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Dossier example from: teekerweeker (DISCLAIMER) Shantungosaurus is an Ark Additions "sponsored creature" mod by garuga123. However, in January of 2023, Garuga himself on his Discord server spoke out and said sponsored creatures can be added as creature submission, as long as they’re not fully funded yet, where no man-hours of work have been done for those creatures yet. Shantungosaurus is one of those not fully funded creatures, and so I decided to add it as a submission. Shantungosaurus was submitted partly to wanting to add more unarmored ornithopod dinosaurs in-game, but mainly because Valguero gives off “The Isle” vibes. An indie massively open world online multiplayer game with environments and vibes similar to some of the ones Valguero has, at least in ASE. ___________________________________________________________________ (Dossier) (Not a copy of the dossier reference above!) Name: Shantungosaurus giganteus Time: Late Cretaceous Diet: Herbivore Temperment: Reactive Wild: Shantungosaurus giganteus is the largest hadrosaurid I have ever encountered. These massive behemoths rival in size of Tyrannosaurus dominum, but it is a pure gentle giant, grazing alongside other animals and even other survivors. However, if it, or any nearby herbivores or its kin are attacked or threatened, Shantungosaurus immediately becomes aggressive and aids in battle with swipes from its muscular tail and stomps from its front limbs. If it becomes overwhelmed by predators, it will often flee, not just to get away, but also allow the predators to chase after it and away from the herds. Shantungosaurus giganteus appears to have developed a high herd leadership hierarchy, protecting others in its vicinity from threats, sometimes sacrificing their own lives in the process. It’s a wonder how this species’ and predator populations stay well balanced in the same ecosystem. Domesticated: Envious tribes have tamed Shantungosaurus to train and utilize their strength to what they call “their full potential”, in order to “change the perception of power between predator and prey”. In addition to being able to carry heavy loads of cargo, this dinosaur is a popular beast of war, with its bulk and aggression being favored for raids to destroy base walls and crush other beasts’ spines under its weight. Some riders even arm their Shantungosaurus with heavy armor for extra protection or damage infliction. There’s no clear one way to tame such a beast, from what I’ve heard. Some say it’s best to take them in as juveniles to raise, while being warry of protective adults. Others say it’s simpler to just overpower an adult then tend to it to gain its trust, if you can chase it down and keep up to get a clear shot. ___________________________________________________________________ (Behavior) Stock-made paleoart from the internet used as an example Shantungosaurus is a gentle giant, roughly the same size as the in-game Rex, not minding anything or anyone unless harmed, if any herbivorous animals or other Shantungos are being attacked, or if juveniles are physically touched. It is ignored by small predators, but can be targeted by larger ones (Allos, Yutys, Spinos, Rexes, Wyverns, Gigas, and Carchas). Aggroed Shantungos will charge at attackers quadrupedally (galloping) and fight with bites, smashes with its front limbs, kicks with its rear legs at those behind it, and tail swipes which can knockback anything far away if they’re small enough. Each attack that hits a wild creature will also affect them into “temptingly” focus attack exclusively to the dinosaur itself. However, once their health is drained by a certain amount (either 40%, 50%, or 60%, which ever will work), it will perform a powerful, 360° tailspin before turning away, stand up bipedally, and flee from battle. They’re not extremely fast as like, let’s say, a Gallimimus, but they are still pretty fast on their own, enough to JUST outrun a T.Rex without any obstacles in the way. If they run far away enough from or kill their attackers, they will calm down and revert back to their docile nature. When near attacked herbivores, it will unleash a defense buffering roar that affects all herbivores within a circular radius around it, giving the attacked creatures it’s trying to protect a surviving chance while fighting or escaping. A single juvenile Shantungosaurus has a 40% chance to spawn next to an adult. Adults are normally solitary spawns, so they won’t spawn in pairs or more together, but there is a low chance of a single youngster spawning next to them. The juveniles are not aggressive and are more vulnerable to smaller carnivores like Raptors, Wolves or Deinonychus. They will flee if directly harmed. Even physically touching them without doing any harm can equally anger the adults. All attacks can indirectly damage and even destroy close enough structures, depending on the types of attacks they use, making them very destructive around structures even if they’re not trying to damage them. Shants can be found almost anywhere in Valguero. From the southeastern Chalk Cliffs, the centermost Boreal Forest, the southwestern Redwoods, the Fertile Aberration zone, and very rarely in the eastern Jungle and western Tundra. You’ll have a better chance of finding them in the Chalk Cliffs, the Boreal Forest, and the Fertile Aberration zone. ___________________________________________________________________ (Taming) Just like the Diplodocus, Shantungosaurus has two different methods of taming, and to decide what’s best for you is up to you. It’s both a passive tame and a knockout (KO) tame. Passive taming: Juveniles can be passively tamed with preferred food (they cannot be imprinted on you like most babies in ASA, even if you've killed the parent), but feeding them is extremely dangerous because, even though you’re not hurting them, nearby adults will become aggroed and charge at you to protect their kin. Also, despite their smaller sizes, you can’t pick up wild youngsters with flyers like Quetzs or Rhynios. Feeding or physically touching the younglings will anger the adults, and harming the adults will cause the younglings to run away. Attacks from the adult can also indirectly damage or destroy structures, so be careful if you decide to trap the juveniles. Once tamed, and eventually matured, their levels will automatically increase higher by 25%. Of course, the higher the level, the better! Tamed juveniles can be carried by large flyers. Knockout taming: Adults can be knocked out and fed preferred food. But, the process is a really complicated one. First, you must drain their health to the point where they will start fleeing. BUT, they will only start fleeing AFTER you make them do the powerful 360° tailspin at you. Then, you must knock them out until they drop, but these dinosaurs are fast runners when compared to things like the Rex. Wild adult Shantungosaurus are immune to Torpor, and will only become vulnerable to it once they start fleeing. Hit them as much as you can with whatever shall work until they drop unconscious. The head is the weakest spot to inflict the most torpor, but it can be hard to aim. When tamed, they may be at low health by then, and their levels won’t increase as with juveniles and thus stay with whatever they start off with. But, you can always manually increase them, of course. Can be bred: While Shantungosaurus is a solitary spawn, aside from spawning with babies by chance, it can still be bred if paired with a male and female individual. ___________________________________________________________________ (Abilities) Shantungosaurus concept art for “The Isle” as a reference. (Forward camera) Left click/controller equivalent: Bite. The Shant will perform a basic bite attack, doing slight knockback. It can even do this while moving (walking and running) and in water. (Backward camera) Left click/controller equivalent: Backwards Kick. The Shant will lift up one of its back legs, left or right, depending on your camera’s direction, and kick when your camera view is looking backwards from it. Right click/controller equivalent: Tail swipe. The Shant will use its tail to swipe, dealing heavy damage with more stamina usage than bites and kicks, and some more knockback. Depending on your camera angle, its attacks will also angle, forward facing performing and backward facing performing. Left Ctrl/controller equivalent: Tailspin. The Shant will perform the deadly, 360° tailspin, using huge amounts of stamina, doing even more pushback than regular tail swipes. It’s the most powerful ability in terms of damage inflicting. C key/Controller equivalent: Buff roar. The Shant will rear up on its hind legs and unleash a buffering roar within a circular radius around it. It gives all allied tames and survivors within the radius a 30% defense buff, more than the Yutyrannus, but a 10% damage output buff, less than Yutyrannus (Mixing the roars with both dinosaurs can be recommended in battle). Spacebar/controller equivalent: Frontal Smash. The Shant will rear up on its rear legs and smash its front legs. This ability uses a good amount of stamina, but just not as much as tailspins. Left Alt/controller equivalent: Stance mode switch. The Shant will stand idly either bipedally or quadrupedally (the default stance). It can even stay on either stance when the rider is not mounted. In fact, it can even be manually set via the behavior setting wheel. When bipedal, it will make the Shantungo move a slightly bit faster (the same running mode in which wild ones do when running away after the 360° tailspin attack), but stamina usage will increase by 15% while running. You will still regain stamina while standing still while bipedal. The only abilities available for this stance mode are Bite, Buff Roar, and Frontal Smash. Status effects: 1. Ally defense: Gives ally survivors and creatures a 30% defense buff and 10% damage output buff when in the circular radius of a Buff Roar. 2. Temptation: When the temptation-mode is enabled, this makes attacked wild creatures tempting to focus exclusively on Shant and ignore everything and everyone else (except other tamed Shants). Each hit from your tamed Shantungosaurus inflicts a certain amount of “temptation” in a single status bar over a hit creature that will raise until it hits its max. Once it does, the affected creatures will go after the Shant until it either dies, gets far away enough, or until the bar completely drains while still targeting it. This gives affected tamed creatures the “Temptation” status effect. (This mechanic can be enabled or disabled via the radial wheel.) With wild predators, the effect is instantaneous when wild Shants hit them. Whereas tamed Shants must inflict hits in a certain number of times for any respective creature based on their size to fill up the “temptation meter” (see below), and player tames will not become “tempted” instantaneously if attacked by wild Shantungosaurus. Affected tamed and wild creatures will be given a 20% damage output debuff, but a 25% damage input debuff, and a significantly decreased attack radius. Affected wild creatures will ignore everything and everyone else except for other tamed/allied Shantungos. The smaller and/or lower leveled the affected animal is, the more it will have its “Temptation” maxed by just one hit. But, the bigger and/or high leveled the animal, the more hits it will take to raise that bar to its max (ex: A Giga would need 5 or 6 tail swipes to get its bar to the max.) Enemy tamed creatures will need few more hits to become completely affected compared to wilds, making the tempting process more challenging. Affected tames will become completely uncontrollable for a bit shorter period of time than affected wild animals, and when mounted on them, the sides of your screen will have a red, enraged eye-like effect. Once a wild or enemy tamed creature has become “tempting” when the “temptation meter” is maxed, you have to wait until it drains out completely if you want to keep it so. Having the Shant attack the affected animal more while its being tempted will not raise the status bar anymore until it fully drains. Tamed Shantungosaurus will not flee when low health, even if targeted by “tempting” creatures it made. It can be recommended to bring a Shantungo with you in dangerous environments as attacking wild animals will be distracted, and due to the high health and high damage outputs they have, you should be fairly well protected without an army, unless it’s multiple super predators of course… You won’t see the status bar above affected wild or enemy tamed creatures, unless your or allied tame Shantungosaurs hits them. Bosses (guardians and Titans), Titanosaurs, wild Shantungosaurus, and few tiny creatures (ex: insects and fish) won’t be affected, though boss minions can be. ___________________________________________________________________ (Saddle) Artwork example by JibbaJabbaDraw, 2020 Source: DeviantArt The Saddle for Shantungosaurus is a standard leather style like many other creatures. But, it can hold multiple riders at the same time like Tapejara or Diplodocus. The saddle can also be customized with two different sets of armor to suite your preference in battle. However, these customizations, as they’re full bodied, will slow down the dinosaur’s overall speed by 15%. Artwork example by Paleocolour, 2016 Source: DeviantArt Defenseive armor: Increases the Shantungo’s ability to intake damage with a minimal offense infliction increase. Offensive armor: Increases the Shantungo’s ability to inflict damage with a minimal defense intake increase. (The armors will also give your saddles the decorative flags as in the example image above.) ___________________________________________________________________ (Video references) Sound examples from the indie game: The Isle Animations from The Isle used as a reference by HiepVu. ___________________________________________________________________ (Real-life references) Wikipedia page link: Shantungosaurus - Wikipedia (Images) Skeletal By: PyroRaptor315 Source: DeviantArt Paleoart The Isle references ___________________________________________________________________ Thank you for reading my submission. Feedback, and even a vote up, is always appreciated!