Penguin73

I hit the wall this weekend. I think all the disconnects, lag, and difficulty logging back in to the game after a disconnect finally got to me. So much lost lately for stupid reasons. I am tired of not really progressing. I checked the console and it said I have over 70 days in Ark in the past year. That is about 1700 hours... and the last 500 hours felt like I have been walking through mud. Good days don't really happen anymore. And my definition of a good day has dramatically changed for the worse. So, I podded most of the dinos around the base that were not already podded, and I need to go make more pods to do the rest. I am not ready to fully quit, but I am definitely going to take a break and maybe play something else for awhile. I started out playing SP and got as far as defeating the tek cave and ascending but never went further before switching to PVE. If I play again I think it will be in the SP mode again. Pick up where I left off. I mostly play by myself anyway. Also, there is much less performance issues, and I can come and go when I want. IDK, maybe I am just done and done. Sorry this was so negative. Good luck to the rest of you.

Last night after work... PVE Island official, tried to log in... took forever... finally got in... was booted immediately! 🥴 So much that I wanted to accomplish during this event with therizino army, rex army, and basilos. And now the event is basically done and I have very little to show for it. I hate to think about it but I really need to consider moving to another server. Even if I manage to get my rexes and therizinos raised to adults, I cannot trust the server to hold up long enough to attempt a boss fight and not have it crash. Heaven help me if I ever think about the tek cave in this state. It's just too much work and time to throw away on a stupid disconnect. On a better note. I switched over to PVE SE official. I was so excited to fly around on the lymantria (moth) that I tamed yesterday and finally see the world beyond the hills and mountains. I took a tent, a tiny bit of food, and the jerboa. I even repaired my clothes to look good for the flight. lol We headed north from camp and flew up towards the blue ob. It didn't take long to realize I can't fly too far without resting. So I took the strategy of just going from one rock to another, never touching the ground if I didn't have to. My eyes were constantly scanning the skies and ground for potential dangers because I new one good hit is all it would take to ruin my day. We made it to the blue ob and to my surprise it was not overcrowded. In fact, much of the valley was open and my original assessment of a crowded and pillared valley was changing. I made many mental notes of potential base sites along the way. After the blue ob I turned left at the desert and made my way up to the NW corner. I was very happy to see a well made base there with a tribe name matching that of my friend. And even happier to realize I was not at the business end of a good prank. I spent a few minutes looking around the place but nobody was home. Then I took off to the SW and flew into the mountains. The mountains were crazy with wild dinos everywhere. Lots of rock elementals, carnos, and sabre cats sitting on just about every rock face or ledge that I wanted to rest on. Also, there were plenty of argies and wyverns in the area to make life on a moth very interesting. I felt like a secret agent weaving in and out of the nooks and crannies so they didn't see me. My knuckles were white as I held the steering wheel very tight for most of the ride home... but I did make it... technically. I landed on the top of the house but before I dismounted I saw a yellow OSD descending just a short distance away. So I flew over and it gave me a water-well thing and a saddle for something I probably won't tame on SE. On the way back home I got ambushed by a bunch of flying ants, but I was now too heavy to run away. I tried to use the fart attack but it did nothing to stop them. Very soon the moth was out of gas and falling to the ground. I would like to say I hopped off the moth and squashed the ants with my boot or that these ants were larger than normal and had tattoos and were riding harley's. But that didn't happen. I died to an ant. [hang head in shame] Luckily I was close to the base. I logged in and grabbed the cat and together we defeated the wild, angry horde of ants (only two). But to add insult to injury, those two ants also killed the moth and jerboa. Craziness! But I had fun.

Island PVE official: Logged in, took me 5 minutes just to walk through my bedroom door because of lag. Server crashed twice before I could walk over to the therizinos. Female was ready for breeding again. Put food in troughs while waiting for egg to drop. Added that egg to the fridge. Server continued to have issues. Logged off, frustrated that this seems to be the new norm. It shouldn't be this tough to do basic stuff. Scorched Earth PVE official: Saddled the new moth and went out for maiden voyage. Immediately saw a yellow drop. Flew over and It gave me a MC moth saddle. LOL. Flew around the local area for a few minutes, found an explorer note and put on about 15 levels (all into weight). Found myself near my original base and grabbed a few light-weight supplies before heading home. Put things away and logged off. Looking forward to further exploration tonight after work.

Island PVE official: Hatched two more therizino eggs. Pulled the other therizinos out of pods and let all 7 mature as much as possible. However, after several crashes and incredible lag I decided to put them all back into pods. I took the beaver out for a berry run and found an ovis standing inside my walls. Tamed it. Scorched Earth PVE official: My sabrecat has proven to be such a valuable partner. She is now level 210 and can handle all the other sabres, wolves, terror birds, thorny dragons that come my way. I am not about to face her off against anything bigger though if I can avoid it. She is black on black and I named her Cocoa. I am not setting you up for drama here, I just wanted to give her some kudos. She has been by my side for a good week now and has saved my bacon so many times already. In a rare scenario where I am actually trying not to acquire too many tames at this point... adopting the nomadic-travel-lite attitude... she has been a perfect fit. And with that being said: While out riding Cocoa last night I found and event colored Jerboa and decided it was finally time to tame one. It is a purple / pink color and I have not named her yet. Then this morning after coming back from my morning walk I found 3 moths flying around my house. They were all low level but I said what the heck. I could use a flyer of any kind right now. So I bolo'd the first one to land. It was only a level 10 but it has enough weight to carry me as long as I don't try to carry anything else... so no metal runs in the near future, lol. But I will just dump all the levels into weight and use it for scouting. When I ride it I kind of feel like one of those big dudes you see on funny videos riding a moped. Ahh, good times.

PVE Island official: Like everyone else, I have been raising babies the last couple days. 15 rexes hatched and in the juvenile stage. I was not looking but found a 135 F yuty. I tamed her up and then bred her with my high-health male. Got twins, 1 M and 1 F. Sweet. Babies are now 20% mature. @Cordiste sorry, not trying to rub that in. haha. Therizinos have been slower than I wanted. I have hatched 3 and have one more egg in the fridge. However, the server has been so lagy that the countdown timer for breeding the female (my only female) again seems to take forever. An 18 hour timer will actually take closer to 25-30 hours right now. Eh, it is what it is. I finally met up with my friend and she gave me a baby basilo. Then a second one was born right away and she let me claim that one too. Bonus! They are both male but I am okay with that. And I spent most of my time at her water platform raising them this weekend. The water platform was built with floor and walls and is closer to a fully enclosed swimming pool than anything else. I even brought the rexes with me and had them all lined up around the perimeter of the platform at various times. Then at one point when the basilos were about 50% mature the game crashed. Luckily I had the rexes podded at that moment because the game was acting funny. 10 minutes later when I was able to log back in I found myself in the water (as expected) with the basilos (my two babies and the adult breeding pair belonging to my friend). Anyway, the platform structure took an exceptionally long time to load in... and a shark that could be seen in the distance then swam towards us. I kept thinking the pen would spawn in but it didn't. As the shark got closer the adult breeding pair had another baby at that moment. Of course the shark went for the newborn baby. The baby swam away and the shark followed. The structure finally loaded in but not before the newborn and shark fled the area. I couldn't stand by and watch so I climbed out of the water pen and jumped into the open ocean. I swam after the shark and baby and luckily then swam toward shallower water. I surfaced a few times for air along the way. When I caught up to them the baby was already bloody. I took out my sword and started whacking on the shark. Eventually the shark died. And I was left with a very bloody and barely alive baby basilo... but it was alive! I then claimed it, podded it, and took it back to the pen and fed it to help it heal. My friend (offline at the time) later let me keep that one too. So now I have 3 basilos in the 280-285 range with wicked awesome stats... 2 males and 1 female. 😄 PVE Scorched Earth official: I went to SE when island lag made the game unplayable. Made another trip with my sabrecat to my second hut. Took some supplies with me and built a 2x2 adobe house. Added the basic amenities and will make it my new temporary base. I plan to eventually transfer all my supplies to this base then leap frog north again. I would also like to get an argy while here if possible. I have seen a couple in the distance. That is now on my to-do list.

PVE SE official Logged in to feed the cat. Cooling box was out of spark powder and the little bit of meat I had was now gone. So I took the cat out for a quick run. Got meat. Went home. Left a stack of meat on the cat and put the rest in the cooling box with a new stack of spark powder. Logged off. PVE Island official Finished raising therizino!!!! I was so happy to have that done that I immediately mated her to get my first egg.... just to do it again... LOL. I will try to get a few eggs in the next couple of days to raise during the event. The problem is I only have 1 female with all the good breeding stats so egg production is slower than ideal. Hatched more rex eggs and after looking over all 16 babies I decided that two of them were not good enough to make the varsity team. They went for a swim in the volcano. I still have a few more eggs to hatch and should have a solid squad of rexes at the end. I built a medium sized pen outside to raise them all at once. My main floor in the house is raised on pillars/ceiling tiles and I don't want to deal with any of them glitching through the floor while maturing... and it is a little too small for 15 to 20 rexes... so the outside pen will allow them to keep their feet firmly on the ground and give them a little more space to grow. That was it today.

PVE Island official... Matured theri a bit more (now a little over 92% done). Incubated rex eggs and hatched 9 of them. One egg gave me triplets and most of the babies came out with solid stats (40k health and 1225 melee). A couple of them were a touch lower but I am okay with that. I also like the color mix combinations that came with rotating the breeding pairs. Looks like a room full of skittles with legs and teeth. 😄 I think I have 5 more rex eggs in the fridge and will add a few more tonight. PVE SE official... Took the new cat out for a few levels and she did great. It also built my confidence a bit (which I needed). So we headed off my cliffside perch and into the canyons below. We fought a few things on our way to the water and even found some silica pearls. Got back home safely and I made my first set of desert goggles. Woohoo. I then packed the cat up with a tent and a few pre-made supplies (adobe structures to place if/when I can get to a good spot to set up an advanced camp). We had a number of battles and close calls that required band-aids and healing as we walked north, but eventually we found a little spot near 40,40 on the map to set up a camp... about 15 longitude points north of my main base. It is the furthest I have been able to travel so far, and I didn't want to push it too much. Anyway, I set up the 1x1 adobe hut and added a couple spiked walls for protection. It will work for now. Made my way carefully back to base... thankfully happy to still have my cat. It was small but progress feels good.

I have not posted in a couple days... I will try to be gentle with the details. LOL Most of what I did the past few days was preparing for the valentine event on the 11th. PVE Island official... Bred my top two male rexes (similar stats but different colors) with the top three females and have a dozen eggs in the fridge. Incubated them for awhile and most are within 30 minutes of hatching. I will probably add 6 more eggs to the bunch and have them all ready to pop before event. Kept my therizino out as much as possible. Added about 35% maturation since I last posted and it is now at 89%. I can see light at the end of the tunnel. LOL. I am hoping to finisher her up in the next two days then work on getting as many eggs as possible for the increased rates coming. 3x rates on maturing therizinos will be huge. Did a few meat and berry runs to fill up fridges. Took my only remaining basi out for a swim. Looked for another high level one but didn't see any. However I did find another deep sea loot drop and pulled out an ascendant compound bow and a journeyman gas mask. PVE Scorched Earth official... Finally built a taming pen. Tamed a 35 wolf. It died about an hour later. Tamed a 55 wolf. It was a little better, but it died when I tried to make my way down to the water in the central gorge for the first time... I was looking for silica pearls so I could make a hat and goggles. Never got the pearls. Then late last night I lured 2 sabre cats and a wolf into the pen at the same time. The wolf was a 100 and one of the cats was a 135. I only had enough narcs, arrows, and meat to tame one. I generally like wolves better than cats but I picked the cat. Once knocked out I saw it had a pre-tame high health of 1900 (cool), but a rather dismal melee of about 155. Oh well. Still better than my first two tames. Anyway, I tamed it up with raw meat (no prime yet), and I built a little pen for it at the house. Also added some gates and spiked walls to help keep out the trouble makers. I know it is not my priority right now but I might try to take advantage of the high health stat before it dies (lol). It might be worth finding another cat (hopefully with better melee) and breed the two. Maybe a decent imprinted cat will help me cross the map a little easier. I still have not been able to venture outside my immediate area without dying. But I did build a quick 1x1 adobe hut with a bed and storage box a little north (500 yards or so) of my main house. I might have to advance one little hut at a time... until I can get to where I want to go. Then carefully made my way back home and ended my weekend there... on a positive note.

PVE Island official Logged in, pulled therizino out of pod to mature, bred a few rexes for 3 more eggs, filled troughs. Logged out. PVE SE official Climbed the hill behind my house to get a nice view and plan my next adventure. Found an interesting spot in my spyglass to the north. Went for a walk-a-bout, hoping to reach said spot. Didn't make it too far before a pair of terror birds cut me to pieces. Ran naked back to bag, picked up bag... died again before I could even put on armor. Same birds got me again. I think they were hiding behind a rock... waiting for me. Went back a third time and just ran through the area to lure them away from my bag. Died somewhere down the path but the task was done. Fourth time was the charm. I was able to casually walk up to my bag without those nasty critters. Put on gear and continued my walk. Played cat and mouse for the next 10 minutes, sneaking left or right to avoid the sabers, wolves, terror birds, scorpions, thorny dragons... died again when I rounded a corner and came face to face with a megatherium that was all amped up from killing a bug. He one-shot-killed me. Took me three tries to recover my gear again. This seems to happen every time I play SE. I realized I am never going to get to where I want to go without some help. And I am ready to admit my tough-guy approach to SE is not working. Went home and made foundations and walls for a taming pen. I am not trying to get anything spectacular, but a mid range wolf or sabre cat would be nice. Since my house sits on the edge of a small cliff I figured the landing area under the house would be a good spot. So I walked down to lay the first foundation and a silly rock elemental jumps up and ruins my plans. I tried to lure him down the path but he got wedged between a couple large boulders and sat back down, still too close to my taming pen spot. I left him there for now since my play time was starting to run short. Went home, put away gear and logged off. Back to PVE Island official Logged in, podded theri (now at 53.5%), logged off.

Let the theri out of her pod for a little over 4 hours. She went from 46% to 50% mature. Woohoo! Made it to the half way mark. LOL. Game was being glitchy so I stayed close to home during that time. Made a run for meat and berries, then noticed the stone cabinet was empty and took the doedi out. Stone is so easy... just dangle the doedi below the argy and let it swing away. Cabinet is full again. I tossed some wood into the indy forge and made a batch of charcoal. Then made gunpowder... bullets... tranq darts. Used up some of the new stone to make CP. Just to have some around. Collected up some poo to toss in the compost bins. Added flowers to the bee hives. Pulled the 3 new rex eggs from last night out of the fridge and let them incubate for awhile. Checked the timer on the breeding rexes and they won't be ready to mate again until tomorrow morning. Boring day. Logged off.

On a more positive note this weekend, my baby thyla finished maturing yesterday, and the baby rexes had less than 20 minutes left until they are fully mature when I left for work today. I felt safe letting them finish on their own and I will start breeding for eggs tonight. My baby therizino is up to 46% mature. I am still trying to get her finished up before valentine event so I can use her eggs and increased rates to get a good jump on the next generation. If there is one thing I am learning it is Therizino babies and standard rates are not fun. I also spent a little more time on Scorched Earth. My SE survivor is now level 38. I have a basic 2x2 adobe house with the basics of a smithy, forge, cabinets, mortar and pestle, and a bed. I now have desert armor and metal tools. Life is good. LOL. However, I don't really like the spot I now call home. I have started looking around the area and am still deciding which direction I want to go. My friend that has reserved a spot in his tribe for me lives way up in the NW corner. I am pretty sure there is not much up there so I don't know if it is a joke, truth, or if he is just testing me. Either way, I will probably work in that direction. And, I still have not tamed anything... truly solo. I also noticed (from the limited sample size I have seen) that the central river valley is fairly well developed / pillared. I might have to stick to the more remote locations and just advance north one water vein at a time. So much fun.

An up and down few days... A few days ago I spoke to my server friend and confirmed we are still a "go" for raising baby basilos together during the valentine event. She thinks she might have some of the top basilos on the server and I am excited at the potential of it. With that being said, I know a very good basilo for caves is in my future. However, I couldn't resist taking out my bary (Van Halen) to see what I could find. So I grabbed a couple tanks and kibble and headed out. Right away I spotted a level 55 female. Not impressive, I know. But I was having one of those ark moments when it is not about the perfect stats and more about just having fun in the water. I know a high level baby is on the way so I took the pressure off myself today. I know she might never see the inside of a cave, but I could still use her for deep sea loot crates. So I tamed her. Easy Peasy. After recharging my scuba tank (and grabbing a third one while at base) I went looking for the afore mentioned loot crates. In all my time playing on single player I never once found one... So I kept my hopes in check while we swam around in this PVE world. We spent a couple of hours swimming ( and leveling )... then I found one! I couldn't believe my eyes. They do exist!!! LOL. I cleared the area of hostiles and dreamed of something wonderful like a high level saddle BP. But... what I got was two pieces of MC ghillie, not bad, but I have better stuff already. Eh. A small let down, but I was still very happy to find a loot crate. After a little more looking I noticed my last tank was getting low so I started heading toward the nearest iceberg up in the NW corner to exchange the basilo for the argy. However, just as I was surfacing I saw a 125 basilo gliding along at the surface. I raced home, repaired the tanks, and went back. I then cleared the mantas and other hostile creatures and swam over to give the first feed... successfully done... then noticed I only had a few more kibble... ugggh! Flew home a second time, checked dododex for amount needed, grabbed that amount plus one (just in case). Flew back. Found the basilo again, cleared out the hostile critters again, and re-fed the first kibble again. Everything was going well until... a couple eels appeared. Not really an issue while riding a basilo, but as they came upon me I casually hit the attack button and forgot that basilos have a pretty good AOE on their attack. I nipped the 125 in the tail and said a few four-letter words as I realized I had to start the taming process over. Ugggh! It was only two feeds away from tame at that point. Flew home a third time. Noticed I didn't have enough yellow kibble on hand. Made kibble. Repaired scuba. Flew back. Found basilo... again. Cleared out hostiles... again. Fed and tamed.... finally! Woohoo. Put on a saddle and leveled him up to about 225 before tanks were exhausted. And, frankly I was too. Flew home happy. The second basilo, although not yet ready for the caves, could potentially be a good back up if rescue was needed... or if my part-time tribe mate wanted to accompany me later... he could use it once it is ready. Next day... My tribe mate shows up and I tell him about the deep sea crates. He is excited and we agree to take out the basilos. On the way to the beach my server connection gets extremely laggy. I dc on the beach. Log back 5 minutes later and it is still really bad. However he said his connection was fine. I decide to bail on the idea and head back to base. Disconnected again. Meanwhile, he decides to take the high level basilo for a test drive anyway. When I finally get back to base he announces he found a cave. He has never done the caves before and I didn't think he would be that stupid. So I didn't say anything. 1 minute later he announced his death and the death of the basilo. I froze, not sure if that really just happened. 10 minutes is all it took him to kill the tame I have been looking for for the past 3 weeks. I didn't know what to say. But I was pissed. He said he was sorry then laid down on his bed and logged off. DILO? I know tames die. I know accidents happen. But this felt like a knife in the back, or at the very least, a kick to the nuts. I sent him a text about being a careless idiot, and all my time wasted from the day before. I didn't kick him from the tribe, but I did tell him that he has to do his own taming now. If he wants to tag along, then he has to do the work to keep up. I don't know how to be more fair than that. Oh my gosh, sorry. This was another long one. I will stop there.

@Khruk, Dang! You have the worst luck. LOL, but I do enjoy reading your posts. Hang in there.

PVE Scorched Earth official Logged in to reset decay timer. It has only been 3 days but I could not remember how long a grass hut has before it goes bye bye. Everything was okay. All my possessions were still in the 1x1 mansion. LOL ---- PVE Island official Went for a short swim on my new baryonyx, Van Halen. I went prepared in case I saw a basilo... but didn't see anything over level 10. Made a run for oil, metal, crystal. Made some CP and Poly. Then made an industrial grinder. Pulled all the stuff still in cabinets I labeled FREE STUFF and tossed into the grinder. Got back about 500 ingots and about 10 stacks each of fiber, wood, and thatch. I have a ton of guns, bows, and armors of different levels in still in cabinets that I will never use so I will probably toss those in tomorrow after I sort through them. It will be awhile before it pays for itself but I think it will be worth it in the long run.

Two days ago, PVE Scorched Earth official After my debacle with the jellyfish and losing one of my favorite tames, I decided to finally try SE. I have seen many videos and I even loaded into it a few months ago just to walk around for a few minutes because I wanted to see it. I already know that I will play SE once done with the island so I figured I should maybe get a good start. So I started. And I died... a bunch. But I new that would happen. I even had fun doing it. Heck, at one point I had died so many times in the same area that it looked like a Vegas light show with all the green beams shooting into the sky. It was awesome. Very hard. But awesome. A server friend from the island told me not too long ago that I could join his tribe on SE once I start playing on it. But I kinda want to go through the early game struggles first. I wouldn't respect myself as a player if I somehow bypassed the trials and tribulations that make ark what it is... a survival game. So, I am now level 22. I have a not-so-spacious 1x1 grass hut near a water vein on the side of a mountain. I have started making adobe foundations but have yet to put anything down. I will keep everything simple for now and just make a small 2x3 adobe house with a fence of some kind. I have not tamed anything yet because I might only play once a week (or less just to keep thing from decaying) on SE, and I am not ready to commit the time to logging in every day to feed the family. Especially when gathering meat is still an issue. So, I will just build a small house to get my feet on the ground first. Eventually, I will tame something and start moving further into the unknown. But for now, I am content with gaining levels and living the simple life. -------- Back on PVE Island Finally heard from my friend that wants to give me a basilo. She said she still wants me to have one but she wants to wait until the valentine event, hoping for increased rates, and we can raise the babies together in her water pen. Apparently basilos take a significant amount of time and she is hoping we can take shift turns during the maturation process to reduce the strain. Seems rational I guess. And as much as I want to have it now... It is a free (cave-worthy) basilo. Beggars can't be choosers, right? That's all for now. 🤪

Island PVE official The boring stuff from the past couple days... Added about 20 hours of maturation to the young rexes, thyla, therizinos, and anky. Imprinted when needed. And Ran around to gather berries, meat, wood, and hyde many times. Expanded the greenhouse and added another four crop plots. The better stuff from the last couple days... After 10 days of not hearing from my server friend about her giving me a baby basilo... I decided to go find one. My only tame capable of handling water is a baryonyx named Van Halen. We spent about 7-8 hours in the water altogether. Travelling back to base when dark or to repair scuba. The highest level I saw was a 80. Most were in the 5-25 range. None-of-which would get me through the deep sea caves. Frustrated, and almost ready to head home, I decided to check the north sea again. We came upon an alpha megalodon (like many others that day) and we fought it without issue.... until the stupid jellyfish snuck up behind me. As you might expect, I could not break out of the shock effect and I died. I respawned and fought server lag as I flew back to my green beacon reaching toward the sky. I hovered above the water on my emergency argy (ZZ Top) and struggled as I watched Van Halen succumb to the cloud of jellyfish surrounding him just below the surface. I whistled to him but he could not respond. My bag of supplies, including my podded argy (Journey) and 3 scuba tanks, drifted a short distance below the jellyfish. Van Halen's bag with his Journeyman saddle remained unseen amongst the throng of jellies. Probably irretrievable. I hovered for a few minutes, hoping the jellies would move along. They did not. With 5 minutes remaining on my bag timer I hopped off the argy hoping, at a minimum, to reach the bag and collect the items in order to reset the timer and buy me more time. However, somewhere between the leap and the splash the server crashed. About 5 minutes later I was able to log in and found myself in the water and, somehow, still alive. I dashed for the bag but could not acquire it. The jelly defense was too good. I perished again. By the time I got up there the third time, my original bag and its' contents was long gone. The only thing remaining was ZZ top, mindlessly flapping just above the water. I whistled for him to follow, and we went home. [ Insert trip to Scorched Earth here ] The next day, my server mate and I tamed up 3 more baryonyx. He found a level 90. then I tamed a 60 and a 125 which I named Van Halen.

Pulled thyla and rexes out of pods to mature. Bred, incubated, and hatched another small group of therizino eggs. Struck out again. Still waiting on female to emerge with the best stats. I thought the higher stat was supposed to be slightly more favorable in the dice roll for determining the outcome. It is incredible how many eggs hatch with the less desirable stats. Hmmm, I guess the only thing to do is keep trying and eventually it will work. Right? Made runs for wood, stone, fiber, and metal to start replenishing the shelves left bare from making saddles. Checked on new hives and they are working like a charm... filling up with honey. Started thinking of plans to expand the green house a little. I wouldn't mind having an extra bush or two of carrot, corn, and potato. That way I can make veggie cakes quicker and in larger quantities when I need them. With that in mind I flew over and added a couple more sap taps on the redwood tree platform. I might as well start stockpiling sap now. That was about it today. Nothing to exciting.

Khruk, I love the wyvern color. Looks awesome. 👍

I watched some videos last night and I think I was able to answer my own question above (in previous post). I don't think I will transfer my Island survivor. Instead, I think I will just start a new survivor on SE and level it up. That way if anything happens to my island survivor I will have a good backup. Took out the baby thyla and rexes today for more maturing. While they were doing their thing I tamed a couple queen bees and now have two hives at the base. Bees are always a headache for me, and today was no exception. It never goes as easy as I want... but I will keep it short today and just say I was successful in the end. Anyway, I am excited that I will have a little easier time making veggie cakes when needed. Another ✅ on my list of things to do. Made extraordinary kibble with the honey I had collected during the bee hunt. Honey doesn't last long so I wanted to use it while I had it. Ha, that that always bothered me... real honey can last on a shelf almost forever while ARK honey spoils very fast. Why is that?

Flew to metal mountain with my two best weighted argies. Filled them up with metal and a little obsidian. Flew home and tossed metal in Ind. Forge. Took giga out to collect hide. Took beaver out to collect wood. Made one more Theri saddle, but the crafting gods were out to lunch and it was only a little above the BP mark of 85.1. I will make more later today after work. ---- Another survivor on my server said last week that she would be breeding her basilos and would give me one. I have been waiting for her to contact me but... nothing yet. I have let her know a few times that I am ready whenever she is, but I don't want to be that annoying person that just waits around for free stuff. So, I might need to go in a different direction soon. I really want to get into those underwater caves. ---- I have been thinking more and more about Scorched Earth after the Island. I am not sure if I want to start a new character now and maybe get a base going or if I should wait and ascend with my main character. I don't know how that works exactly... I know you can't have 2 survivors from the same account on the same Ark at the same time, so if I start a base with a new character on SE then move that survivor somewhere else, then if I move my main survivor to SE, will my main be recognized as me? Would I be able to open doors and ride dinos that my secondary survivor built or tamed? How do the rest of you do it?

Gathered metal, hide, fiber, and wood. Made more Therizino saddles this morning. Now have 22 total. 16 of them have an armor rating of 95 or better. I was called into work today (which is where I am at now) so I didn't quite make all 25 like I wanted. But I havn't mindwiped yet either so I can always make more when I get home. I also mated my Thylas and have a very nice baby female with all of the males good stats. That will be my new breeding pair when she grows up. Thylas probably don't have the same market value as other things like theris or rexes, but maybe I can sell a few to replenish all the empty cabinets I have now. lol. I will have to test the waters at some point.

I love taming yutys. And when possible I prefer to use a trap too. I understand the nerves, but that will go away after you tame a few of them. The key (like many animals in ark) is in the preparation. 1) Have a plan. And it sounds like you do. The trap is set up in a good location and I am guessing you have already picked out the best available path for kiting it there. 2) Use a good strong mount that can take some abuse. I prefer using argy. 3) Clear the area of hostile creatures. That area up north near your trap is crawling with wolves and carnos. Take them out first before trying to kite. Kill the carnos with the yuty as well if you can. But, if that is hard then just let them get trapped with the yuty in your pen and then shoot them like fish in a barrel. 4) Respect the roar, but don't fear it. When I am ready to kite, I first rest the argy. Then I take the argy in low to get the yuty's attention. If the yuty roars and scares the argy... no big deal. It will fly out of control for a moment but that is about all. If your argy was rested and you were not in sprint mode (and you shouldn't be for this), then the argy should have plenty of stamina to stay in flight and out of harms way. If needed, rest the argy, then try again. Easy peasy. Good luck.

Yesterday, Island PVE official. Hatched 4 more therizino eggs. One was twins and I had 2 from before so that gives me 7 babies altogether. I let them all out of their pods for a few minutes, fed them berries and mulled over their stats. And frankly, I am a little disappointed. Only 2 out of the 7 got the better health, and only 1 got the better melee. I know I said before that I was not going to be picky... But... I changed my mind. I want the best stats. I know, I know! That is crazy, right. I'm sure I'm the only one on ark wanting the best stats for their boss fighters. LOL. And, with that said... I have set aside the rest of them to be sacrificed to the volcano in the near future. I need to wait a little more than a day now before mating them again. So I will wait. Rome was not built in a day, right? My army won't be either, apparently. Filled in the rest of the day with normal stuff like gathering metal, obsidian, and meat. Pull the junior rexes out for a couple hours and hunted down some alphas on my thyla. They are so much fun. Then ARK announced its update. Logged off and updated. When I logged back in last night it was pretty late and I wasn't planning on doing much. However, there were only two people on the server and as best I could tell, the server was running without lag. It was wonderful, like stepping out of the cold dark and into the warm light and basking in the glow. How could I pass that up? So I grabbed my scuba and megatherium and flew to the swamp / gas cave. For some reason I had this feeling that something good was going to happen. So I fought my way into the cave. Normally I go right at the first water to grab the blue drop in the back room (usually blue for me anyway), but instead I turned left this time. I soon came to a yellow loot drop. It had an apprentice fur chest piece BP. Very cool. It is much better than the primitive fur I have been wearing, and I will need good fur for the two ice caves. I will likely need better than apprentice though. Further into the cave I came upon a red drop down in the water behind the cob webs. It had a mastercraft crossbow bp. eh, not bad, but I have better. So I continued on to grab the artifact and come back to the second red drop (same room as first red drop but up on the back pathway. Like so many other loot drops, I don't like to spend too much time off my mount so I do it very quickly... open loot drop, grab all, spin and climb back on my mount before anything eats me. Often I don't even know what I grab until later. However, this time I opened the drop and I think time froze a little. I couldn't believe my eyes. And staring back at me was a beautiful Mastercraft Therizino BP. When I played on single player I think it took me more than 50 trips into the swamp cave to find such a thing. This was only my 6th trip. Wow. A bit of luck on my side I think. So, I hustled out of the cave. The only thing on my mind was to get back to base before something stupid and horrifying happens (and we all know it can). But, luck was still on my side. I made it home without incident and put it in the vault. Logged off and went to bed happy. ...... Today I knew what I was going to do.... make saddles. I logged in this morning, made a mind wipe tonic and prepared the workshop by cleaning out the workbench and re-organizing the vaults and cabinets nearby so I have all my materials close. After taking the tonic I boosted my crafting skill up to 800% and the put the rest into weight so I could still carry a stack of metal (although barely, and only if I strip down to my underwear lol). The saddle BP only gives an armor value of 85.1. It is enough to give you a fighting chance in a boss arena, but I wanted more for the peace of mind aspect. Fortunately, this saddle is not too expensive. When all the ingredients are laid out it takes up only about 48 item slots in the bench. As many of you know, some saddles pose serious issues by needing more space for materials than what is available. This was not the case. So far I have made 17 therizino saddles today. The first ten were easy because I already had all the ingredients on site. Then I ran out of fiber and metal and wood. Each saddle now requires a special trip for something. But all is good. The improved crafting skill has been working nicely. A few saddles still have armor values in the mid 80s, but most are between 95-100 and I have made a few that are over 105. It takes 24 hours before I can mindwipe again (I think) so I will probably make about 25 saddles altogether before returning my stats back to normal. LOL, I broke my leg hopping down from a rex earlier, and I forgot what it is like to have health back down to 100 again. I Have to remember to be careful. Oh, crap! Sorry. This went a little long. Cya later.

Woke up today to a wind storm and flickering power at the house. Didn't want to take any risks. Logged in, fed dinos, set the therizinos to mate and collected a pair of eggs. Put eggs in fridge then I DC'ed when the power flickered again. That was my exciting day. lol.

First, I went on a meat run to replenish the refrigerators. Then, I hatched two therizino eggs today from the surprise guest stud that was brought over yesterday from a friend. Got one M and one F. Colors were mixed and the babies got the lower stats of the mother in health and melee. I was a little bummed but that is okay. They will still have a place in the army. Right now I'm not too picky about having the PERFECT stats on every tame. I put them in pods and will raise them with the other soldiers later. The two males that are maturing were at 99% when I had to leave for work. I am always nervous about leaving babies out when I log off so I played it somewhat safe and podded one. The M stats are identical anyway and since I only need 1 for breeding, it's okay to just roll the dice with the other. Anyway, I should be able to start breeding very soon and I am really excited. I spent a little time looking for a good otter and a second baryonyx today. No luck.