The Refining Forge and Industrial Forge in Ark Survival Evolved

Refining Forge

You won't get far in Ark Survival Evolved without a refining forge.  The humble refining forge is needed to convert raw metal and scrap metal into metal ingots, so you can craft useful items.  It is also needed to make gasoline. The refining forges are small and don't take many resources, and no rare ones. Industrial forges are bigger in every way.

Resources to Craft A Refining Forge

• 125 stone
• 5 flint
• 65 hide
• 20 wood or fungal wood
• 40 fiber

If you have a large tribe or just big ambitions then you need a lot of metal made into metal ingots.  So you either need a lot of refining forge or one gigantic industrial forge.  In Ark, the industrial forge runs on gasoline only.  It processes raw metal into ingots in batches and with amazing speed compared to the refining forge.  The industrial forge will make gasoline just like a small one, and so, makes its own fuel. It will also burn wood into charcoal, which is very handy if you require large quantities of gunpowder for your Ark adventures.  

Resources to Craft an Industrial Forge

• 2500 metal ingots
• 250 crystal
• 600 cementing paste, or achatina paste
• 400 oil
• 400 polymer, organic polymer, or corrupted nodule

Level 80 survivor

gasoline for fuel

While the Industrial Forge is expensive and huge, you will get a lot more out of it, than the more expensive Industrial Grinder.  Even though I am a solo player, late in the game I will build an industrial forge, rather than operate 3-5 refining forges.  It makes even more sense in single player since your metal won't be refining into ingots when offline.  

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. 

Bandage Pouch vs the Medical Crate Battlefield 1

Many wonder what the difference between the Bandage Pouch and the Medical Crate is in Battlefield 1.  At first it would seem that the med crate must be better because you have to pay for it with war bonds in BF1 and gain XP to unlock it in BF4.  I would argue that for most situations the bandage pouch is better than the med crate, while both have their plusses and minuses.   

The med pouches are great because they can heal you and your teammates on the run, you don’t have to wait until you have some place to hide and wait for the crate to do its work.  As soon as you walk over a med pouch it you sort of it up and begin healing.  Now you can run to new cover or new objective and heal all the way.  If you are out in the open and get shot, toss a bandage pouch in front of you and begin healing on the run.  If you take any amount a damage the healing process will halt and you’ll have to throw a new pouch.  Likewise on the run you can toss a bandage pouch to your teammates and they can heal on the run or in cover if they choose.  All you have to do is point the cross hair at your team mate and hit the spot button or what every key or button you are using for that accessory.  The pouch will go flying a considerable distance to hit the teammate.  One of the problems using the med pouch is that you throw it, so if you want to use it, you have to run after it, or toss it up against a wall, so it will drop at your feet. 

Hiding by a medical crate to heal myself in Battlefield 1

The medical crate is great because it can heal yourself and other teammates with the push of one button, but you have to hang around the med crate and order to do that and that isn’t always a safe place to be.  If grenades are being thrown nearby they can destroy the crate as well.   The med crate is great for healing lots of teammates at choke points like the canyons in the Argonne Forest or one of the fortresses, the crate is also good if you are traveling around in a group and capturing a flag and everyone has to stand nearby anyway.   Dropping the med crate in these situations is also a great way to get lots of XP in the game, just be sure to check every now and then to make sure it hasn’t been destroyed by grenade spam.  Unlike the bandage pouch the med crate won’t heal you if you are being suppressed. 

I find the bandage pouch much more flexible than the crate, so I almost always run with them vs the crate.  The same goes for the ammo pouch when playing support, although it isn’t as crucial when playing that class.  Everyone has their own play style so the crate may be better suited to you while playing the medic class in Battlefield 1, but if you haven’t used the pouch in the while, you may want to revisit. 

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?

How to Increase Egg Laying in Ark Survival Evolved

There are two things you can do to increase the number of eggs your dinos lay in Ark Survival Evolved.  On my kibble farms, I use both of these. 

First, have at least one male.  This gives the female a mate boost and will not only help her in a fight, but will make her drop more eggs.  The male will have an effect on multiple females, but only within a certain range.  You can tell if your creature is mate boosted by the little heart floating above their name.  If you have a ton of any one species, you may need more than one male.   If all you are using the male for is the egg laying boost there is no need to worry about what level it is.  Some people say that have two males is more effective on a larger number of females, but I haven’t tested it.

A solid heart above a tame's name shows that it is mate boosted.

Oviraptors can help increase egg laying of tame dinos.

The second involves more steps but isn’t that tricky.  Use an oviraptor to get an egg laying boost.  Tame an oviraptor by knocking it out and feeding it eggs, Rex eggs are supposed to be the best. Oviraptors take a long time to tame, so search for a low-level one.  After you have the little bugger tamed bring it to where you have your dinos.  Pack its inventory with rocks or wood until it becomes overburdened and cannot move.  Then set it to wander.  You will notice that all creatures will have an egg floating over their name and stats, this means they are now egg boosted and will lay more eggs.  Creatures that don’t lay eggs will still have the little egg symbol.  Like the mate boost, the egg boost from the oviraptor only works within a certain range, so you may need more than one oviraptor, if your kibble farm is large. 

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Ovis Taming - Stupid Sheep in Ark Survival Evovled

The Ovis is a type of sheep in Ark Survival Evolved.  These beasts are very rare, probably for two reasons.  The first is they don’t spawn very often, I have only seen one so far.  The second is that they are useless in a fight.  Pretty much any predator can kill an Ovis, and I’m guessing the stupid creatures are killed by wild dinos within a couple of minutes of spawning.  The first one I tamed, tamed out at 92 and was terribly wounded by a compy or two and then finished off by some stupid titian bugs, more on that later.

The Ovis is really only good for two things.  The first is probably the only thing that it should be used for and that is for growing wool.  Wool can be used to craft a number of things, and I am assuming the developers will be adding more.   Wool is harvested with scissors you craft in the smithy.  Like a real sheep the ovis will grow more wool to harvest later. 

The second thing you can use an ovis for is climbing cliffs, and this virtual creature can climb them as well as any mountain goat.   The main problem with that is you might get your Ovis killed, like I did, on your way to a cliff.  I think it would be best to leave the Ovis back at base.  If you are one of those that like having the challenge of not using fliers, this sheep might be a good way to get at resources high up in the mountains, as long as there is nothing dangerous nearby.

The Ovis is a passive tame and requires sweet vegetable cakes, which you can make in a cooking pot, or industrial cooker.     

Ovis can be harvested for mutton!

 My Tame Ovis my Dead Ovis

Me and my tame Ovis - Ark Survival Evolved

As I said I tamed the first Ovis I saw. I was able to rescue one from the harsh reality of Ark Survival Evolved.  I dropped her off in my T-rex taming pen and passively tamed her in no time.    Shortly after I decided to take her to a nearby cliff to test out those climbing skills.  She was at 100% health, but that didn’t last long.  We were attacked by a couple of compies and they did mad damage to her.  I tried to fight back, but the Ovis is so slow, has a terrible turn radius, and barely any stamina, so I couldn’t get any hits on the damn compies with her.  I jumped off and started to stab at my feet with my pike to avoid hitting the Ovis.  When I saw that she was extremely bloody I whistled for her to follow and I thought we’d make a mad dash back to base, but in my panic, I didn’t whistle passive so the dumb sheep was killed by some bugs seconds later while her dumb tamer watched in horror and then began harvesting mutton. 

The Ovis is super cute, and as soon as I can I am going to tame another one, but when I do it is not leaving the barnyard!

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/

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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Give Item Cheat Ark Survival Evovled Console Command

Here is a series of console commands that will allow you to cheat spawn in items and resources in Ark Survival Evolved for single player games and admins.  Use this and all cheats with caution, as you may find you have ruined the game for yourself. Here is the command to spawn in metal, for example:

giveitemnum 9 50 1 false

in this case, the number 9 refers to metal, the 50 is the number of metal that will be put into your inventory, and the 1 is the quality of an item (value 1-100), so if it is a metal pick and you type 100 you will get an artifact level pick. False is just always there.  The quantity can only go up to the quantity in a stack, so in the case of metal, you can type in 1000, but you will only get 200 at a time.  

Note: I think it is important to say again that you should be careful with any cheats for Ark Survival Evolved, or any game for that matter, as you may find yourself with a boring, unchallenging game!  These codes and the spawn dino console commands are probably the most useful in Ark Survival Evolved.

Use your browser's "find" (Google Chrome) or "find on page" (Microsoft Edge) option to search for the item or resource you want to spawn into your inventory.  Bookmark this page to make it easy to come back to.  

1              Simple Pistol

2              Assault Rifle

3              Rocket Launcher

4              Simple Bullet

5              Bow

6              Grenade

7              Wood

8              Stone

9              Metal

10           Hide

11           Chitin

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. 

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. 

Where are the Oil, Silica Pearls and Obsidian on the Center? Ark Survival Evovled

It can be a little difficult to find some of the resources (oil, silica pearls, and obsidian) at first on the Center Map DLC of Ark Survival Evolved.  Oil and silica pearls can be found most anywhere in low amounts in trilobites, those weird crustatitions found on beaches and the bottom of the sea.  The amount you get in trilobites is pretty low and they are surprisingly difficult to kill.  The amounts are suitable for a couple of gallons of gas or a couple of electronics, but if need more than that, you are going to need a better source.  Oil and silica pearls can also be found on the bottom of the ocean, usually very deep.  This article and video will show you where to find resources you don't have to dive very deep to get. 

Updated Articles and Videos

Metal, Crystal

Obsidian

Oil Rock

Silica Pearls

Beaver Dams

Skull, Batman or Devil Island

Batman Island is a really cool feature of the center map.  It looks cool and has the best obsidian deposits on the map. In addition to the obsidian there is also a ton of metal and a good amount of crystal.  Those two resources are pretty easy to come by in other places though.  In order to get some obsidian you are going to need at least a raft to get there. The bottom tier of the island can be walked up from the raft and into the mouth.  There is a small amount of obsidian their for the taking.  I've only encountered a few bats there, so it is relatively safe.  I believe the next tier of the island is only accessible with a flyer and it as well as the very top holds the most obsidian.  It is easy to weigh down and Argentavis with the amount found on the top two tiers.  There are a few more bad guys to deal with there, so be prepared for Titian Boas, Arthropluera, Spiders, Scorpions etc., but it isn't too terrible.

Lava Island

At the top of the volcanoes, there is some obsidian and lots of metal, but it is a dangerous place.  The few ponds on the island have quite a lot of silica pearls and some oil but are filled with Mega Piranha.  The shore of the pond also has pretty much every terrible creature waiting to gobble you up.  If you have friends with you or just want the challenge, it can be a good place to get pearls and oil.  I tried it and lived, but I won't ever do it again.

Penguin Pond/Iceberg Lake

Way on the eastern side of the map, below the snowy mountain and right next to the obelisk, is a lake with a river flowing out of it.   In the middle of that lake is a big iceberg.  The iceberg has a small population of, Kairuku (penguins), which are a good source of organic polymer.  The iceberg is also dotted with oil and metal nodes.  The iceberg is a fairly peaceful place most of the time, but Spinos can and do visit the levels, even with the lake. 

Snowy Mountain North and South

The snowy mountain tops are loaded with oil and metal nodes for the taking.  These are probably the only nodes that can be reached without swimming and flying.  If you chase oil resources here bring your fur armor to protect you from the cold.  There are also plenty of dire wolves to ruin your day, so keep your eyes peeled; this is still Ark Survival Evolved. 

 More Center Map Dino and Resource Locations

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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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Double Barrel Shotgun in Ark Survial Evolved

The Double Barrel Shotgun in Ark Survival Evolved and its dlc's is one of the coolest weapons in the game, but not necessarily the most useful.  I like to use it for its fun factor rather than its utility.  The utility comes into play though in close quarters combat, even at medium range its power fades to poor.  However, when it's in your enemy's face it is the most powerful gun in the game.  It does 630 damage if all the 10 pellets land on target, truly devastating.  The two barrels fire in rapid succession, but the reload is long.  If your target is very dangerous make sure you can take it out in two shots, or you've got room to run after. 

The double barrel shotgun is crafted in the smithy and requires:

• 80 metal ingots
• 20 wood
• 25 hide

It's not too expensive at all.  However, the shotgun shells really start to add up if you use it a lot.  They require

• 3 -  simple bullets
• 1 - metal ingot
• 3 - gun powder

The double barrel shotgun is a lot of fun in Ark Survival Evolved and Ark Scorched Earth, it might save your life.

How to Make a Mortar and Pestle: Ark Survival Game

The mortar and pestle is on of the most important items to craft in Ark Survival Evolved, because it allows you to make narcotic.  Narcotic is going to let make tranq arrows, and later darts that are going to make it so much easier to tame creatures.  I don't think anyone is going to tame a Rex with a sling shot!  Other great stuff to craft in the mortar and pestle are: spark powder, cementing paste, and stimulant.  

To craft a mortar & pestle in Ark Survival Evolved is easy and inexpensive.  All you need are:

65 - Stone
15 - Hide


Although the materials are simple you will need to place it on a foundation.  I like to put my mortar and pestles on a table, just because they look a lot nicer and more natural than thrown on the floor of the workshop. 

Tapejara and Archaeopteryx: New Dinos Ark Survival Evolved

New dinos, Tapejara and Archaeopteryx dropped this week with the latest Ark Survival Evolved update.  Both of these creatures fly, well sort or.  I play on single player, and I looked for these guys, but I couldn't find them after a few hours, going afk, and restarting the game.  Eventually I resorted to spawning some in to test them out and make the video. 

Archaeopteryx

Archaeopteryx is an early bird-like dinosaur that may have flown, or may have just been a glider.  In Ark Survival players, can hang in the air by holding the feet of the animal.  You can control direction of the glide, while slowly, I mean painfully slowly descending.  On PC hit the R key and you'll drop like a stone while still holding on to the bird, probably to your death.  This tame is a lot of fun, but I'm not sure it has any real utility. 

Tapejara

The Tapejara is the big brother of the Pteranodon in Ark Survival Evolved.  The coolest thing about this flying reptile is that three people can ride at the same time.  The two passengers can equip ranged weapons, so they can attack others in PVP, or tame dinos with tranq arrows and darts.