What would you like to find in beacons?

[Inny【🐭】Nazrin]

So after trying multiple beacon mods, my server is pretty much fed up of checking out beacons only to be disappointed with more crap they don't want or need.

I've decided to knuckle down and retune the beacons myself using: https://thezaz.com/beacon/

Now here is the fun part. I could ask them what kind of things they want to find in beacons, but that would spoil the surprise for my entrepid little band of dino wranglers. They don't lurk the forums much so I'd like to ask you guys.

What would you like to find in beacons?

[♃ Jove ♃]

YES = Expensive or obnoxious to produce consumables / structures / ammo, better quality tools / weapons / armor / saddles than I can build or the blueprints for such, and / or a dash of rare mats. A little here and there of these goes a long way.

NO = Blueprints for water jars, crop plots, metal structures, or drops for anything equipable of basic build quality.

[woodsguide]

better than primative gear or blueprints for them +1

[Zoboomafu]

nothing cloth but anything above that and nothing primitive, it would also be great to recieve hard to find resources or things that just take a stupid amount of time to farm

[Krakanu]

I've pasted my servers .beacon file here: Paste Bin Link [pastebin.com]

If you copy/paste everything there into a text file and name it something like ARKBeacons.beacon you can open it in the beacon editing program you linked.

The drops are designed for servers with higher than normal harvest rates, as well as servers with upgrade stations (you can salvage loot you don't like!). I also edited the cave loot crates, undersea crates, and boss drops. I didn't edit the snow cave/swamp cave crates yet though. Also I didn't do anything with the scorched earth crates since we're not using that.

I've edited the beacons to be quite powerful and always worth getting, even for higher levels to want lower level beacons. Green drops contain raw materials like narcotics or sparkpowder (500-1000) or blues contain gunpowder, which is always useful! Blues also have sets (4-8 metal tools/weapons) or a full set of apprentice-mastercraft chitin armor, or stone building items. Blue/green cave crates have a chance for a "turok" set which contains metal arrows and a compound bow, or a large supply of primitive gun ammo. Bonus drops give even more items than normal. Various saddles come in sets of 4-6 usually for level appropriate dinos.

Yellow/Red crates contain high end items like metal buildings, forges, auto turrets, riot gear sets, advanced weapons/ammo and platform saddles. Almost every "good" item can be gotten from some crate or beacon, but its highly random so if you want something specific it might take awhile, but whatever you get will always be useful to somebody!

I also edited the boss drops to have fun items like random skins, full set of tek armor, very high powered weapons, and even some tek saddles, as well as waaay more element. Harder bosses give more sets.

This should be a good starting point for you and you can tailor it to your server's liking. If you think theres way too much stuff in them you may be better off starting from scratch. My idea behind the drops was that the loot should be more valuable than if you had stayed at your base farming resources instead of taking the time to go get the drop. Even though I've buffed them so much, sometimes people still don't bother to get them, so I don't think they are too powerful.

[Scheneighnay]

An ascendant slingshot to go with my thatch door bp.

[Inny【🐭】Nazrin]

Originally posted by Krakanu:

I've pasted my servers .beacon file here: Paste Bin Link [pastebin.com]

Neat!
I'll use it as a cross reference. Thanks. Yeah I don't want to put ~too~ much goodies in them but yeah definitely wanna make it something people actually are interested in getting.

[Krakanu]

Some crates also have sets of lesser used items. For example, there is a green beacon set called the 'explorer' set, which has parachutes, spyglass/compass, flares, and some traveling saddles. Red crates has a high-tech toys set, which is random weapon attachments, nightvision goggles, among other things. I tried to form the different sets around themes to give the players ideas when they see groups of items together in the loot. Cave crates also have a chance for an 'emergency stash' set which has food/berries and firemaking gear, incase you are lost in a cave or starving!

[Krakanu]

I tried to make it to where 'exploring' and gathering all the beacons/crates in the world could be a viable way to sustain yourself on the server and trade with others, rather than settling down and farming a certain area like most people do.

[Inny【🐭】Nazrin]

Originally posted by Krakanu:

I tried to make it to where 'exploring' and gathering all the beacons/crates in the world could be a viable way to sustain yourself on the server and trade with others, rather than settling down and farming a certain area like most people do.

Yeah I'm liking the idea of "themed" sets. That's really cool. Definitely like idea of making cave crates having survival supplies.

[Chudz66]

Not helpful answer number one: I'm kind of hungry right now, so beacons made me think of bacons, and ... well ...

[Patricius MCMLXXVII]

Better quality tools like picks, hatchets, etc. Better crossbows (have yet to see anything outside of crafted level quality), broths of enlightenment (even rarely would be an improvement, I have more other foods of every kind than I know what to do with), tokens with which you could buy blueprints similar to how you can buy engrams, because I have more industrial cooker blueprints than anything but have no weapon ones.

[Bullwinkle]

Sap

[Krakanu]

Whatever you do, I highly recommend making good use of the presets function. If you want a set to drop from a green beacon, green bonus beacon, and the green cave crate, it is much easier to just make a preset and add it to all of those, than to recreate the set 3 times, and if you change your mind later, you can just update the preset and it will update those others as well.

Also, don't neglect to do the bonus beacons (I did at first and it caused half the beacons to be worthless!) Thankfully now the bonus ones are marked with a red halo so its easier to debug which crate you're getting. You can use console commands to spawn the beacons/cave crates to test and make sure you're getting what you expect.

[Bullwinkle]

Also high quality low level gear in low-level beacons. Like a Journeyman cloth gauntlet in a white beacon. Also I would love NOT to see high quality low level gear in high level beacons.

[Jcyrus]

Blueprints for gear, weapons, saddles. Get rid of the annoying ones like compass, water jar, etc. Earlier today I stopped what I was doing and flew to a dangerous area to get a red beacon, which only had a bloody compass blueprint in it.

Small amounts of refined resources like ingots, electronics, polymer, cement paste, rather than basic raw resources. It's a technologically advanced beacon, it shouldn't have wood and stone.

Random items (actual item not blueprint) like bolas, bullets, radios, various traps, scissors, grappling hook, tracking device, dyes. Fun or useful items, including ones that sometimes get skipped due to engram point shortages.

I don't know if it's possible, but it could be neat to (rarely) get a fertilized egg in one too. Doesn't even have to be of powerful dinos.

No completed saddles, gear, weapons etc. Only blueprints for those so that the player still has to put in some work for it.