Newer console player needing tips

[ConWayTwittyy]

Hello all! I am a relatively new player to Ark as I have only been playing for about a week and was looking for some general tips. I guess I should say I play on the Xbox one and I play singleplayer. I have already tinkered with the setting so they are too my liking the only setting I haven’t messed with have been the breeding settings as I’m a little overwhelmed when it comes to breeding. 

So I’m around level 35 and am currently set up on herbavoir island. I have 3 trikes 2 raptors 2 anklyos and a pteranodon. I have a decent base set up with a smithy and a few forges and I was about to start on some stables for my tames. I’m building in the low flat part on herb island where it’s surrounded by the cliffs except for the front in which I’ve built a Dino Gate and large walls all the way across to keep out brontosaurus’s. 

I guess I need tips on breeding because it just kind of overwhelms me and just kind of your guys opinions on a sense of direction.( my main goal is to defeat or tame all of the bosses on all 4 of the maps....eventually lol) thanks in advance! 

[Bloodwing1976]

For boss dino breeding in single player it all depends on how fast you want to reach that point in the game. For imprinting you can lower the maturation rate but there is less chance of getting the full imprinting which you will want. If you wan to mate the dinos more often you will have to lower the rate on mating time also to allow them mate more often.

Now with the babies again if you lower the numbers too much your baby will grow to fast and you won't get anymore of the much needed imprinting.

[Bloodwing1976]

Also i would suggest building a base closer to an obelisk to do your breeding there. that way you do not have to travel as far to transport the dinos to the obelisks. You will need numerous fridges for kibble and raw meat, a couple feeding troughs, and air conditioners to hatch the eggs.

Now about the actually breeding from there look on you tube. there are lots of good breeding videos out there for breeding rexes or theri's for the boss fights.

[ConWayTwittyy]

16 minutes ago, Bloodwing1976 said:

For boss dino breeding in single player it all depends on how fast you want to reach that point in the game. For imprinting you can lower the maturation rate but there is less chance of getting the full imprinting which you will want. If you wan to mate the dinos more often you will have to lower the rate on mating time also to allow them mate more often.

Now with the babies again if you lower the numbers too much your baby will grow to fast and you won't get anymore of the much needed imprinting.

Thanks for the info! I’ll definitely look into some breeding videos on YouTube. I spent my first day or two near one of the Obs I think the red one? And I got mauled by tek raports so I made a raft and ended up on herb island lol

[Bloodwing1976]

That has happened to me many times and i have been playing ark on pc and xbox for years now. Even max lvl players still have the bad luck of dying from game creatures every now and then.

Your welcome and glad i could be of some help.

[Cymas]

Level 35 is still a bit early to be worrying about breeding, tbh. But you can certainly start setting yourself up for it.

First, you'll want to establish a breeding base somewhere else on the map. Herbivore Island is safe but very small for your needs, and it's very far away from almost everything noteworthy so you'll waste a lot of time traveling. For a similarly safe but much better located area, try the Hidden Lake, you'll still need some defenses but your animals should be enough to keep you protected for now.

To set up you'll need some utility tames. You have ankys which is a good start, but you'll also need at least a doed, a beaver and an argent. They will make it much, much easier to gather resources you need to build at any sort of scale. You'll also want a better carnivore, at least a midlevel (80+) rex or spino. Personally I'd also add a bear and a beetle and you'll want an oviraptor or two eventually also.

Once you've got all of those, you'll want to do a kibble farm. Even if your taming is up high enough to not really need kibble, for imprinting your babies afterward it's good to have kibble on hand as they can ask for it as one of their requirements. So aim for at least a pair of animals from each tier, or up to 5 (1 male and 4 females), all near oviraptors weighed down on wander to boost their egg production. If you don't need kibble for taming, you probably want to invest in at least a pair of high level sheep to breed more sheep and get fresh mutton on demand.

Once you've got all of that, you'll be in position to start hunting for your base bloodline. This part will take awhile. Basically go out and tame as many high levels (135+) of your chosen boss animals as you can find. Opinions vary but you'll want either therizinos or rexes and a yuty for most bosses. For Broodmother you can also do megatherium. You may potentially want a daeodon as well, which they also have a rather niche breeding use as well anyway. Once you've got a bunch, compare stats and pick out the best ones you have. Breed them together until you have a pair of babies that inherited those high stats from the parents. Then breed them together until you start getting mutations. I Googled around until I found good SP breeding settings so it would only take a few hours, seeing as time does not pass when you're not playing on SP and it would just take too long otherwise.

Expect all of this to take weeks, if not longer, so don't worry about rushing it too much. You can find tons of threads about what other animals are worth taming, what kind of stats and strats you want to use for each boss, etc.

[Aushegun]

21 minutes ago, ConWayTwittyy said:

Thanks for the info! I’ll definitely look into some breeding videos on YouTube. I spent my first day or two near one of the Obs I think the red one? And I got mauled by tek raports so I made a raft and ended up on herb island lol

Just a heads up, that you should not expect to be fighting the boss anytime soon. Like it might be a couple months before you are ready.

You need to tame many different dinos, to help you build bases and breeding areas. for example.

 

I would suggest crafting all of the resources needed to make a stone base, bed, plus a large fenced in area. Then load those items on your raft, and travel to the area near the red OB. Then quickly assemble your stone base and enclose it with a large yard of dino gates. This will take a while to grind out all of these things, but at least this way, as soon as you get to the area near the Red OB, you can build a safe area.

Get tames to help gather stone, wood, thatch. Then you can craft stone foundations, walls, ceilings and gates, so that you can trap Argies which are a great tame, as they have way more attack power than a Ptera, and can carry way more.

Then you will build larger tame areas to kite (have a dino follow you) into, where you can trap and tame the larger dinos ... Carnos, Allos, Rex.  *** don't build your taming traps close to your bases .... make sure they are far enough away that the dino you are trying to tame doesn't try to attack the other tames in your base.

Once you have a small group of "guard" dinos, you will probably want to start focusing on only taming up the best level/stat dinos you can find. Then you can start breeding your best to  the best, to create not only dino babies that  you can imprint to improve their stats, but also you can breed to have back ups for when a dino dies when you do something stupid. (I say that because WE ALL have done stupid things to get out dinos killed by accident)

There is a lot to do, and just enjoy learning the game, the map, and leveling up. BE prepared to die as you learn from your mistakes. 

If you do a search in this forum, you will see multiple threads about starting out/ Newbies, Noobs.   Some VERY helpful information there.

 

Also, there are many good Youtube series that can help.  PHLINGER PHOO has a whole series on the basics of ARK, and help for those starting out.  Also good helpful videos by NOOBLETS.

However, some people prefer to NOT watch videos, and just learn everything firsthand thru trial and error. Which ever way you prefer is a-ok.

Welcome to ARK!

[ConWayTwittyy]

Thanks for all of the replies guys! You guys have definitely given me a lot to think about and it seems I’ll probably be moving from Herb Island. I’ve been loving this game so far and it’s only getting better! I’ll probably check out the spot near the red Ob as mentioned above and make another base in the hidden lake. I fully intend for this to take me forever because I really love the crafting and building aspect so I plan on making several bases to fast travel between and stuff.