Dynomyster

Disclaimer: I am no artist so visual representation won't be super great, but hopefully my written descriptions will suffice! Also The species might not fit the time period qualifications for submission, but it does not need to be this ant species specifically. But in my head since this is extinction I figured the element corruption grew an ant on earth to a massive size, if that is not acceptable then just imagine it is a cousin species of the titanomyrma that underwent the same corruption process! Specific species isn't super important to me, I just think a ride-able ant in ark would be dope! Wild Spawn The Dinoponera Matriavastus is a creature you will never find on it's own. Because of this, they benefit from a pack bonus that gives a substantial damage reduction buff. When killed the Dinoponera drops a large amount of chitin and a small amount of meat. The Dinoponera workers spawn in the vicinity of a nest, which looks like a man sized anthill sticking out of the ground. Inside the nest is the Dinoponera queen, who will occasionally leave the nest to wander before returning into the tunnels. The Dinoponera is not aggressive to humans unless they get close to the nest and the queen. They share the same temperament to wild creatures except small creatures like dodos, lystros, etc, and they will consume corpses. Because the Dinoponera reproduces asexually, the species only contains females and all of the workers will be an identical level to their queen, so if you see mis-matched levels of workers it means another nest is nearby. The nest will act as a structure and is destroyable, when destroyed it forces the queen out and aggros her and all of the workers. Once the nest is destroyed all Dinoponera will stop spawning in the area and any existing Dinoponera will slowly despawn when out of render, so you can clear nests in the hopes of finding a higher level nest nearby in the future. Taming You first have to reach the nest without being detected by the workers. The queen can be coaxed out of the nest by dropping honey just outside of the nest, or you can wait for her to naturally emerge. Once the queen is out of the nest you must feed her bug repellent without drawing aggression. This will cause her to lose health quickly until she dies. Killing the queen this way will not aggro the workers. Once the queen is dead, access her inventory and remove her pheromone. Then apply the pheromone to yourself. If you currently are affected by bug repellent yourself, you must wait for the effects to wear off. Be careful of how long you wait, as the pheromone will spoil within a few minutes outside of her inventory. When you are affected by the pheromone, if you are attacked by any creature, nearby workers will come to your aid. This could help save your life, or get the workers killed by accident, so watch your surroundings. Once covered in the pheromone, approach a worker and it will give you a request for some kind of resource. It could be a basic material or a basic food, ie wood, stone, berries, raw meat, etc... Put this item in your last inventory slot and give it to the worker. The more of that item you have in a stack, the more tame progress will be made. So giving it a full stack of 100 wood will give it more tame progress than giving it a stack of 5. Continue filling the requests of the worker until the tame is complete and you have a Dinoponera! You can technically tame as many Dinoponera as there are in the area, but because you only have 30 minutes of pheromone you have to manage your time properly. Once the pheromone wears off, any wild Dinoponera in the area will instantly aggro on you. Breeding Unfortunately since you cannot tame the queen they would not breedable. But I have been debating whether or not they should be. Maybe a decent idea would be the ability to feed a worker certain items and it will transform into a queen, giving you the ability to have one that lays eggs. Possibly feeding a worker 1-5 queen pheromones will turn it into a queen? I'm still split on this part simply because I love breeding and getting mutations. Saddle Upon reaching level 35 you unlock the Dinoponera saddle, which is crafted in the smithy and costs: metal, hide, fiber, and chitin/keratin. This saddle would provide the usual 25 armor and visually would have slight armor plating and saddlebags all over it. It's saddle acts as a crafter, but not a smithy or mortar+pestle. This saddle is able to craft unlocked primitive engrams that would normally need to be crafted in your inventory. So primitive structures, certain saddles, and much more could be crafted on the move without the need for a blueprint. Utility Weight Reduction Once tamed, it is an exceptional beast of burden, capable of reducing the carry weight of wood, thatch, fiber, hide by -40% while reducing the carry weight of stone, metal, flint, obsidian, crystal by -35%! On top of that it reduces the carry weight of all structures by -50%! This makes it extremely useful when moving large quantities of supplies or setting up/moving to a new base location. It can gather wood, thatch, meat, hide, berries, and fiber, albeit at a relatively inefficient rate. Not the best for gathering, but will do in a pinch. Traversal & Mandibles It is able to climb walls and uneven terrain fairly quickly. Pressing the crouch key while riding a Dinoponera allows you to use it's mandibles to pick up certain things. It is capable of picking up and carrying storage boxes, similar to how the rhynio can carry structures. But the Dinoponera can only carry small storage boxes, large storage boxes, and vaults (vaults will act as a drag that I will talk about shortly). It's mandibles are also able to pick up and carry creatures. Anything with a drag weight of 100 or below can be picked up and carried. Not only that, but creatures that fit the weight can also be picked up and carried if they are dead or unconscious! The Dinoponera is also capable of dragging creatures with a drag weight of 101-300! The drag is quite different from the carry. With dragging, the Dinoponera can move heavier objects, but because of the weight, must focus all of it's strength moving it. Therefore when dragging heavier creatures and metal vaults, the Dinoponera can only walk backwards. But have no fear! The Dinoponera is capable of climbing up surfaces backwards, so you can still drag that unconscious Ankylo up a cliff! This can be quite useful to move knocked out creatures to a safer area for taming. It also has use as the ability can drag corpses, making you able to bring a corpse to a tame with better gathering efficiency or even transporting bodies to assist in Carchar taming! Although you would still need to drag the body closer to the Carchar yourself, the Dinoponera can move the corpse quickly from a further distance. Dinoponera Nectar Lastly, when 1 honey and 20 berries are placed into the inventory of a Dinoponera, it will convert the honey into a sweet and nutritious nectar that will provide +40 food as well as a 15% bonus to movement speed, stamina, and stamina regeneration for 15 minutes! The Dinoponera love this nectar and it can be fed to them as well, doubling the effectiveness of the nectar but for only half the time.