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So I've always wanted the growing system to be expanded upon because literal squares of dirt isn't enough and we can't plant any trees, decorative plants or bushes even, especially without the huge edges of the crop plots. But what would really be nice is for some dinos to recieve the abilities to interact with, improve and help assist with the farming itself. We can get better farming stuff but the dinos would help flesh the system out more and let it be more manageable without solely relying on the player or encouraging them to download a mod that does so like the S+ npc structures that tend to them and do other tasks automatically. Examples, including ways to make previously less used dinos even better. Phiomia/Dung Beetle - Fertilizer Partners, or Cooperation - The Dung Beetles in Ark eat poop, and we have dinos like the Oviraptor that can pick up eggs, and ones that auto gather, why not have Dung Beetles do the same? While Phiomias poop, Dung Beetles will automatically move to pick up any and start turning it into Fertilizer. They could even automatically deposit the fertilizer to plots in close proximity, although it's not needed, the automatic creation of Fertilizer could be enough. Parasaur - Fertilizer Deposit - Parasaurs don't get used for much in the game, which is a shame, I think a lot of old dinosaurs could stand to be given some needed TLC and complexity, just slapping a bleed, a pack buff and a model overhaul on it ain't cutting it (no matter how much Wildcard loves solving most of their outdated dino problems with it) the Parasaur however could be very useful in managing farming Plots. Because of its general disuse in combat, why not agriculture? It usually doesn't leave the base after you get stronger dinos, so this is perfect to continue being able to have a use for it. Parasaurs could automate the collection of and the depositing of resources used to grow the crops. Whether this could be future things and resources for farming we don't have yet in a reworked system, the same old Poop and Fertilizer, or even a range of types of Fertilizers made to be used for specific plants or uses (Rotten Meat, Chitin or Minerals, Clay, Leech Blood, etc) the Parasaur is the go between and go's from Survivor's First Lawnmower to Farmhand. Their main ability would be to collect finished Fertilizers from the inventory of Dung Beetles, enabling them to keep wandering without being weighed down. Then to place them in the Crop Plots nearby that need them the most. This could even give an initial grow bonus on your first plants so they don't take so long to mature. Sort of like a nanny buff but for plants. Iguanodon/Pegomastax - Seed Collector - Iguanodons don't get used for much beyond maybe mass producing certain seeds once in a blue moon, and Pegos are tamed even less often, even less intentionally, even when they have a gathering ability themselves for bushes. But Iganodons are the perfect option to help improve farms in a way that isn't noticed at first. Their seed-gathering abilities could be used to produce some new items over time, by wandering around crop plots, they will automatically gather the types of seeds of those plants, and those seeds could be used to craft things like Feed, a shelf stable food for herbivores that isn't as expensive as Kibble. Pegomastax could also do this, they have an auto gather function for bushes and could do this on a less effective scale, but as a bonus could provide autgathering from your Berry plants as well as small amounts of seeds in addition. Pachycephalosaurus/Pachyrhinosaurus/Triceratops - Ploughs and Harvesters - The bone heads of Ark are actually grossly underused, they have such outdated kits that I myself rarely use them, sadly, when there are so many other better options. The Pachy itself is a sad case of not enough uses for something of such a low tier already on the food chain, the same going for the Pachyrhinosaurus. The Trike even still suffers unless it can make use of every perk such as it's Rivalry buff, even if it's still a good option for starting out on a new map. There's no option to have to dig or till the ground for farming, since all of it is done in a plot, but if they ever added an option to plant directly in the ground in tilled earth, such as in Don't Starve where their character Wormwood can plant seeds directly in the ground and their Multi-player version that has an overhauled farming system that used to function actually much like Arks (pre-made Plots that only grow one thing and need care to maintain). There's no reason Ark can't expand its system, and more options for planting would be one of those, as well as Crop Plots that could be made from other materials in order to plant different things like Mushroom Wood for Mushrooms, Flowers and alien resources, or Adobe for Cactus, Silk plants or even Joshua Sap Trees, you could start with just being able to dig dirt to make planting locations in either rows or small mounds. Pachycephalosaurus and the other 2 horned dinos can be used for thise purpose, they could be some of the only dinos able to do it and the only way to do it without a tool for it. But also, they can even be used for 2 other contrasting options. They could harvest the plants while ploughing through them. Enabling you to quickly gather all your yields and haul them off. This would of course be much better with the bigger versions of these creatures, thus the reason to tame whichever one you prefer and give options for one's maybe not available. Every map has at least one of these dinosaurs. But the main point of these is that they would be actively used dinos, for auto harvesting you could put them in but it depends on if such a thing would ever be in the game as well as much of the other perks of dinos I've listed here. Giant Bees/Lymantria/Araneo and smaller dinos - Pollenation and Efficency Boosts - I long have loved building my greenhouses as large Glass Structures that can fully house not only my Plots and the other types of structures and Stations one might want near their Greenhouse but also to be able to hold multiple wandering insects from the dino roster, mainly Bee Queens (Still present in the world and not turned into a hive), Lymantria and sometimes Dung Beetles. There's a severe lack of small creatures like this sometimes i notice around the base and in general to be used in Ark. There's no reason for most creatures to wander xause one wrong wall clip can end up in a dead dino outside of your base (I've had this happen myself with frogs and I unfortunately had to put them on a still respite by their pond) But if there's one thing that's definitely nice to see and use these creatures for its to turn your Greenhouse into an Apiary full of creatures that make it seem so much more alive. Despite all the weird flora in Ark you can't decorate with giant mushrooms, flowers, bushes, or anything really. There's almost not semblance of decoration in the game, it's why mods like Eco's is so popular. That's why insects and other small dinos could be a way to serve various bonuses to having and maintaining a Greenhouse full of your creatures. Archaeopteryx - Periodically harvests Chitin from Plots (lore is that they eat insects naturally attracted to plants, like most would be) and is able to auto harvest Honey from Hives. Giant Bee - Increases efficiency of nearby Beehives and causes Beehives to improve crop yield of all nearby Crop Plots. These Plots can randomly grow 10-30x of their respective resource if the Bee Queen visits it. Lymantria (Moth) - Plants of the same type will cause each other to grow faster than usual, meaning up to 10 of a specific crop in the same area can grow up to 3x faster with a Lymantria nearby. Araneo (Spider) - Reduces the rate of Fertizlier Consumption by all nearby Plots by killing all the fictional bugs that would be attracted to plants and letting their corpses be used as natural compost. Compsagnathus - Nips weeds and pests in the bud, collecting their resources overtime depending on the plants (Rare flowers, Rare Mushrooms, Chitin, Turret Plant Species Seeds, Leech Blood) Microraptor - Auto Harvests and deposits Rare Flowers into Beehives as needed. Jerboa - Will automatically gather any crop and place the yield into a nearby beast of burden dino or trough. (Stegos, Maewings, Amargasaurus, Kentros, Mammoth) Achatina (Snail) - These snails will ensure that hydration is never an issue, protecting plants from drying out, and their Paste will also help give tiny increments of Fertilizer to the counts of the Crops it trails over. Dodo - Automatically Fertilizes crops in small amounts. Lystrosaurus - Increases the efficiency of all Berry Plants and causes you to gain bonus XP from doing farm chores. Arthropluera - Increases the efficiency of other Insects. - Other Mentions of Creatures who could play active and/or passive roles and be used for farming. Stego/Maewing/Amargasaurus/Kentros/Mammoth - These dinos could all be used as targets for auto harvesters to deposit the yields of resources into. Morellatops - Works as the Pipe and Tap system that can water crops, as long as it has a source nearby (Well, Tap, Natural Water) it can refill itself and deposit it to any thirsty plants. If you for some reason either have a grudge against Pipes or don't want them cluttering your Gardens, having one of these could be a new option. Casteroides (Beaver)/Mammoth - Could harvest grown trees if they were made a thing. Megaloceros (Deer)/Wooly Rhino - The same thing as the Mammoth and Beaver but for Thatch, maybe when harvesting Palm trees too it gives more? Gignatopithecus/Most Fiber Gatherers - Fiber gathered from crops automatically when Wandering. Therizinosaurus - Reaps the crops it harvests, destroying them but gathering all of their contents ans converting the plant to its natural resources (Aka - Wood and Thatch for Trees, Fiber for most plants, maybe Silk or Mushroom Wood depending on plant types) Kentro/Amargasaurus - The Equivalent of a huge Tractor, they can harvest mass quantities of crops at once without any Seeds. They are for active use only but are a huge benefit if you have a long field of crops and not enough time or weight on smaller haulers like the Trike. The Kentro could do this on a smaller scale if you don't have one but would harvest automatically on Wander. Moschops - The Moschops is able to scavenge in your garden for a variety of different resources, able to gather any miscellaneous resource you could possible gather from a plant based on the type over time when Wandering near them (Silk. Sap, Organic Polymer, Rare Mushroom, Fiber, etc.) Unicorn - Crops produce rare resources more often, and one crop may randomly grow a large quantity of it yield (very rare, just an idea but would be interesting if the Unicorn's magical nature could be utilized, if Liopluerodons can have mechanics like magic then so can these.)

Beishanlong was a relative of Deinocheirus from the Early Cretaceous of China. Now, what do Canadian geese have to do with this thing you wonder? Well, the idea for this critter is that it’s oddly extremely violent and can somehow scare away things much larger than it, like Yuty levels of fear. Now it doesn’t just cause fear and go on with its day, it is straight sadistic and will become stronger the more things it has caused fear, increasing its damage, attack speed and speed rates up to 50%. It hasn’t gained its reputation for nothing, it can combo its attacks in a chain format with kicks, claw swipes, tail whips and biting. With combos it can build up a combo bar which when it is full it will bring out a fury of attacks, matched with its fear abilities it certainly is no joke. Though combos are great to use, specifically its kicks are great, it can build up speed like a dire bear or rhino and launch a full force kick to a creature, causing insane knock-back and a “winded debuff” which heavily increases stamina drain and will automatically set the creatures stamina to 0. Though I also have ideas on how it can be good for PvE, it’s saddle has two baskets used for carrying water, this baskets can be used to irrigate crops far away from any water source, which can be refilled at a well or any source of water, including rain. It also has an additional basket for vegetables, berries, etc, it can be set onto an “auto-farm pick up” mode where it will pick up anything that’s grown in crop plots, and keeps them from spoiling for longer. Additionally if you want to keep pests away from your base, you can set up a perimeter around your base to mark its scent, this will keep away anything, but it will make enemy or wild Beishanlong’s angry, increasing their damage.

Since the new creature submission is for Scorched Earth, I thought it'd be nice to have a creature that fits a niche no other creature is even touching at the moment. The Theosodon spituli would be found in the mountains of the map, not in the heart of the desert, but would have its use pretty much anywhere there is little to no access to water. [larger version of the dossier here] (art not mine) Its proposed abilities : - a decent source of pelt, the nights in the desert can be cold. - solid early game pack mule (around the same level as a Parasaur for the saddle) - performant berry + seeds gatherer... when there aren't a lot of plants, get the best out of a harvest ! - if it spits on a flyer, this throws the rider off the saddle and stuns the flyer for 10 seconds (except for the Pelagornis, which as we all know doesn't dismount with water). On the other hand, the spit attack does little to no damage. This ability is geared towards PvP, where it sort of replaces using a bola on Pteras and such. But I'm no PvP player, so feel free to chime in ! - when set to turret mode, it will spit autonomously, which will water crops in range at the expense of its food levels. Make sure the Theosodon has a full trough nearby ! This makes the Theosodon a very useful creature for nomadic gameplay, since it replaces the installation of an actual irrigation system. Additionally, ride it to a river, lake or even water vein to gather large quantities of water in its inventory. As someone who wishes Ark had more tames fit for a nomadic lifestyle, especially early on, the Theosodon increases gameplay options, without being too game-breaking.