When it comes to surviving in the prehistoric world of ARK: Survival Evolved, keeping your dinosaurs well-fed is just as important as crafting weapons and building shelters. Dinosaurs are not just your companions; they are essential to your survival and prosperity in this expansive and often hostile environment. This article will guide you through the intricate process of feeding your dinosaurs, ensuring that they remain healthy, happy, and willing to assist you in your endeavors.
Understanding Dinosaur Diets
Before you can effectively feed your dinosaurs, it’s crucial to understand their dietary preferences. Different types of dinosaurs consume different foods, and knowing what to provide can make all the difference in keeping them nourished.
Types of Dinosaurs and Their Diets
Dinosaurs in ARK are categorized into two main dietary types: herbivores and carnivores.
- Herbivores: These dinosaurs primarily consume plant-based foods, including berries, vegetables, and specialized dinosaur food.
- Carnivores: These creatures thrive on meat, preferring raw or cooked options, including fish and other animals.
Understanding the variety of diets will help you gather the appropriate food supplies, ensuring your dinosaurs receive the right nourishment.
The Importance of Feeding Your Dinosaurs
Feeding your dinosaurs is not merely about keeping them alive. There are several significant reasons to prioritize their diets:
- Health Improvement: A well-fed dinosaur has higher health, stamina, and effectiveness in combat.
- Breeding: Proper nutrition is essential for breeding healthy offspring, as it influences their stats and growth rates.
- Productivity: Dinosaurs like the Ankylo can gather resources more efficiently when well-fed, making them more valuable in your survival efforts.
Types of Foods for Dinosaurs
The game offers various food types tailored to different dinosaur species. Understanding these options is vital for effective feeding.
Plant-Based Foods for Herbivores
Herbivores in ARK enjoy a wide variety of plant materials. The most relevant options include:
-
Berries: The simplest resource, berries can be harvested from bushes encountered throughout the game.
- Mejoberries: Preferred by many herbivores due to their effective taming benefits.
- Narcoberries: Useful for taming, although not recommended for feeding due to toxicity.
-
Vegetables and Fruits: Advanced crops can be cultivated in a garden or greenhouse, providing enhanced nourishment.
- Carrots, Rockarrot, and Savoroot: Excellent for maintaining herbivore health and taming efficiency.
Meat Options for Carnivores
Carnivores can consume various types of meat, which can be either raw or cooked. Their primary food sources include:
- Raw Meat: Commonly sourced from hunted animals.
- Cooked Meat: Ideally serves to restore more health but requires a cooking station for preparation.
- Fish Meat: Important for aquatic carnivores and easy to gather from rivers and oceans.
Special Foods
Some dinosaurs benefit significantly from specialized foods:
-
Kibble: This is a type of dinosaur food that offers the best taming benefits and nutrition. Different recipes can be crafted from specific ingredients, focusing on the type of dinosaur you wish to tame.
- For instance, the Kibble Recipe for the Argentavis includes Cooked Meat, Mejoberries, and other elements needed in the recipe.
-
Customizable Endurance Foods: For long journeys or fights, ensuring your dinosaurs are equipped with the right endurance food can be game-changing.
Feeding Mechanisms in ARK
Feeding your dinosaurs involves both hands-on and automatic methods:
Direct Feeding
Direct feeding allows players to manually give food to dinosaurs. To do this:
- Approach the Dinosaur: Walk up close to the dinosaur.
- Open Your Inventory: Press the appropriate button to access your inventory.
- Select the Food: Choose the desired food item from your inventory.
- Drag and Drop: Drag the food item over to the dinosaur’s inventory slot.
This method is particularly useful for ensuring immediate nourishment or when taming a creature.
Automatic Feeding with Feeding Troughs
For a more hands-off approach, you can use feeding troughs. These are essential for maintaining multiple dinosaurs simultaneously without the need for constant manual feeding.
- Crafting a Feeding Trough: You will need to gather resources like wood, thatch, and fibre to create one.
- Placing Food: Simply place food items inside the trough. It will feed all nearby dinosaurs automatically.
- Maintaining the Trough: Regularly check to ensure there is sufficient food, especially if you have many hungry mouths to feed.
The Benefits of Feeding Troughs
Using feeding troughs offers several benefits:
- Convenience: Save time and effort while keeping your dinosaurs fed as they roam.
- Health Maintenance: Dinosaurs with adequate access to food will experience higher overall stats and longevity.
Monitoring Your Dinosaurs’ Needs
To ensure that your dinosaurs thrive, you need to keep an eye on their health and hunger levels. Understanding how to monitor and interpret these statistics is critical.
Checking Hunger Levels
By accessing a dinosaur’s inventory, you can quickly check their hunger level, which is indicated numerically. A dinosaur’s hunger stat will decrease over time, especially with activity. When a dinosaur’s hunger level approaches zero, it can lead to negative health implications.
Indication of Health and Hunger
The dinosaur’s health and hunger are vital indicators of well-being:
- Green Bar: Indicates high health, along with a well-fed hunger value.
- Yellow or Red Bar: Points towards danger. Your dinosaur may need immediate feeding or may be at risk of dying due to starvation.
Advanced Feeding Strategies
After mastering the basics of dinosaur feeding, you can implement advanced strategies to enhance their growth and productivity.
Feeding for Taming Success
When taming a wild dinosaur, feeding plays a significant role in the success of the process. Different dinosaur species have unique food preferences that influence how quickly they can be tamed.
- Selecting the Right Food: Using the food the dinosaur prefers increases the taming speed significantly.
- Timing Your Tames: Approach the taming process consistently. Regularly feed the dino until it’s tame.
Training and Health Management
Proper nutrition directly impacts the training and effectiveness of your team of dinosaurs:
- Optimizing Meals: Always prioritize high-quality food to improve health and stamina.
- Varying Diets: Rotate food types periodically to ensure a balanced nutrition profile, vital for high-performance dinosaurs.
Understanding Breeding Nutrition
When breeding, both parents require a high-nutrition diet to produce stronger offspring:
- Feeding them a diet rich in kibble or high-quality vegetables can lead to improved stats and health for the next generation.
Conclusion
Feeding dinosaurs in ARK: Survival Evolved is an essential component of gameplay. Proper diet management can keep your prehistoric companions healthy, enhance their combat abilities, and ensure their effectiveness in gathering resources. By understanding dietary preferences, utilizing feeding troughs, and monitoring health and hunger levels, you can create a thriving team in this challenging world. By mastering these essential skills, you will not only survive in ARK but thrive and carve out a legacy among the giants of the past. What are you waiting for? Set out into the wild and start feeding your dinosaurs the right way today!
What are the different types of dinosaur diets in ARK: Survival Evolved?
The dinosaurs in ARK: Survival Evolved can have varied diets categorized mainly into herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores. Herbivores primarily consume plant-based foods, such as berries, vegetables, and particular types of fruits, while carnivores thrive on meat, hunting other creatures for sustenance. Omnivores have a flexible diet, allowing them to eat both plants and meats, adapting according to the available resources.
Understanding each dinosaur’s dietary needs is crucial for their health and efficiency in the game. Feeding the right food not only keeps the dinosaurs alive but also affects their growth and taming progress. For instance, some herbivores prefer certain types of berries over others, making it necessary to know your creatures’ preferences for optimal care.
How do I feed my dinosaurs in ARK?
To feed your dinosaurs in ARK: Survival Evolved, you must first gather the appropriate food for their diet type. This can include raw meat for carnivores, berries for herbivores, or a combination for omnivores. Once you have the food, you can transfer it into the dinosaur’s inventory by accessing their inventory screen, which allows you to drag and drop food items into the food slot.
After placing food in their inventory, the dinosaurs will automatically eat it when their hunger decreases. It’s essential to monitor their food levels regularly, as an empty food slot can lead to unhealthy dinosaurs or even death. Additionally, setting up feeding troughs can simplify the feeding process, allowing multiple dinosaurs to access food more efficiently.
What are feeding troughs and how do they work?
Feeding troughs serve as a communal feeding method to keep your dinosaurs fed without manually providing food. You can craft a feeding trough using resources like wood, thatch, and fiber. Once built, you can place it in an accessible location for your dinosaurs. Simply fill the trough with appropriate food, and the nearby dinosaurs will eat from it as their hunger depletes.
The benefit of using feeding troughs is that they keep your dinosaurs fed automatically, significantly minimizing the time you spend gathering food. Additionally, feeding troughs can extend the expiration time of food items, which is particularly useful for bulk feeding several dinosaurs. They can be an essential part of managing a large dinosaur collection effectively.
How often should I feed my dinosaurs?
The feeding frequency for your dinosaurs can vary depending on their type and activity level. Generally, carnivores tend to consume food more quickly than herbivores due to their higher energy demands from hunting and foraging. Monitoring their hunger levels is essential, as some dinosaurs might require feeding every few in-game hours, while others can last much longer.
Regularly checking on the dinosaurs and their feeding troughs can help you ensure they are well-fed. If you notice a decrease in their hunger levels, it might be time to refill their food supply. Establishing a feeding schedule based on their hunger needs can also help streamline your gameplay, allowing you to focus on other critical tasks in ARK.
Can dinosaurs get food poisoning in ARK?
Yes, dinosaurs can suffer from food poisoning in ARK: Survival Evolved if they consume spoiled meat or food that is past its expiration date. This can lead to negative status effects and decreased health for your creatures, affecting their overall performance in both combat and exploration. It’s crucial to keep an eye on food items in their inventories to ensure that only fresh food is available.
To mitigate the risk of food poisoning, it’s best to avoid feeding spoiled meat to your carnivores. Instead, prioritize fresh resources. If you do have spoiled food, you can use it to craft certain recipes or discard it to maintain a clean inventory. Always ensure that you regularly check and replenish food supplies for your dinosaurs.
What happens if I don’t feed my dinosaurs?
If dinosaurs in ARK: Survival Evolved are not fed, they will begin to experience negative effects, including a decrease in health. Over time, if they remain unfed, they can eventually die from starvation. This loss can be particularly detrimental if the dinosaur is of high value, like a tamed creature with powerful abilities or a rare species.
To prevent starvation, it’s essential to establish a routine for feeding your dinosaurs. Use feeding troughs for bulk feeding and keep tabs on their hunger levels. Knowing when to check their food supplies can help you avoid any tragic losses and ensure your dinosaurs remain healthy and ready for action in the game.
How can I improve my dinosaur’s health and stamina through feeding?
Feeding your dinosaurs high-quality food can significantly improve their health and stamina over time. For example, for carnivores, raw prime meat provides better sustenance than regular raw meat. Similarly, certain berries like Mejoberries or special vegetables improve health in herbivores. Giving them these preferred foods will enhance their health recovery and stamina regeneration.
Additionally, maintaining a balanced diet is essential for the overall well-being of your dinosaurs. For those that have special requirements, keeping their specific dietary preferences can increase their efficiency in combat and resource gathering. Always strive to provide the best quality food available to maximize their potential on the battlefield or in various tasks in ARK.
What are some tips for efficiently gathering and managing dinosaur food?
To efficiently gather food for your dinosaurs, it’s helpful to equip your character with tools that enhance resource collection. For instance, using a map or compass can help you locate areas rich in specific food sources quickly. You can also use tools like the sickle to harvest berries faster, enabling you to stockpile food supplies effectively.
Managing your food resources goes beyond just gathering; creating a system for sorting and storing food is critical. Utilize preservation bins to extend food lifespan, and establish feeding troughs to keep your dinosaurs fed routinely. This combined approach not only ensures that your dinosaurs are fed but that you can focus on other aspects of the game without worrying about their basic needs.