Survival Guide

## Pre-Season

#### Make your character!

Making your character in single player to get some screenshots of your slider settings will expedite your character creation once you're in Velkus.

#### Real Estate Wish List!

If you're choosing a spectacular building spot, you have to know you're probably competing with somebody else for the same spot. If you both don't mind having a close neighbor, you can make that work. If you'd like a little more solitude, we recommend making a wish list of 3-4 places that you'd be happy living in just in case.

## General Info

#### Starter Kits

The TC Reward Vault on the inside steps of the starting tavern has a kit ready for you with a few bits of starting equipment and some cash to get you going. Grab that before you set off!

#### Transport

A vendor is hanging out in the starting tavern behind the bar. She has a couple of creatures for sale and a canoe that you can buy to safely venture away from the island. While the horse and galli have been popular in the past, Season 3 has a new addition to help navigate the rivers and seas of Velkus: the frog. Definitely recommend giving it a go.

#### The Library

Tons of information about Velkus, guilds, magicks, important characters, and historical events are available for free in the library. You can grab a copy of any book from the librarian for a handful of fiber. Be sure to check these out, there is a lot of secret and storyline lore to be found

## Survival Tips

#### Visit the General Store

The general store has been improved over the seasons and many of the highlights from Season 2 are making a return. For a few coins, you can buy a gun and some ammo, a ballistae and some bolts, or some more advanced tools and equipment. A blacksmith will probably sell any of that for less, but stores run by players might take a week or two to open their doors.

#### Tame Something to Defend Yourself

None of the starter mounts are going to put up much of a fight against the wildlife of Velkus.

* Land: Raptors and Terror Birds are buffed. They're pretty easy to tame and with a handful of them you'll be able to take down any early threats on land; the ability to glide on your terror bird can be a lifesaver in the jungles are redwoods.
* Water: Megalodons. If you've got some tranq arrows, dive in and tame one of these. They're remarkably durable with their pack bonus and will conquer the seas with their bleed.

#### Gathering Resources

Gathering by hand can be tedious. Taming a handful of critters will fill your stocks much more quickly.

* Wood: Casteroides are abundant around the ponds in the jungle and redwoods. If you can get access to a trophy bait early on, upgrading to a mammoth is worthwhile.
* Stone: Doeds are all over the place. For the cost of a few minutes and a handful of berry baits, you can go from a few hundred stone per minute to a few thousand.
* Metal: Ankys, like the doed, are scattered all along the shores of Velkus. It'll make any crafter's life easier and it'll double as a combat mount in a pinch.
* Chitin: If you're making chitin armor or you're in need of cementing paste, chitin is going to be on your shopping list. Grabbing a megatherium is a very wise choice since you'll gather thousands from just a handful of insects in the first dungeon.
* Crystal and Gems: Most of the crystal and gems on Velkus are somewhere high up. Carrying an anky around with an argy can fill your stocks for any crafting needs very quickly.
* The Mantis: The all-in-one gatherer of Velkus. They're scattered across caves, ashen wastes, and the desert. Grab one of these and see your resource needs fade away.
* The Dunky: Like the mantis, this fish will gather everything you need from the oceans and rivers of Velkus. There's no better way to gather stone, wood, and metal if you've got access to them in the water.
* Friends: Having a friend scoot a raft along a shoreline or following along with a pack animal can more than double your resource gain by transferring the resources out of your creatures as you collect them. A team effort here really pays off.

## Taming

The creature overview page provides a brief description of *every* tameable creature in Velkus. You can see a full list of creatures, organized by taming tier, on our Season 3 Creature List.

Our very own RuneMeisterKris has made a collection of YouTube tutorial videos for Immersive Taming if you don't want to read this wall of text.

* Bait stations: stations used for creating bait, trophy bait, and kibble baits
	+ Any bait can be turned into an arrow bait by dragging it onto a standard stone arrow. These can be fired from ARK bows and crossbows.\*Acquiring a tame can happen in several ways:

Immersive Taming - *Craft a taming journal and reference it for taming requirements for most creatures*

* Passive
	+ Place dinos specific bait in a slot on your hot-bar.
	+ Drop it in front of the dino by pressing the associated numeric button; they will walk over to the bait and eat it to begin the taming process.
	+ Keep feeding bait until tamed (There will be prompts for petting and care as well).
		- Some dinos are aggressive, so you can fire the bait with an arrow as well to start the taming process.
	+ Hand feeding baits to dinos requires the bait to be in your 0 slot.
* KO
	+ Knockout the creature by increasing its torpor with a club, tranqs, troodon, etc.
	+ Place the bait in front of the sleeping dino and wait.
	+ The dino will wake up, eat the bait, and the process will begin from there
* Trophy
	+ Drop the trophy bait on the ground near the creature.
	+ The creature will consume it and initiate combat.
		- Let the animal hit you first to ensure that it doesn't take it as a cowardly attack
		- Fight the creature until the bar above it fills. **AVOID BLEEDING IT.**
	+ Once it stops fighting you, resume taming with food or kibble baits

Purchase

* Summoning Altars
	+ Some creatures don't work well with combat taming with trophy baits, so they've been placed on a variety of Simple Spawners Summoners around the map. These summoning altars will let you trade a single talon for a level 200-225 tame, or two talons for a guaranteed level 225 tame.
* Merchants
	+ Some merchants, like those in The Tipsy Otter and Woodbury, will sell you tames that are ready to go for just gold

Vanilla Taming

* The list of creatures that can be tamed using base-ARK methods is *very* short.
* Finding an Egg
	+ Some creatures can't be immersive tamed and their vanilla taming method is to find an egg out in the wild in a nest. Things like the Postosuchus or Anzu fall into this category.

Event Rewards

* Some events give players a tame as a reward, be sure to attend as many as you can!

Guilds and Jobs

* Some guilds and jobs have specific mounts with a variety of bonuses. See their guild or jobs pages for specifics.\*Talons and How to Get Them. You will notice you need something called “Wyvern Talons” to use as bait for trophy taming certain special dinos. There are multiple ways to obtain these WHEN they become available such as: Event Rewards, Dungeons, and killing Alphas. \*See more about the dungeons below

## Key Items

These are the items that your dear editor tries not to leave home without. They come with a small carry weight tax, but keeping them on you can save you from a corpse run during normal game-play.

* Parachute: These are reusable but carry an altered resource cost. If you've chosen not to use an archeopteryx as your shoulder pet, keeping one of these on your hotbar is a must.

* Grapple Hook: Useful for climbing up, climbing down, pulling yourself out of holes, or getting out of the water more quickly. Check with local blacksmiths for improved quality crossbows (vanilla) to have this reliable tool on hand at all times.

* Wooden Spike Walls: If you're careful, you can place one of these between you and a pursuing enemy to create some space. Be sure to clean up your structures once you're safe though - littering isn't cool.

* Flare Guns: Having trouble finding your way in the dark? Need to help a mender or mercenary find you? Keep a handful of these on you to stay safe at night. You can make them for a relatively low cost or buy them in bulk from the general store.

* Bolas: Reusable at no extra cost, these bad boys will snare any small predator chasing you down or any prey trying to elude you. We recommend getting some practice in with these so that your aim is true when it counts.

* Canteens: You can buy these at the general store or make them yourself in a smithy with the right ingredients. Staying hydrated is important!

* Cooked Foods: Scavenging for berries might get you by for a day or two, but that gets old fast. Treat yourself to something nice and keep some prepared foods on you to keep your health and stamina up. Local cooks are always looking for work and have tasty pantries full of goodies.