ARK is going to fully release on August 29th. I will be starting a new server using the Ragnarok map at that time. More details as we get closer to that date.
It’s been a YEAR since ARK first hit early access, can you believe that? The game is now scheduled for release in late 2016. And yet, the devs keep updating the game and it’s evolved over time, with more coming!
Me over the last six months or so....
The Server is LIVE!
PA Server Details
The Center: [PA] A Dinosaur is its Own Reward - 173.234.24.170:27024
Scorched Earth: [PA] The Hideous Daystar - 173.234.24.170:27027
Browser links if those don't work:
Paste these into your browser, should add them to your favorites.
steam://connect/173.234.24.170:27024
steam://connect/173.234.24.170:27027
Passwords are the usual.
You will need to download this free DLC as well.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/473850/
Scorched Earth players will need to buy the Expansion.
Scorched Earth is optional.http://store.steampowered.com/app/512540/
Discord info:
https://discord.gg/jrUGGvMSeason Two
Season Two is happening because the old island had gotten crowded with ruins, and frankly had become more expensive than it needed to be for the amount of regulars we have.
@WickedKarma is to be commended for keeping it running this long.
As I am FAR too invested in this game (seriously I dunno why I am so obsessed with it) I decided to see if, a year later, I could find some better deals on server hosting. I have found that. I will be running this new server for at least this next year or so, and hopefully it will meet our needs.
New Map
Along with this new server, we’re switching to a new map! Specifically, The Center.
https://youtu.be/BU7ydI1N1No
This map was made for a recent modding contest and is really interesting, if a bit less ‘natural’ that the traditional island.
Scorched Earth
I've set us up a Scorched Earth server! Enjoy the same ARK gameplay you love in a more unforgiving desert biome filled with dragons and shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot_NIoBE0j8Events
To keep people active, I’ll be running events, about 1-2 of them a month. I’ll be asking Tribes/Teams to build things, race things, etc… against each other to compete for fabulous prizes! Some of which are only possible via admin powers. See further in the thread for details!
Server Rules
In short, don’t be a jerk. Don’t troll people. Don’t block resource spawns with foundations. Don’t block access to caves or drops. Don’t get weird and creative and force me to come up with more rules.
Tips for new Survivors
The Basics
-Remember: you're going to die, a lot.
-In ARK, when you die you lose any items you are carrying. You can recover them if you can reach your corpse before it despawns in 15 minutes. If your body was eaten by a carnivore, a backpack will be left behind with the same timer. Levels gained and engrams learned are never lost on death.
-Stats allow you to customize your survivor any way you like to play but the top recommend ones are health, stamina, weight and melee damage. Later on you'll want fortitude to better survive the more extreme locations like mountains and the snow biome. Feel free to experiment because there is a high level cooking recipe to allow you to reset all your stats and engrams.
-What are engrams? They are the various recipes you unlock with your engram points you earn every level. To start you'll want:
-Stone Axe
-Camp Fire
-Spear
-Cloth Armor
-Water Skin
-Slingshot
-Bow
-Arrow
-Thatch foundations/walls/roofs/etc.
-Sleeping bag and then eventually the bed. (These act as spawn points instead of having to spawn in a randomly selected area after a death. The former is single use while the latter has a 5 minute cooldown)
-Narcotic
-Narcotic Arrows
Quite a few people want to specialize in something to help out the server. Please feel free to pick what ever YOU enjoy doing the most. We have blueprints that allow us to make dang near everything thing and we have enough people that we can cover the gaps so feel free to do what you enjoy the most!
General info:
- Press E to pick up stones from beaches, or berries and fiber from plants.
- Your basic harvesting tools are your bare hands. Punching trees hurts, so craft tools as soon as possible.
- Hatchets harvest hide, stones, and wood; Picks harvest meat, flint, and thatch.
- Try to keep your meat in stacks and not separated so you get less spoiled meat. The spoiler timer will only affect 1 in a stack and then reset. For even less spoilage, place items in a dino's inventory (assuming they won't eat it), or better yet a preserving bin or refrigerator.
- If trying to get spoiled meat for crafting narcotics split meat into single stacks (ctrl + click + drag) so they spoil much faster.
- Raw meat stacks to 20 but cooked meat stacks to 30! Spoiled meat stacks to 100 (Bleh!)! Maximize your fridge space!
- Pressing Q while the inventory is open will hide/show the item name and description overlay on items.
- Holding the H key (default) will display advanced information on the HUD (such as what certain status effects mean)
- Hover your mouse over an item and press O to drop and item. Press T to transfer it to another inventory you currently have open
- It is a great idea to build a large storage chest and dump everything into when you log out for the night/go on vacation, so if you die you wont actually lose your stuff.
- You can quickly repair an item by hitting its assigned quickslot button (assuming you have the required materials).
- Greyed out items on the quickslot bar can be crafted by merely hitting its button (assuming you have the required materials) while holding that button will display what you're missing.
- You can also quickly create an additional item if you hold alt while hitting its assigned quickslot button.
- When building a shelter, you can become encumbered very quickly with wood. Instead of running to your shelter and sorting everything out, make whatever components you can in the field as it severely lessens your weight, allowing you to stay out collecting for longer. A stack of wood weighs in at 50 however wood walls weigh 4 each.
- There are three (3) Obelisks on the island: Blue in the northwest, Red in the southwest, and Green in the southeast. Use them to upload dinos you want to save for later, store inventory items you can access from any Obelisk or even survivor data. If you start in singleplayer you can use this way to import your survivor to our server and bring any legitimately tamed dinos over. Also the Obelisks make great landmarks to get your orientation before you can make a compass or GPS.
- The other pillars of light are supply drops but you need to be the right level to open them: White-Lvl3, Green-Lvl15, Blue-Lvl25, Purple-Lvl35, Gold-Lvl45, Red-Lvl60. White and Green tend to have general supplies while Blue and higher have blueprints to fill in your engram gaps.
Taming Basics
There are two taming methods: violent and non-violent. The kind used depends on the dino but most of them are violent.
Violent taming
Great basic video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYtDbu8wCbI
The steps:
Knock the dino unconscious.
-This requires you to raise a dino's torpor to the point it falls down, after which its name tag will show it is unconscious and you can access its inventory.
-There are a variety of ways to raise torpor: by punching the animal in the head, using a club, aiming for the head with a slingshot, or shooting the animal with Tranquilizer Arrows (preferred) or Tranquilizer Darts (more expensive but best). Lastly, Scorpions, Frogs, and Spiders melee attacks raise torpor over time.
-Torpor gain is based on the method used and damage done. Low damage methods (fists, club, slingshot) encourage aiming for the head for the higher torpor gain. Higher damage methods from using Bow and Crossbows with Tranq Arrows (drag the arrows on to the weapon you wish to use to switch ammo) or a Longneck Rifle with Tranq Darts should perform headshots sparingly or not at all to avoid killing the dino. Tranq arrows take 5 seconds to fully dispense their torpor gain so counting out that time before hitting it with another arrow is best to not lower its health too low.
Feed the unconscious dino till it loves you.
-Open the dino's inventory and feed it an appropriate food item by dragging food into its inventory.
-The food needed to tame it will depend on the dinosaur. Carnivores = Meat; Herbivores = Berries
-Keep plenty of food in the animal's inventory while the taming bar fills up (
IMPORTANT: If they ever lack food in their inventory before the taming is complete the taming bar will swiftly start to decrease. Always keep some sort of food on it till it is complete.
-They eat food voluntarily as long as it's in their inventory. Don't worry about using an excess of food, as once the animal is tamed you can access the food in its inventory.
-Every time the animal raises its head to eat, the Taming bar increases. They feed every time their hunger falls 30 points (for herbivores) and 50 points (for carnivores) below their max. This also depends on the food they are eating.
-Don't force feed them anything (it won't speed up their timing) except Narcoberries / Narcotics to keep them unconscious. Select the Narcoberries /Narcotics in the dino's inventory and then press Remote Use Item located under their inventory grid to do this.
-The Unconscious bar is tied to the animal's torpor, and slowly falls as the torpor decreases. It will increase when the animal is fed Narcotics or Narcoberries.
Non-violent taming
The only dinos that currently use this are: Icthyosaurus (dolphin), Ape, Monkey, Spider and Bat
Feed the concious dino till it love you
-Equip the proper food to feed the dino in your 0 (zero) slot and approach it. Press E to feed it. For Spider and Bat tames you need to have the
Bug Repellent item on.
-Wait till it is hungry again and feed it. For Icthys this is easy since they are a curious dino and very friendly. For monkeys and apes, approaching too close or staying near for too long has a chance of alarming them. This causes the monkeys to flee and apes to attack you. Don't approach often and when you do approach from behind the dino, this seems to have a smaller chance of alarming it.
-Repeat until the taming bar is filled.
Posts
This time around we’re going to add a few mods to make things interesting. I am going to start with just a few and slowly add more over time. I am also going to be fairly conservative with mods because it’s more stuff we have to update every release, and every mod is a potential crash or gameplay issue waiting to happen. I would highly recommend that you try not to store everything you own in or on mod-created items, in case that mod has to be removed later. Seriously. Mod creators can pull their stuff off the store at any time and suddenly our game might stop working if they do. Keep your important stuff in and on vanilla items.
I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. We’re running mods on a player made, custom map that is being 'officialized' by the devs. Bugs are gonna happen. Dinos may vanish or other weirdness. We may need to delay updates to a new patch until mods update. Be aware of that. If something does go horribly wrong, I have server backups and admin powers to try to restore balance. But things may go wrong and you need to know that going in. It’s a risk we’re taking.
We’re running the following mods on the server that you should be aware of:
Bridges
Metal and Glass Set
Stairs with Rounded Walls
Pillars Plus
Pipes-N-Cables
Taming Sedative
Death Helper
Snappy Saddles
Light Controller
Platforms Plus
Structures Plus
Pet Finder
GateMod
The server will install the mods for you when you first log in, but to save time, you can install them yourself beforehand. I also have a couple for admin use.
Server Settings:
The Center: Taming - 5x, Dino Hunger - 1x
Scorched Earth: Taming - 5x, Dino Hunger - 1x
Hatching - 5x
Baby Maturation - 5x
Mating Interval - 5x
Max Level Wild Dino - 150
XP - 3x
Harvesting - 1.5x
Imprinting - Anyone can interact, all other settings currently default until I can figure out what the hell to do with them.
Decay Rates:
Wood Tier Decay - Demolish Timer at 35 days, auto-demolished at 105 days
Stone Tier Decay - Demolish Timer at 70 days, auto-demolished at 210 days
Metal Tier Decay - Demolish Timer at 105 days, auto-demolished at 315 days
Scorched Earth is currently on default demolish timers. Don't be a dick.
Dino Stats:
I have not inflated dino stats to the 'pre-balancing' levels. They've balanced it as much as they are going to for now. This will mean less HP and Damage than you are used to. Please exercise caution while out hunting until you are used to the new system. I have increased dino damage from the post-nerf default by about 33%. All other stats remain at the new defaults.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
This one is real simple. I spent some time today hiding loot all over The Center. These containers should be lootable by anyone, if they aren't lemme know and I will work out something.
Some are easily spotted and glowing
Some do not glow at all
Some are extremely hidden
All contain randomized resources, randomized items, or in a few cases... specially chosen high-quality loot.
A few even have Scorched Earth items in them
Over the course of the next week or so I will be hiding more whenever I get time, but the first batch is out there.
Event #3 - Track and Field - Archived
PART ONE:
I need... lets say three teams of two players to build me a racetrack on Tropical Island North. (the island north of Blue Ob)
You can sign up here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tp6eiazhPXn-I-MQDxwUWUoj1YV3Tya2rOrnN9XHR_U/edit?usp=sharing
I'll be marking down the segments for the track tonight. Each team will build the most interesting/fun section of racetrack they can think of, with whatever materials they choose. Each segment of track should contain roughly 25% water.
Suggestions: Use flags for checkpoints, foundations, gateways, whatever, to show the racers where to go. Use ramps or bridges for elevated sections. Use the terrain features to your advantage.
This phase of the event will end Wed. the 27th, at midnight.
PRIZES:
First Place: 20 Taming Sedative, and a stack of 100 of any single building material/item they choose, and one Mastercraft BP of their choice. Each.
Second Place: 10 Taming Sedative, and a stack of 50 of any single building material/item they choose, and one Mastercraft BP of their choice. Each.
Third Place: 5 Taming Sedative, and a stack of 25 of any single building material/item they choose, and one Mastercraft BP of their choice. Each.
PART TWO:
Part Two of this event is the race itself. On Saturday the 30th, at 1pm PST, we will have a race on our newly built track. This is open to as many racers as want to participate.
Winning is obviously determined by crossing the finish line first. All racers should bring the best Parasaur they can find to race with.
PRIZES:
The First Place winner will win 30 Taming sedative, and a forcetamed Alpha Rex.
...
You heard me. More on this in a moment.
...
Second Place will win 20 Taming Sedative and an Alpha Carno.
Third Place will win 10 Taming Sedative and an Alpha Raptor.
On these Prizes - Keep in mind, that Alphas that are forcetamed will vanish the next time the server restarts. I will try to make sure that it takes at least a week before that happens, but these dinos WILL eventually vanish. The prize here is the fun of stomping around the island on an Alpha Predator. Also you might be able to breed them to get interesting colors into a bloodline, but the baby stats will be normal.
The Winners!
Build:
Rayzerdream wins both First and Third place for building two segments of track
Olivie wins Second place for her segment
Race:
First Place: Rayzerdream
Second Place: Olivie
Third Place: Cyrenic
Fourth/Honorable Mention: Binkas and Beorn
Step 1 - Tame a Phioma
Step 2 - Use paint to make it pretty
You’ve got a week. Most amusing/interesting/well painted design wins. Ties are broken by which Phioma has the highest level.
The Prizes:
Our Winners are:
Spider-Pig! - Heroth (or was it Pierceneck... I forget) wins a full dino recoloring!
Scoots! - f3rret wins two colors changed on a dino!
Pigly Wigly! - Razer wins two colors changed on a dino!
Two Pig-face! - Suti wins one color changed on a dino!
Images here: http://imgur.com/a/JcwFO
Scoots and Spider-Pig were a dead tie, so the level was used as tie breaker!
Your Goal:
Each Team is to establish themselves a Home Base for their Tribe. Find an interesting location and build yourselves a base there with the following required criteria.
A common/living area
Kitchen
Bulk Storage/warehouse
A garden or greenhouse
Barn or stables for mount parking
A workshop/blacksmith accessible via Quetz
A yard or open area for general use
Workshop should have, at minimum, a smithy, pestles, and some forges, and some storage for crafting materials. It can be indoors/covered or outdoors, as long as a quetz can land or walk into it for easy transfer of materials. Lack of ‘Industrial’ crafting stuff does not detract points, but if you plan to build it later, just leave a spot for it and let me know.
Judging will be based on both aesthetics and functionality.
Suggestions for a higher score:
Integrate the base with the terrain around you in a complementary way
Excellent Views
Enough space for tribe without seeming cavernous
Multiple building materials. Not just a colossus of only stone or metal
Not a maze, everything is easy to get to for tribe members
Expandable if more space is needed
Highly defendable
Feels like a liveable space with benches, chairs, etc...
Make your base interesting. Maybe it’s a village and everything is a separate building. Maybe it’s one big complex with a central courtyard. Maybe it’s something much different.
I want to see how pretty you can make these with the resources available to you. Add some flourish!
The Winners!
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Haven't checked out the spawn scheme for The Center, can you respawn on different islands or do I need to bum a ride off others?
Here's the map, btw.
-edit-
Adding SE map
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
If anyone is interested, PM me and I will link you the server. Anything built or tamed in that time will get wiped before official live. (I'll turn up gathering and taming to ridiculous levels for the week though)
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
I have been hosting a server with about 8 friends on The Center with Annunaki Genesis and Reusable grappling hooks. It's like playing bionic commando with uber dinos. The Lance is the most amazing thing ever.
Origin: Broncbuster
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Which I think is a bit silly
It would have made more sense for megalodons to get the alpha treatment
I definitely want to try stuff on the new server though, but i'd probably prefer to do a kind of communal thing. Don't think I could handle building and maintaining my own base from scratch again.
You can alway make a new character on the old server just for the last party.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
http://imgur.com/gallery/VOdM2
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Also hah goddamn my place fell the hell apart, huh? That's fantastic.
Alpha Mosa is a terrifying concept.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Less XP from highly dangerous targets, and no ability to mount land animals with Turrets? Those seem like downgrades if you ask me . . .
Finally a new flyer
I'm glad they're removing turrets on Quetzes
Brontos, however, are slow, subject to terrain and attacks from land dinos
Brontos as lumbering tanks was cool and not too overpowered
Next week i'll probably end up diving into this thing headfirst once more.
Except there's a bronto belonging to Dino Riders blocking the access to the red obelisk. Name's Ginny, I think. Any chance that could get moved? I kinda need to get my spinos in there.
I was just about to post about this!
In the course of moving our brontos into the red obelisk, I managed to get one completely stuck on the east approach to the red obelisk. I think it's stuck in one of the metal obelisk pillars that decorate the area. We tried everything we knew to get it unstuck but nothing worked.
Is there any solution to getting a dino unstuck from something like that? If not I'll probably go kill the bronto this evening, I don't want to block access.
All that said there's a western approach to the red obelisk that should work. Rayzerbeam got our other bronto into the obelisk using that path.
OR! I've noticed that sometimes, when they get stuck but get in to combat, they unstick for some reason. Try to get a turtle to attack it.
We tried to get a Trike to attack it but the Trike just fell off the narrow path into the water haha
We'll try again to get it into a fight before we put it down.
Has anyone warned the Warframe Dropouts of the impending apocalypse?
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
@Drascin you should be clear to get to the Red Obs now on either path.
The only way I know is to make a new guy, but lemme check if there is an admin command.
... It looks like there might be a way. I'll try it out with you next week.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Neat!
In the meantime, got this reinstalled, hopped on to check how my stuff looked, my base was surprisingly intact considering I haven't logged on in months and gave the OK inthread for people to do whatever with it. Looks like my general supplies got cleaned out, but my closet with assorted armors and stuff still had gear, and my blueprint bookcase was also not cleaned out. Snagged the blueprints and enough gear to make an ob run, took off for Green ob, threw my goodies in, and uploaded myself. Not sure if I'll pop back in for the end of the world party or not.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
All four of the options that relate to downloading are supposedly set correctly.
Dear LastAndroid,
I stole some a lot of your eggs, after feeding your generator with gas for a while.
And your Bronto.
The eggs are being turned into kibble.
But you can have LastBrontoF1 back if you want her, she has been awesome for gathering all the berries.
Dear Moth (Firewater?)
From your base at the bottom of the volcano;
Last night I stole your 180 armor Mining Helmet BP, a longneck rifle BP, and your flak armor BPs.
Also, a pair of nedry glasses.
You can have the BPs back once we're over on The Center, I couldn't allow the Mining Helmet BP to be lost, and figured saving the other higher stat BPs at the same time wouldn't make me any worse than I already was.
As for the glasses.. I have no excuses.
From your R&D Base by Blue Base..
I um.. made some bears angry and they took it out on your wall.. on the bright side, I have a level 132 bear now!
Dear Countess:
I have Alpha Rex.
You can have him back, He was sitting out in the open, and I felt bad for him.. plus I wanted a Rex army.
Loli Fight Club tribe:
From your base near Green Obelisk,
You locked your feed trough, and your Dinos were starving when I was exploring the area.
So I stole your wolf (Brenda?), and some of your pteras.
Possibly one of your argents?
They've been uploaded to the obelisk, but you can have them back if you want them.
Warframe Dropouts tribe:
I found a bunch of your dinos starving to death by a beach at one of your bases, your raptor(s) were already dead and had dropped their loot bags by the time I found your base.
I rescued a few, and left the rest to their fate, I think I grabbed a couple argents, a spino?, an anky?, and a Rex, I'm not certain exactly.
You can have them back, if we can figure out which are yours and which are LFC's.. apparently uploading dinos to the obelisk strips out the tamed by info.
Whoever owned the Rex named Chad:
He was out in the open near my base, so I took him, and he is my best friend forever now, I'm sorry for your loss.
@Mvrck and @mittens
I am packing up the best things in Blue Base to bring over to The Center.
Your bodies have both fallen through the floor and you will probably fall to your deaths down the side of the cliff if/when you next log in.
You're both welcome to join me in Blue Base II: Blue Harder.
I fully expect people to take all of my dinosaurs when next I wander away from the game for an extended period of time.
To the best of my knowledge, Brontos are right out, as they have no stamina to make it (unless they regain stamina upon dismount). Same with most other freaking huge dinos. However, Mammoths, and basically anything else of medium or small size can be boated or flown (mainly via quetz) anywhere you want, really, provided you don't dismount in mid-air and they fall to parts unknown.
Did @WIckedkarma ever get the server files to anyone? Because if not, at least send them to me so I can hold on to them or something.
Would the Bridges mod we'll be using solve this problem?
Has been modified to
Just jumped on and uploaded my Character, then made another one which i dumped in your pad, @Kalnaur, hope you don't mind! (i also stole three cooked meat so i didn't starve, thanks! :P)
Not sure if i'll make the end of the world party, but figured i'd may aswell be ready for it.
I was planning on building my marina on tropical island north as well, though I suppose I could use the bay on tropical island south as well.
Just watch out for sharks and mantas in the cove. They seem to spawn there regularly, and they're mean.
Downloads on the Center are broken right now. Supposedly they will fix it in the next patch. (IE this weeks)
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.