Single Player Dino Spawning rules

[Flap]

I'm aware of the issue that dino spawns or lack of in single player are a thing.
I know you can destroywilddinos or disable hibernation but what if you don't want to use those options?

How does the game decide when and where to spawn new dinos?

I would assume the game has a cap on the number of dinos in world and none are spawning near me because the cap is reached and all the dinos are elsewhere.
I also assume that dinos won't spawn close to the player either. Then there is the hibernation thing. I guess if the area is in hibernation then no new dinos will spawn in that area.

This makes me think there is just a small ring around the player out of view that new dinos can actually spawn.

Now just how big is this ring around me?

Or it could be that the map is divided into a grid and the only active areas not in hibernation are the grid tiles around the one I'm on?

If this is the case then how big are these tiles and where are they located?

I wonder these things because there must be a place i can hang out that would repopulate an empty area nearby.

There are options for resource respawn distance and interval. I assume that doesn't include dinos. I have them set to respawn very often and very close to structures.

I periodically go to areas miles away from my bases and kill everything in sight in the hope of reducing the dino cap so some will spawn nearer my bases. Some do respawn but its never in the quantities found when I first started the game.

My redwood river was heaving with everything imaginable at the beginning, but now its so empty i can safely walk it on foot.

I have 3 bases spread out around the map and if i venture away from the redwood river for a few in game days and come back its still empty.

There must be a place i can go that is far enough away to allow dinos to respawn but not so far that the area is in hibernation.

If i could figure out the hibernation distance around me I might be able to get them to respawn naturally? How big is the active area around me before hibernation starts? How often does the game decide to try spawning in new dinos?

Maybe there is some other mechanic I'm unaware of? If I knew what the criteria was then maybe I could manage to repopulate a depleted area without the need to type commands.

[william_es]

It's render range.

That's what controls these things. Things don't exist until the game "draws" them.

If you want to get an idea about render range, fly away from one of your buildings until it disappears. Then turn around and fly towards it. When it begins popping in, part by part... that's your render range.

And what you're asking about, just won't work. The game doesn't do things that way (at least naturally).

If you're playing single player, you generally want to keep moving. The game will be spawning things back in as you move. Things will look more natural.

It's not completely random. It does remember the position of specific dinos. If you saw a perfect stat max level dino or one with cool colors, they'll generally remain in the same area unless something attacks and kills it. It's possible to leave an area and return multiple times, and still see that special dino you're thinking of taming. And then after a while, it can disappear. Don't wait too long. I've seen things disappear that could NEVER have been killed (giant super predators, etc). There are issues with some dinos glitching through the map and falling below it.

The more time you spend in one area, the thinner the dinos will get. As predators kill other dinos, it's a well known issue that they won't respawn.

Some dinos will spawn more frequently then others, so they will begin to fill up all the spots. Go to the rockwell side of genesis 2, and you will see a million stegos and pachyrhinos. Because of their armor/defenses, they outlast other creatures and sort of "overbreed". Anything weaker that spawns gets destroyed, and eventually a stego/pachyrhino takes it's place.

Eventually things will thin out, and you want to do destroywilddinos to refresh. Of course, that will wipe out any possible tames you were keeping an eye on. So if there was anything you wanted, you tame it first. The fact the area was thinned out with less dinos is generally a positive thing when you want to tame stuff.

Then do a wipe, and watch 50 times more dinos appear in the same area that was thinned out before. After a dinowipe is sometimes you're only chance to spot the rarer or more delicate creatures (the ones that die in minutes after a wipe).

[Berallan]

There is a set number of dinos that can be on the map at any given time and this depends on the settings that you choose.

As william said some types of dinos tend to take over so if you don't want to wipe the world then your only option is to kill everything in sight to make room for new dinos.

Eventually it will get harder to find them because again as william said, some fall through the map. You would be surprised at the number of dinos that get trapped under the map, use ghost mode and have a look. Because you can't get to these dinos you could never kill them without using destroywilddinos. If you don't use destroywilddinos then the dinos under the map are preventing that number of dinos spawning on top of the map. A lot of servers are wiped each week to clean up the dinos and bring in new ones.

If I were you I would change my mind about not using destroywilddinos and disable hibernation if your system can handle it. I found that if you use hibernation then you loose any dinos in that area if you leave, the numbers seemed to be the same but the dinos weren't. If you saw a dino with good stats then went back to base to get what you need to tame it, then it will be gone when you get back, something else will have taken it's place.

It also sounds like you are playing on "The Island" and this map is known for having very low numbers of high stat dinos. If you are playing The Island and looking for good dinos then it's going to take a long time without using destroywilddinos.

[Ages]

If i ghost under the ground on any of my single player maps I can find a world full of floating dinos just under render distance that are forever falling through the ground - especially under caves.

[Berallan]

I found a few of my missing dinos down there. Under the caves is the worst, also in the walls of the caves.

[Flap]

Thanks for the replies :)

If they are falling under the ground then I guess a periodic dino wipe is the only solution.
I just feel like its a bit cheaty. I would disable hibernation but my performance is kinda bad as it is. I can't really put up with any less performance than i already have.

I have fallen through the mesh in caves before and it respawned me and my mount in the center of the map in the red woods. So I don't doubt that other dinos can fall through it too.

Seems a shame that I have to resort to cheats just to be able to play normally.

As i mentioned I do travel around a lot and go on killing sprees in areas i don't inhabit, But the red wood river in particular is really quiet. There is a real lack of any carnivores.

While i do like the safety, it is a little too safe.

I haven't spotted anything special i want to tame, so doing a wipe is not the end of the world, it just takes a while for the world to repopulate afterwards.

I assume there are no mods out there that can retrieve these lost dinos from under the map and bring them back into play?

[william_es]

Originally posted by Flap:

Thanks for the replies :)
Seems a shame that I have to resort to cheats just to be able to play normally.

As i mentioned I do travel around a lot and go on killing sprees in areas i don't inhabit, But the red wood river in particular is really quiet. There is a real lack of any carnivores.

I assume there are no mods out there that can retrieve these lost dinos from under the map and bring them back into play?

No, no mods that I know of. Destroy them, the game will make more.

And I really wouldn't think of it as "cheats". Just maintenance. In single player mode, this system is sort of broken. This is just regular upkeep and fine tuning. And there are other issues that need to be regularly fixed by admin commands. Ark is a buggy mess, and I have to use admin commands to fix certain things.

I once spent over 45 minutes herding a max level yuty into a capture pen. One that had AWESOME stats. Just what I was looking for. I tranqed it, it collapsed, and... disappeared. Under the map. I was... not... happy. I used an admin command to spawn a replacement. it was the the wrong gender, had horrible stats, and to be honest... I wouldn't have even tried to tame it if I'd seen it before. But I wanted my pound of flesh. Was it cheating? not to me. It was a waste of taming resources, since I already had 3 males, and no female. It went into a cryopod and never got used again. But it kept me from grumbling and cussing about the disappearing dino.

Ark is going to be full of buggy moments. Wait until you have a crash, and one of your shoulder pets is left hanging in the middle of the sky.