Help undersatnding Aberration

[Jon.Topps]

Playing basically an SP game where I have my own server using ASM for just me.
I have the game set to easy, with resource and time stuff set WAY high, to lessen the horrible grind (considering I'm playing by myself, and don't want to spend hundreds of hours waiting for taming or breeding).

At this point I have a few bases, one which is deep in the blue area, near red.
I have tons and tons of spinos and ravagers and materials.
I want to go into the red zone to get the drake eggs. I'm entering somewhere around 60 55 I think.
I bring FORTY spinos with me, all of which are level 50 or above (remember, I'm playing on easier settings, no lvl 150 dinos spawning in my world).
I find a path down into the red zone. It's REALLY hard to move around with 40 spinos following you, but I manage.
A lvl 25 reaper queen comes out, and all my spinos start attacking, I can barely keep with the reaper, because of all my spinos. I manage to stay close enough to it to give the charge debuff to it, so I can damage it more. It takes TONS of damage. Eventually, it keeps getting back and back, and now I'm stuck in a corner with all my spinos swarming it. It just chews away at them, one by one. Then another reaper queen comes out, I think it was like lvl 18 or something. They just kill all my spinos one by one, and they're not even bloody (although I realize they have REALLY high regen, so maybe it "was" close to death before).

Anyways, how in the world am I supposed to be able to do anything when I can't even kill one reaper queen? I can't imagine any dinos being stronger than spinos, so do I just bring even more? And feed hundreds of spinos to reapers until I eventually make it down the huge chasm? At the rate I was going, I'd need literally hundreds, if not thousands of spinos to get all the way down and back up...

I see people playing with super dinos that they've bred in alpha tribes with dozens of people playing. I'm playing alone, so that's not really an option. I set it to easy so it'd be possible to do SP, but even a lvl 25 is ripping through everything.
I know I can set the settings so tamed dinos do 999x damage and whatever, but I see that as cheating, and would prefer to have the difficulty of the actual game be the same (just not the grind, if that makes sense).

Ideas are very welcome. Thanks!

[Chaser the Tiny Hippo]

I got through some with just a couple spinos.
Quick question, were your spinos saddles, it makes a huge difference.
And you can never ever let that charge light go off the queen, it's regen when not in charge is insane, it'll practically never do if it loses the charge debuff constantly, especially since everything only does 2 damage when it's not in a light.

[Chaser the Tiny Hippo]

Also, you don't have to breed carefully or anything, but if you get an imprint on a spino that you ride, it gets an extra 30% damage resistance and damage dealt.

[Jon.Topps]

Originally posted by Tiny Hippo:

Also, you don't have to breed carefully or anything, but if you get an imprint on a spino that you ride, it gets an extra 30% damage resistance and damage dealt.

Thanks for the tips. I guess I can try to work the settings somehow so I can imprint still, because that does look worth it. I had saddles on like 10 of them or so.
So for the charge buff to stay on him, I'd have to have less dinos.

So would it be worth it to have only like 5 spinos, all with saddles, and I keep close with the charge? The bulbdog's range isn't that great, so I pretty much have to be touching the reaper for it to get the charge debuff.

Also, for the saddle, were you using normal ones? Or like ascendant ones? I'm finding that solo aberration has basically no drops anywhere, and the odds of getting a spino saddle, and a good one, is just horrific, lol.

[Chaser the Tiny Hippo]

Originally posted by Jon.Topps:

Originally posted by Tiny Hippo:

Also, you don't have to breed carefully or anything, but if you get an imprint on a spino that you ride, it gets an extra 30% damage resistance and damage dealt.

Thanks for the tips. I guess I can try to work the settings somehow so I can imprint still, because that does look worth it. I had saddles on like 10 of them or so.
So for the charge buff to stay on him, I'd have to have less dinos.

So would it be worth it to have only like 5 spinos, all with saddles, and I keep close with the charge? The bulbdog's range isn't that great, so I pretty much have to be touching the reaper for it to get the charge debuff.

Also, for the saddle, were you using normal ones? Or like ascendant ones? I'm finding that solo aberration has basically no drops anywhere, and the odds of getting a spino saddle, and a good one, is just horrific, lol.

yea, less spinos so you can keep the queen in the light at all times is a worthwile trade off.
5 should be enough, I used 2 to get down to the drakes the first time the last time I played aberration, one of them died at the end, but the other made it back up just fine.
Stop whenever you see a plant z and heal up.
I think even a 25 armor(primitive) saddles blocks 50% damage against reaper queens, so any saddle is way better than no saddle.
Obviously, the better the saddle the easier it'll be, but even normal ones should work, especially if you can get 3 more spinos than I used.

Also, the recommended singleplayer settings for breeding are:

MatingIntervalMultiplier=0.125000
EggHatchSpeedMultiplier=10.000000
BabyMatureSpeedMultiplier=36.799000
BabyCuddleIntervalMultiplier=0.167000

You obviously don't have to use these, but it's much faster than normal and ensures everything can get its imprint in.

[Jon.Topps]

Originally posted by Tiny Hippo:

Also, the recommended singleplayer settings for breeding are:

MatingIntervalMultiplier=0.125000
EggHatchSpeedMultiplier=10.000000
BabyMatureSpeedMultiplier=36.799000
BabyCuddleIntervalMultiplier=0.167000

You obviously don't have to use these, but it's much faster than normal and ensures everything can get its imprint in.

So I'm a little confused by the imprinting settings. In ASM it "says" that the interval setting means you have to cuddle more to get the same results. Is that what that modifier means? Or does it just make the cuddle thing show up more often?

[Chaser the Tiny Hippo]

Originally posted by Jon.Topps:

Originally posted by Tiny Hippo:

Also, the recommended singleplayer settings for breeding are:

MatingIntervalMultiplier=0.125000
EggHatchSpeedMultiplier=10.000000
BabyMatureSpeedMultiplier=36.799000
BabyCuddleIntervalMultiplier=0.167000

You obviously don't have to use these, but it's much faster than normal and ensures everything can get its imprint in.

So I'm a little confused by the imprinting settings. In ASM it "says" that the interval setting means you have to cuddle more to get the same results. Is that what that modifier means? Or does it just make the cuddle thing show up more often?

So the imprint interval is independant from the maturation speed.
What this means is that if you change the maturation speed to something higher (36.799x) then you have to lower the cuddle interval to something lower (0.167) otherwise you won't be able to imprint before it finishes growing.

What ASM means is that the amount of imprint % you get per cuddle depends on the total amount of times you can cuddle before it grows up.
This means that if you can cuddle every 18 minutes, and it takes an hour to grow up fully, each imprint would give 33% since you can imprint 3 times.
If it took 2 hours, each imprint would give half of that since you could do it twice as many times.
If it took 31 minutes to imprint, and it would grow up in one hour, you'd only get 1 imprint and it would give 100% since it's the only one you can get.

[Jon.Topps]

Okay, so for the sake of argument, suppose I changed the multipliers to 200x mature speed, and 0.005 cuddle interval (200x again).
If the Spino grows up in one minute, and I spam the cuddles at it, it will get to 100%?

[Chaser the Tiny Hippo]

Originally posted by Jon.Topps:

Okay, so for the sake of argument, suppose I changed the multipliers to 200x mature speed, and 0.005 cuddle interval (200x again).
If the Spino grows up in one minute, and I spam the cuddles at it, it will get to 100%?

Yes, except since it's so quick, you may have a hard time getting the correct kibble in time if it wants a kibble, and you might miss the imprint.
I like to take the recommended settings and just double/half them until it's as fast as I like.

[=Sarsante=]

The mistake I guess it was too many spinos, so you cant debuff it then its almost impossible to kill.

[Fate (-{SoH}-)]

It sounds like your doing the entire thing wrong,
I play solo as well,
Tho my settings are rather close to default and my xp rates half default,
Honestly there are several dozen methods to get drake eggs and going spinos is one of the worst as unless they are imprinted and have good stats they will die long before you reach the bottom.

I personaly always used the same method everytime i hit that point in progression and that was:

First make sure you have s+ so you can pick up buildings,

Second build a cannon and 10 cannon balls along with a 12W by 12L by 6H chamber for holding a really big dino,

Third make 3 crab saddles (default is fine)
"on this note if you go to the surface you will find constantly spawning beacons for saddles and all and you can do this with a crab without buildings just takes practice and easily fight off the king reapers",
Then find some max wild lvl crabs and lead them to a single foundation with a cannon faced 1 direction upwards if your behind it when they are about to go for a strike fire you got a 70% chance of an instant tame 30% chance to instant kill them,

Fourth max out the crabs (you can rush their training by going through the rivers killing big things and smashing all the fish should only take an hour or 2 to max each crab),

Fifth prepare a bird for light (dogs have too shallow a range) best if you can get it afew points in capacity as birds have range but terrible capacity/regen,

Sixth prepare 2 radiation suits, a shield, a automatic shotgun with 100+ shots and enough food/water for 2-3 hours,

Seventh you need to go with all your crabs to about https://imgur.com/a/tBYrCI2 that spot
I might be off on the map by abit,
Basicly infront of you should be the start of the radiation zone and to your left a path leading to a waterfall that requires a high jump or climb to get up if this is correct then you need to station your 2 crabs in a spot where the locals wont bother them but you can easily get to them
also set up a respawn point in a safe spot near the crabs,

Eighth head up the waterfall and you will instantly come to a bridge this spot has the highest chance in the entire game of encountering queens you want to attract a single queen of high lvl from this spot back to the other crabs,

Ninth Once the queen is back with the other crabs you will find they are 100% immune to the queens most deadly attack the projectiles that hit 5k torpor with this they stand a fighting chance (honestly a single maxed crab stands a chance 3 maxed crabs slaughters queens) you wanna make sure shes focused on you and your in a spot where she cant push you back,

Tenth when you think shes getting low health turn off your pets light and see if shes glowing pink if she is jump off your crab with ur shield up and she will impregnate you if you survive (big if) kill the queen for her pheremons then maybe kill another and head back to base with 10 pheremons

Eleventh you got 12 hours (on default birth rate) to get the baby inside you to max lvl before it comes out the crab training method is the best for this and avoid radiation zones they will instant kill it,

Twelth once you got 4 mins til the baby comes out ensure ur inside the cage without any pets and you got meat and pheremons on you, use the pheremons to ensure you dont die when it comes out,
It will try to flee from you ensure you claim it as your own within 1 min or you lose your chance to tame it,

Thireen once fully grown and imprinted go around doing the crab training method til max lvl,

Fourteen Your finaly ready for drake eggs you can go down and outrun all queens/kings, and easily fight off 20-30 drakes as the reapers the god of tameables on this map congratz unlimited drake eggs without cost outside earning the reaper and you now understand how to tame reapers ;-)

Tho outside of going on beacon runs and black peral runs i dont really use the drakes myself as the reapers crazy fast, crazy strong, has good weight , can jump and 90% reduced fall damage so it's basicly like owning a god xD "hear that dodorex fanatics there is a new god in town"

[Machaeon]

My friends and I have a private server with the settings set to make it super easy, but at max "difficulty" so we do get 150 max level dinos. At max difficulty, you come up against 150 wild creatures sure, but you also have level 150 tames... with the server I play on I don't think the damage/resistance sliders were touched at all and we've successfully gone reaper queen hunting with 2-4 ridden spinos.

The key to surviving Aberration is to make sure the dinos you bring down to the red zone are imprinted and mate boosted, all with saddles so they get a damage buff, some armor, and damage resistance.

If you're running into reaper queens on your run down to the rock drake area, you're likely going the wrong way, or just taking a long route. The best route to take tames down to the rock drake spawns, depending on your base location, is to simply follow the spine (looks like a metal spine hanging from the ceiling) and that'll take you right to the rock drake nests and Rockwell's arena.

It's very possible to do that trip with just a pack of ravagers too, just need to avoid megalosaurs that can pick you up off your ravager and use the mushroom brew in the rad zone (how we got our first rock drake egg).
After you get your first rock drake egg, even if it's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ level, you can pump health/stamina (and speed if you have classic fliers installed) and just zoom in, zoom out to get better eggs.

At the point where you say "I want a reaper king" so you deliberately go out hunting for reaper queens, I'd suggest 4-6 mate-boosted and saddled spinos, a rock drake with stamina (and speed) leveled, a light pet with high range, capacity, and regen, and build a U-shaped trap out of stone dino gates to lead a queen into where you can set up a charge lantern to keep her permanently debuffed.
You find the queen you want the baby from, set up your trap and park your spinos there, lead the queen in with the rock drake, and jump over the gates. Let your spinos go ham for a bit until you're worried about health, then very carefully use one spino to get her in the mood for impregnating.

Good luck!

[TheGuardian050]

Also on your charge pet make sure you have a decent radius.

[Fate (-{SoH}-)]

@mach your method involves multiple generations and imprinting of spinos o.0 man thats alot of work to get drakes and reapers viable for giant groups or at huge boosted settings not viable solo with barely boosted settings

i'll keep my crab approch which has worked every single time without building anything but the area to hold the growing reaper and the cannon + 1 foundation , no breeding/imprinting expect on the reaper itself since it's infact easier to get then the drakes,

(well tech speaking you can just jump over the edge with a group of crabs land outside the nest area as they take reduced fall damage,

grab eggs, kill all drakes as crabs are super tough and then use a mix of ziplines and the glider to get back up by yourself and just use the crabs down there as backup should u need more eggs.)

I'v defeated abberation multiple times now only taming 1-2 paras, 1-2 trikes, 3-4 ravagers, 4-6 crabs, 1-2 drakes and abunch of reapers & light pets never felt the need to tame anything else.

Honestly thats my biggest complaint about abberation the only hard parts of the game is starting out, getting drake eggs and beating the boss nothing else is difficult.

Well i guess maxing the implanted reaper before it comes out can be rather difficult on sped up maturation times.

[Jon.Topps]

Okay new problem.
I have 4 awesome spinos, slaughter everything.
I get into the red zone, and basically just jump down levels when I can because I have no idea how to navigate the maze.
So I get down there, and I'm fine just wandering my way through the maze to get back into blue zone.

Here's the problem. There's no path up. Everything has a cliff edge too high for Spinos to climb. I'm at a big element waterfall, and I checked all over, no exit. So I actually swim through the element water (lost my charge pet...), and I STILL can't find an exit. Did I just luckily pick a Drake nest that has no exit for anything except Drakes?

EDIT: Just went through the whole river to the end of it. There's another drake nest, and it's got a cliff too high for Spinos. I see absolutely no way out of the bottom layer, unless you have a climber, or unless you go by yourself without dinos... Like I don't want to cheat, but the dino pick up mod would easy fix this. How are you supposed to do this legit?

EDIT 2: And of course, trying to get back to see if there's something I missed, I get stuck, as always. All my dinos pile into a part in the lake, stuck in rocks, and my hazard suits breaks from over exposure, I die, all spinos die, lose everything... again...

EDIT 3: Flew around for a while down there, just to see where I was supposed to go up. I see nothing. EVERYTHING has at least a 20 meter vertical, so Spinos can't climb it. It's like they actually programmed this map so that you HAVE to use a crab, and nothing else, in order to get drake eggs. Unless I guess you use Ravagers and zip line them up the cliffs, which would be a huge pain. Am I missing something obvious?

[Fate (-{SoH}-)]

@jon you missed the completely flat path that leads directly up thats hugging the wall it starts around the giant skull you will find a easy to notice path that leads to a ledge and a very hard to notice path that leads all the way up to the blue zone,

Dont worry took me acouple hours to notice it the first time as well xD

This is why the first time you should go down without skipping anything to ensure you know where this path starts.