Metal spikes - upgrade or downgrade from wood spikes?

[captaincrunch]

First of all, private server, no mods. And the "bPassiveDefensesDamageRiderlessDinos" server setting set to either true or false makes no difference in these findings.

Here is my observation:
Take a raft with wood spikes around periphery attached to side of foundation blocks into swamp biomes. The wood spikes will kill (impale) any aggroed sarcos or other swamp creatures that try to get onto the raft from the water.

Exact same scenario, but change wood spikes to metal spikes. Even add a second higher tier of metal spikes. Aggroed sarcos and other swamp critters walk all over the metal spikes and even use the spikes as stairs to board the raft - and take absolutely NO damage while doing so. Again, same behavior if "bPassiveDefensesDamageRiderlessDinos" setting is true or false.

So in what scenario are metal spikes superior to wood? Are metal spikes only effective when placed on land vs land dinos? Or is this a known bug with metal spikes?

Thanks for any info. Haven't played ARK for very long but my understanding was that metal spikes were supposed to be an upgrade.

[Dragon]

Metal spike are an upgrade....more HP than wood. As far as the damage, you turned on the damage but not sure if someone told you to multiply the damage. Starting damage is pathetic. Try ramping up the damage multiplier to say...10x and watch Dino's die
Sending this from my phone so I don't know exactly where in your game ini it will be located

[captaincrunch]

I can ramp up the damage in the server settings- but will that fix the issue? The metal spikes are not doing any damage now, and the wood ones are. Increasing the damage multiplier doesn't seem like it will work if the metal spike damage is currently 0 (in other words, 10 times zero is still zero). Is that not how it works?

[dark7np]

Lots of dinos can damage wooden spikes, as they are a wood structure. High meele Dinos melt them, at least if you ride them. That does not work well with metal spikes. Not sure about your findings though. Sounds like a bug.

[Charcharodonto]

Dinos agro onto structures they can damage. Since wood can be damaged by them they will ocassionally hit it and then take damage from trying to attack it/walk into it.

metal spikes are stone tier, so as long as the dino in question is not actively trying to attack the spikes, the spikes deal no damage and instead become a fencelike structure.

However, as soon as the wild dino hits you, or something belonging to you like a tame or a structure the metal spikes should function normally.

[captaincrunch]

Originally posted by Charcharodonto:

Dinos agro onto structures they can damage. Since wood can be damaged by them they will ocassionally hit it and then take damage from trying to attack it/walk into it.

metal spikes are stone tier, so as long as the dino in question is not actively trying to attack the spikes, the spikes deal no damage and instead become a fencelike structure.

However, as soon as the wild dino hits you, or something belonging to you like a tame or a structure the metal spikes should function normally.

This sounds logical. I wondered if a wild dino couldn't damage a structure like metal spikes, then that structure couldn't damage the dino. However, we were getting hit repeatedly by sarcos and the metal spikes still did no damage to the sarcos (they were hitting us and crawling/barrel rolling all over the metal spikes at the same time).

So I wonder if metal spikes are useless against dinos which cannot damage stone. They don't even make a good barrier from what I've seen as many different dinos climb right over them unscathed.

[BumpInTheNight]

I swear I remember reading something about a change to the spike walls where the focus of the metal ones was aimed at larger dinos and drastically reduced against smaller ones. For the life of me I can't find any reference to such a change though.

[Liralen]

My experience with metals spikes is only on land, in which case they work better than wood, but maybe only because they are harder to destroy.

But I'm wondering, based upon what you said, if they work differently on rafts.

I have not noticed a difference against smaller dinos.

[captaincrunch]

Originally posted by Liralen:

My experience with metals spikes is only on land, in which case they work better than wood, but maybe only because they are harder to destroy.

But I'm wondering, based upon what you said, if they work differently on rafts.

I have not noticed a difference against smaller dinos.

I wondered about this.

I built a small house out of stone on the west side of the island and surrounded it with metal spikes. I lured a lvl 6 alpha carnotaurus over by shooting it with a rifle. It charged over to the house and attacked the metal spikes. But only yellow damage numbers were floating up from the spikes when he was attacking the spikes. I eventually killed him with a shotgun (every time I shot him there were green floating numbers from my damage). He did considerable damage to the metal spikes. and probably would have destroyed the spikes, the house, and me if I didn't intervene. But since only yellow floating damage numbers were floating up while he was attacking the spikes, does that mean that he was damaging the spikes but the spikes didn't damage him at all?

I will try wood spikes and see what happens.

[Liralen]

Originally posted by captaincrunch:

Originally posted by Liralen:

My experience with metals spikes is only on land, in which case they work better than wood, but maybe only because they are harder to destroy.

But I'm wondering, based upon what you said, if they work differently on rafts.

I have not noticed a difference against smaller dinos.

I wondered about this.

I built a small house out of stone on the west side of the island and surrounded it with metal spikes. I lured a lvl 6 alpha carnotaurus over by shooting it with a rifle. It charged over to the house and attacked the metal spikes. But only yellow damage numbers were floating up from the spikes when he was attacking the spikes. I eventually killed him with a shotgun (every time I shot him there were green floating numbers from my damage). He did considerable damage to the metal spikes. and probably would have destroyed the spikes, the house, and me if I didn't intervene. But since only yellow floating damage numbers were floating up while he was attacking the spikes, does that mean that he was damaging the spikes but the spikes didn't damage him at all?

I will try wood spikes and see what happens.

I'm curious to know your results.