Base defense in single player?

[Excessive Paranoia]

Getting ready to build my first base and I'm wondering just how strong base defenses need to be in a solo pve environment?

My original plan was to build on weathertop because of the cliffs and relatively easy space to wall off, but after learning about water mechanics, I think it would be better to have a local source of water in or next to the base. The problem with this is that most of the decent building spots near water would require lots of walling to properly close off. In my past experience with survival games, this sort of thing is just asking for the mobs to try and break in constatly, leading to endless repairs. Does this carry over to ARK? Or if I build a wall, will most dinos just ignore it?

[Tachyon]

Not much can break a stone wall. Stick some Plant X turrets around the perimeter, just in case, and you're good to go.

[Housatonic]

Species X are a double edged sword, I would like to add.
Wild animals will not aggro your walls, unless they happen to clip their heads through and spot you or your tames on the other side, but a species X firing at them will aggro them.
As such, enough species X to dispatch any threat that can be found in the area is indeed useful. Only having one or two, having them piss off a nearby bronto, and then getting themselves and the rest of your base tailswiped to pieces is less useful.

Pillars are an easy way to keep large animals at a distance as well. Metal pillars tall enough a giganoto can't step over them, or get close enough to your base, tames or species X to hit them would be all you need to keep the apex at bay. Things small enough to fit through usually aren't that big a threat to begin with.

There's lots of options really, it all depends on your preference, patience and creativity.

(As for the water, you can make it an enclosed cooking area near the river as well. Lots of solutions, it's only a matter of shopping around until you find the right one for you.)

E: Oh, and as for repairs, most animals cannot damage stone. The few that can (giganoto, alphas, and now dunkle I believe, underwater?) still can't touch metal. Over time it is possible to make a base practically untouchable in PvE.

[retsam1]

Originally posted by Excessive Paranoia:

Getting ready to build my first base and I'm wondering just how strong base defenses need to be in a solo pve environment?

My original plan was to build on weathertop because of the cliffs and relatively easy space to wall off, but after learning about water mechanics, I think it would be better to have a local source of water in or next to the base. The problem with this is that most of the decent building spots near water would require lots of walling to properly close off. In my past experience with survival games, this sort of thing is just asking for the mobs to try and break in constatly, leading to endless repairs. Does this carry over to ARK? Or if I build a wall, will most dinos just ignore it?

Stone structures protect you from everything except alpha dinos and gigatasaurs. Metal against all otherwise but for sp its impractical.

Location then becomes more key to things. If you build on mountains or in the northerly regions(not counting the snow biome) you run a high risk of an eventual giga encounter and certainly alphas. If you build in the south then you will only encounter at the highest alphas and even then there are some locations that never see an alpha on em. South east and west also tend to be safer too.

I've made mutiple bases in the south on both single player and a few unofficial servers and just with even wooden walls have never had a break in issue from anything. Some damage the walls but they're repairable on those few situations.

Remember in single player, when you log out, the game freezes in time. This is vastly different from dedicated servers where as long as someone is playing time goes on. You can fill a feeding trough and it will last you forever since the time is only counted while playing/in range for dinos to not go in stasis.

As for walling off concerns, I think you should explore more locations. There are some very easy, minimal walling off locations to consider. However, you're agian playing single player and can either short term or long term up the resource gathering to max and build walls and a base of any size in no time. Think outside of the box in these regards.

[Excessive Paranoia]

Originally posted by Tachyon:

Not much can break a stone wall. Stick some Plant X turrets around the perimeter, just in case, and you're good to go.

But will they try? Part of the reason I liked weathertop is because very little even goes up there, and anything that does is easy to handle. Many of the other places I've looked are much more populated, and often with larger, meaner things like carnos and spinos. While I'm not opposed to building extensive walls to keep things out, I'd prefer to keep defenses as minimal as possible to keep it looking nice. Will a single stone wall around the perimeter keep things safe and secure, or can I still expect something to come crashing in at some point?

[Housatonic]

Originally posted by Excessive Paranoia:

Originally posted by Tachyon:

Not much can break a stone wall. Stick some Plant X turrets around the perimeter, just in case, and you're good to go.

But will they try? Part of the reason I liked weathertop is because very little even goes up there, and anything that does is easy to handle. Many of the other places I've looked are much more populated, and often with larger, meaner things like carnos and spinos. While I'm not opposed to building extensive walls to keep things out, I'd prefer to keep defenses as minimal as possible to keep it looking nice. Will a single stone wall around the perimeter keep things safe and secure, or can I still expect something to come crashing in at some point?

If you have a big enough empty area walled off, meaning no structures to block spawns, carnivores can spawn inside your walls, also a thing to consider.

[retsam1]

Originally posted by Excessive Paranoia:

Originally posted by Tachyon:

Not much can break a stone wall. Stick some Plant X turrets around the perimeter, just in case, and you're good to go.

But will they try? Part of the reason I liked weathertop is because very little even goes up there, and anything that does is easy to handle. Many of the other places I've looked are much more populated, and often with larger, meaner things like carnos and spinos. While I'm not opposed to building extensive walls to keep things out, I'd prefer to keep defenses as minimal as possible to keep it looking nice. Will a single stone wall around the perimeter keep things safe and secure, or can I still expect something to come crashing in at some point?

Single wall level will not keep out bronto, giga, rex, or spino. It also wont keep out fliers such as argents or future predatory fliers.

A 2 level wall wont keep them out either. You need 3 high to keep out most of them.

There will be a future dino called a titanosaur that is a bronto style giga, supposedly it will do wherever it darn well pleases unless pretty high walls.

When building on a mountain, a single wall if its with an elevation/slop below can have the equivalency of 2-3 or more in high protection from the aforementioned predators but you'll need to test it(use a spino or rex tamed and sprint. If it can cross over then it needs to be higher.

[Excessive Paranoia]

Originally posted by Housatonic:

Originally posted by Excessive Paranoia:

But will they try? Part of the reason I liked weathertop is because very little even goes up there, and anything that does is easy to handle. Many of the other places I've looked are much more populated, and often with larger, meaner things like carnos and spinos. While I'm not opposed to building extensive walls to keep things out, I'd prefer to keep defenses as minimal as possible to keep it looking nice. Will a single stone wall around the perimeter keep things safe and secure, or can I still expect something to come crashing in at some point?

If you have a big enough empty area walled off, meaning no structures to block spawns, carnivores can spawn inside your walls, also a thing to consider.

How large? I was thinking about something like a barnyard where I had a space walled off with housing structures, but would be able to allow my dinos to wander so they could breed (breeding requires wandering, correct?) and also so it seems more realistic than the dino parking lots I've seen many times in videos and pictures...

The problem is that something like that would need a decently large open space to prevent everything from walking all over each other...

[Excessive Paranoia]

Originally posted by retsam1:

Originally posted by Excessive Paranoia:

But will they try? Part of the reason I liked weathertop is because very little even goes up there, and anything that does is easy to handle. Many of the other places I've looked are much more populated, and often with larger, meaner things like carnos and spinos. While I'm not opposed to building extensive walls to keep things out, I'd prefer to keep defenses as minimal as possible to keep it looking nice. Will a single stone wall around the perimeter keep things safe and secure, or can I still expect something to come crashing in at some point?

Single wall level will not keep out bronto, giga, rex, or spino. It also wont keep out fliers such as argents or future predatory fliers.

A 2 level wall wont keep them out either. You need 3 high to keep out most of them.

There will be a future dino called a titanosaur that is a bronto style giga, supposedly it will do wherever it darn well pleases unless pretty high walls.

When building on a mountain, a single wall if its with an elevation/slop below can have the equivalency of 2-3 or more in high protection from the aforementioned predators but you'll need to test it(use a spino or rex tamed and sprint. If it can cross over then it needs to be higher.

So basically I need a fortress no matter what to keep large things out? I'm guessing this can be mitigated to a degree by building in areas where large things don't spawn very often?

[Housatonic]

For wandering: be aware this is risky. Sadly, rarely animals vanish even just standing still completely enclosed and surrounded by neutral bodyguards, but wandering is absolutely known as a trouble maker. Your animals will be able to glitch out of their enclosures. It doesn't always happen, but it absolutely doesn't not happen. While I fully agree on your sentiment here, I myself found this leaves you building almost entirely in function of avoiding bugs as much as possible.
Things like having a second barrier in case they glitch through the first, or having a natural boundry such as water (for some animals, at least...) can be lifesavers.
As for the breeding and wandering, yes and no. If they wander around a bigger area they're both a lot less likely to successfully breed, and to dump a fertilized egg to run out of health while you aren't looking. To actively breed, you either want to put them in as small a pen as possible, or put them both on follow, then on wander, then spam whistle "stop all" until they're done, quickly whistle them on follow, grab egg, then relax and take them off wander. Sounds elaborate, but for my preference that's the least hassle.

As for dealing with the large open space, you can put small, single foundation structures down. Personally, I like foundation+walls+ceiling as a sort of tower to put my species X on, or you can make it a little shack to put a feeding trough in, ... lots of ways to get creative with these things, but it often takes a lot of patience with the bugs and general shortcomings of the EA state of the game.

[rob_arend]

Originally posted by Excessive Paranoia:

So basically I need a fortress no matter what to keep large things out? I'm guessing this can be mitigated to a degree by building in areas where large things don't spawn very often?

The TL;DR of his suggestions is: Stone will protect you from anything but a giga(alphas do damage stone, but very little) so build in the ~south until you can build one out of metal. I like herbivore island, myself, the island in the very southeast. it has metal nodes and no carnivores so you can get started.

[retsam1]

Originally posted by Excessive Paranoia:

Originally posted by retsam1:

Single wall level will not keep out bronto, giga, rex, or spino. It also wont keep out fliers such as argents or future predatory fliers.

A 2 level wall wont keep them out either. You need 3 high to keep out most of them.

There will be a future dino called a titanosaur that is a bronto style giga, supposedly it will do wherever it darn well pleases unless pretty high walls.

When building on a mountain, a single wall if its with an elevation/slop below can have the equivalency of 2-3 or more in high protection from the aforementioned predators but you'll need to test it(use a spino or rex tamed and sprint. If it can cross over then it needs to be higher.

So basically I need a fortress no matter what to keep large things out? I'm guessing this can be mitigated to a degree by building in areas where large things don't spawn very often?

Correct. Partly because all it takes is one rare instance of something and 2 because you never know what changes will be brought about(since the game is still adding and planning to add alot of content).

Weathertop isnt bad per se. It requires significant protection on its north side and a little less so on the east and west sides due to the swamp denizens and it also requires a bit of work for a water base pen on the south. Its biggest draw backs is a lack of quick access to metal nodes(found more to the east of it. Its not a bad base location but you'll still be wanting to fortify it up no matter what.

Also it really depends on how much you plan to build and keep. If you plan to have multiples of everything, crop growing, taming pen(s), mating pen(s), incubation room(s), industrial and other future tek to come, it may turn out to not be an adequate place for your needs depending on how you efficiently or inefficiently build. Aesthetically, I like the spot but practicality wise I do not, personally.

[Housatonic]

Originally posted by Excessive Paranoia:

So basically I need a fortress no matter what to keep large things out? I'm guessing this can be mitigated to a degree by building in areas where large things don't spawn very often?

Again, you can get creative with this.
personally, I found a great spot for my personal taste... it's near the green obelisk, hidden, and it basically is a hill, with a nearly perfectly flat top, and the slopes are little pathways snaking up, with straight edges nothing really can climb straight up.
Sadly, the server I was settling on this location on, wiped before I fully finished or truly tested it, but in my taste it was perfect to set species X up strategically along the ridges, and it, in theory, would've been able to keep anything away from my base, and kill it.

I don't rmemeber coordinates, but I can get those, or screenshots or the like if you want.

(Oh, that said, the one issue I ran into, was water. >_<)

[retsam1]

Originally posted by rob_arend:

Originally posted by Excessive Paranoia:

So basically I need a fortress no matter what to keep large things out? I'm guessing this can be mitigated to a degree by building in areas where large things don't spawn very often?

The TL;DR of his suggestions is: Stone will protect you from anything but a giga(alphas do damage stone, but very little) so build in the ~south until you can build one out of metal. I like herbivore island, myself, the island in the very southeast. it has metal nodes and no carnivores so you can get started.

Herbivore island has significant drawbacks.

1. The island has limited building space when factoring the metal node locations. If you build too much too close it renders the node function moot without massively reducing the respawn distance.. which in turn causes dino spawns to also increase in chance.

2. While no rex or similar can spawn there, it does have other predators spawn there so its not wholly devoid of them. Also there is potential by the devs in the future with added content to have equal or more dangerous spawns there(take that as a heads up).

3. With the change in current raft building size(without going into the ini files to change otherwise), transporting large dinos like rex or others that have been tamed is a futile endeavor by boat. which means....

4. Building a very long bridge from the mainland to the island is required for practical reasons. Unfortunately this requires extensive building time more than building any significant fort on the mainland. Its also dangerous due to the ocean predators and oxygen issues. Its not very practical thus in the early to mid game to do.

5. Unlike other, more suitable areas, quick access to crystal, paste, pearl etc isnt as easy if youre over on that lil spot. Its not shabby as a pvp base location but its not that great in an sp or pve server setting unless you got help/cheat it.

[retsam1]

Originally posted by Housatonic:

Originally posted by Excessive Paranoia:

So basically I need a fortress no matter what to keep large things out? I'm guessing this can be mitigated to a degree by building in areas where large things don't spawn very often?

Again, you can get creative with this.
personally, I found a great spot for my personal taste... it's near the green obelisk, hidden, and it basically is a hill, with a nearly perfectly flat top, and the slopes are little pathways snaking up, with straight edges nothing really can climb straight up.
Sadly, the server I was settling on this location on, wiped before I fully finished or truly tested it, but in my taste it was perfect to set species X up strategically along the ridges, and it, in theory, would've been able to keep anything away from my base, and kill it.

I don't rmemeber coordinates, but I can get those, or screenshots or the like if you want.

(Oh, that said, the one issue I ran into, was water. >_<)

Lack to access to water, water base building, beavers, metal ore, and its also got chances for more dino spawn issues(again remember there's still things yet to come.

[Zeta1127]

I still think the Hidden Lake is the best place to build, though the west coast just outside the snow biome seems to have a lot of flat land for building large paddocks for the largest creatures, which is why I plan on building at the west coast, the Hidden Lake, Herbivore Island, and a forge at the Volcano.