[09/16/2015] Introducing the Manta & ARK Digest 16

[Jat]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=519612271

Dino Dossier

A new Dino Dossier has been revealed, this one is everyone’s favorite sharp-tailed combative aquatic carnivore, the Manta!

ARK Digest

Hey Survivors!

Welcome to the sixteenth issue of the ARK Digest! For those who missed the previous issues, check out the Announcement forum section on the Steam Community Hub and be sure to catch up with what you’ve missed as there is tons for you to catch up on!

State of the Game - Megathread

Earlier this week we created a mega thread in the general discussion section of the boards. This will be used as a focal-point to inform you of on-going situations with ARK, generally unrelated to its development but more so other aspects of the game. This is a thread you guys will want to look out for as it may mention key issues such as server downtime, server relocations, the introduction of new regions, as well as anything else we want to bring to your attention - we’ll be updating it frequently. It’ll also help keep our boards a little cleaner.

State of the Game

Game Moderator

We’re excited to be introducing Nubsly as our Head Game Moderator! He’s been an active part of the team thus far in monitoring the servers, the forums, bringing concerns to our attention and funneling reports to the right places. From today, he’s going to be leading the efforts across ARKs looking out for cheaters, and publicly banishing them from the game and dealing with the oversight of servers.

We’re coming for you cheaters!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=519094121

Community Crunch Contests: Patch 207 and above!

Patch 207 introduced many first-pass features into the game, such as Warpaint for both Dinos and Survivors, Mobile-Bronto bases and Rafts! A lot of this is still being worked on daily to be improved based on the feedback we receive and the bugs you report (love you guys!), so it’ll get a lot better!

However we’re also excited to see the new-level of gameplay this introduces to our creative-friends! The Community Crunch runs two weekly contests, #ARKitect and #ARKArt! The former being related to the structures you guys build and the latter regarding what you paint!

With the new additions to the game, we have opened up entries for warpaint images, human and dino tattoos/bodyart for the #ARKArt award as well as bases both on your Brontos and Rafts for #ARKitect!

We can’t wait to see the platform bases, the ships and tattoos/bodyart! So if you haven’t submitted something but want to show off what you’ve made, you can do so here!

Community Crunch Contests

Remember that these run every week and the winners are going to be posted in Thursday’s Community Crunch! So if you want a shot at the cash prize, be sure to enter! :)

Good luck!

ARK Digest Q&A

This will just be a regular sized Q&A for now guys, a lot of time is being spent on working on the reports you’ve made regarding the current build, as well as prepping for the next one - however when we have some more time available we will go through the threads again to pick up on the questions we missed!

Survivor, Astray488 (Baron) asks, “With the addition of primitive ballistas, is it possible that in the future we could see more siege based weapons akin to civil war cannons? It'd be pretty awesome to have mounted cannons in your base or on your bronto to turn it into a walking siege fortress.”

Answer:

Yup! We love sieging and we definitely plan to introduce more seige-based weaponry into the game.

Survivor, WarDino98 asks, “Will we be able to build on Quetzalcoatlus with the Platform Saddles?”

Answer:

Of course! We can’t wait to see the flying-aircraft bases. This is something we’re very excited about working on as we can’t wait to see how it changes up combat in the air, as well as the awesome creativity we’ll see from players! I hope to see some cool entries for the Community Community Crunch contests!!

Survivor, electr1c asks, “Can you preview some Sci-Fi tier structure and weapons?

Answer:

The Tek Tier isn’t quite ready to be revealed yet! However once we’ve got something good to show, we’ll give you guys a little sneak ;).

Survivor, Colonel Siberia asks, “Any ETA on how long until we can finally tame bats, spiders and piranhas? Will we be able to tame titanoboas around the time they can be tamed?”

Answer:

We mentioned in a previous Digest that we’ll be going back to our original creatures to give them some TLC and a second-functionality pass, so when that happens retouch base on those untamable creatures too. Yes, the Titanboa will then be made Tameable as well!

Survivor, Colonel Siberia also asks, “When can we expect to see Dimorphodon eggs?”

Answer:

We’ll do these next week! :)

Survivor, Tracer asks, “My question is that steampunk stuff in the devkit, what exactly are they for? An airship of some sort of steampunk buildings? Either way I’m excited for whatever it is!”

Answer:

Ahh, they were actually just prototyping placeholder assets, however we would encourage modders to make full use of them so you guys will hopefully get to see them in a version of the ARK! :)

Survivor, Ahri asks, “Will there be a special/ultimiate edition of the game when it’s fully released? I’d love to see extras such as a sound track, a dossier book, or maybe some special in-game cosmetic items as well!”

Answer:

We’d sure love to make a physical dossier book too! Here’s hoping :)

Survivor, Anathera asks, “Can we get binoculars in the game with a mouse-scroll adjustable view distance? They would have a greater field of view and in the tek view they should have a night vision enhancement.

Answer:

Yup, we’ll be adding these to the game with the Tek Tier. They will include a view distance scroll and night vision too :).

Survivor, The Pants Less Were Whale asks, “I have one question and one question only…. Will there ever be T-Rex Bacon?”

Answer:

First we’ll need Phiomia bacon. Then we’ll talk T-Rexes.

Survivor, Repzo asks, “Barbecue recipes for the grill?”

Answer:

This will be part of our upcoming “Custom Recipe” system! That’s definitely going to be a lot of fun and even more creativity options for you guys!

Survivor, Nova asks, “Will there be a fabricated version of the Longneck Rifle?”

Answer:

Yup! There will be. The Machined Sniper Rifle is on it’s way and will be ready quite soon, it’ll also include the new Tranquilizing Darts!

Survivor, ikon asks, “When can we expect Oculus Rift to start working in ARK again?”

Answer:
We’ve got a team on this and hope to have it fixed this week!

Survivor, Sora asks, “As I have seen in the latest Digest, the concept art for the power elevators are vertical. Is there a possibility for diagonal lifts since the vertical lifts are not very viable in the mountains?”

Answer:

Not currently, however it is not our of our realm of possibility. We’d like to see how the vertical lifts work out first and then we’ll go from there and decide whether to work on these too.

Survivor, Seb asks, “Are there plans to replace meat from fish with fish meat and fish fillet?”

Answer:

Yup, we’ll definitely be doing that!

Survivor, Lanky asks, “Will the beaver be the auto wood gather creature”

Answer:

It will indeed!

Survivor, Buster asks, “Will we get Lunar phases, or will we have to be content with a full moon every night?”

Answer:

That’s actually a neat idea Buster! We’ll look into implementing that as we go along through EA.

Survivor, #Even Me I Get dropped asks, “Can we please get lances? Imagine Charging at the enemy Rex with your trusty parasaur armor glinting in the sunlight crouched with your lance pointed at it's heart!! #FORWARD THE ARK KNIGHTS!!”

Answer:

Well we’ve got Primitive Swords and Shields on the way, so after that we’ll consider lances ;)

Survivor, Casimyr asks, “Will you please disable PvE looting”

Answer:

We’ll provide servers with an option to make all such item containers lockable, and we’ll enable it on the Official PvE servers.

Survivor, Casimyr also asks, “Are we ever going to see a Ramp and ladder for the Stone Tier?”

Answer:

We’ve actually been troubled by how to design these within the existing visual framework. A stone ramp without supports would collapse, and a stone-ladder would look very Flintstones-esque. We’ll continue to think on it, however and if you guys have any ideas, feel free to share!

Survivor, Dr. Doak asks, “In Hardcode mode, if a player or a tribe is killed, can all of their structures enter an “unclaimed” state in which any player (be it the player who just finished killing and raiding them, or the original owner after being the first to return to their structure) can reclaim them?”

Answer:

It’s an interesting idea, however it might encourage a little too much aggression in PvP Hardcore servers, but we’ll think about it.

Survivor, Tarqy asks, “Not sure how easy this would be to implement but could we get rope/wire bridges added to the game with bridge posts for snap points.”

Answer:

It would be very difficult to implement realistically ;)

Survivor, Tarqy also asks, “Could we also get an auto close feature on dino gates where you can set a timer, I hate having to dismount to close the gate each time I leave.”

Answer:

Good idea! We’ll definitely support this soon for all doors.

Survivor, Tarqy also asks, “Another question, we have primitive crafting stations, and a few moddern ones; will we be getting stone/medval tier and modern versions of the Forge, Cookpot, and Mortar & Pestle like we have with the Industrial Grill/Campfire and Preserving Bin/Fridge? and when might we be able to look forward to these?”

Answer:

Yup! We’ll have modern versions of all those coming ip, each with some new capabilities of their own!

Survivor, ? asks, “Will we see more achievements for ARK on Steam? and a trading card set, badges and the likes? I would love to pimp my profile with an ARK wallpaper + badge

Answer:

That’s awesome to hear! We really appreciate the support and yup, as we get closer to launch we’ll be doing the above!

Survivor, elijahwan asks, “Will there ever be a bloom and or lightshafts option in the options menu?”

Answer:

Yeah, we’ll be doing that pretty soon.

Survivor, Darktrooper117 asks, “Since our lives are about to get more difficult with Oceanic Alphas, can we get some neutral-buoyancy naval mines or some steel netting to help keep our ports safe?”

Answer:

Naval Mines will be coming to an ARK near you! :D

Survivor, Mac_intosh1172 asks, “With the Megaloceros, is there going to be an antler difference for the male and female?”

Answer:

Yup, that’ll be the case!

Survivor, Mac_intosh1172 asks, “Would meat inside the Dragon belly slowly cook?”

Answer:

It’s actually very tempting to implement that… ;)

Survivor, Athos42 asks, “Will we get a server option to influence egg laying rate for Dinos?”

Answer:

Sure! Why not :)

Survivor, FearTheBearCat asks, “Would it be possible to make bait piles? Maybe using that special dinos kibble would draw that particular dino in?”

Answer:

That’s actually a prettyu good idea, we’ll look into doing that as we go along! :)

Survivor, RadioActiveMan asks, “My Armadilo is constipated and I am worried for his health. He has NEVER pooped. Can you recommend a good vet?”

Answer:

TheRightHand has now applied the appropriate laxative for our next major update. (Eww)

Survivor, Grave asks, “I must ask once more.. when can expect the frog? When will you make my dreams come true?”

Answer:

It’ll come with the Swamp Biome, this month!!

Survivor, Chuntington2013 asks, “Will we get controller support for the barrel roll?”

Answer:

Whoops, that’ll be in for the next major update. We had it setup however it looks like it was accidentally reverted.

Survivor, Spenz asks, “Can we have a whitelist, so only players on the list are able to join a server?”

Answer:

We’ve got this setup and you guys can now make use of it too!

Launch your server with this commandline option:

-exclusivejoin

and put the STEAM ID’s of the players who are on the exclusivity list in this file, with each SteamID on it’s own line:

PlayersExclusiveJoinList.txt

It’ll go in the same place as your whitelist file.

Survivor, Tornoxy asks, “Procedural ARKs, Infinite ala minecraft, or infinitely different ala Rust? Is there a size limit like Rust? Is this all just a pipe dream/ I haven’t heard much about ProcGen lately, has this been scrubbed?”

Answer:

All of this is still in the works! It’s difficult to provide specific details until it’s further along, and as for a time-frame, it’s tricky to pin down right now as it’s a background task for part of the team.

Survivor, Goth Hydra asks, “Will any other dinos be getting the saddle-platform treatment? It'd be cool to have a mini version, for mammoths or something.”

Answer:

Yup! There will be other saddled-platform Dinosaurs, however we won’t reveal which ones… just yet ;)

That’s it for this week’s ARK Digest! Thanks for tuning in and hopefully you’ve walked away learning something new ;). Thanks for all the support, engagement, and feedback so far!

All the best,

Jat & The ARK Survival Evolved Team!

[elijahwan]

awsome. i'm so happy that bloom and lightshafts will get some attention!

[jetbrain]

yeah

[BlaBlaBliBlaBloo]

Epik

[Nigel]

:D

[Rodso]

sweet keep it up guys

[Hexwex]

Thank you for all your hard work devs. Cannot wait to see what else you have in store for us.

[I Want MY Burd]

So does that mean you'll include more questions from this last thread in the next Digest?

[Sistermatic™]

Stop writing lengthy and highly informative posts and get cracking on that coding. Sheesh......

[dillyman2]

Yay! Can't wait to build a FLYING FORTRESS!!!!

[GeminiAus]

Originally posted by Jat:

Survivor, Casimyr also asks, “Are we ever going to see a Ramp and ladder for the Stone Tier?”

Answer:

We’ve actually been troubled by how to design these within the existing visual framework. A stone ramp without supports would collapse, and a stone-ladder would look very Flintstones-esque. We’ll continue to think on it, however and if you guys have any ideas, feel free to share!

How about using the Reinforced Doors idea, we could have reinforced ladders/ramps and storage chests! I would love it~ Eitherway i'm excited for all the upcomming features, especially primitive swords and shields, lovely suprise that is. ^^

[Tasfariel]

nice one.. but what is with the colors? Black is not Black it makes only a little bit Darker :(

[Grave]

Wooo They answered me about the frog. WarFrog: Soon.

[Sorahawk]

Awesome!

[Pants]

So Phiomia bacon confirmed?

[feral weeb]

Aaaaaaaaahhhhh! Love you guys! Love this game! I'm so excited!!!