The ARK Digest Issue #3

Good evening ARKaholics! Issue #3 of the ARK Digest has just released and you can get up to date with everything new right here.

Game Update:

The past week the team has been hard at work on the alpha and early access for ARK. They’ve been stress testing the game and working on making it as bug free as possible. They did not mention any new features for this ARK Digest.

Dino Dossiers:

We mentioned that the team is releasing two dino dossiers every day until the launch of early access, which we received the most recent one in this ARK Digest. You can find the new Ankylosaurus here!

Community Questions Answered:

Question: Could you give a rundown of what is the normal thing to do for the first few hours of the game?

Answer: This is a great question! And to be honest… there’s a lot of potential to what you can do when you first pop in.

First things first, you get in and here’s where you have to make a decision – do you want to stay in this area, potentially inhabited by other survivors or do you want to make for the hills and begin your life on the ARK elsewhere?

If you’ve chosen option one – we advise you take a few moments and look at your surroundings, what is nearby? Who is nearby? Do you see the opportunity to attack anyone? You are equipped only with your hands. These are great tools, not only can you use them to knock out players and potentially steal their gear, but you can also use them as a way of gathering resources. Walking up to trees and punching them will allow you to collect the thatch and wood which is necessary for the first tool you plan to make. If instead you see a person, well you might just be in luck! Consider using the prone or crouch to sneak up on them making minimal noise and SMACK EM, if you have successfully managed to take them out by being sneaky, hopefully you’ll be rewarded with plenty of gear. If you die, well… I mean being sneaky isn’t for everyone and there are other options available to you!

Now back to gathering, after you’ve collect the necessary resources for making a tool. You’ll quickly progress through the early game, you’ll start to gain resources more efficiently and in larger numbers, decide on how you want to stat-up your character and where you want to spend your first engram points. Picking up the first set of engrams is very recommended as you’ll want to at least have the bare necessities before you begin specializing.

Soon you’ll find that you are able to successfully craft better tools, weapons, campfires, and clothing. This begins your journey on the ARK and is the first step of survival. Remember whilst all this is going on you need to ensure that your character is well hydrated and fed. You can do this by picking berries off of bushes, submerging into deep water and or killing Dinosaurs for their meat, as well as collecting their hide to make a waterskin.

Now you’ve done the basics, and you’ll manage this fairly quickly – it’s time to move on and look for a place where you’d like to build. You would want to get a house set up as soon as possible for protection from other survivors, the dinosaurs, and the ARK, which can be very unforgiving for those unprepared.

After you’ve setup your first base, with some storage options and a place to sleep you may want to consider how you plan to specialize. Do you want to be a survivor who wants to hunt and tame beasts, are you someone who prefers building grand villages, do you want to explore and just travel across the ARK? There are plenty of paths you can take on your life and the way you specialize will determine how effective you are in those roles.

Question: Because Dinosaurs fight with each other, if two fight and one loses will we find it death on the ground to harvest things from? Is it possible that the dinosaur can get knocked-out by another dinosaur to make it easily tamable?

Answer: This is something we have focused on very early on. We want our ecosystem to interact with one another. They’ll fight each other, they’ll get involved in battles occurring between different dinosaurs if aggravated and you can surely expect to find some dead carcasses across the ARK. As for taming an already knocked out dinosaur, if it wasn’t knocked out by a person you can be sure to have the ability to tame it for yourself! Some dinosaurs will apply torpidity with their attacks, such as the Pulmonoscorpius, and there may be occasions when they’ve left an unconscious body untouched due to chasing something else or being killed themselves!

Question: Will ARK support mod makers for the PC?

Answer: Yes! Without a doubt! We’re all gamers at Studio Wildcard, we love making games, and we love playing games. We will be providing complete support to mod-makers when Early Access launches. We will release our source code, our editor which uses Unreal Engine 4, as well as all the assets necessary. We’re looking forward to what you guys make!

Question: Will it be possible to ride a Brontosaurus in water? Will Brontosaurus steps break barricades, walls, doors?

Answer: All the land creatures of the ARK are able to swim, however they’re not very effective. They swim slower than they travel on land and you have to keep in mind that there’s a stamina and oxygen stat. If your dinosaur runs out of stamina or oxygen whilst you’re swimming, you risk it travelling incredibly slowly and drowning or suffocating to death. Keep in mind that some land creatures are better than others at swimming, such as the Carbnonemys, and others are amphibious and do not require as much oxygen, such as the Sarcosuchus.

As for whether Brontosaurus will break structures, you can definitely see that happening. They’re a passive creature, but if your house is in the way… well they don’t care, they’ll be sure to step over it. Be careful as if you have any Dinosaurs nearby who have been set to Neutral, or may even be inside the structure, you’ll risk them fighting… and most often a Brontosaurus will probably crush anything that picks a fight with it.

Question: Could you please dive more into the skill tree? Specifically, what attributes will there be to level up?

Answer: This has been asked a lot so I guess it’s time for us to share some details ;). As you level up via playing the game, you gain Stat points and Engram points. You’ll be given one stat point per level and Engram points which scale per level. This is a key part of ARK: Survival Evolved as what you spend these points on determines the role you play.

The stats you have available to you are as follows: Health, Stamina, Oxygen, Food, Water, Weight, Melee Damage, Movement Speed, Fortitude, Crafting Speed and Torpor.

Health

This is the one the core-stats that you see in many games, it determines your life value, if this hits 0 – your character is dead. When you reach below the 25%, your character becomes injured. You will have to regenerate your health using food, blood packs or natural regeneration to regain normal functionality.

Stamina

This is another key trait used in many games, it is generally used to determine how much energy your character has. Eating and drinking certain food will help replenish stamina. As you find yourself playing the game, you’ll see the bar plummet, especially when working tirelessly. So if you’re always chopping trees or sprinting, you’ll need to take time regenerate.

Oxygen

This is an uncommon trait you won’t see in many games. Rivers, Lagoons, Underwater pools and the Ocean plays a huge part in the ARK. It’s often a place of sanctuary or potentially a place of danger. There are times you’ll find yourself diving to the bottom of a pool, riding on aquatic friend, or swimming across to escape a deadly predator… only to find yourself in the mouth of another ;). Increasing oxygen allows you to stay submerged for longer periods of time.

Food

This is a stat you’ll find in pretty much every survival game. Simply put it tells you if your character is hungry, ensure that you’re well fed otherwise you’ll risk starvation. Increasing the amount allows for your character to eat more, therefore you’ll have more time available to you in between meals.

Water

This is a stat you’ll also find in pretty much every survival game. Water is something that will need to be monitored as if you’re thirsty you’ll find yourself suffering from dehydration.

Weight

This is something that’s core to the game. Unlike many other survival games that are primarily slot-based when it comes to inventory, ARK is not. ARK is a weight-based game. This means you can hold as many materials as you like, as long as you have the weight to withstand it. Weight is very useful stat, though something to keep in mind is that the more you carry, the slower you run and the lower you jump. When you reach a certain level of weight, you become encumbered and will find yourself unable to do much.

Melee Damage

is just as the name states. There are always going to be plenty of weapon options in games and normal circumstances dictate that range has an advantage, you deal a lot of damage, you can avoid taking it. It’s the most common way that survivors chose to fight, however we’ve introduced the melee damage stat to give players the opportunity to consider using it as a fighting option.

Movement Speed

This is another key stat to the game, it’s used to determine how quickly a survivor can travel by foot. It is very useful in terms of escaping, hunting, in fact just about everything. It has great synergy with Stamina!

Fortitude

This is a very useful stat that not many may consider. Living life on the ark, experiencing the weather and the eco-system; you’re at risk! Increasing fortitude will help provide some resistance from the elements, as well as provide you some crucial resistance from torpor, which we’ll talk about later on ;). Fortitude is increased by 1 for each point you spend.

Crafting Speed

This is a unique stat and not seen in many games. This will allow survivors the opportunity to craft quicker, at first glance you may think it’s not as useful as the other ones. However you might end up in a pinch where you have seconds to live and you really need to make a bow, those points spent in crafting will definitely make all the difference. The difference between kill or be killed. It’s also a fun trait to consider having on servers where you just want to build as quickly as possible and make many grand structures.

Torpor

Also known as torpidity is a stat which you will not be able to increase. However it is incredibly useful and very important that you watch your levels of torpor. It is used to monitor whether your character becomes unconscious and how long it stays unconscious for. When you have a high amount of torpor, you’ll be knocked out and will have to wait for it to decrease before you can function again though it decreases at a fairly rapid rate. As mentioned before, Fortitude provides resistance to Torpor in the sense that weapons, tools or consumables may not provide as much. Torpor is a key element when knocking out players and dinosaurs, if you find that your torpor is increasing – you better consider gobbling some Stimberries or some Stimulant otherwise find yourself potentially in grave danger.

Now that’s it for the stat points… now for the Tech Tree and Engram points!

As well as gaining stat points for leveling, you’ll also find that you receive Engram points. Engram points are spent on a pseudo-tech tree and it can determine the knowledge your character has. Everything you spend an engram point on, you’ll learn permanently. You’ll have the opportunity to learn a wide variety of engrams, such as the ability to craft tools, weapons, building structures, saddles, signs, crops, pipes, fridges, turrets, flares, parachutes, notes, clothes, armor, and well… you get the point. There are loads of things that you can craft, too much for one person to handle. This is why it’s suggested you find a group or a tribe to play with, or consider looking for some blueprints 😉

What about the Alpha?!

The alpha is still an ongoing process which the team has received a lot of feedback from the testers. They are still working on bringing in more survivors to help them and advise you to keep an eye on your e-mails.