Ark Ascended questions from a newby to any Ark

[instant_sunshine]

What on earth is 'imprinting' all about when taming, getting cuddles etc..i see nothing about that when Im trying to tame?? Is it important? Is there a time when to feed the tame while it's asleep some vids say just before they run out of food others just whack it in and how much if giving berries? Many of my tames wake up and attack me or wander off untamed even if I have kept the food up to them. Yes I check many videos on how to tame this and that but so many speak about things that I have no clu about like imprinting etc and dont explain it just presume I have played earlier Arks I guess and many of them have mods, I dont. I am lvl 97 on The Island as a single player. Is this forum best place to go to ask questions? I have watched a zillion videos and still have so many questions mostly minor stuff thats major until I know it lol and be nice Im also old.

[fruvy]

Ark is weird this way, and you're not the only one to be confused at first.

What you might have missed is that taming wild dinos and raising babies are (almost) completely different. Imprinting, cuddles, and so on are only for raising babies and don't have anything to do with taming wild adults.

Loosely speaking (rewatch some videos after experimenting to get the details better) your taming progress increases as the dino eats their preferred foods from their inventory (you can't force feed for taming progress) and their "torpor" (the stat that keeps them unconscious) will fade unless you force feed them narcoberries (preferred for herbivores) or narcotics (preferred for carnivores). The idea is to keep them unconscious until they reach full tame, but if you let them run out of food they like they will start to rapidly lose tame progress.

It takes a *lot* of getting used to if my experience is any indication, and every dino is different (some are pickier eaters, some tame super slow, some wake up super fast, etc.). But you can ignore the imprinting and cuddling until you start hatching eggs or start adopting wild babies (a new feature in Ascended, and a bit twitchy so far IMO).

[Scyjin]

A greate Help could be Dododex. If you know your Settings, it will display how much food and torpor you will need to tame.

[instant_sunshine]

Originally posted by fruvy:

Ark is weird this way, and you're not the only one to be confused at first.

What you might have missed is that taming wild dinos and raising babies are (almost) completely different. Imprinting, cuddles, and so on are only for raising babies and don't have anything to do with taming wild adults.

Loosely speaking (rewatch some videos after experimenting to get the details better) your taming progress increases as the dino eats their preferred foods from their inventory (you can't force feed for taming progress) and their "torpor" (the stat that keeps them unconscious) will fade unless you force feed them narcoberries (preferred for herbivores) or narcotics (preferred for carnivores). The idea is to keep them unconscious until they reach full tame, but if you let them run out of food they like they will start to rapidly lose tame progress.

It takes a *lot* of getting used to if my experience is any indication, and every dino is different (some are pickier eaters, some tame super slow, some wake up super fast, etc.). But you can ignore the imprinting and cuddling until you start hatching eggs or start adopting wild babies (a new feature in Ascended, and a bit twitchy so far IMO).

Thanks very much. I need to learn to understand more the taming stats that come up while taming but is good to know to keep them asleep until tamed. Shall keep checking those videos and just keep taming lower level things till I get used to it and maybe a bit wiser. I gather you meant that I actually am levelling up my taming progress each time I successfully tame so the more I tame the better I get at it..? more or less. I have only tamed 4 so far. Anyway appreciate the feedback!

[instant_sunshine]

Originally posted by Scyjin:

A greate Help could be Dododex. If you know your Settings, it will display how much food and torpor you will need to tame.

Is this a mod or something in my settings? Shall let my old gamer better half have a look and see if he can work it out coz sounds good. Thanks for help!

[Caduryn]

Originally posted by instant_sunshine:

Originally posted by Scyjin:

A greate Help could be Dododex. If you know your Settings, it will display how much food and torpor you will need to tame.

Is this a mod or something in my settings? Shall let my old gamer better half have a look and see if he can work it out coz sounds good. Thanks for help!

https://www.dododex.com/

[fruvy]

Originally posted by instant_sunshine:

Originally posted by fruvy:

Ark is weird this way, and you're not the only one to be confused at first.

What you might have missed is that taming wild dinos and raising babies are (almost) completely different. Imprinting, cuddles, and so on are only for raising babies and don't have anything to do with taming wild adults.

Loosely speaking (rewatch some videos after experimenting to get the details better) your taming progress increases as the dino eats their preferred foods from their inventory (you can't force feed for taming progress) and their "torpor" (the stat that keeps them unconscious) will fade unless you force feed them narcoberries (preferred for herbivores) or narcotics (preferred for carnivores). The idea is to keep them unconscious until they reach full tame, but if you let them run out of food they like they will start to rapidly lose tame progress.

It takes a *lot* of getting used to if my experience is any indication, and every dino is different (some are pickier eaters, some tame super slow, some wake up super fast, etc.). But you can ignore the imprinting and cuddling until you start hatching eggs or start adopting wild babies (a new feature in Ascended, and a bit twitchy so far IMO).

Thanks very much. I need to learn to understand more the taming stats that come up while taming but is good to know to keep them asleep until tamed. Shall keep checking those videos and just keep taming lower level things till I get used to it and maybe a bit wiser. I gather you meant that I actually am levelling up my taming progress each time I successfully tame so the more I tame the better I get at it..? more or less. I have only tamed 4 so far. Anyway appreciate the feedback!

I didn't mean to imply that taming abilities scale with any in-game stats; rather, I meant that once you get used to this system it starts to make sense and you get a feel for what you need to have ready before you KO a dino in the first place. And since you can't start hatching eggs until you have male and female tames to breed (and all the necessary resources to keep eggs at the perfect incubation temperature) that part of the process usually comes after you get a lot of practice with taming, which is good because breeding gets super complicated real fast if you try to aim for perfect stats.

[Moomoo]

I've still not managed to get any cuddles from any dino, They all try to eat me.. What does a woman have to do to get cuddles around here...

[Dradiin]

Sooooooo many YouTube videos for beginners, for ASE and ASA. I tiny bit of searching can result in loads of information.

[Dkonen]

To tame a dino what you need to do is knock it unconscious and then keep it unconscious until it's tame reaches 100% (you can look at it while it's unconscious and it'll give you the percentage).

The best way to max out the bonus levels for a perfect tame (it hits 100% tame quickly) is to starve the creature while it's unconscious-which is just waiting until it's food meter hits halfway or thereabouts. Keep it unconscious the entire time, then at half food, drop in your taming food, be it meat or berries or fish (this varies from creature to creature).

If you don't hit 100% tame when it wakes up, it isn't tamed and if it's an aggressive dino, or territorial, it may attack you. Aggressive dinos hunt you, territorial dinos will only attack if you're close-in case you were wondering about the difference.

Imprinting is for baby* (baby, juvenile and adolescent-basically not adult) dinos. If you find one with a parent in the wild, you can kill the parent and walk up to the baby and it will come up with a window to hit "e" to imprint (on PC). That's how you "tame" the baby.

You'll want to put food immediately in it's inventory and escort it back to your base-keep in mind babies are slow so it can take a while to get them safely away. babies also won't swim (I realized this recently) so if it's on an island away from your base, you might need a flyer to carry them back (I actually recommend this because it's much faster and safer).

As it matures, there will be a timer on it's window that says "wants care" with a countdown. When that countdown hits 0, you can imprint -which might be feeding it by hand (putting food in the last slot), cuddling (hit E when standing next to) or taking it for a walk (put on follow and walk a distance).

Each time you do this as it's growing will give you a certain amount on it's imprint meter. If you hit 100% you get a boost to stats on the adult dino.

I hope this answers your questions :)

[instant_sunshine]

Yes thanks very much, taming is sorted out now.