How to be: UNRAIDABLE

[Bramboxc123]

This will be a comprehensive OP for players of all levels so I may update it from time to time. It will be useful to defenders and raiders alike. It will explain that caves are easy to raid but also the best base locations. And how you graduate to become a master of the sea.

It is ARK mastered. Solo. And on foot.

 

Are you noob? Want to know what to do? Here's the basics to go from lvl1 to lvl 70 in a weekend or less. With full metal bases.

This will entail ingenious base locations such as in caves. And to more experienced players I will enlighten you to how this actually works. It will also include ideas of guerrilla tactics such as those by xONEWINGx on YouTube. 

First. You want to get to about level 40. This is quite easily accomplished by going to swamps and never leaving. You may think it's a pain dying often but keep respawning in East 2 and you'll get to 40 in no time.  You'll learn how to eat stim berries when bit by snakes. How to melee attack when backing up. You'll learn the sweet spots to strike so your primitive spears don't break.

You'll find plenty of metal in river rocks.

You'll know when to jump to avoid deeper waters and pirhanas and leeches.

Some movement speed and you can back up from sarcos.

A side step and you dodge kapros.

Hide armor is enough but chitin armor is better and when you get chitin you're ready for the tougher caves like Lava Cave.

The secret to not being raided in the swamp is build small. Build high on pillars. Build on a raft.

This way anyone casually farming swamp may not notice your small base in the trees and if they did they probably won't care. Youre just leveling here anyway.

 

Now why are caves the worst but best bases?

They are horrible because of 6x damage. They are the best because there are AMAZING secret locations in very dark crevasses in the ceilings.

If you spend enough time in the caves clearing them, light a torch and start to look around. You'dbe surprised where a pillar and ceiling can go. With a hatch frame and a rope ladder and you have a high-hide type base. If made out of metal which is plentiful in the caves then it discourages chance discoveries from being raided. But chances are you'll never be discovered.

The trick is getting up there which requires very creative scaffolding.

By now you're on your way to 70. You are making metal tools. You are building flak armor. Etc.

I must emphasize the importance of how hidden these bases can be. With creative scaffolds you can get around corners of pillars in otherwise impossible to reach places. You can get up high. Really high. Into dark ledges in the roofs.

These bases are very well hidden. No one thinks to look for them in caves. And they can't be revealed by the render distance trick.

Other useful tricks is creating hidden caches. This credit goes to xOneWingx.

He notes that you can hide storage chests in foundations. Do it. One or two foundations looks like a failed base. Nota secret stash of up to 3 or 4 storage chests. 

Use stone. It's cheap. 

So where to go from here?

Now that you're rolling in chitin, obsidian, stone, metal you have everything for polymer, cementing paste, and scuba. Except pearls but 4 pearls gets you the flippers and then you can get plenty of pearls after.

So with scuba the world is your oyster.

Literally. 

This is where you truly become unraidable.

You need to go piking dinos to level 81 but once you're level 81 you can hide vaults/storages in metal bases any where on the sea floor. You can put them near mountains with metal spawns. Make excursions.

If you keep caches of tools and armor and equipment at each site with a bed such as on an unassuming raft you can just bed warp to each location to make stockpiles you can later consolidate.

Now what to do with all of this?

Once leveled up or saved up you can consider taming. But tames are much harder to protect than things.

But I prefer to save up cannons/cannonballs. C4. IEDs. And just raise hell.

You'd be surprised how little effort it takes one person at night when a tribe is offline to set up a cannon. Blow away turrets. Then c4 their base.

 

Appendix: Stats Priority

1. Melee Damage

2. Health

3. Weight 

4. Movement Speed.

5. Resistance (116% seems fine to absorb torpor to survive swamp mishaps)

6. Stamina  (more fighting less running. Stab stab).

 

When you are higher level you can make mind wipes to cater more to pvp stats if desired.  Speed, weight. Health stam and some fort for torpor boost to your flak+ tiered armor.

[SmokeyB]

Your only unraidable because there is nothing to raid, no Dinos to kill, you will never get anywhere playing like that, I would hate to grind to lvl 81 without a tame it would be so boring, there's over 1000 servers just build a base in a quiet corner somewhere 

[Bramboxc123]

38 minutes ago, SmokeyB said:

Your only unraidable because there is nothing to raid, no Dinos to kill, you will never get anywhere playing like that, I would hate to grind to lvl 81 without a tame it would be so boring, there's over 1000 servers just build a base in a quiet corner somewhere 

I find your lack of faith, disturbing. - Lord Vader.

 

First off. I used to run an alpha tribe. So I have my share of experience. 

I'm extremely observant. While you are busy taming a quetz with prime for a dozen hours thinking it'll make your day better.

I've discovered glitches. Secret paths outside the map. Ways to get below the map. And reported these glitches. Some I've found I know WC doesnt know about and am looking for bounties for.

That being said. To say it's unraidable because one has "nothing" is totally false.

I am quite sure I can do more against your tames and base solo, based from a shack you'll never find than you could do with all your tribe. (I've literally killed a tribe's 3 220+lvl brontos and a lvl 200+ quetz all with fire arrows and cross bow based out of foundations hiding a smithy and tent that I could pull out or put back to hide my entire base in small storage chests. Dont tell me what I dont have lol. They looked and looked for me and all they found were what looked like 3 empty stone foundations. Entire base packed up.).

When I started ark several years ago and was rather noob I was picked on by the then Alpha of that server which was CHN.

And I built a team and sharpened my teeth against that alpha putting together our guerilla methods that eventually brought them down and made us Alpha.

I ran out of time to do the grind of normal basing so I went back to guerilla where I've stayed ever since.

Wipe me bro? I'll have a cannon popping your turrets when you arent looking in a matter of an hour. Just to piss you off.

I'll have your bests dinos dead when you clean my stone foundation spam not expecting them to be hiding 20 c4.

There's so many tricks in the book you just haven't thought of.

"Only when you have nothing, do you gain everything."

 

The statement of my thread is good advice to all solo players. And to any noob trying to get better on a competitive server.

 

PS. Grinding WITH A TAME is boring. Takes a lot longer and requires so much over head to get the tame. Protect the tame.

Meanwhile youre walking your tame thru the jungle one day and it instantly dies because you attacked a very purposely weakened thatch foundation covered with hidden c4 because you thought nothing of it.

[Chronosphere]

ive been with alliances of some alphas rank 3-4 tribes, tbh just build somewhere quiet and just farm for a day or 2 and see.

then think of ptra tame and an anky  maby a lil stego too :3

[CTMalum]

Building in caves sounds like a great idea until a bigger tribe finds out you're in there and builds a defensive perimeter around the cave entrance.  Not just blocking your exit, but making it so you can't move in or out of the cave without getting lit up by turrets.  You're definitely correct that you're essentially not raidable if you don't have anything to be raided, but then you don't have much of anything for yourself either.  It's like the main character of Rounders says to himself- "You can't lose what you don't put in the middle.  But you can't win much, either."

[Bramboxc123]

2 minutes ago, CTMalum said:

Building in caves sounds like a great idea until a bigger tribe finds out you're in there and builds a defensive perimeter around the cave entrance.  Not just blocking your exit, but making it so you can't move in or out of the cave without getting lit up by turrets.  You're definitely correct that you're essentially not raidable if you don't have anything to be raided, but then you don't have much of anything for yourself either.  It's like the main character of Rounders says to himself- "You can't lose what you don't put in the middle.  But you can't win much, either."

Well it's not like rounders at all. I can win higher levels quicker. I can have better gear than others. And when one base is found and lost it's not a total loss unlike most tribes with their more conventional bases.

When I have a team together this method is murderous and if it doesnt damage the alpha it can kill a server by hitting everyone else who is weaker. If it's a farming server there's more that can be done and all from foot.

When you dont have tames and a huge over head. Death mayhem and destruction is VERY cheap.

Let me emphasize...CHEAP.

So it depends on what your goal is.

So far the only thing I havent solo'd is end game bosses.

Everything else in ARK can be solo'd if you dont waste your time with stupid tames.

And you can do it in a 10th the time because you dont need to farm 100,000 metal to build a base and turret it to protect your tames from....PEOPLE LIKE ME.

[DarkCloud]

You gonna fire arrow my 500 brontos because I have a base that isn't in a hole in the ground? Have fun lol. Brontos are a cake walk to raise.

 

And you could prime tame a quetz and berry an anky and be farming more metal in a day than a week with a pick in a cave. 

[SmokeyB]

22 minutes ago, Bramboxc123 said:

I find your lack of faith, disturbing. - Lord Vader.

 

First off. I used to run an alpha tribe. So I have my share of experience. 

I'm extremely observant. While you are busy taming a quetz with prime for a dozen hours thinking it'll make your day better.

I've discovered glitches. Secret paths outside the map. Ways to get below the map. And reported these glitches. Some I've found I know WC doesnt know about and am looking for bounties for.

That being said. To say it's unraidable because one has "nothing" is totally false.

I am quite sure I can do more against your tames and base solo, based from a shack you'll never find than you could do with all your tribe. (I've literally killed a tribe's 3 220+lvl brontos and a lvl 200+ quetz all with fire arrows and cross bow based out of foundations hiding a smithy and tent that I could pull out or put back to hide my entire base in small storage chests. Dont tell me what I dont have lol. They looked and looked for me and all they found were what looked like 3 empty stone foundations. Entire base packed up.).

When I started ark several years ago and was rather noob I was picked on by the then Alpha of that server which was CHN.

And I built a team and sharpened my teeth against that alpha putting together our guerilla methods that eventually brought them down and made us Alpha.

I ran out of time to do the grind of normal basing so I went back to guerilla where I've stayed ever since.

Wipe me bro? I'll have a cannon popping your turrets when you arent looking in a matter of an hour. Just to piss you off.

I'll have your bests dinos dead when you clean my stone foundation spam not expecting them to be hiding 20 c4.

There's so many tricks in the book you just haven't thought of.

"Only when you have nothing, do you gain everything."

 

The statement of my thread is good advice to all solo players. And to any noob trying to get better on a competitive server.

 

PS. Grinding WITH A TAME is boring. Takes a lot longer and requires so much over head to get the tame. Protect the tame.

Meanwhile youre walking your tame thru the jungle one day and it instantly dies because you attacked a very purposely weakened thatch foundation covered with hidden c4 because you thought nothing of it.

Your way of extreme survival does sound fun. I'm just saying I'd rather have a stash of dodos somewhere to tame pteras and maybe a trike hidden between some rocks, maybe a few hidden crop plots so I can make narcotics, have pteras hidden around the map for fast transport and easy farming, frogs /baryonyx for stealthy water travel, just to help quality of life while I level. 

You can still leave traps and troll other tribes if that's what you like, but it will be easier to farm that 20c4 and your cannon if you got a few tames to hit metal on. Plus you can get about faster to kill more targets. 

[Bramboxc123]

7 minutes ago, SmokeyB said:

Your way of extreme survival does sound fun. I'm just saying I'd rather have a stash of dodos somewhere to tame pteras and maybe a trike hidden between some rocks, maybe a few hidden crop plots so I can make narcotics, have pteras hidden around the map for fast transport and easy farming, frogs /baryonyx for stealthy water travel, just to help quality of life while I level. 

You can still leave traps and troll other tribes if that's what you like, but it will be easier to farm that 20c4 and your cannon if you got a few tames to hit metal on. Plus you can get about faster to kill more targets. 

Actually mathematically it's quicker to get materials by hand than by quetz/anky.

Again it depends on what you're paying for.

If you need 100,000 metal to build a base then no. But if you need 1,000 metal for lolz then yes.

However you do it the first rule is keep your assets hidden.

 

To the guy about brontos. My point was you can do massive damage solo. Not that brontos are a big score. They just have tons of health.

You don't need a giga to do massive damage. Don't even need rockets or tek gear.

Just creativity.

Oh if you want to hide your dodo assets just put them in a tribe and keep them in a remote area. Form a tribe tribe owned and leave the tribe should mask the pen or hut from being yours.

A pin code on the door will let you in.

This way you can keep dodos for a while and people wont suspect they are YOUR dodos and kill them on sight if youre "most wanted".

[szabiferi]

I think the guerilla warfare can be effective, because of one thing: destroying things is much cheaper and quicker than building things. 

It is surely easier to ruin things than build and defend them. The question is, what kind of gameplay YOU enjoy? Personally I do enjoy the taming/breeding/raising part of the game, even the building sometims, so the solo guerilla gameplay is just not for me.

Also, playing ALONE is not something MOST people can enjoy or bear. I did it for a week or two, but honestly, the game quickly gets boring if you have no friends to talk abour your achievement...

I watched most of xxOneWingxx videos, even employing some of his tactics - for example I do have underwater secret caches even if we have monstrous bases

[szabiferi]

11 hours ago, Bramboxc123 said:

Meanwhile youre walking your tame thru the jungle one day and it instantly dies because you attacked a very purposely weakened thatch foundation covered with hidden c4 because you thought nothing of it.

Can you please elaborate? C4 explodes when the anky hits it?

[TranqRex]

11 hours ago, CTMalum said:

Building in caves sounds like a great idea until a bigger tribe finds out you're in there and builds a defensive perimeter around the cave entrance.  Not just blocking your exit, but making it so you can't move in or out of the cave without getting lit up by turrets.

Definitely a consideration, but if you're going to go with the approach described here then you're likely to have quite a few beds strewn throughout the map, hidden away with caches of weapons etc, as described above. If you discover you're penned in then you could just fast travel to a bed and collect some of your hidden gear, go back to the cave entrance and clear it.

Certainly not for everyone but it's an interesting approach for those that wish to go solo or be in small tribes.

[Unseen]

11 hours ago, Bramboxc123 said:

Actually mathematically it's quicker to get materials by hand than by quetz/anky.

Again it depends on what you're paying for.

If you need 100,000 metal to build a base then no. But if you need 1,000 metal for lolz then yes.

However you do it the first rule is keep your assets hidden.

 

To the guy about brontos. My point was you can do massive damage solo. Not that brontos are a big score. They just have tons of health.

You don't need a giga to do massive damage. Don't even need rockets or tek gear.

Just creativity.

Oh if you want to hide your dodo assets just put them in a tribe and keep them in a remote area. Form a tribe tribe owned and leave the tribe should mask the pen or hut from being yours.

A pin code on the door will let you in.

This way you can keep dodos for a while and people wont suspect they are YOUR dodos and kill them on sight if youre "most wanted".

?? are you mad i can get 23k metal in 20 min how the hell are you quicker with a pick lol 

Sure you can do massive damage to a lot of people with a few fire/metal arrows if you simply want to troll people its not hard but if you want to raid you will never stand a chance + Alphas like there caves if you start putting turrets in there most Alphas will just wipe you...... This game is geared towards alphas and they increase the gap with ever major patch the basic premise of the game is that unless you have people online ever hour your base becomes extremely vulnerable its a player numbers game not a solo game sure you can troll but your total impact will be minimal unless the alpha on your server is useless..........      

[Quirky]

59 minutes ago, Unseen said:

?? are you mad i can get 23k metal in 20 min how the hell are you quicker with a pick lol 

Sure you can do massive damage to a lot of people with a few fire/metal arrows if you simply want to troll people its not hard but if you want to raid you will never stand a chance + Alphas like there caves if you start putting turrets in there most Alphas will just wipe you...... This game is geared towards alphas and they increase the gap with ever major patch the basic premise of the game is that unless you have people online ever hour your base becomes extremely vulnerable its a player numbers game not a solo game sure you can troll but your total impact will be minimal unless the alpha on your server is useless..........      

I don't think you understood at all. He has raided, and very successfully. He doesn't get wiped, cause he has bases hidden all over the place, all of them throwaways. So it doesn't matter if any get found, or even all of them. He doesn't build turrets, he makes small builds that are hidden, like on the ceiling of caves. Unobtrusive and out of the way. Having buildings wiped is not a big deal cause he doesn't have stockpiles of stuff like you are used to. Just enough to build what he needs as he goes.

[Jerryn]

Please stay on topic, and lets not try to turn this into a platform wars discussion.

[Bramboxc123]

Well anyway. 

You can basically run a guerilla war out of any cave that's open. Some caves have better "hidden" base locations than others.

But rpgs and ieds can be entirely crafted from resources inside the cave.

Seems a pretty legit rebel operation to me. The enemy would be looking quite a while to find you if you play cards right.

Unless they use some hack which alphas probably stilll do ?

[ILuvTheAwesomeDevs]

Wholesome topic

[johnm81]

8 hours ago, Bramboxc123 said:

Well anyway. 

You can basically run a guerilla war out of any cave that's open. Some caves have better "hidden" base locations than others.

But rpgs and ieds can be entirely crafted from resources inside the cave.

Seems a pretty legit rebel operation to me. The enemy would be looking quite a while to find you if you play cards right.

Unless they use some hack which alphas probably stilll do ?

I enjoyed your posts a lot. Fun read. Good to see I am not the only one who enjoys the insurgent life/play style. I must admit while I have been running guerrilla warfare tactic for a long time I have never explored caves as I hiding spot. Well done. I always love reading replies diminishing its effectiveness. I remember the first person who laughed at me using such a tactic. An alpha on an old server I played on. Well, after two weeks the laughs turned into raging. I guess its effective after all.

[Kurbbie]

On 5/16/2017 at 2:54 PM, SmokeyB said:

Your only unraidable because there is nothing to raid, no Dinos to kill, you will never get anywhere playing like that, I would hate to grind to lvl 81 without a tame it would be so boring, there's over 1000 servers just build a base in a quiet corner somewhere 

Youre absolutely wrong. No tame buddy. Youte thinking is assinine. Ive survived with tons of items on server 10 xbox one. Tames are NOT REQUIRED, for scrubs like you yea, cant do it.

[BroJob]

Was hoping to give this no dino,guerrila warfare a try after being wiped for the nth time (*Im lvl80).

But in 5 hours of playing i basically reset every hour after I would run into troodons which totally Unicorn without a dino to protect you.

Fast losing interest in this game (pity coz its still my favourite game with 1000s of hours played) but the devs are really sending a strong message of "If your not in an alph tribe - raptor you!"

[johnm81]

Utilize stim berries and you can kill troodons for days esp if you are in chitin+ armor. This play style is more about problem solving than anything else. There is a solution to every problem. Finding it is the struggle.

[Armadatiny]

Yup I am another that solo's regularly, most often vs mega tribes. I approahc things somewhat differently from the OP, but you just find what suits you. It is a thinking style, so if you try and learn from youtube videos most of what is shown is already past its use by date.

Travel light, build very small and look for low lying fruit. Hit as soon as you have the resources needed for the job.

 

 

[BobRoss]

i understand that you can cause alot of damage this way but what do you GAIN at the end of the day? 

you're just pissing off entire servers so building up seems out of the question. Or are you just trying to piss as many people off as possible?

[Melcreif]

On 5/16/2017 at 9:47 AM, Bramboxc123 said:

 

But I prefer to save up cannons/cannonballs. C4. IEDs. And just raise hell.

You'd be surprised how little effort it takes one person at night when a tribe is offline to set up a cannon. Blow away turrets. Then c4 their base.

 

So I'm playing on a dedicated server currently and our admin setup a Loot base covered in turrets.  I brought in a raft, cannon and about 22 cannonballs which aint cheap.  After trial and error aiming that sucker I managed to hit and do about 300 damage to ONE turret.  What gives? How can you be effective with these against turrets???

[Unseen]

15 minutes ago, Melcreif said:

So I'm playing on a dedicated server currently and our admin setup a Loot base covered in turrets.  I brought in a raft, cannon and about 22 cannonballs which aint cheap.  After trial and error aiming that sucker I managed to hit and do about 300 damage to ONE turret.  What gives? How can you be effective with these against turrets???

lol