so what's your guys opinion about duping items / resources ingame (methods that require to leave the game mainmenu or intentional crashes are excluded)

please keep in mind that these methods are mostly version specific and could be patched out in future versions. also it would have major impact for the following runs:

• extinction (corrupted hearts)
• fjordur (runes)
• every default run requiring farming (shot gun strats)

@FrostyGamingSnowman and i talked about it and we are both on the same side here -> it shouldn't be allowed as it would bypass major parts of specific runs

should it be allowed or not?

while discussing this topic the past couple days, we made a concept like draw of how it could work but some things needs to be discussed with the rest of the community

but first things first: the concept is about allowing the runner after a specific time (duration will be a topic to discuss) to create a checkpoint of the current state of the run by backing up the savefile (if you fk up your run or you get rng trolled you can load from the checkpoint - time continues during this)

discussion topics:

1. should checkpoints be added for default (consens: YES)
2. whats the minimum session length between checkpoints

any% leaderboards should be separated into the primary difficulty settings:

• normal (dreamintensity 0 )
• hard (dreamintensity 4 )
• nightmare (dreamintensity 8 )

hello there,

i am thinking of running this game, but the rules are not very precise or informative.

that's why i have the follow questions: what are the rules for the run? which settings are required / allowed? ingame time or external timer (like livesplit)? what is the goal for any% / 100%?

is there anything else that i am should be aware of when running?

so recently alot of the submitted runs had wrong settings, obviously if these settings have major impact on the run like difficulty or dino count the run is invalid

if these settings have no impact to the run (fuel consumption is to high - for runs that don't use any kind of fuel), we verified these runs in the past

if these settings only have minor impact to the run (fuel consumption is to high - but you have so much fuel + the run is so short, that it doesn't matter), i wouldn't mind to verify a run but i would ask the runner to provide a calculation or other kind of proof that the amount of fuel that is used is enough to make wrong fuel setting obsolete

for the ones who don't know what ELM is check out Dens video:

comparison to other runs:

ELM gives a huge advantage and completely bypasses the gamma rule. I talked with Bisho about this and we both agreed that this needs to be discussed with everyone.

now my personal point: i think it should be consistent, either both is ok or neither, i don't see the use of a "no gamma rule" if tomorrow everyone is running on ELM

vote here: https://linkto.run/r/AWE9VU62

so when i was running CI and Genesis Moeder (yeah the runs with wrong dino count) i discovered something weird during the many hours of spawn grinding.

sometimes i could get the same spawn points in a short amount of time (like 3-5 times the exact same useless spawn that forces you to instantly restart the run, but also the really good ones which you want to have).

after around 15min it changed to another set of spawns, which resulted in a spawn grind of 30min with not a single usefull spawn.

since i had some times the good spawns in a row i also realized that these runs (especially at the beginning) are not identical but feel the same as the other ones (same dinos in an area)

so i tried the same on valguero and scorched earth, on scorched earth i was able to get the same spawn point multiple times and the run felt the same until i fked it up (same kind of dinos in gatekeeper cave at the same positions, not exactly the same position but the same area), on valguero i was able to get deinonychus eggs to spawn at the same area (exactly the same nest position), the run felt different but i also used slomo for day 4 so i think that changed the feeling.

here is what i think, if you start a new map, the game uses the current date and time for spawn point and dinos in an area.

how ever im far away from fully understanding how it works, so any information would be appreciated.

hey I thought about adding a category that is easier to run than default and also more "useful" for the entire ARK-Community than our side categories like easy. Don't get me wrong these categories are fun but they are a totally different game and for the average ARK-player they aren't useful.

most players simply want to know:

• how to tame a specific dino (already covered mostly with QoB)
• how to get the artifacts (new category tomb raider)
• how to beat the boss

now how tomb raider could work i thought about 2 difficulties (default and dinoless), the settings on both difficulties are default (with map marker and dmg indicator)

objective: -at the start of the run you need to set a base spot (run ends if all artifacts are in the inventory of a structure (any storage box, smithy, fabricator, etc.) -get all artifacts of the map (artifact crate spawning is allowed at the artifact location)

default: you are allowed to use everything the map provides dinoless: taming dinos is banned

with the current meta of how we submit runs we are wasting alot of time if we need to restart a run cause we had a bad spawn or we have a run that is not working cause specific alphas are not spawning. some things should/could be changed to minimize wasting time for getting a good start and RNG

1. free spawn point choosing: some runs need to have specific spawns before starting the run (crystal isles / moeder for example), in my eyes there is absolutely no point in restarting a run cause the game gave you the wrong spawn in the chosen area (some times you need ~20 restarts to get the right spawn, that means 20 times going back to main menu showing all the settings + deleting save files again) so you are already wasting around 30min just to get a eventually doable run (if you add timeskips to to that you are wasting around 5min per restart). this could be avoided by letting the runner choose the spawnpoint (only official spawn points allowed!) you are not allowed to interact with anything else before teleporting (this includes skilling) timer starts after teleporting to the desired spawnpoint

TPCoords <Lat> <Lon> <Altitude> spawnpoints for each map can be found here: https://ark.gamepedia.com/Spawn_Locations

2. force spawning alphas: in some runs you need a ridiculous amount of time to get an alpha to spawn (enraged rex on extinction sometimes only spawns twice but you need a third or alpha blood wyvern doesn't spawn at all) in my eyes i would be ok to force spawn a wild alpha after the runner killed lets say 10 regular versions of that dino (you still need to be in confirmed spawn area for that alpha)

3. removing skilling from the run: every run starts the same pump your points in the stats and get the engrams. no one is watching a run to see how fast the runner can spam the mouse buttons. so the timer should start after the skilling (you are NOT allowed to move)

when we are starting a run we are starting at day 1, this comes with a few problems, like some dinos are not spawning before a specific time has passed or dinos spawning in front of you. With our current rules this is avoidable / exploitable by waiting in the character creation (the day count and time is shown at the top left), cause the run timer starts after spawning. So the big question is: is it ok to wait in character creation for a specific day? (we are talking about waiting durations of approx. 1-2hours)

i uploaded the config files needed for dedicated servers to resources and also wrote a small guide how to get everything to work.

please verify that the Game.ini and GameUserSettings.ini are correct for easy runs

if there are any questions or you think that something is missing, ask / tell me.

if i start a run for example on the island, am i allowed to upload my character and travel to another ARK (let's say scorched earth) to get dinos or items and then travel back to the island?

hello everyone, currently we are trying to make a 4player easy run on extinction but we ran into a problem with the current settings, if you go for the titants a message appears that says that the 4 titans are on cooldown. so if you create a new server (which you have for starting a run) the titans are on a 5h cooldown before you can spawn them.

here is the solution we did: if you have all the tributes for a titan (lets say desert titan for example) and your are at the desert obelisk with all the tributes inside the obelisk you are allowed to use the console command to start the bossfight, after you started the bossfight the tributes MUST stay in that obelisk.

here are the console commands for the 4 gamma titans: Cheat Summon EX_BossTeleporter_Snow_c Cheat Summon EX_BossTeleporter_Desert_c Cheat Summon EX_BossTeleporter_Forest_c Cheat Summon EX_BossTeleporter_FZ_c

Hi everyone,

I want to make a full cluster run on an official pvp CrossARK-Cluster, that means starting on one map beating the alpha boss and then transfering to the next map. The run is finished when all alpha bosses of each map are beaten. Yes I know this would be a very very long run, so my question would be: how could something like this be realized so the run would be "accepted"/"verified" by the speedrun community?

I already thought of some basic rules (would be great to your opinions):

• since its a pvp server the runner is NOT allowed to take any items from other players (cause other players could boost the runner), the challenge would be to stay under the radar but still be fast and efficient.
• if the runner enters a map for the first time (beginning or after beating the boss on another map and transfering to a new map), the runner is ONLY allowed to leave this map if the alpha boss of this map is beaten (this should force the runner to think about in which order the different maps should be beaten in order to give the fasted passing).
• gamma changes are fully allowed
• tribes are limited to a maximum of 5 players (to many players would ruin the run).
• the runner is allowed to use multiple accounts (e.g. for crafting, farming, carrying), every accounts view must be shown when playing.

i also thought the runner should split each map in section

the following times should be tracked:

• clusterrun realtime (starts with the start of the hole clusterrun and runs all the time till the last boss is beaten / last cutscene)
• clusterrun activetime (starts with the start of the hole clusterrun but is only active if the runner "activly" plays on a map in the cluster)
• map realtime (starts with the spawn on this map and runs all the time till the alpha boss of this map is beaten / cutscene)
• map activetime (starts with the spawn on this map but is only active if the runner "activly" plays on this map, till alpha boss is beaten)
• section realtime (as mentioned above, each map should be split into section, this timer starts with beginning of this section and runs all the time till this section is finished)
• section activetime (this timer starts with the beginning of this section and only is active if the runner "activly" plays)