ARK: Survival Evolved

ARK: Survival Evolved

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How to control Dinosaur Spawn Rates in your .ini file
By Zedrin
This is a guide on how to modify the spawn weights of individual dinos, what the variables do, and what the known dino tags are (to the best of my knowledge).

This is for configuring your own server or single player game, and requires you to modify your game.ini file.
   
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The Basic Command
Alrighty, I've done a lot of searching, and information on this topic is scant, but I did manage to piece together a bit of a guide on how to control spawns.

FIRST: Go to your Game.ini file. In single player, you can find this at:

SteamApps\common\ARK\ShooterGame\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor

For servers, your server control panel might have the option to modify it directly.

To edit spawns, add a line with the following:
DinoSpawnWeightMultipliers=(DinoNameTag="[DINOTAG]",SpawnWeightMultiplier=0.1,OverrideSpawnLimitPercentage=True,SpawnLimitPercentage=1)

What each variable does

To my knowledge:
  • DinoTag is a unique name for each dino. These are NOT their entity IDs! I have a list of them below.
  • SpawnWeight is how likely a dinosaur is to spawn (so if you have 5 dinos and each one is at 0.1, each one has an equal weight)
  • SpawnLimitPercentage affects the max population. Setting this lower means the cap is a portion of the 'natural limit.' It's a multiplier: 0.6 means its population is 60% of what it'd normally be.
  • OverrideSpawnLimitPercentag I believe just means it uses the listed limit and not the global limit. If it's set to 'false' then the SpawnLimitPercentage value is not used, just weight.

You also only need 1 line per spawn you want to modify! If a dino doesn't have a line of code for their spawn, it'll just use the defaults.

As I said, information on this all is pretty scant. SpawnWeight I believe has the most drastic effect on spawns--it more affects the dinosaur's 'rarity'. SpawnLimit meanwhile controls their population. If something's too populous but you want it to stay common, reduce the limit. If something's too common and it needs to be more rare, reduce the weight.

This of course works for raising spawns as well.

So for instance, to turn down the population of mantas a bit, you could use:
DinoSpawnWeightMultipliers=(DinoNameTag="Manta",SpawnWeightMultiplier=0.1,OverrideSpawnLimitPercentage=True,SpawnLimitPercentage=0.6)
Dino Tags
Updated 26 September 2016 with more accurate tags + Scorched Earth dinos

A dino tag is NOT the blueprint path/entity ID. (e.g., the BP path for an anklyo calls it an 'anklyo', while its tag is just 'anky'). These are dinstinct, shorthand names for each dino.

The most recent and accurate list of tags appears to be available at the following link:
http://ark.gamepedia.com/Creature_IDs

Check the 4th column, or see below:

[Dino Name] - [Dino Tag]
  • Allosaurus - Allo
  • Alpha Carno - Elite Carno
  • Alpha Deathworm - Deathworm
  • Alpha Fire Wyvern - Wyvern
  • Alpha Mosasaurus - Mosasaur
  • Alpha Raptor - Elite Raptor
  • Alpha Rex - Elite Rex
  • Angler - Angler
  • Ankylosaurus - Anky
  • Araneo - Spider
  • Archaeopteryx -Archa
  • Argentavis - Argent
  • Arthropluera - Arthro
  • Beelzebufo - Toad
  • BunnyDodo - Dodo
  • BunnyOviraptor - Ovi
  • Brontosaurus - Bronto
  • Broodmother Lysrix - N/A*
  • Carbonemys -Turtle
  • Carnotaurus - Carno
  • Castoroides - Beaver
  • Coelacanth - Coel
  • Compsognathus - Compy
  • Deathworm - Deathworm
  • Dilophosaur - Dilo
  • Dimetrodon - Dimetro
  • Dimorphodon - Dimorph
  • Diplodocus - Diplo
  • Direbear - Direbear
  • Direwolf - Direwolf
  • Dodo - Dodo
  • DodoRex - DodoRex**
  • Doedicurus - Doed
  • Dragon - N/A*
  • Dung Beetle - Bettle
  • Dunkleosteus - Dunkle
  • Eurypterid - Euryp
  • Gallimimus - Galli
  • Giganotosaurus - Gigant
  • Gigantopithecus - Bigfoot
  • Ichthyosaurus - Dolphin
  • Human (Male) - N/A*
  • Human (Female) - N/A*
  • Jerboa - Jerboa
  • Jug Bug - Jugbug
  • Oil Jug Bug - Jugbug
  • Water Jug Bug - Jugbug
  • Kairuku - Kairu
  • Leech - Leech
  • Diseased Leech - Leech
  • Lymantria - Moth
  • Lystrosaurus - Lystro
  • Mammoth - Mammoth
  • Manta - Manta
  • Manticore - Manticore*
  • Mantis - Mantis
  • Megaloceros - Stag
  • Megalodon - Mega
  • Meganeura - Dragonfly
  • Megapithecus - N/A*
  • Mesopithecus - Monkey
  • Morellatops - Camelsaurus
  • Mosasaurus - Mosasaur
  • Onychonycteris - Bat
  • Oviraptor - Ovi
  • Pachycephalosaurus - Pachy
  • Paraceratherium - Paracer
  • Parasaurolophus - Para
  • Pelagornis - Pela
  • Phiomia - Phiomia
  • Piranha - Piranha
  • Plesiosaur - Plesiosaur
  • Procoptodon - Kangaroo
  • Pteranodon - Ptera
  • Pulmonoscorpius - Scorpion
  • Quetzalcoatlus - Quetz
  • Raptor - Raptor
  • Rock Elemental - RockElemental
  • Rubble Golem - RockElemental
  • Sabertooth - Sabertooth
  • Sabertooth Salmon - Salmon
  • Sarcosuchus - Sarco
  • Skeletal Brontosaurus - Bronto**
  • Skeletal Stegosaurus - Stego**
  • Skeletal Triceratops - Trike**
  • Spinosaur - Spino
  • Stegosaurus - Stego
  • Tapejara - Tapejara
  • Terror Bird - TerrorBird
  • Thorny Dragon - SpineyLizard
  • Super Turkey - N/A**
  • Titanoboa - TitanBoa
  • Titanomyrma - Ant
  • Titanomyrma - Ant
  • Titanosaur - Titan
  • Triceratops - Trike
  • Trilobite - Trilobite
  • Tyrannosaurus Rex - Rex
  • Vulture - Vulture
  • Wyvern - Wyvern
  • Fire Wyvern - Wyvern
  • Lightning Wyvern - Wyvern
  • Poison Wyvern - Wyvern
  • Woolly Rhino - Rhino
  • Yeti - Bigfoot
  • Zomdodo - Dodo**
*either a boss or not something you can encounter in the wild
**only spawns during certain events
Creatures that share a dino tag with a variant are italicized
Closing
One other small thing: If you use Ark Server Launcher, after you add in a line to the config file manually, you can load your ini file from your server into ASL. It'll update the dino spawns list so you can now modify that variable you added from the GUI. Nifty!

If anyone has any updated or more accurate information, please share and I'll update the guide.

Also,
credit to Lupen for the image of the Dunkle horde.
17 Comments
Zedrin  [author] Aug 5, 2019 @ 2:39pm 
This guide's from 2017, i don't play anymore so I can't tell you.
Thevegeta888 Feb 18, 2019 @ 2:13pm 
hey I did not understand very well how it gets
So can you tell me the command to spawn twice as many Giganotosaurus?
Stone Dec 23, 2018 @ 1:46pm 
@Zedrin Thanks for this!!!!! Cheers :Hthumbsup:
Mazurek Nov 26, 2018 @ 9:53am 
About time I found something like this. Now, HOPEFULLY, I can get rid of the fucking Ichthyornis from my game.
[6thAL.H]Pvt. DVS_BSTrD Nov 2, 2017 @ 9:11pm 
Is there a way to change the spawn rate based on creature size rather than individual species? The biggest creatures that spawn anywhere near me are a single parasaur and some turtles. When I started I regularly encountered trikes and brontos within sight of my house. I even got killed by a Megalosaurus on my way to a drop. Now it's boring :(
Zedrin  [author] Oct 17, 2017 @ 9:41pm 
I believe the default values are what I provided in the first example:

DinoSpawnWeightMultipliers=(DinoNameTag="[DINOTAG]",SpawnWeightMultiplier=0.1,OverrideSpawnLimitPercentage=True,SpawnLimitPercentage=1)

(so 0.1)

I also believe spawn limit percentage is by default 1 for each dino.

Though it could be that the only thing that may vary is the base spawn weight multiplier, which depending on your server provider may be different, but it'll still be the same for each dino.

But, the best way to find out is to just look at your server config file.
nunyrdambizness Oct 17, 2017 @ 12:06pm 
So what is the default values for each dino? What's the default of each setting for each dino?
If I wanted to increase rexes and decrease brontos, but only a little bit, how do I know how much to tweak them if I don't know their current rates (default server rates)?
Zedrin  [author] Mar 28, 2017 @ 11:41pm 
I'd imagine you could control this by setting either spawn weight or spawn limit percentage to 0.
✭✭✭ General ✭✭✭ Mar 28, 2017 @ 10:12am 
Hi again, how do you disable certain dino's from spawning..
Like i'm trying to disable trilobite on my server, is this line correct?
NPCReplacements=(FromClassName="Trilobite_Character_C",ToClassName="")
And where should i place it? I'm placing on last line of game.ini
Does mod effect it? currently using Extinction n primal fear mod...
✭✭✭ General ✭✭✭ Sep 29, 2016 @ 10:27pm 
Thanks for reply...:D