Ark Beginner’s Guide Introduction

If you are completely new to Ark this Ark Beginner’s guide will help guide you with your start. The first time you spawn in can be very overwhelming. Once you make it over the survival hump of the game things become much easier. In this Ark beginner’s guide we’ll walk you through some of the basic concepts of the game, and what you need to do during your first time spawning in to Ark in order to survive.

User Interface

You will want to familiarize yourself with the User Interface. Before you dive into the user interface in the game make sure you check your surroundings. When you spawn in there could be aggressive dinosaurs in the area.

Your main user interface is the inventory screen. You can access this screen by pressing the default key of “I” if you’re playing on PC. This is where you will manage your inventory, craft, equip items, and level up your survivor.

Here you can see the items in your inventory slots on the left hand side and a search bar and some sorting options right above your inventory. You can utilize the search function to easily find certain items in your inventory. This is a very useful feature and can save you quite a lot of time shifting through various items as you gather and craft.

The 2 arrow icon is a transfer all button. You can utilize this feature to quickly transfer all your items into a storage container, or vise versa. The downward pointing arrow is a Drop All button. Pressing this button will drop everything in your inventory on the ground. The third button is a sorting options button. You can utilize this option to sort your inventory alphabetically, by weight, spoil times, and unsort.

The last option is a folder option. You can utilize this option to make named folders for your items. For example, you could create a new folder and name it “berries.” You could then put all of the berries you gather into that folder so they do not show in your main inventory. The last 2 options toggle on and off folder view and tooltips when hovering over items in your inventory.

Ark Beginner’s Guide to Attribute Points

In the middle of the inventory screen you will see a “You” screen. Here you can equip items into their applicable slots, see some useful character stats, and distribute your attribute points. There are several different attribute points you can choose from as you level up, and in this Ark beginner’s guide we’ll go over what each attribute is for.

Health – Health is straight forward. This number determines the amount of health your character has. The higher you increase this stat, the larger your health pool becomes. You can also see your health in the bottom right hand corner of the screen as a “plus” or “cross” symbol.

Stamina – You stamina pool is increased when you increase you stamina stat. Stamina is depleted when you perform certain actions such as sprinting, jumping, and hitting.

Oxygen – Increasing this stat will increase the amount of time you can stay underwater without any diving gear. It starts depleting the moment you go underwater so the more you increase it the longer you can dive and swim faster.

Food – You will need to eat food in order to stay alive in Ark. Increasing this stat will increase your capacity for food. Putting a point into Food increases your maximum Food capacity. This does not have any effect on the nutrition or food values of what you eat, but allows you have more digested food at once. This means it will take longer for your food to deplete to 0. You can also see your food meter in the bottom right indicated by a meat on the bone icon.

Water – You will need to drink water in order to stay alive in Ark. Increasing this stat will increase your capacity for water. Putting a point into water increases your maximum water capacity. This means it will take longer for your water to deplete to 0. You can also see your water meter in the bottom right indicated by a water droplet icon.

Weight – This stat measures how much you can carry, if your weight goes over 85% then you will become encumbered. You will start moving slower and will not be able to jump. After it has reached the limit or surpassed it you will not be able to move at all.

Melee Damage – Increasing this stat will allow you to deal more damage with melee attacks. It also allows you to gather more resources from trees, rocks, etc.

Movement Speed – This stat represents how fast you can move. Increasing it will allow you to move faster. Keep in mind that weight also plays a part in your movement sped and will slow you down if you are carrying too much.

Crafting Skill – This is a stat in Ark Survival Evolved that affects your crafting speed as well as the result of the items you craft using blueprints. The higher your crafting skill, the higher the chance you will get better stats on the item that you are crafting.

Fortitude – Increasing this will increase your resistance to weather effects and disease. It increases your Hyperthermal and Hypothermal insulation.

Torpidity – You can not increase this stat. It is a measure that shows how weary you are. If it goes over 50% you will pass out. This is also an attribute on creatures. You will need to increase their torpidity in order to knock them out and tame them. When you are unconscious other players can move you around, force-feed more narcotics to keep you sedated, steal your items or kill you. You will wake up if your torpidity level reaches 0.

Where to Spend Your Attribute Points

During the early phases of gameplay you will want to prioritize weight, health, stamina, and movement speed. Weight is huge part of the game and you will want to put some points into it early on. This will allow you to gather and craft resources much easily which will help you survive the early aspects of gameplay.

Speed is also very useful early game. Putting a few points into speed can save your life early when you do not have any dinosaurs tamed. This will help you catch dinosaurs early game when you may not have many ranged weapon options available There are also some dinosaurs that can be aggressive in the early game that can be easily outran with a little speed.

Engrams in Ark Survival Evolved

Engrams are essentially recipes in Ark. Each time you level up you will need to utilize your attribute points first. Once you have used them you will receive a specified number of Engram points to spend. You can utilize these points to unlock new Engrams or crafting recipes.

Once you unlock an Engram is is permanently unlocked for your character. At the top right corner there’s a search bar to easily find what engrams you are looking for. There is also a list of icons that shows you what engrams can be learned from each expansion of the game.

Early on you will want to learn all the basics. Learning how to craft a campfire, stone tools and weapons, cloth armor, a waterskin, thatch structures and a sleeping bag are important for your survival.

What to Do When you First Spawn

When you first spawn into the beach you will be naked with no tools or weapons. You will want to immediately begin gathering the closet plants. You can also gather stone from the ground, and punch trees for a few wood and thatch. When you punch a tree you will take some damage. If you were unlucky and attacked by a dinosaur be careful not punch a tree and cause your death.

Gathering plants will yield you berries and fiber. You can slot the berries on your hot bar and eat them early game to help keep you fed. Do not eat the black berries called Narcoberries. These will knock you out. You will need them later for taming your first dinosaur.

As you gather you will gain experience and level up your character. You will need to spend your attribute points and then spend your engram points. You will want to learn all the basic tools, campfire, clothes, thatch structures, storage box, and sleeping bed.

Once you learn an engram you can then go into your inventory and click the crafting tab. From here you can hover over the item you wish to craft to see what materials you need to craft it.

Use a hatchet on a tree to gather wood quickly, and a pick on a tree to gather hatch quickly. You can also use the hatchet on stone to gather stone quickly, and a pick on stone to gather flint quickly.

As you learn the engrams you will want to continue to gather the items as you learn them. Once you are able to learn how to craft the thatch structure you will then want to build your first base.

Ark Beginner’s Guide to Building Your First Base

Your first base can be build right on the beach in a semi safer area. This will allow you to progress enough to travel deeper into the map. A 3×3 base is recommended to start. You can stand in the center tile of the base if your attacked to help get rid of the dinosaur.

You can obtain a lot of thatch quickly by hitting a tree with a pick. Once you have the required materials and have crafted your thatch foundations you need to place them on your hot bar. Then, simply press the appropriate key and place down the structure. Make sure you put up surrounding walls, a door and a ceiling. There are flying dinosaurs that are still a threat if you do not have a ceiling. Keep in mind that dinosaurs can do damage to your base until you reach a certain tier of material.

You will want to make sure you place down a campfire, a few storage boxes, and a sleeping bag to start. The sleeping bag is incredibly important to obtain because it serves as a spawn point. The sleeping bag is only a one time use spawn point, however. If you die and respawn there you will need to craft another one. You will be able to craft a bed later on that will serve as a permanent spawn point unless the bed is destroyed.

In order to craft the sleeping bag you will need to kill a creature and harvest it to obtain hide. Make sure you use the hatchet to harvest the body. This will yield you more hide. If you utilize a pick you will receive more meat. Using a hatchet will still yield meat, but not as much as hide.

Once you have the required hide make your way back to your base and build a sleeping bag for a respawn point. From here you’ll have a solid foundation. You’ll now be ready to progress into wood tier and tame your first dinosaur.