Mek

The Mek is one of the Vehicles in the Extinction DLC of ARK: Survival Evolved.

Meks are deployable Tek robots that can be piloted by survivors. Armed with a giant variant of (TEK Pistol) and  (TEK Saber), they can deal a lot of damage against the target.

Manual
Mek=

Mega Mek=

Behavior
Can range from ambitious dino-slicing to frequent target practices to waiting patiently for a rider. It infrequently indulges in the luxuries of self-crippling. When in battle, it just lifelessly stares at creatures in front of it with a focused visor.

Appearance
The Mek appears to be a humanoid creature, but fully mechanical. It has a thin spike on the back of its feet. Its legs seem similar to that of a bird.

Lore

When Santiago heard of news that titans are coming to Camp Omega and that they have little firepower, he proposed in building meks, giant robots that are built to fight the titans as an effort to repel the titan threat that is coming to Camp Omega. The tribe built four meks, each with a different design and fighting style that is akin to their pilots but can be easily used by everyone.

The Mega Mek that Santiago designed was built on the teleportation technology of the enforcer robots of Sanctuary. According to Santiago, the Mega Mek is designed to take on the biggest titans and anything that is considered an Omega level threat, threats that are just as big, if not bigger than the King Titan.

Mega Mek (Variant)
The Mega Mek is a variant of Mek. The Mega Mek is assembled by using a to combine four Meks. The Mega Mek can only be properly used during the boss fight. The Mega Mek will not work in the absence of an. The Mega Mek will self destruct in roughly 30 seconds if spawned in via console command and entered. However, this can be circumvented if you use the infinitestats command whilst inside the Mega Mek. This will prevent the self destruct from triggering and you can mess around to your heart's content.

It may be worth noting that unlike regular Mek, Mega Mek is intended to only use the blade (Vorpal TEK Cleaver) as its left arm does not possess a Tek Cannon unlike the original variant. It also does not possess a slot to place any modules in it either.

Drops
The Mek does not drop anything when destroyed.

Base Stats and Growth
NOTE: The Mega Mek will always spawn at level 1500. Mek =

Mega Mek =

Combat
This section describes how to fight against the Mek.

General
While Meks are only found as survivor's deployment and not in the wild, they do not pose any form of threat so long as they are not piloted.

Strategy
One of the best ways to fight a Mek is with a Mek, but proceed with caution and use a to see how powerful the opposing Mek is.

Weaponry
Either another Mek, or use variants of explosive and creatures to deal with them in PvP.

Dangers
All of the meks ranged attacks with its pistol, M.S.C.M, and M.R.L.M, have heavy splash damage.

The Mek's sword attacks have a massive range if the Mek is not looking down, making it possible to hit creatures that have a short attack range while not being hit back, minimizing damage done to them.

Meks are difficult to damage and take on in a 1v1 matchup when they are behind you and your tame. This tactic is dangerous against creatures that need massive turning radius' such as gigas.

For players using titans, meks can easily dodge your attacks while landing a series of attacks when your titan is still doing its attack animation. They can even attack you far out of your titan's range.

Weakness
Meks requires as fuel to do most of their action, excluding running, moving and slashing. The blade still does quite a lot of damage if handled properly. A Giganotosaurus or any other high damage tame can easily defeat a mek once the mek unit has overheated.

The Mek does regenerate health, but at a very slow rate, leaving it vulnerable if not protected.

A Mek with an empty fuel tank will regain health at an even slower rate.

In PvP, Mek sword deals 25% less damage to tamed creatures and enemy players. Also, Mek Pistol deals 30% less damage to tamed creatures and 85% less damage to enemy player. This was applied at patch 303.1 and reduced Mek's combat ability in PvP situation.

Taming
Meks can be immediately "tamed" by deploying an nearby.

Utility
Meks have two unique stats: Fuel and Heat. Each stat has a corresponding icon on the HUD.
 * Fuel allows for the Mek to carry out many of its abilities. As these abilities are performed, the fuel gauge on the HUD will go down, and will eventually fall to 0%. When the Mek's fuel reserves are empty, it will not be able to carry out most of its abilities anymore until refueled. Like all things in the Tek tier, Meks run on Element for fuel.
 * Heat is generated when the Mek perform certain actions, such as flying or firing its pistol. If it reaches max, the Mek's performance will be significantly reduced (i.e: slower movement, reduced damage) until it is cooled down to 0%.

While Meks are indeed strong, they cannot level up unlike Enforcers. As such it is possible for creatures such as Rex and Giganotosaurus to out-damage, out-health, and out-perform a Mek in combat. What Mek is best at is its flexibility and multiple damage sources since it can deal damage with its sword, pistol, boosters and potentially module. It also has no turning radius, so the mek can attack in any direction it instantly faces.

According to Diana Altaras Extinction Note #8, by the time you mastered the attacks and movements of a mek, you will have it moving like a fifty ton ballerina.

Mek's role can change based on the type of module it is attached.


 * - Support Controller: Allows Mek to deploy a forcefield blocks incoming projectiles but does not stop enemies from entering it. Gives damage taken reduced buff to all ally creatures inside of the shield, and If enemy within the shield go outside they take greatly increased damage and their movement speed is reduced. This module can be useful in the fight against the Desert Titan and King Titan to help shield the mek from its lightning strikes and meteor strikes.
 * - Anti-Swarm Controller: Allows Mek to fire a barrage of rockets at swarms of hostiles. Requires as ammunition, this is useful against the Ice Titan due to it being scattershot making it easier to hit the Ice Titan due to its agility.  It is also useful against the King Titan due to its massive size and the scattershot's massive spread can make it able to land at most 16 rockets per pod.
 * - Target Killer: Allows Mek to fire a single cannon shot at a target. Requires as ammunition, this module is useful against the Forest Titan due to its massive damage and the Forest Titans slow speed allowing the pilot to land easy and powerful blows.
 * - Mecha Killer: Merging with three other Mek while attaching this to one Mek merges into Mega Mek. This can only be properly used in Alpha King Titan Arena against the Alpha King Titan. This module also acts like a saddle's armor.

Roles
Base Destroyer.

Even this is a less familiar role for this mechanism, meks can damage any kind of structure with the help of his sword. Sword attacks consume stamina, but do not consume fuel. This is a big mechanical Arthropluera. Few people pay attention, but the pilot MEK does not receive impacts. It can not be grabbed, poisoned, stunned, even the pilot does not consume oxygen. A team of base destroyer meks can easily destroy a base once all of the turret's have been drained of bullets. This allows you to apply MEK underwater to destroy structures and walk on the ocean floor just like Karkinos. MEK is affected by radiation, which can be prevented by using Mushroom Brew, and it protects the pilot from radiation, just like a Hazard Suit. Recommendations - do not fly, do not shoot. Shooting consumes a lot of fuel. Pair meks up with Astrocetus for total base destruction.


 * Titan Killer
 * MEKs are capable of dealing out both 9x damage with its sword and 3x damage with its pistol to tamed Titans . When using multiple MEKs or using higher quality MEKs that can dish out more damage, they become very valuable for defending your base against enemy tamed Titans and its modules are all effective against the 4 titans in their own ways. Meks can deal alot of damage to titans if they are in their blindspot.  Their blind spots makes it possible for them be a solo takedown with a Mek.  Even a basic level 51 mek can deal over half a titan's health if smartly used.  Either way, the mek can land multiple hits on the titan with their weaponry and can easily dodge their attacks, enabling meks to perform combos if a player is perfectly timing the mek's movement and attacks when facing the titan.
 * Based on using the mek's attack damage numbers, meks have the following multipliers in official difficulty server setting.
 * 0.52x damage for the sword and 0.24x damage with the pistol against the Gamma and Beta King Titan. Compared to Gamma and Beta King Titan, Alpha King Titan takes 0.25x damage to all sources If there is no Mega Mek on the Arena.
 * around 0.4x damage for the sword against the Ice Titan.
 * 0.2x damage for the sword, and around 0.13x damage when facing against the Forest Titan.
 * There are several movements that allow a mek to damage a titan without being damaged. These same movements can be used in conjunction with each other to make complex combos. Warning: These movements only apply when facing Wild Titans and risky when facing a player with a Tamed Titan
 * Use the mek's booster to fly towards the titan head-on. At the last second, move your mek unit to the side while also using its sword attack.  The titan is beginning the animation for its attack while you already dodged it, giving time to land some sword attacks.
 * From a distance, use the mek's pistol to shoot the titan while also using its boosters to make a rapid lateral movement. Repeating this movement several times causes the mek to make circles around the titan while it tries to use its normal or special attacks.
 * Using the mek's sword attack while jumping at the right moment causes the finished sword attack to quickly transition into another sword attack, giving the mek a one-two punch.
 * In Alpha King Titan boss fight, the Mega Mek can deal around 16000 damage per hit to the King Titan and gives buff to all creatures in King Titan Arena so they can inflict 4x more damage to alpha king titan. In other words, without the Mega Mek, Alpha King Titan takes only 25% damage from all attack. With the buff from the Mega mek other titans can do more damage with one hit than the Mega Mek due to their damage multiplier, the Mega Mek has more DPS due to its punching attack and its sword attack can hit the King Titan far out of its attack range.

Resource Hauler


 * Arguably a weaker role for the Mek but one can not set aside the Mek's high weight capacity when you use a quality Mek obtained from red orbital supply drops. If a Gasbags is not available or if you need more firepower at your disposal, this is decent alternative for moving stuff around Extinction. Their feet boosters when used properly can move a Mek across the map quite quickly with minimal element being used.  When the mek is encumbered, the feet boosters can make it barely walk.  Being one of the tallest tames in ARK, a Mek pilot can alert survivors that are harvesting resources of nearby dangers since they may not be able to see over a hill or a boulder that is blocking their view.

Titanosaur/Rock Elemental/Astrocetus Tamer


 * A MEK is capable of knocking out a Titanosaur or Rock Elemental (but not a Karkinos, it will kill it regardless of level) using the M.S.C.M. One shell does about four times the torpor as a typical Cannon, and can be aimed much more precisely. Note that using method this can result in lowered taming effectiveness for Rock Elementals, as the explosion from the shell will hit after it falls unconscious. A single cannon shell can knock out an Astrocetus but be careful not to hit areas other than its head.

Orbital Supply Drop Defense


 * This role is only for MEKs that have over around 40,000 points of health since they need to take all the hits from the corrupted. Their modules are useful to provide support while other tribe members use damage oriented creatures such as Rexes and Gigas to close off routes and box in corrupted.  They can also help round up corrupted creatures into a single cluster so the damage dealers can mow the corrupted down more easily.
 * A mek with the M.D.S.M can increase a tame's armor rating when the module is active. If tames are on the perimeter of the bubble shield, but not outside it, Corrupted Reaper Kings and Wyverns will use their ranged attack that will end up hitting the shield.  A mek can be accompanied by an ample number of fully-imprinted giganotosaurus that can close off a route while the mek maximizes their armor potential and minimizes damage being done to them from high damage attacks.
 * Even though you exit the mek, the bubble shield will still be active until the mek overheats, allowing the mek rider to use another tame to help with guarding the drop.

Troop Support


 * Artillery/Chaos Support
 * Because of the inability to increase a mek's stats, a mek can help provide support to troops by giving covering fire with the M.S.C.M, and the M.R.L.M. Meks with the M.S.C.M attachment can act as long range artillery while CQC tames such as Rexes and Gigas charge into battle to give space for the meks to fire.  Meks with the M.R.L.M attachment are problematic and need to be at a certain distance for all of the rockets to spread out and deal damage to an area.  Overall, meks with these modules make a mess of the battlefield.
 * Buff/Debuff Support
 * The M.D.S.M can give ally tames shield buffs when inside the bubble and when debuffs are applied to enemy dinos when the shield is down. The shield buffs can be cancelled out if opposing tribes have meks with M.D.S.M.  It is optional to have meks with M.D.S.Ms to team up with Yutyrannus' to stack the courage roar buff for fellow tames and apply massive debuffs to enemies when the M.D.S.M shield is down, with a possibility of dealing 75% more damage to enemy units.  If stacked up on top with the Yutyrannus fear roar, it is possible to deal nearly 125% more damage to enemy units that can be affected by the roar.
 * Because the M.D.S.M can buff ally tame armor, this can be paired with stegosaurus with their recent hardening plate. As a result, the module, the hardening plate ability, a basic saddle, and the mate boost can make a massive group of stegosaurus very difficult to kill even for a giganotosaurus.  With their knockback attack, stegosaurus can still have their armor buff, but the enemy creature has reduced armor since they are pushed out of the bubble shield.
 * Damage Support
 * The Mega Mek gives a buff to all creatures in the King Titan arena to do normal damage to the Alpha King Titan. Without the Mega Mek, all creatures, including the 3 titans, will do significantly less damage against the Alpha King Titan.

Tank


 * On average, high quality blueprints that focus on a Mek's health can potentially have 56k health, being more than a giga's 35k with 100% imprint.
 * If players have some M.O.M.I, they can be used as unbreakable armor for the Mek but this is highly unlikely as the M.O.M.I is available as loot after defeating the King Titan.

Clear-cutter


 * Unable to harvest wood, the Mek can effortlessly traverse difficult terrain and can destroy any tree it walks into. Also, it can easily turn in any direction to get any left over trees.  Its M.R.L.M attachment can clear a massive area in front of the Mek unit.  With its inherently high stamina, a mek can potentially clear a massive area of trees and stones, making room for builders to make a massive base.

Chibi Leveler


 * As Meks do not level up, they do not absorb XP from kills, which makes them perfect for leveling up Chibis as they will receive the full XP rewarded for killing alphas.

Damage

Transport

Combatant

Notes/Trivia

 * Meks are similar to vehicles in the game like, ,  and the , but actually Mek classified as a creature in system and belong to the category of Mechanical Creatures.
 * Meks cannot level up like Enforcers, but you can get with quality from Orbital Supply Drop and obtain better Meks with a higher level and statistics. Crafting skill can improve the level of a quality blueprint retrieved from the supply drops.
 * Meks can be quickly healed using a by simply flying the scout up until it touches the Mek. This is much quicker than allowing it to heal over time, which is very slow. Alternatively, you can enable auto-repair on the Mek by holding down E and enabling auto-repair. This has a short delay before initiating and will consume element to do the repairs.
 * The Meks model designation of "RX-" is likely a reference to Mobile Suit Gundam, as Gundams all share an RX- designation too.
 * The Meks color regions can be changed by both Console Commands and the
 * For some reason you can use a Whip to move an unpiloted Mek.
 * Even while unpiloted, Meks will slowly consume fuel. If it reaches 0% the Mek will slowly start to lose health and "starve." To circumvent this problem it is recommended to keep Meks in cryopods if they do not have a module attached or if you will not be able to use it for a while.
 * When lined up against the wall, the Mek is about 10-11 walls tall. Since a wall is around 1.8-1.9 meters tall, the Mek is around 59-65 feet tall or 18-20 meters tall.
 * The Mega Mek is 68 walls tall without the spike. That would make it about 122.4-129.2 or 401-423 feet tall.  If including the spike, it would be 70 walls tall or 126-133 meters tall, meaning it would be 413-436 feet tall.
 * A max stat/level 471 Mek has the following stats (speed is always at 100%):
 * 84,700.5 Health
 * 10,000 Stamina
 * 13,418.8 Weight
 * 628.6% Melee Damage (1,885 w/ sword; 2,320 w/sword in single player)
 * Meks being recommended in orbital supply drops is familiar to Titanfall 1 and 2's Frontier Defense, a wave-based mode where titan mechs defend a node from hostile forces for 5 waves and it has increasing difficulty levels as well.
 * Merged Mega Mek will be at lvl.1500, regardless levels of Meks it merged from.
 * Primitive Meks should be used to merge Mega Mek due to the huge increase in resources required to build a Mek from Primitive quality to Mastercraft quality. If a player has the smallest chance of getting a mek at Ascendant quality, the player is out of luck since some of the ascendant mek blueprints require a ludicrous amount of resources required to build the high level mek to the point where the space needed exceeds the amount of slots inside a tek replicator.
 * If the is summoned with Console Commands, it will be destroyed.
 * is the only sentient Mek to exist within the entirety of ARK as a hostile boss.

Lore

 * In lore, the Mek has two modes of control: Beta level where the Mek mimics the pilot's movements and Alpha level where a pilot can smoothly use the Mek's actual capabilities and movements. The in-game Mek seems to use Beta level piloting since the running animation looks very rigid and quite stupid. There is a steam mod called "Better MEKs!" where the Meks might use Alpha level piloting because the running animation of the modded Mek is much smoother.
 * Since Diana could use a Mek at Alpha level, the smoother running and complex controls explains how she saved Mei Yin from the Forest Titan.
 * Santiago built five meks and four of them were different than the in-game designs. Santiago built the meks to suit the chosen pilot's fighting style and the pilots gave their meks nicknames.
 * Pilot1:Li Mei Yin; Mek:Beast Queen-A CQC Mek with dual wield swords.
 * Mei Yin has an affinity for close-range combat and can make quick decisions during battle.
 * In Santiago Extinction Explorer Note #15, Santiago has an addendum about doing a physical on her and her scores match with someone who is capable of being in the Terran Federation Spec Ops.
 * Her mek is named after her alias on the Island: Beast Queen.
 * In Diana Extinction Explorer Note #11, Mei Yin and her mek defeated 629 enemies with a 99.9% melee combat efficiency and a 52% targeting accuracy.
 * Pilot 2:Helena Walker;Mek:Onslaught: A mek with a blaster on its left arm and a shield on its right arm
 * Helena is creative and calm along with a maxed out sync rate, something that Santiago implies that she might be able to merge with technology (Homo Deus).
 * Pilot 3: Takaya Kazuma; Mek: Praetorian- Military based mek that is the in-game mek design.
 * Kazuma is a URE soldier with a vivid memory of military training.
 * The One Who Waits or Homo Deus Helena made a few modifications to Takaya's mek design long after his death by adding armor to the design's neck and shins.
 * In Santiago Note #17, he has an addendum where Kazuma honestly said he would paint his mek red if he is chosen to be one of the 4 pilots.
 * In Diana Extinction Explorer Note #22, Kazuma had 48 confirmed kills until he was killed by the hands of the King Titan.
 * In Diana Extinction Explorer Note #23, Kazuma's survivor profile noted he is affiliated with the "Panasia Alliance" of the U.R.E. Diana and Kazuma knew each other in their previous lives when they both participated in a futuristic battle of the Thailand Gulf.  They seemingly appeared on the Aberration ARK when the orbital carrier they were on collapsed.
 * Kazuma's mek name comes from the elite unit in the Roman army that is tasked with protecting Roman emperors.
 * Pilot 4: Santiago (later fixed and piloted by Diana after Santiago's death fighting off the Titans and Corrupted Creatures to buy the other survivors time to escape); Mek: Strider-The "beta test" Mek.
 * Santiago knows how the meks work and takes the role of the teacher to train the other pilots. When Diana has been long dead, Santiago still considered her to be the best survivor to potentially pilot a mek in the tribe.
 * Santiago is most likely dead but there is a tiny probability that he is still alive because:
 * Diana mentions in her notes that his mek was the only thing she found and his body was never found.
 * Helena, now a Homo Deus, tells Diana that she couldn't bring him back as if Santiago's mind wasn't among the dead.
 * If Santiago is still alive, it would undermine the sacrifice he made to save Helena and the other futuristic survivors.
 * Santiago also created the Mega Mek so it could be used to take down the King Titan however the one he built ended up being piloted by Mei Yin and Diana who used it to almost kill the King Titan and when the King Titan fled, the Mega Mek broke down since it needed an omega level threat to be operating. According to Diana, the Mega Mek in lore was nicknamed Ares, after the Greek God of War.
 * Based on Santiago's explorer notes, he experimented in putting an energy shield on the mek's left arm, but it used too much energy and instead decided to make a shield that had more durability.
 * Santiago had plans to make a mek that looked more like a theropod dinosaur since it was familiar to him. However, the drawbacks of the model was its limit in weapons and the support structure hindered the meks top speed.  As a result, he needed to find models that can be a humanoid shape and is versatile with multiple weapons.
 * The Mega Mek's merging process, according to Santiago, requires combining all four meks with teleportation at the atomic level instead of merging all the meks like puzzle pieces.
 * The Meks are all based on Santiago's memory of robotics since he can't rely on the obelisks to be a blueprint
 * On top of the limited resources, the dangers his tribe have to go through to get those resources, the amount of knowledge to know how a mek might work, the engineering to build the mek, and a time limit for the titan's arrival at Camp Omega, the meks were the most difficult project Santiago has ever done.
 * The mek project Santiago did was dubbed "Project Legion".
 * In The One Who Waits Explorer Note #24, The Mega Mek was designed to take down Omega level threats, most notably the King Titan.
 * Despite in lore the Mega Mek fought the normal it can only be used to fight the  variant.
 * The Mega Mek Diana and Mei Yin made was different in design than the in-game variant and was working only at 70%, possibly explaining why the King Titan fought in its normal form, either that or the King Titan underestimated the Mega Mek as it likely never fought something that could rival it.
 * This is also evidenced in an explorer note by Diana stating that it knew it was the most powerful creature on Earth and expected to pull an easy win against the Mega Mek but the Mega Mek withstood its initial assault. The King Titan became uncertain in attacking once the fight took too long and hissed in terrible pain as if it was never badly wounded in all its life when the Mega Mek's sword made an X on its torso.  After the battle was over, the King Titan fled.
 * In the same explorer note, the Mega Mek required 4 people to operate when it was first conceived but the writer made alterations so one person can easily operate it
 * In the in-lore story of Diana Explorer Note #28, Diana controlled 75% of the Mega Mek and as a result, had a bloody nose, and her legs were still wobbly for several hours after exiting the cockpit. Based on a medical diagnosis on her condition from a tidbit of info on the note, her cerebral cortex trauma levels were high despite the diagnosis being 78% complete. She even notes that if one person tried to pilot all four meks or the Mega Mek without the alteration, they are on a one-way ticket to an aneurysm.
 * Santiago's addendum about the Mega Mek gives a degree of foreshadowing in being used a second time but its size and power will pale in comparison and will be overpowered when facing the second omega level threat. Omega Level Threats, when considering Element hive mind pillars, were the biggest creatures in ARK. Rockwell is the only other Element hive mind pillar that is left.
 * In Diana Extinction Explorer Note #6, the caliber of a mek's blaster is equivalent to that of a tank. In the additional information and visual, the plasma discharge readings are 700% more potent than the Tek tribe's tek rifles.
 * In Diana Extinction Explorer Note #12, while Diana and Mei-Yin talk over what happened between Diana's death and resurrection while repairing the latter's damaged mek, Diana left a visual in the note that describes the Mek's self-repair mode. Here is the description:
 * "Teksuit sensor array data reconstruction; "Light Chamber"; "3D rendering of the Light Chamber. Details missing. Proceeding to run "Best Guess Algorithm."

Bugs

 * Self destruct feature will softlock game if riding at the time of destruction