Rogue One - An Ark Story

[theronin]

Thank you @Arkasaurio.  No doubt, we have not done as well as we would have hoped.  Our numbers have thinned (totally lost one guy) and we are scattered (playing on different servers initially as a reprieve but now it seems we are establishing footholds).

If you think about it though, the concepts and playstyle described in this thread could very will be the initial intent of Ark - that you were never meant to flourish but to constantly be preyed upon until one day, it is you preying upon others.

I think that by definition, appreciating this thread means you once lived in an Ark world where none of this was necessary.  I don't think that carefree Ark world was the initial intent.  It just so happens that we were the guinea pigs (or the fortunate, depending on how you look at it) that did have a chance to experience that world and that playstyle.  To your point, it's not hard to survive and even thrive as a solo / small tribe player in today's Ark world.  But effectively waging war against entrenched alphas is, as we are learning first hand, a completely different story.

[Layton]

If it does not start driving them to insanity and hunting you, just be polite. Chances are, that server is a lockdown server, one that is farmed to feed a war effort elsewhere. Be as nice as possible to them. Tell them that you just can't help yourself and you love foundations. They know about server transfers. And if they have any intellectual capacity at all, they will figure that you can transfer stuff. Really mess with them. Spamming thatch foundations for a week and want a break? Log on to the server...

Senpaiiii... I can't help it...I just transferred in three hundred thatch foundations... senpai....

Then go drown yourself and minimize the game and watch The Walking Dead.  They will go nuts looking and screaming for you. The game will kick you after twenty or thirty minutes of inactivity, or you can just maximize in between commercials, see what they said, make a silly reply or something, and repeat the process. Point being, they already attribute the foundation spamming to you. They have no reason to believe you are not doing exactly as you said you were going to do. And no way to prove that you did not spam a hundred foundations and cache the rest. And when dead, you still show up as being on the server. So they will know that you are there. Just not that you are trolling them and actually have no foundations to spam. Needless to say, they will be looking for you while your toon is dead and awaiting respawn while you get to watch Michonne behead zombies and Negan menace people. This tactic can be used for hours of entertainment on your part while detracting again from their farming efficiency due to search parties hunting you to stop your hundreds of foundations ruining their need. Best to use it sparingly though.

Try to always be polite. That infuriates people to no end. Angry people make stupid mistakes. Use their mistakes to compound their anger by clubbing the occasional one you find and dumping his gear. Don't keep it, spurn it, and tell them you dumped it. Possesions will make you want to keep them. Then that will mean YOU have something to lose, and you will try to hide it instead of spamming more foundations to further infuriate them. Be clever. Keep a couple stacks of raw meat on you and hotbar the rotten. If you get ptera grabbed, eat it all. You will have nothing on you that you can't easily make again. And you won't be in a cage. Good effective trolling is mostly psychological.  Condition them to react a certain way, and they become predictable and easy to manipulate.

And yes, they can use battlemetrics to track you. So what? Tell them you change back to your real name before you play on other servers. They can't prove one way or another if you do. And it will only irritate them further knowing that you are established on another server and are merely entertaining yourself by irritating them with foundation spamming and they can't stop you.

 

[theronin]

29 minutes ago, Jtmorris said:

Curious, are they completely destroying every part of the base, or do they typically just crack the bases open?

Here's my thought: build a two story 3x2 or 3x3 base, and let them open the side up and raid it. Then go back inside and set up a 1x2 base inside. Flying by, they will see that you haven't rebuilt because the hole they made is still open. They may overlook it for a long time as it is hidden in plain sight. You could even cover the door with a book case or something.

They are merely destroying enough to make them inoperable but I'm guessing more to send a message that they found it. 

I appreciate your thought.  But as I've come to realize, thoughts mean very little - no offense, friend.  It's just that the armchair tactics which have never actually been proven out are, frankly, worthless.  Those that have been proven out and find their way to the internet are no longer effective and are, frankly, worthless. 

I am not being mean - I am bringing up a key point that I find myself repeating.  Forget the tactics.  Think logical framework and execute based on the specific situation.

Going back to the wrecked FOBs, our MO (and this has no value impact to us being known in the internet) is to simply destroy whatever FOB they raided so that there is absolutely no trace of it.

[Jtmorris]

16 minutes ago, theronin said:

They are merely destroying enough to make them inoperable but I'm guessing more to send a message that they found it. 

I appreciate your thought.  But as I've come to realize, thoughts mean very little - no offense, friend.  It's just that the armchair tactics which have never actually been proven out are, frankly, worthless.  Those that have been proven out and find their way to the internet are no longer effective and are, frankly, worthless. 

I am not being mean - I am bringing up a key point that I find myself repeating.  Forget the tactics.  Think logical framework and execute based on the specific situation.

Going back to the wrecked FOBs, our MO (and this has no value impact to us being known in the internet) is to simply destroy whatever FOB they raided so that there is absolutely no trace of it.

No offense taken! I see what you mean. I was thinking of how to adapt to these particular raiders and what to use as camouflage that might be unique.

I'm looking forward to more of your story as it unfolds. Don't give up.

[spacejam]

I have tried a few tatics recently and have found that grinding hard with a high level toon  in as small of a base as possible seems to work well. a 2x2 or 3x3  enough to fit a fab, smithy and couple forges and a few pestles. spawn into a point where metal is close but not to close, i like around stonehenge as its always a noob place but has the potenital to hide a small base and jsut grind away. i go with Two tames  a trike and an argy or ptera what ever comes first. i tend to go with an argy becasue the extra carry weight of raw metal is handy rather than running back and forth if your a grinding. I keep everything and use everything i farm turning it into either walls/foundations/etc before i go out doing another big run of particular items. I like to leave little boxes lying around the joint with basically fast spawn items, metal hatchet, pick and some basic armour, maybe a smithy so if i am to loose everything  i can start over again with a little more ease. just less grinding if you have picks ready. i aim for long necks first then i aim for grenades. Rockets are usually out of the questions of polymere is to hard to come by unless you venture out to the ice and kill penguins and then you need fur which can be even harder to come by. obsedians rocks are just to common of a spot and everything i go running near them i die from big dinos or someones base that loads in at last second. which is always a bummer.  When i have weapons of choose i greif poop  dinos/bases until i have run completely out of all reasoruces. Rinse scrubs repeat from then on  

[Arkasaurio]

29 minutes ago, theronin said:

Thank you @Arkasaurio.  No doubt, we have not done as well as we would have hoped.  Our numbers have thinned (totally lost one guy) and we are scattered (playing on different servers initially as a reprieve but now it seems we are establishing footholds).

If you think about it though, the concepts and playstyle described in this thread could very will be the initial intent of Ark - that you were never meant to flourish but to constantly be preyed upon until one day, it is you preying upon others.

I think that by definition, appreciating this thread means you once lived in an Ark world where none of this was necessary.  I don't think that carefree Ark world was the initial intent.  It just so happens that we were the guinea pigs (or the fortunate, depending on how you look at it) that did have a chance to experience that world and that playstyle.  To your point, it's not hard to survive and even thrive as a solo / small tribe player in today's Ark world.  But effectively waging war against entrenched alphas is, as we are learning first hand, a completely different story.

Exactly right. To me this is the most realistic part of the game to be honest. Looking at any history at all, humans come to dominate an area in a short time, so other players, especially well established players with better gear (technology), should be by far the biggest challenge to survival. Then add the competition (real or perceived) for finite resources, and all of this is completely reasonable to me, the way it "should be." Many other open world games solve this through policing players through game mechanics; Ark really doesn't, it's brutal, and I love it. I'm still hoping that we get a happy ending at some point, the "people" rise up, unite, and overthrow these toxic overlords, but hey I'm a romantic at heart .

And yes, that describes my Ark experience well. First day of Ark I said hello to the server and had a fellow survivor in a big, but not alpha tribe, offer me gear and explained quickly how to stay out of trouble with the Alpha, which was super easy, don't build on resources, don't block caves, don't constantly torment much weaker players, the normal don't be a jerk stuff. I built a little base on the hills be the beach, tamed some parasuars and dodos (lol), engaged in little beach warring but had a pretty easy experience. Joined a small tribe later, built something defensible, and had an easy life. Rinse and repeat across several servers to the point where I almost couldn't understand the griping about toxic alphas, because most the alphas I'd come across either actively policed in mostly positive ways, or were just totally aloof unless you messed with them. All of that changed with server transfers, alphas mostly lost the luxury of being polite or aloof if they wanted to hold on, and most of the existing players were wiped, again, and again.

It was painful but I learned and accepted that for a small player nothing now is permanent and living to fight another day is a major achievement in itself. Now I play on a server with a guy who transfers rockets in and "cleans" all the beaches once every week or two (aside from his friends) and I consider that mellow.

 

[theronin]

Guys, in re-reading my recent posts, I may be coming off as a bit of a buzzkill lol.  I am focusing only on all our setbacks but am not mentioning at all any of our achievements.  This is because I frankly don't want to share what we have been able to do because then I would have to get into (whether on purpose or by accident) how we did it.  That would be counter to everything I've been saying recently as far as tactics and their shelf life.

I will say this - yes, it is ABSOLUTELY possible to survive if you keep a small footprint.  It is possible to THRIVE even.  And I don't mean a cramped 2x2 but something larger that can actually have decent space for crafting items and a number of dinos.  My current FOB houses 3 hi level pteras, a large utility dino, and a dodo farm and still has room for possibly a smaller utiltiy dino (which I direly need but will not get into).

How have these FOBs not been discovered?  A lot of thought and preparation went into where these would be located.  Every single FOB we had wiped were built hastily and poorly hidden.  Use everything you can imagine to hide it.  At a minimum, generous and constant re-fertilizing and paint to match the environment.  At a minimum.  Situational awareness also helps - know who your neighbors are.  I hesitated to type this next bit but eff it lol ... my main FOB right now is walking distance from a [][][][] base I kid you not LOL.  Know who is online.  If you see a lot of [][][][][] or English names that even remotely sound like [][][][][], avoid any use of light from 20:00 until 08:00 - don't go by the day/nighttime musical cues since you still get a decent amount of darkness before and after night.  Just a few, common sense pointers that are often overlooked.

[SomaTek]

So tell me, how exactly do you deal with these 'errant' alpha raptors Ronin?

-LDT

[TheRedExemplar]

I'm guessing you got caught then since the thread has died shame. 

[wildbill]

1 hour ago, TheRedExemplar said:

I'm guessing you got caught then since the thread has died shame. 

Yes, this has been very interesting.

He may have also just gotten tired of the grind. Being the underdog is very grindy, better to be the top dog in this game. So he may have moved on like most of his tribe mates.

[TheRedExemplar]

43 minutes ago, wildbill said:

Yes, this has been very interesting.

He may have also just gotten tired of the grind. Being the underdog is very grindy, better to be the top dog in this game. So he may have moved on like most of his tribe mates.

Very true

[theronin]

Nope, friends ... we are still alive.  LOL

Yes, the grind has gotten the better part of us.  We are no longer the same group.  We are now back to only two but the originals may be returning at some point.  The grind did get to us.  But more so, admittedly, my own stupidity and arrogance making it a little too known that Rogue One was on the server to hunt Chinese.  Well, the Chinese came hunting for us LOL.  We put up a FOB - wiped next day.  Another FOB - wiped next day.  It got a little tiring, among other adjectives the few of which I'm allowed to use here without getting it replaced with "DILO."

As a reprieve, I picked some other random server, two others went back to their unofficial, and one just disappeared never to be seen or head from again.  As has been mentioned - this is not easy LOL.  Oh and my intel guy that roamed the island on a boat gave up on us after that.

Ironically enough, as I was getting some "R&R" on that other official, I ended up finding myself building out on that server.  So the thought then became, we use that server as a staging point to rally on the original server.  That still may be the case but we (me and the new guy on the new server) are starting to get the sense that this server we are playing on now is actually exactly that - a farming resource - for a number of chinese server zergers.  They admit freely that there is no singular alpha on this server but rather an alliance of a bunch of [][][][][]'s.  But the big difference?  I'm not rattling my mouth off like some idiot rambo - rather, we are completely restraining ourselves from any form of outside tribe communication.  Sure theres the random "hello noob!" as we fly around but thats it.  I will admit that perhaps all the angst and vitriol I was channeling from this post led me to do some arrogant, stupid sh!t on the original server - I shall not make that mistake again.

So, friends, yes, we are still alive.  We are learning A LOT.  But we will not be sharing it.

I do not personally think there was a security leak since we never not once disclosed specific FOB locations.  But I do believe that the constant updates were giving (me at least) a false sense of hope and keeping me off my game.  On this new server, we have taken out a number of chinese and their stoopid high level tames but no major insurgence yet.  We have FOBs going that are not getting wiped (well one did get wiped - 35 horus into the 36 hours rollback LOLLLL!!!!!  that one has been evac'ed already).  I am also not sharing how we do things - as I hinted at earlier, anything you share on the internet becomes useless real fast.  And most importantly, the [][][][][] are too busy taking on the slew of noobs on the server.  I will add that never in my Ark career have I seen so many other players going the insurgent route.  As I search for secret FOB locations, I am more and more finding these small hidden bases scattered about.  I hunt down their owners to see make sure they are not [][][][] and they simply just guys like us trying to get by.

[theronin]

9 hours ago, SomaTek said:

So tell me, how exactly do you deal with these 'errant' alpha raptors Ronin?

-LDT

Sorry Soma, I'm not sure what you mean?  I just kill them.  I love the cool guy skull helmets.

[theronin]

I gotta ask you guys though since I did not get any decent response from a separate thread or over at steam forums.  How the EFFFF does a passive tame all of a sudden get up and dart off like a bat out of hell??

I spotted a hidden [][][][] location housing a lvl 250+ ptera.  First I piked a protruding appendage to make sure it was passive.  Then I blew up part of the structure so I could get to it.  At this point, if it was on auto follow or something, it was free enough to go but it did not.  I kept on piking it and around the time it got pretty bloodied up, the thing shot up and took off at full speed.  You know how when you forget to take a flyer off follow and, for example, it is left following your raft or other dino back at base?  And as soon as you get off that flyer, it darts off like it has a mind of its own but in fact it's just following that raft or dino?  It was exactly like that.  Anyone have any idea what may have happened?  I only ask because if this is some sneaky way to trigger a delayed follow or something, it's freeging brilliant.  If it's hacking ... whatever.

[wildbill]

1 minute ago, theronin said:

I gotta ask you guys though since I did not get any decent response from a separate thread or over at steam forums.  How the EFFFF does a passive tame all of a sudden get up and dart off like a bat out of hell??

I spotted a hidden [][][][] location housing a lvl 250+ ptera.  First I piked a protruding appendage to make sure it was passive.  Then I blew up part of the structure so I could get to it.  At this point, if it was on auto follow or something, it was free enough to go but it did not.  I kept on piking it and around the time it got pretty bloodied up, the thing shot up and took off at full speed.  You know how you forget to take a flyer something off follow and, for example, it is left following your raft or other dino back at base?  And as soon as you get off that flyer, it darts off like it has a mind of its own but in fact just following that raft or dino?  It was exactly like that.  Anyone have any idea what may have happened?  I only ask because if this is some sneaky way to trigger a delayed follow or something, it's freeging brilliant.  If it's hacking ... whatever.

They may have updated the AI on birds.

I left my bird on passive then went off to look for something under water. I come back and it is gone. Where it was I get attacked by a drone. I then look around for it and it had flown off and was a considerable distance away. My only guess is the drone attacked it. Instead of sitting there like it would have done a few months ago and get killed, they seem to have added the ability for them to flee even when set to passive.

Not sure this new AI is good, if that is what it is, because I put a bird on passive so it won't flee if attacked. I want to be able to get on it quickly if attacked and then fly off or attack what is attacking it. Hopefully it will only do this flee if the owner is not nearby.

[theronin]

Just now, wildbill said:

... they seem to have added the ability for them to flee even when set to passive.

This would explain it.  I would generally prefer this since I always hated the all passive or all neutral choices.  This provides a safety.

Ok then so bolas it is.  Thank you, sir.

[theronin]

Week ??

We are still alive.

But honestly, I don't think that's the hard part.  The hard part is sticking it through wipe after wipe after wipe and charging on.  Understanding that I nor any of us had much insurgent experience at all.  On the contrary, were much like most of you who could hold there own in a pre-transfer Ark world but simply could not continue to play the same style post-transfer.

In fact, I'd say many of the "modus operandi" I had called out in my very first post it turns out do not hold much water if at all! ...

1)  Formless - No main base of operations.

Much easier said than done.  What we found was that each tribe member tasked with creating a purpose specific FOB ended up growing an affinity to that FOB and effectively made it their own personal, small base.  The concept of having several FOBs and tribe members floating around them as needed just didn't happen.

2)  99% Offense - No need for metal structures, xplants, turrets, or any major defensive investment.

As members began to call individual FOBs there own, we saw "defense creep" ... it would start out with metalizing the doors, then the entire first floor, before too long, we had full metal FOBs and auto turrets on each floor.  We have yet to find a decent balance between naked FOBs and FOBs defended for errant griefers.  Obviously, you can't defend a FOB against a full blown alpha attack.

3)  Maximum Op Sec - To maintain maximum oprational security, nonexistent global chat and face to face interaction unless it serves a grander purpose.

I'm am personally guilty of this on our first server.  Once I felt we had a decent footing, I started gallavanting around calling out Chinese and instigating the displaced American alpha for what was supposed to be strategic reasons.  Well, all we got was a two fronted war where we were highly outgunned and outmanned.  Just pure stupidity on my part.

So how are we doing now?

Well, we are still alive.  But as I mentioned, that is not the hard part.  It's actually not very difficuly to stay under the radar.  What's difficult is staying under the radar while coming up with an efficient way to farm mats to mount a decent enough offensive.  Just yeserday, when I thought we had a real stockpile going, said stockpile was completely raided and wiped.  We are back to square one with just a meager stockpile left at a FOB-in-process.  

The biggest takeaway now that we have been doing this a while is simply patience.  I'd touched on this before and I'll repeat - time is on your side.  If you have the patience to persevere, I've no doubt that at some point you will have enough assets to be a viable threat.  But that can be a tall ask.

[Jtmorris]

@theronin Thanks for the update. To be honest, why I love this thread is two fold: 1) The way you present the story. You write very well and are very captivating. Winning or losing, keep up the fun style of your writing - you're good at it. And 2) I want to see the underdog win. Even if you get beat up and bloodied, like in every Rocky movie. Every story containing some element of victory is always great - even if it is just a simple update to say that you have rebuilt once again.

 

Keep it up! Don't become jaded. Get up and fight back. Ptera, longneck, grenades and go kill stuff. They can't kill you if you don't have a base remember. Go sleep in someone else's base. Grind for them, and use their smithy in return for sanctuary.

[theronin]

Thanks @Jtmorris ... we have been scoring kills but not the kind and scale that we would like.  This is also a very odd server.  It's multiple large chinese tribes that seem to have all agreed to ally and use this server as a base of ops to launch cross-server attacks.  This is good in that they keep pretty busy allowing us to go about our crusade.  But also bad since clearly the server is under threat with all new turrets set up at drop points.  They are also varied - some are not aggressive against non-chinese outside their own alliance while others conduct routine wipes of anything and everything they are able to find.  I've never played on a server like this.

[Arkasaurio]

@theronin Glad to hear you're still at it!

The new server you're on sounds like it could really be an interesting opportunity. On one hand, if you can hide and build up due the [][][][]  tribes being focused on other things maybe that's not worth messing with. On the other, if you discovered a [][][][] farming and transfer raiding hub the opportunity to do something there could be huge - anything you do that even slows these guys a little bit is helpful to others across servers.

You've probably thought of this, but ever considered off server suppliers? I'm not in this position, but I feel like there are a lot of alphas in tenuous spots (worried about cross server raiding/wiping/invasion) that would anonymously contribute supplies to your cause. That would at least help with difficulty in building up enough mats to be a real threat, and really the sort and amount of supplies you need should be easy for any reasonably big tribe to supply. I guess that's really replacing a grind job with a diplomatic one, and a total arm-chair idea there anyway.

[Jballs2213]

Everyone loves this story so much I doubt it would be hard for u to gather an army on a different server,then take said army to your current server and wreak havoc.

[theronin]

Thanks guys.  When I started this thread, it was more to serve as an account of things that happened rather than a recruiting thread.  Honestly, I thought it would get very few responses and end up buried deep in the forum.

I will say though that recruitment is not the problem.  Since starting this thread, I've gotten tons of messages here and on Steam to join the effort.  I generally never replied to any of the messages wanting to play only with people that I had already played with given the nature of the playstyle.  But people managed to find me on the server and at that point I figure if they are willing to go that far, then let's let them join.

But the major problem I ran into was more on the delegation front.  Prior to server transfer, I had always run a smaller tribe that had usually just me in it or at most, 3 other players.  Since my base was always very well established by the time I brought on members, I never really had to delegate any tasks but allowed members to do what they wanted so long as it benefited the tribe and everyone agreed.  I used this same approach from Day 1 of Rogue One.  Although members were responsible enough to carry out their own tasks purposed specifically for what we wanted to do, there was never a long-term plan on how we would do it.  I think this resulted in us endlessly "prepping" for an attack that never came to fruition because our FOBs kept getting wiped and fatigue would set in.  As an aside, I do think that this FOB concept needs serious revisiting.

For now, we are taking a reprieve.  I found a very decent vanilla rates, no mods unofficial to blow off some Ark steam.  What's funny is that I'm still playing Rogue One on this server and people are getting a little paranoid when I tell them that I have no base and that I've been playing as an insurgent against Chinese alphas on official lol.

[Gread]

Loving reading this too