Much like its predecessor, ARK: Survival Evolved, PixARK is a survival sandbox game about building up from nothing and taming dinosaurs and other mystical creatures to help you along the way. Taming works a little bit differently in this game, however, considering that there are a slew of new kinds of creatures (did someone say Pegasus?) and several new tools at your disposal.
For starters, anything you tame only stays tame for three days in real-time. So you can expect to find yourself taming a lot. Because of this, figuring out the best ways to tame different types of creatures is integral, especially if you hope to hold your own when PvP turns on during Wartime.
To that end, we’ve put together this comprehensive guide to help you learn how to tame any creature in PixARK. Not only will we go over both Passive Taming and Knockout Taming, but we’ll also touch on what you need to tame each creature in the most effective way possible.
Let’s dive in!
How to Tame Any Creature in PixARK
The first step in any taming venture is to make sure you’re prepared to tame whatever it is you’re going for. This means that you need to gather the necessary food and materials required to tame it as well as determine whether the creature is a Passive Tame or Knockout Tame.
Herbivores will eat berries that you pick up from bushes in the wilds. Anything that’s not a Narcoberry or Stimberry will work, but Mejoberries are their favorite and they will tame quicker if you use those.
Carnivores, on the other hand, need meat. Both raw and cooked meat will work, though raw meat will expedite the process a bit. If you want to get really picky, Raw Thigh Meat is the best food you can feed a carnivore, but those only come from creatures that are about the size of a Stegosaurus or larger. It rots incredibly quickly, so don’t expect to be stockpiling a whole bunch at the beginning of the game. Just get what you can.
Next, in order to determine whether a creature is a Passive Tame or Knockout Tame, you simply use your Dino Scanner to examine them and quickly find out — no wiki required! Once you discover whether you’re doing a Passive or Knockout Tame, you can finally wrap up preparations and move onto actually taming the beast.
Passive Taming
If you’re passive taming, you already have everything you need as soon as you gather the food. Simply put the meat or berries in the last slot of the hotbar, walk up to the creature you’re taming, and press the interact key in order to feed them. You’ll see a little taming bar go up to indicate that its working. After a short wait, you can feed them again. Repeat this process until the bar is full and you receive the prompt to name your new friend.
Keep in mind, however, that you can’t Passive Tame anything from the get-go. Many of PixARK‘s passive creatures actually have a level requirement that you have to reach before you can tame them. If you are not the required level or above, then you’re not going to be able to tame them. Remember that while you’re searching for potential creatures to tame.
Knockout Taming
A bit more preparation is required to complete a knockout tame in PixARK. On top of food, you need two extra things: something to knockout the creature with, and something to keep them knocked out.
There are a few ways you can knockout creatures. You can use a Wooden Stick, a Slingshot, a Bow or Crossbow with Sleepy Arrows, or a Longneck Rifle with Sleepy Darts.
If you’re going for a Magical Creature, you must use Magic Sleepy Arrows. Normal Sleepy Arrows won’t work on Magical Creatures, nor will Magic Sleepy Arrows work on other creatures.
Magic Sleepy Arrows require some unconventional materials that you may not be familiar with. Particularly, Magic Berries and MageWeave Bark. Coincidentally, these are both found in the Magic Forest from berry bushes and trees respectively. Be prepared if you plan to venture into the Magic Forest because creatures found there are pretty dangerous, especially to new players.
Once you have something to knock out creatures with, you need to make sure you’re able to keep them unconscious or the tame will fail and you’ll have to start over from scratch. You can use either Narcoberries or Sleepy Potions to accomplish this.
Narcoberries are found from regular berry bushes, while Sleepy Potions are crafted at either a Mortar and Pestle or a Crucible.
In order to make Sleepy Potions, you need Narcoberries and Carrion. You can get Carrion by simply allowing your meat to rot. Since Sleepy Potions are so easy to make and far more effective than Narcoberries, it’s highly recommended that you use them in order to keep the creatures you’re taming unconscious for longer.
Once you have everything, you’re finally prepared for a proper Knockout Tame. However, there is an extra bit of setup that you can do in order to make certain that the process goes a bit smoother.
Most creatures will flee when their Torpor gets high — in other words, when you’re close to knocking them out. Because of that, it’s important to build a trap for them so that they can’t get away. You can accomplish this by either digging a hole about 4 blocks deep or by building a sort of makeshift coral.
Since most creatures can’t get through one-block-wide spaces, a good way to build a corral is to build a bunch of 4-to-5-block-high dirt pillars in a circle with one space in between each one. Add a few staircases to the outside of the coral in order to help guide creatures into the trap after you’ve drawn their ire.
Once the creature is trapped, start hitting it with Torpor-inducing weapons and ammunition until it’s knocked out. Once unconscious walk up to the creature and open their inventory, putting in their favorite food alongside some Narcoberries or Sleepy Potions. It will eat the food you give it automatically, slowly filling the Taming meter.
At the same time, however, the Unconscious meter will slowly deplete and the creature will wake up if it gets too low. In order to prevent that, you have to go into the creature’s inventory, select the Narcoberries or Sleepy Potions, and hit Remote Use Item in order to recover some of the Unconscious bar.
You must stay nearby the creature and continue to do this until they are fully tamed, least you risk letting them wake up and losing all of your progress. You’ll also need to defend it from any potential threats, so make sure you knock down the stairs to your corral and be certain nothing kills your tame-in-progress.
Once the taming bar is filled, you’ll be prompted to name your new friend. If it’s ridable, you can then work on crafting a saddle for it to round out your new tame.
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And with that, you know how to tame any kind of creature in this pixely dinosaur adventure. If you need more help in this magical new ARK world, be sure to check out the rest of our PixARK guides.
