All the tips you need to survive in the ruthless, merciless world of ARK: Survival Evolved.

Inventory Management

Learning how to manage or sort your inventory can help you in the long run.

This section contains several advices that may not be perfect for you, depending on your playstyle, weight levels, and available resources. But for the most part, the information is helpful.

When it comes to your inventory, there are some things that are always prudent to be kept, no matter what you’re doing. You never know when a potential tame, dangerous dino, rare resource, etc. may come across your path. So be sure to always, if possible, to include the following:

• Materials to repair your tools and armor. (if they are crafted in a smithy, consider bringing a pair of pliers (exclusive to aberration), or even a smithy (though the latter is not recommended unless you expect your armor to break and want to save resources).
• Extra tools/armor, especially if they are crafted in a fabricator/ smithy. Definitely carry multiple pikes/your primary weapon.
• Bolas. They can easily save your life or get you another tame.
• Torpor-inducing weapons such as tranq arrow, tranquilizer dart, wooden club, etc. You never know when you might encounter a creature worth taming.
• Cooked meat and a couple water containers.
• Stimberries to reduce torpor gained from creatures/regain stamina and narcoberries to keep tranqed creatures unconscious . (or better, stimulant and narcotic. )
• split meat into stacks of one for getting spoiled meat faster, making it easier to craft narcotics.
• Periodically dump/store all extra items that you don’t need in order to lighten and shrink used space you have to scroll and search through.
• You can quickly repair an item by hitting its a*signed hotbar button (a*suming you have the required materials).

Travel

• The wooden raft is great for brand new players, because most creatures will ignore the raft and its driver while the raft is being driven, making a raft (while driving) one of the safest places to be in the very early game (especially on pve). However, beware of deep water and leedsichthys as they can damage rafts and destroy them in a few hits, stay close to the shoreline to avoid them. The raft can offer tribes an opportunity to hunt megalodon by firing a crossbow from the raft while someone on an ichthyosaurus kites the shark around. Wooden raft is also a good source of xp in the early stage.
• While riding or facing a dino you can press the f, x, or square to access the ridden dino’s inventory.
• High weight creatures such as parasaur or iguanodon can carry goods and still be able to escape predators.

Hunting Strategies

• Using tamed carnivores like raptors, carnos, and rexes are a good way to hunt for meat and hide but make sure your creature of choice is capable of handling your prey of choice.
• You can lure carnivores to other dinosaurs and leave them to fight each other, leaving you with a weaker dinosaur and free resources.
• Knocking a dino unconscious can be quicker than going straight for the kill.
• Keep an eye on nearby herbivores. If you see them running, they are either fleeing or fighting a nearby predator.
• Crafting bolas is a great hunting tool to both capture or escape from small legged dinos hunting you such as raptors.
• Every beginning survivor should have spears in their possession for both defending and hunting.
• When in the inventory of a creature or container, hover over an item and press t to easily transfer that item to your own inventory, or vice-versa.
• To get early meat and hide, kill pa*sive and slow creatures like dodos, jerboas, bulbdogs as they don’t fight back, it is also an easy source of early game experience. Simple weapons like spears, bow and arrows, and tools are good to kill these small targets.

Environment

• Strengthen your senses and plan what you think you might need, if you live in or near a cold biome, carry extra torches, warm clothing, and other things that will help with local dinos and your warmth.
• Try to avoid swimming until fully equiped to deal with its dangers. The ocean is inhabited by megalodon and other dangerous creatures who can aggro on you from very far away. Inland rivers and lakes are often filled with megapiranha which can quickly overwhelm you with their numbers.
• You can easily escape insects by diving under water. But keep an eye out for piranhas, as they are very dangerous early on.

Shelter

• It’s recommended to make a hide sleeping bag at an early level – it displays map coordinates to aid navigation, may be picked up and re-placed, and is handy for marking caves or other points of interest. A sleeping bag does not require a structure to be built upon, but cannot be shared by tribe members and is a single use item. Change to simple bed when you can.
• Having a simple shelter can be a lot more useful than you would think. You could easily find yourself freezing and starving on a cold night.
• When building walls, use e, y, or triangle to toggle the direction the wall is facing.
• Don’t build shelter too close to the water, there are sea dinosaurs that can destroy the earliest shelter easily.
• You can upgrade your shelter parts (ex. Thatch to wood) by placing the new part in the same place as the old part. The old piece will be destroyed and grant you some resources back.
• When building a wooden or stone shelter, you can quickly become encumbered with wood or stone. Instead of running to your shelter and sorting everything out, make whatever components you can straight away as it severely lessens your weight, allowing you to stay out collecting for longer.
• Stone should be the very minimum to build anything out of as majority of creatures can not deal damage to stone structures with exclusions including but not limited to alpha creatures and giganotosaurus

Notes

• If you’re performing a supply crate run, give yourself a moment to check around the crate. You may have attracted attention from nearby predators.
• Sparkpowder is an excellent fuel source. It requires just a few stone and flint, and can be used to light everything from fireplaces to refining forge and keep them burning for a fairly long time. However, it doesn’t yield charcoal which is needed for ammo and gunpowder.
• It’s easier to place fence foundations walking backwards.

Here we come to an end for the Tips And Tricks: General Tips – ARK: Survival Evolved guide. I hope this guide has helped you with your gameplay. If you have something to add to this guide or believe we forgot some information to add, please let us know via comment! We check each comment manually by approving them!