Having a hard time gathering resources

[Rav3n]

Complete noob here. I have a high lever character, but I'm still using iron weapons because I can't get the mats to craft the other stuff. How can I gather resources better?

Also, can Carby's (those turtle things) gather anything? I set him to wander with gathering on in a forest and he just ambles back and forth not doing anything even though he only has a few berries in his inventory.

[CaveDweller]

Here is the link to the revised website with all information
about Ark https://ark.wiki.gg/wiki/ARK_Survival_Evolved_Wiki

[Rav3n]

Originally posted by CaveDweller:

Here is the link to the revised website with all information
about Ark https://ark.wiki.gg/wiki/ARK_Survival_Evolved_Wiki

Thanks

[retsam1]

Originally posted by Mister Rupert:

Complete noob here. I have a high lever character, but I'm still using iron weapons because I can't get the mats to craft the other stuff. How can I gather resources better?

Also, can Carby's (those turtle things) gather anything? I set him to wander with gathering on in a forest and he just ambles back and forth not doing anything even though he only has a few berries in his inventory.

Only a small number of dinos gather while on wander. Moschops for example do.

As CaveD pointed out the official wiki can help you sort information about dinos.

Also understand that weapons for harvesting(like most gear) have tiers of quality (gray to sky blue(ascendant)) and those in conjunction with a server/single player's harvest health/rate and your player's melee attack capabilities usually determine how much resources can be gathered. Its a recipe/ratio.

The same holds true with regards to dinos and their respective stats(higher= get more)

As for getting the better tier quality weapons, beacon drops and dungeon containers can provide better quality tools like those and potentially blueprints from which to craft that tier quality. Killing alpha creatures can also drop them(not blue prints though).

Drop/beacon's drops quality is also affected by a setting in single player or on servers too.

More complicatedly, your crafting skill can also (if high points are put into it... and I mean like all points from leveling high) improve the stats on tools like those that you craft(and armors).

And lastly there are mods that can also improve/upgrade item qualities or facilitate more efficient resource gathering(mods for example that let you grow crops of just about any resource in the game as an extreme example).

[🦊 Hermit]

As a general rule, dinos gather materials far better than tools, so if you haven't already, tame yourself a bunch of gathering creatures and saddle them, then use their attacks to gather your materials.

For wood: Mammoth or beaver.

For stone: Doedicurus.

For metal, flint, crystal and obsidian: Ankylosaurus.

For silica pearls: Angler fish.

For oil: Dunkleosteus.

For berries: Trike.

There are alternatives to some of these, but these are the easiest to obtain on the starter map (the Island) which I presume you would be playing on.

[Sicksadpanda]

Just to further add. Ankylosaurus can harvest oil really well. It's useful when Dunkleosteus are high effort tames and can only stay underwater (which is a very dangerous environment for a super slow water mount).

Trikes are also excellent thatch farmers with their charge attack (not the basic attack, the ramping up charge move, they run down trees during their charge).

Another thing to keep in mind is that you can up the harvest rate if you feel like you need more oomph to the gathering speed (assuming you're in single player, or hosting a server).

[Hammer Of Evil]

Originally posted by Mister Rupert:

Complete noob here. I have a high lever character, but I'm still using iron weapons because I can't get the mats to craft the other stuff. How can I gather resources better?

Also, can Carby's (those turtle things) gather anything? I set him to wander with gathering on in a forest and he just ambles back and forth not doing anything even though he only has a few berries in his inventory.

search 'ark domestication' and it will take you to wiki page to show you best dinos for each resource. note that your map wont have all the dino's listed, so just find the applicable ones.

[burningmime]

Dinos have more weight, gather more, and have weight reduction -- eg metal only weighs 20% as much in an Anklyo's inventory than in your own inventory. Generally for the early-misgame, you want to get...

• an Argentavis to carry dinos around
  
• a Dodecalicious to gather stone
  
• an Anklyosaurus to gather metal
  
• a Castoridies (beaver) or Thorny Dragon to gather wood. Mammoths get tons of thatch but IME are too slow-moving and don't pick up enough wood to be worth. I like Thorny Dragons for this; Beavers are better but a PITA to tame since they require a bunch of narcotics and the saddle is like level 62 or smth.
  
• Optional: a Beezelbufo (frog) to gather chitin and CP

On x3 rates which I play, I have no problem gatehring enough oil and silica pearls by hand. Oil you generally don't need massive amounts of, and you can get literally thousands of silica pearls by swimming around picking them up. You can also get electronics directly by beating up tek dinos.

For berries, can't really beat a Moschops. If you want to get a trike for other reasons, grab one by all means, but a moschops is super easy to tame and doesn't require a saddle. The next step up is a Therizinosaur which can gather MASSIVE quantities of berries and fiber; in a couple swipes its weight will be full. Parasaurs, maewings, even your anklyo will do in a pinch; berries aren't exactly scarce.

For polymer, I'd grab either a Thylacoloeo or Therizino and go mantis/deathworm hunting. Don't bother with hard poly, just gather a couple stacks of obsidian by hand to make harpoon launchers and scissors.

EDIT: A tek stryder is the late-game/gen2 thing that can gather tons of basic resources. I've not bothered with it, but I think it's the best if you have the means to tame one.

[william_es]

And don't forget about therizinosauruses. Or murder chicken, tickle chickens, etc.

Not gonna lie, these guys are a nightmare to tame. They lose torpor incredibly quickly and if you aren't using kibble for taming you made things 100 times worse...

but...

Once tamed, these guys are the swiss army knives of harvesting. They are great at a bunch of stuff, and very very good at a lot of other things. There are specific dinos that harvest certain things better, but the theri will do okay at many many things.

Also doesn't hurt that a theri is a murder machine. It can go toe to toe with apex predators and kill them. I throw a set out, just to guard other tames. Anything comes charging in, and the theri's murder it. If I see something that might be a problem in the area, I can hop on the tickle chickens, and go kill it easily. And if you can tame max level ones, you can start a breeding line and use them in boss battles later on.

They get bonus points on each level up, and you can spend them on two different harvesting modes (power, and I can't remember the second one, but it's more finesse harvesting). A theri with max level power can harvest so much wood that it will end up immobilized in seconds.

They're great for harvesting tons of stuff, like rare flowers, mushrooms, wood, etc.

I generally keep a pair around in cryopods, with one having all levels in power harvesting, and the other is the opposite harvest mode. One is male, the other female, so if I throw both out they get a mate boost.

[CaveDweller]

Originally posted by william_es:

And don't forget about therizinosauruses. Or murder chicken, tickle chickens, etc.

It has clearly been a while since I played this game, I completely forgot about the Theri's. Yes, now that you've reminded me, a Theri is probably my go to power house tame.

[Liralen]

Yeah, therizins are my favorite dino. Not only are they good plant harvesters, if you're riding one, most dinos will not attack you. If they do attack you anyway, jump off of them and let the theri kill them.

They are so powerful, that they are used in some boss fights. And so also are good at meat and hide collection, even though they don't eat meat.

But as others have said, they are difficult to tame. It takes a lot to knock them out and because they are so powerful and fast in combat, your odds of being able to survive it solo is low, unless you trap them.

Occasionally, you will find one stuck in trees, which is ironic, since a tamed one will auto-harvest them and can easily back up if you're riding it.

You can use that fact to learn how to build a trap yourself or watch videos.

I've tamed my max level ones by using a quetzal to pick them up and then drop them where I want them, but that certainly wasn't the way I first did it solo.

Edited Note: and even after you get them knocked out, it takes a lot to keep them knocked out as well as a lot of time.

[Liralen]

Therizins also make good escorts for your other harvesting dinos that aren't as good in combat.

[william_es]

Yeah, theris will burn through narcotic like it's candy. It's one dino where it's like absolutely necessary to use kibble, just to shorten the tame.

Don't ever try taming one in a pen that's partly made out of natural terrain (like the side of a mountain, or a canyon). I trapped one in a canyon, with stone gates at either end. When I finally put enough tranq into it, it started to wobble... then promptly turned and collapsed INTO the terrain of the canyon wall... it was literally just two feet and a tail sticking out of the rock.

It took 5 minutes to find a magic pixel that let me even access it's inventory. And my biggest fear was that if it did get tamed, it would stand up and glitch under the mesh and go poof. It didn't, but it was a pain. I tame them on the flattest ground I can find now, using a ring of stone gates.