You will be able to virtually any animal in “ARK: Survival Evolved” once you know how to do it. Considering the vast benefits of having tamed animals at ones disposal, they can after all be used as guard dogs, means of transportation or entertainment, it’s without a doubt essential to the advanced player to learn how taming works.
This tutorial is for the classic taming. Since patch 182 it’s possible to tame without knocking the animal unconscious. Read more in our dedicated “Non Violent Taming Tutorial“
Taming
Step 1 – Temporarily render the animal unconscious
The first thing you have to do is to get the animal into an unconscious state, as it will resist your attempts at tamin it otherwise. Mind you, you’ll have to be careful not to kill the animal in the process! The more soft you manage to transition the animal into a suitable state the better, as it will speed up the next part significantly. To that end, you’ll want to either use Tranquilizer Arrows or the less fancy option of fist-fighting.
Step 2 – Feed the animal
This is how the animal gets used to your presence. Open its inventory (“E”-key) and insert a sufficient amount of a suitable food into it (the higher the level the more sustenance it needs). Note the word “suitable” here, as every animal only accepts a specific food. You can tell which one needs what by consulting the following table, though a good rule of thumb is that carnivores will need a sort of meat while herbivores require berries.
| Berries | Meat |
| Azulberry Blue: Ankylosaurus, Brontosaurus | Raw / Prime: Carnotaurus, Dilophosaur, Shark (Megalodon), Piranha, Pteranodon, Raptor, Sabertooth, Crocodile (Sarcosuchus), Spinosaur, Titanoboa, Tyrannosaurus |
| Azulberry Red: Turtle (Carbonemys), Dodo | |
| Mejoberry (Violet): Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Elephant (Phiomia), Parasaur, Mammoth | Spoiled: Scorpion(Pumonoscorpius), Vulture (Argentavis) |
| Tintoberry (Red): Stegosaurus |
Step 3 – Assure Anaesthesia and Provide a Steady Supply of Food
At this point you should see an interface similar to this one:
There are two important progress meters here: The Narcotics-Bar (currently filled) and the Taming-Bar (currently empty), the first one of which is integral to the whole taming process. Generally speaking, in order to tame you have to ensure that your animal is unconscious for long enough to consume a sufficient amount of food. What that means in pratice is that you’ll have to see to it that your animal is permanently sedated. In that state it will only move its head up once in a while.
How does one do that? With Narcotics or Narcoberries. You can get the latter in large quantities by picking virtually any bush. Simply put them into the animal’s inventory. You can gauge how much items and time you’re going to need by looking at our taming time cheatsheet or using our taming calculator
As soon as the taming is finished the animal awakes. You can now assign it a name (a dialog to that effect should pop up, otherwise you’ll be able to do it by looking at the animal, holding down “E” and waiting until the menu below appears. This menu is also what one uses to control the animal, but there’s more about that in the article devoted to that topic)
Tips and Tricks
- In case you run out of Narcoberries there is always the possibility of hitting the animal softly. Be careful though, you risk injury (which in turn impedes the taming process)
- Carnivores and Herbivores have different preferences regarding narcotics (“Narcotics” and “Narcoberries” respectively). Getting them the wrong one will slow down everything.
- You can accelerate Carnivore-taming significantly by feeding them Eggs and Prime Meat. Don’t give the developers any ideas though, otherwise we could soon find ourselves having to sauté the meat in order to satisfy the picky eaters that are dinosaurs.
We recommend you read the guide on animal keeping, or the one on uses for animals next.