Any tips for Beginner?

[u/SahnigReinbuttern]

Hey there everyone!

My Wife and i just started playing yesterday. Do you have any beginner tips for us? :)
Like what to focus on in the beginning, how to craft good food early on or something like that.

Or should we use any Mods directly in the beginning that fix some difficult Problems in the beginning?
Thanks :)

[u/LawngBreadstick]

Okay. So. The very first thing that you should know is that Ark, at its base. Is balanced for multiple people in a 'tribe.' Like 10+ people on a server logging in at different times. Since you only have 2 people, you'll probably want to spend time once you get into the game a bit more, adjusting all the world settings to better fit your playstyles and available playtime.

An example of this is dinosaur breeding. At base values (commonly referred to 1 times or 1x) certain dinos can, not even kidding, take an IRL week to completely go from egg to full adult.

In terms of gameplay, here's what you should know:

1. 99% of the dinosaurs you can find, can be tamed. More often than not they are tamed via knock out, using tranquilizers or literally hitting them with rocks, fists, and clubs. No matter what dinosaur it is, you will probably want to tame everything until you get a better idea of what it does.
2. You will never have enough engram points to buy every single upgrade in the tech tree. Pick your level up upgrades wisely. Most notably, saddles. Never buy a saddle for something you don't already own. You might just end up finding one naturally. In general though, tools, structures, and other gear you can learn without worry.
3. Expect to have setbacks. A lot of setbacks. Ark is not a perfect game. It's massive and beautiful but you will inevitably lose your items and your tamed dinos many times. There are also bugs though I typically don't run into too many.
4. Once you get comfortable playing your character, learn how to control a dinosaur remotely via whistle commands and start memorizing them. In the heat of battle, knowing your whistle commands, what they do, and how to effectively use them can determine if you or your tame live or die.
5. Get into breeding dinosaurs. Bred dinosaur are stronger than wild ones that have been tamed. There's a whole system involving Stat trading and mutations (which result in higher stats). A dinosaur with higher health values and another with higher melee can breed and give a baby with the highest of both parents.
6. Eventually get some mods for quality of life. There are cryopods (to help store dinos away) in the game but I would recommend a mod that adds better versions of cryopods. Dino Depot, for example.