Patch Notes

Current Version (v345.19)

Current official log @ [Steam > ARK: Survival Evolved > General Discussions]

Upcoming Version: 175.0 — Status: In Remote Branch Pre-Release Testing

Argentavis can now also pickup characters, with a higher weight limit than Pteranodon
Nerdry Glasses and Rex Bone Helm are now paintable
Fixed bug where Tribe data could be lost or corrupted, and bug where players who left Tribe would still be considered as "in" the Tribe.
Majorly reduced stalls when streaming in new area zones
Added a radial "Whistle Wheel" that you can use to choose from among the many whistles now available. Access it optionally by briefly holding the "Whistle 'You Follow'" key!
Only female creatures can lay eggs now. I know, this makes me sad but it had to happen ;(
Added volume slider for voice chat
Eliminated delays upon Dino AI finding new targets, make the AI's snappier and more lifelike. Also made tamed Dinos cancel their current movement whenever they are given a new order/AI-state, making them more pro-active.
You can now open gates with the [E] / Use key when riding a Dino, without having to dismount
Linux Dedicated Server!
Tribe Governance Options: Presets: Communism, Capitalism, Libertarianism, and everything in between via total customizable property, dino, & structure sharing settings. Tribe Manager now has "Government" options which can (currently) only be set upon creation of the Tribe. When you are invited to a Tribe, you can now view the Tribe's governance options in the Activation menu before deciding whether to join. If you wish to change this afterwards, Merge the Tribe into a new Tribe.
Server startup time dramatically reduced.
More efficient RAM usage of the TheIsland zones streaming
Improved perf on GPU particles
Dinos now take fall damage properly
Better dino following logic
Oxygen Enhancing stew is now twice as powerful
Rockets now have gravity and drop over time, no more infinite range rocket shots
Crops now grow at 2x speed
High-level surface supply crates now only give blueprints, was too OP for them to give fully-crafted items
Piranhas now spawn in larger groups
Megalodons can't beach anymore
Fixed a PhysX crash
New: Craftable Headlamp item
You can now access patch notes from within the game :)
Environmental Resources now replenish twice as quickly and less range required away from human structures
You can now 'Drop All Items' from remote inventories, which drops them onto the floor
You can now press 'D' when highlighting an item in Inventory to drop it, you can also press Ctrl-D-Num to instantly drop a slotbar item. Power-users!!!!
Behemoth gate can now be built on non-flat ground, and all dinos can now move through Dino Gate properly now.
Ladder Climbing can properly be activated from above in all cases now.
Added "Go Aggressive" and "Go Neutral" ranged whistle commands. "Go Neutral" also clears aggro, so is good for quickly recalling your dinos from an attack.
Flyers can now carry other dinos, as well as humans
New server browser that is more akin to Steam's server browser, allows asynchronous retrieving and filtering searching from among ALL servers, not just a handful.
In PvE you can now drag unconscious players who are logged-out. Necessary, for now, to prevent people from logging out within your base and thus permanently "occupying" your base.
You can now activate "wander" mode on tamed dinos, which will make them wander as they normally do in the Wild. Useful if you want mild hunting or just to have them feel more natural when penned-up (gotta have that Dodo farm naturalism). Coming soon: "Hunt-and-return radius" mode :)

174.31

"EnablePvPGamma=true" server option will now work ;)
Added move-and-copy logic to saving to avoid any corruptions of save or tribe data
Fixed a stat math problem with Downloading Dinos via the Obelisks

174.3

Gamma adjustment now disabled on PvP/Hardcore servers (by server-side default). Unofficial Servers can force allow gamma adjustment on PvP/Hardcore with this commandline/INI option:

EnablePvPGamma=true

Replenishing times on all resources reduced by 40% (will replenish faster)

174.2

Fixed Spinosaurus crash that was affecting Official Server 17
Mounted Sabers can now jump -- is wicked cool to attack when doing this, increases forward momentum
Improved Tamed dino climbing, and following distances
Fixed main menu UI threading crash
Trikes now have 25 percent more hp and thirty percent more damage
Stegos buffed 10 percent more dmg and fifteen percent more HP
Increased brightness of night by 17% (where outside exposed to the moon. forests/shadowed areas are just as dark as they ever were ;)
Can no longer drag living unconscious players/dinos in PvE that aren't on your team.
Changed spear Weight to 3 (from 6)

174.11

Lessened rate of torpidity recovery (relative to max torpidity) for wild unconscious dinos (server-side change), and increased its speed recovery for Tamed Dinos! Win-Win :)

174.1

Fixed female Saber riding anims
Low chance to get metal from ALL non-metallic rocks, albeit more commonly from smooth river-rocks. And better with picks, of course. (this will not take effect on Official Servers until they are upgraded to 174.1 overnight)
Reduced explosions damage onto metal structures by 50%. (this will not take effect on Official Servers until they are upgraded to 174.1 overnight)
Increased piranha turn rate.

174.0

Raised Max Player Level to 64, providing 120 additional Engram Points
Raised Max Tamed Dino Level Additions to 38
Fix for Flyer Stamina (!)
Fix for Gas Consumption Rate (30x improvement)
Increased level cap to 70
Armor durability rebalancing (~3x durability)
Tripled the metal content of metal and rich-metal rocks
Re-added a small chance to get metal from river-rocks. Thanks for the feedback everyone, it makes sense to provide an alternate less-intense progression path ;)
Prevented tamed dinos from drowning so easily
Changed autodestruct in PvE structures to 18 days, and made it so that rather than automatically demolishing itself, the structure then gives the option for anyone to demolish it via radial menu.
Made Smithies and other containers automatically have the necessary engrams when new engrams are added, rather than having them be rebuilt
Made it clear via description that the Food Preservation Bin requires Sparkpowder to preserve food, and that it can also create Beef Jerky.
Added Option to disable Torpor screen flash (purple flash)
Dino Knocked-Out state will now hold until the Dino's Torpor reaches 0%, previously they could exit earlier. However, their Torpor will decrease more quickly based on how much their maximum Torpor level is -- so that higher-level Dinos are naturally more difficult to keep knocked-out.
Increased effectiveness of temperature insulation by 20%
Bronto saddle can now be equipped properly :)
Non-water Dinos will now attempt to swim to the surface and not drown :)
Fixed armor insulation values & UI display (wasn't displaying hyperthermic insulation properly): cloth now adds positive hyperthermic insulation, all other armors currently add negative hyperthermic insulation but now scaled more appropriately. Swimwear coming to add more positive hyperthermic insulation!
Fixed LOD's on dino gates and other assets
Mid-size dinos (less than Rex, such as Stego etc) now properly fit thru the Dino Gate. For large-tier dinos you need still a Mega Gate, of course.
Fixed crafting table requirements on a number of items, to now display their proper crafting table in the Engram UI (i.e. now it says that a Smithy is required to craft a Spinosaurus Saddle)
Adjusted Spawn Rates: Piranhas more common on insland lakes/rivers (they were missing primarily), Carnos less common everywhere, Spinos less common everywhere
Reduced Spino overland run & walk speeds by 25%
Fixed a bad damage multiplier for explosives on Wood structures (like several times too strong :-P)

173.0

Spinosaurus! Fear the beast!
New Structures: Spike Wall (great for defending against incoming tribe dino attacks) and Food Preservation Bin items, and Beef Jerky!!! (Sparkpowder+Oil+Cooked Meat or Cooked Prime Meat+hour wait == SUPER LONG LASTING FOOOOOD!)
General GPU optimizations plus new graphics configuration options: Mesh LOD slider, High Quality Materials checkbox (disabling this and restarting will have tremendous perf savings at the cost of less detailed terrain materials), Subsurface Scattering Checkbox (disabling this will make plants and skin material look a little less good, but also save a lot of perf)
After login you now get a message indicating how you died if your character was killed when you were logged out (needs more details added)
Pteras now land better when out of stamina, won't eject you as soon
You and dinos can attack when no stamina now, however doing so will increase your torpidity
Slight purple overlay when torpidity is increasing
Spoiling timer exploits fixed
Various ways to teleport into people's houses seemingly fixed
Grenades rebalanced, ~60% damage reduction vs structures and now also require oil to craft
PvE structures that haven't had a Tribe/Creator nearby in one week are now auto demolished. Can be disabled on player-run servers.
Structure Limit now configurable for player-run servers
Non-Tribe Flyer Carrying now an option for PvE servers
Added Rich Metal and Regular Metal Mountain Rocks
Metal Tools' durabilities fixed
Character bodytype presets
"Find Mods" button added to Host Game Menu
Rare Limited-Edition Cosmetic Item Skin drops: Nerdry's Glasses (from the bellies of Dilo's) and Rex Bone Helmet
Land dinos now lose stamina when swimming while mounted, Amphibious dinos (turtle, sarco, etc) now regain stamina much more quickly in water
Unconscious dinos being tamed no longer can be harmed by non-tribe players in PvE
Fixed bug where Generator with cables attached could not get its inventory accessed
Tribe ID's and Player ID's are now guaranteed to be unique. Should eliminate future cases of player/tribe body snatchers.
Realtime time and current map now indicated on pause menu
Downloading mods at the Host Game screen now indicates download progress, mods that have been updated on Steam Workshop will now redownload
Broodmother will now give Dossier and Steam Achievement correctly when defeated
You can now set the temperature scale to Fahrenheit in the Options menu
Upped bullet damages by about 20%
Your current Biome/Temperature now updates correctly when riding a mount
"Transfer Tribe Ownership" button is now clickable properly
Base Carno damage buffed from 30 to 50, base Rex damage buffed from 50 to 80
Rate of health recovery from mounts consuming corpses or trees is reduced (was previously essentially granting mounts nearly instant health recovery)

172.5

Torch no longer loses durability when you pick from plants with it equipped.
Tamed Dinos no longer get OP health boost from harvesting bodies/plants, now they get a more mild health restoration. May further adjust if needed.
Fixed Female Sabertooth Riding animations (no more T-Pose), and tweaked riding animation speeds on Saber, Trike, and Bronto

172.4

Dinos that are being tamed no longer disappear or lose their inventories upon save-game being reloaded. (in singleplayer or multiplayer). Thanks everyone for helping us nail this bug! (Server Admins may wish to update at their leisure for this hotfix)

172.3

You can now rename your tribe. (if you are the founder or have transferred the ownership)
You now also earn 50% of the XP on your human character that your mount earns (when riding it).
You can no longer grab onto ladders thru walls.
You can now search for sessions by name.
In PvE, you can't build in caves/caveentrances anymore and all such structures are autodestroyed (but sleeping bags are allowed). This is to prevent PvE players from blockading the caves with no other players able to damage such structures.
Torpor now increases per level on creatures as a percentage of their max torpor, not via an absolute value. Makes big highlevel creatures tougher to knock out.
Tribechat key can now be rebound via UI
in Pve the flyers can no longer grab players who are on a different team
Punching structures you can't damage (such as metal) still hurts you now, so you can kill yourself in metal cages etc.
10% global insulation effectiveness boost
Minor GPU optimization to shader caching.
Servers now autorestart if they crash, should yield better server uptime for now.
If corrupted local or server save files, data is now automatically restored from the last backup.
"Pistol whip" melee damages are nerfed appropriately and they now lose durability accordingly.
Base Food/Water Resource consumption rates reduced by 25% each
Mountain Stones now have a lot more metal. Still more to do here (actually new resource visuals and rich metals on the mountain summits) but wanna reserve the full map update 'till Friday, as it will require more testing.
Dinos can no longer damage metal structures. Rockets are now using "demolition" damage type which makes them as effective as C4. All explosions effectiveness vs structures increased 50%.
Grenade Engram moved to level 30, & no longer requires Crystal to craft.
Visual Glitches ("popin") on caves with low view distances is fixed.

171.8

Increased the yield of metal ore gained from metal-type rocks with non-metal tools by 3x.
Increased the number of metal-bearing rocks in mountains/summits by a ton - hundreds and hundreds of rocks added.
Mountain-rocks which yield metal now also yield Obsidian at a reduced rate.

171.74

Armor is no longer localized for Dino Attacks. This means that when a Dinosaur attacks you, your armor is much more effective. We made this change due to the fact that their attacks are not generally very area specific.

171.7

Q in the Inventory Menu toggles Item Text Overlay Mode, which will remove all the non-critical text overlays from the item icons, such as name, type, etc.
Fixed numerous server and client-side crashes.
Fixed getting your body or tribe taken over by someone else -- no more Invasion of the Body Snatchers!
You can now search for sessions "by name" within the In-Game Browser UI
Changed coordinates on Map Marker placement to Latitude First, Longitude Second, as it should be!
Fixed -nomansky option which you can also access via the game's Steam Launch Options to properly not initialize the dynamic sky system. Use this launch option if you're getting video driver crashes, and it'll resolve them! however your sky system will be simpler, for now.
No longer lose performance after singleplayer savegame loads! Still needs more testing for possible side-effects!
Added LAN support. LAN games will now appear on the server browser via the server filter type dropdown. Happy LAN gaming!
Fixed Server Download Dino crash and prevented losing uploaded dinos.
Players now have to breathe when submerged in water, and on a dino.
Arrows will no longer phase through all solid objects and hit people on the other side.
Crops will now take an extremely long time to spoil if they are watered and fertilized correctly.
Crop yield is now 2x.
Structures now have 50% increase damage resistance globally.

171.6

Unofficial Servers would crash if they had Dinos downloaded to them, at an Obelisk, in some cases. Server Admins should update to get this fix.
XP glitch that resets your Survivor XP to your Mounts' XP is now fixed, however will require that servers are updated to 171.6 to get this. To avoid this until your server is updated, be sure to Earn some/any XP on your Survivor after disembarking your mount.
Parasaur Founder's Saddle Skin now shows correct icon when applied to the Parasaur Saddle
Client connection timeout is now 30s rather than 20s
Slight performance improvement to calculation of particle LODs

171.5

PIN codes now work properly on Doors, and also have been enabled on Small and Large Storage Boxes. Note your Tribe does not have to use the PIN codes, but this will prevent non-TribeMembers from accessing those functions. However, if the container is destroyed, it drops the contents anyway of course.
Server Admin Passwords are working again, both from "ServerPassword" key in the "ServerSettings" section of the INI, and via commandline. Sorry about that, server admins!!!!
Resolved error with sky rendererer that would cause some players to crash or ock at the end of the loading process when connecting into a game.
You can now upload Character & Dino Data from Tribute Terminals on Official Servers.However note these data can only be Downloaded onto Local or Unofficial Servers, for now.
Removed the "suicide" command. It was for testing only and is not a realistic thing.
Fixed invisible ocean caverns
Improved loading feedback to not have any temporary black/screen / possible lock between loading the initial gamedata and connecting to server. Should now be seamless.

171.4

Fixed some remaining blackscreen/connection cases!

171.31

Minor hotfix increases the number of structures allowed within a radius from 800 to 1400. May increase it further in subsequent builds as we scale perf up

171.3

Fixed two black screen cases: one was a sky lockup, the other had to do with your character getting ragdoll-teleported upon leaving the game into infinity Z position and staying there forever, preventing you from ever re-entering that server. Now you'll get teleported back to ground IF that ever happens (and it shouldn't again in any case)
Added a -nomansky launch argument for the game to launch without the sky system and fallback to a simple sky (which also currently makes the water turn green). Just in case anyone gets driver crashes non-stop until we have those resolved, please try that out
Reduced rate of food consumption by 33%
Fixed Ptero throwing its rider off when it runs out of Stamina. It is supposed to force-land in that case, which it now does correctly :)
Megalodon saddle is now properly craftable on your player character. If you already have unlocked the Engram, you may need to respawn (die and respawn) your Survivor once to get it alas. (Fast Travel will also work)
Made dinos not look at the people who are riding them :-D
Improved the look of the Obelisks at night-time. Made the Moon bigger, because yeah. Fixed Carnotaurus rider offset
Modified how some vfx draw calls are sorted for a slight perf gain.

Note: This Client/Server build is compatible with all 171.x servers (except 171.0), but if you want the changes to Food consumption and Ptero landing and Megalodon saddle, you need to update your server to 171.3

171.21

Fixed (or rather, avoided) a negative delta time issue with AMD CPU's

171.2

Made Tamed dinos not look at you unless you're pretty close nearby
Improved the loading screen process to cover the entirely load reasonably smoothly, also speeds up loading

171.1

Post Processing issue fixed. You can use this again!
Fixed a wrong INI file that would negatively impact framerate

171.00

Fixed "Message of the Days" for hosted servers. They'll now work, specified here in the GameUserSettings.ini (imgur link, pastebin)
Added Sky for Direct X 10 Shader Model 4 rendering
Tamed dinos now look at allies when they're nearby, to increase realism :)
Added a loading progress meter to avoid the appearance of frozen game stalls, and fixed another blackscreen/infinite load case.
Added a "Difficulty" slider for Local/Custom Servers that scales the levels of the creatures encountered, along with the quality of loot (but not quite linearly with each other, so you can expect a tougher challenge overall as that slider goes up!)
Added the capability to choose respawn region upon each player respawn. Set 12 spawn regions, rather than 4
Added code now for flyers to not follow you into water, and land creatures to have a depth limit they're willing to follow you to :)
Adjusted various Quality Group graphics settings to increase performance on each tier
You can now properly apply the ARK Founders' Parasaur Saddle Skin, to the Parasaur Saddle :)
Increased the length of time for dead player bodies/inventories to decompose, to 20 minutes
You can now whitelist specific SteamID's that will always be granted access to your server. Even if it's full.
Console key can now be rebinded through the Options Menu
All Host Game options are now visible in the in-game launch menu (which also affects single player), as well as saved in INI for easy access
Fixed an issue where sometimes no servers would return
Server Player counts should finally be fixed in-game
Downloading ARK Data Characters into other Servers will no longer lose them
You can now rebind the Arrow Keys properly (strafe, turn, whatever you want)
On your server, you can now use 'cheat' or 'admincheat' to cheat after logging in as and admin. "cheat broadcast MessageString" will now let you broadcast a server message to everyone on your server (which also force displays the chat). Note that you can also set a Message-Of-The-Day here:

 [MessageOfTheDay] 
 Message=Hello and welcome to my ARK! :-D

Added an option to hide the Server Name from your Pause Menu, so that streamers don't have to give away what server they're playing on.
Your last server filter settings now save and restore
Argentavis now has a very limited (60% reduced) targeting range for live creatures, but his targeting range for corpses has been boosted by 40%. So watch out if you've got a dead body around, you might want to get out of the way :) . In any case, this is more true to their real-world likely behavior and will make them grief less.
Your riding character now looks in the direction your camera is facing, along with your mount.
Fixed a silly enemy pathing case that would make them needlessly turn around a lot in tight confines.
Reduced default Dino following distance by 50%
You can now craft directly from within your pet's inventory
Fixed a missing map file. Please ensure your servers are running 171.10 to avoid incompatibility.

170.47

Re-added network ID translation logic that should ideally fix the "black screens" after successfully connecting to a server

170.46

Apparent fix for most/all of the infinite loading screen behaviors

170.45

Fixed the "My Survivors" list -- it now properly remembers the servers that you've played on, where your Survivors are at!

170.44

Server & client hotfix (compatible with all 170.x sessions)
Fixes cheat commands for server admins
You can update your servers as you wish
New client still allows cheats but using admincheat <command>, not cheat

170.42

Fix for the remaining black screen issue
Changed how the client send its package map to the server upon connection (could cause a fail and leave you stranded in a black map).

170.41

Fixed occasional "Fatal Error" with tooltips, by removing the loading tooltips, for now.
Tab is now a rebindable key. Tilde (~) opens the console.
Low Memory Mode (4GB) is for people with only 4GB of System RAM. It will use approximately 2.4GB of RAM to get into an ARK as a client. Extreme Low Memory Mode uses the least memory, at only about 2GB of RAM to get into an ARK as a client, however it also has no sounds, and is mostly for debugging. In either Low Memory mode, you will get full world streaming to reduce memory spikes, so you will see more pop-in.

170.4

Reverted the core game content loading method back to dynamic streaming, however we've now also made ALL sub-levels stream dynamically for clients to avoid memory/disk spikes (at the cost of seeing more pop-in). This is currently only active in "Low Memory" mode, so give it a try if you get black screens!

170.2

Fixed another crash with 4GB Low Memory mode. Should be no more crashes in this mode!

170.1

Changed how the game allocates all of its static media memory to be more efficiently packed at game startup (leading to a longer initial splash screen), likely eliminating the black screen bug! (we'll find out :)
Fixed a mesh crash bug with low-memory and SM4 rendering options

v170.0

Added missing "Spyglass" engram (like binoculars), which also enables you to craft the later glasswares. Moved the "Scope" Weapon Attachment to level 30, down from level 40.
Balance: Fist Damage reduced by 20%, Argentavis AI aggressiveness reduced by 25%, Tran Arrow Tranq-Power increased by 20%, Slingshot Torpidity Power Decreased by 10%
Reduced the rate at which food spoils in the inventory of an NPC creature, by 75%, to aid long-term creature maintenance
Implemented a "Low Memory (4 GB RAM)" and "Low Memory DX10" launch options that reduces graphics and audio effects to save about 800 MB RAM, likely enabling 4GB RAM players to get past infinite-loading screens.
Reimplemented stylish animated-movie loading screen, fixed up some graphics on the "Play Local" menu, exposed various gameplay options to the "Play Local" menu, so that you can more easily customize your own server or local play experience.
Added an option to hide the Server Name from your Pause Menu, so that streamers don't have to give away what server they're playing on.
Selfie orbit cam, [K] by default, now collides with structures geometry so that you can't use it to... spy... into other players' houses... creeper!
Added 3 "PvP-Hardcore-OfficialServers"... for the truly hardcore (you have to create a new survivor after each death :)
Added ?MapPlayerLocation command argument for player-hosted servers, when used will display the current player location on the 3D Map. (not very hardcore/realistic ;)
Populated small pickupable rocks across all of the ARK's beaches, not just in the southern coasts.
Increased # of server search from 50 to 100
Filter "password protected" servers on the Steam backend, rather than locally, to return more servers
Fixed a Localization crash
AZERTY French keyboards can now rebind keys properly
Initial DirectX10 Shader Model 4 support -- ubersky won't yet render :-P. Also reduces game memory footprint by ~400 MB
Player counts on the server browser are now correct and accurate
Getting "Winded" in water no longer prevents you from swimming upwards completely -- you now just swim upwards more slowly, and so are less likely to absolutely drown.
Pause Menu now lists the Server name
Server browser now has a list of "Survivor's Servers", upon whihc you have a survivor, Favorite Servers, and Friend's Servers
Fixed an issue where NPC's would not attack often at lower-FPS times on servers
Broadcast Server messages now force the chat to appear (typically used to notify of server maintance)
Bonus Item Skins (Stomped Glasses, Cowboy Hat, Noble Saddle) are permanent, locked to your character, and given again after respawn (dropping them simply removes them if you don't want them -- if you want to keep them, apply them to an item).
Fixed some graphical artifacts with the water, waterline, and underwater particles
Slingshot torpidity multiplier reduced slightly
Inventory Key can now be rebound
Arrow keys now turn rather than strafe, and can be rebound

Previous Versions

v1.60

v1.608 (Client)

Fixed the singleplayer-side post-load performance problem. At least the BIG one :) ... 15-30 miliseconds per frame saved after singleplayer load on one of our test machines. Baby steps... baby steps... :)

v1.607 (Client)

Fixed two client and server crash cases

v1.602

Blackscreen issue should be fixed! Added more official servers. Fixed a few potential chat crashes.

Working on ShaderModel 4 support and singleplayer performance reloading....

v1.601

Full servers will still appear in server-list now

v1.60

Listing/Refreshing of servers fixed

v1.50

v1.557

Chatbox can no longer be opened in singleplayer games.
Rebuilt the game content with 2K textures rather than 4K for most. This may help prevent disk and memory thrashing that could have adversely affected performance on some machines.

v1.556:

Reverted loading screen to static image, might eliminate "black screen of death" when loading into singleplayer mode.
Made a backend change that may have fixed the backend server issues. We have to update ALL of the servers to fully fix it, but we are gradually rolling that out over this night.