Giga search and spawn tips please

[Gigaboy123]

I went to find a Giga to tame.  I eventually found 2 but I didn’t have the recommended supplies to trap, knockout, and tame.  So I started getting the supplies (this took a couple of real days).  When I finally had them, I went to the location where I found the gigas.  When I got there, they were both gone (I was in single player so don’t suggest it was an enemy player(s).  I searched the area and even beyond it and never found them.  I was in The Island map.  What happened?  Where’d they go if they went somewhere?  I need to know.  If they despawned then how do I get them to spawn again?  I NEED HELP HERE!!!

 

[AirplaneSlider]

there are two locations where I've seen gigas. Giga mountain which is the eastern mountain. And the eastern snow mountain. 

Be advised they act like an a** when taming. They have the attention span of a two year old so they'll almost always run away. It can be a problem because they always peace out into the trees.

[Vit0Corleone]

I've seen Gigas despawn right in my face. Maybe that's what happened?

Here's the last one I saw disappearing:

 

[Gigaboy123]

It couldn’t have been because I was away from the gigas location for quite a while.  Maybe that has something to do with it?

[Gigaboy123]

I’ll do my best.  I know where to go if I have any further questions (here in the Ark Community Forums).

[d1nk]

2 hours ago, LEDminer said:

They probably despawned on their own, wild dinos can sometimes do that when out of render. Especially if they happen to wander far from their original spawn location.

To get new ones to spawn, kill some creatures around the spawn areas and new individuals may appear.

 

39 minutes ago, Gigaboy123 said:

I’ll do my best.  I know where to go if I have any further questions (here in the Ark Community Forums).

If I remember correctly, Gigas on The Island have a unique spawn situation where there is always one spawning / spawned in on the map. Can't remember if killing anything actually helps it spawn like most regular dinos.

 

Theyre notorious for getting stuck in the frozen mountains with just their tail out, take a good look 

[Pipinghot]

On 11/26/2020 at 5:08 PM, Gigaboy123 said:

I went to find a Giga to tame.  I eventually found 2 but I didn’t have the recommended supplies to trap, knockout, and tame.  So I started getting the supplies (this took a couple of real days).  When I finally had them, I went to the location where I found the gigas.  When I got there, they were both gone (I was in single player so don’t suggest it was an enemy player(s).  I searched the area and even beyond it and never found them.  I was in The Island map.  What happened?  Where’d they go if they went somewhere?  I need to know.  If they despawned then how do I get them to spawn again?  I NEED HELP HERE!!!

Hi Gigaboy, based on your number of posts it looks like you're new to the game, so I'll explain a couple of things about the game that will help you understand how dino's and spawning work in general.

1) There are spawn points on the map that spawn specific types of animals, the exact mix of animals varies depending on the spawn point. For example one spawn point might spawn "raptors, lystrosaurs, parasaurs & dodos" or a different spawn point might spawn "gigas, rex's, carno's & argentavis".

2) The exact percentages also vary. For example one spawn point might spawn "25% raptors, 25% lystrosaurs, 25% parasaurs & 25% dodo's" and a different spawn point might spawn "50% raptors, 5% lystrosaurs, 5% parasaurs & 40% dodos".

3) There is a maximum limit on the number of animals each spawn point can spawn. I don't know what that exact number is, but the point is that there is a limit. Now let's say a spawn point is maxed out, what will happen is that this spawn point won't spawn any more animals until some of the animals get killed or if they wander far enough away and they despawn (more on this below) or if they live long enough that the game decides it's time to make them despawn (if I recall correctly the default lifespan of a dino is one week, it may be less than that but it's definitely at least a few days).

4) If a dino wanders far enough away from it's spawn point the game will despawn it. This is done so that valleys and the areas around the bottom of mountains don't become packed full of animals, they don't want certain parts of the map to look like somebody went crazy with too many dinos.

5) As you can probably guess, the two most common reasons that dinos disappear is that a) they get killed in fights or b) they wander away from the spawn point and the game removes them.

6) The distance away from the spawn point that dinos are allowed to travel is fairly large since some animals (like gigas) can travel a long distance in a short time.

7) Some animals (like gigas) seem to have a maximum limit on how many can be spawned at one time. I think this is a fact, but I'm not 100% certain about it, that's why I said "seem" to have a limit.

Now that you know these things, let me introduce you to the wiki for ARK (you're going to want to bookmark the wiki for future use). The page I'm going to link down below is specifically the page that shows all of the animal spawns on The Island map. If you go to this page, then you click on the list box and select "Gigantosaurus", you will see that there is a limited number of spawn points for gigas. Also, you want to uncheck all of the boxes that have "CaveTek" or "TekCave" in the name. Once you uncheck those boxes you'll only have one option selected, "Gigant".

Now that you have only one box checked you'll see that there are 5 spawn points on the map for gigas. And, as far as I know, each spawn point can only have 1 giga alive at a time. If the giga from a spawn point dies then you have to wait until that spawn point produces a new giga. This can can take a while because you're not guaranteed to have a giga from each spawn point all the time, it's a max of 1 per spawn point, sometimes you have to wait until that spawn point gets lucky and spawns a new giga.

So, now that you know all of that, what this means is that the giga you spotted before might still be wandering around it's spawn zone and you just haven't found it again, or it might means that the giga despawned because it wandered away or because it was old enough that the server removed it. The only way to know for certain is to keep scouting around that spawn point until you either find that giga or find a new one (which could take a while).

Animals in ARK are constantly spawning and either getting killed or despawning, you will never be guaranteed that the animal you want will still be there when you go back. Generally speaking, it's a good idea to either pre-build taming traps in areas that you know spawn a lot of the animals you want or make sure that you carry the supplies with you to be able to build a taming trap anywhere you go. Sometimes it feels like ARK as psychic powers and deliberately prevents you from finding the animals you want, things work much better if you're prepared by either pre-building in a good area or by being prepared no matter where you go. A good combination of planning and being flexible will make everything about the game more fun for you.

And finally, if you do build taming pens at various locations so that you can be prepared to tame anything in the area, you want to build your pens using pillars & ceilings rather than using foundations. Foundations can prevent a spawn point from working if you build too close to it (this is how they prevent animals from spawning inside of bases) but pillars don't have that same affect. You can build a taming trap (or even a whole building) on pillars and any spawn points that are near you will keep producing new animals.

https://ark.gamepedia.com/Spawn_Map_(The_Island)

 

[Penguin73]

@Pipinghot , excellent post. thanks.