Search the Community

(Scroll down to the TL; DR if you don't like reading) Wild With all the corrupted hordes ceaselessly ravaging the wastelands, it's hard to think there would be a herbivore capable of surviving much less comfortably. Scutosaurus Perplexus stands out from its other contemporaries not because it appears to be some weird hybrid amalgamation of both scutosaurus and the turtle meiolania, but the fact that it quite literally tamed its environment. Scutosaurus is ignored by almost everything in the unforgiving wastes, and anything that dares attack is met with an onslaught of surounding corrupted creatures. This rather bizzare relationship with the corrupted creatures is the very reason it thrives, while its busy feeding and going about its daily activities, its corrupted-element husk sentinels stand watch and aggressively guard this unassuming creature seemingly against their will. Taming To tame Scutosaurus is quite the task, first you have to clear its defenses. Once you manage to kill the entirety of its corrupted entourage, you'll have to face the Scutosaurus itself. several corrupted tumors will reveal themselves on various parts of its body. Each node can only be broken with explosives, taking about 1 rocket or a few tek rifle bolts to break each. Be wary of its attacks, it will fire explosive spike-nodes from its tail that will suffocate and slow you and whatever tame you have. If you are within its melee range, it has a powerful stomp that sends out an immense shockwave throwing back its adversaries while leaving them stunned. If you manage to break its tumors while avoiding its attacks, you'll be met with a much milder mannered Scutosaurus that will happily consume anything you feed it (preferably veggie cakes). Domesticated For those who've managed to tame a Scutosaurus, you will gain access to its very bizarre method of creating temporary armies via mind control. While its combat prowess its nothing to scoff at itd rather take a more commanding or support role in large scale battles and using unsuspecting creatures to do it's bidding by fighting for it instead. The very spike-nodes that line its tail have another function of firing straight into and embedding themselves into the bodies of would-be minions. Corrupted and their normal counterparts are not immune to this, however the size limits of this ability seem to be Giganotosaurus. Once captured, some cracks along its armor and its eyes will glow a vibrant blue signaling its ability is active. the creatures under its control will only take commands if it's mounted by a survivor, where it will translate whistles into commands sent out by its two large transmitter horns. Creatures under its control are notably more formidable than their normal counterparts, corrupted especially as scutosaurus has the ability to push them past the limits of their physical prowess to the point of their husk bodies failing them. Coupled with its passive energy field that grants an extra layer of protection to any allies within a certain radius, abilities that control the flow of would-be attackers and making them easier to dispatch and heavy armor that can shrug off the mightiest of attacks you end up with a near invaluable mount for any large-scale battle. It's almost as if it was genetically engineered to to use the attacking hordes to fight the hordes, but without their human caretakers they became feral. Abilities Mind control: At any given time Scutosaurus can have 20 of its spike nodes deployed, each node represents 100 drag weight. So, you can have at most 20 creatures or as little as 2 creatures. the largest creatures you can control are Gigas and Rock elementals which would require 10 spike nodes each. You achieve mind control by locking on to said creature where Scutosaurus will fire the necessary number of nodes to gain control of it. This works on any creature regardless of level (except alpha creatures) and whether they're enemy tames or not and will last 30 minutes, afterwards the creatures die. Wild creatures (corrupted creatures included) gain perfect-tamed levels upon being controlled. Enemy tames that are captured do not gain any levels (for obvious reasons). Scutosaurus has a large area of influence around it (nearly the size of the default render distance), when wild and corrupted creatures that are under mind control venture outside this radius they die. Enemy tames that venture outside of this radius are freed from their control and become loyal to their tribe once again. The other method of freeing tames that are being controlled are either breaking the nodes with guns, explosives and melee weapons, damaging your creatures hp by %10 or waiting out the 30-minute timer. this will be followed by a cooldown where it cannot be controlled for an extended period of time. Once under control, creatures cannot have saddles equipped, be mounted, have inventories accessed or their radial wheels used. These creatures will inherit the temperament of the scutosaurus for example if the Scutosaurus is set to passive the creatures will be passive as well. (it glows when mind control is active) Explosive spike-nodes: The same nodes on its tail double as explosive that can be more precisely aimed. These nodes do medium amounts of damage and explode into clouds of poisonous gas that both slow down and suffocate anything unfortunate inside them with an oxygen stat. This can be used during OSDs to keep corrupted hordes at a distance. The poison works similar to that found in the swamp cave on the island and won't affect survivors with scuba gear or gas masks equipped. If survivors are lucky enough to land hits, these explosives do bonus damage to titan nodes. Shriek taunt Scutosaurus lets out a loud cry that causes an aggro effect on wild creatures causing them to target it while ignoring everything else. This ability has a longer cooldown so use wisely to devastating effect to pull hordes of creatures into the teeth and claws of allied tames. Mega-Stomp A large stomp that deals relatively small to medium amounts of damage that creates a shockwave throwing creatures back a considerable distance while leaving them with a 15 second stun. This attack does not dismount survivors from their tames. Use this attack in combination with others to be an efficient at crowd control. Vitality boost This passive boost at its base grants 2x stamina and health recovery to any allied creatures within the radius around scutosaurus, this also extends to any nearby crops where they also gain a 2x boost to their growth. This ability's effectiveness can be boosted by the number of creatures it has under control, once the maximum number of nodes are deployed (20), the ability grants 6x stamina and health recovery and +60 armor. Death rattle: This abilty only applies to mind controlled corrupted creatures and takes a significant portion of stamina to use. The scutosaurus violently rattles its armor creating and eerie metalic shaking noise. The spike-nodes embedded in the corrupted creatures bigin to smoke and theyre now put on a 5-minute death timer. During this timer they gain a 90% percent damage reduction and do %200 damage. Armor and damage reduction While not technically an ability, scutosaurus makes up for its lack of outright damage output for extremely durable natural armor, able to take large amount of punishment and shrug it off like nothing happened. At around a 70% overall damage reduction coupled with saddle armor, you can expect this guy to be in the thick of supporting your tames as they're fighting the titans. TL; DR -Scutosaurus is found out in the wasteland as a rare spawn, when you do find it has a group of random corrupted creatures guarding it. -To tame it, you need to kill these corrupted and clear the corruption nodes on its body while avoiding its attacks, then passive feed it. -when you tame it, you can use its mind control ability How does it do this? there's a bunch of spikes on its tail that you need to shoot into other creatures to create a psychic connection. this works on almost every creature up to giga sized (including corrupted creatures and other people tames). the bigger the creatures the more spike you need to shoot into them. - the mind control only lasts 30 minutes, afterwards the creatures die, and you need to tame more. _How do I free my creature if an enemy tribe mind controls it? you can either destroy the spikes attached to your creature. damage you creature's health by 10% Lure your creature away from the scuto so it's out of range. -After your creature is freed, there's a 30-minute cooldown where it can't be controlled again. -when you successfully mind control any WILD creature, they gain perfect tame levels. for example, you take control of a wild 150 giga it comes out 225. Alternatively, if you capture a level 450 corrupted reaper from a purple drop, it will come out at level 675.... yeah. -you can't do anything with these creatures other whistle them to fight things. -It has a special ability called the death rattle that puts mind controlled corrupted dinos on a 5-minute suicide Timer where they do stupid amounts of damage and gain increased damage reduction as if it has an ascendant saddle. after this timer is over, they die. -Scuto has a passive buff you can build up by controlling more creatures, at the maximum, which it 2000 drag weight worth of creatures all the allies near you gain increased hp and stam regen along with free +60 armor. -If you leave scutosaurus in your base, its passive buff makes your crops grow faster. -its other abilities include a roar that draws wild dino aggro towards it, explosive carpet-bombing spikes that release toxic fumes, and a stomp witha huge hitbox/AOE that stuns enemies for 15 secs. -He got real dummy thicc armor EXTRAS -When you capture a wild dino, they will still keep some of their abilities, like gigas keeping their bleed and corrupted creatures keeping their ability to damage any tier of structures. -Will scutosaurus break PVP? no, because you can't put saddles on the creatures you capture or cryo pod them so they're still sitting ducks. -How is scutosaurus useful in PVE? on extinction you can use the same corrupted creatures that you fight during osds to fight for you instead of going out and searching for tames that can do higher tier drops. If you already have tames, or you're with other people, the passive buffs can help you stay in the fight longer. -What can this guy harvest? scuto's main selling point is that you can temp tame creatures, however it has the abilty to harvest pretty much any natural resource while not being the best at any (with more of an affinity towards metal and stone with its stomp) -Does scuto have any other attacks? Its two generic melee attacks are a tail whip and a shoulder bash for things that get too close if you dont want to use the stomp. Why did i choose Scutosaurus? and why mind control? Scutosaurus is an animal that used to live in a wasteland during its own time period and would be right at home in extinction. The element corruption on earth has a hivemind, so why not have a creature that can create its own anti-Hivemind and steal corrupted creatures to fight for it instead. Theres only one creature in ark that does mind control and it's the noglin, and yuty can temp tame carnos so scutosaurus makes the best of both worlds in this regard. Think of it alot less of taking over a creature's mind and more it it puppeteering their body because the unfortunate creatures die shortly after. These abilties work for scuto because extinction is a science fiction map and my idea for scutosaurus is that mankind's last hope to fight the corruption was an engineered creature that could create troops as quickly as possible while also being able to survive the wasteland. However, without people around to tame them, they've gone feral.