Taming in ARK: Survival Evolved is a lengthy process. In the previous guide it was touched over lightly but in this guide there’s a detailed, step-by-step walkthrough on how knock out, feed, tame, saddle and ride a dinosaur. It’s easy enough for beginners and experts alike.
There’s a near 15 minute video available from Vuxxy Gaming to give gamers a visual rundown of what it requires to tame dinosaurs in ARK: Survival Evolved. You can check it out below.
So first up, if you’re going for a herbivore you’ll need lots of berries. Vuxxy suggests about 100 of different kinds of edible berries.
For carnivores you’ll plenty of meat – raw meat, cooked meat or prime meat to feed the carivore.
During this process, you’ll also need Narcoberries to keep the dinosaurs unconscious while you tame them. Leveling up your ability to dispense adequate damage with melee attacks is an absolute must if you want to be able to knock dinosaurs out, which can only be done with fists, slingshots and tranquilizer darts.
As showcased in the video above, for dinosaurs with a lot of health, you’ll likely want to weaken them first with a hard-hitting weapon and then finish them off with your fists or a slingshot.
Once the dinosaur is knocked out just press ‘E’ on it and you can enter the inventory screen of the dinosaur to proceed to tame it.
When the screen pops up with the items, if you’re taming a herbivore put the berries in the inventory of the dinosaur. If you’re taming a carnivore, put some meat in the inventory of the dinosaur.
If the dinosaur’s “Unconscious” meter – the purple bar that indicates how long it’ll be before the dinosaur wakes up – drops below 30%, you may want to use the Narcoberry to keep it unconscious. The Narcoberry will raise the “Unconscious” meter so you keep taming the dinosaur.
To manually use the Narcoberry, simply click on “Remote Use Item” while in the dinosaur’s inventory screen where the berries or meat is placed. After clicking on “Remote Use Item”, select the Narcoberry and click to use it. This will keep the dinosaur out so you can keep on taming it.
The yellow “Taming” bar shows how close you are to fully taming a dinosaur. Once the dinosaur is tamed you can saddle it with the appropriate saddle by pressing ‘E’ on the dinosaur and entering into its inventory screen. You’ll notice that in the top right hand corner there’s an option for a saddle. You’ll need to place the appropriately leveled saddle onto the dinosaur.
So how will you know which saddle to use?
In the Engram point system, you’ll need to specialize in saddles in order to make the dinosaurs tamable and make the appropriate saddles to place upon them.
For instance, you’ll need the Phlomia saddle to start at 6 Engram points, and then the Parasaur saddle later on at 9 Engram points if you want to tame a smaller animal or a Parasaur. Eventually you’ll be able to unlock the Raptor saddle, which also requires 9 Engram points.
The taming procedure takes a long time depending on how big the dinosaur is. So you’ll have to be patient if you’re taming a very large dinosaur.
Also, be careful because other players can come and kill the unconscious dinosaur or another carnivore can come and feed on it.
You’ll also need to keep an ample food supply on your dinosaur once it’s tamed, otherwise it could starve to death after you log offline.
ARK: Survival Evolved is available right now in Early Access over on Steam. You can learn more about the game by paying a visit to the official website.
