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My pteranodons keep dying like flies


Benjow

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My pteranodons keep dying like flies

Hi guys, so I might have tamed about 10 pteranodons already, they all eventually die

 

For example, I was flying over redwood on the island, a freaking thylacoleo jumps from a ridiculous distance at me, my dino starts attacking and the lion reks both of us

 

I lost some to wild dinos like this, then I started to set the behavior to make them  passively flee, but it didnt help

 

They cannot flee from bees, argentavis, looks like they get stuck when being attacked by them

Both time it happenned I kept whistleling at distance but they couldnt follow me 

And i cant change the behavior or mount them while they are high in the air

What can I make to stop loosing my pteras

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So a couple of tips for you.

Tame higher level ones.

Look at the bird through the spyglass when you whistle. Without the spyglass, you can only whistle from a short distance to command them.

Are you playing on an official server? I'd try something better if you are. Some of the official servers have a lot a lag, especially in areas near large bases.

Don't fly below the tree tops in the redwood forest if you can avoid it. There is the Awesome spyglass mod that lets you see where the thylacleo's are hiding.

Tame a Argentavis instead. They have more health and melee. Much less likely to die. The Ptera is a early tame and is week unless you tame a high level one and level it up a bit. I don't expect a low level one to last long. Maybe just long enough for you to use it to find a better bird.

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5 hours ago, ArkRage said:

The spyglass whistle doesn't work for me atm. Idk if it's broke or what

You may have selected 'ignore all whilstes' on the option wheel.

And I am like you, I love my Pteras, havent lost one for years. I use mine for egg stealing at the Scar, amazing little things but mine are born at over 335.

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While good advice has already been posted, I'd also suggest trying harder.

Don't take that the wrong way, it just takes a while to develop that constant anxiety that stuff really, really wants to kill your dinos.  Never fly near the treetops.  Never drop into thick tree cover when you can't see your landing zone clearly.  Don't land anywhere near aggressive dinos, and if they are where you want to be, kite them off a ledge somewhere before landing.   Park your ptera on tall rocks instead of the ground, or just let it hover and jump off (carry crossbow/grappling hook to remount).  Train yourself to whistle follow & passive anytime you get force dismounted, as soon as you hit the ground sprint away from danger, then turn around and jump on your bird as it catches up.

It's easy to consider easily-acquired birds as disposable and not put much effort into keeping them alive.  Once you've put a few hours into breeding a good one and they're equipped with the only good saddle you have, you'll find yourself being much more cautious.

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@Benjow, a few thoughts:

To echo several things already said by @wildbill@SMP, and @LEDminer:

Try to tame higher level ones and breed them.  They raise quickly, even on 1x, and if you can get some imprinting on them, they will serve you better in every way.  They'll hit harder, carry more, and take less damage.

Hunt drops on Ragnarok, in the flyable section of the Ice Cave, because Ptera saddles and BPs can drop there.  Put better-than-primitive saddles on them:  This will go miles for damage reduction if you get dismounted!

Remember to be careful, as the sands can shift against you in an instant with environmental hazards, creatures, and game bugs.  Really, it's a guideline none of us can violate unless we want to lose tames.  It doesn't matter how high level a Ptera (or Argy or Rex or any dino really) is, it can and will die in certain situations.  That's just ARK, ya know.

**********As a general Public Service Announcement**********

Long have I suspected the spyglass-whistle trick doesn't at all increase the range from which you can whistle tames to follow you.  After reading this, I did a very simple test to check the distance the Spyglass actually adds to the survivor's range to whistle-command tames.  I sat two Pteranodons on the ground, right next to each other.  I ran back, to where I was ALMOST out of render distance.  Now, so it can be followed, my theorized test (in explicit terms) was to walk toward them with the Spyglass out, whistling 't' (or whatever "whistle follow one" is keybound to).  When the one I was Spyglassing actually follows, I would stop, put away the Spyglass, and whistle the other Ptera while walking toward it.  Depending on when the other Ptera jumped up, I would know the distance the Spyglass actually adds to the survivor's range.

The thing is, the distance is zero.  In the instant the Spyglassed Ptera showed "following" and jumped off the ground, I froze in place.  I put away the Spyglass and was still 100% able to whistle the other Ptera to follow me.  Also, my graphics are a mix of High/Epic with view distance on Epic in case anyone is going to claim that the Spyglass does add range because my view distance isn't high enough.  It does not work.  Spyglass adds absolutely zero range to your whistle commands.

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3 hours ago, TheDonn said:

@Benjow, a few thoughts:

To echo several things already said by @wildbill@SMP, and @LEDminer:

Try to tame higher level ones and breed them.  They raise quickly, even on 1x, and if you can get some imprinting on them, they will serve you better in every way.  They'll hit harder, carry more, and take less damage.

Hunt drops on Ragnarok, in the flyable section of the Ice Cave, because Ptera saddles and BPs can drop there.  Put better-than-primitive saddles on them:  This will go miles for damage reduction if you get dismounted!

Remember to be careful, as the sands can shift against you in an instant with environmental hazards, creatures, and game bugs.  Really, it's a guideline none of us can violate unless we want to lose tames.  It doesn't matter how high level a Ptera (or Argy or Rex or any dino really) is, it can and will die in certain situations.  That's just ARK, ya know.

**********As a general Public Service Announcement**********

Long have I suspected the spyglass-whistle trick doesn't at all increase the range from which you can whistle tames to follow you.  After reading this, I did a very simple test to check the distance the Spyglass actually adds to the survivor's range to whistle-command tames.  I sat two Pteranodons on the ground, right next to each other.  I ran back, to where I was ALMOST out of render distance.  Now, so it can be followed, my theorized test (in explicit terms) was to walk toward them with the Spyglass out, whistling 't' (or whatever "whistle follow one" is keybound to).  When the one I was Spyglassing actually follows, I would stop, put away the Spyglass, and whistle the other Ptera while walking toward it.  Depending on when the other Ptera jumped up, I would know the distance the Spyglass actually adds to the survivor's range.

The thing is, the distance is zero.  In the instant the Spyglassed Ptera showed "following" and jumped off the ground, I froze in place.  I put away the Spyglass and was still 100% able to whistle the other Ptera to follow me.  Also, my graphics are a mix of High/Epic with view distance on Epic in case anyone is going to claim that the Spyglass does add range because my view distance isn't high enough.  It does not work.  Spyglass adds absolutely zero range to your whistle commands.

Interesting.  I might test this myself, as I feel that vertical distance may be different than horizontal.  I'm 95% sure that I've needed to use the spyglass to whistle birds who were too high to respond to a regular whistle.

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15 hours ago, Benjow said:

My pteranodons keep dying like flies

<snip>

What can I make to stop loosing my pteras

You need to be quick on the whistle commands to get your dinos out of a fight they will lose. Get good at whistling All Passive and All Follow, and make sure your dino's Group Whistle setting (bottom of the radial menu) is not set to "Ignore All Group Whistles". When you're attacked like that, as soon as you're free to run, whistle All Passive and All Follow and run like heck to get out of danger. Then get back on your ptera as soon as possible and fly away. 

The thing is, you can only safely use the All commands when you're away from your base or all your dinos will be affected, so make sure you can't accidentally hit them. Alternatively,  set all your dinos to Ignore Group Whistles" in base, but unset it on dinos you take out into the wild, and re-set it when you get back. More work but you have the max control in the field and max safety against accidental whistling when in  base.

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57 minutes ago, SMP said:

Interesting.  I might test this myself, as I feel that vertical distance may be different than horizontal.  I'm 95% sure that I've needed to use the spyglass to whistle birds who were too high to respond to a regular whistle.

I am inclined to believe that vertical distance will provide the same results, honestly.  The way I believe it to work is this:  The Spyglass is a magnifier.  It does not physically move your survivor when it zooms in, it only magnifies the target area.  This is why you can use the Spyglass while flying and you can see all the drawn objects as they pop in, like trees, rocks, and ground clutter.  Keeping this in mind, we certainly know that the range on a survivor's whistle-command is fixed, and thusly, commands will only affect dinos within a fixed distance of where the survivor is at the time of whistling a command.  If this is true, which I'm 99.9% sure it is, and if it is true that the Spyglass only magnifies the target area (and doesn't somehow move the survivor closer to the target area), which I'm fairly sure is the way it works, then I strongly believe whistle-command range won't change with Spyglass usage, even when whistling over greater vertical distance.

But shoot, there is always room for that to be wrong.  I'll put a test together with some Pteras in the air, build a staircase underneath them, and repeat the same test later.  I'll post my findings.

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On our 'The Island' server, where we have closer to official settings, I set the ptera I ride to 'passive' so it will always stay where I park it, allowing me to jump on and get away quick. I also set it to ignore whistle commands. Then I fly with a squadron of pteras as 'wingmen', set to neutral, which I will whistle to 'aggressive' as needed, then back to neutral again. It works fantastically. You can just about demolish anything with a good pack of pteras at your side. 

Depending on circumstances, my 'wingmen' are either whistled to follow me, or my ride.

The key is to use the whistle changes carefully, being thoughtful of position to target, and not letting them continue wandering away on aggressive. A quick whistle to passive will get them to all fly back to you, even if in the middle of a fight. 

Think of pteras as like bees. Not individually strong, but powerful as a group. They lay out good damage quickly as a group. 

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I read the topic for the post and thought "his pteras are amazing at dodging crap and performing evasive maneuvers" or "so his pteras get stuck to sticky traps alot" or "someone is killing them with a giant fly swatter" or "they are flying into glowing electric death"

let's face it i thought alot of funny stuff then read the thread and am now disappointed.

that is all.

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