LadyCrescent

I play exclusively single player, actually, lol. And I tend to give myself a pair of my favorite pets for hobby breeding, dimorphodons, microraptors, wyverns and basilisks...the later two bred with the S+ mutator. I spawn them at 500 so they forcetame 750. Since I’m just single player and I play Ark explicitly for the good of my mental health, I take a very “choose your challenges” approach. As legit as possible, but I like my little luxuries. 😅

Today: Boss Fights Consummately on My Terms. So, today, after long hiatuses on Genesis and midway a proper establishment on Crystal Isles, I found myself called back home on Extinction to continue my ongoing quest to finally tame my desert titan. I have most everything in place, but I found that before I go ahead with 50,000 assault rifle bullets, a selection of decent ascendant assault rifles from my pre-nerf gachas and a loose notion of the strategy, I wanted to actually defeat the titans and unlock the Tek suit as the last piece of what I felt I’d need. And in my mind there was really just one approach I could realistically hope to succeed with. I don’t keep rexes or gigas in large enough numbers to constitute a proper boss hoard, and I only keep fire wyverns in regard to tackling desert. But there was one thing that I do keep in huge numbers, and have sunk a huge amount of time into breeding, and, as it happens, has always played to my approach to Ark’s challenges: If you throw enough birds at it, the problem tends to go away. And so I packed up my a-team of thirty monster dimorphodons, and my mounts of choice - my basilisk for ice and forest, and my eagle for desert, and set about my first ever Ark boss fights. In the interests of full disclosure I should mention these were birds bred from my allotment of creatures I spawn on every map as my favorites, in this case a pair of level 750 dimorphodons, whose lineage was originally meant to be my answer to OSDs. And I am so pleased to report than the OP dimorphodon flock I’d spent months breeding was more than sufficient to deal with the titans, with them facing the biggest challenge - or at least longest TTK - on desert because they kept getting pulled off by the flocks. The ice Titan’s frost aura also generated a technical challenge, but he was happy to focus me down while I pelted him with my basilisk from range until the birds were unfrozen. It was an elating, if not entirely fair victory, and now I’m ready to go ahead with my plan to at long last tame my titan.

Extinction, Modded-Single Player: Love is in the Air So, with the Valentines Day event in full swing, I’ve felt a little off kilter with my breeding program. My last group of microraptors and eagles matured, but the sudden boost to maturation completely messed up my meticulously worked out maturation to imprinting settings, resulting in the need for a setimprintquality 1 command down the line to get my 100%. This was probably more annoying to me than it should have been, but I take quite a lot of pride in getting my 100% imprints, and needing to employ an admin command for the last bit makes the whole effort feel pretty hollow. I bred my next batch of wyverns...a very successful clutch of a perfect bronze and perfect queen...but the third female picked up some of dad’s colors, so was repainted as a green. Then I hatched another round of eagles and microraptors, and was delighted to receive mostly females...which was the goal for their respective egg brackets. And I received the delightful news that my imprinting scale is not messed up for things born during the event, which was quite the relief. And those were followed by another set of the same...mostly males this time. But I got twin male microraptors that were a twelve level improvement over my old breeding male, so I’ll take it. Aside from that I cooked up a huge batch of sweet veggie cakes, focal chili and lazarus chowder in preparation for the new kibble system, and then set about shopping for event dinos. A red 115 sarco spawned in my front yard lake, so he was my first conquest. I named him Hook, because really, what else do you name a crocodile the same color as Captain Hook’s coat? Then I ducked into the alligator pit to find a lady friend for him, and resumed the event hunt to the tune of a dilo and two dimorphodons from the sunken forest, and (after many, many wipes) three event otters and an event dimetrodon right from my front yard. I’ve decided I love my house location all the more for unintentionally building in an otter spawn area. Next Up: A successful start to the event aside, I’m kind of in a tough spot with my breeding programs. I genuinely enjoy the long hours I spend raising my babies, and the event makes things too fast for my proper enjoyment. So I’m thinking I’m going to pay the shell of my Ragnarok game a visit and start construction on a proper sanctuary there. I have the better part of a foundation started in the desert, but I’m thinking I might just build in my canyon instead. Ragnarok is so beautiful and there are so many wonderful places I could live, but the canyon I built in on PS4 seems to be calling me home. And who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky and find some event griffins.

Extinction, Modded Single-Player: Feeling Totally Defeated, So I’m Refocussing My Attention. Well, the day was here at last. I’m still spending a lot of time with my sickly old kitty, but I had spent months carefully developing a plan and laying the groundwork for solo OSD runs, so I made up my mind that I was going to actually make my attempt. I set out with my wyvern to scout for a drop, and found a red one just to the south. So I teleported back to the Outpost where I’d staged the thirty bird OSD flock, whistled them into action, and led them out there. Teleported my rock golem out, switched the birds over to follow him, dropped the shield and got to work. Except... the rock golem, Talos, was not set to passive the way I’d left him. And I learned the corrupted dinos were way less troublesome than the fact my rock golem smashed the drop to bits. ? Well, lesson learned. So I went to find a new drop - a yellow, and decided I’d keep the birds on me instead, and set up a velonasaur turret at each cardinal point, where I found out the problem was not just my golem, which logically could damage metal. These carefully curated super birds with a boatload of melee to deal with the worst of the worst that would be coming in...well, those also damage the drop. So setting them on the stupid dilos that got past the velonasaurs...cost that attempt too. In complete, total exasperation I made two thousand bullets, spawned a 700% ascendant assault rifle and showed up to *another* yellow drop on foot. But I was overwhelmed. Checkmate, Ark. I’ve been telling myself I’ve had thousands of hours of fun without special events and can continue to have just as much fun, because I never expected my pets to deal damage against the OSD. The fact they do thwarts me entirely. I have to confess myself extremely disappointed, though. Well, lest my beautiful dimorphodon flock’s talents be wasted, I’ve begun taking them to excursions in the Forbidden Zone to farm corrupt hearts for my titan. It’s really just the hearts I need to make the attempt. I hope to everything holy that THAT event is soloable, because by god I will forcetame that thing if even that’s not legitimately obtainable. I will not accept “no” for an answer on my desert titan. I’m extremely proud of my birds. They’ve never faced down wyverns or gigas before, and they’ve held their own...though I only tackle a couple of wyverns per outing because of that fire. Plop the birdies down with the daeodon for a while and all is well though. Too bad they’re just a bit too destructive for their intended function, though. They’ve been repurposed quite nicely. Aside from that I’ve been industrious getting set up for when the kibble rework is finalized. I’m up to seven snakes at this point. Blessedly having Joan’s Egg & Poop Collector installed and about a hundred and fifty dimorphodons lounging around, I can feed a decent number. I have at least one variety of every egg layer going now. I knocked out a wall in my greenhouse and tripled its size, built two industrial cookers, and industrial grill and a chemistry bench, and filled one of the top floors of my old Outpost with preserving bins to handle jerky. The busywork aspect of it all has been comforting to me with Haekasu being sick and probably not having much time left. Kibble is something I’ve never had the luxury of making before and I really am genuinely enthusiastic to be able to do it myself. Hopefully by the time they’re done futzing with the beta I’ll be all ready to go. And finally, it was a big night for me in Ark with my favorite creature mod - one year without difficulties, lol. The original incarnation of the Dragons and Enhanced Creatures mod ran into so many problems the mod maker rebuilt it from scratch. I was still dubious when I reinstalled, but I have nothing but thanks and congratulations that I can just enjoy this absolutely amazing creature mod. To celebrate I spawned in a manticore and a pair of gas whelps (absolutely adorable tiny shoulder dragons - my whole motive for using this dragon mod). The gas subclass special ability is spoiling meat and I haven’t encountered anything in it, so I just got myself a pair of adorable tiny dragons to help my narcotic production along. Next Up: My velonasaurs matured tonight, so tomorrow I’m going to try my hand at argents for the first time. They’re all I have going for “large eggs” and I’ve had rotten luck finding good females, so I see it as a good excuse to try raising my own.

Extinction, Modded Single-Player: The Upsides to Virtual Pets So, I haven’t had much time for Ark lately... right as my OSD dimorphodon flock was ready to go, real life has gotten in the way. My fifteen year old cat has been in kidney failure the last few years, and has suddenly taken a sharp decline. He’s not suffering, but it’s pretty obvious he’s probably getting ready to go. So I haven’t been in my studio much, only for brief periods to get away from the stress. But I’ve been so emotionally exhausted I haven’t been up to pursuing anything exciting. Instead, I’ve consulted the chart as it stands for what the new kibble system is shaping up to be. I’m pretty excited about the rework, because it makes it feasible for me to actually make my own kibble for the first time. The soul-crushing tame cap on console always prompted me to just spawn in all the kibble types to keep in a cabinet for imprinting, because I didn’t want to give away precious slots to animals I didn’t care to own. And the habit pursued me into PC, although it did sort of occur to me in the last few days that with a glorious 5,000 slots on PC I very well could have set up a proper kibble farm, well, you know what they say about old habits. To that end I’ve tried to get at least one pair for each kibble type, to start feeling out what the actual egg production is like and if I’ll need to tweak my server to make it more reasonable - if needed. It’s too early to say yet. The big question mark per the bemoaning I’ve tracked here was for titanoboas, as I’ve never had one. And I immediately ran into an ethical dilemma I don’t have for basilisks. Basilisks I can accept legitimately taming with junker rock drake eggs I’m just going to feed to my drake anyway to open the nests. But there are no trenches on Extinction, and I’m just not okay with breeding my pets and sacrificing their eggs, so, I ended up just forcetaming a level 95 that was outside my house. Fortunately with about a hundred dimorphodons sitting about and Joan’s Egg & Poop Collector, I’m in good shape for providing unfertilized eggs for my new addition, and I figure I’ll feel things out with one...since even with many, many dimorphodons I can only feed so many snakes comfortably. Once I have a good handle on what everyone is lamenting I’ll work out how many snakes I need and to what degree egg lay interval needs to be adjusted for reasonable collection. I also got a female kentro and a couple of female dilos. The only category where I have nothing currently producing is for extra large. I’d ideally want rexes or gigas, but in all my time on Extinction I’ve not found one uncorrupted giga nor any rexes worth bringing in. I suppose if I’m only getting them for eggs level doesn’t matter, but again, you know what they say about old habits. Lastly my four microraptors matured, so I populated my nursery level again last night. With help of the S+ mutator I bred my wyverns for three new babies, and actually got a color mutation on baby number three - a bright yellow body. I’m a little annoyed he’s a male, since my gold wyverns are all female, but since he’s a proper color mutation I didn’t paint him to fit my insistence on making my wyverns conform to the rules of the Dragonriders of Pern novels. I named him Loki. Then I hatched four more dimorphodons looking for a third color mutation, with no luck, and I’m trying my hand at velonasaurs with four of them too. I’m hoping to rally more energy to actually take on the OSDs soon, but real life has really taken it out of me lately. Once again I’m so grateful to Ark, where my sanctuaries conform to exactly what I want and I’ve taken tremendous strides to make sure I’ll never face the loss of a pet. But as it stands I need to spend this time with Haekasu and cherish what time he has left. And Ark will be there, when the time comes and that Sanctuary will help me through.

Extinction, Modded Single-Player: Busywork, Caving and Late Entries in the Holiday Hoard So all my birdies are hatched and grown for my thirty strong OSD flock. All that’s left is getting the more recent birds up to the specs that the old ones have gotten simply lounging the days away with my lystros. But, before I worried about that, I had some chores I really felt compelled to get out of the way first, starting with arranging the OSD flock alphabetically, then renaming them to add a roster number in front, before outfitting them with dino trackers from the Awesome Teleporters mod. The numbers serve mostly to make it very easy for me to account for the flock on our upcoming outings, as there’s always worry of a bird getting separated with so many in the air. The awesome dino trackers provide a unique safety net I’d pay good money for on my console games, inasmuch as when I return, if I find a bird has been separated, one right click pulls up the list of every dino I’ve applied a tracker to, I can select the name off the list, and teleport that pet straight to me from anywhere in the world. I feel better knowing that I have the flock tagged and identified with a roster number for quick response when I get back. Then I needed to head out to the desert, because one of my late entries to the holiday pet hoard was a snail - my first - and while I had a good fifty or so cakes made on the off chance of finding good sheep to bring home, committing to a pet that eats cakes and only cakes made me feel inclined to make a concerted effort to stock up, so I needed sap. On the way I picked up another holiday velonasaur and found a holiday pony. White body, with red boots and stripes...I named him Candy Cane, because what else would you call him? Lol. I feel a little bad...he would have been a really solid level, but apparently it’s a bad night for QTEs for me and he threw me a humiliating four times. Sap acquired, I processed out a big batch of stimulant, collected from my two hives, and made another big batch of veggie cakes...all this between two imprints for my four microraptors. Then I bred my 2/20 mutated male dimorphodon for eggs to hatch when I refresh the cycle after the microraptors are done, and bred my best velonasaurs for four eggs from them too. Then I packed up the newest ten dimorphodons, and headed out on my training objectives...I figured caving was a proactive application and set out for the ice cave, which I’d never run. I was kind of getting beat on, so I ended up starting to grapple the ceiling to whistle the birds in slightly more peace than I was being afforded. Once I finally found the artifact I had one more obstacle to deal with...aquatic wolf pack. The artifact is across a small lake, and there were about eight wolves just casually chilling on the bottom. They wouldn’t follow me out for the birds to nibble, so I ended up having to pick them off with the Party of Six sorcerer’s staff. Ran that twice and headed out to desert for another crack at that, since I’m going to need multiples of that one more than any. That run also went without incident, especially since I knew the path from last time, but after that the birds were getting uncomfortably beat up, since they were basically fresh, so I packed them in to let the daeodon / lystro team do their thing. I’m pretty sure the birds had another few caves in them, but I didn’t see the point gambling the matter...console-induced caution winning out. In the end most of them got a good handful of levels, but I had three that apparently had better things to do... dramatically underperforming, which is unfortunately the nature of a dimorphodon flock. Invariably some of them end up missing out on enough of the action to fall behind. They’re getting there, though. I type this as I’m wrapping up for the night. Waiting for one more imprint on the microraptors by simply sitting in my bedroom with the OSD team, spoiling the two lystros with all the pets and relaxing after an adventurous day. I don’t intend to throw the flock out there until everybody has hit the benchmarks I’ve set. No point rushing when I’ve waited this long to do a proper job of it. But at this pace it shouldn’t be long now. Next Up: More cautious small outings for the babies in the flock, with eyes on OSD / Element Veins this upcoming week! Finally!

Extinction, Modded Single-Player: Belated Happy Yule to Me, Spectacular Punishment for my Laziness, and a New Thought / Opportunity So, I loaded into the day with a couple of orders of business in mind. Aside from the usual overseeing of my bustling nursery level and managing imprints, with the understanding my wyverns and older six dimorphodons would mature today, if I managed any time on Extinction, I was of a mind to bring in personelle from Scorched Earth and Aberration, and needed to handle the hard part of my OSD plan, because the flock is nearly complete: I needed a rock golem. But before I set out on my map-hopping adventures, I checked in on my Extinction babies and went out on a Raptor Claus run, where I finally got something to be excited about. Tonight Raptor Claus had for me a straight up 150 enforcer I simply had to deploy, and that’s by far the best gift he could have brought for me. But, right. I wanted to transfer a pair of my best microraptors for breeding, and I need to lock down a rock golem. Go. And I learned something today about that. Which is, my only other rock golem was apparently a hell of a fluke. I remember it fondly on Xbox Scorched Earth, where my friend played often with me on my non-dedicated. I was the more patient and attentive as babies went, so I was the one imprinting his first wyvern - a lightning - and my second, a poison I named Kazul after a dragon in a childhood book series I loved. While he was about the more action-packed part of daily life in the mountains by my Hatchery near red obelisk: one guy, multiple rocket launchers, all the rockets I could produce in my time playing alone and a simple charter: get rid of the bleeding rock golems constantly raising hell around my house. Holy knew bullets didn’t seem to do a thing, so I had taken to making rockets specifically to rid myself of them. And as I sat patiently by the baby wyverns, I heard him over the headset say “Hey, uh...do you want a rock golem?” And that’s how I found out about rocket taming, and thus the game plan for requisitioning one today. What I got, was rubble. Tons and tons of rubble and wasted rockets because apparently getting a KO is way more about freak luck than precise headshots. Well, after much rubble and mounting frustration, somehow I managed to put one down. Not a phenomenal one, only level 32. But I’m greatly under the impression that that’s just meant to be my golem, and so he and my top two microraptors were readied up for their new home. I had a stop to make on Aberration too, as I was missing my featherlights, and otters and had plenty to spare to send over. But there was...one more thing. I have a soft spot for basilisks, I wanted those too, but I had a set of the three Egyptian snake goddesses and I didn’t want to split them up. And honestly after all the rock golem hassle and not especially keen to spend the next forever on the massive hassle that is locating basilisks over 100+ and managing the tame, I decided “Blast it. I’m going to so much effort in the name of legitimacy, I’ve earned the right to just pop a pair down at home.” So I situated my transfers, and imprinted my babies back home on Extinction, and then headed to ground floor to consult the wiki with my reward for going to all that trouble and spawn my basilisks. I plugged in the code. Hit enter...and nothing. Checked over the code character by character and it looked perfect. Hit enter again and still nothing. Overcome with annoyance I smashed the code in a good handful more times before resolving to check the internet to find out if the spawn was glitched somehow. Now, here’s the thing. Because the plan was to reward myself on a job well done on the rock golem debacle, I was spawning a dangerous animal in my house to forcetame, and thus had activated playersonly. Well. Well, there was a surprise waiting for me when I took that off and time resumed. I learned something important about basilisks as time resumed, and the incredibly loose definition of “solid” in Ark contributed (I.e: my house is on a “solid” three stack of stone foundations.). And that is, that my spawn code was fine. But basilisks spawn in their buried state, spawned inside my floor, and then suddenly ten or so gigantic, murderous snakes erupted from my floor to attack me and all the ground level residents. I about jumped through the roof!! And quickly hit playersonly again, forcetamed my favorite male and female and dino wiped the rest. ? I’m sorry, Ark. I’m sorry I was feeling lazy and cheat-y. But that rock golem nightmare was a pain, okay? I deserved to not go through another huge pain. Well, of the new residents, it was the microraptors that needed the attention next, as I’d had a thought to include a strike force with the OSD flock. But I want imprinted battle ready microraptors, not my hobby collection, so I transferred only Marta and Eddie (huge Outlast fan here, and for some reason the angriest shoulder pet makes me think of Outlast, lol), and hooked them up to the hitching post, and got my four desired eggs. I moved out the six dimorphodons, the wyverns are at 98%, and I’m now tasked with the guardianship of my five juvenile dimorphodons, including my delightful double mutation baby, and four baby murder birds - my affectionate nickname for the tiny, angry, but remarkably endearing birds that want to fight the world. I am hopeful with their pack bonus they’ll make for a strong addition to the OSD plot as the angriest strike force ever. Next Up: Power leveling my freshly matured dimorphodons, and training the rock golem to pump as much health as I can into him. It’s all coming together! And truth be told I’m pretty nervous. But I also trust my birds and I’m very excited. Soon, very soon now, there should be a quite exciting update inbound to the thread.

Extinction, Modded Single-Player: Happy New Year! Happy New Year, survivors. Here’s hoping for a great 2019! It was a supremely quiet day for me today, given I was simply in the mood to relax, to which end I loaded up my element dust, oil and polymer gachas, and set about some menial metal runs with my weight-trained wyvern, Ymir. I also loaded up the industrial forge with extra wood, and did some stone and flint runs to start processing out quite a lot of gunpowder, as I’ve started getting low on sniper rounds, and my gachas have gifted me with a veritable gun locker of things I don’t normally play with and figured I’d make some ammo for. In between two imprinting rounds for my three adolescent wyverns and six adolescent dimorphodons, I loaded up the tek replicator with all the goodies I had my gachas working on, and made three of my apprentice 100+ enforcer blueprints. I painted two of them in holiday colors in the spirit of the event. I’m up to seven now, and very happy...I love these guys. And finally; on a complete whim, since my nursery level is busy as it is, I still felt inclined to hatch another four eggs. One had twins, but one had my happy new year’s gift within: my second color mutation! On my starting white palate, I’ve now gotten red highlights, and the new color, a jet black body. But the gift wasn’t done giving, I found. The red mutation was kind of useless stat wise, food. But the black mutation on Racer is health! And so I whiled away the remaining minutes of 2018, tending my new babies and waiting to ring in the new year the only proper way: immersed in my peaceful Ark sanctuary, surrounded by my adorable baby birds and wyverns. Next up: We draw ever nearer! All required members of the thirty strong OSD flock are in the building. As soon as the last few have matured I’ll power level them to the specs the older birds have gotten, my benchmark to be duty-ready, and then orbital supply drops here I come!

I usually take ten - fifteen dimorphodons with me, depending on the cave. It can get a bit tricky to keep track of them all, but I’ve generally found most problems in Ark can be solved if you just throw enough birds at it. I once took on the Tek cave by betting all my money on dimorphodons. Tek armor and a boatload of guns and ammo for me, and fifty birds in the air. They made it about 3/4ths of the way before I had to start picking them up via Pet Res. The moral, more birds = more success, in my experience. ?

Extinction, Modded Single-Player: Infintely More Entertaining than Actual Christmas Well, I’m pleased to say we’re at the back end of it, but Happy Holidays, everyone. I hope it was a pleasant one. ? But for me, with my admittedly melodramatic family, I am glad to be home, and very excited to be experiencing the proper Winter Wonderland for the first time. I started off with running a dino wipe in the name of the event, and then started off the imprinting cycle with my current wyverns and dimorphodons, and just about as I was wrapping up and about to head out to look for Christmas dinos, I got the alert that Raptor Claus had arrived. Knowing basically only what I read in the current threads, I leapt onto my wyvern and took to the skies. And I, for one am not complaining about the eternal daylight on Extinction, as I spotted him nearly immediately out by the desert dome and set a course to intercept the falling gifts. In the runs I’ve made, the best thing I’ve gotten was an ascendant saddle for my gasbag, but I find the pursuit rewarding enough on its own. It’s very fun, I think. After the first Raptor Claus pass I headed back to the desert dome to shop for Christmas dinos, and to this end found a kentrosaur, carno and velonasaur to bring in, as well as a normal velonasaur for the pack. After that, I set out for the sunken forest, determined to find some Christmas dimorphodons, but found myself distracted by a tek stego...then a therizino, then a dilo...to say the least I’ve gone on an event shopping spree, bringing in things I really don’t need. But none define the shopping madness quite like a Christmas tapejara I spotted. I have absolutely no need for one, but I decided to go for it anyway. She almost escaped me, but snagged herself on a rock wall as she tried to flee, and stayed stuck long enough for me to tranq her down. One last distraction was a Christmas lystro, which was actually fortuitous, as the one I had didn’t quite cover the space my OSD dimorphodons are occupying, so now they’re all getting buffed. And lastly, I found the goal, two Christmas dimorphodons good enough to bring in. They’re both male, though...and so the pursuit of a female will continue. And finally, my four dimorphodon babies matured, and I primed my next clutch of eggs to hatch this evening, right after the next imprint for my adolescent wyverns. Next Up: I’m excited! This next group of eggs will bring the OSD flock to the thirty strong I wanted for the attempt. So I’ll hatch those, continue my holiday dino shopping, with emphasis on the female dimorphodon, and IRL relax from the holiday chaos and look ahead to a hopefully great 2019. ———— Updated for my Evening Session: Extinction, Modded Single-Player: Getting WildCarded WildCarded (v): When a player encounters an entirely illogical or inexplicable game bug The good news: I hatched my new eggs. Four eggs that netted me six new dimorphodons. Two sets of twins. They all took mom’s colors, but no new mutations. But I move ever nearer to my OSD attempts! The bad news: When I loaded my session, I parked by #1 on the imprinting train, with around an hour before the start, and the intention to hatch my new dimorphodons right after wyvern number three, to group the imprints together and leave a chunk of free time to do other things. Then I grabbed a big box of miscellaneous bulk jewelry I’d gotten for Christmas to dissect for crafting, and got to sorting, salvaging stones, minding my own business and only glancing at the game in front of me every few minutes to ascertain all was in order and move about just a bit. Until...it wasn’t. My nursery level is thirteen stories up. Each floor comprising of six stories to accommodate wyvern storage. And yet, somehow, some way, I had FALLEN THROUGH THE WORLD. Through a stone floor, down six stories, through another stone floor, down six more stories and then through three layers of S+ stone foundations, there I was under my house. I might have exclaimed aloud, “What in the actual ____, WildCard?!” as I wheeled my mouse around until I spied my pets green names above me. Blessedly in a single player world I could simply ghost out, and did a full circuit of the house to make sure none of my pets had joined me on that magical adventure, but all was in order. Don’t get me wrong, there’s no malice in the term. I love Ark, and WildCard for creating it, but the ways this game can break sometimes. ? I certainly don’t have an explanation, but no harm done and Ark behaved itself the rest of the night. And the follow up: And tonight I found two female Christmas dimorphodons, so I can have a solid breeding line, and I’m excited. Next Up: I raise the final few for my OSD flock, and then the whole team is going training! And very soon I get to put my strategy into action and attempt the drops!

Extinction, Modded Single-Player: Just One of Those Nights, Overlooking - and Rectifying - the Obvious, and The Great Cave Saga. So, having moved out my three wyverns and four dimorphodons into maturity and off the nursery level, my next task was setting up the next round, starting with getting four new eggs...the first batch with my color mutated Dennra, and then getting my breeding pair of wyverns hooked up to the S+ hitching post, firing up the S+ mutator with an Allow Breeding pulse, and we were underway, looking for a male. And, I got my male...and two females. Surprise! Wyvern triplets. I’m certainly not new to the game, but I still get seized with a second of panic each time I get multiples. But I quickly wrangled them and organized them on the wall, milk and preserving salt distributed, and went to hatch my first dimorphodon egg...and, twins! Twins that did not take mom’s colors. And once they were organized I set down the next egg, and discovered the running theme of the night with triplets, again. They did take mom’s red highlights, but no new colors this time. Here’s to another two hundred dimorphodons, lol, and a MASSIVE thank you to the lovely, lovely cryofridges that mean Extinction will be my first game where I don’t need massive offsite storage facilities for my endless hoards of shoulder pets. Then it was off to stop being a moron in regard to nearly killing Indira last time. You know, after that update it occurred to me, you know, those super cool snow owls I’ve collected actually do more than look cool. They definitely have a freaking healing mechanic, silly, USE IT. And while I was at it I ducked up to the snow biome and nabbed a daeodon to park by my dimorphodons to speed their health recovery on the passive levels they’re amassing. I’m pretty certain the daeodon is more efficient than an owl, but I’m not really sure. And from there, I set out on a mission. I’d picked out the location of the desert cave, and I had a mind to go retrieve the artifact. Since I can only have one titan in single player, I’ve set my heart on the desert titan. So I headed over with my eagle, figuring she’d fit where my wyvern wouldn’t...and immediately got tossed off. I don’t know why my damn config for allow cave fliers doesn’t work on console or PC, but there I was. Just far enough into the cave mouth to aggro the first group, and now eagle-less and on foot and in hell. Well, the good news for me is I’ve grown very accustomed to being on foot in Ark. My terror of permanent consequences on console made me very averse to actually using my pets, preferring to be on my own, live or die because my stuff is replaceable, they were not. And I carry two things on my person at all times for this reason: an ascendant fabricated sniper, and the sorcerer’s staff from the Party of Six mod, giving me enough firepower to stand a fighting chance, as long as I’m on my toes. The main thing I was concerned with was getting back to Ruby, but we were both getting hammered by the angry, angry group of dinos I’d alerted, and I was immediately reminded of something I blanked on from Aberration. Party of Six codes that staff as a melee weapon, not a projectile-firing one, causing it to nearly instantly shatter when a blast hit an arthropleura, and now I’m down half my DPS. It took nearly half my sniper rounds to clear off enough of the swarm to get back to Ruby, and I teleported her home. Thanking my lucky stars that my lovely gacha friends have supplied me with ascendant riot, and knowing the layout of the desert cave, there was something I needed, that, honestly, I was overdue for and need for my Scorched Earth game too...which was to duck out to Aberration for wingsuits. And then, given that the whole game plan had been to fly that cave because I didn’t like the notion of negotiating with a land mount, I grabbed ten dimorphodons, installed my wingsuit and fixed my staff, and set in on foot. And... I found rock golems. Which were not actually something I was counting on finding in there. Fortunately being mindful of which tool shoots what, the sorcerer’s staff can handle them, but I’m going to need my lovely, generous gachas to consider supplying more of that ascendant riot, because the durability of my set was definitely chunked running through there, mainly by those golems. The dimorphodons made short work of everything else, but oy, those golems were a wrench in my plan. But the cave run had a happy ending. The first deployment for the start of my OSD dimorphodon flock went swimmingly, I got my artifact, and even enjoyed the hunt, troublesome golems or not. And seeing them gave me the notion I’ll duck out to Scorched Earth to grab one, because I cannot think of a more perfect tank for Operation: OSD. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to distribute treats to the gacha squad to appeal to them to replace my armor. ?

Extinction, Modded Single-Player: The Experiment, the Betrayal, and the Second Lottery. So, it’s actually a single day update today, and it was an eventful one indeed. I led the day by overseeing the completed maturation of my three wyvern babies, set my imprinting timer for the four dimorphodons I’m raising, and set out immediately on my wyvern with a mind to perform an Experiment. One that I needed to do first-thing because there was a super distinct possibility I’d be needing to restore a save if things went extra south on me. After scoping the map on my wyvern, I found the goal: an Element Vein just before the Forbidden Zone. I’ve seen Element Veins run by a team of four, but I really wanted boots on the ground experience on the matter. So I teleported home, parked Polyhymnia, and fetched Indira, my best velonosaur. I was curious about a couple of things. Firstly wanting to get a feeling for the pacing of the waves as a solo player, and secondly if I orbited the center spire with Indira if I could hope to keep up. Well, the Experiment...did provide the experience I was looking for. And ended shy of tragedy early into wave three. In a word keeping up with one turret-o-saur is absolutely not a thing. I was losing ground rapidly, but it was wave three, with the center spire nearly toast and Indira feeling more and more like she did not sign up for this poop, that the wyverns and gigas came to say “What’s up?” trashed the spire, and left me spamming the teleport remote to get my burning, bloodied and betrayed-feeling Indira - and myself!! - the heck out of there. Apologizing profusely to Indira for my irresponsible gamble, I spent a while feeding her to bump her health up and made sure to park her to a far internal area to be certain nothing could clip through and nibble her while she healed...and let out an aggravated huff. Really, I learned nothing. -I knew the waves are many dinos strong. -I knew they came from all directions. -And I strongly suspected that by the time I’d gunned down the one angle the others would have closed in to smack away at the spires. So with my remaining time before the imprinting cycle I grabbed my eagle, a new stack of awesome dino trackers, and teleported to the sunken forest to take some more stabs at finding a lucky gacha. On the way I found a 156 tek raptor I paused to bring in, and three more hobby dimorphodons. Dropped a few failed gachas off to join the other eleven in the wasteland and went back to imprint my dimorphodons before resignedly ducking back below to toss more snow owl pellets at every gacha in sight, because Operation: Element Vein is going to need much more iteration for me to find a way to pull it off. I ended up keeping a gacha that makes oil, because I had the available slot for a male, and carried on. And, I am SO RELIEVED to report, that at a final tally of thirty-one aggressive sentinels of the Wasteland for me to watch over like a murderous, unruly wildlife preserve of tagged gachas, I got one!! She was an ultra-squishy level fifteen, but she makes element dust!! I **immediately** teleported her home and staked out a zone acceptably removed from my other three pairs, and immediately logged out to make a hard save. On loading back up, I piled materials into Maxine’s inventory, and happily indulged in my favorite kind of Ark grind - the time and patience variety - until I had enough dust for my second enforcer. All in all it was a great day. Indira and I lived through my curiosity, I bypassed my urgent desire to crack the Element Vein code, and I’m quite pleased. Next up I continue building my bird army for OSDs, and need to start putting thought into an ideal tank for that project. I will continue to ruminate on the Element Vein project, and look forward to those attempts soon, just a bit better prepared than I was yesterday.

Take out a Doed and harvest every light pool you can. The dust will add up quickly! (Or of course just farm an element vein) That is a logical idea, but... ”What I Did in Ark, A Long Time Ago.” So, way, way, way the heck back, in the early days of Xbox EA, I’d recently finished construction on Castle Valkyrie, on Grand Peak...before the redwoods were even a thought in WildCard’s mind. Before The Center, before admin commands or advanced server settings like stat control. And it had become something of a hobby unto itself of letting friends interested in their possibilities as new Ark players come to tour my home, see the map, maybe get a tame or two. And on this day I was hosting my little sister. She had a short wishlist we set out to obtain. Beginning with my home tour and including ringside perspective on a spare eagle for a dimorphodon hunt to show off my beloved birds, she wanted a green eagle, and a wolf. We nabbed the wolf while up north on the dimorphodon hunt, located a green eagle right on Grand Peak, and headed down to the treacherous, pseudo-affectionately dubbed 1,000 Ways to Die Beach just to the north for a clinic on dimorphodon taming, because I’d sold the birdies enough for her to want one. We parked the eagles in an alcove on the beach by Spectre, my prized albino Rex that lived down on a beach as a guard for the birds while I was down there. He had manned that post on neutral to great success, so I felt confident leaving the eagles on passive by his feet, and set out. And, well, on the way my sister saw a doed, and thought she was adorable. And when told of their rolling traversal mechanic, she wanted her. So, I figured we were getting our first doed, as I’d never tamed one, and we set to work with the tranqs. On taming my sister named her CT, after a character in her favorite web show...but there was something...off, about her. CT wanted to fight the world. She inexplicably seemed to be instigating fights for no apparent reason. We led her back to where Spectre was and figured the dim- witted doed would be safe with him until we got back with a saddle to try to negotiate her path home. Well, my sister had to go unexpectedly, and it would come to pass she never played again, which would become important because on approach with my tribemate we were met with horror: CT had picked a fight with the dimorphodons. And the cowardly little (insert expletive) had realized her error and balled up, leaving my poor Spectre fighting a losing battle against the dimorphodons. He was already bloody, and even though I dove in immediately to try to aggro the flock off of him... I was too late, and he died. Because of CT. And I was heartbroken. He was only my second significant loss. I left CT on the beach, hoping something would eat the damn thing. I wanted nothing to do with her, or any doed at all. The problem was, CT was winning. Alive and well as the weeks wore on and justice went unserved until fast forward to my tribemate and my greatest triumph thus far, conquering a pair of gigas that had spawned up on the northeast mountain. After we quite carefully walked our new world-destroyers back to Castle Valkyrie, we gleefully brought them to 1,000 Ways to Die Beach for training and to relish in the raw power we now called ours. We made our way onward, until...there she was. CT, still alive in spite of being flatly abandoned to the harsh beachside. I dismounted, and regarded the doed, only feeling more bitter and angry as the weeks had passed. And I made the call. If nature wouldn’t do it, by god I would. So I unclaimed her. And fed her to Sekhmet. And vowed I was done with doeds forever, and have never had one since. —— One might say, and I might concede it’s irrational to be soured to a whole species over a bad experience with one that didn’t seem right in the head from the off...but my distaste for them runs quite deeply to this day. ? But just farming the benches and light posts was something I didn’t realize I could do, so thanks for the heads up!

Extinction, Modded Single-Player: The Plot, the Birds, the Lottery and the Massive Problem. So, I’ve been quietly working away on breeding my army of super dimorphodons so I can finally think of tackling the OSDs and gaining access to some of the cool new toys I haven’t gotten to try yet. Near as I can tell, dimorphodons are as good an answer to wave defense as any, especially as I’ve handled them since my first days in Ark. The plot, as it were, is to not bother with the shield. It’s just too much area for me to cover as a solo player. Instead, I’m going to anchor the flock to a passive tank - species TBD - and park the tank right on the drop. Anything that gets past me on my battle wyvern will 100% bite a bird trying to get the drop, and then that something will regret its choices...but just for a moment. Having a separate battle mount lets me see the field so I can also whistle the birds to prime targets. They autonomously go back to the tank, and with this formula, I’m pretty certain of success...for OSDs. On the subject I’m raising flock members 11 - 14 right now, and I’ve affectionately dubbed them the Lottery Ladies. Circa the launch of Aberration it took me about a hundred and fifty birds to get a single color mutation in my Scorched Earth game. But a couple of days ago, I hatched not one, nor two nor three, but FOUR back to back color mutations!! On my pure white palate, I got a black body, a bronze body, bright red highlights, and green wing fringe. I’m still over the moon. Dennra, with the red highlights, is the most striking, so I’ll be trying to build off her colors in future generations. The other half of the Plot, and thus the Problem, is a bit more complex. The core of the Problem is this: A while ago I crafted my first enforcer, Echo, and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE her. I want more! And I have three great blueprints...but am hilariously, tragically short element dust to even think of getting another. Well... so what do we do about this? On the one front, I’ve been working the rare off-chance to find a gacha that makes element dust. (Aside, what in blazes were gachas like pre-nerf?? I didn’t try mine out until after, and in ninety minutes my three shelled out an ascendant upgrade for all my riot but the boots, untold extra goodies, and a 690% 1150 durability ascendant fabricated sniper. I see why PvP was complaining! They’re ridiculous, and I ADORE them!!) Well, this is in itself problematic. It’s the rarest roll for a gacha, even my palatial estate can’t hold that many pairs, I would absolutely never kill a creature I tamed for not having what I want...so...what to do? My extremely mediocre temporary answer is eleven gachas and counting wandering the wasteland on aggressive. And I can’t even justify just tossing them out there, so I’ve committed to admining all their available levels to buff their health and melee so that they stand the best chance, logging them with a number and an awesome dino tracker marker so I can teleport them to me to feed them, and the understanding that if one dies I need to drop what I’m doing, grab a flier and comb the map until I find the Pet Res tombstone to bring them back. I’m too soft-hearted for my own good. Well, the other thing is Element Veins. Those could solve the problem...but unlike an OSD, which is just one small point I need to protect, that’s a big area for one woman to deal with! My original plan was to make a circle of turret velonosaurs and direct the birds from the air, with the understanding the turret-o-saurs would buy me time. But apparently their targeting has been nerfed into the ground, and to boot I found out today that turret mode doesn’t scale with their damage stats, so now... ?‍♀️ I badly want more enforcers, but I confess myself confounded about the element dust dilemma. With my rates I get about 120 dust per enforcer kill, against blueprints costing 10,500+. But if I don’t work out a strategy for a more efficient acquisition, it’s just going to be that sole option. I am open to suggestions, if anyone has tips for one lone woman whose handling experience is limited to directing dimorphodons and flying wyverns or eagles into battle.

Extinction, Modded Single-Player: Ramping Up Production and a Lack of Self Control. It was a much more exciting day today than the previous, leading off with me taking my eagle around the map to place teleport pads and scrounge up any and all metal rocks I could find. My first stop was the snow, and an immediate potential present: a 140 managamr. I placed a teleport pad and sent my eagle back to the Outpost, and set about a duel with the target. Well, I lost the first volley, died and had to reset. I took the chance to park Ruby indoors, teleported back and carried on as soon as I’d tracked the managamr...which I found was relatively merciful on torpor decay. The second time around, I dropped her, but was immediately put on the defensive against a wolf pack. I summoned Ruby back to me and had her to fly defense while I waited on my tame. I got her up, teleported both home, and used the dino pickup mod to move my new friend past the normal dino gate to take up the remaining elbow room on that level. It is certifiably packed now with my wyvern, managamr, eagle, owl, gasbag and a pair of unicorns. I then invested 2,500 precious ingots into an industrial forge to kickstart ingot production, and headed back out with Ruby to hunt enforcers and metal rocks. And while I was out, I stumbled into a lake in the Sanctuary dome...with a 136 lightning drake...that I just couldn’t say no to, in spite of a decided lack of space. I successfully dropped and tamed her, and crammed her in too. Then I set about raising the walls in my home and crafting pieces by the hundreds, pausing to head down to the sunken forest to raid dams for cementing paste, and picking up three new dimorphodons for the flock along the way. Next Up: I have got to finish my build, because I formally am well past capacity at the Outpost and need a proper place to live before I continue my taming adventures.