Best PVP Island Spot for Base 2018

[POPMasterGod]

I have not played Ark for over a year. Just joined a tribe a few weeks ago. Been farming mats to throw down a base on the island but can't decide whats the best location where I won't get undermapped and that it would be hard to raid. I am not up to date with the current PVP tactics so I would greatly appreciate your advice. 

[Tuhakiro]

Hi, welcome to hell again.

After years, many things are nerfed and good spots too. As you know ARK is war of resources (dinos, ammos, people).

The best practice: build turrets tower around base. Your main base not to be a large building, because you can't place enough turrets due to a limitation of 100.
Good count of ammos per turret towers: 300000 element shards and 240000 advanced rifle bullet. This protection will last for hours 2~. If you no have enought people to farming. 6 people on 3 quetzals, or motor boat, you need 1 week 24/7 farm, to protect the base within 2~ hours.  Yes it is not a joke, its ARK. But if people push the tower with paracer + tek tapejara, i thinks tower can protect you maximum 30 min. You need ton's of dinos, gigas, paracers, wyverns, for protecting. If you have all, okay, you stay alive little more, until the moment when your base griefed by under mesh.

If you no have people you can't survive.
If you not farming 24/7 ammos you can't survive.
If you no have good dinos for pushing, you can't survive.
If no one duty 24/7 you can't survive.
If you do not participate in the global ARK politics, you can't survive.

ARK politics map:

Politics important think in ARK, if you no have 60+ people in your tribe with online 8+ hours

About of under meshed grief. Devs give you one choise - https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/incident-reports/
if you try build turrets under mesh against griffers from undermesh - you dev wiped, don't try. 

And yes about spots, island no have any good spots, griefers can destroy any base if is good griefers.

Enjoy!

[POPMasterGod]

Wow. Thanks for all the info. That is alot to digest but I guess thats how Ark is nowadays. Is there any other any map that has strong base locations? 

[Tuhakiro]

As I say - ARK it's war of resources, who have more resources - win, but griefing much easier instead of defending.
You whant create you own tribe? If yes, then this is a difficult road, and that's why:

1. Forget about sleep. 
2. Every 2 - 6 hrs, griefers attack you.
3. Every 1 week, griefers attack you hard.
4. Every 1 month griefers do hard grief with FOB. (if you lucky man, usually more often)
5. Every random time, 1 man kill 20 mans by headshot only, because AIMbot cool
6. Every random time, someone grief you base under mesh.
7. Every random time, you got insided.
8. Constantly you must monitor who is online on the server 24/7.
9. Don't AFK outside the base, griefers kill you, and steal all your stuff.

Now about spots, as I say before - no, but have a little better places, not strong but better.
On Island:



Vulcano already nerfed, and x6 damage, and volcano can do this:

under meshed

Over maps...
Abberation not good place for main base, just farming base.
Scorched Earth - I think alphas wipe you  No one scorch are free. Every scorch map is dino storage server.
Ragnarek - Yummy places already taken.
The Center - Not good map, very hard farm element. (Yes i know devs boosted the center, but no).

If you have a talent for negotiation, Ragnarek a good map.
Island, if no alpha tribe, anyone do grief on this server 24/7  If have alpha, 18/7 grief, will be a bit easier lol.
About alpha's, if you do something go tell to alpha's, if you whant  live little more. If you setup turrets on your base, go tell alpha's your base coordinates. Alpha's not love flying on wyvern and get a damage

What next, ah yes 90% of your tribe members leave ARK after first base grief

Enjoy, and happy game.

[POPMasterGod]

Wow you are very good and experienced in this game. Thank you for all the helpful information. I have been thinking about the ice spot on your map but I have not built there because I don't know if people on boats will be able to raid it. I will build on the top. Can you give me any advice on how I should build the base to make it harder to raid?

[Tuhakiro]

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I have been thinking about the ice spot on your map but I have not built there because I don't know if people on boats will be able to raid it

Yes, he can. You need build turrets towers, not near water.

 

Quote

Can you give me any advice on how I should build the base to make it harder to raid?

 

1. Ice spot not good for beginer, you need tons of resources and good tusoteuthis, to destroy rafts.
2. Spot 2 more good for beginners, you can build bridge and mine. (not tested im use only quetzal)





This place grief on quetzal + daedon + golem. You can easy kill quetzal, and grief fail.

But this place check every griefer who come to server.

[ZoltanChivay]

It really depends on the kind of PvP, if it's on official I personally don't think it's worth bothering with it, it's full of problems, cheaters and are not moderated, nowhere is safe from undermapping. If you go in unofficial servers you'll definitely have better experiences 99% of the time and you won't risk undermapping because cheaters will be banned. This being said there's hardcore PvP, which I wouldn't recommend unless you're willing to spend entire weeks in the game, and since you don't know current tactics it might be better not to go here, then there's heavy PvP, which is still a lot of PvP but not as hardcore as other servers, some servers also have offline protection for those who have a life, definitely recommend these if you want to do a lot of PvP and lastly there's light PvP (often known also as PvPvE), with very few raids, PvP is mostly events like arenas and stuff like this, recommended for a chill experience.

 

NOw some good spots were already linked to you earlier and I'm not going to tell you about which is a good spot, because if many know about it it'll probably be taken, if it isn't you can settle in places like the Herbivore island or the Hidden valley. First of all a good spot is decided by the amount of people that play in your tribe, the bigger the tribe, the more space you'll need and you'll also be able to defend.

If you're solo or duo then don't bother building a big base, you won't be able to defend it, it's better to build many hidden huts around the map and tame many purlovias for storage as enemies can't see them unless they scan the whole map (which is unlikely) with troodons or wolves. If you're a small tribe you want to look for compact spaces that don't require a lot of walls and it's small enough to see what's going on without covering too much space. I you're medium or large you can build in larger spots without problems.

 

The very first thing you want to look for is how hard that location is to get to: just like in real life geography is the first line of defence and usually the most effective, that's why isolated islands are very good, you have water protecting you. Remember, your objective is to make your raider's life as hard as possible and limit access to your base to as many enemy dinos as you can. In order of priority you should look into: how many obstacles there are between the most likely attack routes and your location; how much the environment is hard to endure (extreme cold/hot forcing them to either change armor set to a weaker one, sometimes, or to bring more food/water); what wild dinos can get in the way of the attackers (i.e. they have to go through the swamp which is full of disease and horrible dinos).

On that part another important point is how many routes of access there are to your base itself. The fewer there are the betetr it's going to be for you: open plains are horrible, a couple of chokepoints are good, a single chokepoint is very good, no land access is best.

Now of course air dinos can counter all of these aspects, which is why you want to have good turret towers and a very good Anti-Air defence.

My recommendation is to find a place with very few points of access, to limit the amount of turrets and walls you'll need to craft and to give the attackers a lot less options, if you want max security even at the cost of quality of life then build somewhere that only air dinos (or even better only water dinos if it's underwater) can access, if your server has a no-wipe rule and demolishing tree platforms to destroy bases is prohibited then go for it, build a tree platform in the redwoods.

 

One other important thing you want to consider that an excellent way to avoid being raided is to never be found, which is why the common base locations are not viable, as soon as people post it on youtube or reddit or wherever it's no longer really viable. So try to build as hidden as you can. Now with the Island it's hard because almost everyone know about the map but you might still succeed.

 

On  a last note: while resources are important they should not be your extreme priority, sure you should look for good spots near metal and oil, but security first, if you don't find any good spot near resources that's ok, you'll need to do some trips with a quetzal, on which you should be careful of other tribes, but it's better than having a base in a bad spot.

 

hope this helps.

P.S.: Arthopleuras now damage stone, metal and even TEK so watch out for those.

[POPMasterGod]

Thank you two for your tips. I think I will build on top of the ice. I already have the materials. I can't decide how to put my 100 heavy turrets. Should I have them all in one building? Placing 20 heavy turrets on each side plus the roof. Also surrounding the building with metal spikes to avoid enemies drinking beer and running to place c4 on walls? 

[AparajitaStormhoof]

I prefer to have a behemoth hatchframe build on the top of my house, PopMaster. That allows turrets, when built on the hatchframes, to guard even against the walls. I usually place Spike Walls on the top of the house to deter stego-dropping.

[Baton]

On 8/12/2018 at 7:43 AM, POPMasterGod said:

I have not played Ark for over a year. Just joined a tribe a few weeks ago. Been farming mats to throw down a base on the island but can't decide whats the best location where I won't get undermapped and that it would be hard to raid. I am not up to date with the current PVP tactics so I would greatly appreciate your advice. 

A plato near green ob (someone calls it snail) pretty big. But need lot of people and hrs to build there

[Mugnaschi]

Hmm, a lot of the feedback is pretty negative, yes there are griefers especially when you're small and low levels, I've had some bad experiencesbut theres good people out there. When you have auto turrets not many people will bother you, but that's probably a good time to do some diplomacy with the Alpha tribe as you want them onside before as someone else says they fly their fave Wyvern over ur hidden base an it gets chewed up - they are pretty squishy!  

I 've just joined the island for a bit of  artefact running etc with my son- I am in  a small but powerful (we have Tek,  Wyverns, Reapers drakes etc etc) Rag & Abb tribe, so have just transferred and brought a small 2 man ready made metal base with a few good small dinos, - couple wolves and an Allo for Alpha dinos and some auto turrets for Griefer defence, not for any other reason. Am wondering whether to contact the alpha tribe...I'm quite hidden in a forest so if I say hi then everyone knows where I am, If I don't then there's a risk my turrets will take out some 'friendly' tames/players...usually the rule is don't talk in global, keep quiet and no one know ur there.

Also don't want the Alpha to think my tribe has any expansionism plans as I'm only on the island for some fun as its getting a bit boring being a mid/top tier tribe on Rag. On the island without my wyvern its back to basics, fighting Alpha raptors mano a mano etc, with a risk you may die its good fun ..yes I have brought my ascendant gear and weapons with me lol - I feel like the predator!