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InArk: Survival Ascended, you’ll find yourself diving into treacherous terrains and taming dinosaurs while advancing from primitive spears to cutting-edge “TEK” equipment. While the game boasts an array of resources essential for survival, none are quite so indispensable as metal ore.
Once refined, metal ingots form the backbone for strengthening your base, crafting robust machinery, and forging formidable weaponry. As you embark on your journey to conquer the wild, the demand for metal will be relentless. This guide will help you pinpoint optimal metal locations and show you the best dinos to maximize your haul.
What Is Metal Used For?
Once mined, Metal can besmelted into Metal Ingotsusing a Refining Forge or Industrial Forge. It costs two Metal ore to create one Metal Ingot.
The time it takes to process metal varies greatly depending on what you’re using to smelt it, with the fuel-run Refining Forge processingone ingot per twenty secondsand the electrical Industrial Forge is capable ofprocessing one ingot per second.
Metal Ingots are used inmost mid- to late-game crafting recipesin the game, from base parts to electrical machines, saddles, and armor. As such, it’s vital to streamline your metal-collection process to be as efficient and safe as possible.
Where To Find Metal On The Island
Metal is predominantlymined from rocks. While regular rocks can produce metal, the yield is negligible. Instead, you should be on the lookout for Metal nodes: grayer rocks with shiny veins running through them as pictured above.
Though there is no innate danger to mining these rocks, Metal nodes are mostoften found in mountainous regionsthat present other challenges, such as inaccessible heights, extreme temperatures and—most dangerously—large predators such as the Allosaurus and Tyrannosaurus Rex.
The Island Metal Spawn Map
Metal nodes can most commonly be found onthe slopes and peaks of mountains.
The following spawn map denotesclusters of metal nodes, with the darker orange indicating a higher density.
An especially abundant amount of them spawnaround the volcano at 40, 37; but be warned that this is one of the mostnotoriously dangerous areason the island and is teeming with huge carnivores.
How To Mine Metal
When it comes to mining Metal nodes, tools mattera lot.
The best and quickest way to mine metal is with aspecialized mount, such as the Ankylosaurus. However, if you don’t have one tamed yet or can’t get yours to the nodes, it is possible tomine metal by hand.
While a Stone Pick can do the job, using aMetal Pick is much more efficient, especially when atMastercraft or Ascendant tier—the latter of which can rival the yield of an Ankylosaurus.
After being mined, Metal nodestake about an hour to respawn. This can vary depending on your game or server settings.
Best Dinos For Collecting Metal
The following methods are thebest tools to harvest metal with, ranked by order of efficiency.
To harvest a Metal node with a dinosaur, face the node anduse the melee attack button.
The Ankylosaurus stands out as the champion of metal gathering. Not only does it mine the most efficiently, but it also comes with an85 percent weight reductionfor metal carried in its inventory.
The Ankylosaurus is also arelatively easy tame, being a slow herbivore that spawns in safe areas such as in the coastal forests. Be warned that they are defensive animals, however, and can hit you quite hard if you hit one and then let it catch up to you.
Boosting its Melee Damage statwill cause your tame to yield more metal per swing.
The Dunkleosteus is a ferocious, carnivorous fish that lives in the depths of the ocean with powerful plated jaws that can crush metal, stone and oil nodes in the ocean.
Because of the dangers of the deep ocean, this is considereda mid- to late-game tameand should only be pursuedonce you have SCUBA gearand decent water tames such as the Megalodon.
Tips For Getting Metal
Though gathering metal is a relatively straightforward process, there are certain strategies and tips you’re able to employ to make your metal runsmuch more fruitful and easy.
Using Flyers
You canpick your Ankylosaurus up using a flying mountsuch as the Quetzal or Argentavis.
This reduces the hassle of steering the slow Ankylosaurus and lets it get quicklyflown to metal-rich areas. Your Ankylosaurus will also automatically start harvesting the metal when you fly close.
Though more difficult to tame, aQuetzal has a significant carry capacitycompared to the Argentavis, making it easier to transport larger hauls of metal without having to go back and forth.
Using Weight Reduction
Certain creatures, when carrying metal in their inventory,offer a reduction to the weight of the metal.
For instance, the Ankylosaurus providesan 85 percent reduction, while the Argentavis and Dunkleosteus each offer a50 percent weight reduction. Take advantage of this reduction when planning your mining excursions.
Using Mate Boosting
The yield of your harvests depends on your harvesting dino’s Melee Damage stat.
As such, you canuse an opposite-gender Ankylosaurusfor mining alongside offersthe “Mate-Boosted” buff,which provides a 33 percent damage bonus.
The stats of your “boosting” Ankylosaurus doesn’t matter, and even a low-leveled one will serve the same purpose.
