Cloner is a bit too taxing.

[Fortune]

So recently, in singleplayer, I managed to obtain a Tek Cloner without cheating. Great news for me, I can finally make a Dodo farm and stuff, right? (Bad reason to use cloner, I know.)

Wrong.

So very wrong.

Let me put it into perspective. The Tek Cloning Chamber, broken down, takes 6400 chitin/keratin, 200 black pearls, 100 element, 550 crystal, 1600 obsidian, 12800 stone, and 11000 unrefined metal. Of course, that's just base ingredients. So, in total, aquiring this took me an hour or so. Not too bad, I've had worse when building my base. On normal servers without boosts this'd probably take days and days, not to mention the fact that you'd have to defeat at least 10 bosses to make it. Though, that's if you fight the Gamma Broodmother 10 times. To get this engram, you'd need to defeat the alpha dragon, which gives you 300 element, so problem solved. Now, there's still a problem. When it's set up, it requires element shards to clone. Perfectly fine, it's whatever. The problem with that?

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=935239915

Let's take this level 75 dodo. Hasn't been leveled up yet, but still. How many element shards does it take?

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=935239962

3800. For a dodo. Level 75. Now, let me yet again put this into perspective. One element makes one hundred element shards. so you'd need about 38 element for one dodo.

38 element. For a level 75 dodo. Pretty ridiculous, right?

Now, I really don't complain about this game often. Last time I did was because I tried painting a Tek Door magenta and it turned out orange, which I just found funny, but this is kiiiiiiinda ridiculous.

And I'm not even mentioning the time periods.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=935244836

I could tame another hundred or more dodos, or another ten rexes if I was cloning those, in the time it'd take to farm that much element and clone the dodo or rex once. So, my question at this point is why is it so expensive, and why so long? I mean, I can understand it when you clone rexes or gigas or other good dinos, but I still find it a bit ridiculous. If people are willing enough to grind for that much element and have that much time, why don't they just tame more dinos?

Now, the way to counterbalance it so that cloning is actually worth the time and effort it takes to clone dinos is to take the element shard requirement waaaaaaay down. Half it at least. No rex is worth 50 or more element. If you have the capability to get that much element, you can easily tame plenty more rexes. And, with time, take it down a lot. Maybe half it as well. Nobody would wait four days to clone a dino. It's just not really worth it.

Now, while I absolutely doubt the ARK devs will care about any of this, I just felt like it was worth mentioning, and who knows. Maybe they'll actually listen.

EDIT: I fixed the post so it won't be noticable, but they changed the amount of element shards one elements produces to one hundred. Either way, my point still stands.

[Commander Wiggley Biggley™]

say youve been breeding rexes for months and youve got to the point where theres no point in breeding them, now you can just clone them.

[Fortune]

Originally posted by Commander Wiggley Biggley™:

say youve been breeding rexes for months and youve got to the point where theres no point in breeding them, now you can just clone them.

Yes, while I understand this, why not just go out and tame more rexes? It'd take much less time and effort than it would to clone them.

[Debby Saurus]

Originally posted by Rice Beans:

One element makes ten element shards. so you'd need about 380 element for one dodo.

Wasn't this increased to 100 shards per element when clone chamber came out?

[Fortune]

Originally posted by Debby Saurus:

Originally posted by Rice Beans:

One element makes ten element shards. so you'd need about 380 element for one dodo.

Wasn't this increased to 100 shards per element when clone chamber came out?

Oh yeah it did. Either way, I don't think any dodo is worth 38 element.

[Debby Saurus]

Originally posted by Rice Beans:

Originally posted by Debby Saurus:

Wasn't this increased to 100 shards per element when clone chamber came out?

Oh yeah it did. Either way, I don't think any dodo is worth 38 element.

Depends on how much you value your Dodo's i guess.

[imphii]

Man....it's a cloned dodo.....a CLONED DODOOOOOO
There is nothing more cool than that! And u have to pay. The cloned dodo is woth the element and time u spent trust me! He will give u tons of eggs and maybe....one day.....during the night......he will became a dodorex!

[Fortune]

Originally posted by Debby Saurus:

Originally posted by Rice Beans:

Oh yeah it did. Either way, I don't think any dodo is worth 38 element.

Depends on how much you value your Dodo's i guess.

True. I just see it at the amount of time and grinding it takes isn't equal to any dino's worth.

[Fortune]

Originally posted by giacomo1g:

Man....it's a cloned dodo.....a CLONED DODOOOOOO
There is nothing more cool than that! And u have to pay. The cloned dodo is woth the element and time u spent trust me! He will give u tons of eggs and maybe....one day.....during the night......he will became a dodorex!

Please do not be childish in a serious discussion thank you. Obviously, it's not worth the time and effort. It doesn't matter if it's cloned.

[Housatonic]

Does the cloning just take up the time without further input required? That would make sense to me.
Taming is the (relatively) quick and dirty way to get tames.
Breeding as a means to get more tames is a much bigger hassle for no reason, but it does offer the potential to get better-than-wild tames, so that justifies is, even if it's an inferior way of just getting more decent tames.
Cloning in turn is not worth it over taming to get more tames, not worth it over breeding to get the most potential (no imprints) but it can replicate better-than-wild bred stats, with less hassle than breeding.

So if I get it right (don't have one myself) it has its own niche, and it's fine. It's not supposed to replace either taming or breeding, but offer a new option in its own right.

[Fortune]

Originally posted by Housatonic:

Does the cloning just take up the time without further input required? That would make sense to me.
Taming is the (relatively) quick and dirty way to get tames.
Breeding as a means to get more tames is a much bigger hassle for no reason, but it does offer the potential to get better-than-wild tames, so that justifies is, even if it's an inferior way of just getting more decent tames.
Cloning in turn is not worth it over taming to get more tames, not worth it over breeding to get the most potential (no imprints) but it can replicate better-than-wild bred stats, with less hassle than breeding.

So if I get it right (don't have one myself) it has its own niche, and it's fine. It's not supposed to replace either taming or breeding, but offer a new option in its own right.

Yeah, makes sense. I just feel as though taming and breeding are much easier, though breeding still does take forever, than cloning.

[Gen Greavous]

remember aswell that msot of the rates are for official everything at 1x, wild dinos only go to lvl 150 max so you can tjsut go tame new ones, an with the new inbreeding feature comnig you wil lstruggle to breed rexes up past lvl 250 maybe 300 unless you tame alot of them.
the rates for cloning take into account to make that 1 lvl 300 rex you may need 8 adults > 4 babies > 2 babies > 1 baby 300 rex, also the food and time raising costs result in really a cheap alternative.

its an alternative for high lvl players who cant be bothered to manually breed them but can afford the costs.

[Fortune]

Originally posted by Gen Greavous:

remember aswell that msot of the rates are for official everything at 1x, wild dinos only go to lvl 150 max so you can tjsut go tame new ones, an with the new inbreeding feature comnig you wil lstruggle to breed rexes up past lvl 250 maybe 300 unless you tame alot of them.
the rates for cloning take into account to make that 1 lvl 300 rex you may need 8 adults > 4 babies > 2 babies > 1 baby 300 rex, also the food and time raising costs result in really a cheap alternative.

its an alternative for high lvl players who cant be bothered to manually breed them but can afford the costs.

Like I said, understandable. But as someone who, in a large tribe, has tried to defeat bosses, it takes forever and is not worth it to me. If you have a couple hundred element lying around to just clone dinos with, then good job.

[g0rml3ss]

I think the costs are relative to the fact that once you've bred super dinos with stats exactly as you want them, you can then repeat those stats over and over and over again successfully.

In that respect the cost is relevant to the time needed / taken to hunt / find,tame,breed all those high level dinos until you get to the point of getting those stats you exactly want.

Given the RNG of stats in the 1st place the cost seems fair to me in the time / hassle it would save, atleast thats the way I look at it. Sure it's wasted on regular wild tames but super breeds with garuanteed stats everytime is a different story and a hell of a lot more effort.

[( i ) ACTION BASTARD]

OP definitely acquired Tek by cheating. No other reason to go out of your way to say "without cheating" otherwise. GG.


p.s. don't delete my comments without a word, thanks. Im right here to talk to. And my comment isnt deletion-justifiable. :)

[Housatonic]

Originally posted by ( i ) Action Bastard:

OP definitely acquired Tek by cheating. No other reason to go out of your way to say "without cheating" otherwise. GG.

How is it even relevant to the topic how they got it?