Single Player

[Emerald_Oceans]

Hey everyone so I have been getting big into Ark lately. But I prefer playing single player and inviting friends to play with me. But I was wondering can I have multiple single player maps to pick which one I play? Or are you only allowed to choose one and are stuck with what you choose.

[🦊 Hermit]

Each map has it's own save file. So you can have one survivor per map - play one map with your friends and another solo if you like. If you make a new character on a map you already have a character on, though, that former character will be lost.

If you wanted multiple characters on one map, you could copy the save files and swap them out/in depending on which character you wanted to play.

Also you are able to take a character from one map, upload them into the obelisk towers, and then download them on another map. You're able to do this with items and tamed creatures too. And in the game's lore, it is kind of expected that you will do this to complete all the official canon maps in order (although it isn't required if you prefer not to do it).

[Emerald_Oceans]

So I wouldnt loose anything on my current single player as long as I dont try to open a new single player over the map the 1st is on?

[🦊 Hermit]

No, you wouldn't lose anything. If, for example, you started a character on The Island map, then next session you began a new one on Scorched Earth, they would not overwrite each other. They would only conflict if you tried to transfer one of them through the obelisk to the other map which already has the other character on it.

Just a side note though - if you are playing single player mode, I would recommend taking regular backups of your saves. Single player is notoriously buggy, and on these forums we quite often get threads about people's characters being corrupted and them having to start again from scratch. If you take frequent backups, then you could reload from one of those and only lose perhaps an hour or two of play, instead of your entire world.

Another alternative would be to play your solo games on a locally hosted dedicated server instead, as that method of playing is a lot more stable and not as prone to bugs as the single player mode is. But this isn't possible for everyone, so if you aren't able, the backups would be the second best option.

[Perfectnot]

I play solo and have a multitude of questions ... where to start!
1. How do I invite another player to play a map with me? Or ... how do I find someone else who would like to play with me?
2. I'll tell you what happened. I hope someone can tell me what to do about it. I uploaded my character (char) & downloaded (dl'd) it successfully by following a video. Then, I tried going back to "The Island" and, although I uploaded my char again, I didn't see it to dl it so, after watching the video several times, I made a new one. When I got into the game. My buildings and beautiful dinos were there, but I couldn't play with them because they were in a different tribe. Not only that ... I found my character lying on the ground near a transmitter. It was "sleeping". How do I go about getting back into THAT body? That was my original char. Oddly, I believe it was the one I uploaded and took to Fjordure or Crystal Isles.

I don't know how I did it, but I believe I have 2 copies of 1 char that is now 2 chars because I played them separately. I dunno. I'm so confused. :s

[🦊 Hermit]

1. You would have to host a non-dedicated session, or set up a dedicated server. Then people would be able to see it in the server browser, or you could give the IP to people and they could add it through Steam's server listings. They might also be able to click on your name in their Steam friend list and join you that way.

2. Sounds like the map didn't save properly between you uploading the character and shutting the world down, leading to character corruption. That's exactly the sort of issue I was describing in my post above, and the reason I recommend people play their solo games on a dedicated server instead, or at least keep regular backups.

If you have your own backup files you could try loading one of those to see if it fixes the problem, or alternatively the game sometimes makes automatic backup saves if you play for a session of a couple of hours or more. However if backups aren't an option, I'm afraid you may have no choice but to use the new character instead of your old one. On the plus side though, you can use admin commands to take control of your old base and all your creatures, and level yourself up to the same level as your old character, so you will be able to salvage most of the progress you made.

[Emerald_Oceans]

So there is literally no excuse for my computer to not be able to run its own serve it is a tank of a computer. But I got tired of it not showing in servers on steam and taking over an hour to allow 1 person to join it. So I am now renting a server and it so far is a good experience.