Ooh thanks Satis, not really dared to go ocean-faring (or caves in general) yet, though I'm considering breeding a couple more tek raptors and trying one near my current base. I could do with oil I think as I have a preserving bin and am making some jerky but would like to get some electricity going, for a fridge and lights mainly.

I'm not surprised by your comment of Scorched Earth, I haven't been on it yet of course but from what little I've seen about it, it seems fairly deserty/dead. The clue is in the name I guess! I'm trying to resist the urge to jump around maps for new tames as odds are when I get a wyvern for example I'll ignore other fliers and it's nice not to be tied down to an 'ultimate' for something in some ways. Keeps it a little fresher. I think I'm already on 150+ hours so god knows what I'll end up on.

I miss Xfire. Remember how that could track how many hours you'd spent in each game if you had it in the background? Now you have to hope the game has a stat built in unless it's on Steam. I like seeing how much of my life I've wasted

I had one of those nights tonight. The kind where Ark just kicks you right in the arse and shows you that you're its bitch.

It started out quite boring as we were watching stuff in the background so I was shuttling back and forth between cooking meat, turning it into jerky and making narcotics. After all that I decided to head to my argentavis trap as it's right by carnivore island and I was curious what might be around, particularly in the sabertooth department. I got over there and spotted a female argy, level 112 and really pretty; black and white like a magpie. She would end up 167 after taming, easily my highest of any dinos yet. I lured her over to my trap and got her stuck then went back to my base to grab my taming supplies. I hadn't intended on taming anything so that was the first worry. It's virtually the other side of the map to where my base is (central southern beach) and I know sometimes if you go out of render distance, trapped things disappear. I said to Niall "I'll just tame this one then it's bed time... so you know what that means? Everything will go wrong and I won't be in bed until 3!" It's only half 1 now but my prediction of the night wasn't far wrong. Taming never goes well for me when it's "I'll just do this then exit."

My first real mistake was trying to save time. I have recently set up a tiny hut not far from the trap, with a bed for respawning and a storage box of basic gear in case I die. I remembered you can fast travel at beds so I headed over there and read the warning "You will drop all your items." Ok, so I'll drop them... well I will put things in this crate and it'll be fine. I forgot about my armour. I also assumed dropped meant dropped on the floor. No, apparently it means dropped and instantly destroyed. Oh well. So I teleported back there, grabbed the argy and my spare gear, then flew all the way back to the main base anyway. I grabbed my taming stuff and flew back as fast as I could. I was in luck! She was still there. I knocked her out and threw some meat on her then went to the carnivore island to grab some prime meat. It takes about 30 seconds to fly there so I wasn't away long, especially as a low level carno was right there ready to kill. I headed back and gave her some prime meat. Soon up 76% taming.

Now came my mistake. Whilst I was scoping it out to start with I'd seen a phoenix-coloured argy but he was only level 32. Whilst waiting for the female to tame I'd been debating if I should get him or not while I was there. A breeding line of phoenix-coloured argys could be nice. Yes, why not? I decide and head over there to make sure he's still alive. After all, the beach is safe and she only needs to eat once or twice more. I flew over there, spotted him immediately and turned back round. As I draw nearer the trap pops into view. And so does movement. She sure isn't up and moving yet, it can only be one thing. Two bloody raptors had run in and started attacking her! I was still out over the water as I saw the death animation of her. Needless to say I got swift revenge on those two sods. Oh well, off for the male then I guess. He was reds and oranges and just looked amazing.

But no, the game has now decided I need punishing for getting cocky. As I get back over to him, it's just in time to see him attacking a sabertooth. I swooped in to try and save him but no luck. I went on a mini killing spree after that, anything in sight was doomed. And then I saw another sort of phoenix-like argy, still low level at 44 and a female. I was determined to have one from the night, even if she wasn't as good as the others, in level or looks. Her and another argy started attacking some raptors! This time I managed to swoop in though and aggro her to following me, so she's now tamed and back at my base. She looks ok, a bright red with dark green wing tips and a light yellow/gold head crest.

My plan now for tomorrow is to go back there and slaughter every last argy and anything else that gets in my way until a good, high level spawns. Preferably a female as I have my 95 male but think my best female is in the 60s, but any will do! I've seen some very cool carnivores tonight too; the summer bash is giving lots of bright blue, red and green along with black. I saw a female alpha rex who was black with red detailing and a male alpha rex who was mainly red with some white detailing. Both low levels though.

Edit:
Tonight went better. I planned ahead, spent half an hour making about 50 tranq darts and getting together some spike walls so I could keep the area a bit safer then went back up to carnivore island. I've probably spent about 5 hours in total flying around, murdering every low level argy I saw (and any raptors too, they have invoked my wrath now!) I did tame a couple of low level ones so I could use them to breed up a replacement phoenix lookalike and resisted a few more. I don't think I've seen a single boring or ugly argy yet. I saw a tek rex too, a female, but she was only level 9. It was tempting though, to go with my male. But I don't have a trap set up there yet plus she's far too low level to be worth it. Then I spotted a 112 in my spyglass but it's a male. Still better than my current male, who ended up 95 after taming so why not? Got him then went back to look for a female. It took me forever to find one. I gave up on the island for a little while and flew over to the nearby mountain but the argys spawn more spread out there so I went back over the sea. And finally, after many hours of searching, there she was. Level 116. Unfortunately she was attacking 2 carnos and a scorpion. I swooped in, praying I didn't accidentally kill her and somehow, god knows how, we killed the other things and left her alive. She's 173 after taming and since she survived I named her Gloria, after Gloria Gaynor who sang "I Will Survive". I know when not to push my luck so I took the flock of 4 new ones home and I've just done a first breeding between the two high ones. I got a 158; of the stats I'm interested in she inherited the worst of all 4 from the parents. It's still an improvement over the one I'm riding around at the moment though.

I think I need a base on carnivore island!

Yesterday I did a little bit of work back at my base, mainly finally putting up a fence around it so if things wander near my tames don't end up scattered all over the place from attacking them. Otters are still taking the piss. After never finding one for ages it now seems one regularly likes to spawn near the base where I have tamed 2 of the 3 wild ones I got. I had decided to breed my 101 female to my original male; I didn't take notes of their original levels so not sure what all my males are as far as breeding goes but they're very low, I know that. Basically I was hoping to get a higher one to keep on using for when I do need to breed them up. So I got them breeding then went out fishing whilst she was pregnant, went down to the spot where they spawn... and there's a 92 male. Needless to say I tamed him so I have my breeding pair if necessary now. I probably won't need to breed them more though as so far my little incubation room seems to be working well for everything I have tried and I also have one with over 1000 melee damage who I tested out yesterday and finally was able to explore the cold areas with her wrapped round my neck.

I found an ovis which I brought back to base but don't yet have a decent means of getting sap or honey for the veggie cakes to tame it so that despawned in my taming pen. At least I know where to find them though so I can get a mutton farm going at some point. I also got scared by a yutyrannus and saw some dire wolves but no decent level ones. Once I got home again I decided to head back to carnivore island and get a sabertooth. I upgraded my argy trap so in the same protected area there is now a 2x2x2 pen to drop small things in to tame as well as the argy trap. I took my newly bred argy over there, she was 153, freshly hatched, grown and imprinted 100%. Worse in stats than the one I had been using who was about 127 but had levelled up a lot but she was good enough. By the end of the night she was level 203 and kicking ass. I'm annoyed at myself for not having a chibi equipped as we killed multiple alpha raptors, alpha carnos and I think even one alpha rex whilst there. There was a lovely 40ish tek rex that spawned too but it was another male. I need to set up a rex trap over there at some point. A couple of normal 96 rexes spawned too. I left them alone for ages then killed them to help the spawn.

I got insanely lucky and as soon as we got there I spotted a 104 female sabertooth. White with moss green stripes and a brown head/mane. Got her tamed and took her back to the base then decided I might as well see about getting a male. Could I find a high level one? Could I bollocks. Also as I wasn't hunting argys I saw 3 or 4 spawn around the 112 mark and a couple at 120. After more hours than I care to admit flying around and killing everything I finally settled on a 68 male. He was the highest male by far to spawn; every single one was 32 or lower and any higher than that were all female. Niall had been joking I needed a green one with yellow stripes to make Battlecat from He-Man... well this one was green but with black stripes. So I guess that's a project for some point in time!

Today I have seen the achievement for taming all dinos so I've got a nerd list printed and will work on that from time to time. A 104 pachy was near my base so tamed that to tick it off the list. I have a few actual plans to do, particularly working towards doing some caves. I bred the sabertooths and got a female at level 124. Not done much though as we're now preparing to watch Italy most likely kick England's ass in the final of the euros.

Edit:
Well as expected we lost the football. So back to Ark. I decided to drown my sorrows with some taming. Big mistake, I ended up staying up way too late as usual. On the plus side though I tamed 3 dire wolves. A male who was only 65 after taming and two females, one was 164 and one was 101 I think.

Yesterday I made adjustments to my base and bred the wolves. I now have a large carnivore pen outside my base and a smaller herbivore one on the other side. My breeding pairs are still inside. I saw a low level sarco nearby and tamed her just to tick it off the list. I headed off to club penguins for polymer so I could make some scuba gear but got distracted by an icthysaurus that was in a shallow bay so I finally managed to tame one. She was up the west coast so I decided to slowly bring her back with my pelagornis. A manta tried to kill it whilst we were still in the bay but I managed to stab it with my sword (that's not a euphemism ) then as we got near the red obelisk and bloody megalodon appeared! Only level 10 and I managed to get the icthy in a spot where he couldn't hit her but kept trying so I was able to slice him up with the sword as well. Got the icthy home safe and sound so my task today has been to build an underwater pen to keep it safe.

To do:
Tame a breeding pair of normal rexes
Tame a dire bear
Set up a mutton farm

Sounds good. Definitely coming along. Thanks for all the updates... I'm actually getting a small urge to play again.

Something you may want to look into is making cryo pods and a cryo fridge. You need electricity to power the fridge, but the cryo pods let you store your creatures. Great for transporting a newly-tamed creature home, or getting a land tame somewhere far away (by flying there and then un-cryoing them). We called them poke-balls. It's also a good way to keep your creatures stored so they're not all just out in a massive pen and eating tons of food. They even gain XP while cryoed, so there's no drawback so long as you have a steady electricity supply. If you don't, they eventually run out of power, and I think any dino in them will die if that happens. Not sure, never actually had that happen.

https://ark.fandom.com/wiki/Cryopod

You'll need to learn the blueprint to make them, and then the actual crafting happens at an obelisk. Your adventures with the dolphin brought this to mind.

Oh, also, if you're taming something and need to keep it safe, something we did was put down the huge dino gates. They don't need to be built on a foundation, so it's easy to just carry a few and slap them down. Our server was set to allow us to pick up anything we built without a time limitation, so we'd slap down the metal dino gates after knocking the creature out, then once it tamed poke-ball the thing and pick the gates back up.

Regarding the caves, you definitely want a mount when you do them. Since your base is in the south-central area (our first base was too!), there's an easy cave to the east. Sounds like you don't have a thylacoleo yet, but a sabertooth will work fine as well. If you can loot some decent saddles or saddle blueprints, even better.

Oh, have you tamed hyenas yet? They're kinda cool. I had a small pack of them eventually, but I was high enough level it didn't really matter. Anyway, you can put bags on them and they can collect and store meat. It also takes longer to go bad. Might be useful until you get your thylacoleo. Once you do, it's pretty much the dominant land animal unless you're doing bosses.

Cheers Satis. You should play. That's part of my evil plan with these updates And get online so we can murder things/die horribly together. Speaking of which, Peltz needs to get his server going again so we can go murder stuff together too

I think I did learn the cryopod ages ago but I haven't gotten round to trying to make one yet. Every time I tame something away from the base I remember I need to look into them properly. I don't have electric running yet though I am getting close to sorting that out as I want a proper fridge and have the means to keep things running now. Btw those tek parasaus I tamed/bred a ton of? They drop oil when killed. Not sure if a baby will so I might have to let them grow up but if I so desire, I do have an oil farm waiting right there for me.

I started tonight just generally nerding out. I've downloaded Smart Breeding so I was getting most of my dinos into that. Last night before I logged off I bred my wolves again and got a colour mutation! So I now own Sir Luckypaws, a grey wolf with a blue stripe down his back and (the mutation) bright green paws. When I loaded him into Smart Breeding I found he has a stamina mutation too. I was putting the stats into the breeding mod whilst imprinting Sir Luckypaws. I also bred my sabertooths again and got a stat-identical female to the female that I tamed so she can go breeding as well until I can get a decent male out of them.

Once Sir Luckypaws was fully imprinted I gathered 4 of my wolves and tried them out. (Sir Luckypaws and my highest level female stayed home to make sure the breeding line was safe in case of accidents). I had a run around the swamp and was able to take on titanaboas, kapros, sarcos and piranhas. I ended up over at the edge of the redwoods and got attacked by a purlovia which my wolves had sniffed out so that got destroyed by the pack. Then I spotted my first thyla. I was in exactly the right spot so as I looked round she was silhouetted against the sky. It's not that far from the trap I've made for battle chickens and carnos by my base so I headed home and got prepared.

On the way though I saw a tapejara. Only level 8 but very cool colouring and right by my base. I managed to pop back out and tame that to tick off the achievement list then headed over to get the thyla. Upon scouting it out there were actually two, in adjacent trees, and they were a male and female. Only low levels as usual but I didn't have time tonight to be picky! They were right on the edge thankfully too so I was able to land a decent distance from them, hit one with a tranq dart and then pick it up with the argy when it came for us. The argy can easily take the damage so I just had to stop once on the way to the trap to regain stamina. I managed to get both this way quite easily so now I have a breeding pair; only level 21 and 29 but it's something. I got lucky with supply drops a few nights ago and got a dark blue (not ascendent, the lower one, apprentice?) thyla saddle.

The caves are why I started with sabertooths and wolves; I know thylas are pretty much the best but I hadn't seen any at all until today (probably just been lucky as I've flown through the redwoods quite a few times) and had read sabers and wolves are also good. Wolves supposedly slightly better. I like the idea of a wolf pack for hunting overland too as my carnos/battle chickens get stuck on everything due to their size. But now I have some thylas I'll concentrate on them. And start on underwater tames for those caves too. I did get some scuba gear made last night so I can head out on my icthy at some point and see what's about.

I've seen a few hyenas and will grab one or two for meat storage at some point. They're on the taming achievement list anyway so I'll definitely grab one. I always spot them when I'm headed elsewhere to tame something else though. I saw a level 72 frog near my base too when wandering in the swamp so I might try to tame that tomorrow; it was my original plan for taming today until I saw the thylas. Good to get cementing paste I believe.

I keep an eye on the Ark reddit when bored at work. Today someone posted a topic titled something like "6 years and 1500 hours, I finally finished the base game!" and posted a picture of their trophy room. Honestly at this rate that's going to be me I get so distracted with the breeding and building side of things. I'll have to look into that setting to pick stuff up after an unlimited time too, I don't mind too much only having the 30 seconds but it would be nice not to waste half the materials destroying stuff. Especially when I accidentally destroyed my behemoth gate yesterday instead of the pillar next to it whilst underwater and couldn't move; good job I was wearing my scuba gear!

Nice, you got some thylas! Even if they're low level, with that apprentice saddle I bet you'll dig em (until you find one that's higher level). Beware the hyenas are passive tames. I finally got mine by tossing it in a special taming pen which trap door floors so I could go underneath it, while wearing fully gilly armor so it wouldn't see me. It's kind of a pain. If they notice you they freak out and run around in circles until they calm down, so you have to start the tame process all over again.

I hear the frogs are good for taming... I think they put torpor on stuff... or maybe I'm thinking scorpions? I had some pet scorps as well, but never frogs. Frogs are weird to breed, too... they pop out tadpoles or something, so you have to have water. *shrug*

Regarding caves, we did do some caves on sabertooths rather than Thylas and that definitely works too. Some caves are a lot harder than others, so you have to kind of be careful. It sucks to lose a really nice tame to a lava pit or something. Anyway, just be careful and probably read up on any caves before you do them. There's one cave that requires a gas mask, for instance, so wandering into there unprepared would totally suck.

Hey, send me a PM in Steam or in the forums with the server info if/when you guys set one up. I really might join you.

Gas :O That sounds... fun. I'll definitely read up before I head in! I can guarantee I'll be in the lava a few times

Scorpions and frogs do torpor. Rather weird when you read how people 'licked' a tame unconscious... I haven't tamed a scorp yet either but little sods keep trying to knock me out when I'm up at carnivore island. Nice tip on the hyaenas, I'll bear that in mind. When I tamed my first horse it kept spotting me in the pen and freaking out before I could ride it but I did find leaving render distance reset it which helped a little. That weird frog taming explains a lot, I watched a video for ideas for my underwater pen and they were saying about keeping the frogs in it, I just thought they liked to as more of a roleplay thing.

Will definitely PM you if we end up getting a server going. I did get onto Peltz's once but it hasn't been up in forever.

So, I recently learned that our friend decided to stop paying for the server, so... all my dinos, my toon, my gear, everything is gone. I'm not super happy about this. I did start playing locally, but am still in noob zone. I've tamed a few parasaurs, but been rekt by douchebag dinos repeatedly. I'm up to like level 50 or so, so doing decently on levels, but still struggling on gear and housing and stuff. I'll get there soon... just a matter of time and resources.

Oh no! That sucks. I'm scared that's going to happen anyway, I've seen people say Steam sometimes randomly deletes their saves when they update. I must make a backup.

I haven't done much this week, it's been too bloody warm. I grabbed a level 70 frog last time I was on and also found a 70ish icthy; I thought I had a female already and this was a male but when I got it home I realised they're both male. Oh well. Gay dolphin loving time I guess. I think I did some more sabertooth and direwolf breeding too. I still can't get a decent level male wolf; highest is Sir Luckypaws at 124. I got a clone stat-wise of the mum (161) but looks-wise she's like dad so that's Lady Luckypaws. I need a stat-clone of mum but with dad's stamina and I'll have a 163. I took the wolf pack out again too over into the south east corner of the map and generally killed a few things but there really wasn't much around. I'll probably log in next time and find there are rexes and spinos every 3 feet.

I'm thinking for ease I might just dam up one of the river outlets near my base with a behemoth gate either side to use for my water pen. My current one just comfortably fits the frog, the sarco and the two icthys but it wouldn't really fit anything else in. A megalodon would take it up entirely by itself I think. I did see a basilo the other day near herbivore island (was also considering walling off the bay there perhaps) so I might attempt a tame of it *soon*. Oh and there's a random sheep on the coast towards herbivore island; I think it's the one I brought back to base then realised I couldn't tame yet. Guessing the game loaded it before it loaded the pen walls and it wandered off down the coast somehow. It's another male and about the right level, god knows how it got there and survived though.

To do:
Tame a breeding pair of normal rexes
Tame a dire bear
Set up a mutton farm
Get a basilo
Make a bigger water pen

Cool, sounds good. Beware, those sheep tend to squirt their young out or something... they can end up in all kinds of weird places. Also since they tend to be so low level, they starve really quick. Still, that mutton is some good stuff... definitely worth the effort to mass produce it.

So I built a wood house on the coast near the red obelisk (southwest), then got enough levels to build stone, so I moved closer to red obelisk in some prairie or whatever. I'm close enough to red ob that I get random Carnos and Raptors, which isn't good for my life or my parasaurs, but hey, that's how it goes. I recently got the walls up on the stone house, as well as a second floor, so it's pretty easy to stand up there and kill stuff with my bow. I need to build a wall and a dino gate for protection purposes. I've got a forge, smithy, and mortar and pestle, so starting to produce higher level resources. Next up is the fabrication machine or whatever, but I'm not really sure where to get crystal near me. I may need to do some exploring. I'm also getting close to unlocking tranq darts, so once I get the table built I should be able to make a longneck and tranq darts. That's when my taming gets a little more serious. I definitely need to snag me a Pteranodon as well so I can start raiding loot drops and build up some gear / blueprints.

When I played this map previously, we spent a lot of time in the south central area, then moved to the north west. That's why I'm closer to the south west coast, so I'm in an area of the map I don't know like the back of my hand. My current house is next to a river... I may just build my next (more permanent) house over top of that for the large open space, and to simplify settings up water. Planting gardens is important for kibble and defense (with species x plants). Eventually I'll need to get that hooked up so I can stop worrying about raptors and carnosaurs brutalizing me.

Sounding good Satis. I haven't explored that side of the map much on foot, flown over it lots. I might take my wolf pack over there sometime to have a look around. It's very different on foot to in the air.

I've had squirting babies! One of my direwolves shot one out halfway across the paddock, poor little thing, not a fun way to enter the world hehe. As opposed to all my sabertooth babies that refuse to actually come out of the mother so I have to manually move the mum in order to imprint on the floating kitten.

I'm probably going to have an easy night tonight, then we're out tomorrow night so maybe Sunday I'll attempt either a cave or try the icy area on foot, just for something different. Or maybe go underwater properly. Last night I started walling off the bay at Herbivore Island. I got the two smaller bits walled off but then got bored so the third, largest stretch needs doing still. I bred up a therizino (low level male but slightly better than the low level male I'm currently using for breeding) and 4 argys to finish the evening so they'll be getting raised when I start up tonight. One argy was breeding for stats, the other 3 were more to see what cool colours I could get from my many, many adults.

Edit:
I did indeed have a quiet night, mainly breeding. LOTS of wolf breeding. I also culled my argy population. Killed maybe 10 of them so I now only have 13 left. My first tamed, the one that killed the rex, my two best statted ones (male and female) for breeding, my two best bred ones for actual killing and then 7 others that are purely there to breed nice colours into the line.

Wolf-wise I've managed to breed up some better males and females. I started the night with two 161 females and my 124 male. I've ended the night with a 154 female and a 143 male who, between them, could breed out a 165. The levels dropped a little as I got fed up with everything being born with bright blue backs so I put my much more normal, but lower level, brown female into the mix. I did get a mutation on the 154 female though so she has a sort of pastel green/grey back. The mutated bright green paws are still hanging in there too.

Towards the end of the night I've flown over to my horses and bred one pair. I still never see any around the map so I'm possibly going to have to rely on mutations to get a decent one. Which will take forever as my best one is 27 at the moment. I've just popped out the foal and it's got an... interesting colour mutation. I don't think the summer bash event is even live anymore but I'm still getting the odd, bright colours! If I breed her back to her dad I could get a level 30. Whilst I was waiting for her to be born I went wandering around on my newest argy to level it up and spotted a green 120 normal parasaur. On a whim I thought why not and tamed it. Turned out pretty good. She has decent HP, Stamina, Weight, Damage and Speed. She probably won't get used but you never know.

To do:
Tame a breeding pair of normal rexes
Tame a dire bear
Set up a mutton farm
Get a basilo
Finish making a bigger water pen

Oh man, that's a pretty awesome horse. Great job! BTW, argies are awesome... when we were at end-game on The Island, we would use flocks of argies with really high weight to farm metal (you need a LOT). Put an industrial smelter on blue obelisk, use an argie wih and ankie to harvest (best with 2 people, one on each), and then just mass-lift the resultant metals back to base. Shiny and I would do these metal runs regularly.

So anyway, I tamed a carno (level 3!) because it attacked me house and I shot it with tranq arrows. Also got a Pteranodon I snagged with bolos and a club. So that's good. I'm working on surrounding my house with a wall, but forgot how crappy it is to try to build on an incline. Ah well.

A few things I failed to mention previously, but remember now that I'm playing again.
1. Do you know about jerky? It's just using a preserving bin, some cooked meat, and then adding oil. This'll make jerky, which lasts a really long time. You can make regular and prime jerky with this. By mid to end game, prime jerky is all I really ate.
2. Gardens, water, and defending... it's really important to get a water system going. Put the intake underwater, run pipes of various types, and have water in your house. After that, make gardens and plant stuff. it's required for kibble, which is important for taming. Also, you need gardens for species x plants, which are base defense turrets. Just remember to use the smallest garden that the plant will take...most are small, and there's no benefit to going bigger. I think species x is medium.
3. Bees... hunting bees is a pain, but once you get one queen bee, you have a honey source, which is really good for end-game.
4. The game wants you to hit E in order to access inventories. This is a trap. Do not do it. Use F. This does the same thing, but there's no chance of accidentally turning off something (like a fire or fabricator). You can also hit F while riding a dino in order to access its inventory. This is a game changer, believe it or not.

Cheers for the tips Satis. I do know about jerky, got a load of it in my preserving bin now. I had a ton of prime meat from culling the argy's so cooked up what I could last night. I really do need to get on with the electricity so I can get a fridge going. I need an industrial cooker too I think. And the industrial forge. I've got some crop plots too; as I'm right by the sea in my main base I just have an intake stuck in the sea then a couple of connecting pipes. I'm growing longgrass, savoroot, rockarrots, mejoberries and narcoberries so far. I need to get on with making some kibble but haven't found the recipes yet. Guessing they might be more likely to pop up in cave drops?

I do know I need a bee if only to tame up the sheep. I was planning to get a dire bear for short term purposes as there are a few nests near me but I had seen it's good to get a tame queen. I did read it's a pain in the arse to tame though. I have found the F thing. Mainly due to reading people saying "access your tame's inventory while riding it" and I was wondering how on earth you do that, found it somehow and now use it for everything. Except it now annoys me when I am standing in the middle of the room and want to go to my own inventory as F has become such a habit for me.

I do love the argys, I think they're my favourite tame so far. They can do so much themselves and the fact they can pick up a lot of the tames is a real game changer. Plus they just look great. The fun thing about singleplayer is that there's less outside influences to stop things being possible though so I'm still looking at trying weird and wonderful dinos out and about. I'm toying with taming up the sheep herd then making some killer sheep for roaming the island with. I know some stuff won't be viable with the odder tames, like caves and bosses, but for general day to day stuff I'm definitely going to try some weirder things.

Incline building is very crappy. And there's virtually no truly flat land. Especially over by the red obelisk I think. It's mainly why I haven't expanded much. I want to have a few smaller bases dotted around the place so I can head to whatever I'm doing, be it a metal run, taming certain dinos, whatever, and not feel I need to go back to the main base when I finish for the evening. But the sheer annoyance that can come from building means I keep putting it off. It's fine once I get started usually, I need to dig out that .ini line so I can pick stuff up indefinitely, that would make it far less irritating.

There are no kibble recipes. You just make it in a cookpot or industrial cooker or whatever. https://www.dododex.com/kibble There's the page I always referred to. You'll need to farm eggs if you want to mass-produce it. Getting a dozen or two dodos so you can farm basic kibble is easy. As you go down the list to the more difficult kibbles, getting the eggs can be difficult. We literally had breeding stock (and oviraptors) in order to try to mass produce eggs for kibble. Besides being good for taming, basic kibble works with daeodons (pigs). These can heal, but it chews through their food. You can force feed them meat, or prime meat or whatever, but there's a cool down between force feeds, so it takes a long time to fill its food up again. However, basic kibble doesn't have this cooldown... you can just hold down e and feed it hundreds of basic kibble in seconds. Of course, this is really only useful fighting bosses, but still.

There are other recipes too, for foods, drinks and colored dye. You can find the recipes for food and drink, but you don't need to in order to make them. https://www.dododex.com/consumables

Yea, playing with different, weird tames can be fun. There are so many I never really did much with, from wolves to horses to carnos. I'll definitely play around more this time. I own several expansions, so I plan on moving my character to another map once I'm burned out on the island. Are you aware that unicorns are a thing? They're just super rare.

Regarding the ini file, for me it's located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\ARK\ShooterGame\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor. The GameUserSettings.ini. I didn't find a setting for infinite pickup specifically, but I did find one called StructurePickupTimeAfterPlacement which was set to 30. I bumped it to 9000, but I haven't actually played the game since I made that change, so I can't guarantee it works.

Oh, two more things.... I've been playing like all day.

1. You may know this, but be sure to have your canteens, water skins, water jars, or whatever equipped on your toolbar. If it's raining, use them and not only will you drink, it'll fill the vessel as well. This is also true of snow if you're in a cold biome.
2. Night gets really dark (and it's full of terrors!). You can bring up the terminal and type gamma 3 (or 1,2,3,4) and change the brightness in game. Gamma 2 is the usual setting and is good for day. Gamma 3 is good for night, gamma 4 is good for night when it's raining.

I played a lot lately... I now have 2 battle chickens, 4 raptors, 2 parasaurs, a carnosaurus, a stegosaurus, and a triceratops. Many of my dinos have been rekt... I lost numerous raptors, stegos and parasaurs, as well as my original carnosaur. But that's ok, because I am making progress! I built a fabricator and a long neck rifle, as well as some tranq darts. I also finally have a spyglass so I can start checking creatures' levels before I tame them. My second battle chicken was near my base, so I tamed it, but it was only level 1. I'm not sure it was worth the effort. Still... progress!

I had forgotten that river rocks (smooth ones) were good sources of metal with a pickaxe. I relearned this and have been farming a decent amount of metal. The crystal I've needed I've gotten by flying my pteranadon a good distance and harvesting it by hand. I think I need to make a new base, one that's closer to better metal and crystal sources.