Welcome to the 42nd issue of the Community Crunch! To those unaware this is a topic which primarily consist of content to share, made by the community, for the community! As well as any little changes I want to make survivors aware about, which happen within our community ;).

Fan Feature

When you’re taming something big.. By ThickFreedom

ARK BEASTIARY: CASTOROIDES by Virtual Realm

ARK: Never trust a stranded base by SmileB4Death

Mech Invasion Cinematic by Welcome to Paradise

Sentoki’s Marzipan Woolly Rhino

Dododex Taming Caluclator has now hit 100k Downloads!

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=651773154

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=646771985

Congratulation guys - thanks for the awesome tool

Fanmade Dossier: Unicorn by Rin

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=650812780

Fanmade Dossier: Synthetoceras by Davy Jones!!

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=653411208

Fanmade Dossier: Acrocanthosaurus by Shadlos

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=648820632

Fanmade Dossier: Machimosaurus by Shadlos

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=644973697

Fanmade Dossier: Rathalos by Shadlos

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=651900732

Fanamde Dossier: Alpha Dilo by Malkizid

Source: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=645398012

Community Contests!

ARKitect

This is an award given to Survivors to celebrate the amazing structures you build. These bases are judged based upon a number of different factors such as their creativity, uniqueness, how fun of a base it is, the difficulty of building it, the functionality it provides and much more!

The ARKitect for Community Crunch 42 is..

The Lime Inc!

ARK Survival Evolved - A Game of Ark - A Song of Fire Ice and Penguins

Absolutely incredible! One of the most impressive pieces of ARKitect entries we’ve ever seen :). We’re going to double the prize for this entry and you’ll be awarded 400$!

Congratulations and keep it up!

We'd also like to give an honourable mention to the following Survivors for their awesome arkitecture work!

FataL1ty for his Star Wars Star Destroyer!

ARKArt

This is an award given to survivors who have created beautiful work of art for that week! As always, the artwork is not being judged on the quality of the screenshot or the graphical settings used, but instead what you have managed to draw and produce in game.

The ARKArtist for Community Crunch 42 is…

hanseNGaming for Karoks Tattoo!

Very impressive work Hansen!

We'd also like to give an honourable mention to the following Survivor for their ARKArt!

Okim!

Ady the Shaman!

Cyan the Tamer!

Ancients of IOARK

Thank you for all the entries this week guys! Congratulations to all our winners and if you’d like to take a look at what all the survivors submitted, you can do so here:

Workshop Spotlight!

Workshopper: -(OzSF)- B.Cheers

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=612504284

Hey! Thanks for joining us! Could you introduce yourself to the community and let us know about the mods you're working on?

Quote Yeah sure. I'm Ben Cheers, I’m a part time 3D Artist at Paladin Development and the mods I am working on are mainly Ark Futurism; however I have a few others I've made and helped with. My other mod is Storage Plus. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=632097668

Tell us more about ARK Futurism - where does your inspiration come from, is there a story for this mod?

Quote ARK Futurism grants players access to a vast amount of items, ranging from Power Armour, Hydro Grow Tanks, Mechs, New Structure Sets, New Turret Types the list goes on, and I still have more to add. My main inspiration for all this is from Japanese anime and dystopian based futures, and I've always liked anything scifi, for now there is no story for ARK futurism however I am planning on making the mod a Total Conversion, and it will be a team based capture and control. One team is the invading forces which are technology based; the other team -the natives- will rely on dinos and the land to fight back finding the balance between these two is going to be hard but not impossible.

Team based capture and control! That sounds like a lot of fun. I imagine with a PvP focused mod like that you’ll need to take steps to balance the game, have you had any thoughts in regards to this?

Quote Well balancing anything in a game is a lot harder then it sounds so my method for balance is my items are end end game items, and for any weapons/turrets/mechs depending on what they do their cost to craft is increased.

Speaking of your items - they’re not something you come across in everyday modding, were these assets you had created yourself?

Quote Every asset in ARK futurism I have made myself - apart from a few textures that I got offline, and I take a lot of pride in the work I produce for my mods since my mod is a showcase of what I can do as a 3d artist.

Well you should be very proud as it’s fantastic! What are the next steps for your mod?

Quote A Drop ship is on my next to do list. I've started the model but still have no idea yet how I'm going to make it work in game which is the most exciting part, and many more mechs.

A ship and more mechs! Sounds awesome - futurism fans everywhere will love it! Out of what you’ve created so far, do you have a favourite piece?

Quote It would have to be my new mech the HST-Berserker which I added after many people wanted a mech for combat so I did just that a rail gun on one arm a 20mm auto-cannon on the other multi purpose launchers on the hull and a 120mm manned turret on the tail.

It does look pretty damn cool! It’s clear you’ve interacted a lot with your community! There’s quite a lot of spotlights and youtube videos made after your mod, how have you found this?

Quote It makes me happy when people can enjoy my mod the same way I do and the reactions they get is priceless.

Glad to hear it! I imagine this isn’t your first step into the modding world, what’s your experience like?

Quote I've been modding since the days of bf1942 and have modded quite a few games from simple things to full maps. This is my 3rd and largest mod I've made now for ARK and working with the devkit is same old to me I used to use UDK and now UE4 since it was first released however there are days the devkit and I don't agree.

And would you have any advice for survivors wanted to get started with the ADK?

Quote Start simple and small read up on UE4 engine, since understanding the limits and workings of the engine will help you more then jumping in head first,networking is key you're not the only person modding so don't be scared to ask other modders for help. And don't get worried about breaking the devkit I do it on a regular basis.

Awesome! How has your personal experience been, what would you say was your greatest challenge with the project?

Quote Server replication has been a thorn in my side mainly because with the company I'm contracted to, our game is a single player so I never knew much about how important replication is, and that I’m doing all this by myself most other large mods have a team working together.

Well the work you’ve done is very impressive so far and you’ve got a number of fans in the community! Is there anything you’d like to end with before wrapping this up?

Quote If you have any ideas and like ark futurism then come over to my workshop page and tell me about them. i do listen to what people want and I do add quite a lot of assets based off what people request as long as it suits the mod.

Sweet, thanks a lot Ben! Here’s a link to his workshop if you’d like to take him up on that offer:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=632097668

That’s it for this week’s Crunch guys! As always if you’ve got anything to share please get in touch and be sure to follow us on Twitter at @survivetheark - Facebook at www.facebook.com/survivetheark and Reddit at www.reddit.com/r/playark

Thanks everyone!

All the best,

Wildcard Jat and the ARK Survival Evolved Team