DodoRaptor

Today I accomplished hardly anything. I traveled the whole island looking for a baryonyx, since I'm ready to get into the underwater areas. I planned to use the baryonyx to help me find and tame a high-level basi, with one of those and SCUBA, finding one and being able to kill the mantas is practically a guarantee by Herbivore Island. I also kept an eye out for sarcos and megalodon, those could also work. I ALSO kept an eye out for a good male rex, megatheirium, and yutyrannus. I found three 90 and one 100 megatheirium, not pure crap, but not boss quality. I did find a 145 megalodon, and a 120, but my thyla wasn't much help for KOing them, since he's not a great swimmer, and we kept needing to go to land for stamina. Megalodons, for some reason, spontaneously run away when you get too shallow, not just lose aggro, they literally RUN the other way. It was just too hard. Best bary out there is level 75. There is a 110 sarco floating around somewhere. I don't know what I'll do tomorrow. Maybe try the upper south cave with Strawberry. Any suggestions for how to obtain a basi? Level is no object, I'm already 96 (yes you read that right, 96 and no boss kills), and I can scrape together enough of pretty much any resource.

Yesterday: Didn't accomplish much, reorganized some stuff, played with my new furry, climbing mount. Killed a 145 carno, a bit tougher with the new bleed. Today: I DID IT HAHAHAHA! YEAH! FINALLY GOT A 145 FEMALE REX! I'LL STOP WITH THE ALL CAPS! I went around clearing the spawn up by the snow on the beach, looked for rexes and allos, went into the snow itself to look for yuties and megatheirium. Found nothing, I did kill an alpha raptor up there, and for some reason I always save every rex bone helmet skin (even though I think they're really ugly to actually wear), but for once I just tossed it. I was flying to the black sand area, since that's a good rex spawn, plus megatheirium spawn nearby. As I past the volcano, a pair of rexes caught my eye. A level 10 male, and a 145 female. I have never gasped louder. Killed the level 10, promising her that I could find her a much better mate than that loser, and landed my bird safely, risking his life by putting him on passive. I tossed out my pocket thyla, mounted, and opened fire. She hit way too hard to risk face-tanking, so I kept running around, getting her stuck, shooting, and running again when she got unstuck. The climbing really helped on the steep terrain. She got a bit bloody, due to my mastercraft crossbow, so I let her eat a dead scorpion to heal. Also, rex AI is so weird. She kept running, then coming back for more, until she actually began fleeing. She began to wander into the forest and I kept having to heard her up the open hill. And that's when my crossbow breaks. I switch to my engram-grade longneck, and finish her off. I brought cooked lamb chops, but while it may be better for bonus levels and prioritized, raw prime is quicker, at the expense of losing two or three levels. I bounced between raw prime, lamb chops, and regular meat, although she thankfully never actually ate any regular, so there would always be something in her inventory, as I hunted down more prime. I never let her get hit once. She tamed up with 7k health, and 359% melee. I'm pretty sure that's a keeper. She looks really cool too, she has a green body and a white backstripe. I'm not leveling her at all, she's a breeder. Now I need a male, and a good saddle blueprint. Nineteen imprinted, leveled up babies, from her and a male of similar stats, should be able to take the broodmother and megapithicus. A yutyrannus will help with the alpha forms, plus I want at least apprentice saddles for both on alpha. I also want to wait on gamma and beta until I get a good BP, since metal is always a problem for me and I don't want to waste any. I have an anky and some forges on Red Peak, but due to the bug with SP respawns, there's less and less each time. It took forever to farm up enough for a cooker, and nineteen good saddles will take a similar amount, more if anything. I also don't know where to look for good blueprints. If I wasn't restricting myself to the Island, I could get easy loot from the front area of the iceworm cave on Rag. When I actually beat every story map (which might take forever), I want to make saves of everything, and then start naked again, this time playing in whatever order I feel like, all with the same character. Of course by then, the rumored Ark 2 might be out. I don't know. I'm coming for you, Overseer! One step at a time.

I did the Carno Island cave, but he took a beating. Let's rewind to the beginning. I started off at my base, and knew I would probably freak out during the small swimming portion at the front, so I took a lazarus chowder along with me. We got there and I landed my bird. I made sure to keep him on neutral. I ate the chowder and went in, after killing a couple things. I went into the water and began freaking out, due to the terrible lighting, so I turned up my gamma. Found my way out to by the entrance again, then went back in. This time a made it into the actual cave. I was greeted by an ungodly amount of bats, among other things. I killed the non-bats easily, but the bats absolutely shredded me, and I fled so I wouldn't lose my brand-new thyla. I ran around Carno Island, until I finally found a spot I could force feed in peace. I ran out of meat, so I went back to my argent to grab more. He ended up getting attacked by a bat that followed me out somehow and flew around killing it. Finally I got everything sorted out, but I kept getting attacked by surface creatures so my health never ended up full. I went back in, now without any chowder. I killed three bats at the entrance who also somehow got through the water. I made it into the main area again, this time without freaking out during the swim. I did fairly well after that, my health stayed above 50% the whole time. I opened two explorer note boxes, there was a third, but it was out of the way, and looked hard to reach. I got the artifact and some loot, but sadly it was just a blue crate with a journeyman stone pick and a blueprint for a hide hat, that's not as good as the hat in the set of hide armor I have (helps to wear hide in caves with arthropleura, I normally wear flak). I did get ramshackle flak leggings from a surface red drop, they were better than my current ones. I'll have to dye it up, for armor I use blue with slate undertones. This whole ordeal got him some levels, he's still not great, but someday I'll tame a better one. I left off up at the active spawn near the snow, I'll look for food dinos, but a pego took my spyglass, so I'll have to run home and grab a new one. Even though he's not the best, Strawberry is still pretty good.

This is the current 1x. It is 2x of what it had been before, and is 4x the first ark settings, that the "old timers" had.

Finally got lucky. I used Penguin73's suggestion and flew through the redwoods with a 110% damage sword (the journeyman took over 300 and I'm in a bit pf a metal shortage. Also had a shotgun. Ironically, I was only pounced once, before I even started officially looking with the sword. I had even spotted said thyla, but I underestimated it's pounce range. I just shotgunned it, which is what I had recently had to do to a purlovia earlier. I was flying low to steal a carno egg (hey don't ask, the oviraptor in me can't resist stealing every single egg I see), when I saw the mound and tried to fly up. Too late. I did get the egg in the end. Anyway, I found a 115 thyla, I shot it down, and carried it to a pen, the jerk drained my bird's health to half. It took around 30 bites, this is with 4x taming speed. He looks really cool, I named him Strawberry, since he's a nice shade of red. Tomorrow, I'll try the carno island cave with him. I also can probably do the upper south with him, using a cryopod to get him by the choke point. I'm bouncing between health in melee on levels. Dododex says he's is average in all stats, but he does seem to have a tad extra stamina compared to everything else. I also noticed that while YouTubers use thylas mainly for caving and ground mounts, and don't really capitalize on their climbing, it's pretty amazing. It's so awesome how I can scale a redwood tree and launch away with no fall damage. I don't want to do anything too stupid with him though, since I don't have a breeding population. Finding high-levels will be so much easier now, since you can't miss them on a ground mount. Although I'll have to test him out after carno island, since I don't want to risk swimming there, and I can't keep my bird cryoed till I need him, since he's under the effect of an event candy. From the Easter event. I can really save my Easter candy. Anyway, I'm so glad to have him.

Thanks for the advice, @Penguin73. The carno's getting a bleed soon, if it works on bosses, that could change everything. Something tells me it probably won't, which is a bit of a shame. I'll keep looking for good dinos, and I'll do what you suggested and fly through the redwoods looking. I have a blueprint for a journeyman sword, which would probably be better than my primitive pump shotgun, especially since a thylacoleo pouncing you will always be in sword range.

Lemme say my theories, as if I actually saw all the cutscenes, and didn't just look at every spoiler. I'm assuming this is another planet, based on the colony ship at the end of part one, and the starry background. I don't think there will actually be all new creatures, since that would be basically impossible, making a whole new roster in a few months. So how do the old ones get there? What if the colony ship was returning to earth FROM the other planet, since that's where most of humanity could have gone when element originally took over, in the pre-Rockwell era? Then again, how would Rockwell have gotten there? Rockwell's physical appearance hasn't changed much, based on the tentacles, while his virtual appearance was totally new. And why did our survivor from the arks end up there? Who's driving it? Autopilot? Wow, I'm more questions then theories. The dragon thing looks vaguely like a managarmr, mostly due to the dog-like face. Maybe it's related to the other Draconis species, but very mutated from element. People always say that managarmrs are "really mamals" but some reptiles like anaconda gestate, and many extinct reptomamals had fur. I think Helena could have been right. Speaking of which, anyone know what explorer notes will look like? This is the real world, so no glitches, but Helena disappeared, and being a Homo deus, probably has better plans. We'll probably meet Mei-Yin and Diana physically, so finding their notes seems a bit odd. Maybe other new survivors? To include ocean in the poster, but no other biomes implies it will have more of an influence than on Genesis Part One, where it was one of five places. I don't know...

Yikes, what did I do? Killed, killed, killed, but no good megatheirium . Two hours down the drain. I don't want to use commands to spawn one in, not counting the many dino wipes I was forced to do while I was trying to set my difficulty to a proper 5.0, and the artifact I'll need to spawn in when when I do the cave of the skylord (though I will run the cave first, just so it's "earned"). I've found tons of high-level creatures, including a 150 woolly rhino. Am I crazy to say that might work on a boss? They're certainly easier to find than megatheirium. At least I sort of had fun clearing, I'd lure my victims into a daeodon filled pen. They were wild, and occasionally one would die or despawn, but for the most part they just shredded everything. There were also two sabertooths, a raptor, and a scorpion at one point, they didn't aggro by default, but I think the scorpion got in the crossfire, and the raptor and sabertooths despawned. One's still in there I think. Also, (people who can never find ovis will hate me) three ovis did spawn in that area, one was killed by daeodons, the others are still somewhere I think. Come on ark! I could go buy Atlas if I wanted, but I chose you. Give me some boss breeders!

I'm having trouble on the island. I had incredible beginners luck with my argent, but I'm not finding any good sloths or rexes. But 145 parasaurs galore! How thrilling. I tamed a 120 daeodon, just because, and the thousands of meat I've gotten clearing out spawn points might allow me to get a couple minutes of healing off of him. I also tamed a 95 archaeopteryx, although level doesn't matter at all. Fun to play with! I also found a 95 thylacoleo, which was just taunting me. I'll take a 120, a 115, maybe even a 110, but 95 is just a bit too low. And I can't just fly through the redwoods looking, since any I don't spot will pounce me. In hindsight, I should have tried to tame a 125 rex I found. Not great, but maybe with some luck it could have been okay. It's since despawned. I also found a 45 and 50 rex near each other. Male and female, I believe. Ark's just mocking me with the fact that those would be awesome if they had a one at the front. I've decided that despite the fact that I need good dinos of all sorts, a sloth is my number one priority. There is a very active spawn point by Whitesky Peak, just north of another very active spawn point on the nearby non-snowy beach. Phlinger Phoo refers to the non-snowy one as "the mosh pit." The snowy one could be my best hope for megatheirium. They're there, but I'm failing to find high-levels. I want to to the maps semi-legit, and not just transfer in when I feel like it, meaning to enjoy SE, I need to beat the Overseer. Same for each next final boss. The "semi" is because I'll use transfers, going back to tree punching isn't for me. But I guess it will have to be for Ab... As I've said before, the four "custom" ones are reserved for my other character. There are only two things stoping me from playing with him: the fact that I lost everything I owned, thanks to a stupid bug, and jerboas, and bulbdogs, and wyverns, and snow owls, and managarmrs (better hurry before they're nerfed into nothingness), and karkinos, and thorny dragons, and gasbags, and feroxes (by the time I get there, they'll probably be mostly fixed), and bloodstalkers, and rock drakes, and...you get the point. New stuff. I will get it done. I must. I've sacrificed so much, hacked so many bodies to pieces. I will ascend!

Looked for good dinos, the same types I'd searched for yesterday. Found none, but bigfoot and the bear were still there. In the north, I did find a 150 dire wolf, which I simply couldn't resist. I named him Husky, due to his coat pattern. Also, while taming him aggroed a dimorphodon at that very active spawn just southwest of Whitesky Peak, and was chased by a flock of six until I made it out of render. Agressive little things, aren't they? ? The wolf turned out good, my base is right by the south cave, so I tried him out there, and he was amazing. I've always been a sabertooth person, probably because I've only had bad dire wolves, while I have a sabertooth that was 116 wild (before I got the hang of difficulty, that would have been the second best wild level), but now I really like dire wolves. Even though my sabertooth has a saddle that's a bit better than engram quality, the lack of damage reduction doesn't make them any less awesome. They attack so fast, and do such good damage. I also found three megalainia right away, one was 135. I regret killing it, but I didn't have a choice. I really want a megalainia for the lava cave. I've already done it with a sabertooth, grappling hooks, and at one point the help of a cryopod (I hate thinking about that horrible place, my blood pressure will probably never be the same), but if I have to run it more to farm the broodmother, I have a crazy plan that might actually work, but it requires a megalainia. I'll bring lots of bug repellent, which both of us will wear. We'll try not to to touch anything, as we climb over the lava. If something is in our path, I'll shoot it with a crossbow to get it to fall in. If there are bats, I'm going full shotgun. It could work. Oh also, right after I got on, I went to my beach shack, and made graves for dinos I've lost, Witty among them. He or she (I'm sorry Witty, I forgot your gender) rests alongside ancients such as my first argentavis and pteranodon.

Today wasn't bad, but a bit disappointing. I killed three alpha raptors, one of which was near my base and cost me one of the eight dilos I brought over from my old beach shack long ago. I lost a lot of dilos back then, but I thought now that I was past the rough life of hunting on foot with a pack, they'd be safe for the rest of my ark gameplay. They were all named after different adjectives for smart. Poor Witty... I looked for rexes, sloths, and thylacoleos. The last one isn't necessary for boss beating, but it will help running the Carno Island cave for loot. Not to mention what a great mount they'll be when make it to Scorched. Also checked out baryonyx, a good one of those could help me tame a basi, which I'll inevitably need. Found all of them, but at low levels. Many a thyla was killed by dire bears... I did find a 130 dire bear, 130 parasaur, 145 bigfoot, and I lied, I did find a good rex. Not important though, since I didn't have it as trapped as I thought, it attacked while I shot at it, my new argentavis attacked, we both escaped, and then we never found it again. I did make a ton of cryopods, and an artifact pedestal, the later of which isn't that important, but it looks cool. I only tried it with hunter, but I also have clever and massive.

Today was the beginning of the rest of my ark life. Finally, I figured out how to get a max level of 150. Thanks @LEDminer, for helping me figure it out! Went argent hunting. First one was five. Second was 150. Went home and slaughtered an ovis for mutton, started feeding, the thing ate like six bites before I realized I accidentally had my taming at 1.0, instead of 4.0. I quickly fixed it. Turned out super good, over 2k health, 700 weight, at least 11k stamina, maybe more, and over 300% melee. And that was without a single stat pumped, or single-player settings. Fury, my loyal level 75 argent, who started out at only level 9 in the wild, is now retired, and will spend the rest of her days looking out over my base. After several dino wipes, I've been forced to deal with the respawns. My base is going bananas over every raptor, dilo, and ant. I usually like bunch on neutral, just in case, but right now I think passive is better. Tomorrow, I'm sloth hunting. Look out overseer. I started small, but I'm on my to endgame. I also hear rexes are nice this time of year. I think I'll do the bosses like this: megatheirium army first, I can afford to be a bit casual, no dedicated breeding pair, just breed with whoever I feel like, original wild two will just be part of the army. For alpha and maybe beta, I'll add in a good yutyrannus. All difficulties primitive saddles, unless I find a good blueprint or premade. If I don't, it's fine. Cementing paste is a joke thanks to my snail. Rex army for megapithicus. Definitely not worried about gamma, primitive saddles and no yutyrannus will probably be fine. Beta and alpha, yutyrannus, and probably good saddles. I might use good saddles for gamma if I can get my hands on them, so I won't waste materials and time on saddles that will just be replaced. I will have a dedicated pair, that won't fight or get level-ups, since boss tier rex breeders are more valuable than sloth breeders. The sloths can be forgotten after I fight the alpha broodmother (many will die anyway), but good rexes can fight the megapithicus, manticore, help with element nodes and drops on extinction, maybe even help with the Genesis missions. Finally, therizinos for dragon. I will DEFINITELY use good saddles, and a yutyrannus, I honestly might lose some on just gamma. I won't farm it at all, just get it killed quick so I can unlock its tek stuff. The many eggs from my rex army will help tame the theris, since I can easily mutton tame a rex, but a berry tamed theri is a bit painful. Maybe I planned too far ahead...

In all my ark experiences, today was probably the lowest point. I made a mortar and pestle, refining forge, smithy, bed, cooming pot, and campfire at my new base. I farmed up oil, metal, element shards, and gems. That's all good, right? Yup. The bad part came later. I was checking out the fabled glowtail and megalainia caverns. They never load in right away, and you can see through the ceiling for a bit. As I flew through, they finished loading, and I was too high and became trapped in the mesh. My character was "swimming" for some reason, and so I swam down, fell out from the ceiling, and took fatal fall damage. I returned via griffin, and found a light and my wyvern, but no body or jerboa. Left off wasting metal on new, inferior tools, and without nine or so cryopods. Tomorrow, I kinda want to return to The Island.

Moved to the floating islands and made a nice base, not as big as I hoped, but it still can be expanded upon. Took a lot of work anyway. I still need to put down a lot of stuff; all I have is a large storage box. A mantis would be amazing, but I'd need to get horns on Rag, and I don't feel like doing anymore transferring. I don't know what I want to do tomorrow, after getting crafting stations made, and making a pump shotgun, since normal shotguns are painful to use with their tiny AoE and only two shots at once. It feels premature, but the boss really isn't too hard to defeat. High-level rexes are plentiful on all non-stories, although I seemed to have better luck on Ragnarok than Crystal Isles, when it came to finding good dinos. The Center is supposed to have really reliable spawns, but I don't know where I should spawn myself in, since I haven't played there, and how near the obelisks would be. Of course all the non-story boss fights/mini bosses seem fun. The Center Arena, the Ragnarok arena, the iceworm queen, maybe someday Life's Labyrinth, although transferring artifacts seems more appealing than that crazy place, the lava elemental, but then again, that fight is really rough with just one person, the Valguero Arena, and of course, the crystal wyvern queen. Unlike The Island, being ready for the boss fights doesn't seem like a dead end.

Went exploring and got lots of resources. Found some gas veins, and red gem nodes, and gollected a few congealed gas balls, and gems on the way back. Made it to Erdrich Isle and got red, blue, and green gems first, wasn't very deadly. When I was exploring I found two interesting things: first of all, the floating islands have a weird cave system. It's around where the wiki says glowtails and megalainia are found. Saw neither, but based on the terrain features, I'm assuming that's where drakes were in the mod. Secondly, the griffin trench nests have Aberration gems, but as far as I can tell, you can't actually pick them up. Bug or intended? Also got some fungal wood and rare mushrooms, I want lots of mushrooms to make two mindwipes (I have allow unlimited respecs on) so I can get a bunch of crafting skill for a good custom consumable, since with base crafting skill there's no way to get a good one. Then I plan to wipe back to normal. Made a smithy so now I can repair and craft metal tools. Also tamed a bad level fifteen blood wyvern, it's good to have a backup, even if you'll hopefully never need to use it. Crystal wyvern's stamina is better than my griffins. Transferred a thorny dragon, jerboa, and doedicurus from Ragnarok, made a ton of cryopods, cryoed everyone, except my shoulder pet and wyvern and logged off. Tomorrow, I'm going to the floaters, and building a big base.

Had a much better day today. Got a shack up, and put down a storage box and a mortar and pestle. My crystal wyvern is my new "main mount" since it's much faster and might be able to escape the alpha with the hydrated buff, should we find it again. Tamed a parasaur for security and a morellotops for berries. My crystal wyvern is level seventy-something with much better damage than the griffin. Even though I transferred a bunch of stuff yesterday, today I lived off the land, no transfers. Also spent two whole minutes finding the perfect spot for a refining forge. I still don't think it's perfect but I'll leave it be for now. The shack is just temporary.

Suffered. Not gonna sugarcoat it. Wanted to play CI and died I believe ten or more times (maybe twelve?) trying to reach the green obelisk, before dino wiping to get rid of some annoying raptors. Finally got my griffin from Rag (used my Rag character too) and went exploring for about thirty minutes. In that time I was attacked by a blood crystal wyvern, for seemingly no reason. Not near the hive, so it couldn't have been heir, right? Managed to get it to eat some parasaurs instead. Tamed a tropical too. Tomorrow I want a shack put up, so I'll have a base, even if it's not permanent. Also, if I make a new "tribe" (even though I'm alone) will it mess with dino ownership for when I go back to Ragnarok? Just want to be able to select "tribe owned" to get rid of that annoying "owned by" thing over dino heads, I always think they're following. I really want to play a bit more on The Island at some point, but for now, Crystal Isles is pretty fun. I'll try to find some aberrant or Aberration native dinos. Of course, when I beat the stupid island (and scorched), the real Aberration will be fun. The underground forest on Valguero does have more of an Aberration "feel." Poor Valguero. They lost drakes, reapers, and griffins, and then had a bunch of what they did get stolen by Crystal Isles (I need to stop saying "Aberration," but those creatures are the main thing it lost.) which also has its precious griffins. Edit: Checked the wiki and found the rouge blood was an alpha. Explains the weird particle effect. I wonder if a blood, ember, or tropical is best to eventually take it down. Blood would be immune to its breath...

Got the griffin even more levels, level 136 with good stamina. Tamed a basi, level 55 but with over 11k health. Leveling melee. Don't have SCUBA on Ragnarok yet, that will be great to unlock. I really have lost all faith in The Island. It still haunts me. I thought I would slay the overseer, wander the dunes of Scorched Earth, glide through the depths of Aberration, march boldy across the Wastelands of Extinction, ride an Astrocetus across the lunar landscape of Genesis, and someday claim the ultimate prize: a Terran Ascension Implant. There comes a time in every noobs life where (s)he must move to endgame, I thought I was that noob. I guess I was wrong. Oh, and to rub salt into the wound, my "brother" (if I can even call him that) tamed a 120 megatheirium. And found a 130 yutyrannus. All I need is luck! Which seems to be in short supply...

This is from years ago...

All right, I haven't really been active here, but: Today on Rag I tamed a griffin. Not super special, just an 85 wild griffin, that tamed up to over 120. Weight good, health good, melee good. Stamina getting better as I level it. Went to the trench by the Highlands and stole a level 45 poison egg. There were only two wyverns, the poison and a fire. Pretty reckless, but I escaped and survived. Egg really should just be kibble, but it's my first one, so I'll hatch it once I get a milk trap made. I've hit a dead end on the island, I've got mutton, I've got kibble, I've got tranq darts, I've got tranq arrows, I've got plenty of fiber, hide, and metal for saddles, and I'm ready to kill those bosses. Only roadblock is that I can't find any high-level dinos. I'll take megatheirium, rexes, allos, ANYTHING! This is SP, so I can't trade to get some. Easy to find on Ragnarok, but I want to keep my story map experiences seperate from the former mods. I'm really losing hope. Every level thirty dino feels like a punch in the gut. Losing hope...

Watch his (Phlinger's) coffee time videos, he does mess with some settings, mainly taming speed and breeding/maturation intervals, but tamed dino stats per level are normal.

It doesn't sound like you've gotten into caving yet, but the spiders in there are big enough to ride.

A TLC/dino per month would be great, but PLEASE NO VAULTING! Fortnite is a different game with a different purpose, and has always been vaulting things, so while losing your favorite gun is unfortunate, you'll just have to try something new. ARK's creatures, on the other hand, are investments of time, kibble, and resources. If ARK starting sending dinos into the void, I'd just quit. You've had that dodo since day one? Poof. Spent two hours taming that thyla? Poof again. Please no.

Is this some kind of joke?