Base Design Tips

[DonThommo]

I spend a lot of time thinking about ways I can make base layouts that work nicely and thought that a thread where people can share their own tips for base design could be a good place for people to gain inspiration. Please share your tips and especially PICTURES Or VIDEOS of your bases!

It's probably worth specifying in your tip/pic if it's PvE or PvP focussed (or both). I am mostly focussed on PvE at the moment, so here's a run-down of the PvE base design seen in the timelapse video below. A great PvE base could be a terrible PvP base, and vice versa.

Our PvE Base Build:

Airlock style gates:

I like using double doors like this (see vid below) for a bit of extra safety in PvE. When you have single doors there is always that risk that you might sleepily head out the front gate without looking outside first and an Alpha could be stood right outside and charge into your base and cause havoc.

The double door system helps you avoid that (even if a dino does run into the airlock, it'll be trapped in there for you to kill), and it also doubles up as a taming pen. You can bird-drop dinos in there to tame, and even easily kite bigger dinos into it such as Rexes (we've already done this a few times with the design below).

If you have half a dozen high level Rexes tamed, or decide to put down a ton of species X/Turrets then it might not be such a worry, but personally I like having the extra level of safety plus large taming pens.

Vaults in walls/airlocks:

I like having vaults that are fairly easily accessible from the outside, so that if I'm out on the Mammoth/Doed/whatever and I'm doing a few resource runs, I can just open one gate (or even just leave the outer gate open, and easily drop off my resources without faffing about with gates and ferrying stuff in doors. I can then later on organise the stuff away more neatly. The vaults are placed in a way that they can be accessed from within the airlock area, or from the inner area of the base, without the need to open the Behemoth gates.

Double wall:

I think this is a fairly common one. Due to the nature of how dinos can stick there heads/tails/other dangerous body parts through solid walls and eat things on the other side, it is necessary to either not put anything next to any of your base walls, or to put a two layered wall. So if an angry rex comes along and sticks his head through the wall all he sees is a void and another wall.

Metal Taming Pens/Alpha Traps:

The two small metal rooms in the wall are our main taming pens for smaller dinos (though 3x3 fits Trikes/Stegs ok). The windows/doors at the base are generally easier to shoot through then the platform on top, but it makes a useful lookout spot. The other really useful thing they are for is trapping Alpha Raptors and Carnos.

We get a lot of Alphas spawn near our base (North coast, border of Snow/Beach) and these metal pens have been great for taking full advantage of these. If one spawns near us, we can kite it back to base, lure it in the dino gate, shut it behind it and then jump out the normal door at the front. One nicely trapped Alpha. Our ones have been tested with Raptors and Carnos just fine.

This is useful as it allows you kill the Alpha at your leisure, and also to have tribe mates nearby sitting on whatever dino you want to pump some levels into. As well as meaning the body is safe from being eating by other dinos, and giving you prime meat very close to your base and cooker.

The other bits in the vid:

The rest of the base wall is fairly straightforward. Metal fence foundations and metal walls as the inner wall, and double stacked metal spiked walls (using metal pillars to raise the second layer up) as the outer layer. The metal is probably overkill for PvE but we thought it would be fun and look cool. Plus the base is now fairly alpha proof (although I do want to put another layer of metal walls on the inner layer, just in case for Alpha Rexes/Gigas).

I want to experiment more with the spiked fences stacked up like that. On flat ground it gives a nice effect, and also uses less building pieces than walls/foundations to cover the same area. They are mostly just there to look cool, and to act as a wall rather than to kill things (since on PvE they won't damage dinos unless the dino aggros on the spiked fence). You can only really stack them two high using this technique but I suppose you could do another row even higher just behind them and build some kind of huge, ridiculous spiked pyramid...the middle would be full of pillars though so would be a bit awkward...

 

[ImpureFrost]

Just a snow base I made. It sucks.. Pvp ewh.

[Jerryn]

I've used the airlock style to make a taming pit; a large one.  At one base, was literally a large metal square, with 2 b.gates, and also 2 dino gates, and 4 regular doors.

1 B. Gate, 1 Dino Gate, and 2 Doors, let you into the pit from the base, and then 2nd set of gates and doors allowed you to leave the pit and go into the outside world.

The reason for the extra gate and doors, is that you did not alway need to use the B. Gate to get out, so using a small enterance made sense, and was a bit faster.

Also, when taming something to big to get through a door or dino gate, you could open those up and shoot through them.

Then on each side of the pit, was a walkway and some catwalks, so you could find the right position if you were shooting down into the pit, plus ladder to let you down into the pit if needed.

My current taming pits simply use natural geography and some B. Gates and Dino Gates, with a shoot room built at the dino gate; shoot room is just foundations, stacked door ways, no doors, and then a walkway at the top, incase you want to shoot down into the pit.  Both have been used to tame or kill Gigas and Alpha Rexes(one just ran into it on his own...bad luck for him).

Also, at all of my bases I have done, I put an industrial cooker, and a box of gas, on the outside.  That way, I can ride/land an animal with Prime right at the cooker, grab a can of gas, light it, and then move the the prime 12 at a time from the animal to the cooker.  Once I get a good cadence down, I usually can do a Transfer All, then a second or two later, take off the 12 cooked prime, and while the next 12 are cooking, repeat the process.  This means as little wasted time and effort as possible, and keeps the prime on you for as short of a time as possible.

[Janx]

Good ideas and thought process.

 

In Minecraft, I used to build airlocks where the lever controlled opening the outside door and closing the inside door in opposition, so there would never be "both doors open".  It'd be nice if we could do that in Ark...

 

In our bases, we'd build a warehouse type building with vaults, that you could just drive the dino up to and transfer cargo.  The latest version I did, the warehouse had no walls, and the vaults sat on the outside edge.  Then inside the building you could have smithy/forges/etc to consume those resources.

 

I like the point of the double wall.  At the simplest, build your wall, then put spiked walls about 10+ feet away from them on the outside to keep long necked critters at bay.  AND don't build other buildings right next to the wall.  That way a raging bronto isn't whacking your wooden home furnishings simply because you built by the wall.

 

Put the "important" stuff in the center of the base, away from those walls.

 

Keep the big dinos away from the "center" where the important stuff is.  If you have a bronto sleeping next to your house, when somebody makes it cranky in an attack, it's going to hurt your stuff as much as it hurts the enemy.  We're not talking stone/metal stuff, we're talking tables, chairs, ornamental stuff you made with wood because you were tired of all metal construction lameness.

 

deploy the smaller dangerous dinos in the center, like guard dogs.  if the enemy gets to the center, your watchdogs can do their job.  The center should be tighter confines anyway, which is where these critters should shine (assuming their pathing doesn't suck).  Also consider putting them on wander, instead of stationary duty.  Odds are better that 20 raptors will be spread out and reasonably catch wind of an enemy better than you trying to park them exactly right and then the enemy finding the gap to sneak past them.

 

Be wary of building "tall" because if somebody destroyed the bottom, the upper stuff is destroyed.  Unfortunately, tall buildings are a safety risk, if the enemy can destroy the supporting structures.  Obviously, metal is mostly impervious, but it's just a matter of time before something comes out to defeat metal.

 

 

[DonThommo]

16 hours ago, Jerryn said:

I've used the airlock style to make a taming pit; a large one.  At one base, was literally a large metal square, with 2 b.gates, and also 2 dino gates, and 4 regular doors.

1 B. Gate, 1 Dino Gate, and 2 Doors, let you into the pit from the base, and then 2nd set of gates and doors allowed you to leave the pit and go into the outside world.

The reason for the extra gate and doors, is that you did not alway need to use the B. Gate to get out, so using a small enterance made sense, and was a bit faster.

Also, when taming something to big to get through a door or dino gate, you could open those up and shoot through them.

Then on each side of the pit, was a walkway and some catwalks, so you could find the right position if you were shooting down into the pit, plus ladder to let you down into the pit if needed.

My current taming pits simply use natural geography and some B. Gates and Dino Gates, with a shoot room built at the dino gate; shoot room is just foundations, stacked door ways, no doors, and then a walkway at the top, incase you want to shoot down into the pit.  Both have been used to tame or kill Gigas and Alpha Rexes(one just ran into it on his own...bad luck for him).

Also, at all of my bases I have done, I put an industrial cooker, and a box of gas, on the outside.  That way, I can ride/land an animal with Prime right at the cooker, grab a can of gas, light it, and then move the the prime 12 at a time from the animal to the cooker.  Once I get a good cadence down, I usually can do a Transfer All, then a second or two later, take off the 12 cooked prime, and while the next 12 are cooking, repeat the process.  This means as little wasted time and effort as possible, and keeps the prime on you for as short of a time as possible.

Yea a cooker is something I need to add to the outside area, ours is currently in the house which is ok but not super efficient. Though soon we will have the Quetz platform saddle set up with bits on it so may pop a cooker on that.

[DonThommo]

14 hours ago, Janx said:

Good ideas and thought process.

 

In Minecraft, I used to build airlocks where the lever controlled opening the outside door and closing the inside door in opposition, so there would never be "both doors open".  It'd be nice if we could do that in Ark...

 

In our bases, we'd build a warehouse type building with vaults, that you could just drive the dino up to and transfer cargo.  The latest version I did, the warehouse had no walls, and the vaults sat on the outside edge.  Then inside the building you could have smithy/forges/etc to consume those resources.

 

I like the point of the double wall.  At the simplest, build your wall, then put spiked walls about 10+ feet away from them on the outside to keep long necked critters at bay.  AND don't build other buildings right next to the wall.  That way a raging bronto isn't whacking your wooden home furnishings simply because you built by the wall.

 

Put the "important" stuff in the center of the base, away from those walls.

 

Keep the big dinos away from the "center" where the important stuff is.  If you have a bronto sleeping next to your house, when somebody makes it cranky in an attack, it's going to hurt your stuff as much as it hurts the enemy.  We're not talking stone/metal stuff, we're talking tables, chairs, ornamental stuff you made with wood because you were tired of all metal construction lameness.

 

deploy the smaller dangerous dinos in the center, like guard dogs.  if the enemy gets to the center, your watchdogs can do their job.  The center should be tighter confines anyway, which is where these critters should shine (assuming their pathing doesn't suck).  Also consider putting them on wander, instead of stationary duty.  Odds are better that 20 raptors will be spread out and reasonably catch wind of an enemy better than you trying to park them exactly right and then the enemy finding the gap to sneak past them.

 

Be wary of building "tall" because if somebody destroyed the bottom, the upper stuff is destroyed.  Unfortunately, tall buildings are a safety risk, if the enemy can destroy the supporting structures.  Obviously, metal is mostly impervious, but it's just a matter of time before something comes out to defeat metal.

 

 

I would love to have levers/pressure plates in Ark. It's a pain opening and closing doors all the time. I've not played around with the keypad thing yet but I gather that can open multiple doors at once which may help a little.

i really love the warehouse with vault walls idea! May have to try that. Our storage capacity in the actual base building is a bit limited at the moment. Might see if I can make a ring of vaults with a smithy and fab in the middle, where you can access vaults and crafting without having to move.

[Janx]

I got the idea from friends, who basically built a long corridor building that they'd drive a mammoth into and park it beside the vaults.  Then they'd dismount and rotate from emptying the mammoth to dumping into the vault.  Since they were encumbered, they couldn't move, so positioning was important.

 

I like my bases to look and feel like a real world facility, so I try to adapt the idea further.  It's certainly handier than making a building, parking the vault in the back, and then making trips from the outside to the back to fill the vault.

 

There's likely some things to consider with building placement in the base.  Making enough space for moving big animals through (and turning around), parking all the animals.  As well as whether to put buildings/functions closer together.  Having the warehousing near the crafting helps, given that's the point of getting supplies.  One might even consider putting the crafting gear on the floor above the vaults, using trapdoor floors over the vault for easy access to them (I built an open warehouse using pillars, and the ceiling tiles lined up perfectly over the vaults, based on the height of the pillars).

[Jerryn]

8 minutes ago, Janx said:

I got the idea from friends, who basically built a long corridor building that they'd drive a mammoth into and park it beside the vaults.  Then they'd dismount and rotate from emptying the mammoth to dumping into the vault.  Since they were encumbered, they couldn't move, so positioning was important.

 

I like my bases to look and feel like a real world facility, so I try to adapt the idea further.  It's certainly handier than making a building, parking the vault in the back, and then making trips from the outside to the back to fill the vault.

 

There's likely some things to consider with building placement in the base.  Making enough space for moving big animals through (and turning around), parking all the animals.  As well as whether to put buildings/functions closer together.  Having the warehousing near the crafting helps, given that's the point of getting supplies.  One might even consider putting the crafting gear on the floor above the vaults, using trapdoor floors over the vault for easy access to them (I built an open warehouse using pillars, and the ceiling tiles lined up perfectly over the vaults, based on the height of the pillars).

In my last few bases, you could pull an anky, does, mammoth, argen, quetzal, etc. up to the storage areas, mortars, and furnaces, then load/unload directly by just doing 180 degree turns.  Make a huge difference in effort required to move mats.  At our mining base, the furnance is behind a dino door with a landing pad, so it is easy to load/unload the furnace from/to a Queztal.

[BladeOfHades]

I Make mainly bases for pvp so i design to guard it against aerial attacks land and sea depending on location. My current base is in ragnorack (sorry for typos). I built it on rock islands i built a bridge four wide only to allow my bigger land dinos to get through it. But it has down falls so i used plant x too gaurd my bridge setting them to longest range and to attack everything not mine or tribe i also placed an elevated spike wall one space away from the bridge. if you are interested in more info on design i have an ark mixer boardcast i do profile Blade Of Hades6 just send me a message i promise you wont regret it. sorry if im not posting correctly im new to  community do not mean any harm