Taming

"The next choice you have available to you are ranged weapons. When used correctly, they are effective at knocking out creatures. The entry-level and highly-efficient weapon would be the Slingshot. It’s cheap to craft, and there’s plenty of ammo available to use. Just keep hitting that creature, preferably in the head, and eventually you can knock it out!"
*The last weapon we’re going to talk about currently, is the bow. This is more costly than the other ones, but proving you have the resources you will find that it is a lot more effective! A bow equipped with some carefully-crafted Tranquillizer arrows can put most creatures to sleep, as long as you land your shots quickly and especially if you pull off headshots!"*
"How fast a creature gets knocked out is based on how quickly you can apply torpidity. Torpor is how we measure the rate of consciousness, zero is fully conscious, and once it reaches a certain threshold, which is unique to each creature, you become unconscious. Once a creature has been knocked out, it begins the taming process. What you’ll need to do is gain its trust back and let it know that you’re its friend. You do this by feeding it and taking care of it until it wakes up again, remember to keep an eye on its consciousness as if it wakes up before it can fully trust you, there will be hell to pay. You can keep it knocked out by applying more blunt trauma, feeding it narcotics, Narcoberries or using a Tranquilizing weapon."
"This process can take a variable amount of time depending on what you decide to tame. Researchers have found that certain food has proven to be more effective at taming creatures, and a good diet can lead to a healthy and stronger creature. Each creature is unique in the rate at which they eat food, and depending on the creature you’ll find that they may have a taste for different things. Ensure that you always have something to feed it when it’s hungry during this process, otherwise it may become resentful and you’ll slowly lose progress."
"Once a creature has been successfully tamed, it will become your ally and your tribe’s ally. It trusts you, so you should trust it. A scorpion would never hurt its friend, so do not fear it. As to what tamed creatures are capable of, Survivors have noted that they are incredibly easy to train. They will follow, stay, eat, carry materials, and attack on command. They can be told to guard and protect, therefore they only act aggressively when aggression is shown towards them or their friends. Also they can be trained to be hostile to those who are not part of the tribe."

**Taming** is the process of making a dinosaur friendly to the player. Once tamed, the dinosaur can be issued orders, named, fight alongside the player, carry items, and be ridden (certain creatures cannot be ridden due to size or other restrictions). Tamed creatures remain friendly until their death and can be released by a player in order for another player to claim them. This allows creatures to be gifted or loaned to other players or tribe members.

Each creature requires different amounts of time to be tamed, ranging from several real-time minutes to several hours. It is therefore advised that several players be present for more time consuming taming as they can work together to keep the creature unconscious and supplied with food while defending it and other players from nearby hostiles. If playing solo, try to lure the creature into a secluded spot or prepare a walled-in area before knocking it unconscious.

Each dinosaurs' wiki page has details (or soon will) of their basic stats and ideal foods as well as taming tips and helpful hints.

## How To

In order to tame a creature, it must first be knocked **unconscious**. This can be accomplished through several methods:

* Punch it until it goes down. This is dangerous as it requires close quarters and is the least effective method. It is also easy for skittish creatures to run away after a single hit. This can also be used in emergencies to keep a creature from waking up, but with some negative side effects discussed later on in this article.
* Use the Slingshot. This is the next earliest available method, although some creatures will still be able to run and get too far away for the player to hit them without significant effort spent chasing them down.
* Use Tranquilizer Arrows. This is the most effective method currently available.

Once the creature is unconscious, it must be kept this way until fully tamed. To do this, open the unconscious dinosaur's inventory and place Narcoberries or Narcotics into it. Select the item and click "force use item". The creature's torpor stat displayed in the lower right hand corner will increase a set amount depending on the item used, keeping it down longer.

While unconscious, the dinosaur needs to be **fed** in order to tame it. Without food, nothing will happen. Once food has been placed in the creature's inventory, it will eat automatically over time. **Herbivores** should be fed any type of berry (except for Stimberries as they will not eat these and Narcoberries as they are used to keep it unconscious and will also not be eaten automatically), although each dinosaur has a preferred type of berry that will slightly decrease the time necessary for taming. Most herbivorous dinosaurs at this point in the game (6/14/2015) prefer Mejoberries, but it is always smart to check on this as some have other preferences. **Carnivores** should be fed meat. Raw Meat works fine, although Prime Meat is more effective. Cooked meat can also be used, but this is the least effective. Some Carnivores also prefer spoiled meat to raw.

It is not necessary to stay in the creature's inventory while it is being tamed. The player is free to run about and do as they wish, but if the dinosaur runs out of food, the taming progress will be reset. Also, if the torpor stat gets too low the creature will wake up and must be knocked out again, which also resets taming progress. Mousing over an unconscious creature will display its taming progress (the brown bar) and how solidly unconscious it is (the purple bar). Once tamed, the player will be prompted to enter a name for their new companion, although this can be changed at anytime.

**Advanced taming** or "**starvation**" **method:** This must be attempted ***CAREFULLY***, this is a method of taming that could result in the dinosaur waking up prior to taming completion if your attention lapses. Start off with your dinosaur knocked out, allow the dinosaur's food level to drop by **not** placing any food in the dinosaur's inventory. Once the dinosaur has critically low food levels (this will take quite some time and will require quite a few doses of narcotics/narcoberries) place food in the dinosaur's inventory. This method will allow for slightly faster taming as the taming effectiveness does not begin to drop until the dinosaur starts eating. Since the dinosaur will eat very quickly up to full food you will have more taming gains at a higher percentage. There have been a number of claims regarding using stimberries/stimulants to decrease the food level of a dinosaur. While this ***may*** have worked in the past (unconfirmed) it has been confirmed by developers and the community that **neither** stimulants or stimberries cause the dinosaurs food levels to drop at an accelerated rate. The starvation method does have the added advantage in that you waste few resources on a dinosaur until you are closer to finishing taming it, reducing the window of opportunity for predators (dinosaurs and/or other survivors) to sabotage your taming efforts.

The **Taming Pen method is a method in which you have a taming pen that you drop your Dino in the taming pen which it can not escape. This method can only be used effectively by players that have a Quetzalcoatlus or an Argentavis. If you do not have a Quetzalcoatlus or an Argentavis, this taming method will not be very helpful because in order to do this, you have to be able to drop your tame into the taming pen. You can also lure your tame in to it but this is more risky than just picking it up and dropping it into the taming pen. What you will need to make a standard taming pen is: 16 Stone foundations, 42 Stone walls, a Stone gateway, a Reinforced dinosaur gate, a Stone ceiling, and 3 rope or wood ladders. You can also make the taming pen out of wood, but wood can be broken by some dinos, where as stone can only be broken by few dinos, for example the Giganotosaurus. Here are the steps in how to build the taming pen. This method also helps protect your Dino so that you do not have to guard the dinos you are taming. NOTE: This taming pen does not work on flyers ( Pteranadon, Argentavis, etc.). Here are the steps on how to build a taming pen.**

1. First you need to pace the 16 Stone foundations in a 4x4 or a square.
2. Second you need to place the Stone walls on 3 of the 4 sides of the square.
3. Third you need to place your Stone gateway on the 2 middle foundations on the side of the square you did not place and Stone walls on.
4. Fourth you need to fill in the gaps beside the Stone dinosaur gateway with your remaining 6 Stone walls. (3 high)
5. Fifth you need to place your Stone ceiling in one of the corners on top of the Stone walls you have already placed.
6. Sixth you need to place your 3 ladders on the outside of the wall to where it goes to the corner that you placed your ceiling so that's you can get on top of the Stone ceiling.
7. Seventh place your Reinforced dinosaur gate in the Stone dinosaur Gateway and then you are done building your taming pen. Now all you need is a Dino to tame.

When you have found your Dino, simply pick it up, take it the taming pen, and drop it. After this, make sure you have something to knock the Dino out with (slingshot, bow w/ tranq arrows, crossbow w/ tranq arrows, or a longneck rifle w/ tranq darts). Do not forget your narcotics either. Now get to taming!

## Taming Effectiveness

This is a concept still in development as of the initial writing of this article. Supposedly, the taming effectiveness percentage that is displayed by an unconscious creature's name will affect their **base stats** at the time of their taming and slowly decreases while the dinosaur is unconscious. Feeding an unconscious creature its favorite food will slow the decay of the taming effectiveness while using Narcoberries or hitting an unconscious creature will speed the decay rate. Narcotics have no effect on this rate and are therefore the better and more advanced option. There is currently nothing that will increase this percentage. It is also worth noting that the percentage does not always start at 100%. Generally, it starts below 50%, although it is not uncommon to see percentages above this. Starting % is also mostly based around how much HP the dino has at the start of taming, there is to my knowledge no way to raise the current hp of a K/Oed dino (except letting it eat on it's own and slowly regenerate health), so try to knock it out hitting them as few times as possible for maximum effectiveness.

## Tamed Creatures

Tamed creatures are friends, allies, and companions. They can follow the player around, aide in battle, carry cargo, and even be ridden as mounts if a saddle is equipped to them. Dinosaurs must be provided with food via their inventory or they can starve to death.

Each creature has different base stats and levels up in the same manner as the player, gaining additional points to be put into stats of the player's choosing. Certain dinosaurs, such as the Carbonemys, are quite slow but have high hit points and weight capacities making them ideal gathering partners and base guards, while others, such as the Raptor, are speedy and dangerous but with lower hit points and weight capacities, making them better mounts and hunting partners.

If both genders of a dinosaur breed are tamed, they will receive a "**mate boost**". This is a small boost to their stats, and the words "Mate Boosted" will appear above their heads in purple text.

Mounted dinos can also be used to gather resources, with certain exceptions, all carnivores can harvest meat, hide, an etc from killed creatures, some can also gather wood and thatch from trees pretty much as if you are punching the tree, MOST herbivores can harvest berries from bushes at an extremely fast rate. MOST herbivores can gather from trees as if you were punching them (punching trees receiving largely only thatch with very rarely getting wood

## Releasing Creatures

Dinosaurs and creatures can be released and then reclaimed by another survivor. To do this, walk up to your tamed animal, hit the menu button, and select the option to release that creature. Other people are now able to claim that creature. The developers introduced this feature to allow a survivor to loan or give a creature to allies or to trade with other survivors. However, there is no guarantee that the other survivor will trade honorably, so you are taking a risk with the trade.

## Notes

Some may find that knocking out the creature they want to tame may be regarded as a pretty hilarious way to tame a creature.

## Sources

* http://steamcommunity.com/games/346110/announcements/detail/249166664591403343
* http://steamcommunity.com/games/346110/announcements/detail/249167298532189710