Kraken

Decided to abandon my single player game, and install Ragnarok on my server. So uploaded all my dinos and my character, bid farewell to the meager belongings in my cave, and tried to get my server up. Long story short, it wouldn't bloody work. For some reason certain combinations of mods which absolutely should not conflict were preventing the server from starting up. Tried everything I could for 3 days on the bounce to try and get it going with everything I wanted but no joy. Eventually in exasperation I got another server with another host, for half the price of my old one, with a far better interface and support, and with every mod I want it works fine. So bye bye old server, and hello new one. So far only downloaded my armour, weapons, tools and one of my Argents, and I've started clearing the area that I've settled on to build my castle. All been going well, it's a pretty hairy area, but I've only really had trouble with a single Argent, it was a 145 female that I wouldn't have minded taming, but not got enough tranq arrows yet and the bugger caught me by surprise, so had to do away with her. Need to get a bit of a shack built and a Doedic and Anky tamed up.

Today I mostly tamed all the things! Well, not quite, but I did nab an awful lot of things. Started out by heading over to see if the beached whales had respawned for some free spoiled meat and oil (they hadn't, does anyone know how often they do?) and when en route spotted an Allo chilling on the side of a cliff. 150 female. Yes please! She wasn't going anywhere, and I had to deal with another couple of Allos on the beach first. After my experience with them the other day, decided to play it safe and lead them away on the Ptera rather than engage. Too a bit of finagling but managed to get them far enough up the beach to not pose a risk and playing in the water with a couple of sharks. That done it was time to take the old girl down, and she didn't make life easy! Ducking and weaving, constantly moving, half my shots missing, she managed to climb up and nibble me a couple of times. Thank goodness for my shiny new flak armour! Three times she started running only to have me scrambing back onto the Ptera in the nick of time when she turned back on the offensive. When she did start running for real, typically it was straight into the water. Managed to steer her from the air though and back onto land, and down she went. While waiting for her to starve before heading off for mutton, decided to see if there was anything else I could use the surfuit of mutton on. A nearby 140 female Ptera fit the bill, down she went, then just up the beach a 145, also female. Why not, bola'd and tranqed her half way up a cliff. Bit of time to kill and back to the cave to unload some crap, and got into a fight with a low level Argent, then a 145 joined in. I'm close now to being able to learn the saddle so thought why not! Didn't quite work out though, I got it to follow me into the cave for a safe take down, but I'd damaged it too much in the proceeding fight and my arrows killed it. Never mind. Back outside and there's another Argent, a 135 this time. Ok, I'll have that instead, again lured into the cave and shot it down, but he landed in the water and was going to drown, so piked him for the XP instead. Then off to Scotland to slaughter a sheep, finished up the tames and led my merry band home. A couple of Hyaenodons had found their way to my cave entrance, the Alpha was a 145, but couldn't be bothered to attempt an annoying tame for something I won't use, so let the new Allo munch it, unfortunately aggroing a Dimorph at the same time, and causing a clusterraptor as a flock of them attacked us all. I had to run inside and get the Carno to finish them all off. Examining my new charges, one of the Pteras came out with great health, and the other with great melee, but really bad health and terrible weight. Interesting, I may have to get a better male and do some breeding. The Allo too had some decent stats, health especially. Needing to craft up some more tranq arrows, I realised that I haven't yet replaced Gary the Trike, and had to get berries with one of the turtles So new mission, find a Trike. I know there's a couple of 135's around, but I'm pretty sure I've spotted a 150 somewhere. So back out on one of the new Pteras, the high melee one. Up above my cave there's 2 140 male carnos. I did consider nabbing one of them, but decided the levels on my Ptera was a better option. With such low health it took quite a few healing stops but managed to deal with them one by one. Also got the attention of another 135 Argent, so here we go again. Led into cave, bish bash bosh, and result, got this one down on a ledge. Back out on the Trike hunt and straight into a 150 argent! You're coming with me! Into the cave and again down on the ledge, nice. With all the comings and goings I seem to have accumulated a herd of brontos outside my cave. Normally they'd get on my nerves, but with all the bad hombres around I'm happy to have them there as a meat shield. I also have a pair of Doeds that have dropped down, one a 130, and a 145. That'll have to wait for another day though, I need a Trike. I find the 135's I knew of, so they're options, but heading a little further afield, and after finding the entrance to a dark and scary deep cave that I'll have to explore at some point, I finally find a 145 Trike on the edge of the jungle close to where I tamed my Carno. Area cleared and down he went after employing the old shoot through a bunch of trees tactic, then on the way back to base, randomly looked at the level on a Ptera, a 150. Thank you kindly. Down she went and back over to Scotland for some more mutton for the Argents and the new Ptera. Getting back home and the Bronto meat shield is doing me proud taking on a Rex, an Allo pack, and a couple of Sabers. Argents tamed and mutton on the Ptera, berries and narcs on the Trike and time to make some advancements. Crafted up a genny and a meat dehydrator, and finally I have enough mats for a teleport pad and remote, so at least that'll make getting back to base a lot quicker. Checking the tribe log and I see the Ptera's tamed so went to grab her and Tp'd home, but I did note the position of a 135 Anky on the way there. Game on then, I've got an Anky and a Doed in my sights, but sod three hour tames, I need to get some dilo kibbles made, so quick got a crop plot made up and stuck on top of a nearby rock pillar with citronal planted up, and once the Trike finished up that was that for the day.

Another day on Ragnorok, another high level predator drops by to say hello Logged in and flew out on the Ptera to grab some bits and pieces, I'm up to Fabricator level now, the advancements are about to become real, but needed to build one first. So I flew out and just above the entrance to my cave was a 140 female Scorpion, easy tame so I took her down, then heard loud footsteps below me. Peeked over the ledge and there was a Rex right outside the entrance to my cave. Spyglassed it and it was another 150! Decided that this time I'd tame it, so swooped down on the Ptera and led him off down the beach. After a bit of cat and mouse I managed to get him into an area behind a dino skeleton, where he was repeatedly getting stuck on things trying to turn, and I had a plethora of ledges to shoot at him from. Flying back to craft up some more arrows and a death message came through for the scorpion, but saying he was killed, and not what by. So went to take a look and had to laugh, there were two Kentro's next to the corpse. Never mind, harvested her up for the chitin, and flew down into the cave. Seconds later and I was under attack! One of the Kentros had followed me home! Stoopid things. It went after the turtle, and the Allos ate it up. It was a lvl 90 and I considered taming it up as base defence, but the Rex was a higher priority and I let it die. Tranqs crafted and back over to the Rex. All went very well, as I suspected he kept getting caught on stuff as he tried to get at me on my cliff top, then when he ran he got caught on the giant rib cage, and down he went. After a brief set to with some pesky Pegos, it was over to Scotland to grab some mutton. Hung around over there for a bit and had a mooch at some places I hadn't looked at yet and then back to feed up Rexy, and viola! On my way back home, it was night time, and I glimpsed the tell tale shine of some Silica Pearls at the east end of Viking Bay, as well as an absolute ton of metal all over the rocks, so once Rexy was safely back in the cave, I headed over. Realised that I am now able to make a Carno saddle, so I get her fitted up and took her out for her first proper run. Grabbed around 600 Pearls without any drama apart from one Megalodon, and back home to craft up Electronics and Polymer. Next stage is to get a generator up and running, and at least one teleporter pad and remote teleporter crafted up so that I can make a start on my chosen spot for my castle. As a by the by, I'm using Eco's Scorched Earth Deco mod. It might seem an odd choice considering the desert isn't yet implemented on Ragnorok yet, however it offers three very useful things for early game. The Crafting Cabin, which is a lovely little shack, and has 200 storage slots that I've been using to store all my gathered things. The Ice Box, which prolongs spoiling times that I've been using to keep meat, berries and stuff in until I can get some fridges up and running, and the Outhouse, which is a structure that acts like a dung beetle, which has allowed me to be getting plenty of oil and fertilizer from day one. I'd highly recommend this mod for players starting on any map on single player. Together with building all my smithy, forges and stuff on a raft, I haven't had to place a single foundation since I moved into the cave, and therefore haven't blocked any resource spawns, or the spawning of any of the Salmon that live in the cave that I'm going to use to get myself a Pelegornis. My aim on this play through is to try not to have masses of dinos around for eggs, and to instead tame using Mutton, Prime Fish and Crops where-ever possible, since the map itself with its plenty of wild Ovis and naturally growing crops makes that eminently feasible.

So I thought thiscave was going to a safe place. I was very, very wrong! Headed out on the Ptera after logging into grab some metal, and there was a 145 Scorpion right outside. Oooh, nice, I'll tame her. Should have been a straight forward takedown if it wasn't for getting jumped by 3 Pegos at once, one of which took my tranq arrows. Crap. Chased after the little bleeders on the ptera and killed 2 of them, but of course it was the wrong 2, so back home to craft more arrows, got the Scorp down finally and tamed up, and took her on a quick dilo and dodo killing levelling trip. Then back out on the ptera and exploring a little bit behind where the cave is. Worringly I saw a lot of Allos and an Alpha Raptor, and just hoped that they wouldn't work their way down to the beach. No such luck. After another metal grabbing trip I saw the tell tale glow of the Raptor mere yards from the cave entrance. Dammit, I was going to have to deal with it, so in I swooped. Bloody hell, lvl 100, this is going to take forever. It did, I had to stop for stamina and healing about 7 times, but finally managed to get it down. 7 levels on the Ptera, 8 for me, a Mastercraft Crossbow, JM Hide helmet and about 50 Prime. That'll do nicely. Not wanting to waste the Prime I went looking for something to take down with my fancy new X-Bow. Opportunity struck when I found another cave, just behind my own cave in a canyon, high up in the wall, as I was flying out I spied a lvl 50 Allo in sniping distance, and after a quick scout I saw that he was all alone. Bargain. Took him out from the mouth of the cave easily enough and headed back to grab the Prime. In the middle of the beach, another 2 Allos, both lvl 20's. hmmm. One had the Alpha glow, but I reckoned I could take one out with the Ptera and then ko the other from atop a rock. Not a hope. They did too much damage to me, and I wasn't doing enough to them, and after escaping by the skin of my teeth twice and then watching them heal up eating dodos I decided someone a bit tankier was needed and went to get Gary the Trike. Swam him out the cave and straight outside the entrance was an Allo. Assuming it was one of the 20's I waded into it, then immediately beat the retreat, it was a 135! I couldn't shake it though, it was on my tail as I headed back into the cave. I thought I might outswim it but no dice. Somehow managed to make it to the ledge and Gary finally died underneath me. RIP Gary, but more pressing matters, I was able to jump to safety as the DireWolf started attacking my turtles, luckily everyone was on passive or it would have been carnage. Everyone except the newly tamed Scorpion that is who started attacking whilst the turtles soaked, and I thought bugger it and started unloading tranqs into it. The Scorp died, and the Allo started fleeing, straight out the cave entrance! Dammit when did dinos get smart? Not too smart though as it got caught in the bones outside and I was able to carry on tranqing, then just as it toppled, chomp, 'You were killed by an Allosaur lvl 145!' C'mon Ark! Gimme a break! Went to respawn, dammit to hell, I haven't rebuilt my beds since moving into the cave. Luckily the random respawn spots are fairly consistant. Resurrected just down the beach. The level 20 Allos in my way though, tried to lure them into a nearby Bronto but they got me. Respawned this time by Blue Obby, no good, punched a Turtle. Back on the beach this time, Lvl 20 Allos distracted, get past them, there's the unconcious 135, hurt really bad, but nothing's paying attention to it. The 145's distracted by a Stego, so I quick look for my bag, then a pair a Sabers drop off the cliff right next to the downed Allo. Crap! I run past them and grab their aggro, and get them a decent way up the beach before they get me. Respawn at blue again, punch the turtle again. Back on my beach, again dodge past the 20's, the 145's stuck on a tree! Hallelujah! I search for my bag, and finally find it with 30 seconds to spare! I take Prime to the downed 50, even with my stacking mod it's going to be close with the times. Back home and me and Mr 145 have a score to settle. Not only is he a high level but he's gorgeous colours, so I take up position on a rock and start sniping. He's totally stuck on the trees! Can't move an inch and he's an easy take down thank goodness. Check the tribelog and the 50's tamed. These 2 high level ones are going to need mutton though. So off to Scotland I go and pike a sheep down and get back to the 135 just in time. It had definitely taken a whack, it stood up at 176, shame. Second verse same as the first for the 145 and again got back just in time with the mutton. So I now have an Allo pack, and their first task, take out the 2 lvl 20's. that was easy enough, oh poop, there's a rex there, better take that out too, except it was a 150 Rex! Crap! The 50 died, ironically to the Bronto that I wanted to deal with the Allos earlier when it got caught up in the mix. The 145, who of course got the pack leader buff nearly died, turns out he's good looking but has garbage health! Typical. So a hell of a day today, and all on my doorstep. I really don't know what to do at this point. I really need an Anky to get metal going properly, but the metal is just too spread out or just plain inaccessable by an Anky to be properly efficient, and the area outside the cave just too dangerous. I may just have to go ahead and mutton tame some Argents for hauling and bodyguarding, even though I'm still way away from the saddle, just to get things moving. I'm also very tempted to try and get a 145 Theri that I spotted tamed up, again even though I can't ride it, it would make a great bodyguard.

Took a fly around the map to glory in its wonder! Discovered the beached Basilosaurs, found a couple of nice small caves, raided a Beaver house for some pearls and CP, found an artifact in a wicked cool location, and discovered where there's some good reserves of Crystal and Obsidian without too much danger. Also earmarked a couple of potential base locations. I've downloaded the Castles, Keeps and Forts mod and I'm determined to build a castle, but it has to look right and fit in where I build it, so only a couple of places have really caught my eye. One on the west coast on a bluff with a water vein that I could incorporate into the build, close to the snow, painted canyon and Swamp, and one near to the dense jungle next to a beautiful double waterfall that I could potentially build a nice couple of bridges over. The castle stuff is super expensive though, and needs loads of raw metal and atm I just have no way of gathering and transporting it. So for now I'll stay where I am on the edge of Viking Bay, but I've started getting a wall up for protection. Got paid a visit by a 135 Carno, and a 120 Argent, and tamed up a 150 and a 145 Dilos that were wandering close by, again using the Ichthy for Prime. Edit: So it turns out there's a big safe cave just up the cove from where I was set up. I've started flying full pelt into every waterfall I see and boom! There it was. A little bit further into Rex, Allo and Argent territory than I'd like for general gathering atm seeing as I'm sans Anky and Doed, but I'm totally safe inside the cave itself (even though a Terrorbird did try and hitch a lift inside it on my raft )

Day 2 on Ragnorok. Took the Trike out down the coastal way that I've already been, but this time heading inland a bit and exploring a few of the paths and waterways. Found an amazing sort of open cavern with a river running through it, lovely flat areas, beautiful scenery. A potential base location. Carried on though the meandering rivers, had to double back on myself when I spotted a flock of Theris. Started seeing a few Carnos, made short work of a couple of them on the Trike, and then decided that even though I'm a few levels away from being able to craft the saddle, if I did happen to see a decent level one I'd take the time and tame it. Having decided that, very next one I see is a 145 So I tranq him down from the back of the Trike. Daft bugger doesn't even try and fight, pretty much runs straight away into a river. I keep tranqing him in the hoipes that he'll eventually work his way out, but instead he falls unconscious fully submerged, but no matter, his O2 doesn't drop, so it's all good. Stuck some meat on him, and quickly tamed up a Phiomia that was wandering nearby both because I need me a poop pig, and to act as a marker for where the Carno is. Needed to get some Prime to speed things up so worked my way inland a bit and started killing Stegos. Slow going, there were plenty of Brontos around but all so close to one another that taking one on would be suicide. After offing 10 or so Stegs, I finally hit the jackpot, a Diplo dropped down the hill, and one of the Brontos wandered far enough away from the group for me to risk it, they gave me enough meat, and apart from a brief scare where I came back from killing a Stego to find a Carno next to my Carno, he tamed up alright. Not the best levels being a mix of Prime and raw meat tamed, but he'll do as a base defender. Taking the Carno and the piggy home, I came across a bounty from the depths, a beached Megalodon, and when I harvested the corpse I actually got 2 Prime Fish Meat from it, the first time I've ever got Prime Fish from a Shark! Hmmm, what to do with it, well there's always gulls around my base so decided to try and get a low level one, luckily there was one walking around on a rock, a lvl 20 female, so she was a nice easy ko. Thought it was going to be a quick tame, and then realised I had the taming calculator open on Pelagornis. I had my Ornis' mixed up, and even this lvl 20 was going to take 40 odd minutes! Bloody hell, the 2 Prime fish I had already weren't going to speed that up much, more Prime Fish needed! At the entrance to that Cavern I'd explored earlier I'd spotted some Salmon, so decide to craft up a sickle and quick pop over there on a Para and grab some. Got there and found them alright, but then after luring one to the edge and Sickling it, I found I couldn't get out of the water, the shoal murdered me, though I took a fair few of them with me. Respawned, topped up the Gulls torpor and quick headed over on the other Para to recover my body, I'd managed to grab another 4 Prime Fish before they'd finished me off so that would have to do. Abandoned one Para and raced back on the other to the bird, and just in time, as I opened the inventory she was on 1.7 torpor, and by the time I realised and reacted and got the Narcs on, less than 1! I got her though. Also decided that since there are so many pesky Pegos around I may as well tame one or two up for eggs for a Pelagornis, and in case I do want to get a higher level Gull, so went and tried to get a lvl 50 female, she ran up the coast where I'd been murdered by that Allo pack, so I was a bit wary about following her, but thankfully no predators bigger than a Dilo to be seen, and I got her trapped in a crevase and tamed up. Now I realise that I'm Level 34... That means one thing... One more level until Ptera saddle! Off I go hunting for a decent level one. There's a couple of 90's, a couple of 95's. Not really worth trying for anything under 100. So I go the other way along the coast. 20's, 50's, nothing at all special. Frustrated I start to head back home, when a Ptera literally flies straight into me, and gets stuck under my Trikes head, check the level, 145! That'll do veeeeery nicely. Bola and Tranq, and off with the Gull to turn some Dodos into Prime meat. All going swimmingly, then as I return with my latest batch of Prime right next to my tame I see 2 Pteras stuck in trees, one's just a little lvl 15, the other one... Isn't a Ptera, it's a bloody Argent! Not even thinking I whip out the cross bow and start unloading in its face, It tries to flee but can't it's well and truly stuck, few more arrows and it dies, it was a 130. Poop. Ages before I could ride it but that would have been very nice. Still, my Ptera tames up fine, and now I can go and explore the map, and as I do I realise how precarious the relative safety of my little beach is. You really don't have to go far to start seeing masses of Allo packs, Rex's, scorps, argents, raptors... As if to hammer home that as I return to base there's a melee as something attacks my guys, a 140 Raptor. Easily dealt with, but I'm starting to think that I need to move, and sharpish. So I head out with the dual purpose of finding somewhere to make base proper, and to find crystal for a Spyglass. I finally found crystal in a ruined building in a lake, but no joy on the potential base place because there's just soooooo many gorgeous spots, and not many of them are what I would particularly call welcoming! I only went one way though, so I'll check the other direction tomorrow, although I don't think I'll find much more joy that way as it's the Volcano, Scotland and its Gigas, and the Redwoods. I returned home at the end for one more shock, some predator ran past my shack chasing a Para, thankfully ignoring all my tames. I wasn't entirely sure what it was so I followed on the Ptera, then had to quickly make a U-turn as I realised it was a Megalosaurus! Thank goodness I didn't get too close otherwise that would of been the end of my hard earned bird. Tomorrow I have to either move, or seriously reinforce my base.

Downloaded and checked out Ragnorok, and woah boy, I think this is where I'll be playing for long foreseeable future, an absolutely stunning map, even in its current incomplete state. Spawned in a Griffin and had a fly around to see what's what, then killed him off, killed myself and started from scratch. Even just being on the beach on Viking Coast is a challenge. Did the usual starter things, found a safe-ish area, tried to avoid the Pego's and the Dilos, tamed up a couple of the latter, they died, I died, everyone died Reached Parasaur saddle level, had a 150 near to my base, bola'd and tried to punch him down, but the bola wore off and off he ran, went charging after him all the way up the beach, finally got him up against a cliff and ko'd trapped between some rocks, and just as he went down a lvl 140 Allo came charging over and chomped me and him. Never mind, there was a 135 Para hanging around as well, got him down next to a cliff and taming was going well, at over 90%, went to craft up some building supplies for a minute and turned and to see a Trike and some Dilos having a set too next to him and he died as well. Bugger. Had to settle for a lvl 15 and a lvl 20 just to have something to make berry gathering a bit easier. An Argent decided to pay my shack a visit, had to strip down and lead it away up the coast. Got to boomerang crafting and felt the need for something a bit tanky, so went for a lvl 130 Turtle. Trying to get him down and got blindsided by some of his friends, but persevered and managed to get him down and tamed up. By now I'm up to Smithy level, so the search for metal begins. Headed off along the coast on a Para and lots of little metal nodes are there for the harvesting. My Para fell to a gang of Dilos, including a 145, they got me as well, so grabbed the Turtle and went to get my stuff back, killed the low level dilos and tamed up the 145, and finally a decent level Para, a 95. Left the turtle there and worked my way further along the coast almost to blue obelisk without much more drama before heading back. Found a crossbow in some of the washed up boxes and now I can make Tranq arrows, so back to base, and time to tame something that can do some damage. There's a 130 Trike that's been tromping around my base so he'll do nicely, but as I head out to get him a 145 Turtle literally cuts me off, so decided to get her as well. Got her down and taming, then standing atop a cliff I snipe the Trike, all going well and he starts to run so I go chasing after him thinking that it's because his torpor is high, but he'd double bluffed me and turned around and took me out the sneaky bugger XD. Respawned and back to the top of the cliff, one arrow and this time he is running for realsies, managed to ko him just as he entered some deep water, but luckily not deep enough to drown him. So my little crew is getting there, 2 nice high level tanky turtles, a nice Trike who does a fair amount of damage and that glorious knock back, the Dilo guard dog, a decent and a crappy Para, and the obligatory couple of dodo to poop me up some lovely eggs, hide armour, metal tools, and that'll do for the day. Next up is to head out and see where I want to settle down. I can see the Castle from my little thatch shack, and I'd love to head up there, but I think that's going to need a Ptera. I know there's a pack of Allos just up the coast the way I'd have to go led by that 140, and I really don't want to tangle with them any time soon!

Decided to go and find a high level Spider for poops and giggles, instead came home with a 145 Megalania, and a 145 Arthropleura.

Found and tamed up a 110 Megatherium, a 135 female Rhino, a 145 female Moschops, and a 150 male wolf. The wolf didn't have any decent stats so went straight into the has-been and never-was pack. Also managed to lure a 150 female Carno away from the Yuty she was following, and finally found a three figure Megalania, a 105 male. Spent the rest of the time after that wall crawling everywhere I could for the fun of it. not bad to say I logged in with the sole intention of farming metal

Not played a great deal as been busy busy, did pop on for a bit though, and went looking for Megatheriums since I now have honey coming out of my ears. Only found a couple and they were junky and not worth bothering with. Did find a 150 male Mammoth though, a nice white one so decided to nab him since my pair of 150 Mammoths were specced before they got the wood weight boost, and checking this one out he had a lovely weight stat to start with. Then whilst waiting for him to tame I found a 145 female Rhino. Thought the Mammoth would be all tamed up and flew her to the pen, but he was still down and out of food. I'd been a silly bugger and for some reason had the taming calc set to 4x instead of 2x, so I hadn't put nearly enough kibble on him. Whilst I was working this out the Rhino decided she was going to go for a swim, and I looked up just in time to see the sharks finish her off. Bugger. Lost the Rhino and the TE was ruined on the Mammoth now, so had to wake him up, then hang around and wait for him to heal up before I could re knock him out. So bit of a fail day, but eventually I got a nice Mammoth out of it. Just need to decide now what to do with Quinn, my existing 150 male Mammoth, whether to upload him or just give him the chop.

Bit of a bitty day yesterday, popped on in the morning and decided to find myself a Hesperonis, flew around the rivers for a bit to no joy finding one. I really should do a dino wipe, but since I uninstalled Scorched Earth +, there's still some Scorched dinos hanging around that we don't want to lose just yet, so it was the old fashioned way of murdering things to force a spawn. No dice though, I did however end up on the edge of the Redwoods, and found that 120 female Giganto that I'd lost track of. Still had the pen set up from the 125 I tamed yesterday, so got her to chase me into it, and popped home to grab kibble. Just had enough left, I'm gonna have to get a snake farm set up at some point. That did for one session, and when I came back later I decided to go onto my SP Scorched Earth. I'd had a bit of a snafu with it a few days back when I forgot to load in with a mod and destroyed half of my base, tried to reload an earlier save but got the wrong one and the entire map was reset, so I thought bugger it and started afresh. I'm just up to the starter Adobe shack stage, had a crappy Parasaur who got killed, and a crappy Morella who's kept me safe, but is a pita to use since she has dire stamina. There was a 145 Morella close to my shack though so decided to grab him, all going well, he ran into a cliff, and was happily boomeranging him to oblivion when another bloody Morella dropped onto my head from the top of the cliff. My Morella started fighting him, but because I got knocked out of position, the one I was trying to ko shifted and went running off, no chance of catching him and he went straight into the canyon. No chance of carrying on koing him down there, too many other Morellas around. Crap, never mind, onto plan B, I was gonna get myself a Roo. Bit of prep required, had to go and get a load of mushrooms, trip to some nearby metal nodes to get stuff for the saddle, then went looking. Found a level 85 pretty quickly. Roos are easy tames if you have a Morella, you can get them stuck under its head, then just pull out a bow and start shooting. So I got him down, mushroomed up, and went to check the area to make sure it was safe, and blow me, a 145 Roo! Quick grabbed my precious 'shrooms off the 85 and turned him into pelt. Sprinted home to get more tranq arrows, having a bit of a set to with a couple of raptors on the way there and back, and got the new Roo down. Area was safe enough, plenty of Herbis around to block any raptors who might show up, so just hunkered down to wait. Got it tamed without any drama, and that was enough of Scorched for one day. Headed back onto the Server, took Pitch out for a bit of a fly and found a 130 male Baryonyx, not as high as Sam was, but it'll do. Flew him back home and got him ko'd and kibbled up. I'd named Sam after Sam Neill, so therefore I named the new Bary Neil, after Sam Neill. I then found a 115 female Roo hopping around outside my base. Not the best but she'd do as a mate for my 150 male. Got her taming up and then the rest of the night was just spent levelling up the new Bary during the day, and the Megalo I tamed yesterday during the night, and that was about it.

Bit of a strange mixed day today. I decided I need a bit of a break from modding and testing, and just wanted to play for a bit as I had a whole day off to myself, but when I logged in, I was at a bit of a loss exactly what to do. So pottered around base for a bit, moved a few dinos around, then when I was moving Sam, my best Baryonyx, I realised I really love the Bary's, but apart from taming aquatics I very rarely use him, so I decided that I'd go do a bit of caving, grab some artifacts and explorer notes, see if I could find any decent Megalania, and go into some caves that believe it or not, in over 2000 hours of play I've never actually been into before. So I got geared up with everything I'd need, the good flak, scuba tank for Upper south, Ghillie for south east, pike and longneck and darts, and off I headed. Lower South first of all, my go to cave that I've done hundreds of times before. 2 Megalania in there but both crappy lvl 15's so shot them down and chomped them. That done and off to Upper South. This is one of the ones I've never done, the underwater section has always put me off, but Sam of course could handle it. What a beautiful cave it is, my favourite now I think. About half way through though I got sniped by a cowardly Arthropleura hiding in the wall who broke my helmet and chestpiece, so I tactically withdrew and headed back to base to repair it all, and went back, again doing a quick run of Lower South, one Megalania this time who dropped onto my head right in the entrance proper to the cave and scared the bejeezus out of me! Only a lvl 5 though so nommed him up, and back into Upper South. Took my time to get through it as it was so unfamiliar, nothing really posed a threat, Sam made fish steaks out of the piranhas and Sarcos, and a leisurely time later I emerged with the artifact. Decided to TP home and unload Sam of all that luvverly Chitin and stow my artifacts away, and then ported up to Carno Island. I do like this cave but don't do it that often, despite the artifact being my favourite too as it looks a bit like the Decepticon symbol. An absolute breeze on Sam though, knocked a Megalania off his perch right at the top, but when I got down to the bottom found that again he was a crappy lvl 5. So onto the South East Lava cave, I was going to go straight there, but decided to head back to base and drop off my recently acquired artifact and then go there rather than run all the way down the coast. I'm glad I did, because this is where things started to go a bit wrong. Headed into the cave and straight down to the artifact, absolutely no bother, Sam destroyed all the bats that usually make this cave so annoying, all the jumps easy peasy. It's been a while since I've been in this one and I haven't gathered all the explorer notes from it, so after I collected the artefict, rather than just teleporting out, or heading straight back up the way I came, I went off the other way into the corner to see if there was anything there, apart from a couple of spiders there wasn't, so headed back the way I came, when making a very small jump back onto the artifact podium though, a jump that Sam should have been able to make from a standing start let alone the run I was doing, he just seemed to hit an invisible wall in the middle and dropped straight into the lava! I tried to scrabble back onto the ledge but didn't react quick enough, and I died to the lava. Crap. Respawning back at base I quick grabeed my spare Ghillie and hopped on a ptera to race back. I knew I was the only one on the server, so Sam would be alright even in the lava until I brought him out of stasis, but once in the cave I had to hurry, flew past everything straight down to the artifact expecting to see a death message at any time, but when I got down there, Sam was just gone. No body, no bag, no sign of my bag, no death message. Went into god and ghost mode and went into the lava and not a single sign of him. Poor old Sam had just up and vanished, very annoying. grabbed the Ptera and went back to base, and since I had clearly lost Sam to some sort of glitch, I felt justified in spawning myself in a new Bary, unfortunately I couldn't remember if Sam had been a 140 or a 145 wild, eventually settled on 145, spawned one in and a new saddle too, then suddenly remembered that since my Single Player Island is a direct copy of one of my server saves, Sam would still be alive and well there, so destroyed the new one before he'd even had a chance to live, and hopped onto SP, uploaded Sam into a drop and back onto my server to resurrect him! Resurrected Sam is a few levels lower that disappeared Sam, but no worries, he still kicks butt, and after spending some time at the Upgrade station to replace my lost gear with equivelant stuff, it was Lava Cave take 2. As I was heading down into the abyss I spotted 2 Megalosaurs standing statuesque next to a loot drop, couldn't check their levels as I realised that I had completely forgotten to make myself a new Spyglass, no bother though, I'd check them on the way out. Back down, grabbed the artifact and no chances this time, straight back the way I came, all the way back to the top, and keeping out of aggro distance of the Meglo's, waited for day to come and them to fall asleep. When they did I popped over to see what they were, one was a lvl 40, and one a 75, both female. Not great but I do miss my Megalo who died to their specific bug, but who I had cheat tamed anyway so I never bothered to replace. Killed the lvl 40, and gave the 75 a little nip to wake her up, and led her up to the cave entrance easily enough, sniped her down from Sams back and shot home to grab the kibble and some pillars to form a barricade for when she would wake up at night fall, when she did I shot her down again easily enough and settled in to wait for her hunger to drop enough to stick the kibble on. Job done, and it was onto the Central Cave. Fought my way down to the bottom, and as I rounded the last corner, I saw a Megalo standing there. And this is where everything went wrong. I SHOULD have waited, I SHOULD have done exactly what I did in the Lava cave and let it fall asleep, but overconfidence struck me, still no Spyglass so I had no idea what level it was, but Sam had handled everything so far, so he could handle this one, right? Wrong. As soon as I got in range it grabbed me, it was a lvl 145! Crap, highest level Megalo I've ever seen, no way I'm going to try and tame it at the bottom of this cave, auto click on and trying desperately to make it drop me. Sam's ascendant saddle doesn't seem to be making a difference and it's rekking him! Went to draw my pike as it does way more damage then Sam but has terrible durability so I rarely use it, but hit the wrong button and pull out my remote teleporter. Still got autoclick on so it immediately brings up the destination menu! Craaaaaaap! I'm flustered now and try to click out the menu but I still haven't disengaged autoclick so it comes straight back up again, and as I try and click out of it without really understanding at this point what's happening I hit one of the destinations. We teleport and no idea where the hell I am, finally have the presence of mind to turn it off and manage to hit the Megalo enough to make it let me go. I'm in the water pen outside my base, good, I swim off on Sam and he's hurt bad, really bad, down to about 500 health, desperately try and heal him up and I see the Megalo leave the water and head towards my frogs, other Bary, and Sarco's. Dammit they all on passive so I stop healing Sam and pull out my gun to shoot it to lure it away and I get grabbed again! What the hell! Another Megalo, a lvl 40! Where the hell did that come from?!?! It must have teleported with us all, oh poop, there's an Arthropleura there as well! What the hell! By now, my heads gone, I'm completely flustered for the first time playing Ark in a good long while. I don't know what's where, what I'm doing, who to attack or anything. I manage to break free of one Megalo and thank gawd, the other one comes for me instead of the passives. I know now with the benefit of hindsight I should have just whistled neutral, legged it on Sam and let the other dinos take out these beasts I've inadvertently brought into the midst. My Spino was close enough to have come, my Theri too, instead all I could think of is getting them away. Sometimes mods can be a blessing and curse, and the Teleporter has made me lazy, it's become to much of a go to mechanic for me. So Instead of doing the sensible thing, and although Sam is on the brink, I whip out the remote teleporter knowing full well that it will result in one of the Megalos grabbing me, and select something, anything, as long as it's at the bottom of the list since all my favourites at the top are in or around my base. We appear at Blue Obelisk and my mining base, me, Sam, the two Megalos, one of the frogs, and my diplocaulus. Sam finally could take no more, his resurrection had been short and bittersweet, and he died in the grasp of the 145. I actually managed to react quickly and jumped on the frog, and must have just hopped out of the way in the knick of time. The Diplocaulus bought it in about 2 bites. No loss really, although I really liked him it's been months since I actually used him. I managed to hop up to a rock and collect myself. Sam might be gone, and this time it would be permanent, my own fault, and therefore no third chance, but now that the dust has cleared I'm on top of blue mountain, safe, and with a 145 Megalosaurus within tranq range. So I took them both down, shocking tranq darts and my new replacement Longneck making the task surprisingly easy, and as day was just breaking I had a while to recoup. Recovered Sams saddle and what useful stuff he had in his bag, and killed the lvl 40 Megalo with extreme prejudice. Then TP'd back to base, everything had been stasised so the errant Arthropleura had been stopped in its tracks, which was just as well as it had my other frog down to half health. This time I did whistle Neutral and even though it meant I had to go and put everyone back in their place afterwards, I had bittersweet pleasure watching the damn bug get torn to shreds. After that it was just a case of hunkering down to wait for the whole wake up at nightfall routine, and get the base tidied up. The shocks weren't over yet though, as I was putting my water dinos back into position after inadvertently hitting a turtle and having them spaz out, I got a death message 'Your Anna-Marie lvl 256 - Therizinosaurus has been killed!' What the actual hell?!?! Had there been something else teleported back that I'd missed? I quick swam back to the base, to see her standing outside quite happily, and clearly not at all dead. What was going on? I walked in the gate and it became clear. Anna-Marie was a doppleganger, just like resurrected Sam. In fact she is the reason why my SP Island is a back up of one of my server saves, as I had lost her months ago to a weird bug where she got stuck in dino gate, glitched under the ground and disappeared before before my eyes. But now there she was, both alive and standing outside, and as a corpse with just her head peeking up through my foundations! Heck knows what she actually died of, plenty of food in the nearby trough, I hadn't seen any name tag telling me that she was caught under the foundations or anything, but now she was back and dead as a doorknob! Very weird. Got the Megalo tamed up and taking him for a quick run, I was very glad to have got him tamed, although under unfortunate circumstances. Megalos at night time are complete ballers, and I think I'll get quite a bit of use out of him. After all that I needed a break, so logged and had some tea and watched a film, then logged back in again at a loss what to do. Had enough of caves for one day, cba with the Skylord and I find the Swamp and Snow caves tedious. So I went looking for a Bary to replace Sam. Nothing at all around, but my search took me close to the Redwoods, and I realised that I haven't tamed any bees yet, and I'd gone through the annoying process of getting some Ichthyornis' especially for just that! So back to base, quick crafted up a rocket launcher and some kibble, bug spray and cactus broth, and into the woods on definitely not dead Anna-Marie to blow up some bee hives. Got five queens before I ran out of kibble, which was weird, since I went out with 20 kibble all told. So either I got robbed without realising it by a Pego, or I was accidentally eating them. Very possible since I normally keep my mushrooms in the 0 slot Bees procured I started heading back, and bumped into a 120 female Bigfoot. Nice, not an amazing level, but the highest level one I've found since I've had this server, so I was definitely going to get her. TP'd back to base, put the new hives in place, grabbed snake kibble, and headed back, only to have lost her. Couldn't find her anywhere, dammit. Oh well, some you win some you lose, off I trot to my tree platform, since I'm here I may as well grab some sap, and I spot another Bigfoot very close to the tree. A male 125 Bigfoot! Well that's a result! Grabbed some of the spare mats that I keep on the platform and whipped up a very quick taming pen, and got him to chase me into it, and up he tamed with only a nosy Carno as any sort of drama. And so ended my Ark day, I think I came out on top on balance, just about

Only a quick session today between jobs, but the taming streak continues! Went and picked up the new Rex, and she'd tamed up with a really good melee, 331%, higher than either of my other Rex's currently are with quite a few levels invested into it, so she was definitely worth it in the end. I then decided that I was going to tame a Deaodon since they're nice and quick and should be common enough to find a highish level one fairly quickly. Going by the Wiki it looked like all along the west coast should be good for them, but unfortunately the Wiki lies! went up and down the coast 4 times killing everything and didn't see a single one, so tp'd home to grab my furs and the headed into the snow where I know that they are, and sure enough after the third or fourth group slaughtered, I plucked up a 120. That'll do nicely. I was also lucky enough to see a group of three of them come careening off the edge of the mountain, hanging in the air in a glorious moment framed high against the sky. Yes, I actually got to see pigs fly Got him tamed up and took him on a quick bit of levelling, and came across a 150 Male Pachyrhino! So it was a very short but fun and productive day.

So I managed to wangle a few spare hours this weekend and headed onto my server to do some testing on a couple of my mods. As I was swimming around the oceans checking a few things out, I chanced upon a 145 Basilosaurus. Excellent, my Basilo's are pretty baller, but a 145 is by far the highest I've come across, so I had to have her. Headed back to base and quick made up the kibble and some shark repellent, and went and got her tamed up nice and easily. Still needed to do some oceanic testing so levelling up the new Basilo at the same time was a perfect combination. Headed away from my island and almost immediately ran into a 145 female Plesi, perfect, a mate for my 150 male. Back to base, kibble, crossbow and arrows, onto the Baryonyx and off I went and got her done too. Managed to get her down on the edge of Herbi Island so I wasn't at all far from base and since I was happy enough to leave her taming up with just the occasional checks I figured I'd just do murder laps of Herbi Island since another of my mods has changed the spawns, and I wanted to make sure that numbers and stuff are good. First lap, and I run into a 145 female Pachyrhinosaurus! Nice, again, this is by far the highest Pachyrhino I've encountered, so I had to get her too. Bug spray made, 4 darts and she's down. Quick tame and I alternated bewtween her and the Plesi, and they both tamed up with no drama. Got them settled into their respective new homes, and having had enough of the water for one day, decided to go and place a teleporter pad on Carno Island. My mod also changes spawns there as well so I need to keep an eye on it. Teleported to the Iceburg, and started to head towards Carno, randomly grabbing and killing things on the Argy as I went, one of those things was a 145 male Saber! Nice! Went back to the burg and ko'd him, teleport back to base, grab kibble, back and leave him to tame up by himself. Got to Carno Island and starting running murder laps, on about the 4th or 5th I grabbed up a 125 Female Baryonyx. Not great, but again the highest level female Bary I've found, the previous best being a mere 100. Grabbed her and flew her into the mouth of the Carno Island cave, bola'd and tranq'd and teleported back home for the kibble. Went to check on the Saber and decided to fly back to Carno Island from the Iceburg instead of just teleporting myself there, and spotted a Procoptodon hopping on the snowy beach. Now my mod that alters the spawns on the islands adds Roos to Herbi Island, but all I've been seeing is very low levels, and it's rare to actually see one where they're supposed to be, so I went and grabbed it, and it was a bloody 150! Unbelievable! So back to the burg, bola and tranq, teleport to Carno, kibble on the Bary, then tp back home, grabbed some 'shrooms, and back to the 'burg, sent the Saber back home and settled down to keep tabs on the Roo who needed a bit more management than the others. Whilst waiting for the torpor to drop before topping it up I was flying around the edges of the snow, and grabbed another 145 Saber. A male again, but hell, may as well. So ko'd him on the Iceburg as well but he had truly crappy stats, so he got the sharp end of the pike. Topped the Roo back up and flew back to the snow, got into a scrap with some argy's, and spotted 150 pop up as I circled around them. Damn, normally I'd take it to the Iceburg to ko, but not with the Roo laying there. So had to break off and try and come back for it later. Went and finished up the Roo, tp'd him back home, then went and check the Bary who was tamed and tp'd her back too, then went to look for the Argy. Spent a good half hour searching the area to no avail unfortunately, so headed back to Carno for a couple more laps, and when diving into a fighting mess of sabers, scorps, raptors and argies, again saw the number 150 flick up! Backed off and frantically tried to work out what it was with my spyglass and it was a male Argy, so dove back in and cleared out the trash, and got him to follow me to the safe part of the Island and took him down. I really wish the taming calculators would get updated with the post flyer nerf figures, since I have no idea if he's decent or not, and comparing him to my other tamed Argies is no good since I've levelled them both extensively, but he seems to be alright, certainly worth breeding up with Pitch, my bred bird. So after tp'ing back to get kibble and back again, I left him there to tame up by himself, and heading back home to sort out the other new tames. Decided to take the new Saber around Herbi Island to see what it can do, and of course immediately got reminded again why I really don't like Sabers. Even good ones aren't really very good. But nonetheless, as I was killing stuff, I started attacking a 150 Anky. I have good high level Anky's coming out of my ears, I already have like 6 stored in the Obelisks, and I've killed countless 140-150's without even having to search for them. But the way my luck was going, I thought on a hunch, why the hell not so I took him down and checked the stats. Wow! 32 levels into melee! I'm definitely having that, so kibble on and left to tame, and back on the Saber, over to the other side of the island, and I check the level on a Doed (Doed spawns also added to Herbi Island through my mod, Better Herbi and Carno Island Spawns it's called in case anyone's interested) and that's a 145 Male. I love my current male Doed, Kid, but at the end of the day he was 'only' a 115, and I've never bred him with Joss, my female as she was a 150, so a 145 is very nice, so down he goes too. Got bored of doing circuits with the Saber, and didn't want to take the chance of either the Anky or Doed getting hit by accident, so decided to head back to Carno and do laps on Pitch waiting for the Argy to finish up. I really want to try and get a 145/150 male Carno to breed up with my female, and the amount of Carnos that spawn on Carno Island you'd think that I'd get one, but no joy with them, every single one seems to be crappy levels, however, a 145 female Rex did spawn. Don't really need her, but I've got Scorpion Kibble coming out of my ears, so decided to go for it. Needed a bit of prep though so I tp'd back home and quick crafted up stuff to make a 3x3 taming pen, didn't want to risk her running off into the ocean, brought that back along with a turtle tank for bait. By now the Argy had tamed as well so sent him back home, built the pen and after a bit of finagling and some unwanted interference from some pesky raptors and argents managed to get her in there and down. She wasn't great pre tame, low health, but a decent enough melee and weight to be worth keeping around. Once whe was kibbled up I had to leave her and call it a day and get to work. A most remarkable day of taming done and dusted. Honestly never had the like of it before.

Had another great day today. Popped onto my server after work with the intention of only playing for an hour or so before bed. Decided I'd take the Basilo out for a quick spin around the island and see if I could spot any deep sea crates. Just left my taming pen, chew on a few Jellies, and then I spot an Alpha Mosa. Just a level 10, that's no problem for Neutron, she's both my fastest and tankiest whale. Couldn't quite find the sweet spot of being able to chomp without being hit, but still no problem and after a few minutes letting the autoclick do the work he was down and I was 100 black pearls and a mastercraft pike amongst other things richer. Quick killed a couple of Ichthy's for meat and sat on the surface to heal up, and back down I go, munch a couple of Anglers, then round a rock, and oh! That's a pretty white Mosa, oh, it's another Alpha! Level 35 this time. Bit of finagling but this time I did find the sweet spot, and again the auto click does it's job, another 100 black pearls, thank you very much. Now I've had this before where after killing a few squids or Alphas I quickly get weighed down with Black Pearls, and spend too much time for my liking doing inventory management, so since I'm barely any distance at all from base I decide to head back and drop off the pearls before going on. As I pass the spot where I killed the original Alpha Mosa, I spy a pretty blue Mosa, yum yum, more XP for Neutron, but wait! It's a bloody 145 female! I'm having that! Back to base, unload pearls, grab my tankiest Baryonyx, kibble, narcs and the Ascendant crossbow and plenty of arrows and swim back on Neutron with Sam the Bary in tow. Nothing else around so hop onto Sam and start unloading arrows into its face. I've found this by far the best way to tranq Mosa's, trying to do it from above their height ceiling results in half your shots not registering and leaves you terribly exposed to surprise Mantas, Jellies or Eels which can make things turn sour very quickly. So bish bash bosh, when the big ol' gal starts running she goes straight into a rock, a few more arrows up her bum and down she goes, easy peasy. As I've said before, I hate underwater tames, they're generally very boring, this one was no exception, but well worth it. Everything passed with not a smidge of drama. Annoyingly she didn't have the best pretame stats in health and melee, and she actually tamed up with a lower melee than my 125 male, but heck, it's a Mosa, she still does way more damage unlevelled than even my best Basilo, and my 150 Plesi who I've levelled quite a lot into melee, and came up with 20k health, which is still plenty. So my hour of play turned into about 2 and a half, and I didn't actually get more than half way from Herbi Island to the Swamps on my trip, but it was certainly a good one.

Well, what a day! Took the Theri into the swamp as per usual. Nothing much around until I caught sight of a 135 Male Parcer. Now I've killed higher level ones before in the hopes of a 150, but now as I nabbed that 150 female the other day I thought why the devil not. So got him to follow me into a safe place and worked on getting him down. When he started running though I couldn't quite control which way he ran and he ended up going into the water so had to finagle him back onto the beach and clear out some baddies before I could get the final couple of darts into him, but get him down I did, got the spikes up ran home to get the kibble. Decided to come back on the Thyla for no other reason than it's been a while since I've given her a run out, and when I got back there was a Rex very very close to my my spikes attacking a Phiomia! Crap! Waded in to try and at least lure it away, and it's only a bloody 145! Whipped out the rifle and started tranqing her from the back of the Thyla. My Thyla isn't the best, but has enough to be able to tank, and I managed to get the Rex down reasonable easily. So quick made up some more spikes and darted back to base and came back with the scorp kibble for her. Decided that it would probably be best to leave the area all together and keep it unrendered since no one else was on, and with some time to kill while I waited for those two to tame up, decided to take the new Argent into the snow for some levelling. Pretty routine stuff, nothing too dramatic, then I flew in to take out a white Rex on the edge of the new part of the biome, and it was only a 145 male! Helped him kill the Mammoths and other assorted things that he was attacking, and tried to lure him into some sort of safeish place, but the awkward bugger wasn't having it. He'd follow me for a bit and then get distracted by something, so it was a big game of help him kill stuff, lead for a bit, then rinse and repeat. Finally managed to get him into a semi safe area by letting him almost constantly munch on me, when holy poop, a death worm starts making its way towards me, and a rock golem pops up. I love the Scorched Earth+ mod, but sometimes it can be aright royal pain the the arse. No matter what I did I couldn't get the Rex away without the death Worm following and the damn golem was locked onto me, so I had no choice, I was going to have to lead the worm away and leave the Rex to its own devices and try and take it out with my Argent. So I flew a distance off, luckily the Golem went back to rock form, the rex got dstracted by something else, and the worm followed me. Frantically tried to heal and recover stamina before it got me but I was still on about three quarter health when it hit me. So the battle Royale commenced. Thankfully Pitch is a bird made of stern stuff and I have a good saddle on her, so I was able to tank pretty well. Had to take a break to heal though, and the bloody Rex re-appears and takes and interest in me again, damn thing. The worm was bloody though so I went back into the fray and hoiped that the Rex would just go away by himself. Luckily he did, and I was finally able to take the worm down with barely any health left and on my last smidge of stamina. Phew! The Rex though had disappeared so after healing up I went to search for him and found the dumb arse wedged in a rock. Two shots from the tranqs though and he wroked his way loose. Had to shoot, fly lead, shoot, fly lead, avoid wolves, kill sabres, keep eyes peeled for Purlovia mounds, it all went well enough. Then he started running so I gave chase, but couldn'd find a good place to land to hit him with the last couple of darts I needed. Manged to do so and got a dart into him as he went over the edge of a cliff. Dammit, he was going to go in the water, no time to lose I sprinted after him and whisteld the bird to follow, went off the cliff myself and broke my leg, but got the last shot into him just on the edge of the water! Happy days! Pitch caught up to me just in time as a wolf pack hared towards me, got on her and did clean up duty. Fence him off, slap kibble on him and head over to my teleporter on the Iceburg. Back to base and grabbed the remote teleporter then went and checked on the first Rex and Paracer. The Paracer was tamed up and the Rex was close so waited for her, then teleported them both back to base, picked up my spikes and teleported myself back to the snow and to the other Rex, just in time as some sabers were close to him, so decided it would best to baby sit, and do some levelling whilst I was at it. He tamed up, and I teleported us all back to base, then took one of the Rex's over to the mainland to see what it can do. Merrily murder my way through until past green obelisk. Then remember I said that I'd given up on finding a 150 male Turtle and just tamed up a junky lvl 10 to get the mate boost for my females? Well, by green obby I started whaling on a turtle, and just happened to glimpse 150 flick up so broke off the attack, teleported myself back to base and left the Rex there as a marker, flew back with some kibbles, and tamed him up. So a very, very successful day on the Island for me.

Mixed couple of days, been working and having the kids so it's been a bit stop start. Bred some wolves, all the pups were useless so they got the Ol' Yeller treatment. Hatched and imprinted an Argent, she came out pure 100% black which was nice, slightly lower level than both her parents who were both 145 tames, but the imprinting makes up for that and she'll do just fine until I can hatch another. Tamed a 150 female Ptera who was chilling on my roof, spotted her just as I was packing up for the night which was a bugger making me stay up a bit later, but c'est la vie. Found a 145 snail that I tamed purely because I'd just made up a huge batch of veggie cakes for my own snails. Tamed a 145 Compy just cause he was there. Took the new Argent out levelling and found a 150 Wooly Rhino being beaten up real bad, saved him and stood watch over him whilst he healed up, but then a ninja badger took him down when I got distracted by an Argent. Tried to tame a 150 Dimorph, but I forgot my Theri was on neutral and she bloody killed it after I got to close to it and it hit me as I tried to bola it, after I'd tracked the damn thing for ages and ages waiting for it to actually land and give me a clear shot at it. Got another 145 male Iguanodon which I'll probably kill off again since it doesn't really have anything going for it, and took the Theri on a cross country run, exploring all sort of forests and areas that I forget were even there since I normally just fly over them, or they've got bases on them and look completely different. I got totally lost until I finally emerged blinking in the light next to Red Obelisk. Found and killed a Unicorn on Carno Island, crappy low level. Oh and decided that since I'm having absolutely no joy finding a 150 male turtle, and I'm short on turtle eggs after the 150 Bronto tame the other day, I'd just pop out and grab the first male turtle I saw regardless of level just to get the mate boost as a place holder. It took me over half an hour to find one! There were a ridiculously small number of turtles around, and the few that I did find were all female! Finally got a level 10 though.

Logged in and headed to the swamp on the Theri, straight away ran into a 150 female Paracer! Finally my incessant murdering of all the things in the swamps everyday seems to be paying off and I'm getting some high levels, unfortunately not in what I want, I really need a better Baryonyx, but I'm not one to look a give horse rhino elephant thing in the mouth. Managed to get the big girl wedged into some rocks and took her down, pretty easy stuff, I do love the new shocking tranq darts and my Ascendant Longneck. Spent the time waiting for her to tame up strolling around killing things and making sure nothing got close to her since I forgot to grab any spiked walls, then got her home and headed back out. Unfortunately that was to be my only luck for a while. Although there were a few 100+ things around, nothing better than anything I already have, so decided to head into the Redwoods and search for high level Terrorbirds or Thylas. That was a bust, only saw one single level 5 Thyla, and accidentally killed the only two high level Terrorbirds I saw since they were in the middle of fluffy scrums, both 145's which would have done nicely. Ummed and ahhed for a bit over a 150 female Stego, but I already have a breeding pair of 150's, don't really need to clutter the base with additionals really. Then as I was leaving the woods I spotted a lvl 100 Equus, not only that but it was actually calm and being unmolested, which is a rarity! Normally I only see the bloody things just as they're getting eaten, or they're too low level to bother with so I kill them off, so a 3 figure in a decent area wasn't to be sniffed at. Unfortunately though, no Troodon kibble or Carrots on me, so I did something I don't normally do. I have the Awesome Teleporters mod, and I have it enabled to teleport wild dinos. It's something I very rarely take advantage of, but on this occasion I thought bugger it. Got the gee-gee stuck on my Theri, and teleported us all straight to the top floor of my base. Let him run around for a bit whilst I crafted up the the kibble, then donned the ghillie and jumped on his back.

Bred up a couple of the wolves and whilst I was waiting for them to pop I took apart my kitchen area and put it back together again. replaced all the vanilla fridges with S+. tidied up the layout and stuff. When the wolf popped it was white female twins with the best melee and stam. Unfortunately still can't get the health to carry, but 2 females with those two stats should help speed things up. Stepped out of my base and the first thing i bumped into, literally was a 150 male bronto! Went up to the roof and sniped him down and left him to tame up whilst I went out hunting. decided to go through the swamps and ran into a 145 female Kapro, luckily managed to avoid getting dismounted by her and got her in the pen and down. Also found a 150 male Dimetrodon which I nabbed for giggles, despite him being a bitch of a tame. Also experienced a weird and very annoying bug. When gathering some meat on my best 100% imprinted Theri, Anna-Marie, I returned to base and she got stuck in the dino gate. Couldn't get her out of there no matter what I tried. Eventually jumped on her and tried to ghost her free, but instead she dismounted me and slipped under the world! Ghosted myself under and couldn't do anything with her, couldn't mount, she wouldn't follow, so I relogged, and when I got back in I was able to whistle her to follow, but instead of following me out, she just up and disappeared! No death message or anything, very annoying. So I grabbed a recent save file, and loaded it into single player, grabbed her from there and loaded her into the obelisk. A strange thing happened to my base though on the single player world, all the resources that my base normally blocks were there, all the trees and rocks and everything, and I noted how pretty parts of it looked with the trees and rocks back, so when I went back to my server and grabbed the resurrected Anna-Marie out of a nearby drop I made up a load of re-fertilizer and restored the dead areas outside my walls back to their natural beauty.

Yesterday I popped onto my Scorched Earth single player for the first time in a while. When I originally started playing on Scorched it was with the noble intention of taking it slowly, steadily branching out and exploring the map taming as I go, however due to the necessity of testing my mods and other stuff I found that I had an awful lot of stuff that I had spawned in, force tamed, or downloaded from storage, so pretty much everything went, the force tamed wyverns and golems got deleted, the Wyvern and Giga and Doed went back into the obelisk, the spawned in structures went, so I was left with pretty much the shell of my base, 3 camels, 2 veeeeeery low level moths, 2 vultures, 2 Paras, a couple of Lystros, and my poor old neglected meat tamed low level Saber and Raptor. But at least everything I had left now was legit built and tamed. I also raised the difficulty to give 150's to bring it in line with my Island server. Looking at what I had left, I realised I needed some decent fast and sturdy transport, and not having the resources for an Argent, I took the best of the moths out and tamed the highest level Roo I could find without venturing too far from the relative safety of my base. Luckily got a fairly decent level 80. Took him out for a spin and marked the locations of a 120 Doed that I was going to need pretty sharpish, and a level 100 Anky, neither of which is too far away from my little haven. Today I had some issues updating S+ on my server unfortunately, but when I did get it up and running, thanks to some changes I had to first of all go around and manually set about 100 torches to auto turn on and off. Replaced all of my wooden ramps with the new stone ramps, and then turned them into steps which is absolutely brilliant, and built the sheep herder to look after my flock. Then I hopped on Midnight and headed to the snow once more, still looking for high level wolves, rhinos, rex's and a male argent as a mate for Midnight. With time running out before I had to log for the night I finally collared a 145 male argent, so as usual kited him onto the iceburg and got him down. Day off tomorrow so I'll be breeding and imprinting a new baby Argent, and probably breed the wolves and sheeps again.

More wolf breeding, finally got my good health to go with good stamina and melee, and then the next pup pops out with a mutation giving me a new high stamina. Also both pups were males again, really need to start getting some girls! Other than that, bred up my sheeps since the flock is getting a bit small, tried again to find a high level male argy, but still no joy. Was very tempted by a 135 green and gold rex, but couldn't be bothered.

Bred some of the wolves, 1st baby unfortunately wasn't viable, a male with only one good stat transferred. Second one was better, a female who got both the best melee and stamina from her dad, and the white colouring of her mum. A lower level overall than either, but good to have another viable white female. Especially since I went out looking for high level male Argents to pair with Midnight, and didn't find any, but did find an all black 150 male wolf (Columbo) who gives me a new high weight, and a 140 pale brown male (Hal) who gives me a new high food. This means that two out of my three original white females are now retired out of the program, only Cirrus with her high health remains. So far I've only been successful in getting stamina and melee to transfer to the cubs, really need tomorrows breedings to give me some more females, and I need to get that health stat transferred.

Not much today due to work, but popped in a couple of times to make sure the baby wolf was maturing ok, by the time I finished the evening shift he was fully grown. I called him Dorian, and finally settled on naming the 150 white female from yesterday Cirrus. Then took the Theri out to see what's what. Didn't find anything at all interesting until just leaving the Redwoods I spotted a 150 male Terrorbird, a beautiful pure white one at that. No way I was going to attempt a ground tame on the Redwoods/Swamp border, and didn't have any Galli kibble on me anyway, so I quick sprinted back home and came back on Midnight, luckily the flock hadn't tried taking on anything they couldn't beat and I was able to routinely grab him and tame him up on my tree platform. He had 32 points into health which was nice, sucky melee and stamina though. Be nice if I can find him a decent mate.

Well, what a day! Logged in and first thing I did was mate the two 140 wolves that I tamed up yesterday, then made preps for the baby, built a couple of fridges, took the Theri out to gather some meat, filled all the fridges and troughs, took the Bary out to get some fish, cooked all that up, and generally took care of stuff. Then I had a bit of time to kill, so I decided I may as well head back into the snow and see if I could find another decent wolf or two. Didn't take very long, a 145 male, dark grey, not great stats, but a really good oxygen so I decided I may as well add him to the gene pool, and named him Storm. Headed back up, again really quickly found a 135 female. Knocked her out and checked the stats, really junky, nothing decent at all. I was also low on kibble, and a junky wolf certainly wasn't worth slaughtering a sheep for. Then waited for the baby to pop, and when it did it was a crushing disappointment. It had literally inherited every one of the worst stats from Blizzard and Spectre, and not only that but it had a random mutation of red feet! Looked awful, was awful, so I took him back out to the woodshed and told his parents that unfortunately he was just too weak. I'm sure they understood. For something to do I headed back into the snow again, and again very quickly found yet another 145 male wolf. KO'd him and checked the stats, really good melee and stam. This one was worth slaughtering a sheep for so as he starved, I brought my lowest level ram and the Theri out to the taming pen, then when his food had dropped enough I piked the poor bleater and harvested the corpse with the Theri. I sliiiiiightly misunderestimated exactly how much raw mutton I'd get by doing this. After feeding the wolf, who I dubbed Mist I now had 245 raw mutton remaining! Quickly I knocked up a couple of S+ fridges and filled them up, and cooked off the odd 45 for later. I was now on a mission, I had stacks of mutton to use and a wolf pack to build. I headed back into the snow and tamed every single 3 figure wolf I could find. I must have done at least 20. If they didn't have at least one outstanding stat after tame then they got culled. Annoyingly, Storm and Mist, the very first two were still the outstanding males after all this, and the highest level female I had found was a 135. Her and a 130 were the best two females, and by best, not particularly good at all. Still the 130 was another white girl, I called her Sleet, and the 135 was a lovely caramel colour who I called Dawn. It did mean though that all my best stats except weight were on the male side of the pack. Whilst I was culling and taming wolves, I also had a fight over a corpse with a gorgeous 145 female Argent. All black with just a red head crest. I had to have her so I lured her on to the nearest Iceburg and got her down. She tamed up with a better health and weight then my current best Argent. Calling her Midnight, I regretfully sent Scruff to live in the birdhouse, and she took over as my main bird. I mated up Mist and Sleet and took Midnight out looking for more wolves. Forgetting that as a fresh tame her stamina wasn't anywhere near as good as Scruffs, I kept getting caught in bad situations, at one point stunned by a Purlovia and caught between a 135 Rex, a Rock Elemental a pack of wolves and gawd knows what else. I barely made it out of that melee with about 20 health left. A few levels later and it got easier. The supply of high level wolves was drying up though, I couldn't seem to find anything now in 3 figures. I called it for a bit and had some tea whilst I waited for the pup to pop. Logged back in just in time, and joy of joys, this one had inherited every good stat from its parents. Unfortunately it got its dads grey colours, and was yet another male. I fed him up until I felt comfortable leaving him, and decide screw it, I'm going back out and not coming home again until I've found a 150 wolf. I've yet to see a single one, and I still have shed loads of mutton left, this was it, no more compromises, 150 or bust. 3 hours later. I've been around the snow biome so many times I'm dizzy. I've killed so, so many wolves. I've managed to find a shed load of explorer notes and Midnight now surpasses Scruff in every respect and is the best Argent I've ever owned. But still no 150 wolf. I've dived into melees and rescued wolves from under the noses of rexes, and from being stomped by mammoths and all sorts. I'm fed up and incredulous that I cannot find a single bloody 150 wolf from all the ones I've seen. I keep saying one last pack and if I don't find one I'm giving up. One more pack turns into two more packs turns into three more packs... The stubborn head is well and truly on. I pick up a 145 male wolf. Bugger, sod it, I don't need any more males, and it's not a 150. So I kill him, I note that he's mate boosted as I do so and look around for the female. Can't see her anywhere. I look over the edge of the cliff and there she is, stuck down the side in a crevice. Another lovely white one, 'if only' I think to myself, so I swoop down and pick her up and engage auto click. The I realise what the hell I'm doing! This is it, the elusive 150, and I've half bloody killed her already! So in a panic I drop her into the water. Stupid, stupid Kraken. She seems to be fine though so I land and regain stamina, take a deep breath then swoop down to grab her fully expecting to miss, hit the water and be dismounted, but no! I emerge victorious with her in my grasp and it's off to the taming pen we go. Now I've been going through a period of getting 150's with less than spectacular stats, so I was a bit pensive after koing her and plugging hers into the calculator, but they were good, not mind blowing but really solid all around. Big sigh of relief. She tamed up with just shy of 1000 more health then my next best! Hallelujah! With that, I logged, I'm knackered! I need to have a good think on a name for her. Even after I breed up some super wolves, I think she'll be the pack matriarch. The group shot here from left to right is Midnight, Blizzard, Spectre, Storm, Dawn, Mist and Sleet, taken before the pup was born and I got the 150.

Well, woke up yesterday morning with severe stomach ache so phoned in work sick, sat in my chair with a hot water bottle feeling sorry for myself for a bit, then decided I may as well hop into Ark. So logged in, no idea what to do, so just hopped on the Argy and start flying in a random direction which took me to the edge of the swamp, grabbed the first thing I saw, 140 male frog. That'll do. Flew it back to base and the taming pen, got him tamed up, then took him for a run around my base to see what he could do. very first thing I attacked on him, 150 female Parasaur. Now I've had a couple of 150 males for ages, but never been able to find a female, except in a death message when I wasn't paying attention, so this was ideal. Chased her up against the wall of my base, licked her unconscious (oo-err) and stuck some crops on her, bit of narc and when I was sure I could leave her to tame off I went again. Still not feeling great, I was absent mindedly flying around the edge of the swamp once more, landed for stamina and a Mantis jumped me (I have the Scorched Earth+ mod) just about to start attacking it, when I noticed 150... flit up. Crap. I've been after a high level mantis for a while, didn't really want to be bothered with it right now but damned if I was passing it up. Half flying and half walking I sort of baited it down along the coast closer to my base on Herbi Island, taking a whole heap of damage and killing as much as I could to keep it focused on me. Finally got close enough and with not much around that I felt I could go grab a Quetz, hopped over, came back on the Q and bugger, Mantis nowhere to be seen. Searched all around the area where I left him, no where. Decided I couldn't be arsed and started flying back to base, only to see the damn thing in the water attacking Mantas! Scooped him up, dropped him in the taming pen after about 6 attempts, and muttering went back to base to suit up with Ghillie and apply the bug spray. Stepped into the taming pen and attempted the first feed, and couldn't. No sign of Press E to feed, no matter how I came at him. Damn, went back and got the Quetz, lifted him out, dropped him on the beach and let him go work his angst off on a couple of trikes. Landed a bit away and snuck up behind him, and still no sign of the feed prompt. For nigh on an hour I tried this, in different areas, in the pen out the pen, aggro'd not aggro'd, just could not feed him for love nor money. My stomach was still killing me and I was fed up, so in the end dropped him in the pen, God mode on, Dotame, dumped Deathworm horns on the floor, done, computer off and I went to sleep. Logged back in later in the night and decided to take one of my whales out for a bit, and blimey! The seas were jam packed, I ran into a lvl 90 Alpha Mosa straight away, and settled down to the long boring task of killing her. For those who don't know how to kill an Alpha Mosa with a Basilo, you can finagle it so that you're on the Mosa's back, biting between it's shoulder blades. It will keep trying to bite you and therefore won't move, and won't be able to hit you at all, or at least not very often, then just bite away. So it was just a case of finding the sweet spot, and then engaging the auto clicker and waiting for what felt like forever. Once that was done and that lovely pile of black pearls collected, I went on my way, there were whales everywhere, Mosas and Plesi galore, so many Dunkies like I've never seen. Unfortunately everything was a really low level, didn't see a single thing with 3 figures, so after killing another Alpha Mosa, just a level 5 this time, I headed back home and unloaded, and hit the hay. Today was my day off, so I decided to head back into the sea to see if it was as jammed as yesterday, and unfortunately, it wasn't. After doing a whole lap of the island I'd only found a couple of squids, and again all the interesting things were low levels, although I did manage to accidentally kill a 150 shark that was underneath me when I was attack a lvl 5 Mosa. Eventually though I spotted a 145 Angler, another female unfortunately when I'd have preferred a male to mate with my 145 female I tamed a couple of days ago, but beggers can't be choosers, so I cleared the area and hopped off my whale and started bowing her down, getting her to drop on the worlds edge. Swimming back to my Basil though, disaster struck! Ninja camouflaged squid came out of nowhere and grabbed me. Nothing I could do, game over man. Respawned, grabbed my spare scuba gear, hopped on one of the other whales and raced slowly back to find my original whale under siege from 2 plesis, a bunch of eels, couple of sharks and Anglers. Not really a problem as my whales can handle that shiz, so dealt with them, then went and tacked down the despair squid and took care of him. Couldn't find any of my gear though. Not really a problem as I have the BP's to replace it all, but it does mean grinding for mats which I'd rather not bother with, but never mind. Got back to my Angler tame with barely any time to spare, her torpor was under 100 so dosed her up and settled in to wait. That done I decided I'd had enough of the water for one day, I had noticed earlier though that I'd been steadily accumulating Carno eggs without noticing, and that meant that I could tame up a couple of wolves. So fur on and up to the snow I fly on my best argent, Scruff. Nothing decent from the first few packs, then as I swooped down to pluck another one up, raptor! Purlovia dismounts me right into the middle of about 6 wolves and itself. So I go to draw my trusty Pike, and bugger! I haven't replaced it from earlier, then I hear a stomping as a rex decides to weigh in as well, so frantically whistling follow I start to run, luckily everything seems more interested in my bird than me so I get a bit of clean snow between me and the pack. Scruff finally comes to her senses and heads towards me, and with an almighty leap I get back aboard her, plunge into the middle of the melee, and hit right click. After a bit of a struggle to get free I look behind to see if I managed to grab anything, and sure enough I did, a 140 male wolf, pure white with just dark paws and the tip of its tail! Absolutely beautiful, So I head home with my prize and drop him in the pen, ko, and up he tames! Not a remarkably good wolf, decent health, but not much in the way of melee and Stam, but he looks gorgeous. I name him Spectre, and decide on a whim to go and see if I can find him a girlfriend. After heading three quarters of the way into the snow, and killing god knows how many wolves, thankfully without incident this time. I decide that's enough and start heading home. I ignore a load more wolves but one catches my eye, another pure white one with just a dark tail tip. An almost carbon copy of Spectre, so on the the off chance I swoop down and grab it, and it's only a bloody 140 female! Unbelievable! So I head home with her and get her tamed up, and she comes out with almost exact mirror stats to her new mate, she has low health, but great melee and stamina! She gets dubbed Blizzard, and tomorrow I'll be mating them up and starting a whole pack of white wolves.