ARK Taming Calculator: calculate taming requirements for your dinos

The free ARK Taming Calculator works out how much food and how many Narcotics you need for a tame, and how long it will take. Select a creature, enter the wild level and your server's Taming Speed, and instantly see the amount, time, Effectiveness, and bonus levels for every food it eats. No sign-up required.

There are two methods. For a knockout tame, you tranquilize the creature, feed it, and use Narcotics as needed to keep its Torpor up until taming is complete. For a passive tame, you feed it while it's awake. The calculator selects the method for the creature: 47 of the 156 creatures in the calculator can only be tamed passively, such as Equus, Ichthyosaurus, Basilosaurus, Titanoboa, Gigantopithecus, Giant Queen Bee, so Narcotics are hidden for them. Aberrant Diplodocus and Diplodocus can be tamed either way, so you can switch methods.

At 5× Taming Speed, you need 9× Raw Prime Meat (taming time 18 min 00 s, effectiveness 99.6 %) or 4× Exceptional Kibble (13 min 39 s, 99.9 %). Narcotics aren't needed: the Torpor pool of 15,407 lasts for 1 h 42 min. At 1× Taming Speed, however, you need 130× Raw Meat over 4 h 20 min with only 55.2 % effectiveness, plus about 394× Narcotics.

It depends on the creature. The calculator lists every food it eats, sorts them by Effectiveness, and highlights Kibble. Kibble often gives much more affinity per piece, so you need fewer pieces and tame more effectively: at 5×, a level 150 Rex needs just 4× Exceptional Kibble instead of 9× Raw Prime Meat. If you don't have Kibble, hide it in the table to see the next-best food.

Taming is faster with a higher Taming Speed and food that provides more affinity. Taming Speed is the server's TamingSpeedMultiplier setting in GameUserSettings.ini (under [ServerSettings]); its default value is 1. It scales the affinity gained from each piece of food: at 1×, a level 150 Rex needs 130 Raw Meat (4 h 20 min); at 5×, it needs just 9 pieces of Raw Prime Meat (18 min 00 s). You can also adjust food consumption and wild creature Torpor drain under “Other server rates” in the calculator.

A lot, because its Torpor drops faster than that of any other creature in the calculator. At level 150, the Giganotosaurus has 99,400 Torpor but loses 414 per second and wakes up after 4 min 00 s without more. Taming takes 22 min 31 s at 5× with Raw Prime Meat. Over that time it loses about 459,982 more Torpor than its pool holds. Each Narcotic adds 40 Torpor and stops the drain for 8 seconds, so roughly 138× Narcotics or 69× Bio Toxin are enough.

The values come from the game files of ARK: Survival Evolved. ARK: Survival Ascended uses the same taming mechanics and, according to our data sources, does not differ for creatures shared by both games, though individual balance changes in ASA are possible. Creatures exclusive to ASA are not yet included because reliable food data is unavailable for them. If values differ, check the in-game taming display.

Effectiveness determines how many bonus levels the tamed creature gains: level × effectiveness ÷ 2, rounded down. A level 150 Rex with 99.6% effectiveness gains +74 levels, starting at level 224. Effectiveness drops if you feed it many pieces of low-affinity food or if it takes damage during taming. High-affinity food such as Kibble and a higher Taming Speed help keep it high.