ARK: Survival Evolved is a world filled with various creatures that you can tame, and that’s mainly what attracted players to this game. Furthermore, it’s worth saying that people have wondered if there were faster ways to tame dinos, and today’s guide will focus on how you can tame dinos faster in your ARK world.
Taming is very hard in general, especially when you’re in lands far away from your home base. Everything from the process of putting the dino to sleep, to feeding it and waiting for it to wake up tamed takes ages. It’s no wonder why people look for ways to shorten this entire process.
The methods we’re gonna show you are quite simple, and they won’t require you to tamper with your game files in any sort of way.
Putting Dinos to Sleep Quickly
Before we get to the actual taming process, it’s important to cover what weapon and ammo item will help you the most in putting dinos to sleep.
Longneck rifles and tranquilizer darts seem like the most effective items for putting dinos to sleep. You can put them to sleep even faster if your Longneck Rifle is of Ascendant quality. The percentage % of ascendant quality on the rifle also matters when it comes to knocking out dinos, this is because of the fact that torpor increases when hitting dinos with higher damage weapons.
However, the fastest way to bring down a dino is by using Shock Tranquilizer Darts. These darts are twice as effective as the regular tranquilizer darts, but they deal no damage, unfortunately. If you bring a proper ascendant longneck rifle and a good amount of shock darts, you should be able to quickly bring down even the toughest dino out there.
How to Tame Faster With Food in ARK
Food is one of the most crucial parts of the taming process, and it will dictate whether the dino wakes up tamed or not. What’s also important is the quality of the food that you’re giving them, and what types of food certain dinos prefer.
What food a dino wants will largely depend on the category they are in, but it can also sometimes be random. Certain types of dinos like Carnivores or Herbivores will prefer an entire category of food instead of just one item. But, there’s always a food item that a dino prefers above all.
Feeding them their preferred food item of choice will drastically shorten the time it takes to tame them, and it will increase both their taming speed and effectiveness.
Preferred Dino Taming Food
Here are a few examples of what food items certain types of dinos prefer the most. The full list can be found on the ARK: Survival Evolved wiki page about taming.
| Food Item | Food Value | Taming Speed | Taming Effectiveness | Dino |
| Cooked Lamb Chop | 50 | 4x Speed | 5 Stars | Carnivores |
| Raw Mutton | 50 | 7.5x Speed | 4 Stars | Carnivores |
| Kibble (Megalosaurus Egg) | 120 | 3.33x Speed | 5 Stars | Therizinosaur |
| Kibble (Quetzal Egg) | 80 | 6.875x Speed | 5 Stars | Mosasaurus, Giganotosaurus |
| Kibble (Oviraptor Egg) | 135 | 2.96x Speed | 5 Stars | Megalosaurus |
| Kibble (Carbonemys Egg) | 53 | 7.55x Speed | 5 Stars | Brontosaurus |
| Giant Bee Honey | 80 | 4.9x Speed | 4 Stars | Dire Bear |
| Rare Flower | 60 | 25.1x Speed | 5 Stars | Microraptor |
| Preferred Kibble | 80 | 5x Speed | 5 Stars | Nearly all tames, but works best with Herbivores. |
This table only scratches the surface of what special dinos prefer in terms of food. If you’re looking for a specific dino, you can go ahead and visit the wiki page we linked above.
Lastly, nearly all dinos will eat some sort of kibble, but not all of them have it as their preferred food. Crafting higher-quality kibble is hard as is, so if you can’t afford to craft it for a high-level Carnivore yet, then just stick to slaughtering sheep for mutton.
However, as you progress, you’re going to need carnivore and herbivore dinos for boss fights. When taming boss fight dinos, do not cheap out on their taming food and make sure to prepare a batch of their preferred high-quality kibble.
Feeding knocked-out dinos their most liked food will max out their taming effectiveness, meaning that they’ll be tamed with bonus levels after waking up. Dinos that were tamed with 100% Taming Effectiveness will give you a big advantage when fighting bosses.
Faster Dino Stimberry Taming
Although it’s recommended to feed knocked-out dinos quality food, there is a way for you to very quickly tame dinos that eat berries. This method is not recommended for taming high-level dinos or carnivores, as it will severely reduce their taming effectiveness.
- You first have to find yourself a low-level herbivore that you’re going to use for early-game resource gathering. These are usually dinos like the Stegosaurus, Triceratops or Parasaur.
- Collect as many Stimberries as you can. 2-3 stacks of 100 will be enough.
- Knock out the dino you chose.
- Deposit all of the Stimberries that you collected into the dino’s inventory.
- It will now tame twice as fast at the cost of taming effectiveness.
This method of how to tame dinos faster in ARK is only really viable in the beginning stages of the game when you’re desperate for any type of dinos that can gather resources. To reiterate; taming dinos this way will get rid of any potential level bonuses, which is why you’d never want to tame a valuable dino using this method.
Change Settings for Faster Dino Taming in ARK
If you’re not really interested in taming dinos faster the old-fashioned way, then you can simply go ahead and tweak the in-game world settings.
- The main options that you’re going to want to mess with are in your Host/Local tab when you enter the game.
- In there you’re going to see ‘General‘ and ‘Advanced‘ settings.
- The options that we’re tweaking are in the ‘General’ section.
- Once you’ve found the list of options in ‘General’ settings, you’ll need to look for the ‘Taming Speed‘, ‘Dino Resistance‘, and ‘Dino Character Food Drain‘ sliders.
‘Taming Speed’ allows you to tame any dino faster, so this should be increased if you want to make the entire taming process shorter. Increasing ‘Dino Character Food Drain’ simply makes Dinos hungry in a shorter time span, which also reduces the time it takes to tame them.
As for ‘Dino Resistance’, decreasing this number basically weakens dinos, allowing you to kill them with fewer hits/arrows. Turning down ‘Dino Resistance’ will also help you knock out dinos quicker.
There are many other options and sliders here that you can tweak to your heart’s desire. Nearly all of the options in the ‘General’ settings can aid you in taming dinos, but the ones mentioned above are the only ones that affect taming directly.
Now you know how to tame faster in ARK: Survival Evolved. Being able to tame dinos faster is considered essential knowledge in a game like this. You can find more of our useful Ark guides below.
How to Find Lost Dinos in ARK: Survival Evolved | ARK Survival Evolved: How to Reset/Delete Single Player | How to Force Tame in ARK: Survival Evolved
