[07/22/15] Introducing the Gallimimus & ARK Digest #11!

[Jat]

Hello Survivors!

Welcome to the eleventh 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!

Per-Pixel Sign Painting!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=482870727

We’re super excited to announce that we’ve released Per Pixel sign painting in the most recent patch! This new feature will allow survivors to carry out real-time multiplayer simultaneous painting! Your friends will be able to watch you as you create the Mona Lisa of the ARK world!

We’ve already seen a lot of great things painted and can’t wait to see what else you guys have in store! Here are some examples from our Community Hub:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=485899768

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=485809007

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=486389595

There’s even more floating around so be sure to check them out and please remember to share any of your creations, though try to keep it SFW ;).

Community Crunch Contests!

Tomorrow for our 11th Community Crunch we’ll be announcing this weeks winner of the #ARKitect award! This is a 200$ prize awarded to the person who creates the most awesome base. The bases are going to be judged on their unique designs/layout, functionality or just how awesome and creative they look!

We’ll be scouring our community sites for submissions, but we’ve got a dedicated thread which can be found here for any last minute submissions:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/346110/discussions/0/535151589886828920/

If you plan to enter #ARKitect, please ensure that you post in the thread with attachments or URLs for screenies or relevant map files (with coordinates!). This will be an ongoing tournament for every Community Crunch with a prize of 200$!

In addition to the #ARKitect award, we’ll also be sponsoring a 50$ weekly Community Crunch award for the coolest drawing using our new Per-Pixel painting system! You can enter your pictures for #ARKArt in our dedicated submissions thread:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/346110/discussions/0/535151589886839424/

We’ll be releasing the new threads each week for the following contests when we announce the winners in the Community Crunch, so be sure to check that out tomorrow and good luck to all who enter!

Your Questions, Our Answers

Survivor, Dexez asks, “Will you support DX12 right when Windows 10 releases?”

Answer:

We won’t have it quite ready for public use the day that Windows 10 becomes available, however we are planning on releasing it by mid-August. We understand it’s going to be a very important change and we just want to ensure that everything is running smoothly before shipping it out to you all, however we’re all very excited about it!

Survivor, jakewhite99 asks, “Can you make it so that we can actually paint over darker colours with the painting by pixel? I want to paint my white clan symbol on a green backdrop and it doesn’t show up.”

Answer:

Yup, that’s something we can do! We’re going to add a flood-fill option to make painting over darker colours, among other things, easier. The Per Pixel painting that’s in the game now is the first edition, as we progress and push out more updates, you’ll see it receive improvements and more functionality! Some of the things we’re tinkering with and looking into are decals that you can ‘save’ to quickly apply designs to other paintable surfaces (will be great for showing off your Tribe’s emblem!), as well as an improvements in the general UI, and in the future the addition of new items or paintable surfaces (tombstones anyone?)

Survivor, Apex Demon asks, “Why was the quadrupedal Spinosaurus chosen over the bipedal one? Just curious as to how you guys came up with that decision, would be interesting to know! =)”

Answer:

There’s a lot of reasons why we design our creatures the way we do, some are for lore-related purposes and what makes sense in our game, others are designed in what is more iconic and fun for the survivors playing the game. We’ve also got to take into consideration what other creatures we’ve got in the game, in the Spinosaurus’ case there are A LOT of large bipedal carnivores, so we decided to go with the quadrupedal to get some more visual differences in play, plus there’s science too, though of course this differs between creatures and some are going to be more scientifically accurate than others.

Survivor, Draxxalon asks, “Is there a plan to allow server admins to modify decay rates for dino/player food decay rates, body decay, item decay, etc?”

Answer:

You know what Draxxalon, that’s not a bad idea mate. We’ll work on adding functionality for that :)

Survivor, Shadie asks, “Will we ever get to see one of the smaller cousins of the Spinosaurus?”

Answer:

Yes, you will!

Survivor, Nubsly asks, “Does mate boosting have an impact on Dino’s laying eggs?”

Answer:

Just a moment….

It does now. Mate Boosted Dinosaurs now have twice the chance to drop an egg on Tamed Dinosaurs.

Survivor, Mr. Skeltal asks, “Will Mammoths move to the glacial area of the Island and be replaced by the Paraceratherium in the warmer areas?”

Answer:

Spot on! They will in fact move over once we have the Snow biome in, however of course with player interaction, you’ll be able to lure them back to wherever you’ve set up shop :)

Survivor, Captain Punch asks, “What kind of solutions are being discussed for the bases-on-spawn point issues?”

Answer:

We’re still discussing internally however right now we are currently leaning towards adding a PvE No-Build zone in spawn areas for a pretty wide distance around the location to make completely encircling them impractical, if not impossible.

Survivor, eylesman asks, “Are you planning on adding berry equivalent of prime meat? I think maybe ripe berries that you can get off bushes and have the same drop rate and soil time as prime meat.”

Answer:

Yes indeed! We are actually planning to do a pass/rebalance on herbivore taming very shortly so you can expect to see an equivalent introduced :)

Survivor, Musa Dudush asks, “Are there any tutorials for the ARK Dev Kit?”

Answer:

There are loads of different resources to help you out! First of all you’ll want to check out the Unreal Engine 4 ARK Survival Evolved forums, where you’ll be able to discuss and learn about the tools, as well as share your mods and see what others are getting up to.

There’s also an ongoing video series teaching you how to use the tool here: https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?76758-ARK-Dev-Kit-Tutorials-Archive-(including-Video-Tutorials!) as well as a get started guide here: https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?75357-Tutorial-Getting-Started-with-the-ARK-Dev-Kit!

Don’t forget there are plenty of contributors around the modding scene helping each other learn so you’ll always have some form of guidance, be it the UE4 forums, the videos, the Workshop discussion section: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/discussions/?appid=346110 or the ARK Modding sub-reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/arkmodding

Survivor, Musa Dudush also asks, “Are rare animals like Semi-Bosses going to be the same type but bigger, better and stronger?”

Answer:

Yup! The upcoming Rare Animals will be arriving fairly soon to the ARK. They will grant significant experience and drop a lot more resources. For the time being they will not be able to be tamed to prevent stat inflation. You’ll be able to distinguish these unique creatures with their name, unique colour scheme and massively boosted evil stats!

Survivor, Ansgar Odinson says, “I would love to see guard rails to finish off balconies and things in a more aesthetically pleasing way, there are many screenshots of these but they don’t exist in the game.”

Answer:

Ah yes, we’ll be adding in proper rail guards fairly soon ;)

Survivor, Buster asks, “When will you implement the taming feature for certain animals whose dossiers claim that they can be tamed, notably the Bats, Megapiranha and the Spiders?”

Answer:

Not long to go yet Buster! We plan to introduce them as part of the revamp for non-torpor Carnivorous taming methods!

Survivor, Kimsie asks, “Will we see actual windows (e.g made from crystals) further on?”

Answer:

Yep!

Survivor, Flappies says, "Hey guys, just wanted to know, since there is a HUGE Ark following in South Africa / Namibia, is there ever going to be a South African official server. We would love to play on official servers, but latencies are very high."

Answer:

We will see about adding servers closer to the South African region as soon as possible and will keep you posted via the forum on progress with that!

Survivor, meuqsaco asks, “Will you create official South American servers? We have 70+ Unofficial servers in Brazil alone, at the moment.”

Answer:

Yup! South America will also be looked into and we will keep you guys posted on the progress and any updates in regards to those servers coming up.

Survivor, RampantCreature asks, "Any chance there will be other torpor-centric creatures to tame, even if they are smaller/weaker creatures?"

Answer:

Coming soon to an ARK near you! ;)

Survivor, Nobody asks, "When will the Dodosaurus Rex be added because we all want it badly!"

Answer:

It will make a limited-event appearance on certain, very special days this year ;)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=454655800

Survivor, MeisterKleister asks, "Are there any plans on giving the admin better tools to be able to do their work? I made a post on reddit with some suggestions: https://www.reddit.com/r/playark/comments/3cs2ul/things_serveradmins_really_need/”

Answer:

Good list! We do appreciate all the feedback you guys provide and in regards to these particular suggestions, we’ll try to get through the whole lot in the next week or so!

Survivor, chvonglica asks, “Any news on the wall glitch issue? It's kinda silly having your dino killed in his pen, from the outside, without destroying the wall, because his head/tail/wing is sticking out."

Answer:

We should be definitively be tackling this next week!

Survivor, paulthemine asks, "Are there any plans to add cold/hot weather gear?"

Answer:

Yup! As we introduce some of the new biomes, we’ll be adding in clothing and suits to go with that. Some things you can expect are Mammoth-based clothing which will be used for cold weather, and a skinsuit for hot weather.

Survivor, bon201 asks, "How about war drums you could apply to a dino saddle? Imagine a raid where you hear an incoming attack with 'BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOOM!'"

Answer:

We love it when you guys express yourselves, through character creation, story telling, painting and soon you’ll be able to add music to that list! We will be introducing instruments to the ARK, including drums. You’ll be able to have someone playing them on your upcoming Bronto platform! A new meaning to the word marching band :)!

Survivor, Seb asks, “The Ocean is still full of “big” predators. Will we see more other live creatures like maybe the jellyfish or some other ‘smaller’ friendly/neutral creatures?”

Answer:

Oh man! For sure, we’ve got loads incoming :)

Survivor, Megameatloaf asks, "Please for the love of god, complete the food pyramid! For the sake of healthy bowels all over the ARK, give us bread!"

Answer:

Bread is on the way, along with it’s buddy Beer, which will provide a beneficial purpose in game :)

Survivor, BikeJones asks, “Is there any way we could have the "U" whistle hotkey changed so it only affects mounts currently following you specifically? My tribemates keep getting upset with me when I land a flyer and hit U causing their mounts to unfollow them.”

Answer:

Done as of v188 ;)

Survivor, Sveden asks, "Why don't Phiomina's defecate!?"

Answer:

We’ve fed them some laxative in version v188, so they’ll be pooping, a lot.

Survivor, Clever Girl asks, "Will there eventually be an end game cooking pot?"

Answer:

How about an industrial version of the cooking pot? :)

Survivor, SADAR asks, “Can you make dead dinosaurs have realistic damage skins when being eaten by other dinosaurs?”

Answer:

As a matter of fact we can! We’ve got a team currently working on procedural dino damage skins!

Survivor, Jerisho asks, "Is there any hope for the loading screen to be fixed ??? it litterly take ages to join a server"

Answer:

As of version 188 we will have an experimental method to massively improve loading speed, and version 189 should take it all the way officially. We’re talking a 75%+ loading speed reduction :D

Survivor, Dantedt2 asks, “Have you been thinking on a tranq gun, or tranq ammo? if not, think about it for a second: a gun that allows you to use tranquilizing ammo, instead of the normal arrows, for an increased range, and increased torpor, in exchange for an increased production costs."

Answer:

We’ve got something for you Dantedt2! The upcoming machined Sniper Rifle will be able to take fabricated tranquilizer darts!

Survivor, Liftoff asks, "When will we be seeing the implementation of some type of sickle/shovel item to make the harvesting of plants and stray rocks easier?"

Answer:

You guys really want that Sickle! The demand for it has been overwhelming, well then to compliment the Gigantopithecus and the Therizinosaurus’ Fiber harvesting capabilities, next week we’ll be adding a Sickle that you can craft. It’s primary function will be to harvest Fiber ;).

Survivor, DracoSerpentor77 asks, "In the mesopithecus dossier, it shows mesopithecus clinging to the back of a survivor screeching, does this imply that certain small creatures will be able to be "equipped" to the survivor?"

Answer:

Good eye! Yup, soon enough you’ll be able to have small creatures perched on you :)

Dino Dossier!

A new Dino Dossier has been revealed, this one is everyone’s favorite speedy herbivore, the Gallimimus!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=486518286

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,

Your Community Manager Jat and The ARK Survival Evolved Team!

[rikashiku]

Cool

[Shinzo wo Sasageyo!]

Awesome!!

[CrspyToast]

3rd

[Dinoman]

And no response to my infinite stamina question. ;(

[White, the Loiterer]

I just love reading these.

[Harames]

My question was finally featured. Yes!

[[SWMG] FroggyDude]

Why is no one talking about optimization? I have a pretty good PC and the game looks good but i cant even get more than 25 fps on low.

[AriBoh]

so Therizinosaurus confirmed :D

[Tetzer]

Originally posted by FroggyDude:

Why is no one talking about optimization? I have a pretty good PC and the game looks good but i cant even get more than 25 fps on low.

Cause its common knowledge that they are working on it?
Anyways, great digest.

[IcWhy]

best devs ever

[VincenTrenslo]

Damn still no answer on the Tylosaurus

[VincenTrenslo]

Originally posted by darkknightfk:

so Therizinosaurus confirmed :D

Its been confirmed for like a month allready, I sugest you read the confirmed creatures list.

[Krasus]

awesome job devs

[Fiddlewink the 3rd]

xD I got the last one...I probably deserve it for bashing on their microraptor x3

[Unicornymous]

Awesome stuff! keep it up! :D