Stretch11

Official PvE Valguero, all by myself Last weekend i experienced the terror that is DIRE BEAR! I logged in and woke up in my temporary houseboat to hear crunching and screaming dinos outside the walls. I got a message saying my only flyer (a Ptera) had just been killed by a Dire Bear. I still heard crunching and screaming, so I ran out to see what I could do to save my Stegos. I stepped out to see one male Stego bravely protecting the Queen Brood Mother Stego and then valiantly dying. I took stock of my my assets in hand. Full plate mail - check. Sword - check. Hit points - nowhere near enough for a Dire Bear. So I ran back in the house, grabbed a crossbow and headed for the roof of my floating trailer mansion. I got the Dire Bear distracted by landing a few choice bolts in its posterior and it left my remaining male Stego quietly coagulating since I had it on "passive". I noticed almost immediately that the DIre Bear was not as tall as a Rex when viewed from close enough to count its teeth, but it was still tall enough to knock me off a two-story roof. I made it back up on the roof and stood back far enough from the edge to not get hit but still be able to hit the top of its head with the bolts. He was raging on my house and I started wondered if Dire Bears were able to shred stone. The server started rubber-banding and he would run away from the houseboat and snap back to shred some more, so I could not tell if he was actually going to go away now that he was not aggroing on my Stegos or if he was really mad at my house. I was not really hurting him much at all so I decided that there was nothing else that I could do, especially with the server acting up and most of my shots not actually landing. I went back in my house through the roof access and laid down and went to sleep. I logged in the next day and discovered myself standing in water up to my waist. No Dire Bears and two live Stegos. It seems the Dire Bear finished tearing up my house boat and then left. My body dropped into water shallow enough to let me breathe. I know I should be grateful for my life, my armor, and my two Stegos, but my houseboat had three lockers full of gear and resources and all of my forge/smelter/machines were all gone. I am rebuilding a new houseboat "Calypso II" and as soon as I finish it I will continue building my permanent house near the Abberant Chasm. I remember reading someone's post earlier in this thread about the best way to protect your dinos was to stay out of render range unless you need them. I guess just logging in caused the Dire Bear to randomly spawn. When I have a real house and a real dino pen, this should get easier. This is still much less stressful than PvP.

This is probably a game camera meant to take pictures of anything that moves. It can be used to let you know what dinos are roaming the area in which you put it or it could be used to see who is checking out your base at night. Some of those lenses are probably infrared so that it can take clear pictures at night without giving away its presence. My question would be do you have to go access it to get the pictures or can it be transmitted back to your base so that you can monitor it remotely?

Offical PvE Valguero, all by myself I now have the beginnnings of a kibble farm. I tamed one male and two female Stegos, have several crop plots on my boat, some recycle bins, and a pig to generate poop. The Stegos also contribute poop when they are not breeding or dropping eggs. When I have made enough regular kibble, I will go after some higher-level dinos. I hate waiting 4-5 hours for a tame. This double-tame weekend, I did not have the spare time set aside to go after anything significant. I finally decided on a permanent location for my keep and it is where I saw the three Spinos ravaging a couple of weeks ago. They were all gone with only herbivores nearby, so I took my chances and completed a small 2x2x2 stone cube with a bed and room for much expansion (a large flat area). I also built about half a dino pen with one giant dino gate and lots of large dino gates. I used some regular stone walls in one place to add a human-sized door in case I need to lure in something and run out the other side (I used this strategy to some good effect on The Island before). When I was gathering resources to expand, I noticed a stone overhang with what seemed to be a large crystal inside. I had not found any crystal yet in Valguero, so I went in to take a look. Apparently, I have built my base fairly close to the Aberrant Trench! No wonder there were lots of Spinos earlier. All of the Trikes in the area are perpetually glowing from Rexes in the trench. After I get established, I will have a lot of fun journeying down into the trench and trying to bring back a good carnivore or two. On a sadder note, I tried to tame a Argy at a place a long way from any of my resources. I decided that I could probably just tank the damage and stun it by shooting it in the head a few times with tranq arrows. I made several rookie mistakes here. One, I did not build any kind of trap. This was because it is usually hard to pin an Argy down to a particular place - this was on a mountainside. Two, I forgot to change into my metal armor and noticed that I was still wearing leather when I started flashing red a lot sooner than i expected. Three, I did not check out the Argy's level beforehand (see my previous description of not finding any crystal - thus no spyglass). Four, other than my armor I brought all of my best gear along (especially the crossbow). Five, I did not drop a sleeping bag nearby to return to pick up my stuff after I died (i.e., I did not plan for possible failure). Needless to say, I failed and died and was not able to recover anything. One thing that I did right and may be able to recover is that I set my low-level Ptera (I flew to this location) to "passive flee". With a lot of luck it is hanging around at the top of the sky in that area just waiting for me to come back. All-in-all, an exciting dino-wrangling time!

Official PvE Valguero, all by myself I tamed a level 55 Ptero (tamed out to around 70) and took to the skies with my new long-range flyer (at least compared to the level 30 Ptero that I had previously). I had seen a video with Dimorphodons in the Southwest, so i headed that way to see if I could find the place and if it was conducive to taming with my resources. Pteros definitely do not have the endurance of Argies, but I managed to find the spot near a giant hollow log across a stream. It was a really tranquil looking spot until the ants came for me (I was obviously sitting in one spot too long). I got away and headed further Southwest because I saw some mountain-looking rises in the distance. I found where the Argies hide and I will have to come back later to get one. Unfortunately, it looks like Yutys and their boosted Carno minions also like that area. There were some pillars placed by someone way up on the mountaintops. I am not sure what they were protecting or if they just wanted to show that they had been to the mountaintops. At the base of the mountains, there were some tree ring forts in the redwoods. When I get that engram, I might settle down near them. Although I would prefer something on the lake, there was plenty of water near the redwoods and the lake is getting really overcrowded with fortresses and pillars. Question - If I build a tree ring fort in a redwood, what happens when someone chops down the redwood? When a tree ring fort redwood falls in the forest and there is no one in spawning distance, does it make a sound?

I did not know that you could fill crop plots "manually", I just wait for rain. I might try that to speed up the process when my plots are dry. Thanks for the info. I took my raft out in the lake where all the Pelas are flying, but none landed. Maybe I just need to keep it still for a while. I have had Pteras land on my raft before. They always wait until I am not prepared to capture them. ? I tamed a level-15 Ptera last night (I did not feel like waiting for 5 hours for a level 150) and I will be boosting its weight and stamina to use it for exploring. I will have to be careful not to land in hazardous areas since it will be fragile. When I get enough regular kibble, I will go for a high-level one (or maybe a Pelagornis for variety).

Official PvE Valguero, all by myself I still have not settled in an area to build a base. The most interesting place along the lake that is unpopulated by castles is currently populated with three Spinos. I might be able to trap one, but three is a bit much at this stage of development. In the meantime, I have discovered that you can build a lot on rafts even in areas that have been overly pillared. I now have my main raft with living area and enclosed construction devices up through metal plus a "trap" raft with a 3x3 capture area at the end of a ramp plus a "hydroponics" raft just for farming. I discovered that you cannot put plumbing on a raft, but crops work with just the regular rains if you are willing to wait for them. I used my "trap" raft to catch a male and a female Stego, my first tames. Their eggs will drive my standard kibble process along with the farming. I just caught low-level ones since I will only be using them to make eggs for kibble and a 150 Stego would take over six hours with just berries. After I make enough kibble, I will go for a high-level Ptera to give me more mobility. I am kind of torn between a Ptera or a Pelagornis, but the Pelas on Valguero never seem to perch on land making them a bit harder to catch. Then I guess I will go looking for something large to tame with standard kibble. With a Ptera, I might even be able to steal a Deinonychus egg or two. With all the times that i died in the White Cliffs (20+ per day for a couple of weeks), I deserve to get something good out of them. I am glad that i decided to restart in PvE. I can build up resources and not have them stolen every day or two. A few of the neighbors have stopped by to say "hi", but I will probably have different neighbors when I finally settle down from my nomad phase.

Official Valguero, PvP (then PvE), all by myself I got to the point where I was ready to tame larger dinos. However, this will be an all-day affair without at least Regular Kibble. I have a female stego, but this also requires crops which requires crop plots which I am not very sure how long they would last in a PvP environment. There is no way to protect the crops form pillaging or just vandalism. Greenhouse walls are breakable by just about anything and putting crops inside of anything else just does not work. This was the bit that finally convinced me to go to PvE. I created a new survivor (since survivors are not allowed to travel from PvP to PVE or vice-versa on offical servers) on a PvE offical Valguero server. I decided to stick with Valguero since I have become familar with several locations and it is more interesting to me than The Island. My initial spawn point was right next to a huge brightly-lit castle that covered most of the Small Islands with dragons and elementals sitting around everywhere. I expected the alarms to start going off and dinos to swarm me, but everything was passive and calm. I swam away as my heart rate went back to normal and I decided that I would need a while to readjust to a non-PvP atmosphere. I built a raft and started a superstructure, but I may wait to complete it until I can do it in stone. All the fancy buildings in PvE make me hesitant to build a mere square wooden box. The neighbors will laugh at me. There are pillars all over the area where I am at. I am not trying to build any kind of permanent structure until I get enough levels to build with stone. I am just building lots of foundations (first thatch, then wood) and throwing them away for the leveling exp. I made it to 23 last night and will probably make it to stone tonight. With all of the pillars around, my first "permanent" location will probably be a raft. I have built large (5x7 with superstructure) rafts before, but not with the intent to live aboard them. I have seen some good designs with dino traps built-in. After I make a decent raft, I will start wandering around looking for a good place for a base that is not covered in pillars (or covered in Allosaur packs).

I have given up so many bases, it is not funny. I am perfectly familiar with starting from nothing over and over. When I was on The Island, I had to build up a metal base bit by bit so that only C4 could get in (and there were plenty of griefers carrying C4). I guess I am getting a little attached to this stone base which I have been able to maintain a few tame dinos. I have not tried to Cryopod yet, but that sounds like it might be a useful option to keep my dinos safe and to raise them a bit at a time when I have an hour here and there. Clubs sound nice, but I have preferred pikes and swords so far. I can usually get to those technololgies in a few hours after starting from scratch. Flak armor is nice, but I can make do with hide. Crossbows are nice (rifles are nicer), but I can get by with bows. I just have to decide whether my purpose in playing at the moment is about proving that I can outlast, outwit, etc. my fellow survivors or whether it is to beat the game and its dinos and bosses. What do you mean by "gamma 4"? Is this a setting to make the game run smoother? My computer is running enough FPS. Is it something to lighten the display? I have cranked up the brightness of my TV to where I can see in pretty much every condition except the night/fog/rain condition on The Island. The drawback is that i get crazy lens flares when the sun is low in the sky and I cannot stand to see myself in metal armor. Thanks for the info and advice.

Official Valguero, PvP, all by myself My usual griefer came calling yesterday as I was on. As previously documented, he jpined my tribe as a level 4 and promptly killed me with the weapons that I gave him. This time, he flew in on a dragon (probably a wyvern - I can't really tell between dragons except for Managarmrs) so I did not kill him on sight. He spent a little while picking up my Stego and dropping it and then picking me up and dropping me. I was shooting with my crossbow with tranq arrows (I had been taming a Ptera when he caught me outside) and when he was done playing (or maybe when his dragon started getting groggy from tranq arrows), he killed me with a shotgun. The good thing is that he did not kill my Stego and did not loot my body or wreck my base (not sure if he could actually hurt stone). It was no problem to respawn inside my base and wait until he gave up taunting and went away so that I could go collect the stuff on my body. The bad thing is that even though i have a mastercraft shotgun (it was safe in my base while he was killing me), I really do not have adequate defenses against him other than hiding in my base. My dinos in the pen are vulnerable to flyers unless I attempt to build a truly huge box with a large dino gate. I suspect that the roof could not be built without foundations below it or lots of pillars in the middle of my pen. I am debating giving up on this whole PvP thing. I have tried it and have survived and prospered, but it is a real pain to do anything permanently. I cannot keep any dinosaur too large to put in my house (I have a large hatchframe and can put small flyers like Pteros inside). I may just move to a PvE Valguero server as I have heard that the neighbors are more friendly on PvE ? If I move to an offical PvE server, can I move back to am official PVP server in the future? I would hate to lose the only PvP survivor that i have leveled up in case I want to return to PvP someday.

Valguero, Official PvP, All by myself I got my base (a 3x3x2 cube) upgraded to all stone now and I shouldn't have to worry about beginner griefers and most dinos. As I was upgrading it, I found a level 4 survivor wandering outside. I welcomed him to the area and he suggested that we merge tribes. I invited him to my tribe and gave him my leftover gear (I have upgraded a few times), which he promptly used to kill me. I think I have not quite adjusted to the realities of a PvP server. If you see anyone that you do not know, kill them on sight. If you see bodies sleeping near your base, drag them into the water so they will drown when they awaken. The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance. My innocence has been burned out with the fires of betrayal. I respawned nearby, kicked him from the tribe, ran back to my base, and closed the door on my base while he was outside. I then ran off and hid in the bushes while he was calling "Sorry! I didn't mean it! Please come back!" Riiiight. I will give him one kill and loot from my own foolishness, but this means war. I built up resources over the next couple of game days and came back to find him gone from the area and my base was intact. Near dusk, I saw a dragon flying around with a survivor on its back. I cannot tell between the various types of dragons easily (especially in the shadows), but it did not zip around like a Managamr, I think it may have been a wyvern. It landed and the survivor yelled "Hello!" at my base a few times and then had the dragon breathe fire at it a few times (which did not seem to actually damage anything). I logged out and went to eat a snack. They were gone when I logged back on. I guess they had gotten bored since I did not come out to play and they could not force me by attacking my base. I decided that between griefers and dragons, I had better upgrade to a metal house. It can still be broken with C4, but that takes a bit of effort. I had experience with C4 users from my brief PvP time on The Island. I have plenty of metal, but no cementing paste. I am not about to kill 500 Ankys to make enough paste to build a metal house, so I went looking for Beaver dams. As I went from the main lake to a nearby lake, I saw a Dire Bear. I had tranq gear, but I had heard that Dire Bears can be nasty customers. I thought it might also take a while and I only had a couple of hours to spare, so I left it alone and went a different direction to look for dams. I looked up Dire Bears later and it seems that they are comparable to Rexes. I will need to have a good plan before I try to tame one by myself. Also, I will need to build a metal dino pen in which to keep it so that griefers do not kill it for sport while I am AFK. I decided to hop on my raft (basic with no sail) and cruise around the edges of the lake to look for beaver dams. There were lots of good drops and I spent the rest of the day sailing from one to another picking up loot from the drops (yellows, purples, blues). The best thing that I got was a shotgun (wish it were a blueprint), I think craftsman (mastercraft maybe?) class. I will need to start making gunpowder now and take the engram for shotgun ammo. I am missing having tamed dinos and a flyer would make it so that i can cover more area than with a raft. I am going to build a dino pen on top of my house with a hatchframe entrance on top. Then I can tame a Pteranodon or two and keep them safe. I had tamed one a few days ago, but lost him during the aforementioned griefer episode when I died. I had left the Ptera sitting on top of my base on passive so that it did not get lured off the top. That still left it plenty vulnerable to arrows or other flyers.

Players could get into my base by dropping from above, but they could not get out without tearing down a wall. I guess they could get in and out with a flyer. Only foundations "in the open" have disappeared (and the things on the foundations). Various storage boxes and things that are sitting on the ground were all untouched with all of the contents intact. A separate complete "cube" house a short distance from my main base also remained intact. I am thinking it is some sort of glitch about foundations with no attached walls or ceiling above them. I will double-check my tribe log tonight (thanks for the suggestion).

Valguero, Official, PvP, all by myself. I gave up on building a home in the White Cliffs area. Even if I made it totally inacessible, I cannot just walk out the front door. Being at the end of a box canyon with the rest of the canyon full of Allos and Raptors is not conducive to starting out by myself. Every spawn point in the region had Allos camping out around my dead corpses and my death beacons littered the landscape like Christmas lights. Perhaps when i get more resources and some larger dinos (or any dinos for that matter), I will come back and reclaim my partially-built fortress. I also kept having my stone foundations disappear along with everything on them like mortar and pestle, forge, drying rack (or whatever the cheap fridge substitute is called). I think that maybe it is because I did not have enough other structure around them for the game to consider it a "house". I do not remember this mechanic from The Island. If I built a foundation and put a forge on it, it was there the next day when I logged in. Maybe Valguero has different rules about decay or something. Is was not due to dino or player damage. Anyway, after my 20th (or so) death yesterday, I gave up and respawned back at the Small Islands. I found a relatively sharkless spot and swam over to the Redwoods area. I have not had any issues gathering resources and have not seen an aggressive dino all day. I will camp out here and gather more resources before attempting a new journey to the White Cliffs. Redwoods are great! They give more than 100 wood or thatch each. Much better than the measly 5-10 for each Acacia tree in the White Cliffs.

Finally, the Linux version of ARK client was updated and for the last couple of days I have been trying to build a safe place in PvP Valguero. I estimate 20-30 deaths per day, but now I can find my way back to my stronghold blindfolded from any spawn point. I discovered that you can drop any amount of distance into water as long as you miss rocks. About half my paths back home included diving off of the White Cliffs. I built a 1x1x1 stone cube in which to respawn, but I died before I could build a bed for it. The rest of the day was spent respawning and trying to make it back to my cube. I gave up on day 2 and cowered in place for a while. There are a lot of box canyons in the White Cliffs and some are narrow enough to build a wall across them with only a few walls. There were some rocks at the back of the canyon in which I was cowering behind which to hide and none of the carnivores seemed to wander too close. I built a foundation , a bed, and a storage box behind the rocks and called it my hideaway. I spent the rest of day 2 gathering resources for my walls. I would peek out from behind the rocks. If the Allosaurs, Raptors, and Dienonychus (ARD) were far enough away, I would run like mad for a tree or rock, gather some resources, and return. I would deposit everything in the box and run out again. If ARD caught me while I was out, I was only down a pick and a hatchet. I decided to use stone fence supports to make the fence level. While I was putting up the last few fence supports, an Anky wandered into my area and so I just trapped him in there. I will tame him later and he is not really bothering anything. I built a stone dino gate and built up two rows of stone walls. At last I had some breathing room. I built a forge and am still working on getting the resources for a smithy so that i can use the metal that I have gathered along with the rocks and flint. An Allo came over my two-high wall, but he just chewed on my trapped Anky and then left without bothering me. I really need the third and fourth course of rock to keep out bigger dinos. I wonder how high Dienonys can jump? Wild dinos keep falling off the cliff above my base into my base. Fortunately, they have all been nonagressive herbivores, but I am not set up yet to keep them after taming. They all seem to despawn in a few game days except for the original Anky which has been around for a couple of real days so far. I should be able to use this to safely tame a few dinos without having to guard them outside. I have had the following drop into my base: Sheep, horses, lots of kangaroos, and an armadillo. The next canyon over is walled off with a giant dino gate and I have not seen any movement from them since I got here a few days ago. I do not know if they are AWOL or just infrequent. I hope they do not take offense to my closeness and trash my base. Although I have defenses against dinos, people can get in easily by going up a little trail and jumping. The thing that I like the most about Valguero is that everyone is so busy trying to survive the tremendously aggressive and numerous carnivores that there is hardly any time to snipe each other or destroy bases. Ironically after I started wandering a bit further from my base as I gained confidence, I discovered thay my original 1x1x1 stone cube was almost in sight from my dino gate. I had almost made it home before I gave up, but it resulted in a much better home.

Long time reader, first time poster. I have been experiencing the wonders and frustrations of PvP for a month or two now. I don't mind getting my house wiped from time to time and I am determined to overcome and prove myself better than griefers. In any case, on to my current story: I few weeks ago, I contracted swamp fever from a griefer that passed it to me before he killed my sleeping body in the remains of my metal house that he (or maybe she) had cracked with C4. At first I panicked, "Oh, no! Swamp Fever! I'm gonna die!". Then reality set in, "Wait. I die almost every day. No big deal." Unfortunately, dying does not cure swamp fever. I debated making a swamp expedition to get leech blood so that I could make the cure, but I really do not have the level of dino tech at the moment to survive long enough in the swamp. I had contracted swamp fever before and cured it by travelling to another world (also on The Island) and back again. It was a stressful trip since I did not know how to take any items with me and I had to build up enough to survive the trip in the other world. The method that I used was to build a raft and sail to the red obelisk, which was not too bad on The Island. This time, I had a "better" idea. Not only would I travel to another world to cure my swamp fever, I would also pick up some engrams that I could not get on The Island by travelling to Valguero and back. I was specifically looking for the cliff platform although I had not yet discovered that it takes fungal wood that I cannot get back on The Island. I had done absolutely no research on Valguero other than watching a couple of YouTube videos of the Dienonychus ripping up a few survivors. A journey of discovery awaited me! I chose the islands in the center of the lake on Valguero which I found out later were in fact the safest place to start. After a few close encounters with sharks and jellyfish, I managed to find a shallow area that reached about halfway to the main shore from the islands and I reached the shore. The big rocks formed in the distinctive Ark "A" called to me and I wandered in that direction. The green obelisk seemed closer to me, so I went through the "A" arch to the next lake. Cave Bears seemed a bit extreme to me so I built a raft fo rsafer voyaging. Fortunately, redwoods let you stand in one spot and get enough wood to build a raft. Back on The Island, I usually built a storage chest to hold everything since I did not boost my weight capacity too much. I followed the lake back into the White Cliffs area. The green obelisk was just to the left, but at the top of unscaleable cliffs. So close and yet so far. I continued sailing until I saw a path to the top of the cliffs, but there was an alpha Rex guarding it. Grrrr. I cailed to the end of the White Cliffs lake and decided to set up a house there long enough to build some good armor and weapons to hike around the cliffs and back to the green obelisk. It looks all tranquil and idyllic near the White Cliffs with the sheep and rodents and other grazers, but every once in a while a Raptor, a Sabretooth, or a pack of Hyenas rip through and tear up everything including any survivors foolish enough to stand around unprotected. The trees on the plains under the cliffs hold hardly any wood ot thatch in them. I went for long excursions to find and bring back wood, returning unmolested about half the time. I respawned in the general area and eventually could find my way around without a map since I died so many times. After about 4 game days, I had built two stone foundations, one stone wall, and a bed. Any storage cabinets got ripped up by the pack of level 90 hyenas that made my body their personal chew toy. I eventually killed one of them and gave up on the little house on the prairie idea. My next spawn, I started as near as I could get to the green obelisk and just ran naked the whole way to it dodging obstacles and predators. As I came up to the obelisk, I could see that someone had walled it off between some cliffs and put a Rex and a Raptor in the pen to guard the obelisk. Sigh. Deciding that I had nothing more to lose, I jumped in. I managed to get the Rex trapped behind a storage box that someone had left in the pen and the Raptor was off on the other side of the pen not noticing me yet. I had a chance! I accessed the obelisk's menu and started searching for my Island home world. I was enjoying the lack of swamp fever, but given the effort required I would almost have wanted to just live with it. No other worlds appeared on the list. What?!?! Is there some restriction to clustering or something? I had picked a Valguero server that was still "Ofiicial" but not too crowded. I had assumed that if it let me travel from The Island to Valguero that it would let me travel back. I was still trying to figure out what i was doing wrong when the Raptor noticed me and everything went dark as usual. I did not decide where to respawn although I did still have a bed in the little house (two foundations and a wall) on the prarie. I gave up for the night and I will do some research on travelling between workds. It does not seem as cut and dried as I had first imagined.