Building

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Building is a leading gameplay aspect of ARK: Survival Evolved. By chopping down jungles and forest, mining metal and other precious resources, you can craft the structures to build massive multi-leveled shelters composed of complex snap-linked parts, including walls, ceilings, beams, roof, ramps, pillars, doors, windows, gates, remote gates, trapdoors, water pipes and water taps, power generators, electrical cables and all manner of electrical devices, ladders, torches and lamp-posts among many other types.

Structures have a load system to fall apart if enough support has been destroyed, so reinforcing your buildings is crucial. Almost all structures and items can be painted to customize the look of your home, as well as placing dynamically per-pixel paintable signs, textual billboards, trophies and other decorative objects. Shelter reduces the extremes of weather and provides security for yourself and your stash!

You can rotate structures props by hitting the Use key (default E, Y, Triangle, X) while in placement mode. To cycle the snap points the structure is going to be attached using Q and Z, RB, R1 or RB.

Building Tiers

There are seven tiers of building in ARK: Survival Evolved. Each tier has varying durability. See the List of creatures that can damage structures for a comparison of each tier's susceptibility to damage by various creatures.

Thatch

Thatch is the lowest of all building tiers. All the thatch building Engrams can be unlocked by level 3. Thatch buildings are relatively cheap, but the trade-off is that they provide little to no protection against other players or dinosaurs. If any decent kind of protection is needed, it is recommendable to upgrade to the wood tier as soon as possible. Most of thatch structures have a decay time of 4 days on official servers.

Wood

Wood is the second building tier. All the essential wood building Engrams can be unlocked by level 10 (although some of the non essential Engrams can only be unlocked in higher levels). Wood buildings are relatively expensive, and require between 20 and 80 wood for each part. However wood provides much better protection than thatch against other players and dinosaurs since wood buildings can't be damaged by stone tools and have roughly 10 times as much hp. Most of wooden structures have a decay time of 8 days on official servers.

Adobe

Adobe buildings are comparable to wood structures as having the same HP and similar traits. However Adobe requires its own category because of its unique trait of having increased protection from Hyperthermia. Please note that this form of adobe is associated with the Scorched Earth engram and not the Primitive Plus variant. Most of adobe structures have a decay time of 8 days on official servers.

Stone

Stone buildings have the same durability as wood buildings, but there is one major difference: Stone buildings only take 1 damage from metal tools, as opposed to the approximately 20 damage that wood buildings take. Included in the Stone tier are reinforced structures such as the Reinforced Wooden Door and the Reinforced Dinosaur Gate. Most of stone structures have a decay time of 12 days on official servers.

Green House

Greenhouse parts are a special building part used in the creation of a Greenhouse for boosting the growth of crops. These glass parts are incredibly weak and even take damage due to punching. Most of greenhouse structures have a decay time of 15 days on official servers.

Metal

Metal structures can only be damaged by explosives,  Tek Rifle and Tek Saddle Projectiles. The amount of explosives needed to destroy these is immense making them the structure of choice for important buildings. Most of metal structures have a decay time of 16 days on official servers.

Tek

Tek Structures can be damaged by Arthropleura projectile attack. Most of tek structures have a decay time of 20 days on official servers.

Storage Structures

Crafting and cooking Structures

Farming structures

Power and lighting

Furniture

Auto-decay

Since v180.0, on all servers (except some private servers), all structures and tamed dinosaurs auto-decay. This means that if nobody in your tribe logs into the game every few days, your structures and dinosaurs may disappear. In general, higher-tier structures will last longer than lower-tier structures. On official servers, auto-decay timers follow these rules:[1]

There are some exceptions to the above times for certain items. Isolated (non-connected) foundations or pillars may have a shorter timer. [6]

Only vaults and Tek Dedicated Storage will last longer than the foundation they sit on. The decay timer for a vault will reset whenever it falls.[7]

All other structures will be destroyed when the foundation they sit on is destroyed.

Notes

  • When placing structures, any trees and rocks inside a 75-meter range that are removed will not return. (This is as stands prior to update 175.0 hen the required range was decreased.)
  • Reinforcing walls, i.e. double stacking side by side. To do this you need to place two wood or metal fence foundations side by side. This is a great way to increase the durability from raiders and add an extra layer of protection from griefers/raiders.
  • Placement of metal spikes can be put on top of your roofs as well, this helps to stop people who have flying mounts or parachutes from breaking in.
  • Shelters provide the same insulation (~112 Hypo, ~57 Hyper) regardless if the shelter is made of thatch, wood, stone, metal, or any combination (tested on v195.1). Exception is the Adobe tier.

References

  1. ↑ https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/399078-official-servers-structure-decay-rates/
  2. ↑ https://steamcommunity.com/app/346110/discussions/0/3223871682617285221/
  3. ↑ https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/500282-dedicated-storage-decay-timer/
  4. ↑ https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/399078-official-servers-structure-decay-rates/
  5. ↑ https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/500282-dedicated-storage-decay-timer/&do=findComment&comment=2759546
  6. ↑ https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/495639-what-are-the-current-structure-decay-timers/&do=findComment&comment=2739498
  7. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/ARK/comments/ackmt2/what_is_the_decay_time_on_vaults/
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