Quick Links
InArk: Survival Ascended, you’re stranded on a treacherous land filled with roaming dinosaurs, mythical creatures, and other prehistoric foes, all while navigating natural hazards and trying to do what humans do best: conquer the wilderness. Quickly, however, you’ll find that you can’t do it alone.
Each creature you successfully tame offers unique strengths, whether that’s in resource gathering, combat prowess, or other special abilities. While anyone can feed berries to a lystrosaurus, the taming process can get intense, especially when dealing with creatures that would rather have you for dinner. This guide will show you every taming method for creatures on the Island, and arm you with tips to streamline your taming endeavors.
At the time of writing, Ark: Survival Ascended is in Early Access. Changes and updates may occur, but we’ll monitor developments and update this guide as needed.
How Does Taming Work In Ark?
Each creature in Ark requiresa specific method of taming, though the vast majority require the Knockout Taming method, which will be explained further below.
For most taming methods, you want to keepTaming Effectiveness of the creature as highas possible, while feeding it itspreferred fooduntil thetaming progress bar fills up.
This is done when the creature is unconscious during the Knockout Taming method, or while the creature is conscious during the Non-Violent taming method.
During early game, you might be happy just to simplygetthe dinosaur. However, as you approach mid-game, it can be beneficial—and eventually, essential—to startpaying attention to the stats and levelsof the dinosaurs you want to tame. You canview levels from afar with the Spyglass, which is obtainable early in the game.
Taming Effectiveness Explained
Taming Effectiveness, in essence, determinesthe amount of levels and bonusesthe creature receives once it tames.
Taming Effectiveness alwaysstarts at 100 percent,and decreases each timethe creature eats, as well as each time ittakes damage while unconscious.
If a creature is at 100 percent Taming Effectiveness when it tames, it receives exactly 50 percent of its level. As the Taming Effectiveness goes down during taming, it willreceive progressively fewer levels.
These bonus levels areautomatically assigned to random statsafter taming. As such, when trying to obtain a strong tame, you’ll want tokeep Taming Effectiveness as high as possible.
On default settings and Official ARK servers, themaximum levelof creatures you can find in the wild on the Island will be 150. This number can change depending on your server or game settings.
Preferred Food Explained
Most creatures will accepta variety of food during taming. For instance, a carnivore (meat-eater) will usually accept Prime Meat, Raw Meat, Cooked Meat, Fish, etc.
However, each food type has a hierarchy of preference that is as follows:
Rarer meats such as Mutton and Prime Meat willspoil much more quicklythan regular meat.
You may need to only start harvesting them after knocking out the tame to ensure that it does not spoil before being eaten.
Ark: Knockout Taming
For the vast majority of creatures of Ark, this method of taming is required.
The gist of the Knockout Taming method involves tranquilizing, sedating or otherwiseknocking the creature unconscious by inflicting Torpor. Weapons that inflict Torpor are as follows, ranked in order of ease to obtain:
Each hit from the above will inflict “Torpor” on the creature, theamount depends on the quality and type of the weapon. The amount of torpor it takes to knock out a creature depends on its level and creature type.
Be careful using powerful weaponry, such as the Rifle, on lower-level tames and creatures, as itmay accidentally kill them.
After the creature is unconscious,place its preferred food in its inventory. Each time its hunger drops enough (how much depends on the food being provided), it will automatically eat and fill up the taming progress bar.
As noted above, though a creature will generally accept a variety of food, it will alsousually like certain foods more than others.
The following creatures on the Island require the Knockout Taming method to tame.
Wooly Rhino
Yutyrannus
*While it can be knock-out tamed, the Diplodocuscan also be tamed passively—and in fact, non-violently taming it will yield a better Taming Effectiveness. Details are described in the “Non-Violent Taming” section below.
**The Titanosaur is unique in that it cannot be knocked out by traditional means, and insteadrequires a turret knockout to tame.
Turret Knockout Taming
Some particularly hardy creatures cannot be knocked out by tranquilizers—much less stones or arrows. As such, you’ll need a siege weapon such as the cannon to knock them out.
As of Early Access, the only creature that falls into this category is the Titanosaur. Note that theTitanosaur will starve itself to deathby refusing to eat on default server settings and on Official Servers, making ita temporary tamethat can only be used for raiding.
As the Titanosaur is highly destructive when angered, you canmount the cannon or siege weapon on a Quetzal platform saddlewhile flying to avoid it being destroyed.
Ark: Non-Violent Taming
Almost all other tames fall into theNon-Violent Tamingcategory.
For most of these tames, you’ll need tofollow the creature around and feed them their preferred foodwithout angering or scaring them.
For docile creatures such as the Lystrosaurus, this can easily be done. However,several of the creatures on this list are skittish(such as the Mesopithecus) or aggressive (such as the Araneo), and should beapproached with caution.
You canequip Ghillie Armor to camouflage yourselfbefore attempting to approach the skittish or aggressive creatures.
Exceptions to this taming method do apply, and are noted in the following table.
Will also take Spoiled Meat and Raw Meat.
Will also take Meat or Fish.
Carchardontosaurus
Drag corpses to it to feed. Corpses must beabove a certain drag weight(i.e. the bigger, the better).
Be cautious; if it’s not satisfied with the meal, it will eat you instead.
Will also take Stimberries
Will also take Crops and Berries
Will also take Meat
Prefers Simple Kibble or Vegetables (especially Rockarrot).
Giant Bee
Feed Simple Kibble Will also take Rare Flower.
Willturn into a bee hive once tamed; place in your base and continue feeding Rare Flowers to produce honey.
Will also take Berries.
Hesperornis
Dragcorpses of fishto the Hesperornis; it will consume them for Taming Progress.
Hyaenodon
Pet it every few secondswhile it’s separated from a pack.
Warning: If you pet it and then miss the next window for petting, the Taming Progress will go down rapidly.
Will also take Meat and Fish
Will also take Berries
Moschops
Willask randomlyfor one of the following: Tintoberries, Mejoberries, Giant Bee Honey, Organic Polymer, Rare Mushroom, Rare Flower, Raw / Cooked Prime Meat, Prime Meat Jerky, Cooked / Raw Prime Fish Meat, Cooked Lamb Chop
Feed Meat or Fish
Will eat fertilized Eggs that areplaced on the ground.
Troodon
Must be tamed by setting a tamed dinosaur to Passive and letting the Troodon kill it for fun.
Ark: Raise-Only Taming
Some creatures cannot be tamed, and must instead beraised from infancy instead.
Currently, on the Island—the only map available on ARK: Survival Ascended, there isonly one creature that requires a Raise-Only taming method to tame:the Rhyniognatha.
In order to tame the Rhyniognatha, you must first do the following:
Of course, this is avery difficult and risky tame, and requires hefty sacrifice to produce optimal results. It should not be attempted until late-game.
