riding the beast.
Meat and Hide - Gathered from all dead creatures.
Thatch and Wood - Gathered from trees by punching, pick, hatchet, or some dinos. Punching, picks, and dinos like Trikes and Brontos get more Thatch than Wood. Hatchet and Mammoths get more Wood.
Flint and Stone - Gathered from rocks by pick, hatchet, or some dinos. Get more Flint using picks and dinos like Anklyo. Get more Stone by using the hatchet or picking it up off the ground.
Chitin and Keratin - Chitin is gathered from various creatures like Spiders and Scorpions while Keratin is gathered from others like Carbonemys, Stegos, and Trikes. Using a Hatchet or creature like the Sabertooth will get you more of both.
Metal and Obsidian - Metal from rocks with gold streaks or solid gold, usually found on mountains and in caves. Use a metal pick or Anklyo to get more Metal. Metal makes metal ingots. Obsidian is gathered from smooth black rocks found in the same places and harvested the same as Metal. Obsidian is mainly used in the Fabricator to craft other materials like Polymers.
Silica Pearls and Oil - Pearls are gathered by hand while Oil is gathered most effectively by pick. Both are found underwater, Pearls only at the bottom and in caves, Oil at medium to deep waters and in caves. Pearls are used for crafting things like the Spino Saddle and Electronics. Oil is used to craft some items, used in the preserving bin along with Sparkpowder to turn Cooked Meat into Jerky, or combined with Hide in a Refinery to make Gasoline. Gas in needed to run things like the Electrical Generator and Fabricator.
Plants
*This may change as the game advances, but right now, there is no rhyme or reason to what kind of berries come off of which plants. (Aug 2015)MejoBerry- Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Parasaur, Carbonemys, Phiomia, Brontosaurus, Gigantopithecus
Narcoberry- put you to sleep and make black die with it.
Making Narcotics- When you learn how to make Narcotics, you will not end up with a building engram like you have for items like clothing or weapons. After you build a mortar and pedestal, you’ll find the recipe there in a drug folder. Place the items for the recipe into the Motar, for Narcotics, at a ratio of 5 Narcoberrys per 1 spoiled meat. Double click the recipe folder, the recipe for Narcotics should appear, click or double click that and you will make narcotics!
What do Herbavores like to eat? I tamed a Parasaur and I put in a variety of berries. It ate all the MejoBerrys first!
Using Dinos to harvest berries: All the berry eaters can harvest. When by a plant or tree, Left Click and your beast will harvest. The goods end up in it’s inventory. My understanding is the Trike and Stego are the best. They can fight. Parasaurs, I know when I attack them, they run. Now that I can ride one, I may try to see if it can fight something small.
*Pro Tip: Increasing your harvesters melee damage, increases their yields when they harvest stuff. Higher Melee damage = increased loot
Crafting Building Stuff
Emgrams- Crafting Recipes gained through progression.
Equipment
All equipment degrades over time. Be sure you keep a regular eye on your gear. It would not be smart to start a taming cycle if your slingshot is at 10% health.
Quick Repair- If it breaks, select the number of the item in your toolbar to repair if the required materials are in your inventory.
*Craft tools quickly- after you make it once hold left shift and the number of the item in your toolbar to make again.
Simple Bed- can be renamed through the radial action menu. This will make it easier to sort through multiple beds when selecting a respawn or fast-travel location.
* Hide Sleeping Bag Appears on Map, can be used to mark a location, resource heavy, and can only be used once.
Motar & Pedestal
Mortar & Pestle plus recipes
* Water Skin- Stand in water and hit E key to fill it up. It slowly depletes and as far as I know shows no fill level. Select it in the hotbar to use it.
* Building
First Person View: Some items like doors, chests, beds, require you to be in first person view.
Dino Corral- Level 20 unlocks foundation to place fence.
Upgrading a Building- No need to disassemble a structure. Parts can be upgraded in place by placing new part (wood) over the original thatch part.
Lighten your load by building components in your inventory before you take them home. This makes no sense really, but it works.
Taming/Pets
Transponder Tracker and Node (15July 2015)
Tame an Ape:
Heads Up- Already discussed possilbly long taming times at top of guide.
* Beginner Taming In A Nutshell
- When first starting out, taming consists of knocking an animal out with Slingshot ideally, or fists, then feeding it meat (carnavore) or berries (herbavore), and drugging it with narco berries or narcortics, until it’s tame. Hopefully you recognize the danger of trying to whack a carnivore on the nose with your first while it’s trying to kill you.
- Crumplecorn.com Taming link: To calculate taming time and quantities. Note the multiplier to account for server/solo game settings.
- For Berry Eaters That Bolt- The Parasaurs and Phiomias can be maneuvered so when they bolt they get hung up in the rocks so a few more whacks with the slingshot and they will be out.
Animal Inventory: Note, this is not intuitive as a new player, but all animals have an inventory, kind of like a built in backpack. They can carry items there, and they can access food you’ve given them from their inventory. While they are knocked out, they can eat the meat you’ve placed in their inventory automatically. Every so often their head will raise off the ground and they’ll make a little chompy, gulpy sound. If you go check there will be less one meat in their inventory. This is not intuitive either, but feeding them narcotics and drugging them during the taming process is accomplished by placing a bowl of narcotics in their inventory, selecting it (by clicking on it) and choosing “remote use”. (in their inventory). This feeds it to the animal. Review all the steps before you try to tame.
* Taming Steps
- In Advance: Learn the Mortar and Pedestal and Narcotics Engram. Mix up your narcotics. made in the Mortar and Pedestal using spoiled meat and narcoberries at a ratio of 5 berries to 1 spoiled meat.
- Step 1: Locate the animal and knock it out preferably with a slingshot, although my understanding, it’s possible to do so with your fists, (which may be a challenge for a Dilophosaurus that is fighting you).
- Step2: Open the animals inventory (E key), placing Fresh Meat (5 pieces) and 1 Container of Narcotics
- Close the Animal’s Inventory and step back until you see a blue box by the animal. There will be a purple Toper Bar, and a brown Taming Bar. The Taming Bar should go up, the Torper Bar will slowly come down........
- When the toper level drops to 50% add more narcotics. n the animals inventory, select the Narcotics container, and select “remote use” to put this into the animals. syste.
Taming Note 1: For a low level tame, in a pinch you can use the sling shot to whack a stone off their heads to keep their torper up. However this slows the taming process, the resulting damage (more so than using narcotics or narco berries reduces the number of levels they will gain during the tame, and probably won’t work for higher levels without a lot of extra meat. I used the whack method on a L3 Dilo.
Taming Note 2: When out in the world taming while accompanied by tamed dinos, this can present a challenge. The process of taming by knocking down a dino with tranquilizer arrows, is an attack. If the pets with you are in “neutral” or “attack your target” mode, they will attack the animal you want to tame. Your taming target will end up dead, not good!
Unfortunately the only method I’ve seen of controlling this is to put them into passive mode. The caution is that if you must keep track of your tamed dinos. If they are attacked they won’t fight back and will eventually die. Recently I allowed a L100 Trike die in this fashion. Once things got out of my control, I should have returned to me tamed pets immediately and put them on “neutral”.
- Taming Alternative Strategy, Picking Wild Dinos Up- Pteradons can pick up Dilophosauruses and people for transport. Dilophosaurus’s are not that hard to tame so you probably won’t go to the trouble of snagging them with Pteradons. But the Argentavis can pick up Raptors. You’ll find that Raptors are so fast it’s very hard to knock them out while they are attacking you, until you get the higher stun gun. Players will use the Argentavis to go snag a Raptor and drop it into a taming pen, in a safe location. They they can easily drug and tame it. Note: Being able to pick up wild dinos is a server setting. Depending on the server, you may not be able to pick up wild dinos, but I believe in the solo game it’s on by default.
* Dilophosaurus- At standard server settings: Need: Min 34Narco , min 4 fresh meats, and a Slingshot.
- Dilophosaurus- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilophosaurus The first good fighter. 6 of these at low levels is a huge help.
* Ride a Dino Make a saddle and put it into the tamed dino’s inventory saddle slot. If you have a founder’s saddle, that is just a skin that can be applied to a Parasaur saddle.
* Gathering Resources while Riding a Dino Herbavores collect things like berries, thatch, or wood. Carnivores gather meat, hides, and other misc items. Whether meat , wood, or berries, they are more efficient at it, than you are. When riding left click on the item or critter you want to attack, if it’s a bush, you’ll collect plant materials.
Taming Videos
Tame a TRex:
Hunting, Fighting Critters
*Diloposaurus- They spit. Drop back zigging and zagging, when they stop and expand their hoods strafe sideways.
*Pack Hunting- If you are low level and hunting with a tamed dino like a Dilo or a pack of Dilos, while the target is being attacked, if you also attack, ideally with a spear or ranged weapon, my experience is that it will turn to face you. If you keep it’s attention, without taking too much damage, your dino{s) will less likely be killed. If the target is a Trike, avoid the horns.
*Torpor- Some creatures will increase your torpor which is represented by a small stars icon above your EXP meter on the right and a purplish border on your screen. If this increases too much you will be knocked unconscious and unable to do anything. Torpor also rises when you attack when out of stamina.
- Where there is one Raptor or Dilo, there most likely are 2 more right behind it.
Maps and Mods
Add an Alternate Map- Log into Steam, ARK, select Steam Workshop. In the category list, pick maps. When you click on a map, a checkmark will appear and will download into your game.
However if you are playing solo games, loading in an alternate map, and creating a new character will alter your Local Player profile, wiping your character progress in the initial map. At least this happened to me.
To prevent this occurrence, BE SURE to backup your Saved Game files in the Saved: SavedArksLocal as follows: LocalPlayer.arkprofile, LocalPlayer.profilebak, TheIsland.ark, TheIsland_AntiCorruptionBackup.bak, and TheIsland_NewLaunchBackup.bak, and store in a save place.
Cheating
I won’t judge you. This is a game, do what’s fun and if that includes shortcuts so be it. Too much effort can be lost and the bottom line this is a game, not some test of manhood.
One thing I can’t abide by is not having a backup. This can be accomplished in the solo game. Most of this can’t be done as a player on a server, unless you are an Admin.Consol Commands
Advanced Game Commands-
How to Have Multiple Single Player Save States- This is not cheating imo. See more in the Starting Game Section.
* Admin Sever Commands
To use the Admin Commands, Logging in as Admin: Hit “tab” key, or whatever you have bound your console key to and type> enablecheats <password>, example = enablecheats 123
* ARK Spectator Command- cheat enablespectator
* Need Something in Particular? Ark.Gamepedia.com Data Values
Open the console with “tab”. To give an item : " admincheat GiveItemNum <item_id> <quantity (1/100)> <quality (0/100)> <blueprint (1/0)> " Example from the link: GiveItemNum 1 1 1 0 will give you Simple Pistol and GiveItemNum 1 1 1 1 will give you blueprint of Simple Pistol. Not sure but for getting the blueprint, I’m thinking that 0= false, and 1= true in the above example.
Give me some drugs man! I don’t care for that description. For the above, you need a space between each number. Try this- to get ten Narcotics, (Item no.123) you type this command into the consol: GiveItemNum 123 10 100 false (explanation: item 123, space, quantity: 10, space, quality: 100, space, type: false)
Now I’ve not done enough experimentation with this so quality may not apply to narcotics and maybe “false” does nothing and it’s the 1 or the 0 that counts as the last part of the command above asking or not asking for an item blueprint.
- Gives Yourself 50 of all Resources> giveresources First enable cheats (above) by logging in as Admin. Press Tab and typ in command giveresources <return>.
This 50 resources command might not be as helpful as you think, it does not include food like narcoberries, it will encumber you, and just maybe I don’t know the full capabilities of how it could work.
As I’ve used it, I need to be in front of an empty cabinet or I have to dump a lot of it on the ground before I can move.- No Item Number use this: Giveitem <blueprint_path> <quantity (1/100)> <quality (0/100)> <blueprint (1/0)
For example to get a metal Railing use this command:
Giveitem "Blueprint'/Game/PrimalEarth/CoreBlueprints/Items/Structures/Metal/PrimalItemStructure_MetalRailing.PrimalItemStructure_MetalRailing'" 1 100 1, where 1= quantity, 100= quality, 1= blueprint yes. No ID item info found at: http://ark.gamepedia.com/Entity_IDs
Give Yoursel BluePrints example for pistol use path from ID page: giveItem "Blueprint'/Game/PrimalEarth/CoreBlueprints/Weapons/PrimalItem_WeaponGun.PrimalItem_WeaponGun'" 1 1 0
Tranq Dart "Blueprint'/Game/PrimalEarth/CoreBlueprints/Weapons/PrimalItemAmmo_TranqDart.PrimalItemAmmo_TranqDart'" 40 1 0 (40 darts)
* Where is the Game User Settings ini file? Used to alter settings in the game. If you are concerned, make a backup copy of this file before altering any settings.
- Find it here: \Steam\steamapps\common\ARK\ShooterGame\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor
Difficulty Offset> Set to 4 for higher level dinos. It should be reflected on the Difficulty Slider- After setting this use the cheat destroywilddinos after you change the setting.
Taming SpeedMultiplier> To speed up taming which for a high level dino at default settings can take 6-10 hrs as has been reported, change the value from 1.000000 to 6.000000 or 10.000000.
Summon a Creature-http://ark.gamepedia.com/Entity_IDs
* Breeding
-https://www.reddit.com/r/playark/comments/3p3i2x/faster_breeding_in_singleplayer/
You can adjust the settings below in the Game.ini file located in
steamapps\common\ARK\ShooterGame\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor
New Server Game.ini configurable values (copy and paste into game.ini):
[/script/shootergame.shootergamemode]
MatingIntervalMultiplier=1.0
EggHatchSpeedMultiplier=1.0
BabyMatureSpeedMultiplier=1.0
Info:
MatingIntervalMultiplier (reduce to allow mating more often)
EggHatchSpeedMultiplier (Increase to speed up hatching)
BabyMatureSpeedMultiplier (Increase to speed up growth)
Edit: I also have Dino Food Drain turned way down, which may be making my babies eat a lot less as well. All I know is they don't seem to eat much at all.
End of Cheating
... Complete Guide with links at My Google Drive. <- link broken.
Updated 20 Apr 16
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