Yea, those high level crafting benches tend to be pretty big... the forge is definitely the biggest of the bunch, but the rest aren't exactly tiny. What's kinda crazy is if you really want to mass produce metals, you need more than one of those bad boys. Congrats on your progress! I haven't played at all.

Feels like that red dino shouldn't get so close to that house Can they actually destroy buildings?

They can indeed Ox! Different dinos can damage different materials so thatch houses will get destroyed by most dinos, but you need huge dinos to destroy metal houses.

I got more weird coloured dinos today. A wild red 145 female Baryonyx and then when I did some breeding I got a mutation with a cyan belly. I also bred sheep yesterday and they look so cute when first born! Also if they don't move they end up wearing their mother's poo.

Did you have your sheep babies shoot across the room when they were born? We had a lot of issues with that, or going down into the floor or whatever. Also since they're pretty rare and hard to tame in the wild, the ones we had tended to be really low level, so babies didn't live long if you didn't feed them immediately. Of course, with your tweaked baby/food settings, that may not be as much of an issue. I did have one Ovis that was bright red (I think it was from the Christmas event). The thing was awesome.

Still not playing Ark. I'll go back eventually.

No, weirdly they were fine, half sunk into the floor but that's it. I've read there are often issues with them so I was expecting some. I got really lucky, the 2 wild females I found were 85 (tamed up to 127). The male I think was only about 20ish and came out at 30ish but the babies so far have all been 80+ with about 40 health to start with, giving me a little leeway. I have read about setting up a little field, leaving them permanently breeding and just leaving an aggressive dino in there to slaughter the newborns instantly. I might do it, I might be nice and just keep the flock until I require the meat. I have more than enough raw meat for general purposes and if I slaughter a high health adult when it's needed for taming that should give me plenty. I also might raise one just for charging around near my house on it, they're far too cute.

I intend to keep your interest peaked just enough that you eventually go back to it The new map is out in a couple of weeks, 14th December. Can't remember if it's Lost Island or Fjordur (Fjordur is another like Crystal Isles where it is already out as a player made map but they're making it official and adding some new dinos too).

Edit: New beauty spawned for me, 145 wild and tamed out with a new high stamina, 44 points in it!

Picked up a bunch of red critters yesterday. I got a bright red male deer and a darker red/brown female deer (not as cool as my ones from the old save), a bright red pachy, a purple and green dimorphodon and a bright orange and purple allo; only level 90 in the wild but thought I'd grab it for the colours. I also managed to get a new thyla, 145 who has improved some stats for my breeding line. She's a lovely light grey. Oh and also got a breeding couple of max level raptors plus an extra female who was 145 wild.

Probably going to take a bit of a break now until the new map is out next week, then I might move my character over so I don't have to grind levels from the very beginning (still only about 87 I think though) but won't bother taking items or dinos over.

Lost Island is here! I got on for a couple of hours last night and didn't die :O I nearly did this morning though. I transferred my survivor over so I'm starting at level 86 but with nothing. Spawned in next to a weird freaky thing; turns out it's Gacha Claus because the Christmas event has started the same day.

Last night basically consisted of running around my spawn point, spotting a nice tower to set up base in (this morning I found there might be a cave in the basement), taming a couple of Christmas coloured dinos and just generally taking pictures. This morning consisted of troodons murdering my parasaur, then nearly murdering me but my dilo protected me whilst I got down to a tiny sliver of health as I was unconcious. I also got a dimorph. I've seen where there are horses so they'll be tamed soon and I've already seen 4 brontos stuck in cliffs. Good to know the new map is as glitchy as the others!

Current dinos I own consist of 2 pteras (need to get some chitin for saddles), 3 dilos (bred my 2 just now), a tek raptor and a dimorph. There seem to be a lot of purple drops that come down near my spawn point so I should be able to rake in some blueprints easily. Already have a chalicotherium saddle and something else that I forget plus a couple of decent (50ish) armours.

Oh I was telling Niall about breeding my dilos and almost pronounced it wrong so we've all been there! I tamed another one yesterday as it was a cool blue colour and not bad level (60ish wild) so it can go into the pack.

I managed to tame one of the new dinos last night, the sinomacrops, aka weird winged jetpack thing. It's awesome! They can actually fly you around, albeit relatively slowly and like everything, that relies on stamina. However when they run out you don't just plummet to your death, they use their wings as a parachute. You can also go into a glide with them and travel a lot faster. This uses up the stamina faster too but again, they'll just parachute you to the ground. They also have a scream that you can use manually or set on auto with a cooldown of 1 minute. The scream scares anything small away (I believe up to hyaenadons are affected) and you can even toggle it so that it only activates once they aggro on you, otherwise it would constantly be screaming at dodos. Sadly I was trying to tame a gorgeous green and red male after I tamed my female but I messed up so it kept running and starved. All 3 new dinos are passive tames but with a twist. The sinomacrops eats chitin so you put that in 0 then have to stand still near one or they spook. You can't be wearing chitin or they'll attack. Once they notice you they'll come over and you can feed them, then they'll instantly fly away. This is where I messed up. I chased after it but you shouldn't, they can get up to 100m away, possibly more, and once they get hungry they'll come back. If you move towards them they'll spook and never come back whereas if you just stay still they hop right up to you.

This morning I had a fly around maybe 1/3rd of the map. I saw managarmrs and magmasaurs, not seen those before. I also saw a level 8 giga. I did spot a pack of dinopethicus (the new giant monkey) but had no way to get it safely back to the base so I'll go back for that. You can only tame the alpha of a pack and to do that you brutally murder the rest of its pack, drop the alpha's health to less than 85% then you can feed it passively. Sure, why wouldn't you be friends with someone who did that?!

The other new dino, amargasaurus, has evaded me so far. That has some complicated thing about staying out of sight of it so it doesn't attack you, being the right temperature and then feeding it whilst it's attacking other dinos.

I've got argys near where I started so I'm going to grind out some tranq arrows and a trap and tame a bunch up tonight. I've seen some gorgeous ones further afield too. The christmas colours lead to some really pretty dinos. I couldn't even be too mad at the theri that murdered my pteranadon earlier as it was a lovely silvery one. I saw a lovely green horse too, dark green stripes and a pale green base but last time I went by that area there were rexes so it's probably long dead.

It does sound like a nuisance. I had a good fly around the map yesterday as I'd tamed some argys the night before (only low level) so I got a few pictures. I also found and tamed a unicorn and 2 low level but funky coloured horses and my first dinopithecus (the giant monkey). It's a beast! It climbs like a thyla but can go sideways on surfaces too, has a similar jump to the thyla but you can charge it up and it slaps the shit out of everything. Mine was around level 70 when first tamed and was doing over 100 damage already. They're fast too. I haven't used him to throw poop yet.

I had a couple of hours on crystal isles today as I was confused about finding raptor claus so figured it's easier to work it out on there with my wyverns. Finally saw him and got a couple of presents so need to do that on other maps now as the drops are really good. I also got a nice looking but low level baryonyx and a red and white diplo.

To answer your question, Lost Island feels like a larger Island, more dramatic too. There's a bit of mainland down in the south east with a huge desert, then there's the main island taking up most of the map but kind of in the north west as such. There are a few other smaller islands dotted around too. There are lots of huge plains, big, craggy mountains and 2 very dramatic volcanos. Even the plains have a lot of drama going on with gulleys and canyons. There are also ruins; the tower I posted that I'm living in, some aztec type ruins in the north and a fortress not far from me on a snowy outcrop. That last one is 'Solitude'. Because the map is actually loosely based on Tamriel: https://www.reddit.com/r/playark/commen ... ed_island/

I've got more to post but gotta go so will add those tomorrow Enjoy!

More landscapes. Also I found the equivalent of the Imperial City so I'm moving my dinos over there. It will again save me building most of the base, just the odd wall/gate here and there and of course the machines. If you were on a server with a big tribe it would be very cool. I'll get a bunch of pics soon.

Oh man, they based the island on Tamriel? That's freaking awesome. And the imperial city! Ok, I'm much more intrigued now. Very cool. Let me know if you run into Vivec.

That would be a fight and a half, Vivec vs Rexes

I can't be bothered sorting through all my screenies now but I'll include a couple and an update on what I've been up to, and tales of loss.

I've spent a little time building up my base, though not too much yet. The 'imperial city' is basically an abandoned castle. It's out on an island that you can only get to via one bridge (or of course flying) and has a wall right around it, then the wall splits it in half as well. The half at the bridge end has some ruined buildings such as a tavern, a blacksmith and a church plus a few little houses. There are the remnants of fields too, one of which I discovered today has rare flowers growing in it. Very handy. I also spotted a bee's nest on the wall. There's a small moat by the wall that cuts it in half so you can easily get fields irrigated. A (non-functional) drawbridge leads under the halfway wall and out into the other side which is just a big overrun wild area with some patheways set out. The wall itself has lots of little towers you can go into and climb up to get to the top of it. On an actual server it would be great for a tribe as you could easily set up communal rooms/areas and have private rooms for each member too. The drawbridge arch nicely fits a behemoth gate in to so I've put one up to separate it off a little more. My plan is to make the buildings functional as they were (so forge in the smithy, cooking pot/bed in the tavern etc) and I've started fencing off different paddocks in the wild half for my dinos.

I finally managed to get a female dinopithecus so I've been breeding apes and took a troop of 7 out to see what they're like. They are pretty powerful. There's an annoying bug/feature with them where if they attack something they lose the follow command, even if you didn't give the kill command. I think it's related to their pack ability though, as when you're on the troop leader one of the skills you can use is 'Battle Cry' which is pretty much the same as pointing at a creature and giving the kill command, but it makes the troop all leap in the air to attack the target. I'm not sure if it does more damage than just giving the usual command or not but it looks terrifying; if you were on a server and that happened you'd provide enough fertiliser to keep your farm going for years!

I found maewings! Tamed a low level one and will get some more at some point for the baby raising help. They're also incredibly fun to glide around on (if you haven't seen them yet they're basically a platypus crossed with a flying squirrel and can be used to rear all babies; you turn on their nursing ability and milk comes squiriting out of their nipples )

The last couple of days have had some irritating losses. I think it's due to my new favourite tame, it seems cursed when I use it! The snow owl. They don't spawn on the other 2 maps I've played so far but I now love them. Similar stats to an argy but can't pick any dinos up. They can however heal you, themselves and dinos near them by turning into an ice cube. This includes wild dinos so you don't have to risk killing one you're trying to knock out. They also have the griffin dive bomb/speed glide (which is silent, useful if doing PvP) and finally they have heat vision so you can see those nasty thylas waiting to pounce. The heal and the vision drain stamina pretty quickly so you need to pump that up but it lasts for ages when just flying around.

The first one I spotted was a low level one but pure white. I managed to get her tamed up and she died very quickly. I can't remember what actually got her now. I liked it so much I had to go get more though so I headed back to where I'd got her. I got another female and stashed her safely then went searching for a male. I had seen a level 140 red and green one flying around but it had gone for me at one point and got lost somewhere. I know vaguely where it was but haven't been able to find it since. I headed into the snow to find one and spotted a 90ish male, set up my trap and started to tranq it before I realised it's freezing and I'm about to die. I went to grab my pteranadon to fly out of the cold but the bloody thing was on passive flee and not following so it had buggered off to who knows where (still not found it yet). I let myself die and flew back on my argy to finish taming up the male. Back to base we go and I bred one egg. It needs cold temperatures so took it to my argy hatching place (really need some otters or aircons on this map) and got twins out of it! Got them grown up, one at 66% imprinted, one fully imprinted. Fly back to base with them following... wait, why is only one following? For some reason, despite flying high, one had gone to pick a fight with a carno. In trying to rescue it BOTH babies died. Back I go to base, annoyed at myself for the silly mistake.

There's a level 40 giga on the map that I'm planning on trying to tame so I logged on today to start working towards that (9 levels until I can ride it but like that'll stop me!) I've got my anky parked near some metal so flew over there with the argy as the metal is all on different ledges. Got that smelting and took a small portion of it back to base whilst waiting on the rest. Except I flew back on a slightly different line to normal. This line took me over 'morrowind' and where the wyverns are. I would've been fine except I saw a wyvern failing at life. It was flying nose down with its entire front half stuck in the ground. I took screenshots of it from a distance then flew over it, quite high up. Not high enough. It came after me and one shot me out of the air. Respawn and head back to get my things, expecting a dead argy and sinomacrops. Both were alive but just as I draw near the wyvern murdered the sinomacrops. I managed to grab my stuff and get on the argy but knew I wouldn't be able to outfly the wyvern. We started a dogfight and I got it bloody but then the stamina was running out and it destroyed my argy too.

Out I head to get a new sinomacrops. They're so useful. I found one way up north on the beach, got it tamed, then decided to tame a second while I was there. Big mistake. I'd flown there on my snow owl who then got attacked by raptors. Told you they're cursed! Somehow it survived but my newly tamed sinomacrops got munched and the one I was after flew away. Much later this evening I managed to get 2 males and a fmale tamed so they've now been bred twice (not hatched yet) as backup and I've also bred my snow owls a few times to hatch at some point as further back ups.