One of my first experiences in ARK: Survival Evolved is taming Usk’s Giganotosaurus. Giga’s are the most powerful dinosaur in the game, so I started off great! It was a wonderful experience although I was clueless on what was going on except I had to somehow protect the Giga if something attacked it (which is silly because I only had a spear…noob moments). Shortly after, Usk suggested a Pteranodon for me. He saw a pink one flying around the base. I honestly had know idea what they were, or what I was getting into, but I decided to wing it.
This time, armed with a gun and tranquilizer darts, we found the Ptera and Usk told me to shoot it to knock it out. This was a good first tame because it wasn’t going to attack me. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop me from being very nervous. I was afraid I was going to somehow hurt her but then, I reminded myself I’m a bad ass, so I shot her with the tranquilizer dart. You know what she did? She started to fly around, which was horribly unfortunate for me because my aim was worse than terrible in ARK. I’m used to having a reticle as a guide in games where I have to shoot something, but the server had that setting off. I was quite amazed I was able to get another dart in her. I was so happy, I was about to shoot her again until Usk, said, “DON’T shoot her now!”
Between my horrific shooting skills and my happy moment in finally getting another dart in her, I allowed her to fly over water. Pteras cannot swim, so we had to wait for her to fly to a safe area where I could try to shoot her again. It took a while for her to fly over land, but when she did, I had to hurry up and get darts in her to knock her out before she flew over water again. I was so pleased when I finally knocked her out…then I panicked.
She dropped on the side of the hill, her body mangled into it. I had to hurry up and get narcotics and food into her but I was worried I damaged her somehow. This ended up being a great spot to tame her as it was unlikely for anything (in this area) to attack us. It was simply a matter of keeping her knocked out with narcotics and keeping her fed.
When she was tamed the box above appeared and startled me. This is a good game mechanic. The box only shows the first time you tame a creature and it helps players understand the type of creature they now own. For example, letting me know Pteras are good for speed but not security is good to know as a new player. The problem was I didn’t want to see it at that moment so I closed it without reading it because I was concerned about my baby! She was fine, so I put a saddle on her and rode her for the first time!
I rode her very close to the ground at first (I have no idea why) but soon, we were off and flying towards the mountain you see in the background above. It was a great experience. Usk made a good choice picking a Ptera for my first tame. It was relatively quick, safe (as they do not fight back), and having a flying mount is very useful, especially a fast one. This is a challenging tame to do solo, as a new player, as the Ptera flies away when attacked and can take awhile to land. Having Usk’s help, who had a Quetzal that I could stand on while to knocked her out, made a big difference.
