Ark: Survival Evolved - Dinos and Leveling Survival Game

And YAY, I just tamed a Dodo…kind of useless but Yay!

Well i started on that server, died 5 times already trying to get off the coast. Good start!

So considering the thousand or so survival sims, would you guys recommend me this one? Which ones are the good ones? I haven’t really messed around that much with the genre. It would be cool to know some people in-game, though. It’s definitely a plus.

So far it has really sucked me in, part of that is the dinosaurs, they are just amazing. I have not played very many survival sims as most of them seem to be zombie focused which just isn’t my thing so I can’t really compare it to other offerings.

As an aside, fuck those scorpions…I killed it but it put me to sleep, or something. I could barely see anything, but I was alert. I could hear thundering footsteps coming my way, I knew I was in trouble but there was nothing I could do. And then it happened, I don’t know what it was but whatever it was it was massive and it stepped on me and crushed me, at least I think, I didn’t get the sense that anything was biting me.

One thing that I really appreciate is the minimalist map. It doesn’t show anything but the general terrain that you’ve visited. Not even a “you are here” marker. And there’s no minimap. And if you fast travel (which requires crafting beds for your departure and arrival points) you can’t take anything with you. Maybe some of that is due to features that just haven’t been added yet, but I sure hope not.

Apparently there is GPS and other stuff you can craft that should help with that.

It frustrated me in the beginning, but after I got used to it I decided I wouldn’t have it any other way. I also like the lack of place names. People come up with their own descriptions.

The only thing I really feel is missing is chat channels, including local and private. Even the (apparent) total lack of story doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

Anyone got any newbie tips, ive run round abit like a headless prehistoric chicken and punched a few trees etc.

Punch trees and pick plants to get thatch, wood and fiber. Collect stones on the beach and from there make a stone pick. Then pick away at some boulders to get flint and more stone to make a stone hatchet. Then use the hatchet on trees to get mostly wood, use the pick on trees to get mostly thatch and start “researching” the baseline structures to build a starting house. My starting point gets really cold at night and if I don’t stay in my house with a campfire lit I will freeze to death.

Berries starting out make a great food source, just don’t eat the narco berries.

Also don’t eat the stim berries, you will dehydrate.

Ooh thanks alot peeps.

Once you have your first saddle (The first researchable one is for the pig type creature) you have to knock the dino unconscious, then open their inventory and give them food. If it is an herbivore than you feed it berries, if it is a carnivore then feed it meat. Use narcoberries to keep it unconscious. It can take a very long time, I want to say it took about 10 minutes to fully tame the pig type dino. As such make sure you have plenty of narcoberries on hand.

To knock something out you have to punch it or use the slingshot, at least so far that is the only way I know of.

How much berries did you use to tame the pig? I tried but it seems i didnt’ have enough.

Last night I was bored and browsing around Twitch. Some guy was riding a brontosaurus type dinosaur. Every few seconds he would swipe his tail and the game would automatically collect everything it knocked over. Like 200 items at a time.

Is this what you people are trying to achieve? Turn back now!!

Join us Tim James! You know you want to!

Hrmm, I believe I ended up using about 200 - 300 regular berries and about 40 narcoberries. My taming efficiency was only around 25%, not sure what that is or how it is determined.

It was a level 3 female if it matters…I know I have seen the pig dinos as high as lvl 23 so the higher level is likely harder to tame.

well I managed to build a hut made of thatch and put a camp fire outside it, blocked in by 3 big stones. Made level 5 now I need some hide so I can build a catapult and a bed. Saw what looked like a Spineasaurus over teh water on the other side. My area is warm and very sunny and being indoors seems to keep me warm enough.

What do people do at night time without a man / woman, pc or tv or even a book.

Explore with a torch!

At night I do very minimal foraging and building while carrying a torch. I can only get away with this because I know my current neighborhood very, very well after numerous forage runs. When I run out of things to do, I just stand in my hut and look out my window at a small island to the SE that I hope one day to make my dream home. I suppose exploring randomly could be fun, haven’t done that yet. :)

Only other newbie tips I have are:

[ul]
[li]Make clothes early on, and each time you die. They help with the elements, and you’ll look more dignified. Too many players are running around in their undies.[/li][li]Your body remains in the game while you are logged out. If you are on a PVE server, it is just as vulnerable as your base is.[/li][li]Time of day in the game is indicated under the Character Stats section of Inventory screen.[/li][li]Don’t worry too much about your possessions, hut or settlement spot in the early levels, as you’ll likely lose stuff (and your life) over and over again while you get your bearings and level a bit.[/li][li]When leveling, I’ve personally been going with fortitude, then a bit of health, then movement speed and then stamina. Fortitude is often overlooked, I think. It helps you resist extreme temperatures and other various effects on the body from the environment.[/li][li]When dev’s announce impending patches in chat, head to your hut and close the door at the appointed time, but don’t wait around to see the server going down, as they are often (in my experience) late.[/li][/ul]

A catapult??

Regarding the 3 big stones, be sure to check that they are indestructible. I did exactly what you described and spent a huge amount of effort on a wood house, and then someone came along and removed the boulders that I thought couldn’t be removed, and my house was left totally exposed. I ended up moving it again.

Edit: Removed base pics due to Rick Grimes level paranoia.

Since it’s not safe for lone wolf players to settle near water in PVP due to visibility, my house is pretty far away from the nearest water source. I thought about piping water in, but you can’t hide a pipeline. I could build a water tank, but I won’t have any metal until I make an expedition out to the mountains. So I decided to create a pipeline and have it culminate somewhere a bit closer.

Worrying about vandalism, I came up with the idea of making it a public water works available to everyone in the immediate region. But I didn’t anticipate dino vandalism. At first I thought it was humans who kept destroying my pipeline, but no, I saw a tricerotops wander through and break it. When humans walk through an irrigation pipe, they just clip through. Maybe dinos don’t like me ruining their nice beach. So I had to raise the height to allow larger dinos through.

Unfortunately, I didn’t think about brontos.

This forced me to move the intake further into the water and increase the elevation. The pipeline would now be so high up in the air that I had to create scaffolding. This was beginning to grow more complex than I’d planned. So I decided to give the project a friendly name. Gotta love public relations.