Otter is a Game Changer - Ark Survival Evovled

The new otter in Ark Survival Evolved is a real game changer, for me at least.  This little critter has some interesting and a few unique abilities.  First there is the obvious, the otter gets fish, no big deal, it is super easy to get fish.  The second thing that it does is collect silica pearls from the fish it catches.  That’s very nice, but not huge there are oyster shells located in shallow water.  The third thing is that with every fish it catches, there is a chance to get a black pearl!  Black pearls are hard to get at nearly any survivor level.  It requires going into the deep ocean, and/or taking on some tough creatures in the water, which I hate because I usually end up dead.  The fourth thing that a tame otter will do for you is keep you warm in the mountains, ice caves and snow biomes.

Keeping you warm is an amazing thing.  Even with fur armor and a few points put into fortitude in the mountains of Ragnarok I usually end up freezing to death in a couple of minutes.  Now with the otter wrapped around my neck I can move about in the snowy areas and ice caves with no fear of freezing to death, although there are plenty of other things that want to kill me.

Be sure to put a nice helmet on your otter’s head, as the extra armor will keep it safer.  Otters have low HP to start out.  Then you can add a skin to its armor and make it even cuter, if that is possible.

How to Tame an Otter

Otters are a real help and they are easy to tame provided there is not a spino or some hostile creatures nearby.   The big problem with otters is, depending on the map, they can be rather rare.  Anyway, the otter is a passive tame.  Basically kill a fish, don’t harvest it, but drag its body over to a wild otter.  It might be hard to chase them down because they swim quickly and erratically.  The otter will take the fish, eat it.  Then you will have to repeat the process until it is tame.  After its tame you can pick the otter up and it will act like insulation from the cold.   You can also toss it off your shoulder to get it to capture fish meat, silica pearls and black pearls for you.  

Farming Otters?

I tried farming otters in Ark Survival Evolved, and what I mean by that is having a bunch of otters on wander in a beaver pond.  Some creatures like the moshcops and beavers will wander around and collect resources.  You can check on these guys every once and while and take what they have harvested.  I tried it with the otters hoping they would be gathering up silica pearls and black pearls, but they did not.  It would be kind of over powered if they were able to. 

Where to Find Beaver Dams on The Center Map: Ark Survival Evolved

If it is one thing that the Center Map has going for it in terms of resources, it is Beaver Dams.  There are plenty of places to raid the Castoroides dams for cementing paste, silica pearls, rare mushrooms, and of course, tons and tons of wood.  Of course, these are the places to find and tame beavers to do your own wood harvesting with. Castoroides are one of the best harvesters of wood in Ark Survival Evolved because the weight of wood is reduced while in a beaver's inventory.

Beaver Dam locations on the Center Map: Ark Survival Evolved

Beaver Dam Locations on Center Map

Redwood Biome
Lat     Lon

91.2   68.9

93.8   62.4

87.4   49.6

84.9   31.0

Floating Island
Lat    Lon
39.4   32.4

Center Swamp
Lat     Lon
42.8     49.6

39.4   70.5

41.5   64.5

28.9     62.8

South Center Island
Lat     Lon

52.5   63.1

52.5   66.3

50.8   66.7

56.7   62.2

North Center Island
Lat     Lon

29.5   62.7

28.6   57.4

Center-Center Island
Lat     Lon

39.4   70.5

41.5   64.5

28.9     62.8

More Center Map Dino and Resource Locations

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Ragnarok Where to Find Metal, Oil, Crystal and Obsidian

Ragnarok has some great features, and some great resources to harvest.  Here and in the accompanying video we look at the locations of the metal, crystal, oil, and obsidian resources on the Ragnarok Ark Survival Evolved Map.  The video and post cover most of the major deposits.  If you have a favorite spot I didn’t mention, put it in the comments.  I finally made a part 2 video as well that covers a few spots I missed in the first one.  It includes maybe the best spot for metal on the map.  That part of the map was not there when I made the first video.  

Huge metal deposits the Bone Islands.  The perfect place to set up a metal farm operation

Lat 14.9 Long 40.6

Huge crystal deposits in the Cursed Plains

                Lat 32.3 Long 56.1

Obsidian next to the crystal deposits above

                Lat 31.3 Long 55.1

Sulfur and Obsidian in the Volcano

                Lat 23.3 Long 62.7

Wyvern Trench (north end)
                Lat 21.2 Long 68.3

Little hidden crystal cave in Highland

                Lat 19.9 Long 78.1

Redwood base and metal

                Lat 41.1 Long 68.7

Highland Gardens – Savoroot and Rockarrot

                Lat 17 Long 77 (around this area)

Beached “Whales” oil, spoiled meat, keratin, hide

                Lat 15.3 Long 69.1 - The just added more Lat 14.6 Lon 75.6

Ice Cave – Huge oil deposits plus crystal and organic polymer

                Lat 30.4 Long 33.1

East shore metal

               Lat 46.8 Long 27.4

Central Canyon metal

                Lat 40.2 Long 42.6

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Soups and Stew Recipes in Ark Survival Evolved

Ark Survival Evolved has several useful soups, stews, and other recipes that are very useful in the game whether you are playing PVE or PVP.  They can be used in combination with one another, although some of the effects will cancel each other out.  For crafting purposes, the recipes all have two things in common they all require water and must be crafted in a cooking pot or industrial cooker.  You don’t need to learn engrams for any of these or find the recipes. Just put the right ingredients in the cooker, automatically make the stew, etc.

They all spoil within 5hours in your inventory, but their shelf life can be greatly extended in the preserving bin and refrigerator.  Their effects last 15 minutes (900 seconds), except for Lazarus Chowder, which lasts only 10 minutes (600 seconds).

Calien Soup – great for hot areas

+50 Hypothermic Insulation

-25% Water consumption

 Calien Soup Recipe

1 Water

10 Mejoberries

20 Tintoberries

20 Amarberries

5 Citronal

2 Stimulant

Enduro Stew

+35% Melee Damage

+1.2% Health per Second

Enduro Stew Recipe

1 Water

10 Mejoberries

5 Rockarrot

5 Savoroot

2 Stimulant

9 Cooked Meat

Focal Chili

+25% Movement Speed

+100% Crafting Speed

Focal Chili Recipe

1 Water

10 Mejoberries

20 Amarberries

20 Azulberries

20 Tintoberries

5 Citronal

9 Cooked Meat

Fria Curry – great for cold areas

+50 Hypothermic Insulation

-25 Food Consumption

Fria Curry Recipe

1 Water

10 Mejoberries

20 Azulberries

5 Longrass

2 Narcotic

Lazarus Chowder – great for swimming

-85% Oxygen Consumption Underwater

+1.2% Stamina Per Second

Lazarus Chowder Recipe

1 Water

10 Mejoberries

5 Longrass

5 Savoroot

2 Narcotic

9 Cooked Meat

Massive Flyer Nerf: Ark Survival Evolved

The flyer nerf for the new patch for Ark Survival Evolved is upon us!  There was much speculation in the community as to just how the nerf would affect flyers.  Many thought it might be damage models, stamina, speed, platform saddles, and pretty much every other aspect of the Pteranodon, Tapejara, Quetzal, Argentavis, and Wyvern.  However, the nerf seems to affect speed the most.  On vanilla servers, and single player games with regular settings, speed is capped as follows

100%

Argentavis
Wyvern
Lymantria

136.5%

Pteranodon
Tapejara
Quetzal
Pelagornis

The speed caps make these flyers painfully slow in Ark if you buffed the speed of your tames.  I flew around much of the center map on my newly nerfed Argentavis and it took forever.  The flight speed was very slow and I had to make frequent stops to regain stamina.  I even had to stop to get extra food for the Argie.  I have the dino food drain set high to increase taming speed, so it burned through hundreds of raw meat to make it around the map.  I’ve never had that problem before. 

Stamina of all the flyers really suck Another problem I noticed is the Quetzal

This nerf really sucks and its going to make me rethink how I play my single player PvE game, and maybe that’s not a bad thing.  I think I might be better off have a number of small base throughout the island to keep land based dinos like the new Iguanodon.  I was planning on doing that anyway, but now I am going to forced to do it very soon.   At those bases I can make taming pens and keep a Quetzal, which are really, really slow now. 

What do you guys think, how is it going to change your gameplay?

Simple Bed, Bunk Bed and Sleeping Bag in Ark Survival Evovled

One thing you can't live without in Ark Survival Evolved is a fixed spawn point.  For one of those you need a hide sleeping bag, simple bed, or bunk bed.  Without they you will have to spawn in a random location of a region, which could be far from you resources and very close to danger, which is something you definitely don't want when you have weapons and armor.  All of these items can be named so they are easy to identify on the respawn screen.

In addition to using beds as spawn points you can use them to fast travel to any point on the map where you have another bed.  The main drawback of this is that you have to take off all your armor and deposit your entire inventory before you travel, so you had better have a spare set of weapons and armor waiting for you by the other bed.   

Hide Sleeping Bag

This is simple to craft and the engram is available to learn at level 5.  The main problem with them is they only work once.  However you can put them down anywhere there are no obstructions.  They are great on an adventure to a dangerous cave or near an enemy base when your tribe is going on a raid.  

25 - hide

15 - fiber

Simple Bed

This is the best of the three for general use.  It must be placed on a foundation and has a cool down time so if you die shortly after respawning you won't be able to use it for awhile.  That problem is easily solved by putting down multiple beds.  The nice thing is you can place them right on top of one another. 

15 - wood

80 - thatch

30 - fiber

40 - hide

Simple Bed

Bunk Bed

Bunk Beds look really cool, but they are super expensive to craft for what you get out of them.  Their only advantage over the simple bed is they have half the cool down time.  It is much cheaper to craft multiple simple beds and place them all in the same spot, save your 320 metal ingots for something important.   

80 - polymer

200 - pelt, wool, or hair

320 - metal ingot

280 - fiber

120 - hide

Bunk Bed

Note: since publishing this post the devs have introduced the Ark Canoe, which can also be used as a spawn point/

Instant Tame Cheat Code - Console Command for Ark Survival Evovled

Sometimes you just want to tame something to test it out in Ark Survival Evolved, or perhaps to help control wild dino spawn, whatever the reason there are a couple of console commands that you can use to make it happen.

forcetame

The first is forcetame you type this in while you are looking at the wild creature and boom you have a tame dino.   The new tame will wander around a few seconds and then stop.  The dino will gain extra levels via 100% taming effectiveness.  There will be no sound or naming screen when the tame works.  It can be hard to move from console to game screen on a moving target, so be careful of using this command with dangerous creatures.  

dotame

If you want the regular taming experience where you get the naming option extra then you can use the dotame command.

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Ark Survival Evolved Single Player Settings

When you are first starting out in Ark Survival Evolved single player you have a number of options with sliders in which to choose from. The first thing you need to do when looking at all these options is to ask yourself how much time you are going to put into this game.  Ark, like most survival games, can be very grindy.  It can take forever to gather resources and level up your character.  You can put hundreds of hours into the game and not reach max level on single player on standard settings.  If you are going to be a casual player you are going to want to be liberal with the settings.  For most settings you the slider or type in a higher number.

My preferred Ark Single Player Settings

Under General Tab

Difficulty:  1

XP multiplier: 2

Taming Speed: 5

Harvest Amount: 3

Water Drain: 0.5

Show Player Map Location (check box)

Under Advanced Tab

Allow Cave Building  (check box)

Allow Cave Flyer  (check box)

Non-permanent Diseases  (check box)

Egg Laying Interval:  0.25

Egg Hatching Speed: 3 to 6

Resource Respawn Interval: 0.25

Night Time Speed: 3.0

Crop Growth Speed: 4 to 6

Tamed Dino Stats

- Stamina: 3

- Weight: 3

Player Stats Per Level

- Stamina: 3

- Weight: 3

Show Floating Text Damage (check box)

The trick is to not be too liberal, or you will end up making the game boring.  Luckily all these settings can be changed each time you load the game!  The only things that will really last is the XP multiplier and the difficulty level you set.  The difficultly level determines what max level the dions spawn in as, so if you had a low setting when you first launch and later change it to a higher difficulty all the original low-level dinos will still be there, but over time higher level dinos will spawn in.  You can kill off all the wild creatures using the destroywilddinos command to make the change to lower or high-level dinos in a matter of minutes. 

In the accompanying video, I explain my favorite settings on the first page on PC, which is very similar to console.  At a later date, I think I’ll do a video on the other tabs. 

What are your favorite Ark Survival Evolved single player settings?  Leave a comment!

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Baryonyx Taming in Ark Survival Evolved

In my quest to add to my egg production at the farm I went out looking for some of the newer dinos to add to my collection and the first one I found was the Baryonyx.  The Baryonyx are mostly aquatic creatures like the Sarco and the Kaprosuchus in Ark Survival Evolved.  I found about five Baryonyx spread out along the northern river of the Center Map.

I wasn’t looking for a high level one to start out with, I just wanted them for the eggs, but I eventually found a respectable level 90 and decided to try it out. I found them to me much like carnos, which are my favorite land dinos.  They aren’t extremely powerful, but they are easy to maneuver, and better in the water.  However I wouldn’t use them specifically for the water because they are very slow.  Unlike carnos they can also jump, which can come in handy when you need to escape in a hurry.  I recommend you give them a try.

How to tame a Baryonyx?

 You can tame a Baryonyx from thee the ground.  Try to get to a cliff or tall rock where the creature can’t leap up and get you.  Then simply rain tranq arrows or darts down on it.   Unfortunately, it will eventually try and run away, so you’ll likely have to pursue it on foot.  In the video I grabbed mine and dropped them in a taming pen. 

To tame the  Baryonyx you will need to feed it Pachyrhinosaurus kibble, raw prime fish meat, or fish meat.  Tame or wild they will not eat regular raw meats. 

Spawn Dino Cheat Codes/Console Command for Ark Survival Evovled

Say that in your Ark Survival Evolved single player game you want to play around with the new dinos, but you can’t find them, or you want to see just want to have an island populated with 300 T-Rexes, there is a console command you can use to make that happen. 

To bring up the console on PC use the tab key.  On Xbox and PS4 you get the option for admin commands in the pause menu. 

The first command spawns in a random dino based on your difficulty setting, so if it is set to 3 on the center map, the highest a dino will spawn in is 150, and on the island map it would be 120.  With the following command you will get completely random stats and sex of the dino. We’ll use Carbonemys as an example look in the Ark Wiki for individual creature spawn codes:

summon Turtle_Character_BP_C

If you want to get more specific about the level of the creature and the location of a spawn you can use a much longer console command:

SpawnDino "Blueprint'/Game/PrimalEarth/Dinos/Turtle/Turtle_Character_BP.Turtle_Character_BP'" 500 0 0 35

The last numbers are the important part of the code.  In the above example the 500 refers to the distance that the creature will spawn from you.  500 is only a couple of foundations distant from you, so this is a very dangerous thing to be doing if you are spawning in a highly aggressive dino like a Giga. 

The next two numbers 0 0 are not as important have to do with the location of the spawn.  When using this cheat code the creature will spawn in the direction you are looking, so if you are looking straight up they will spawn in the air and if you’re looking down they will be glitched into the ground, and maybe fall through the map.

The last number is the one you really want to know (35), and that is the level it is going to spawn in as.  I don’t know what the level cap is, I have used up to level 100000 to test it out in a cave where too many dinos were spawning and causing fps issues.  In order to tame a wild animal with an extremely high level you will need some mods, or another cheat code forcetame.  When you enter the forcetame code anything you are looking at will instantly become tamed.  They won’t stop instantly like a normal tame, but they will wander for 5-10 seconds before coming to a stop. 

These codes will allow you to spawn in any dino you want, even those that aren't available for a specific map like mantis on the Island Map, or Dire Bears in Ark Scorched Earth.  I haven't tested it by the forcetame cheat is said to only work for a limited time on some of the high-end creatures like the titianasaur.  These cheats and the give item cheat are probably the most useful console commands for the game. 

How to Craft Grenades In Ark Survival Evolved Game

Grenades can be fun in Ark Survival Evolved and the Ark Scorched Earth dlc.  If you don’t think you’ll ever need them in PVE you are probably right, and may never want to bother with learning any of the engrams.  Luckily, you’ll probably find a few grenades in the supply beacons or perhaps dropped by an alpha dino.  That way you’ll still get to play with them, but for those, you want to destroy their enemies be dinos or players here is what you are going to need to craft them

Grenade

A simple hand grenade you toss at your target and explodes after a delay.  It’s probably the best grenade in the game, but of very limited use in PVE.  I’ve seen some people tear it up with these grenades in Ark Survival of the fittest.  Simple and easy to craft you’re going to need to craft it in a smithy and these resources:

•  15- fiber
• 20 – stone
• 30 – gunpowder
• 5 – hide
• 2 – metal ingot
• 4 – oil

Cluster Grenade

Throw the cluster grenade and it explodes sending out six small grenades over a wide area.  I played around with a few of these I got from supply drops in Scorched Earth.  They are pretty ineffective and I would not bother learning the engram, perhaps they are better in PVP.  In Scorched Earth I have found both half a dozen cluster grenades and blueprints in supply beacons.  To craft one of these guys is pretty darn expensive and your going to need to do it in a fabricator, and because it requires propellant you’re also going to need a chemistry bench, so this is high-level stuff.

• 50 – gunpowder
• 10 – crystal
• 20 – cementing paste
• 15 – metal ingot
• 10 – polymer
• 20 – propellant

What do the Dino Commands Mean? Ark Survival Evolved

When you’re first starting out in Ark Survival Evolved you may not know exactly what all the commands mean.  Here is a handy guide to help you out.

Passive

-          Tamed creature will not attack no matter what.  If a dino is set to passive and attacked it will die!  This setting is most often used when taming aggressive creatures, so they will not attack your potential tame and kill it or reduce taming effectiveness. 

Neutral

-          Tamed creatures will not attack anything unless they, or you are attacked.  This is a good setting when leaving your dinos unattended, they will defend themselves and your other nearby tame dinos and structures.

Aggressive

-          Tamed creatures will attack everything that is nearby.

Attack This Target

-          Look at the animal or player you want to attack and select Attack This Target that target will then be marked with a red beam.  Your nearby tame dinos will all attack the target until it, or they are dead.  Use this command when you don’t want to enter the fray. 

Attack My Target

-          This command is a great one to use when roaming about the Ark.  Your nearby tamed animals will attack whatever you are attacking.  This only works over a relatively short range.  If you are shooting something with a ranged weapon your dinos will stand around doing nothing until it gets within range. 

Terror Birds Taming and Using in Ark Survival Evolved

Terror Birds are flightless predatory birds with huge heads and an appetite to match in Ark Survival Evolved.  Terror Birds by themselves are not too dangerous to the advanced player in Ark, but they can be a real menace in groups, which is usually the way that you find them.  Terror Birds are a lot like raptors.  They have similar base stats, and attack with speed, this can make them a real problem when there are three or four of them.  I have a fear of Terror Birds in game, and I can’t imagine what it might be like to meet a real one.  This is one species I am thankful is extinct. 

On my island in the Center map a group of four or so Terror Birds spawns in now and again and it is interesting to watch the AI at work.  Within a half-hour or so they are all dead because they take on something that is too big for them to handle.  Most of the predators in Ark Survival with the Dilos seem to last longer than even high-level Terror Birds.  I guess Terror Birds have an even more aggressive or perhaps dumber AI. 

Terror Birds don’t have very good weight, but they can run and attack fast, which can make them somewhat useful.  They have one distinct advantage over Raptors, and that is the ability to flap their tiny wings and slow the decent from any high point, so you don’t have to worry about fall damage.  Other than that, the creatures are pretty much a horse apiece

Easy Way to Train a Terror Bird

In the accompanying video, I tame a level 150 Terror Bird.  It was an ugly creature I picked up with my Argentavis and prepared to kill, but I saw it was a level 150 so I carried it over to my T-Rex Taming pen, and eventually, I got around to trapping it with a bola, and shooting it with tranq darts.  Even on foot in the wild, it is easy to take down a Terror Bird with a bola.  Then it is just a matter of knocking it out, a low-level one will go down easy with your fists for anything else tranq arrows or darts will work just fine. 

Terror Birds taking out a T-Rex in Ark Survival Evolved. 

The Terror Birds preferred kibble is Gallimimus Egg and is made with Savoroot and regular cooked meat jerky with the always required water, fiber, and mejoberries.  It is always worth making kibble if you have the eggs on a high-level dino because it greatly shortens the taming time and increases taming effectiveness.  If you don’t have the Galli kibble then prime meat is the next best thing. 

The level 150 male I tamed joined a high-level female I already had.  This mate-boosted pair made quick work of everything on my little home island, even a level 115 T-rex.  Like most of the creatures in Ark Survival Evolved, Terror Birds are fun to have around, but you will find there are lots of other dinos with better utility.  

T-Rex Taming Pen Video

Diplocaulus an Early Friend in Ark Survival Evolved

One of the dinos recently released in Ark Survival Evolved is the Diplocaulus, which is an amphibian and not a dino.  This creature is of limited use to the high-level player who has learned to craft scuba gear, but for a player that has not reached a high enough layer to craft scuba gear, or wants to keep it primitive, the Diplocaulus is a great friend.  The reason it is great, it is a good swimmer, does not require a saddle and most importantly you can use it like a living oxygen tank.  It will allow you to dive deep to harvest oil nodes, silica pearls and other resources, without having to worry about running out of oxygen.  There is a limit to the oxygen of the Diplocaulus and so eventually you and your tame can suffocate and drown.

 

The Diplocaulus resembles a giant newt and lives in the swamps of the Island and Center maps.  This is the biggest problem for a low-level player, because the swamps are probably the most dangerous place next to caves.  Expect to encounter: Sarcosuchus, Kaprosuchus, mega-piranha, leeches, Titian Boas, and clouds of Meganeura. Not to mention there are plenty of friendly creatures that will also kill you if your swings or shots go astray.  If you are going to be chasing the Diplocaulus it would be a good idea to bring friends, whether they are tribe members, or tames.  It is said that you can use the bola to stop them in their tracks, but I have not tested this.

I tamed my Diplocaulus by picking it up with a Quetzal and dropping it into a taming pen.  This option seems easy, but on my second attempt I was attacked by a Kaprosuchus, nocked of the Quetzal and died in the swamp. 

Since my Ark survivor is a high level one, and I have learned the scuba gear engrams, I really don’t have much use for the Diplocaulus, so it will just be another tamed creature in my collection.  It would be a little different if these giant newts were great fighters, but they are not. 

Solo Taming a High Level Giga! Giganotosaurus on Ark Survival Evolved

I ran across a level 140 female giga while traveling across the center map of Ark Survival Evolved.  Now I never really had the intention of solo taming a giga, but suddenly seeing such a high level giga in an area where I might be able to trap it, made me think I could do it solo.  A 140 giga might be fun to have, and since it was a female I might get an egg or two for making kibble. 

Giga Tame Preparation

Looking at the taming calculator I could see it was going to take hundreds of tranq darts to bring the beast down, and then thousands of narcotic to keep it under while I fed it.  In addition to the darts and the narcotic I was going to need to make a metal behemoth gate to trap the sucker in the canyons and ruins of the center map.  In order to cover my butt and not run out of materials I made a lot of extra materials

750 tranq darts (2,250 narcotic, 4,500 metal 4,500 gunpowder)

 6 rifles

900 additional narcotic (if taming rates were set to defult I would have needed about 3,000 to be safe)

12 Quetz kibble

I think I only ended up using about 400 darts and it took about 25 minutes to bring down.  I started with my apprentice longneck rifle, and broke that, and nearly broke my ramshackle longneck rifle.

 Torpor of Gigas drops like a stone, and it will wake up in a matter of minutes if you don’t feed it a nearly constant stream of narcotics.  After spending hours prepping for the giga tame,  felt like it was reasonable to crank up the taming multiplier and avoid the four plus hours it was going to take to tame, not to mention the thousands of narcotic.  So with the taming rate on super speed I tamed it in four feedings of Quetz kibble. 

Giga Results

Playing PVE and in single player in Ark Survival Evovled I found the giga fun for a short time.  It can pretty much one hit 2/3 of dinos and bring the others down with 2-10 hits.  I think I’m going to use the giga for killing alpha dinos and getting some good items from them (hopefully).  I’ll probably park the giga on half burnt island and take it for a spin now and then.  I don’t need it back at base.  If it got agroed by a dilo it would probably destroy the place trying to kill it.  Would I solo tame a giga again, sure why not, it’s worth it  for the challenge. 

Electrical Generator, Lights and Refrigerator Crafting In Ark Survival Evolved

Today in Ark Survival Evolved we craft an electrical generator and a refrigerator and lights to go with it to organize and light the barn at night.  We also take our now dead Ichthy out for its finial swim, poor guy. 

To craft an electrical generator is actually not that expensive.  You will need:

25 Metal Ingot
10 Electronics

In order to get power to your equipment you will need electric cables and an outlet.  The outlet has a pretty generous range.  Just place a light or whatever within that range, and it automatically send out a cord to power it.  The generator runs on gas, but seems to sip fuel, at least in single player.  On a server it will have to use gas even while you are not there if you want to keep your refrigerators running.   The lighting I put in really lights up the barn, compared to standing torches, which look cool, but require a lot of maintenance. 

Electrical generator: Ark Survival

The second part of the video shows my cool Ichthyisoraus and its untimely death after being swarmed by angler fish and other nasties.  And that is all I want to say about that.   In the next episode I put together an underwater army of megladons and Ichthies. 

My Poor Ichthy: Ark Survival Evolved

What is Harvest Health and How to Harvest More Resources in Ark Survival Evolved

While looking at the various game settings in Ark Survival Evolved single player I noticed something called harvest health and that it could be set from 0 to 3.  I wasn't sure what it was, but I figured it out.  I had looked on the internet, and mostly what I found was people saying it didn't do anything, but it was probably a bug they would fix. 

How to Get more Resources Faster Single Player Settings

Harvest amount - 3
Harvest Health - 0
Resource Respawn Period - 0

I still haven't found on oficial definitioin, but my experiments showed that the higher the health the longer it takes for a specific resource to be harvested.  If you want to have less effort to collect resouces set harvest health to a low setting.  One is the defult setting and I tested it out hitting palm trees with a primitive metal hatchet.  It took about 7 hits with a hatchet to bring down a tree and I was harvesting somewhere around 20 wood.  With harvest health set to zero and harvest amount set to 3 it only took one hit and I got around 200 wood!  That is a real time saver.  It only takes one hit to harvest metal, rock, wood, thatch etc.  It also increases the amount of hide, meat, chitin, silk, etc. from corpses. 

Kill All the Dinos in Ark Suvival Evolved - Single Player?

In the single player Ark Survival Evolved, on PC, I had a situation where hundreds and hundreds of Titian Boas, spiders, and centipedes were pouring out of the cave, so it is time to do a dino wipe.  All these creatures caused severe lag and low fps (about 5), and the game sometimes crashed.  The only real solution was to use the "destroywilddinos" command. The game froze for a few minutes as it had to spawn in all new dinos, but this command did work and killed everything on the entire map.  Finally, I can go into the area of the cave and not have crazy fps.

Reasons to destroy wild dinos
1) Lag and low fps because there are too many wild dinos in an area
2) There was an update with dino species and you want them to spawn in quickly
3) You've got something very dangerous like a giga near your base and you need a safe way to get rid of it. 

Before you try to kill everything I recommend backing up your game just in case something goes wrong.  You also don't want to be in the middle of taming something. To enter the command in single player

How to Kill all the Dinos I Ark Survival Evolved single player

1) Hit the tab key to bring up the console

2) Type enablecheats then hit enter

3) Hit the tab key to bring up the console again

4) Type destroywilddinos and hit enter

On Xbox and Playstation

PlayStation L1 + R1 + Square + Triangle (hit the buttons at the same time)

Xbox LB + RB + X + Y (hit the buttons at the same time)

The game could lag very badly, or freeze for a few minutes like it did on my PC.  Then all the creatures should be brand new. 

I have this same problem, but with fish, near our base on the Xbox one version, and will have to give it a try.   

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