Taming a dinosaur in Ark Survival Evolved is no easy task, taming a towering carnivorous T-Rex or Spinosaur is a whole other story. Just taking it down will often take several players, and then you’ve got to keep it fed, protected and sedated with narcotics for the several hours it will take to convince it to join your tribe. If this is your first time going after one of the islands deadliest predators you’ve come to the right place, we’ve tamed our own and documented the process with some tips on making it as easy as possible.
Supplies
Tranq Arrows
You’ll need plenty of supplies for either of these beasts. To take down a T-Rex it takes approximately 50 Tranq arrows to the head, but always bring more in case. A Spinosaur will take approximately 25 more than the T-Rex depending on the level of course, so pack at least 75.
Narcotics/ Narcoberries
Narcotics is another thing you’ll need a lot of. The T-Rex and Spino have Torpor that depletes very rapidly which requires you to constant be feeding in Narcotics/ NarcoBerries. It is highly recommended that you use Narcotic for a sedative because you’ll need about three times as many berries to do the job.
T-Rex Narcotics/ Narcoberries: At least 150/ 600
Spino Narcotics/ Narcoberries: At least 200/ 700
Always have more on reserve especially if the animal is over level 20. You don’t want to get to 95% tamed and have it wake up, wasting all of the previous resources used.
Meat
The favorite food of both the Rex and Spino is prime meat. Feeding it its favorite food will dramatically cut the time to tame it, so try to gather as much as you can. You can find prime meat on a lot of the bigger dinos including Stegos and Brontos.
If you’re feeding it both prime and regular meat, make sure the prime is ahead of the regular meat in the inventory so that it eats it first. Some players will construct a preserving bin near the dino so that they can continue collecting prime while it’s down. The bin will keep it fresh, as Prime tends to spoil very quickly.
Rex Meat Requirement: 200 – 400 raw regular meat
Spino Meat Requirement: 200 – 400 raw regular meat
How to Tame
Knocking It Out
The hardest part when taming an apex predator is of course knocking it unconscious. Your go to weapon of choice here is the Tranq arrow, the amount of which is listed above. Ideally you should have at least two people aiming for headshots with tranq arrows to knock the beast down as fast as possible.
Positioning also plays a large role when taming the Rex and Spino. Their bites make quick work of players no matter how well armoured they are. Try to lure them to cliffs where they will get stuck at the bottom allowing you to rain arrows down onto them at will. Spinos can climb some steep surfaces though, so make sure the area you’re standing on is pretty steep.
The Taming
Now that it’s out cold, get your prime meat in there first. An animal will eat the items that are in it’s inventory in order so make sure the Prime is to the left. You’ll also want to load them up with narcotics because both the Spino and Rex lose Torpor very quickly.
You’ll want to have at least one person manning the Narcotics and ideally another player running security. These are big beasts you’ve knocked down and if you’re on a PvP server they’ll attract a lot of unwanted attention. Other carnivorous dinos will also try to take advantage of the easy meal so get ready to run them down.
Taming time for Spinos and Rexs varys greatly with the level and whether or not you’re using Prime Meat.
Rex Taming Time: 2 – 9 hours
Spino Taming Time: 2 – 10 hours
Remember: For best results use Prime Meat and Narcotics. They will increase your taming efficiency and reduce the amount of time it takes to tame.
ARK: Survival Evolved
spino and tranqs
So how many tranqs does it take for a spino. I have done it in about 25-30 n other say it takes about 100 or more. Is there any reason why its so diff for us. Is it because I'm admin?
Showing 1-14 of 14 comments
20-30. Not over 100 those people are either counting when they miss or they are using slinghots.
100?? They must be spam firing or something. Gotta give those tranqs time to work too. We used about 20-30 today.
Admins using commands to get the ultimate tranq bow would only need 4-10 arrows. So it is not because your an admin.
Lugh
took a lvl 15 down in about 20-30 so that number sounds about right
but in all honesty be a man and punch it into submission
saice
Be mindful that the tranq arrow takes 10 secounds to give its full does of torpor. So yeah if you just spam arrows until it drops you would use up many times more then if you gave some time between shots.
I took down a spino yesterday with about 20 arrows but it was done with a lot of mad running for my life between shots.
Last edited by saice; 14 Jun, 2015 @ 3:39pm
It depends on the level, health and torpor of the specific Spino. Me and 2 guys on my server put a lvl 5 down in the first 5 mins of the patch with around 20-30. It's the taming that's the hard part. We caught him at about 1:30am and was up until 4:30am and we were pretty much slamming him full of prime meat. That's the only thing that seems to put a dent in his taming bar, so get plenty of high lvl carnivores to hunt other big dino's before you even attempt taming one.
Do you need pearls to make saddle too. Because day patch came out I made saddle n I didn't have pearls. Did they change the things you need?
Originally posted by K.P.:
took a lvl 15 down in about 20-30 so that number sounds about rightbut in all honesty be a man and punch it into submission
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Nice
Originally posted by Drsubo:
Do you need pearls to make saddle too. Because day patch came out I made saddle n I didn't have pearls. Did they change the things you need?
Yeah you need polymer I think, which you get from pearls. haven't made one for our Spino yet, he's just sat in a pool betwwen our houses looking cool as ♥♥♥♥ lol
I have never had polymer or anything. How could I have made a saddle. Did they change it or is that cus I'm logged in as admin
Originally posted by Drsubo:
I have never had polymer or anything. How could I have made a saddle. Did they change it or is that cus I'm logged in as admin
You will only get admin cheats if you type them in. They might have changed it with a recent patch. I don't personally know because my server has dedicated people who learn saddles. One of them just told me the other day that we'd have to get polymer from pearls if we wanted to make the Spino saddle.
I mean, I tried using 50 of them, 45 connected, it was a lvl 1 and it still didnt go down
It depends on the level, health and torpor of the specific Spino. Me and 2 guys on my server put a lvl 5 down in the first 5 mins of the patch with around 20-30. It's the taming that's the hard part. We caught him at about 1:30am and was up until 4:30am and we were pretty much slamming him full of prime meat. That's the only thing that seems to put a dent in his taming bar, so get plenty of high lvl carnivores to hunt other big dino's before you even attempt taming one.
High lv predator? i just took out a bronto with a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ pterodon
Showing 1-14 of 14 comments
Date Posted: 14 Jun, 2015 @ 3:32pm
Posts: 14