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Ark, The Island, Ascended. Walk through for first time players. All systems. This updated version of the game is designed around the Unreal 5 Graphic Engine. As such, the map is going to contain some of the most realistic terrain ever seen in a video game. Mechanics such as interaction with the foliage, interaction with the water, and leaving footprints in the mud, add to the immersion of the virtual reality of this game. Baby dinos are now found in the wild. They can be claimed if something has happened to their parents. As this version of the game is very demanding on your graphic card, you will need to customize your settings, even on a top end 4090 graphic card, X-Box X, or Playstation 5. Don’t even think of trying to play this game in 4K on a console, it will look like crap with slideshow frame rates. Play it on 1080P for the best performance. Turn off motion blur, bloom, and light shafts. Reduce shadows to a lower setting as shadows are a resource hog. Don’t even attempt to play this game installed on a hard drive. Your graphic card needs at least 12G of ram if you want to avoid stuttering on high graphic settings. Even on the lower settings on an 8G graphic card, this version looks so much better then ASE ever did. Start a single player game in the Easy mode to get familiar with how the game mechanics work using your, keyboard, mouse, or game controller. Otherwise, you are going to be constantly killed on the toxic public servers which run on hard setting while trying to figure how things work while playing or looking for a place where you can even place a bed. Very important, the game does not pause while you are looking into your inventory leaving you vulnerable to a surprise attack by everything that wants you dead. In single player mode, the game is frozen when you hit the Esc key or sign out for the day. In on line mode, the game keeps running 24-7 where your character can be killed by predators or other players and all of your hard work destroyed. Note, the tide key opens the console commands. You can remap Tab for inventory if you are used to that in other games. All first time players will have a chance to modify their game character as they wish. ASA has a very detailed character creation mode that allows you to recreate real looking individuals, or the usual freaks players created in ASE. Save your character setting before starting the game. Regardless of how they are modified, all characters start with the same stats in the game. Basic Game Play Mechanics. Constantly running will make you tired as well as use up food and water faster. Extreme cold, heat, starvation, or dehydration will eventually kill you. If you spawn near a predator, run! Note that creature path finding has been vastly improved. They will eventually find a way to get to you if you can’t get away from them or kill them. You may be able to hide behind something or run by some herbivore, which they may take an interest in, allowing you to escape. In multiplayer games, you only need to be able to run faster then your friends. Since speed can no longer be upgraded, try not to be overburdened with carrying too much stuff as the more you are carrying, the slower you will move. Should you get killed, you will be reborn losing everything but your crafting skills. You have 15 minutes to reclaim your stuff from your dead body or bag if you were eaten. A Death Marker will appear in your field of view with a location direction and distance range in meters. No other players can see this but they can still loot your stuff if they happen to find your dead body or bag. Start playing your first single player game on “The Island” in South Zone One or South Zone Two. Stay away from South Zone Three for now, it’s tends to have packs of raptors close by. Note, the location no longer looks the same as in version ASE 1. Find a stone on the beach, then pick up palm fronds laying on the beach for wood and thatch. If none are available, go punch a tree to get 1 wood and 10 thatch. 2. Go into crafting and craft the pick. Place it in hot bar 1. 3. Go hit one of those boulder with the pick to get flint. Use the pick on a tree to get more wood and thatch. Pick some bushes to get some berries and fiber. 4. As you will have leveled up by now, apply the level to health or weight. Select the hatchet and spears from the Engrams List and craft a hatchet. Place it in hot bar 2. A hatchet gathers mostly stone, wood, and hide, The pick gets mostly flint, thatch, or raw meat. 5. Craft at least three spears and place them in hot bar 3. Spears are good for defense against the spitters and compys. As spitters will flare their hood before spitting on you, jump to the side to dodge the blinding spit. If you are attacked by a compy gang, go backwards to keep them in front of you aiming the spear low to kill them all. Left mouse stabs with the spear, right mouse can be used to throw one. Walk over a spear to recover it. Note that spears can break without warning. 6. Place mejoberries in hot bar 0. Why? To prevent more important items being stolen from you by the Pegomastax which will sneak up and steal things from you. Stolen berries may passive tame it. 7. Craft a torch and place it in hot bar 6. You can still pick up stones and harvest bushes while carrying a torch for it’s light and keeping warm. If you place a torch on your belt, you can use most other tools such as a pick or hatchet. 8. Go kill some Dodos for their meat and hide. Don’t attack any babies as their parents, even a Dodo, will attack you to protect them. One side note is that babies will give you prime meat, which is the favorite taming food for most predators. Eat berries for food but save the Narcos for taming as they will put you to sleep. Likewise, the Stimms will give you energy and counteract poisonous bites but make you very thirsty. Save the purple ones for taming herbivores. 9. At the next level up, get the campfire, shirt and pants. Craft the clothes and put them on. Find a sheltered spot where your back is protected from surprise attacks and place the campfire down. Place some wood or thatch in it for fuel, raw meat to create cooked meat and light the fire. Use the fire and or torch to stay warm when it gets cold. 10. A Waterskin will store water for your use when you are away from a water source, but they will leak. You can refill them by standing in the water and press the use item key, or place in the hot bar and press that number. They can also be refilled when it rains. Save the hide for more important crafting items for now such as a bed or bolas. 11. As it is likely getting dark by now, use the torch for light and warmth as you go about gathering more materials for a shelter. You should have a level up soon to get thatch foundation and walls. A shelter will give you additional protection from the heat or cold. Plan on staying put during the night as you could easily walk off of a cliff or get ambushed by a predator hiding in the darkness. The building mechanics in ASA are so much improved over ASE. Foundations can be lowered into the ground or on a raft. The annoying grass will vanish after placing down a foundation. If a foundation won’t place, check to see if a harvestable rock or other item is blocking that placement. Walls, ceilings, and roofs now have selectable types prior to placement. They are also 50% higher so you won’t need to double stack them. An intelligent snapping process makes it easier to place items in a structure. Small boxes can even be stacked on top of each other. Best of all, you can pick them up at a later time. In addition, anything place above on what you pick up with no other support will also get picked up instead of being destroyed. 12. On Level 4, get the slingshot for your first ranged weapon. On Level 5, the storage box. Place extra items in it so you are not being overburdened by their weight. 13. Get a sleeping bag but don't craft it for now. Save the hide to craft the Simple Bed which you will place on a foundation. This will give you a fixed place to be reborn if your character gets killed. Sleeping bags are a portable one time use item. They will show up in supply drops soon enough. At 10 pounds each, you will soon have more of them then you can carry, so, place the extra ones in storage. 14. Supply drops may give you useful or higher quality items. Access them if you are of a high enough level and can safely do so. 15. There are going to be many more items available for crafting then you will ever have engram points for. Spend them on items that are most useful. At this stage of the game, mortise and pestle, narcotics, standing torch, bow and arrow, bola, tranc arrows, and the raft are top priority. The Bola is most useful for stopping an attacking raptor or for immobilizing a creature from a Parasaur size and smaller to kill or tame. Don’t learn any saddles until you are ready to tame the creature that needs it. You may luck out getting a higher quality one from a supply drop. 16. A raft will allow for fast transport to store and gather resources. You can place structures on them and ferry your tames with you to a safer location. Just watch out for swimming sarcos, which can attack your tames on the raft, alpha sharks, or Leeds, a giant fish living in the deeper oceans that will attack your raft to destroy it and everything placed on it. 17. Your first tames can be some dodos for an egg farm, spitters that you knock out with the slingshot and use as guard dogs, and a parasaur for transport and berry harvesting. Get low level ones for now, they are easier to tame. If you can find a Moschop that ask you to feed them something easy, such as a type of berry, passive tame it by placing that food in slot 0 and feeding it when prompted. It is good at gathering berries, thatch, fiber, wood, even raw meat. It’s right click harvesting mode will get you an insane amount of resources. It doesn’t need a saddle. Your first flying tame should be a Pteradon. Wait until you can craft a saddle for one before attempting a tame. Note, you may have to change dino food consumption to 1 if it’s set at 0.25 in the Easy Mode or it will take forever to tame a passive or knockout tame. To claim a babies or juveniles, something has to have either killed their parent or you can tame the parent. Run up to one as it is running away and claim it. Be sure to keep food in it’s inventory or it will quickly starve to death. Argys can carry large baby dinos to a safer location such as a baby T-Rex. 18. Explorer Notes are a good way to quickly level up your character and your tame. Wait until you have a tame, such as a Pteradon, before opening them. You will both get the experience when you use your tame to activate one. You will get double, even quadruple the bonus, if you activate an additional Explorer Notes while the XP timer is running. The timer will stack as well. You are now well on your way to becoming a survivor of the Ark. Play cautiously, be aware of your surroundings, and watch your six. And, as always, be prepare for the unexpected.