Kraken

Something a bit different for me today. I logged in, pulled on my best furs, made up some Fria Curries, wrapped my otter scarf around my neck, loaded up on cooked meat, and prepared to pay my first ever visit to the Murder Murder Snow. My aims were to find an Ice Wyvern egg, and a high level Polar Bear. Flew in on Stewie and all good, -60 and I was ice cubed, but not losing health at any great rate. Killed off a frw low level polar bears, a lvl 50 and a lvl 90 Ice Wyverns, searched all around and couldn’t find a nest at all. It started snowing, didn’t really think anything of it, then all of a sudden I’m down to half health! Damn! It’s -80 and I’m right in the middle of it! Scarfing down meat and swooping out as fast as I can, I don’t want to attempt teleporting as that takes precious seconds that I don’t have, and I can barely eat enough meat to keep my health up, then I manage to get out into a cosy -50 where I can recover with my health in the low 40’s. Phew! Clearly I need to do some research so I Google the nest locations whilst I heal up. Disappointing as I wanted to find them myself, but as pretty as the area is, flying around aimlessly was getting on my nerves. Locations now written down and GPS out I visit all the nests, one doesn’t appear to exist anymore, but from the other four I get a lvl 50, a lvl 75, a lvl 90 and a 155. That’ll do nicely, the lvl 90 was a dud and disappeared from my inventory, but the 155 is grand, and the other two can go towards snake taming. Flying around looking for a Polar Bear and I decide to take on a 150 Ice Wyvern that’s spawned, nearly a big mistake, it catches me with its breath attack so I can’t swoop attack it, my stamina gets drained and I’m for ed to land and can only hit it with bormal melee attacks, didn’t think to bring any sort of gun with me. It’s knocked 9000 odd hp off of me before I finally manage to kill it, and as I’m healing a pack of wolves attacks. They hurt a lot too so I beat the retreat, almost straight into a 160 Wyvern. Run away! Finally find a safe spot to heal, and with a couple of k restored I have a look around and scope out a bear, which is a 150. Luvverly job. Slap down a teleporter pad and tp back home, grab the Q and come back to grab him, and then the long boring journey carrying him back to the taming pen. Luckily he never aggro’d on the Q, I’ve had them shredded underneath me before trying to take a a bear to a taming pen. Got him ko’d and full of honey, and decided to make up a load of S+ hitching posts for all my passive dinos. Such a great addition, also meant that I could easily breed up a load of egg layers for a dozen or so fertalised eggs, a couple of which I may hatch, the rest put aside for snake taming. Made up an S+ Hatchery as well and stuck the 155 Wyvern egg in to incubate. Be a while before I can hatch it properly, but no harm with making a start on it now. When Jon the Polar Bear tamed up I went to make a saddle for him, but all out of hide, so onto the Thyla and off for a fun run. Went a way I don’t normally go, and ended up by Green Oby, then ran down the coast and took a swim over to the SW Islands. Though about going all the way to the new desert area, but decided to leave that for another day, instead just had a bit of fun climbing pillars and pouncing on things. Took down an Alpha Carno, crappy loot though, and made an attempt at taming a 145 female vulture, but the damn thing wouldn’t comply, and ended up attacking me when something got killed nearby so I had to leg it. 11,000 hide collected and I called it a night, topped up the troughs and logged.

Funny old day today, had to be up early for an appointment, and then had an hour or so to kill before heading to work. When I was waiting for my appointment I had a really good idea of something I wanted to do, but by the time I got home and logged in I’d completely forgotten what it was, so I meandered around aimlessly for a bit, grabbed a couple of drops, and tamed up yet another Hyaenodon. This evening I realised that if I’m going to do any breeding any time soon I’m going to need some kibble dinos for imprinting. Ugh. I really don’t want unnecessary eggers cluttering up my base, but you can guarantee if I don’t have them the only comfort food I’m ever going to get asked for is the ones I don’t have. So off I went looking for some junky pairs, Trikes first, and it took bloody ages to find anything low level. A combination of trawling around on the Quetz and Ragnarok high level weighting. Eventually though managed to nab a 15 and a 20. Stegos next, and they weren’t so hard to find or far away from base. A pair of 20’s in the painted canyons. Took a break for some tea after that, then down to the swamps for Dimetrodons. Found a 20 male quickly enough and dropped him in the pen, then tp’d on the Argent over to the Highlands for some mutton. Do you think I could find a sheep anywhere! Nearly half an hour of flying back and forth over the grasslands before I finally spotted a flock. All males again. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but I’ve been after a high level female sheep, just one will do, but females seem to be super duper rare, the flocks are spawning as all males or 5 males and one low level female. It’s really weird. Anyhoos, killed a couple of them and headed back home, tamed up the Dime, and headed back to the swamp for a girlfriend for him. As well as checking all the Dimes, I was also grabbing random things, one of which was a 150 frog, a really nice burgandy coloured one, so got him tamed up too, another male unfortunately, I may have to make a concerted effort for at least one female 150. Found a female 15 Dime shortly after that and got her tamed. With all these extra big lummox dinos around my courtyard’s getting a bit congested, so I moved the frogs and Bary’s over to the water pen. Checking the imprinting kibble list I still need Pachy’s and Gallis. Well Gallis can wait until I have some Dime eggs collected, but Pachy’s, I have plenty of Dilo kibble so I figured I may as well go high level with them. Didn’t take long to find a 140 male and get him taming. I’ve been checking every cave I pass that has water and fish in it on the off chance of finding Otters. Found a couple of little ones, then I found a 135 male. Immediately stopped the Pachy hunt and went to get the Gull to help tame him up. Finally I have a high level breeding pair. Eventually found a 140 female Pachy, and also nabbed a lvl 20 Oviraptor, then finished off the day by taking the Thyla out on a killing spree with one of the Otters on my shoulder to get it some levels. Got about 6 on the Thyla, but only 1 on the Otter annoyingly.

Logged in and straight away saw a ringed yellow drop on the glacier, so hopped on Stewie and headed over to grab it, nothing too special, but there was a bit of a commotion going on with some Mammoths nearby. Pulled out the spyglass and they were being attacked by a couple of piggies, nothing unusual about that, but one of the piggies was a 150, meh, already got a pair of 145's, then I took a second look and saw that he was half black and half white, such a great colour scheme that I had to have him. Quick popped back to base and grabbed an Argent to pick him up with, and got him dropped into the pen. Now though I had a quandry, I mutton tamed the 145's and they're great, but there's a lot of levels lost from Kibble to Mutton, and for an awesome looking 150 I had to kibble tame him. I don't keep any Iguanodons though, but my SiC does. She wasn't on so I sent her a message, 'I needz your eggses! Plus I have something special and horny for you, please shout me asap!' While waiting for her to respond and not wanteing to stray too far from base in case the pig despawned, I did a bit of sorting. I tend to stick all my BP's into a box without really looking at them, and the same for all saddles and weapons and stuff from drops, unless it's something immediately obviously really nice like an Ascendent Saddle or something I'll just shove it away and forget about it by and large. I also tend to stick armour all in together so anytime I need to change from maybe Ghillie to Fur, it takes me ages to sort out which are the good ones, which are the back ups etc. So I got some armour stands made up, one for storage of each type of armour, I made up some Bookshelves to get the BP's organised, and I finally made some extra boxes for the armoury to seperate up the guns and tools and ammo etc, and ground down all the useless primitive - apprentice junk that I've been hoarding. Turns out I have some quite nice BP's that I've been sat on, upgraded half of my Ghillie, made some much better Flak, had a better pair of Fur Leggings that I didn't realise I had, and found BP's for MC Riot Boots and Leggings, but I need to go on a Mantis killing spree to get the Polymer for those. When my SiC got back to me, I had to very carefully explain over Skype to her boyfriend exactly what the message from random Internet guy meant, whilst both of us tried very hard not to crease up laughing. 'I need some of her Iguanodon eggs, I have a Unicorn to give her...' Bless him! Got the pig tamed up with no fuss, and gave D her new Unicorn. I did't bother checking the post tame stats, but he stood up with over 8K health, and more stamina than either of my other two after I've been levelling their stamina. I've called him Minstrel, and he's lovely. After that was sorted I helped D do a bit of gathering, and in the process found a couple of Otters, an 80 and a 140! Neither of us have an Otter so we decided to tame one each, I pulled rank and got the 140, shame they were both females otherwise we would have bred them up. Also turns out the Thorny Dragons I tamed the other day have something a bit special about them, the Male has a light brown belly and a black back, and the female has a black belly and light brown back, which is pretty neat. The browns don't quite match up but close enough, I've called them Yin and Yang. Final act of the day was to take the Megalosaurus out to kill an Alpha Carno near my base, and on the way back I grabbed the Alpha out of a pack of Hyaenodons, another 145 for the collection, and this one has a black body and a dark green back and spots that I've never seen before, so she'll be nice for breeding when I eventually get around to that.

Popped on again for a bit in between jobs and without really planning to do anything pottered around for a bit. Noticed that the S+ collector was looking a bit low on Propellant so hopped on down to the desert to grab some more Sulfur. Right next to my teleporter down there was a group of Thornies, including a 150 male. 'Shrugs' go on then. Killed the others, kited him away to a safe spot and took him down from the back of Stewie t' Griffin. Quick threw up some walls, hopped over to the Highlands to get Mutton and to the farm for Narcs and then baby sat him for a bit until he was fine to leave. Now that I've got one Thorny taming up though, even though don't really want, don't really need, my OCD kicks in and I decide that I can't just have one, I need a pair. So I scour the desert, get tempted by a 135 and 140 females, but decide not to. Tp'd back to base and had a think, and remembered that the new part of the map has all Scorched Earth stuff, and I haven't really explored it that much, so let's go take a looksee. Headed down there on the Griffin and had a look around, couple of 150 Moths, and 150 Camels, a 145 Golem, no decent Thorny's though, then eventually right on the edge of the last island, 150 female! Back of the net! Not a great area though, so laid down my spare teleporter pad, whipped back to base, grabbed the Quetz and picked her up and flew over to one of the unpopulated islands to take her down. So now I have a pair of 150 Thorny Dragons that I'll probably never use, but at least I'll be getting eggs for a Moth, 'cos I quite like flying around on a Moth, and with my mod they passively produce silk so I'll have that if I ever need it for anything After that was just some more pottering, which found me a 150 male Anky not far from base. My current one is 150, but a crop tamed one, and I can't resist a 150 Anky at all, so again grabbed the Quetz and brought him back to the pen. Knocked him out, stuffed the kibble in him, and logged off. Then remembered that I never actually got any Sulfur!

I found Gaston! had to take my mum to the airport at stupid o’clock this morning so hopped online, decided to go grab some more black pearls and another artifact and there he was! Right next to where the artifact is, just on the other side of the rock. Why on earth he didn’t follow me when I was swimming all around the area spamming J I don’t know, but glad to have found him. Other than that I just took one of my Phiomias out for a quick run, my Better Dinos mod makes it so that they can gather berries, fiber and veggies from bushes. Works grand but I need to tweak the weights a bit, they’re gathering a few too many veggies, and I think I’ll tweak it so that they can only gather the root veggies, and I think I’m going to make either monkeys or apes able to gather Citronal and Longrass.

Fun night tonight! Logged on and decided to take the squid out for a bit of fun, took him out of the cave and straight into a lvl 55 Alpha Mosa! Nice, fun fact that I didn't know is the squids can actually grab Alpha Mosas, so it was easy peasy if a bit time consuming to kill it and collect the lovely goodies. Went a little ways up the coast and another Alpha Mosa, lvl 20 this time, down he went too. A lvl 90 Alpha Shark next up, can't grab those though so it took a bit of chasing and maneuvuring to take it down. Further up the coast, down into a crevasse and found a loot crate, with a MC Compound bow and a JM Tuso saddle BP. Sweet, started to head back to base to craft it up and ran into yet another Alpha Mosa, a lvl 60. Took care of business and just as I was getting back to the cave a Liop decided to take a bite of me, a 145 female. I'll have her to mate up with Gaston, my male Liop, so grabbed her and took her into the cave, bish bash bosh and down she went. Popped back to base to make up the kibble, only had half as many eggs as I needed so took a quick trip to the Highlands to grab a sheep. While I was waiting for the Liop to tame up, I took Ferguson the Dunk on a quick metal run, and when I emptied the forge to make room for the metal I had just gathered I realised that I now had the 5000 odd ingots that I needed to craft up the MC Mosa saddle BP that I've been sat on for ages. Crafted that up and once the new Liop could be left alone I slapped it on Tiffany the Mosa and took her out for a spin for the first ever time. Flew off down the coast in the opposite direction to what I had gone on Da Boss, and after a little bit of a murder spree I realised that I was next to the sunken ships. 'Oooh' I thought, 'there's an artifact around here, I just need to deal with these 6 Squids that are circling.' I thought I'd try it with Tiffany, and she managed to kill one, but even with her MC saddle the others just kept passing her around and mullering her, so I beat a hasty retreat with only a couple of thousand health remaining and fled back to the cave. Now though, I've decided that I really want that artifact for my wizards tower, so I grab Da Boss and head back there. He makes mincemeat of the Squids and I gather up a load of Black Pearls from the wreck, but I can't find the artifact anywhere. A quick Wiki and I realise that I'm not quite in the right place, so I head to where I should be, and spot the artifact crate. Hop off Da Boss and as I'm grabbing the artifact I hear the battle music start, so I quick whip around and try and get back aboard, but I can't, why can't I? Oh, because that's not my squid, that's a lvl 100 wild squid, d'oh! By the time I realise and try to swim up he's two hit me and I'm a gonner. Respawn back at base, grab a spare GPS and tp back to the cave and hop on Gaston. I'd have taken Tiffany but I had all my scuba gear on me when I died, so I needed the Liop Oil buff to retain my oxygen. Got back to Da Boss and watched him finish off the wild Squid with impunity, no bother. Jumped off to get my gear from my corpse and the battle music starts, look around and it's ok, Da Boss has an Angler in his grip and they're both attacking it, no worries there, so I get my gear and dip into the wreck to get some more Black Pearls, swim back and hop on Da Boss, and where's Gaston? Looked around and he's nowhere to be seen, searched up, searched down, went around and around in ever increasing circles spamming J and still no sign of him. Weird! Eventually I end up back at Squid Central, and half a dozen more squid have respawned, so I wade in to take them out, crap, damn glitchy Alpha particle effect, one of them is a 135 Alpha! He's mincing me pretty badly so I leg it and go and find some Dunks to put the squeeze on to regain some health and have another look around for Gaston. Still no sign, he's completely vanished. That's a pita, still, at least I've now got Claire, the new Liop. Health restored on Da Boss I go back to the squids and this time I can target the Alpha. It's now a lvl 55 though, my Spidey sense is tingling and I turn around and yep, the 135 is about to attack me from behind along with another 3 or 4 squids. So begins a game of hit and run, and I eventually manage to get the tangle of Squids all seperated and far enough away from each other that I can take on the Alphas seperately. Took a while but got them all cleared, another futile search around for Gaston who I'm now pretty sure got attacked by an Angler and went chasing off after it when it fled, and back to base to call it a night. Might get the pet finder mod to try and find Gaston, or I may just write him off and get another one, not sure yet.

Not much today, mostly testing mod stuff, which led to a fun little argument with one of the new guys on the server, ’Why are you spawning Brontos?’ ’Cos I need to check some things with them and I don’t have any.’ ’Oh, I thought you were going to raid us.’ ’No, I’m admin, I don’t PvP, I just haven’t got time to tame one proper and I need to double check some things.’ ’Are you going to keep it?’ ’No, once I’ve confirmed what I need to know I’ll destroy it.’ ’Oh, free XP eh?’ ’No, I’ll use destrymytarget on it, I won’t get any XP, if I was bothered about cheating myself XP I’d be a damn sight higher level than 88.’ ’Ok then. Can I have the Bronto when you’re done with it then?’ ’No.’ Other than that little tete a tete, I didn’t really do much other than tame a 145 Unicorn. I don’t really care for them myself but I wasn’t feeling generous enough to see if any one else wanted it, and didn’t have the heart to kill it like I normally do to Unicorns so I think I’ll gift it to my second in command.

Not really played in a couple of weeks so decided to pop on tonight to chill out a bit. Turns out I’ve got some new players on my server which is nice, my second in command had to do a bit of laying down the law in my absence since they apparently had a bit of an attitude problem when they first joined but they seem to have settled down now and seem decent enough. Decided to do a bit of an oceanic killing spree so took my Liop out, and after a bit found a nice white 145 female Angler and decided to tame her. Grabbed her and went back to my cave and when she was taming up finished the building work on my Watermill/Windmill building. It’s alright, not amazing but it’ll do. Went back out on the Liop and ran into a 145 Dunky. Yes please! Nipped back home and jumped on the Squid and brought him back to the cave to ko. That done I’d decided that I’d had enough of the water for now and pulled on the furs to take the Thyla out for a bit of levelling on the glacier. Ran straight into a 150 Rhino. I ummed and ahhed over this for a bit, because I’m really trying not to tame things I don’t need or use, but in the end thought sod it, an easy tame and I have loads of Terrorbird eggs. Ran back home to grab the Quetz and dropped him into the pen for an easy ko. The Dunk tamed up so pulled the Scuba back on and took him up the coast to Viking Bay for a wee bit of gathering cum levelling. Found a gorgeous cave in the process, practically right next to the one where I store my big water dinos, but this one has air, loads of crystal and metal and some awesome giant mushrooms. Very cool place and no one else on the server seems to like the water so I have things like this all to myself. I might just build a bit of a base down there for funsies. After that just took the Argent that I tamed last time I was on out for a bit of a fly and found a 150 Moschops, so finished off my session by taming him up.

Not been playing much as work and modding have been taking up my time. Popped on today to check a couple of issues that have been reported regards one of my mods, and did some base maintenance whilst I was on, and deceided to go and grab the three easy artifacts that I don't have already for the Wizards Tower in my castle. Needed some obsidian to make up the pedestals for them so hopped up to the volcano, and while I was up there I found 3 Snake eggs! Back to base and I checked my stores and that took me up to 8 in total, enough to kibble tame a good Thylacoleo. I TP'd myself south of the border on the Quetz, since I figured they'd be easier to find in the desert than the redwoods, and after maybe half an hour of searching I found a 140 female, very nice, grabbed her up and started to haul ass back to base, checked out another just before leaving the desert and it was a 150 male. Ta very much, dropped her, picked up him and off to the taming pen. Once he tamed up I took him out to see what he could do and was reminded of how much I love them. Especially on Ragnarok which frankly is just made for them. Didn't go far though, just around Twoshuk Forest and the surrounding area, killed a Diplo and an Argy got pissed at me, got a couple of hits in and then realised it was a 150 female. Sweet, I'll have her I thought, so I kited her back towards base and started darting her just outside the walls, two more darts in her butt after she started fleeing and down she went. Happy days until out of nowhere a pack of bloody Hyaenodons raced past me and chomped her up before I could react :-( So annoyed, I slaughtered them all, even the Alpha who was a 150, and I'd normally be taming him up and adding him to my puppies (I now have 20 of them) but I was just too annoyed with the little buggers. So went back out into the forest and straight away encountered a 145 female Argent! Did exactly the same thing in exactly the same place, but this time she flew towards my base and the last dart brought her down just inside my walls and safety. Very nice. Filled her with Mutton and called it a day.

Don't silly, now you have to do it again on Beta and Alpha ;-)

Anyhoos, tamed up the 140 Mosa. Dragged her into my cave with Da Boss, then hopped onto Deuce the Bary whilst the big fella tanked and got her down with no issues. I named her Tiffany, cos she's blue, and Mosa swim at depth, so she's a Deep Blue Something (there's one for the kids) While I was waiting for her to starve I made a start on my lakeside waterwheel crafting complex for processing stuff from the Dunk. I'm not to happy with it atm but part of that might be that I've made the floor plan too big, so I may rip it up and start again tomorrow. It's only going to be a temporary thing until I can gather the stuff for an underwater complex (Black Pearls mainly) but I want it to be purty still. With the Mosa in the bag I'm pretty much sorted for Aquatic tames now. I may still get a 150 Shark if I come across one but tbh I'd probably never use it, and honestly with my castle built, building an underwater base just because I never have before, only a handful of tames that can be significantly improved upon and no more 'must haves' except for maybe an otter or two, I'm pretty much turning my wheels now waiting for Aberration to come out, so I'll probably not play so much for a few weeks and hammer out some mod work as long as the dev kit behaves itself.

Got two already thanks.

So I didn't kill the Squid. I needed to check some mod related spawn issues so spawned myself in an S+ Tek Transmitter (thank you Orionsun, such a useful tool) since the Getallstate command doesn't seem to be working for me. After clarifying a few things decided I needed to do a dinowipe, so bye bye Squidward. Happily though it fixed the issues I was having which is more important. Also after conferring with the few people who play on my server I decided to install the Tek Helper mod. I want to build an underwater base, and one of the guys was saying that he wants to build a Tek base and play around with Tek Armour, and none of us want to bother messing around with Bosses. That done, I popped up onto the Glacier to get a yellow drop, and found a 150 Direbear. Sweet! Killed his friends and got him to follow me down and into the taming pen, down he went and stuffed full of honey. He's a grey, so I named him Grey Worm and I think he'll probably be my last Direbear to join Cersei, Jaime, Bronn, Brienne, and Missandei After I returned to base a shadow passed over me, looked up and it was a Quetz, a 145 female. Not keen on Quetzes if truth be told, but hey, not got one and wanted to see if I could take it down from Griffin back. I could ? Granted I was helped immensely by it getting stuck on trees almost straight away, so I managed to get a lot of easy darts into it before a pesky piggy came along and made me break one of the trees to get rid of it. Got her down finally on a plateau with only herbivores around, although not taking any chances I knocked up some walls and babysat whilst having tea at the same time until I was happy that she was safe and I could leave her tame up by herself. After that I went back into the water on Da Boss. It was the water spawns I'd been having issues with, and I knew that they were definitely resolved when I ran into a 135 Liopleurodon from my own Better Dinos mod. First one I've seen on Ragnarok and a high enough level to be worth taming. Now you really don't want to be trying to take one of these on by swimming as they have a grab attack, and I haven't got a water mount that I can shoot off the back of that they can't grab, so instead I took him back to my water cave and let the gentle embrace of Da Boss put him to sleep. Took bloody ages! Had to change scuba tanks twice, but off to sleep he went eventually and up he tamed. Once he did, I popped a saddle on him, headed out of the cave and immediately did a quick 180! There was a 140 Mosa right there! Checked my supplies though and I don't have enough narcos or arrows, and at two hours on Mutton I don't want to tame him today as I want an early night, so instead took the mammoth out for a quick berry gathering sesh, collected the Quetz, got the narcos crating up and called it a night. He won't be going anywhere with a bit of luck and I'll get him added to the crew tomorrow.

Thought of a way around my Tuso saddle conundrum without having to resort to spawning one in. When I shut down my old Island server to start afresh on Ragnarok I uploaded my lvl 95 character, so I simply downloaded him, spawned in the highlands, quick tamed a Ptera, raided a beaver dam, did a quick bit of grinding and made one up and left it in a box for myself to collect That done I took the Tuso out for a spin. What a beast! And blimey don't they level quick, in half an hour or so I'd got 40 odd levels on him, up to 40k health, doing nigh on 300 damage with each tentacle slap, killed 2 Alpha Megs, and an Alpha Leeds (Captains Hat! Hooray!) Annoyingly only found one Mosa, and a handful of Plesis, all low level, and no squids apart from the massive overspawn in the Squid pit from hell. When I did eventually find another Squid, it was a 145 Alpha, which I didn't realise until I'd already engaged it. Holy poop! The damn thing slapped me for over 20k health in less than a minute! I just about got away with only 6k remaining. Straight back base I went with my tail firmly between my legs. I'm going to try and kill it later on tonight after fully healing the big guy up.

So after work last night I did indeed hop on and go and grab a couple of Turtles. I had just enough Ptera eggs to grab two 115's, but after a very quick search I found a lvl 100 and a lvl 130 male and female pair, so they did very nicely. Then I did a quick Ice Dungeon run hoping for some nice scuba gear, and I got an Ascendant Mask which was nice, I'd have preferred a tank but beggers can't be choosers. Also got a nice pair of Ascendant Ghillie Gloves, plus a few decent JM and MC saddles. Today then, I had a couple of hours between jobs, so it was straight home, straight onto the server, made up some turtle saddles, a couple of spare scuba tanks, and grabbed a few hundred black pearls. A quick scout on the Basil and the big boy was precisely where I had left him, so popped down a Teleporter and went back and brought in the two new Turtles, plus Viktor and Maude, my veteran Turtle pair from way back starting on the Viking Bay beach. I've never actually legit tamed a Squid before, so wasn't really sure what to expect, whether any turtles would survive, how long it was going to take or anything. Turns out it's pretty easy, just tedious. Hanging around in the water is one of my least favourite things in the game. At least when taming on land you can use a pen and leave things to it while you go off and do other things, no can do underwater. Still, that aside, I tamed him up with the loss of only one Turtle, the lvl 100, and only because after the first feeding I realised that she was the only one of my little entourage who wasn't on Passive, so after the Squid let her go she started attacking it, and let's just say it didn't end well for her. Once he tamed up though, I was jubilant, teleported the Turtles back to base, got the Squid to follow me and the Basil into that nice big safe cave that I found, then rushed back to base to make a saddle for him... And realised that I can't. Squid saddle is Level 91, I'm only 86. Damn it! I'm either going to have to run the Ice Dungeon ad nauseum, in the hopes of finding one, spawn one in, or suck it up and do the levelling before I can ride the big boy. Very annoying, but there it is.

Spent a couple of hours this avro taking the new Basil out for a bit of levelling. He came out with 17k health and 330% odd damage which is nice, lets me focus on speed and stamina. On my travels I found a 150 Male Squid. I have to have him, so tonight after work I'm going to go out and tame up some sacrificial turtles and hit the caves hard looking for some decent scuba gear, and depending how it goes, I might try for the 150, and the 145 female I saw yesterday.

Pretty much finished the important outfitting of the castle. Storage rooms, kitchen, workshop and armoury are done, and anything else is pretty much fluff, so decided to start a concerted assault on the oceans. I already have a couple of Baryonx's, the best being a 140 prime fish tamed female, she's not the greatest Bary in the world but good enough for a bit of light scouting. My first foray and I discovered a 145 Squid! Wishful thinking at this point, I have neither a good enough tanker or enough black pearls, but she appears to just be chilling in one spot, so maybe at another time. I then found a 145 Plesi. That would have been perfect, except for the 4(!) Plesi friends he had with him. They quickly took my Bary down to half health before I could get high enough in the water to shake them, no way I can possibly at this point take the hangers on out and tank the one I want so I had to sadly leave him behind. A bit further exploration and I found a lvl 100 Dunky, all alone apart from a few distant jelly and a couple of Anglers. Now I've never actually tamed a Dunky before, and with the wealth of underwater metal on Rag I figured this might be a nice alternative to dragging an Anky down to the metal cave and back again (as easy as that is using Awesome Teleporters) at the very least it would be a change a scenery for metal runs. My word they're tedious to take down! So many much arrows, and he hits hard so had to pause and heal up the Bary a couple of times, but down he went. Whipped back to base to grab Mutton and on my return some Anglers had respawned in the area, including a nice blue 145 one. Down he went and quick back to base to mak up some kibbles. With those two tamed, I'll never ever be short of Pearls! The big Dunk is slow as molasses, but makes mincemeat out of the Euryps in Viking Bay, and of course the Angler got me more regular Silica Pearls in one trip then I'll probably ever need. As for the metal harvesting, Dunk gets shed loads of it, but getting it back to base is a hell of a chore, so I think what I'm going to do is sequester a small inland lake as water dino storage as I can just TP them there, and I'll set up a little refining outpost next to it. I've found one that's nice and pretty with a waterfall and some flat shelves where I think I'll build a nice little water mill/windmill with a forge and whatnot. Next up was a 140 Basil. Now I'd spotted this guy a few days ago when I was taking my speed frog out on a bit of a joyride, so on the Bary I headed to where I thought he was close to Blue Obi and couldn't see him anywhere. I headed up the coast towards the volcano, saw a few lvl 60 Basils and a few lvl 20's but no 140. Tp'd back to Blue Obi and headed the other way towards the swamp, still no sign of him, but being close to the swamp things went a bit wrong. As I had my spyglass out to check the level of a distant Bary, another one that I hadn't spotted came up from underneath me and dismounted me, and then I got shredded by Piranhas. Crap. Jumped on Malvern my speed frog and hopped down the cliff to try and recover the situation, just had time to whistle neutral for the Bary when a Kapro grabbed me off of Malvern, and I again got shredded by Piranha! On to tanky frog this time, again hopped down the cliff and keeping my distance this time I could only watch and hope as my Bary and Malvern took on two Barys, a Kapro, a school of Piranha and a Sarco. Luckily they prevailed, just about. Malvern was down to double digit health, my Bary in the low hundreds. Thank goodness for their JM saddles! Back onto dry land to take stock, I tp'd the Frogs back home, and then I was finally able to scope out that distant Baryonx in some peace, and it's a 145 male! I Tp back home and grab my Argent, it only a short trip from my base to the swamp, and after a bit of waiting the Bary comes close enough to the surface to grab him and carry him back to base. After mating my Pachyrhinos I have just enough eggs for the kibble, and some Prime fish still on my Bary from an earlier Leeds kill, so finally I can have a good Bary. Well, goodish. Only 16 pre tame levels into health which sucks, but he tames up with a melee and stamina that pisses all over my other two Bary's. Once more unto the breach on the new Bary who I've dubbed Deuce to do a bit of levelling, and almost straight away I find that bloody 140 Basil! pretty much exactly where I thought it was near to Blue Obi. Lawks knows how I missed it first time around! Lots of baddies around to clear out though, so at least a few decent early levels to give him a much needed early XP boost. These regrettably included a 150 Shark, who I would have loved to have if he wasn't in the middle of a scrum of about 8 Sharks, a dozen Mantas pulled from the Basil, and some dozy Ichthys. Back to base, more mutton, and 20 minutes later I have a super Basil to take on all of the things that the oceans can throw at me.

Been working through some personal poop lately, and doing a lot of mindless grinding has helped, so much of my Ark time has been gather stone, gather metal, farm drops, walk around killing stuff, but finally put all that gathering to good use and got my very own fortress of solitude built. Quite happy with it, far to big for what I could possibly need, but there it is. Only got the Kitchen outfitted atm, need to move all of my storage and crafting benches inside and get some more rooms kitted out. Need a great hall and some lavish living quarters. Other than that, chanced upon a beautiful almost pure silver grey 150 female Megalosaurus. I wasn't going to bother taming any Megalo's, but she is sooooo purty I couldn't resist.

Tamed up a new Spider, wasn't really that bothered about losing the old one but when flying over the Volcano on my Agent I chanced upon a 150, so figured I may as well. Finally got around to taming a Yuty, just a 135, I've seen better around but this one had come right down into the forest next to my base so it was easy to get him into the taming pen. Also grabbed a 130 Baryonyx since it's the highest I've seen. Only a Prime Fishmeat tame so she's not great, but she'll do for now for some water exploring fun. Took the Yuty for a good old muder spree all over the map and spotted a 145 Griffen locked in a pointless battle with a 140 Rex where neither is hitting each other, left them too it and may go back and get the Griffen at some point when my Allos have popped out a few more eggses. Took the Anky and Doed out and did a bit more work on the castle walls since the building has been pretty neglected recently, then finished off the day by koing a 145 female Rex who was practically walking into my taming pen all by herself. Stuffed her full of Mutton since I couldn't be bothered to make the kibble up and called it a night.

Not much today. Tamed up a 150 male Mammoth, been having problems with my well not keeping my crops properly irrigated and having them constantly reverting to seedlings, so when searching for a solution I discovered the S+ Africanized Beehive, so demolished my beehive and got one crafted up, placed it next to my crop plots, and found out the hard way that they pretty much kill you just walking past it without Bug Spray on! Got it into a safe place and my crop irrigation problems are solved. Also plucked up the courage to kill a Wyvern that had strayed away from the Trench with my Griffin meaning that I finally had some Sulfur (for some reason I can't harvest the Sulfur nodes on the Volcano) so I can finally get some Propellant made up to power an S+ Item Collector! Easy street at last. Killed an Alpha Rex and a couple of Alpha Raptors with the Griffin, then finished off the day by teleporting a 150 Megatherium into my base, which shouldn't have been a problem, except I forgot that bugs make them go beserk, and as I was making up some more tranq darts it spotted my Spider and went loopy causing all my Neutral tames to pile onto it. Spider died in one hit, no great loss, the Mega got killed in short order unfortunately, but never mind. Got everyone put back into place and called it a night

Played yesterday for the first time in ages. Didn't really do much other than finally find a Griffin worth taming, a 135, and get killedon the edge of the volcano after getting dismounted by a stoopid Microraptor. Tamed up a couple of 145 Raptors for imprinting kibble purposes.

Tamed another 150 Saber and another 145 Hyaenodon, plus a 150 male Ptera. Pulled some of my dinos out of Obelisk storage since I now have a substantial wall up. Got myself a bee hive. Also made a few tweaks to my server, the main one being getting rid of Gigas since I had 3 of them pretty much blocking off half of the Highlands, which is pointless to me.

Tamed a pair of 150 horsies. Don't like them very much, but a pair was hard to resist. Would of been a lot smoother if I didn't keep being a fat fingered eejit and kept jumping off their backs when they were jumping and I thought they were bucking. The male was determined he was going to run straight into the Wyvern Trench, and the female kept wanting to be in the water! Got em in the end though.

I've kinda fallen into collecting Sabers, I don't like them as a mount very much, but the new model is absolutely gorgeous, the new fall damage reduction is great fun, every other one I pick up seems to be a 145 or a 150, and with mutton so easy to come by it seems rude not to tame them up Other than that I've got myself an Anky, a Doed, a Megatherium, a Megalania, Terrorbird, Frog and Direwolf, all 145 or 150's. I ripped up what I had put down of the castle and started instead building the exterior battlments. Pretty slow going considering the size of the plot I've decided to take and even with the Anky getting all the metal I need is slow going. Really need to get myself a Griffin and from there a Quetz, but I'm being snobbish and can't seem to find one high enough level for my tastes. Would also like to find myself a sturdy water mount, the oceans are tantalisingly inviting.

Started laying the foundations of the Castle, I may yet pull them up and reposition it, but at least they're crafted. The Castles and Keeps stuff is lovely but super expensive, and it's still just me and my Argent, who I finally got around to naming Wilhelm. Killed an Alpha Raptor who was close to home, went over to the Volcano to kill some Mantis' for Polymer and finally got to see it erupting Went and harvested up the dead whales for oil and spoiled meat, then went on a beaver murdering mission and raided every single beaver dam and came home with enough cementing paste to keep me going for a while, and enough pearls to be able to get a couple of teleporters up and running. Had to get rid of a couple of 145's and 150's in the process which was a shame, but I haven't got enough narcs, or the time to berry tame one atm. Made up a shed load of sparkpowder for jerky and gunpowder. Capped it off by taming up a 150 female Scorpion, just 'cus.