How do dino spawns work?

[The White Fox]

Howdy, I'd like to know how dino spawns work in the game. I'm currently looking for good stat dinos to tame and would like to know how the spawn system works. If I find a lvl 150 wolf with bad stats and kill it, will a 150 wolf spawn and replace it?
There must be some weight to keep it so that there's some kind of balance with lvls, I'm guessing if I killed the 150 it wouldn't respawn as a completely random lvl.
Does anyone know anything about this? I don't want to waste my time culling low lvls if it doesn't achieve anything.
I know replacing low lvl eggs (wyverns for example) can help but I'm not sure about wild living dinos.
The end goal is to find a lvl 130+ with the best stats possible in the most time efficient way possible. Knowing how the spawns work will help achieve this.
Cheers!

[𝓝𝓪𝓬𝓱𝓸𝓫𝓸𝓲]

In simple terms:
There are spawn containers that can spawn dinos. Each container has certain % chance to spawn different dinos in varying amounts, sometimes they are alpha if there is an alpha variant.

The levels are based off of the map. Some maps, like the story maps (WildCard made maps), are weighted towards lower level dinos while maps like Ragnarok are weighted differently, usually to being even on level distribution. This URL has a rough, ROUGH distribution list of the dino level. It's set for max level 150 dinos; this wont be reflected by caves. https://imgur.com/a/tV1MG

The best way is to just slaughter dinos until you get a high level one. Can be already on the map or hours of grinding.

The wiki should also show you spawn containers and the %'s for each dino
https://ark.wiki.gg/wiki/Spawn_Map/The_Island
Not 100% sure if this still applies in ASA, it could be completely different. Good starting point though.

[The White Fox]

Originally posted by 𝓝𝓪𝓬𝓱𝓸𝓫𝓸𝓲:

In simple terms:
There are spawn containers that can spawn dinos. Each container has certain % chance to spawn different dinos in varying amounts, sometimes they are alpha if there is an alpha variant.

The levels are based off of the map. Some maps, like the story maps (WildCard made maps), are weighted towards lower level dinos while maps like Ragnarok are weighted differently, usually to being even on level distribution. This URL has a rough, ROUGH distribution list of the dino level. It's set for max level 150 dinos; this wont be reflected by caves. https://imgur.com/a/tV1MG

The best way is to just slaughter dinos until you get a high level one. Can be already on the map or hours of grinding.

The wiki should also show you spawn containers and the %'s for each dino
https://ark.wiki.gg/wiki/Spawn_Map/The_Island
Not 100% sure if this still applies in ASA, it could be completely different. Good starting point though.

Thank you, that answers some of my questions. I'm using a mod called Custom Dino Levels which gives Ragnarok-like levels, equalising all dino levels. So if the levels are equalised this is why I'm wondering if when a dino dies it is replaced by the same level, otherwise the levels wouldn't be equalised right? So that's why I'm wondering if it's worth killing low levels or not. This has also got me thinking, if direwolves spawn in say a pack of 3-5, would i have to kill the whole pack for the game to recognise a spawn needs to happen? Hmm

[𝓝𝓪𝓬𝓱𝓸𝓫𝓸𝓲]

Originally posted by The White Fox:

Originally posted by 𝓝𝓪𝓬𝓱𝓸𝓫𝓸𝓲:

In simple terms:
There are spawn containers that can spawn dinos. Each container has certain % chance to spawn different dinos in varying amounts, sometimes they are alpha if there is an alpha variant.

The levels are based off of the map. Some maps, like the story maps (WildCard made maps), are weighted towards lower level dinos while maps like Ragnarok are weighted differently, usually to being even on level distribution. This URL has a rough, ROUGH distribution list of the dino level. It's set for max level 150 dinos; this wont be reflected by caves. https://imgur.com/a/tV1MG

The best way is to just slaughter dinos until you get a high level one. Can be already on the map or hours of grinding.

The wiki should also show you spawn containers and the %'s for each dino
https://ark.wiki.gg/wiki/Spawn_Map/The_Island
Not 100% sure if this still applies in ASA, it could be completely different. Good starting point though.

Thank you, that answers some of my questions. I'm using a mod called Custom Dino Levels which gives Ragnarok-like levels, equalising all dino levels. So if the levels are equalised this is why I'm wondering if when a dino dies it is replaced by the same level, otherwise the levels wouldn't be equalised right? So that's why I'm wondering if it's worth killing low levels or not. This has also got me thinking, if direwolves spawn in say a pack of 3-5, would i have to kill the whole pack for the game to recognise a spawn needs to happen? Hmm

Gotcha. It is definitely worth killing lower level creatures. On Extinction on ASE, i used to go in a specific path to kill gigas. Super low spawn rate, and i'd do the run over and over and kill everything until a high level giga spawned.

Each dino contributes to a soft cap of the area, so killing everything is definitely the way to go. Just make sure to do so in a large area since dinos wont respawn close to you.

[toxicprime]

Also some dinos share spawns with each other. on the Island, spinos (which are sought after for their sails for tribute) are somewhat hard to find. When people going around killing only spinos, fish spawn to take their place since they are a shared spawn. So if you want to find spinos, comb the rivers killing everything.

Ironically enough, a Spino is fantastic at this and getting other spinos to spawn.

Im not sure all the different kinds of dinos that share spawns with eachother, but a general takeaway is if you are killing off dino X to get a higher level of it, dont limit your killing to just that dino, or else it could actually lower their population.

There are some exceptions, maps like fjordur can respawn dinos when you re render so you can stay in hotspots.
Scorched earth has a region where you can fly around between 5-6 rex spawn points and you can keep killing rexes endlessly.

[The White Fox]

Thank you both, I suppose a well bred Argy would be the best bet to quickly clear large areas on The Island.

[The White Fox]

Found a 150 with a nice stat and upon knocking it out and leaving the area it fell through the mesh and was probably eaten by sharks :) good ol Ark