Quick Links
InArk: Survival Ascended, where you’ll be taming dinosaurs and surviving in a wild, untamed world, resource gathering will quickly become a crucial part of your journey. You’ll find yourself needing vast amounts of resources, one of them being Polymer. Essential for crafting a range of items from tools and armor to advanced machinery, Polymer typically requires a combination of ingredients to painstakingly craft.
However, there’s an easier alternative! Unlike its crafted counterpart, Organic Polymer can be directly harvested from creatures, saving you multiple trips between your Smithy, Mortar and Pestle and Fabricator during the early game. This guide will show you how to find and efficiently harvest Organic Polymer.
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.
What Is Organic Polymer Used For
Polymer is avital resourcein the mid to late-game section of ARK gameplay, and is used to craft pretty much every piece ofmachinery, storage unit, and gearonce you start using a Fabricator.
This includes vital machines such asthe Refrigeratorto store your kibble, taming supplies, and food; as well asboth the Industrial Cooker and Industrial Forge, which will greatly expedite your cooking andmetal-smelting endeavors.
Below is a list of items that are crafted by Polymer.
Rocket Launcher
Rocket Propelled Grenade
Unfortunately, as a compounded crafting ingredient, Polymer ismore difficult to obtainthan resources such as Wood or even Metal.
Polymer has to becrafted with ObsidianandCementing Paste. Obsidian can only be obtained on mountains and other dangerous areas, whereas Organic Polymer has to be crafted withStone andChitin or Keratin— which are in turn harvested fromcreatures with shells, horns or exoskeletons.
As you’re able to tell, once you start needing thousands of Polymer in the late-game, it can be a real pain to obtain.
Fortunately, Organic Polymer is aconvenient alternativethat can be farmed directly from creatures.Unfortunately, onlyvery few creatures in the wildproduce this resource. Still, the creatures that do can be hunted and farmed with little difficulty if you know the trick to it.
Unlike Polymer,Organic Polymer will spoil. Make sure to harvest it just before you’re ready to craft with it!
How To Get Organic Polymer
Harvest From Kairuku
The best source of Organic Polymer on the Island is the Kairuku.
The Kairuku are skittish penguins thatcan only be found in the far north of the Island map. They’ll most commonly befound along the glaciers and near water areas.
The tools and creatures are themost efficient at harvesting Organic Polymerfrom the Kairuku, ranked in order of effectiveness.
Due to how difficult and dangerous the snowy mountains — where the Kairuku spawn — are to traverse, it is ill-advised to bring a Direbear or Yutyrannus up there.
As such, despite being marginally less efficient, thePelagornis is the best tameto bring hunting for Kairuku, as theycan fly,automatically harvest a Kairuku corpsein one bite, as well asland on the waternear the Kairuku spawn areas without dismounting you.
A Kairuku farm can be created bytaming several female Kairuku and one male Kairuku, and setting them to mate automatically in a breeding pen outfitted withAir Conditionersto regulate the egg temperature. Killing a baby Kairuku willyield both Organic Polymer and Raw Prime Meat, which is good for taming carnivores.
The level of the parents and babiesdo not matterwhen it comes to harvesting resources.
Harvest From Achatina
For those who find clubbing baby penguins difficult to stomach, not to worry: there’s a non-violent way of obtaining this resource.
you may alsoharvest Organic Polymer from the Achatina, the giant snail that can be found around the southern swamps of the Island.
When set to ‘Wander’, the Achatina generatesAchatina Paste and Organic Polymerpassively, which are crafting alternatives forCementing Paste and Polymerrespectively. You canharvest these resources from its inventoryevery so often, though it will also drop Achatina Paste on the ground as it wanders.
To tame an Achatina, you’ll need toknockout-tameitwith copious amounts ofSweet Vegetable Cake. The cake itself is a bit of a hassle to get, as it requiresseveral crops and tree sap.
However, once you have a good amount of Achatina, you’ll be set on these two vital resources (or at least need to run around to collect a whole lot less of them).
When being produced and held in an Achatina’s inventory, Organic Polymerspoils significantly slowerthan when outside. ensure to leave it in there!
