The Kentrosaurus (KEN-truh-SAWR-us) is a medium-sized, herbivorousdinosaur, known for the massive amounts of deadly spikes on their backs, causing bleeding damages to anything hit by them.
This section is intended to be an exact copy of what the survivor Helena Walker, the author of the dossiers, has written. There may be some discrepancies between this text and the in-game creature.
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Species
Kentrosaurus Aethiopicus
Time
Late Jurassic
Diet
Herbivore
Temperament
Short-Tempered
Wild
While Kentrosaurus aethiopicus is considerably smaller than its close relative, Stegosaurus regium, it is much more formidable in matters of self-defense. In fact, it is arguably the pound for pound champion of not only the Stegosaurus, but when encountered in close-knit fighting packs, ranks atop the Island's herbivorous dinosaurs in general.
Thanks to its wickedly sharp defensive spikes, any creature that attacks Kentrosaurus is likely to be reversely wounded in turn, and it is capable of piercing even the thickest of hides and armors when it goes on the offensive. I have personally witnessed the Kentrosaurus fell much larger predators in a single such "impaling" maneuver!
Underestimating Kentrosaurus can be a fatal mistake, particularly when it is in a herd. When travelling in numbers, Kentrosaurus seems to grow much more aggressive, increasing the range at which it will defend its territory.
Domesticated
Survivors have seen little success in their attempts to ride Kentrosaurus, owing to its spikes and hot-headed temperament. However, a tamed herd of Kentrosaurus can effectively defend a compound and take on larger carnivores. Once impaled by its attack, the Kentrosaurus slams the attacker on the ground continuously, helping to turn the tide of a pitched battle!
Kentrosaurus is a very defensive and territorial herbivore. Although it tolerates wild herbivores, it will attack survivors and tamed dinosaurs that come close to it. It also gains a pack bonus from others nearby, similar to Allosaurus and Compies. Approach with extreme caution, as its bleeding attacks can be devastating, especially with the herd bonus.
Appearance
Kentrosaurus is a smaller, stockier relative to the more famous Stegosaurus. Its body is similar to Stegosaurus, with a low slung head with a beaked mouth, close to the ground to feed on low growing vegetation. It has a double row of plates up to its pelvis and a formidable double row of spikes down its tail, its main form of defense. In addition, it has a pair of spikes on its shoulders to deter attackers from the sides.
Color Scheme and Regions
Region 0:Main Body
Natural colors:
13
14
22
24
26
33
34
35
42
45
Region 1:Plate Base
Natural colors:
13
14
22
33
34
35
42
43
44
45
46
48
Region 2:Spikes
Natural colors:
13
14
33
34
35
38
40
47
56
Region 3:Plate Edge
Natural colors:
13
14
22
25
28
32
33
39
43
44
Region 4:Top
Natural colors:
14
22
33
34
35
42
45
48
49
52
56
Region 5:Underside
Natural colors:
8
14
21
32
33
37
38
39
This section displays the Kentrosaurus's natural colors and regions. For demonstration, the regions below are colored red over an albino Kentrosaurus. The colored squares shown underneath each region's description are the colors that the Kentrosaurus will randomly spawn with to provide an overall range of its natural color scheme. Hover your cursor over a color to display its name and ID.
This information can be used to alter the Kentrosaurus's regions by entering cheat SetTargetDinoColor <ColorRegion> <ColorID> in the cheat console. For instance, cheat SetTargetDinoColor 0 6 would color the Kentrosaurus's "main body" magenta.
Type in values of a wild creature to see on which stats it's emphasized. Green values on a high-level creature are very good for breeding. If you have already tamed your creature you can try to recover the breeding stats with an external tool.[1]
Kentrosaurus
The stat-calculator does not work in the mobile-view, see here for alternatives: Apps
Note that after the creature is tamed it gets bonuses on some stats depending on the taming effectiveness. This makes it hard to retrieve the levels on a tamed creature, so this tool is only for wild ones, but gives a first impression, how well the stats are distributed.
The Kentrosaurus attacks with its tail the target for 42 damage.
This attacks impales small-medium creatures or players and trap them on its tail spikes, causing Bleeding, reducing 10% of the total Health over 15 seconds, also negates any healing effect from consumables. Timer resets only after the Kentro impales the target.
Can be used every 1.26s by both a rider and the AI.
Passive
Damage Reflection
The Kentrosaurus returns a specific percentage of the damage received back to its aggressor depending on its drag weight (See Damage Reflection for more details).
Pack Boost
The Kentrosaurus receives the Pack Boost whenever it is near allied Kentrosaurus. A "pack" of two Kentros will receive a +1 Bonus, which will go up to +4 in a group of 5 or more Kentros. They receive +5% extra Melee Damage per extra pack member up to 4 members.
Combat
General
A single wild Kentrosaurus will not attack unless one almost walks into it. However wild Kentrosaurus are herding creatures and gain a bonus from others nearby, this pack bonus will make them increasingly territorial with every additional wild Kentrosaurus. Starting from a group of two, they will attack any tamed dinosaur or survivor that come close to them.
Strategy
It is best to keep a distance and kite the Kentrosaurus with ranged weapons. Be on the look out for the highest levelled dinosaurs and try and take them out first.
Weaponry
Ranged weapons or large dinosaurs that can resist its latch attack and tank its bleed damage such as Rexes.
Dangers
The Kentrosaurus can pick up the player using its main attack into its tail spikes, as well as applying the bleed effect. Although the Kentrosaurus will drop the player after some time, its attacks can still be devastating to even the strongest of players.
Because this creature seems to reflect a certain percentage of damage, using a tamed Giga against them is ill-advised. This will result in a massive reflection and an almost instantaneous filling of the Rage Bar, though a fully imprinted tame Giga with good saddle won't have much of the issue.
Weakness
They have low torpor and can fall easily under tranq arrows or darts. This will make taming or killing them much easier if you don't have any hunting dinosaurs. They are also fairly slow, so it is not too challenging to evade them.
Taming
Note: Contrary to Jen's post about 257,[2] testing and devkit data show that the Kentrosaurus does not prefer Savoroot over other crops.
Torpidity-depletion: 1.04 / s, Time until all torpidity is depleted: 01:20:01
Note that the values are for optimal cases, always bring extra supplies!
For a level-dependent count of resources needed, try an external taming calculator.
Guardian: Although survivors are unable to ride the Kentrosaurus, it is an ideal guard animal for both bases and on excursions, thanks to its armor piercing attacks, recoil damage, and picking up aggressors within its tail spikes while applying a bleeding effect. When it comes to Kentrosaurus, more is always the merrier, as they grow increasingly more effective in groups due to a pack related bonus. Simply following you on the move, it is easy to know how they function, but there are a few things to consider if you decide to employ them as base guardians. In a securely walled base, they can be set to wander to cover larger areas, but by doing this they can sometimes leave patches unguarded, so spreading a few out on wandering while leaving a few stationary is a solid tactic. If set to aggressive however, beware to not let them be too close to egg hatching/birthing areas, as they will target newly born dinos that have not been claimed yet, resulting in an unhappy ending for your newest addition to the tribe. (Level Health & Damage)
Alpha Genesis Brute Damage Deflector: Kentrosaurus' trait of its spikes doing damage to any creature dealing that attacks it is useful when fighting against brute creatures. A massive herd of kentrosaurus compound its spiky nature can deal serious damage. This makes an alpha brute creature's already high damage output a weakness and players can watch from a distance as the brute creature is tearing its own health when hitting the kentrosaurus herd. Be sure to maximize their health to allow them to tank the heavy hits. When needing to bring them to the next hunting zone, have them follow you and the tame you are riding.
Damage: The Kentrosaurus does great damage, making it a good warfaring tame.
Early Game Base Defence: On early or mid game you won't be able to craft Turrets and power them, and perhaps the Plant Species X may be hard for you to get due to its spawn location and its requirements. The Kentrosaurus will be a good choice to protect your stone base from raids and pesky dinos. They're also easy to tame because you can easily knock a high level Kentro with Boomerang or Tranq Arrows .
Transport: has good weight, useful for early game transport. Additionally, while it is technically true they cannot be ridden, a player is allowed to stand and crouch on their backs. Using a combination of move commands and whistles, the Kentrosaurus, with a little creativity, can be turned into an unusual but effective mount.
Boss DPS: With its herd ability based on the number of Kentrosaurus nearby just like the Direwolf though lacking the howl ability, Kentrosaurus is viable for pumping out damage equivalent to a Stegosaurus. With a YutyrannusCourage buff, Mate Boost, and pack boost, they can deal twice their normal damage. They can also prolong their survival time by using Sweet Veggie Cake. (Level up Health and Damage)
PvP: The Kentrosaurus has an interesting role in PvP. They can be used as living Wooden Spike Walls against strong tamed dinos, especially Giganotosaurus due to the fact that the Gigas can be turned against its own tribe when Kentros return some of the massive damage that it inflicts.
Pocket Kentro: An interesting role for the Kentro is to save some on Cryopods and throw them to the aggressors (Mainly Giganotosaurus) with the Cryo Cooldown still active to throw them with Cryo Sickness, so when the enemy hits them it will return x10 its normal damage. The Kentros will return incredible damage back, though it will probably die. (Level up Health)
Hunter: The Kentrosaurus can impale medium size creatures and players, meaning that it can trap strategic targets and change the balance of power on certain situations. They also cannot be affected by Bolas, so they are hard to deal with if the trapped player has no Net Projectiles with him. (Level up Health and Damage)
Genesis 1 Escort Missions: Kentrosaurus can impale most of the creatures in the following list that appear in these missions. Their impale attack can render them helpless and allow other high-damage tames to clean them up. (Level up Stamina)
Kentrosaurus can impale the following dinos into its tail spikes (except flying creatures)
It cannot impale unconscious and alpha variant creatures.
Damage Reflection
The Kentrsaurus' damage reflection does not increase if the Kentro is under Mate Boost or Pack Boost buff effects, however the percentage of damage reflection that it does scales with the drag weight of the aggressor, here it is some examples:
1This column represents the percentage damage that the Kentrosaurus returns back to the aggresor.
2The Broodmother Lysrix receives x3 extra damage by default, meaning that the real Kentrosaurus' damage reflection is 100%.
The Humans seems to be an exception for this rule, despite their drag weight being 35, humans have different values depending on whether they use melee weapons or their own fists, having values of 14.6% and 33.6% respectively.
There is a damage limit that the Kentrosaurus can return, that limit seems to be 700.
This is the one of the few animals to keep their actual species name, as Kentrosaurus Aethiopicus did exist in what is now Tanzania in the Tendaguru Formation.
Ark's Kentrosaurus are social dinosaurs that live in herds, similar to how real Kentrosaurus are speculated to have lived.
Despite the badass look of the spikes of the in-game Kentrosaurus, their size is exaggerated as an artistic design. If the real Kentrosaurus did indeed have such outlandish spikes, it would be much more difficult for the animal to walk through any environment with decently thick vegetation like a forest, while an even worse problem would arise that if any medium-large sized animal ever got impaled, they could possibly become stuck to the creature's body, potentially causing a premature death due to lack of mobility leading to starvation or dehydration or compromise of their spike defense leading to fatal predation.
The pack bonus is capped at +4 (5 Kentrosaurus' total) with the affect appearing to give a 5% damage bonus on standard attacks per additional allied Kentrosaurus (capped at +4 for a 20% total bonus).
Contrary to popular belief, neither Mate Boost nor Pack Boost increases the damage reflection rate.
There is a visual bug related with the Kentrosaurus' Bleeding effect, where the effect icon only appears on the UI of the Kentro's target while he is impaled and caught in its tail. If the target escapes from the tail it will still have the bleeding effect, but it will not be displayed on its UI.