I figured I'm messing about enough with it that I'll post stupid things that happen to me or I do here, save clogging up the other thread too much.

Yesterday was a mixed bag. My first task was to craft another pteranadon saddle so I could fly over the swamp and see if my other one was still alive somewhere. Luckily he was! Sat in the same place he'd been about to land when I fell off him (later I realised that it's because he actually ran out of stamina and you only have a few seconds to land before you're ejected). I whistled him to follow and got back to base asap.

On the way back to base I'd seen a diplodocus and I'd read up on them so I decided to give it a go. Only a level 2 female so it didn't take too long and I got her no problem but as I headed back to the beach with her following me on my pteranadon a bloody therizino-stupidly-long-name-chicken-dino went for her and left her a bloodied heap in the river.

Next I figured I'd do some aerial reconnaissance off to the east. I'd explored the coast already with my raft so I wanted to explore a little more inland, but keep the coast in sight so I didn't get lost. Off I headed and had barely gone anywhere when I saw another tek parasaur and this time it was male! I quickly swooped down and tamed him then brought him back to base. Plans got put on hold as I decided to breed him with one of the existing females. Soon we had a baby, another male so now I have two breeding pairs. Off I go to explore again and spot a tek parasaur that looks quite different from my others. They've all been blue and silver so far but this one was bright cyan with red lights and a green faceplate. I can't resist her and against my better judgement swoop down to tame her. There are some nearby nasties but they ignore us and I get her tamed... just as it goes dark. I start slowly flying up the river to get to the beach, knowing it would be safe there. I lit my torch and headed for a rock to get some stamina... and the torch broke. I had no resources on me to repair it and wasn't risking moving so i sat there, my screen pitch black except the parasaur's red lights and waiting the night out. Nothing came, god knows how, but we made it! Moving was a bad idea though. Almost at the beach and another battle chicken turned up and hideously murdered my beautiful girl Needless to say I just flew the hell outta there!

I had a further explore east, found where iguanodons were so at some point I'll go replace Pascal. I saw a tek stegosaurus and triceratops but not risking taming those yet. I kept managing to rest near bees and having to quickly zoom away as they came after me. Eventually I got to the easternmost point of the south coast which was the furthest I'd sailed, then flew slightly up the east coast. I didn't go very far as I saw another tek parasaur who was a bit different. She had green all along her back and tail so I went back to base, got my supplies, got a saddle, grabbed my raft and sailed back to her, tamed her up and ferried her back safely on my raft. No clue why I love the tek parasaurs so much but they're definitely going to become a big herd!

Finally I flew over to where I'd first seen the unicorn. I keep going there, just in case it has wandered back, but no such luck. I did see and save an iguanodon from some compys though so I decided to tame him. All was going well, he was nearly tamed... and one of those stupid battle chicken things turned up and murdered me horribly. He tamed while I was resurrecting and was fine until I got back over there, grabbed my stuff and the damn chicken decided to smack him one. So I have both a vendetta against battle chickens and also the need to raise my own flock now to help me get revenge on the wild ones. I decided I'd better call it a night before more chickens decided to eat my face.

Today was much more peaceful and productive. Didn't play much as I had to take one of our degus to the vet so I was home late. I'd been planning some new enclosures last night so I headed over to where I'd tamed my male tek parasaur to scope out the land. It's just across the bay from my starting base so close by but is still fairly safe (only seen compys and dilophosaurs there for agressive creatures). I figured I might stand more chance at getting some tames back to that one and will probably dot a few bases around the island as I explore further afield.

As I got over there I saw a new diplodocus! Another level 2 but this time a male. I couldn't pass this chance up so I punched a dilo into the ground then went off to tame the dippy. I got halfway through and some compys started sniffing about. They couldn't get me as I was hiding under the dippy but I think one nudged him while trying to get to me and reset the taming. I ducked out from under him, murdered all 3 and started again.

This time I get to about 80% then realise I'm at 0 water! I legged it for the coast, cursing the interruption, drink quickly and run back expecting to be starting from 0 again. Nope, the taming had stuck, hooray! 2 more berries and he was mine. I dragged him over to where I was building my new base then set up a general foundation. It's not finished yet but the general shape is there now and I can spend the next few days building it up and moving the dinos over. I did take dippy back to my original base as it's a little safer and has a feeding trough. I just hope the bronto there (he still won't go) doesn't get jealous

Well the server is up and running. Unfortunately it is unjoinable at the moment. Will figure out the firewall/portforwarding stuff today.

I jumped on your server. Seemed fine connection-wise. A couple of moments of lag but I think that was when it was saving. I hopefully left you a message, if you can find where I spawned and nothing has eaten it.

remember you guys need to meet up and join a tribe.

Otherwise... sounds good Pevil! Keep it up. Btw... the therizinosaurus is a really great dino to tame. They're actually some end-game dinos, great for doing the major bosses. Of course I'm talking higher level, but *shrug*. On the other hand, yea, they tend to be a bit dangerous. Oh, and we called them Terries. Much easier. Battle chickens works as well. I'm afraid your parasaurs aren't particularly useful in the greater scheme of things. However.... dodos are a great way to make eggs, which can be turned into kibble. So... believe it or not, Dodos are useful.

Anyway, keep on trucking! You'll be dominating the world soon!

hehe thanks Satis. I have been browsing the wiki and downloaded dododex so I looked up the battle chickens (sticking with that ) and saw they're pretty good. I get into taming in most games I can and often like to have the weirder/not so useful ones along with the ones everyone has so no doubt my parasaurs will be a "ooh look at the colour mutations" herd as much as anything. I'm not expecting anything much that I tame to be useful for the long term anyway really, both as a general thing and also because everything I'm taming is level 20 or below.

I've spent the last couple of days farming away so today I finally made my diplo saddle. Wow that thing gathers berries fast! I called him Boop as he tries to boop everyone.

I did look to jump on Peltz's server but it wasn't showing in the list. I did only look in favourites though (which I'm sure I added it to) but didn't look under friends which now I think about it is where it showed last time. I'll check it out tomorrow anyway. Had a rough day today as we had to have one of our degus put to sleep earlier so not really been concentrating.

I took a trip to herbivore island yesterday. Tamed an anky. Built a tiny hut. Started smelting metal. Went to mine more. Caught a bronto with the anky. Ran for my life and watched the anky die. Grabbed my saddle, tamed a breeding pair, bred a baby. I also got another tek parasaur... oops. I'd bred my 3 pairs the other day too so I think I have 10 or 11 now! I also finally managed to tame an icthyornis (looking for a female so again I can breed them before sending some out; they're too annoying to tame so want a back up breeding pair) and also tamed a male pelagornis.

Today I tamed two female pelagornis'. The male is black. The females are a chestnut red and a sandy gold. Bred the gold and got a black female chick. Next session will be a hunting one to get the hide to make a saddle for them.

All sorts has happened since my last post. Took the black pelagornis chick out once it was an adult. Swimming along fine, killing fish and jellyfish with it. Until a couple of jellyfish swarmed me and pulled me off it. Dead chick, dead me. Miraculously in the next play session I ended up back where I'd died at one point and it was shallow, I had my raft and my icthyornis with me so ordered it to kill the jellyfish and managed to get my stuff back including my saddle. I kept seeing the dolphin-like ones swimming around, a male and female, and was trying to tame them but they wouldn't stay close. I think that's how the jellies got me to start with.

I've been doing some base building (I'll post some pics at some point) and breeding. Nothing fancy, no mutations yet. Bred all my tek parasaurs so got another 6 now! I also bred my pelagornis' again and got 2 chicks, a chestnut and a sandy. I bred my anky's again and got another boy and got a boy pteranadon baby too. Yesterday I managed to tame a replacement iguanodon so need a female to go with him now. I tried to tame a beaver but it managed to get up the rock I was hiding on and killed me. I died standing up, firing my slingshot which made it extra disturbing when I harvested myself for meat

I sailed my raft right up the east coast so I've now explored the entire coast up until the cold bits. I haven't been insulated enough to survive those yet. I've mainly been sticking to the coast as I'm a wuss but when I get some good tames/more stamina on my fliers I'll go further inland.

I finally tracked down an otter today; I've been searching for ages. A little boy. I used him to incubate my pteranadon and anky eggs today. I need to find him a mate but no such luck yet. I've just scoured the south coast and no more otters to be seen. I did however finally find a female diplo. 2 in fact. I started trying to tame one but had forgotten to put my pteranadon on passive flee and a bloody dilophosaurus came up and killed her. She was my best one too (only level 50, not bred so not amazing stats or anything) so I'll have to tame another female tomorrow. I couldn't find her corpse at all so there goes that saddle but I have a spare. I gave up on that diplo but spotted another nearby. Trouble was I was dying from the dilo (had to run in the end, punching it wasn't doing much so it must've been high level) and also the heat so I ran back to my base as quickly as I could, grabbed the otter and one of the remaining pteranadons and headed back to the second diplo. Started taming her and a raptor shot out of nowhere at top speed, straight for me. I just barely killed it then had to run off as the diplo was nudging me. Finally recovered all my health and spent the night (Ark time) taming her. Level 30 so still not stupidly high level but took about 11 berries. I've turned taming time up a little anyway but might put it up higher again just for singleplayer. But at least I now have a female diplo and can have cute baby ones.

Tomorrow's tasks will be to look for a female pteranadon, female otter, female iguanodon, female icthyornis and maybe finally get up the guts to go tame a battle chicken. There's one relatively close to my base and I've seen how to do it. I still want to tame a bronto too but not sure if I'll get round to that tomorrow or not. And of course more base building.

I'm using this as a "things I was going to do but didn't so still need to do" list now.

Didn't do any of the above listed things today. I did some base building and got a baby diplo. I ran into some raptors and tamed one. I was about to tame a carno that was getting near the base when it spotted us, ran over to have a feast then badly realised it's mistake when 5 pelagornis', 2 pteranadons, 3 parasaurs and an iguanodon all went for it. I also killed a few party dodos.

I finished playing because I hit level 69 (giggity).

Edit: Following session.
Tamed 2 female pteranadons, bred a third.
Did some very minor base building.
Saw the battle chicken was still around and decided to tame it. Spent about an hour getting stuff together for a trap and fighting with the landscape to be able to build it. Finally finished, chicken had wandered off. Found it miles away, no way I'd run that long to get it in the trap and wasn't even sure of the path back. Went back to the trap just in case one was near it. Saw a carno. Trapped the carno. Tamed the carno. A whole level 1 female. Fear me.

Edit 2:
Done loads of base building. Terrain hates me. It looks like a building now instead of just a random wall at least. Almost got it fully enclosed for some of the dinos. Will try and remember to get some pics.
Tried to tame a battle chicken. It wouldn't go in the trap for some reason but did get distracted by it. Ate the stairs then started to run as it was getting low on health. Just at that point I once again got dehydrated and had to run for water. Couldn't find it again when I returned.

Edit 3:
I finally did it! Battle chicken is mine. I shall call it Deathbird after my moa in Guild Wars. It's a male because apparently my game hates spawning females so that's added to the list of females to find. Other than that I've just done more base building today. Just as I logged off I tried him out though, his wood gathering is amazing! I need to mess with my settings a bit I think too; I seem to only get up to level 40ish dinos spawn which was fine until I've levelled a few up to 50+ and want to start some good breeding at some point so I need the higher level ones.

Edit 4:
Found and tamed a female iguanodon, finally tamed a bronto too, a male (surprise). A new carno is wandering near my base but it's female so I'll deal with her later. I also tamed a tek raptor, first one I've seen, a lovely red and gold female. So now I need a male one of those too!

Edit 5:
Spotted another carno last night after the edit and it was a male. So he is now mine. Rode my raptor onto a rock near him and tranq arrowed him. He's only level 18 so it didn't take much. I can breed up an army now at least though and as I stop being wussy I'll turn the difficulty up so I get some better wild spawns.

Still to do:
Find a female otter
Find a female icthyornis
Find a female battle chicken
Find a female raptor
Find a male tek raptor
Find a female bronto

Time for a new post I think. I'd seen an argentavis flying around up in the north east when I went exploring last week so I decided to finally go and get one. I looked up a super easy trap and got very lucky; a male and a female were up there so I managed to get a breeding pair. Still crappy levels (1 and 4) but never mind. I mainly wanted to get one so on the off chance I finally see an equus I'll be able to bring it back to a taming pen. The parents are both rather pretty; the female is green with golden underneath, black legs and a gold crest. The male is a sort of bronze/dark grey (it's hard to tell sometimes with the lighting in Ark) with green underneath, grey legs and a white crest. I decided to breed them and got a female who got all the best bits looks-wise from the parents (and stats-wise too I think as she hatched at level 4). She's green with green underneath, grey legs and the white crest. I've managed to imprint her 100% too.

While she was hatching I messed around with my other dinos (argy eggs are so awkward to hatch!). I managed to breed my green iguanodon and get a green baby (they've all been reddish brown so far) so that green one can go into the breeding pool now just for the colour. I did the same with my carno and finally got another white baby so that's been put in with the reddish ones.

I gave in as where my base is, it's too warm, but my original base is always cooler even though it's pretty close so I took the egg and my otter over there to hatch the baby argy. I stuck around until she'd reached juvenile and could feed from the trough then went exploring on the mum. I didn't intend to go far but I went right up the west coast to the icy area then doubled back inland a bit. Mainly looking for equus and still didn't see any. I did see quite a few tapejara and some female battle chickens though, but they're not in easy places to tame them or get them home. I have however seen a quetzel near my old base so that's on my list to tame. It's been there for a while but I didn't have a spyglass before so had assumed it was a tapejara. And then I succumbed as I'd seen a pretty white female iguanodon (level 2... I've pushed the difficulty up but it still loves spawning low levels) so I tested the carrying capability of the argy and brought it back with me to my base to tame. I got back just in time to imprint on the baby (99.8% maturation) and just as she'd run out of food so that was lucky! I got the iguanodon tamed too so she can go in for some lovely colours. I haven't checked her stats yet (not that I'm exactly worrying at these levels, it's more practice for when I start taming the higher level stuff).

To top it all off when I got back to my current base a female bronto has spawned so I might just tame her up tomorrow.

Two family pictures included tonight.

Edit 1:
I tamed the female bronto. I also had a good fly around some more of the island so now I've flown over everything that isn't icy or fiery bar the very north east inland section. I need to head back over there for my raft at some point anyway so will probably fly over the land to uncover it. When I returned there were 3 icthyornis flying near my base and one was female so I put everything on passive and tried to tame her. Unfortunately I got her to the floor but then killed her with the tranq arrows. Oh well. I also finally roofed in my base. I'm going to raise the internal floor by 1 though so that's my next job. Everything's been botched together with cheap wood walls and the odd thatch one for now so I'll also work on upgrading everything and putting in windows and a nicer looking roof at some point. Nearly forgot, I killed my first alpha raptor today! Only about level 4 but I'm still proud

Edit 2:
Two days in one edit. Yesterday I finally found a horse! A male who I grabbed before a raptor could eat him. Flew him back with my argentavis and set up a very quick taming pen. I also went off to explore up the north east inland part and get my raft back and had my first encounter with a microraptor. Little bastard kicked me off my argy and of course I died. Luckily it wasn't too far from the raft and I'd put a bed plus a box of spare gear on there so I could respawn nearby. I took the raft back home then grabbed a pteranadon and rescued my argy.

Today I went off exploring again and found a spot with two horses :O One was female so I instantly grabbed her up and took her back to base again. At one point I had to stop and she ran off into the swamp where one of the smaller crocodile things went for her. Luckily the argy had got most of its stamina back so I could swoop down and rescue the horse. She's now pregnant, looking forward to my first foal. No idea what the other one was, maybe I should head back and check it out at some point. On the way to the horses I saw my first tek rex and steered well clear! I'm not set up to tame it yet. I need to work on getting tranq darts; I have the engrams but not the materials to make them.

I went out again, this time to look for a female otter but quite near my base spotted a male tek raptor so picked him up and my argy had enough health to carry him back to the taming pen whilst being attacked. So I now have a tiny little tek raptor baby who is taking forever to grow. Since I have the tek versions I won't look for a female normal raptor so my male is now outside the base with my random assortment of 'spare' dinos that I'm using to kill stuff. Whilst waiting on the tek raptor egg to hatch I moved my bird loft up 1 level so now I just need to make the base look nicer, rather than it being a weird mish mash of anything I had going.

I need to play with the settings more. I thought the breeding and hatching had been tweaked to be ok but the horse is taking over 4 hours to gestate and the tek raptor was I think half an hour to hatch and after maybe an hour of being hatched he's only just over 10% matured. I don't mind having some down time but if I'm not on a server I'm not willing to go into the multiple hours just for a couple of percent which I'm sure is what will happen as I get higher end dinos.

To Do:
Find a female otter
Find a female icthyornis
Find a female battle chicken
Tame the quetzel
Pretty up the base
Farm tranq darts

Great work Pevil! You've definitely started to movie into the big leagues as far as your tames are concerned. Not so much the levels, of course, but the dinos themselves. Since you've gotten this far, a few things you've probably already figured out.

Air
1. Argies - flying and picking up stuff long distance. Also good fighters
2. Pteranadons - Flying fast, but not so much weight or distance
3. Tapajara - a mix of argie and pteranadon, with the ability to fly like a helicopter.
4. Quetzal - great for airlifting heavy stuff... not so great for much else. Use it to move things from place to place, especially if you build it a platform saddle and add chests (or guns!)

Harvesting
1. Theri - The heavy attack will harvest mushrooms and flowers from swamp trees. Absolutely amazing. Also good for berries and fiber. Also get chitin off insects and stuff.
2. Anky - For harvesting metal, crystal, obsidian and flint.
3. Dodi (doedicurus) - Stone
4. Mammoth - Wood and thatch - the beaver works as well, but the mammoth just seem faster if you can tame one.

Land and combat
1. Rexes - good for fighting but not much else
2. Theri - surprisingly good at fighting, maneuvering and harvesting
3. Thylacoleo - Amazing at combat. Best creature for most caves. You can find it in the huge forest (redwoods)

Anyway, hope that helps, and great work!

Thanks Satis, definitely helps a lot I've seen people rave over quetz's but I guess that's more for the platform stuff if you're on a big server. I definitely like my pteranadon if I need to get somewhere quickly, the argy is great if I'm just scouting as it's slower but rarely needs to land. I like my pelagornis too for the fact we can rest on water and easily gather fish. Better than the other two for using a spyglass too as it doesn't get in the way. Getting a female theri is definitely high up so I can breed more; the wood/thatch/fibre gathering is great and I've also had a brief look at some boss stuff and know they're good for taking on the dragon. I've seen some dodi's around too, are those the ones that can also heal other dinos? I might pick a couple up soon. Stone is still a pain to harvest as the anky just gets tons of metal and flint with a little stone here and there. I'm going to be brave today or tomorrow and see if I can tame that tek rex. I haven't seen a mammoth (assuming they're in the icy bit) yet or a thylacoleo, I've seen some videos of them though and they do look pretty cool. I haven't explored the redwoods much to be honest, mainly flew through them to go up to the top of the mountain when just uncovering map.

I need to just do some prep and stop being a wuss. I'm level 80 for goodness sake! I need to up the difficulty a bit more too so the higher levels spawn. Knowing the general ways to tame for some of them now (traps or bolas or just being faster than them) helps so in theory the levels won't make it tougher, just takes longer to knock them out and tame.

Edit: It's far too early in the morning. Why am I still up? Because we needed to relax this evening so after watching Anchorman 2, despite it being 11pm, we decided to game. Back on Ark for me and I figure time to be brave. I hop on my argy and head out to find where the tek rex was. I found him again pretty easily, a level 25 wandering around on the next bit of land from my base. The beach there is usually not too bad, maybe a few dilos and raptors but it was virtually empty today so I went off to make 3 dino gateways and a large bear trap. By the time I'd done that it was about 5pm in game so I decided to wait until the next day, just in case. Good job I did.

I headed out as soon as the sun came up. Set up the trap, headed back home for meat, my longneck rifle and tranq darts then went to where I'd seen him. Could I find him? Of course not. I flew around the area at least 4 times and saw nothing. I said to Niall this is my last sweep then I'm going to bed. And there it was! Then came the fun cat and mouse game; he was at the north end of the land spit and I'd put the trap halfway down the west beach. The centre of it was dense jungle and tall hills so I figured it was easiest to kite him around the coast. Unfortunately the north west corner was jutting into the swamp so of course he kept getting distracted. It probably took me 15 minutes to drag him a distance I could've flown in 1 minute. And by this time it was getting dark. Somehow though I managed to guide him into the trap and then, you know the rest.

Now to find a good name for him. I like his colour scheme too; black and silver body, dark blue lights and a brassy head. Pic below along with my two horses and my iron man tek raptor that I bred.

Another good day today. I found a level 49 female theri wandering near the base so got her. She should've gained 24 bonus levels but a little dilo bastard came up to nom on her and knocked her down to 8 Still, 57 isn't bad. She looks like the male a bit but she's green body with a red and grey stripe down the back. I renamed the male to Salad Fingers and she's now Deathbird. They've already had a son who shall help me in my general wildlife killing army whilst I look for high level ones to breed. I also farmed up a bunch of tranq darts quite quickly as I had lots of charcoal over in my old base. At one point I was out riding on the horse I'd bred when a level 60 alpha raptor decided to destroy him so I went off to get the army (pre-theri) and destroyed her. Got my first blue items, 2 bits of hide armour.

I quickly bred up another foal to replace the dead one then flew off to find a doedicurus. On the way I found a supply crate with my first purple item in. It's a blueprint too! Although only for a cloth cap so not exactly the best thing it could be. I found one doedi being attacked by hyaenadons so I managed to rescue him. He's only level 3 but I picked him up and flew him back to my base to tame. And wow. Once I'd got him I hit two rocks and got about 800 stone. That would've taken me 3 or 4 trips on my anky.

I'm now just breeding up another argy. I really love the green and gold female I first tamed and none of the offspring have inherited her gold feathers so I'm trying to get another like her, just in case she gets chomped on. No luck though, another green and dark grey one.

Edit:
Accidentally had another good day today! I decided to head back to where I tamed my argys before as my trap is still set up and see if I could get some different coloured ones. I'd seen a lovely white and chestnut one before so I got myself prepared and headed up there. The trap was still safe so I flew up to the mountain and there were tons of them around. Most were level 2ish though. I was resigned to getting a low level when I spotted a female who was 24. Not too bad and quite pretty; in the light at the time she looked like she had lemon and silver feathers. Once tamed I realised the lemon was the same light green my others have. Whilst I was scoping out the argys though, on top of the mountain I saw a level 26 female doedicurus. I couldn't miss her; she was orange and blue! So I decided to tame the argy and use it to carry her back to my house. Whilst the argy was taming I went back up the mountain to check the doedi was still there and witnessed at the peak a level 20 rex fighting a level 64 argy. Both became very bloodied but in the end the argy won. Since he's the highest level one I've seen and had beaten up a rex I figured I had to tame him. Plus he was chestnut and yellow so very handsome looking. So once the female was tamed, I went and got the male.

All went well and I then used the male to bring the doedi back to my house. She tamed easily enough and I've now bred her and got another male. I had also accidentally left my horses on mating so turned round at one point and wondered why there was a tiny horse until I realised! So I have another female horse now too. I tested the female doedi out gathering stone and she got me almost 1700 in 3 hits (I do have resource gathering up higher than default but still impressive). Other than that I searched for a female otter (no otters at all spawning) and tidied up my base. It's basically done now but I want to change from a flat roof to a sloped one, finish the 'runway' outside the flight loft and section off part of it as an incubation/hatching/raising area. To do this I need to build another stable though to move the adults I'm not breeding in to. I also need to get some more facilities in the human section of it, namely some electricity so I can get a fridge going and a fabricator. To end the night I bred the two new argys and have just hatched a level 83 male who has his dad's chestnut main colour with some of the light green from the mum.

To Do:
Find a female otter
Find a female icthyornis
Tame a breeding pair of normal rexes
Finish the base

Another good couple of days!

Yesterday I just concentrated on building a horse barn for breeding purposes so it was a fairly chilled out day. Today I went off on a killing spree to see if I could get any horses to spawn. I could not, but I had fun killing all sorts with 3 iguanodons, 3 parasaurs, 2 carnos and 1 battle chicken. Still nothing really scary but lots of raptors, dilos and any herbivores that got in my way. The best bit however was right at the start of it, very close to my base, I ran across an otter. I was so shocked to see my second otter ever I didn't even think to check it, I just ran to grab a pteranadon and move it to a taming pen. As always it's not very high level but it was a female. So I got her now and already bred a baby so I can get on with sorting out an incubation room. Due to the summer event that's on she's blue.

After the killing spree I planned to just mess about near the base and headed up the nearby hill where some crystals spawn so I could finally make a fabricator. As I headed that way I saw a level 76 female battle chicken so I made a note to trap and tame her. Then as I got nearer the crystal I spotted a carno wandering around. 108 male. Yes please. My trap needed fixing so I got on with that and lured a raptor back to my base so my army, who just hang around outside, would kill it. It worked fine but as I was inside grabbing the stuff for the carno I hear my rex roaring and things moving around and then that fateful message flashes up; the carno had wandered close and been murdered in seconds. Never mind, guess I'll have to keep an eye out for a replacement. I'll also have to finally set up a perimeter fence to stop that happening. But as I write this I'm 33% through taming the female battle chicken. She should hit 113 after taming, making her my highest level dino yet and she'll help me breed up some better theris at least for my army. Here's hoping I haven't just jinxed it by typing this up

Edit:
Yesterday I found another, more normal coloured female otter where the blue one was. She was higher level too, 101 once tamed. So I now have about 6 otters as I bred her and had accidentally left the original pair breeding and got back as mother was halfway through pregnancy. I also ended up taming a couple of hesperonis. I didn't really intend to but they'd spawned right by the base and one was bright green and black.

Today I just did a flight around the entire island, bar the frozen bits (still need to make some fur armour and get an otter high enough to help insulate me too). I was checking all the possible unicorn spawns and just generally exploring. No sign of any unicorn but I got some really good drops, including quite a few apprentice and higher blueprints. Mostly saddles too although I think the only ones I currently need were the argy and anky ones. I did get a couple of good armour blueprints though so that was handy.

Edit 2:
Nothing major to report. I built an incubation room out of metal and threw my otters in it. I've tested it on battle chicken, tek raptor, carno and argy eggs and it works fine. Other than that I've just been bumbling about exploring really. I was getting a little irritated the last couple of days. First I ran into a bug where I wasn't gaining exp. I'm not max level, I'm 86, changed no settings regarding that and had been doing fine. From some research it might be from when I died whilst riding my argy the other day so I had to spawn in a mindwipe tonic which only gave me back 76 so I then forced a level which gave me the remaining 10. Then today despite me having checked everything before exiting last night, all my fish had disappeared. Not even a corresponding amount of spoiled meat so I had to run off for an impromptu fishing trip.

To Do:
Find a female icthyornis
Tame a breeding pair of normal rexes
Finish the base

Sounds like things are coming along well. Definitely keep going after those drops... there are certain areas with higher level drops that spawn, so as you'll find them I recommend you keep hitting them regularly. Blueprints are definitely the way to go as you progress. A nice blueprint longneck rifle with high damage is amazing for tame purposes. Something I hadn't mentioned was water creatures... keep an eye out for a basilosaurus if you're playing around at sea. They're end-game water creatures, and quite useful for the 2 water caves (plus raiding water drops). Dunkleosteus on the other hand are great for oil. Not sure if you're at the point yet where that's useful, but it's quite good later.

Anyway, keep it up. Glad you're really digging Ark. Shiny and I were addicted to that game for months. I think we only got bored after switching to the Scorched Earth map. That map is soul-suckingly boring. So be warned.