WizardNuuk

Extinction, SP Took the enforcer on an adventure to the waste along with 4 members of the Knights of Tails. Wandered around a bit and found a spot with a handful of rich metal nodes, so I made a mental note of the location for later. Went a little farther and spotted a corrupted fire wyvern. Ain’t no way I’m messing with one of those with my current crew, so I backtracked and spotted an element vein. I haven’t figured out how to gauge the difficulty of veins, but this was apparently an easy one as waves were primarily pteras and dilos with a few trikes, stegos, raptors, and Rexs sprinkled in. I didn’t have my mantis with me, so had to harvest by hand. Walked away with 31 element, 105 shards, and 3.5k dust. I brought these back to base, and didn’t do much after that other than craft 3 vaults and tame a second Achatina.

Extinction, SP Went on a metal run for ~2.5k metal ingot worth. Then wacked some lampposts and tables with a doedic for ~5k crystal and ~5k element dust. I spotted a blue OSD and decided to give it a shot (I’ve not done an OSD before). I brought one of my newly raised Tek Rexs and 2 wolves: Sir Chewsalot and Madam Shadow. After several rounds I was very comfortable thinking this is easy. But then, as the last wave starts, the sky darkens and the precursor fireflies of a meteor shower start to fall. I debated giving up the OSD, but figured that trying to cryo my dinos as the wave of corrupted dinos hit was a bad idea, so I risked it. OSD Completed. As meteors crashed all around, I rushed around gathering the loot - most of which was useless, but I did get a few extra cryopods. The main benefit was the confidence that I can handle the OSDs. Safe back at base, I sorted all the loot and started looking through collected enforcer blueprints. The best I have is an Asc level 110, but is very costly (13k element dust, but I only have 8k). A level 95 journeyman, however, had only slightly lower health and melee percentages, and was a third the cost. I crafted this one, named it EN37. It’ll make a good starter enforcer.

Extinction, SP Played short sessions throughout the last few weeks, but was able to spend a fair amount of time in Ark over the long weekend to finish projects. Finished raising and imprinting my 5 member flock of Argys. With over 1000 weight after imprint, they are excellent as carriers for metal runs. Finished raising and imprinting a 5 member wolf pack. They are from my Rag breeding line that has red body and feet with a black back stripe. 500 melee after imprint, so these guys are going to shred. I have dubbed them the Knights of Tails; Sir Chewsalot and Madam Swift are the pack leaders. I then tamed a snow owl, which came in handy to find the seemingly near-extinct Queen Bee. Tamed the bee and set her up in my greenhouse. The bees took their jolly sweet time creating honey so I multitasked by popping out my breeder Rexs and set to work raising and imprinting 5 Rexs. By the time the beginning of my Rex army was saddled, the bees had done their job. I plopped down my new industrial cooker and made 5 veggie cakes. The snow owl and I then hunted down a low level Achatina; we had to save it from 3 spiders. Tamed it, and set it wandering in a Dino leash at base. Metal shortage problem - solved Paste shortage problem - solved

Extinction, Singleplayer, PS4 Built a greenhouse and started growing veggies. Made a trip to the sunken forest to tame Gachas. 2 of the 3 I tamed produce oil, so my oil shortage problem is now solved. 1 of them also produce black pearls, which will be useful later. Also made my first real journey in the waste by flying around the southwest corner of the map in search of a dung beetle. My fire wyvern, Reckoning, had no trouble dealing with the mobs of corrupted dinos, but the heat was slowly killing my character. So I jumped over to the desert biome for silk. Now I have a full set of desert gear.

I finished transferring the dream team over to Extinction. It took about 6 transfers from the Island, Ab, and Rag to bring over my desired top-stat breeding pairs and imprinted dinos. Only one of the transfers resulted in a poof incident; although I find it suspicious that transfer included 4 wyverns, dinos I can not recreate through breeding and were primarily included for boss fights. I would say this incident was a preemptive strike from the Tytans. With my all-star mantis, bear, roll rat, anky, doedic, and Argy resources come easy. I set up a simple base almost directly in the middle of the city; upper platform with a terminal. It has the essentials: bed, smithy, Stone forge, fab, geny, fridge, cryofridge, and a long long line of large storage boxes. The immediate plan is to hang out here while gathering resources for a metal base and the upper tier crafting structures. I figure my search for resources will naturally make me familiar with the map and find an ideal main base location; although, after several hours flying the city I’m leaning toward the possibility I am already in a fantastic spot for a base: decent size open area, little pool for water, and access to the highway system that includes a ramp down to a doorway into the wasteland. I am enjoying my time in Extinction so far - looking forward to spending more time exploring.

Aberration, Singleplayer, PS4 Tried my hand against Gamma Rockwell... and failed pretty miserably. After spending an hour or so setting up whistle groups, follow distance, inventories, etc I thought I had a solid strategy going in, but cool preparation quickly went to panic anxiety when the radiation balls started descending on me at much quicker speed than anticipated. I was hit far too many times at the start because my brain kept fighting my fingers on which hotkey had my auto rifle. Finally got my fingers sorted and got in a good groove. But about the 3rd circuit I came too close to an electric tentacle, which took me off my rock drake. I sat it out with my shield up while nameless descended on me. When the electric subsided, my reaper and 2 megalosaurus that were on follow saved me. I hopped back on my rock drake full of relief and continued knocking down tentacles. However, I then see a death message, your Bulbdog died. Oh no!! completely forgot the electric unshoulders pets. I knew full well that meant I wouldn’t be able to kill the reaper spawns. Sure enough, after that round, the reaper spawns start. Within minutes my tames that were on follow were busy with at least 3 reapers and a ton of nameless. It took all my attention to avoid reapers, dodge reaper spit, pump medical brews, and shoot the occasional ball. I was pinned between reapers several times and later ran headlong into an electric area. 2 out of 3 sets of armor broke and the helmet of my 3rd set, yet somehow I still lived. Both myself and rock drake reached a sliver of health and I decided if I’m going to go down, then I’m bringing as many tentacles as possible with me. I barreled forward, stopping for nothing, shooting my pump shotgun as fast as possible. I manage to complete the circuit and whistle my 14 megalosaurus on the platform to attack Rockwell. I had the thought to take them with me as protection, but determined it would be a fruitless effort. My best hope was to get all reapers distracted by my reaper, so that I could take out tentacles. As Rockwell’s health fell to about a quarter, I thought maybe I could pull this off. I made my way to my reaper so that the 3 following me could join their 3 brothers that were pummeling my reaper. En route I get spit on, and so my button-spam run/jump/glide is all in slow mode. I then got a You Died message. I’m not sure if I was slowly losing health from something or of that is the message when hit by a ball, but yeah, I was the one that died, not my dinos - they were stellar - they deserved better. I’m sure I’d be able to defeat Rockwell if I gave it another go, but the armor, weapon, and saddle crafting along with raising and leveling another army does not appeal to me at the moment. Instead, I am leaving Aberration behind, and going full speed into Extinction. The only time I’ve spent on Extinction before this is when I transferred my Island Character in to learn the Engrams and tame a Snow Owl and a Gacha pair. This time I’ll be taking my Ab character, who had previously been to the Island and defeated the bosses, and been to Rag for the Scorch Engrams, so a fully kitted playthrough is about to begin. I greatly enjoyed Aberration. I anticipate making a new character there, so I can jump in when I want. Bosses in general just don’t seem to be for me (Island gave me similar grief - I lost 3 armies through the first 4 times I fought the Broodmother). I look forward to the new adventure on Extinction. It’s funny, I feel like I’ve always been a map behind. Valguero comes out this weekend, and I’m going to Extinction. It’s kind of nice knowing there will be something on the horizon if this current adventure doesn’t work out.

Had the day off yesterday, but my body woke up at the normal workday time. Wife and daughter slept in so I had a fair amount of time to myself playing Ark. Decided to load up Rag and try out the Summer Bash stuff. Used up all my cooked meat (prime and regular) and even made meat runs to fill the industrial grill several times. I made the skins, but skipped the emotes (I play singleplayer. Why would I use my jerky for emotes that I never use). Overall, I was underwhelmed. The hat is cool; I’ll wear that around. So, I turned my attention to searching for event dinos at the Wyvern trench. Not much luck on event Wyverns; the only one I pulled was an 85 purple Lightning. In general, though, I was quite fortunate. I came away with 3 good Poison eggs levels 190, 170, and 160. As well as 2 fire eggs levels 170 and 155. All acquired in one batch of clearing the trench. I was set to head home with my haul, when I noticed the upper trench had respawned already. Took a look on a whim, and spot a level 15 alpha right at the entrance close to my turret tower. Milk! I now have 6 wyverns growing and enough milk to sustain them. Fireworks to celebrate

Aberration, singleplayer, PS4 As planned I hung around base with the exception of occasional material runs. Managed to clear out unnecessary dinos including several Direbears (I now have the best stats and desired colors in 2 breeding pairs) as well as egg-laying herbivores. I was tripled up on regular kibble and didn’t realize. The Ankys and Stegos are now gone and the turtles are my regular kibble providers. Decided on them because I couldn’t bring myself to kill the Christmas colored male. The lag in my base is noticeably less. I then decided to figure out damage output for my boss army and guns. I pulled out my best pump shotgun, auto rifle, and ascendant sniper (boy does this thing feel good to handle). I also pulled out a leveled Megalo. I thought, well, I know there is a training dummy engram; perhaps I can use that to get a good idea on damage. (I’m sure some of you are cringing right now, but let me finish). I craft and set up the dummy in a corner, and first attack with my Megalo. 10k damage. WHAT! ? I know Megalo have good damage but no way. Attack again. 10k damage. Wiki Magalo damage. 75 base. Ok, so 75 x 850%. That is only 638. Ok, let’s put that aside, figure it out later, looking forward to this ascendant sniper. Take a shot. 0 damage. huh? Shoot again. 0 damage. Move closer, shoot the head of the dummy. 0 damage. Unload 5-10 shots. Zeros. That is how I found out the dummy shows damage done to thatch structures and does not work for ranged weapons. I now have a dummy in my base - make that 2 dummys because I (dummy #2) built one in my base. What a waste of 500 thatch and fiber. On the flip side, my reaper is a BEAST even at level 125. After imprint he has 21k health and 290% melee (2.4k against dummys not that it matters). Still have a lot of leveling of Megalos to do, but I also would like to try for a better reaper. I also need to make more trips to the surface to see if I can find a better Megalo saddle blueprint. So much to do.

Aberration, Singleplayer, PS4 Finally decided it was time to acquire a reaper, so I crafted a bunch of stone foundations and dino gates with the intent of permanently trapping one of I crossed a high level. Set out on my rock drake Blue Dragon. First reaper queen found is a level 10. I figure I would kill it to promote more spawns. The fight took much longer and more of my drake’s health than I would have liked, so when the next two I encountered were a level 15 and 20, I simply ran away. Then met a level 90. I thought, hey this is probably good enough for a first reaper. I get her trapped in 4 dino gates and bite away at her health. Checked her health periodically with the handy magnifying glass (first time I ever crafted or carried one of those). She gets below 5% Health, so I turn off the light, see the red glow, hop off with my Journeyman shield in hand, and slowly approach. She does nothing - no bite, no tail spin, no roar, nothing. She just stands there like a big shadow with eyes. I pull out my sword (because walking up to a large beast and wracking it point blank never ends poorly, right?). Sure enough it makes her mad and she tail spins me away. I then realize the red glow is gone. Jump back on my drake and find that health has ticked back up. I did this at least 5 more times until I was halfway through durability on my 2nd shield and broke a set of hazard gear. I then tried getting her as low on health as possible and... I killed her ? went back to base to fix stuff and grabbed my best rock drake Ironfist (Blue Dragon was my 2nd best and down to ~15% Health). Back in red zone I bypass 3 low level queens, and encounter a level 50. I settle and go for it. This one, though, is too squirrely and I fail to trap her. We played ring around the dino gates for a while trying to get her stuck on them - instead she hops atop some red gem nodes and gets stuck. That works. I apparently learned from my prior failure as it only took me 2 tries until I was grabbed. Some xp later I birth a 125 baby reaper king. He is a wild little thing with a face only a mother could love - must take after her. While he is growing up I will hang around base to finish raising and leveling my Megalosaurus army in preparation for Rockwell.

Aberration, singleplayer, ps4 Decided to spend the evening taming Megalosaurus to see if I can improve my stat options. So, I used the last of my gunpowder to make about 300 simple rifle bullets, then turned 200 of them to tranq darts, 130 of which became shocking tranq darts. Also pulled all my Spino eggs to make 30 Superior kibble. Hopped on my Rock Drake and made my way to the Elemental Vault Cave where I have 2 stone traps set up. The first Lv 145 I pull decided to bring a party. While attempting to sort them out he circumvented my trap and dove into the liquid element. Cleared out everything up to the first intersection, where my second trap is located. Look left, look right, no high level Megalosaurus. Went left, climbed the ceiling, and glide into the blue section with the path to the Artifact. Clear that area, reach the artifact chamber, and spot a male 145 Meg. Do some quick contemplation and decide on building a trap at the base of the slope that leads to the artifact (used 4 stone foundations in an L with stone door frames on the outside, with the slope ledge serving as the back wall). Pull the Meg who falls perfectly into my trap (insert evil laugh). He brought an uninvited guest too, though, who I had to dispatch. Knock out the 145, put kibble in, and I wait.. and wait... take a minute to clear the artifact chamber, take the artifact, and back to the Meg to wait. I apparently tamed all 3 of my other Megs during taming events, because this guy took forever (1.5x taming for me. Yes I realize official is much longer - I feel sorry for you, not really ?). I ended up going through both sets of hazard gear and my lightpet with 2500 charge ran out. The wait was well worth it, though. He stood up with 7872 Health and 405% Melee, well above my current collection of stats.

Abberation, singleplayer, ps4 Tackled the Hidden Grotto cave. I way over-prepared. I had previously set up an outpost just outside the cave complete with smithy, fab, gen, turret, and backup sets of armor, tools, and weapons. I had also gone through the trouble of mass-taming Barys to Breed a strong one for the cave. I traversed carefully and slowly through the cave, setting up wires in places, and cryoed/ uncryoed my Bary and 2 ravagers as I needed them. I encountered a total of 7 Karkinos throughout, which was more than I had anticipated. 2 I led to land for my ravagers to ... well... ravage. 2 became pincushions from me crossbowing them at a distance. The remaining 3 I managed to avoid entirely. I only used 1.25 scuba tanks and my Bary was very effective against the various mobs. Didn’t die once - although a jellyfish pair got close after stunning my Bary and trapping me in a corner; deadeye crossbow skills for the win! In other news, I finished breeding my best Ravager stats into a breeding pair. Lv 231: 2880 Health, 1400 Stam, 840 Weight, 352% Melee. Not spectacular, but adequate for my purposes. I intend to transfer breeding pairs to the Island and Ragnarok along with saddle blueprints so my characters on those maps have an unlimited supply of ravagers as fun tames.

Rag, singleplayer, ps4 Did some event Dino taming. First was a 174 Tek Rex with cyan inner lights (for some reason cyan eyes look so much more menacing than the dark blue, white, and green I have seen previously). She popped up with 1 distribution point less in health than my current boss Tek Rex line whereas Melee was 2 distribution points above, so she is a keeper. Next I found a 150 Direwolf that was main body magenta, cyan along the back, and orange feet. The event post doesn’t list orange, but it looks orange rather than yellow to me. I then went on a bit of a jerboa taming spree ?. My intention was to tame a few event colored ones, but things escalated out of hand quickly once my thought process became “why not, I still have empty cryopods on me.” They are just so cute. On my way back to base I spotted a 135 Yuty with a cyan back. I watched him a bit and became worried when he disturbed a rock golem. I thought, well, rip Yuty. But instead, the golem started walking away. Apparently, the Yuty fear roared the golem, so the Yuty will be my taming target next time I’m on.

Ragnarok, singleplayer, ps4 Did a Dino wipe and set off on an Eggcellent Adventure. As soon as I left base I spotted a 135 Griffin (I have 150 set as max), so I tamed it. Took my fire wyvern out while waiting and killed some things; of note was an all yellow Rex and a pale green Rex, both of which I would have tamed if they had been decent level. I then made my way to the northeast beach to look for dodos, but managed to first spy an Oviraptor with bunny ears. While I am chasing it around to pick up the event eggs, a pego jumps me and takes my medical brews. I sprint toward my Griffin with intention of teaching this thief a permanent lesson when his buddy jumps me and takes the 20 regular kibble I had on me. Now it’s on. It didnt matter the one pego was an event magenta color. Thor and Griffin brought the hammer down! Looking back, I question why my reaction was to flee to my dino. I could have easily pulled out my rifle. It seems Ark has conditioned me to rely on my tames for safety - not sure how I feel about that... After gathering my fill of Ovirapter event eggs, I traveled farther along the beach, found plenty of the dodo event eggs, and went ahead and crafted all the skins. I decided my night was not over as I had spotted an event 135 female equus with green body and magenta stripes. It looked awesome, so I tamed it. I did a search for other event equus, but the colorful ones were all low level. However, I did spot a 140 white male with black stripes; basically a zebra. I broke in that one as well and then flew back to base before calling it a night. At some point I would like to do equus breeding for both stats and color mutations, so I’m pretty happy with finding these two.

Had a bit of a scare on Ragnarok. I was on my Argy, flying back to base near Green Obelisk. After making a clean sweep of loot drops trough the desert and back to the southwest, I was pretty proud of my haul of stuff. I’m heading north, but started looking for a hilltop to regain stamina when I hear a whoosh and the tip of wings cover my screen for a second. My immediate thought was it must be a griffin behind me. No. I swing my camera around and see a poison wyvern making his wide turn to regain an angle on me. So here I am, in a dog fight with a faster foe, low on stamina, and inventory full of loot I would like to keep. I manage to juke a couple poison balls while flying toward ground. Once there I land under a small overhang to try and regain stamina and think of a plan. Unfortunately, only a couple seconds go by until a poison ball hits me straight on. RIP character Thor, RIP unnamed jerboa. Before my screen goes black I see my imprinted and mutated lv248 Argy take off after the wyvern: get ‘em Red Wing! Respawn at base, throw on some backup armor, and hop on a Griffin. Reach the spot and see Red Wing and the wyvern engrossed in an epic aerial battle of flying in circles. So I grab my body bag, un-cryo my better Griffin, and send it into battle. It didn’t take long for the lv90 wyvern to go down, so we made the short trip back to base with ease. lesson learned: know where the wyvern spawns are. Noob move on my part to think they were only at the northern trench and a few spots in the snow biome.