Ragnarok - Day 5

As you can see I've done a bit more on the cliff side facade.  I've also had a go at some more interesting window structures.  I'm kind of liking the look.  I'm wondering about doing more like that.

I'm not sure if all the levels are staying as is.  I've already extended and reduced some of the floors.  I want to add another balcony above but it will mean I need to extend the bottom level more.  I want to be able to move a large dino around on that bottom level without having issues with a balcony effecting the line of sight.

The shaped room on the top is quite nice but in all honesty I have no idea what I will turn it into haha.  I'm sure I'll think of something.  I've added a golem docking station directly above the vault room.  This has dictated the spacing required on that side of the base so it will help break the symmetry.

I'm not sure I want to rail on the cliff side.  I'm thinking of just using walls or half walls purely on the cliff side.  I'm hoping one side feels very castle/fortress almost confined while the other side looks really open and roomy.

Ragnarok - Day 4

If you have read through a few of these first posts you might be noticing that while I'm saying its another day that the date stamps are all the same day.  When I had the idea to start a blog I started taking notes and screencaps but I hadn't actually signed up to a blog site.  So I'll be spending some time trying to get those days caught up.

I started on building up the cliff side of the upper platform ready for rooms to get added.  Normally I build rooms to what size I need but I want to try get a fortress kind of feel from the cliff entrance.  I will build it up then section it off into pens/rooms.  I'm adding in multiple balcony levels on just that one side for even more storage.

I had to make some changes to my game ini files today.  After the recent updates a number of my settings had been changed and I hadn't noticed.  I had to enable building near drops because it seems there is a drop up here.  

With that sorted I decided to section off the whole cliff top to give a better fortress look.

I've also built a vault room.  You can see the tek transmitter light on the first image indicating its location.  I'm not sure I'm happy with it.  I kind of just built it without thinking about its placement.  I'm not sure where the crafting stuff will get put.  Seeing as its a spawned in build I've not needed crafting yet but it has to be included at some point.

I did my vault room different than my preferred method.  Normally I build them around the outside of a structure but this time I enclosed them and even placed them in back to front.  This means its all flush looking walls on the inside.  I built it in tek because I thought it might look good but I'm not a huge fan of the look of tek structures.  I love the ramps, railings and doors but the walls and ceilings just don't do it for me.  My preferred materials are stone and glass.  It just looks awesome lol.

OMG the volcano erupts!!!  I went out and had a look at it.  Much better that the islands fog!!!  I got hassled by a few griffins while I was out.  I 'dotame' a lil one and had a play around with it.  I'm quite liking them as a flier I'm def adding taming one to the todo list!  I felt that the stamina was a bit on the low side so it will be interesting to see how the decent level ones tame out.

Ragnarok - Day 3

Another great build day.  Got loads done today!  I've added a decent structure at the top of the cliff as well as a platform for large fliers.  I really like how that looks but I'm not sure on its placement.  As you may have noticed in the previous post I started a shaft going up to the top.  It has a spiral stair in it but I don't plan to really need it.  I wanted a firm connection between the top platform and the foundations below just in case I had a demo gun accident that ruined my day ;)

I've made the top platform 2 levels.  I don't plan to cover over the top layer except for maybe one side of it.  I'm thinking I still need more floor space so I have room for expansion.

I used a glass pattern in the top level floor to add something interesting to it.  Large blocks of ceilings look better if you do at least some breaking up of the pattern.  I won't do it on the bottom level because you can see it when you look up.  If there is a pattern on the floor as well it may end up looking too busy and that will detract from the look I think.

Ragnarok - Day 2

I managed to get in a decent amount of time today and got a good start.  I pulled down almost all the foundations from the day before and altered a few bits.  I'm now using glass foundations up the cliff which when the build is done I will make transparent.

The lower level hatchery has progressed fairly well.  I gave up on the ramp to hatchframe entrance as the angles of the ground and the space I required to do it at the front didn't allow for it.  I tested it with a spawned in golem and it was far more problematic than it should have been.  Instead I'm using large tek shield walls to make a 4 wide 8 height custom door to the side of the hatchery.  I'm really loving these shield walls they are fantastic!!!  I just wish they were treated as doors so they could be unlocked and pin coded if needed.  But never mind :)

I'm leaving a gap under the edge of the hatchery level for later on.  I did a wall with lattice work that I want to recreate into the foundations of this build.  I really liked how it had turned out and I want to recreate it.

Between the top and bottom was going to be such a big gap I decided to make some "pods".  I'm making some vertical gardens and an aviary for smaller birds.  The sizes are marked out roughly so I could work out my spacing.  I'm going to try avoid being tooooooooo  symmetrical as all my builds tend to be so they may vary slightly in size (lol small steps).  Nothing in my builds are certain.  I have often pulled down whole sections in builds because they don't meet my expectations or I have a better idea that I just HAVE to try.

I've built foundations over most of the cliff footing.  A few spots it really stuck through a long way so I have build the level around it.  I had hoped to push further back into the cliff but I will make do with it as is.  I've added ramps and made the lower level look at least somewhat interesting.  I'll need to redo all the glass models but I'm not sure at this point what style or pattern I will use.  I'll see what I think suits.  I've never done a simple tinted glass dome so I might even see what that looks like.


 

Ragnarok - Day 1

Mods:  S+, Joans, Death Helper, Adv Rafts, Kibble Table.

Normally I have an idea for a design before I start building but not this time.  I scouted around the map and while there was some awesome locations I decided to make it a tad more difficult for myself and picked a cliff.  The purpose for this build is to store all the dino's I had from the Center map build.  They are currently sitting on my Center SP map but they are a complete mess.  I can't store them on my island map as that is currently backed up so my other half could play on the island and try her hand at Ark  (which I will encourage as much as possible haha).  I'll be building with spawned resources so that will at least cut the construction time down a few hundred hours.

I've made a start on the foundations but I'm not sure I'm happy with the pattern.  I was hoping I could build a semi circle at the bottom of the cliff and its opposite at the top but the cliff is far bigger than it originally looked and leans a lot more.

When I'm planning for a big build I start to lay foundations out with gaps between the rows and only linking the "circles" along some of the lines.  If your building on uneven terrain this can be a great way to go as you can cap it off at what ever height you want.  I won't be using under the foundations on this I don't think so you won't see them anyway.  I just need them close enough to bridge the build gap.  I was hoping to build a stone wall up the back of the cliff and connect it to the top but because of the angle its not going to work.  I think I will keep the idea of building at the top of the cliff and use the lower part as a hatchery.

To build the foundations in a "circle" or "rings" has proved to need to go a fair way up the cliff.  I may end up pulling it all down and making a few changes.

I want to keep the 4 wide rows of square ceilings in the foundation works as I am hoping to use my normal trick of a ramp and sloped XL hatchframe which, if set up correctly, will allow even a Giga to pass through it.

I have to say I'm rather liking the map so far but I won't be doing much more exploring until I get this build further along.

Start of Blog

If you have stumbled across this blog then welcome.  I'm a base builder in the game Ark: Survival Evolved.  I've done a fair number of builds to date and some of them are massive.  I played 2.5k hours of singleplayer before playing online for 1.2k hours.  I had planned to continue playing online but after a few things I didn't agree to I decided to leave the server.  Soooo I'm back on SP, at least for the time being.

Now for those of you that don't know about Ark, its a survival game populated by man eating dinosaurs.  Basically try not to die long enough to start building a base and begin to tame dino's.  For more info visit here:  http://store.steampowered.com/app/346110/ARK_Survival_Evolved/

I've had a lot of interest in my builds while playing online and was lucky enough to get a base invasion vid done with Mazion from the "Pooping Evolved" crew:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WUKB38n7rk (omg how many times do I say "facilities" in that vid?  *shakes head*).  I had a lot of questions about why I build some things the way I do and how I did them.  I ideally wanted to do some vids but this PC is far from adequate and I had to give up on the idea.  Recently on deciding to leave the server I was on I had the idea to do a blog instead.  I doubt many will even read it but I'm not really worried.  I've never seen an Ark blog before (although to be honest I haven't gone looking) so I thought I would start with this and see what happens :)

I will be screencapping each days work and giving it a bit of a write up as to what I'm thinking at each stage of the build.  I plan to back track and show a progression of my builds back to when I started playing.  This will give an idea on where I started.  While I was playing online I was often called a "Master Builder" which I don't really agree on.  I use some pretty simple techniques that anyone can do and do them on a bigger scale.  Granted some of the designs are a bit diff to the usual Ark builds you may see.  I'm doing my best to stay away from square builds.  It took me a while to break the square base mould and I'm doing my best to keep trying new ideas.

At the time of this post I've already capped a few days of work which I'll be posting soon.

I would just like to apologise in advance for any grammatical or spelling errors that WILL occur ;)