First a sincere thank you to the creator Psycho who must have spent an enormous amount of time and effort to create this fantastic free mod.

Extinction Core is a difficult Mod and you need to set your expectations to being destroyed a few times, ok… a LOT of times, before you achieve a mastery of living or building in this new world. Please understand that there is nowhere that is “safe” and you must be diligent always. This Mod adds a whole new level of fun and challenge to the game, revel in it.

As a newly spawned underwear clad survivor you have to focus on getting a starter base and bed built because you are going to die… a lot. I recommend staying close to a beach, build a boat base and do your best to stay away from anything that is glowing red. Alpha anything will tear you and any starter Dinos you tame to little tiny gory bits.

Once you have a little starter house, bed and a few normal Dino tames I recommend killing a single low level, not glowing (glowing means they are a leader of a pack of Prime Dodos who will all attack you if you battle it), Prime Dodo for the Prime Hide you will need to build your EC Workbench. Once you build your Workbench you are on the road to building the equipment you need to tame Alphas and start your progression to Boss battles/tames.
Special Note: The EC Workbench is built in your inventory and has a level requirement before you can build it. EC replaces Tranq items, tranq arrows are crafted in your inventory, darts, shocking darts and poison arrows are crafted in the Workbench ONLY. You will not be able to craft darts in the vanilla Smithy.

Additionally the vanilla Industrial Forge is replaced by the EC Industrial Forge so any mods (like S+) that require the vanilla Industrial Forge to be unlocked will not unlock.

Additional Mod Recommendations:
S+ Building Set – Incredibly useful building set for bases and base management
Kibble Table – Make kibble easy, no more huge dino farms just to have kibble

Base Locations:
Fun Fact = Alphas and Bosses can destroy metal bases. Build a base in a good defensive location, avoid places that funnel Dino spawns - like the bottom of mountains, valley locations or low areas. Even the beaches can become dangerous. I recommend someplace with a natural elevation like a hill top or hard to get up to location. This will at least protect you a little from ground based Alphas and Bosses. Most things that will kill you or destroy your base are ground based, but the Dragon and Manticore can still wreak havoc if they agro your base.

Base Defense is a double-edged blade. If you mount auto turrets and place spikes you can agro something that would just normally walk by, but it may help if you are attacked. I normally don’t use base defense items as they seem to get more things to attack my base then prevent them. Your call.

Tip: Place Base defenses inside your outer walls and then they will only attack Dino's that breach your walls first (already agroed on your base).

I do set my Dinos to neutral, if they are going to die to an attack I want them to at least have a fighting chance.

Primal Gear

Primal gear is Unlocked by killing the corresponding Alpha Tribeman or Chief:

Yellow = Primal Cloth
Green = Primal Leather
Red = Primal Chitin
Cyan = Primal Fur
Blue = Primal Scuba (never seen scuba on Rag server)
Orange = Primal Flak
Black = Primal Riot
Brown = Primal Desert

From DerKampfk3kf post:

Primal Tek Giganotosaurus = Unlocks Prime Tek Rifle
Primal Tek Mosasaurus = Unlocks Prime Tek Helmet
Primal Tek Parasaur = Unlocks Primal Tek Boots
Primal Tek Quetzalcoatlus = Unlocks Primal Tek Chest piece
Primal Tek Raptor = Unlocks Primal Tek Leggings
Primal Tek Rex = Unlocks Prime Tek Sword
Primal Tek Stegosaurus = Unlocks Prime Tek Shield
Primal Tek Triceratops = Unlocks Primal Tek Gauntlets

Note: Unlock depends on how close you are when it dies(?). I unlocked Leather by just flying by when a Alpha Green died by a wild Dino and it unlocked. I killed an Alpha Orange with a Poison Wyv from far away and it did not unlock, got the loot, but no unlock. Kill an Alpha Orange with a Alpha Rex and it unlocked.

Primal Gear can only be worn by someone who has it unlocked, you cannot give it to a buddy after you make it. Primal Flak is 300 Armor and unbreakable - super nice. You can craft better items, but they wear out. I use Primal for everyday tasks and only wear the very best I have for real fights. I use Primal Armor for any Cave Crawls as it just lasts longer and I don't have to bring 4 sets of armor, Ice Cave - Primal Flak and Primal Fur gloves, boots = wonderful time.

Progression of Tames:

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TIP: Alpha/Prime Taming - bring about 100 Narcs with you as well as a Sedative.
1) Let the Tupor bar drop to 75% or 50% and then use the Sedative. The sedative will increase the bar back to 100% almost instantly and make the Dino eat faster.
2) Once the Tupar bar drops to 75% or 50% again use all 100 narcs all at once, this will pause the drop of Tupor bar for a good amount of time. The Tupor drop rate on an Alpha is so fast that normal narcs will only stop it from decreasing, it will not increase the Tupor bar.

If you use the sedative after you use the narcs the bar will go back to 100% and start dropping at high speed to 0 and you wasted your narcs.

The above method will keep the Alpha down for a long time with little effort. Works well on Alpha Wyvs as they only use milk and have a very slow food consumption.
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Normal Tames
These tames are the vanilla ARK tames and are your go-to starting tames. Tame flyers to scout out your first real base location and avoid contact with Alphas. It is possible to use normal tames to kill Alphas, but very risky. I tame Anky, Doed, Beaver and Flyers as fast as possible and generally stop there unless I want something just to have it. I keep them in my starter base and use them to farm Mats to build my real base.

Prime Tames
A good first battle tame is the Prime Dodo. Yes... I know that sounds weird, but it’s not. A high level Prime Dodo has great HP and can gain a pack bonus for any other Prime Dodos you have. They attack fast and can be pumped up to do so good damage to Alphas. Easy to tame, but pretty powerful starting out or until you can start taming Alphas.

Other primes are good for base management.

Prime Snail = On wander creates Cementing Paste and Organic Polymer, I recommend two for a base. You have to tame them with sweet cakes and they will only eat sweet cakes or starve to death.

Prime Jerboa = On wander creates Herb and Carn Baby Food. You will need this to tame babies and to feed Bosses/Titan. KO it and feed it veggies, they are very weak at level 1 and will starve fast. Pump HP and food as you level it up and make sure it has food or a feeding bin.

Prime Titanboa = On wander creates Titanboa venom (a lot) and narcs. Fantastic tame as it is really hard to farm them for venom. To tame: Get fertilized eggs (looted Wyv eggs work), use a flyer and hover high above it (stay out of agro), drop the egg on them or close to them. They will automatically eat the egg. You may need to fly down and check if its tamed, if not fly up and get out of agro before dropping another egg. If they agro something you will have to wait until it’s no longer agroed on it.

Easter Bunny = On wander creates free Kibble! Easter Bunny is a KO and eats carrots. The carn and herb kibble is the best kibble in the game and can tame pretty much anything that eats kibble. You can tame the tribesmen with the Carn kibble.

Golden Dodo = Golden Dodo Kibble. This is good, but I have found some things will not eat it. If you see it tame it.

Prime Otter = Produces White and Black Pearls when on wander.

Alpha Tames
As soon as you can start taming Alphas, I recommend shock darts until you tame a Prime Titanboa.

Special Note: Alphas destroy stone and metal traps, but if you use another tribe trap they will not agro on the trap itself and destroy it. Make friends with a local tribe and use each other’s traps. This way they do minimal damage to the trap.

Alphas are tamed as you would normally tame except they require kibble only. You can use golden kibble (Golden Dodo), carnivorous kibble (Easter bunny), herbivore kibble (Easterbunny) or normal kibble, but nothing else. Us the creature guide supplied on the EC Steam workshop page (some items are out of date, i.e. the Prime Titanboa does not KO or use Titanboa kibble).

A heavy duty highest level tame (Rex, Spino, etc.) can beat a low level boss (level 24) if you bring enough healing and detox with you, but it’s not advisable solo, really risky. Two or three people on good Alpha tames can take down a low-level boss with greater certainty.

I do not advise using a Giga if you are riding it, they will instantly go crazy and eat you. The bosses and most alphas will hit hard enough to send a Giga into frenzy pretty much right away. If you are using whistle commands you might have a shot, but you will not be able to heal or detox.

Tamed Alpha Tribesmen summon one Dino to assist them in battle, but that dino can kill the Dino you are fighting and you will lose all loot/mats. They are good for base defense (unlimited ammo and good HP), but not good for hunting. Pumping any Tribesman in Melee when they are holding a gun seems useless (I tested and they hit the same). BUT any tribesman with melee weapons can hit better with melee improved. Any gun toting hero I pump in HP only and any sword/Axe/Club brawler I pump both HP and Melee.

Alpha Breeding Note: Baby Males are common and Baby Females are rare. I read some place that Females are 25%. I just know they are rare, but are born. They also get mutations, but they are also rare.

Arena Boss Fights

A lot of Alphas cannot travel to Boss fights. you can use Apex Dino Packs to get all your dino parts needed to activate the terminal for an arena fight.

Ragnarok (Dragon and Manticore)
1 - Alpha Healing Pig
19 - Alpha Carno, Dire Bear or Mantis
(no flyers can come)

I prefer Alpha Carnos or Vanilla max breeding Rexs with 200+ Armor saddles.

Alpha Version
Tough: Target the Dragon first when it lands as he does TONS of AoE damage. The Manticore flys a LOT and you need to use commands to keep your Dinos on target when he lands. The Manticore will land for just a few seconds between flying so you must take advantage of it when it is grounded. All the times we have failed is due to Time running out, so FOCUS the manticore down after the dragon dies.

Tip: Bring LOTs of ammo (10-20K ammo) and keep shooting the silly Manticore when it is flying. When you are losing the clock, every bit of damage counts.

The Center (Ape and Spider)
1 - Alpha Healing Pig - Ride it (2 if you bring a friend, have him ride his)
19 - Alpha Carno, Dire Bear or Mantis (or mix all three) Try to get health to about 100k on each before pumping Damage (90k on Mantis).

Alpha Version
Easy: Just stay away from the Boss and do not get hit by AoE or thrown rocks. Attack the Ape first and then the Spider last. Use commands to keep all your dinos on one boss at a time. If you are lucky you can pull just one boss at a time.

Boss Tames

1) Reach level 130 (135?) to unlock the saddle.
2) Kill the boss (in melee range) and get the essence for that boss, unlock that boss Matrix and unlock the Tek Originator.
3) In Tek Originator - Build the Matrix (collect the Artifacts needed to build it)
4) In Tek Originator - Craft the saddle (Matrix, Essence, Prime Mats, black pearls, etc.)
5) KO the boss, quickly place the saddle in the SADDLE SLOT, not the inventory.

PS: Be careful getting close to the KOed boss as their minions will still attack you.

PSS: There is a rare bug where if you put the saddle in the saddle slot it doesn’t tame the Boss. Just move the saddle into the boss inventory and then move it back into the saddle slot to fix it.

All Bosses only eat baby food. You can craft it, it’s an EC Engram, or you can tame a Jerboa and have them produce it on wander.

Farming low level Boss will get you lots of prime material and Tek Element.

Titans

I consider the Titan to be in the Boss category, or at least a mini boss. You can tame Titans in EC with workbench Poison Arrows and they will stay tamed and eat baby food. They are a fantastic first tame for killing low level bosses and Tribe Chiefs. Keep healing and detox on them when in battle. My 216 Titan (now 412) has 500k HP and hits for 5000 damage a stomp. I keep a stack of 20 healing vials (learned at level 100) and 10 detox vials on him at all times.

Note: Titans can breed! Breed them to get full damage and HP. On a 240 max dino server the baby Titans have 5-600k HP and 12-15k damage per hit. I use the S+ Nanny to gain 100% imprinting too.

Note: Make the EC Workbench Titan saddles with 25 Armor, NOT the normal ones with 1
Armor.

Tip: You can transport Titans via the S+ Tek Transmitter, the saddle will fall to the ground and you can put it back on the Titan once you re-spawn him at the location of your choice. :)

Tribe Chiefs
Ouch, I mean just owwww… cry to mommy. These guys are no joke and should be avoided unless really prepared. My 412 Titan went through 8 or 9 healing vials and two detox when fighting the Purple Chief. It was a close call a few times and very risky.
Not only do they hit for some crazy damage and have huge HP pool, but they also summon a lot of top level minions to fight beside them. Most Chief and Alpha Tribesmen will dismount you when you combat them. They have special bola attacks that will remove you from flying dinos. Be VERY careful fighting them. Chiefs seem to be immune to ranged attacks including Wyvs ranged attacks.

Chiefs drop a pack of Prime Armor for its color and can randomly drop a special weapon or gear! Check your inventory to see if you get the special weapon or gear. they can also randomly drop Artifacts, its rare but does happen.


Manticore Warlord
He is like a Tribe Chief, but summons vultures instead of Tribesmen. He will drain your Stamina super-fast, so be prepared for that. I tried using Stamina Vials, but it just wasn’t worth it as he drains you down right away after you use it. Bring a Boss or Titan and use the non-Stamina attack.

Drops the full Manticore skin set - full Armor, sword and shield.

Skeletal Dino
These are mini-bosses that summon little cute zombie dodos from hell. Be careful fighting them as they hit hard, damage you when you hit them and the little cute zombie dodo's will eat your brains if you try and snuggle with them. The good news is they do not agro unless you agro them first. My alpha Rex (323 tame, 422 now) eats the Bone Trike and Stego for breakfast, but struggles solo against anything bigger, two good alphas take out the Bronto pretty easy, but I have not battled the bone Rex yet.

Note: They do not take damage from ranged attacks, including Wyvs.

Cheese Tip: A high level Wyv or Alpha Wyv can perch on a rock or ledge, lean over and bite the Bone Trike and Stego to death with little damage returned, plus avoid the zombie dodos. A little cheesy, but it works.

Tek Dinos
Very tough untamable Dinos. Tek do not agro on you unless you attack them, but they are tough with lots of armor and hit points. They hit hard, even the Parasour and you will take reflected damage back on you when you hit them. They will shred Alphas and are best to attack with a boss or titan.

Parasour, Raptor, Trike are doable with a group of alphas, or one-two players on good Alpha tames and healing vials.

The Tex Rex is no joke and will shred everything super-fast. I killed it with two players on Titans and 6 other AI Titans attacking it... we lost all 6 other Titans. I am frightened of the idea of fighting a Tek Giga.

They drop Tek Skins, Tek random gear and unlock Primal Tek Gear.

Apex (Raptor, Carno, Rex and Giga)
Very strong untamable Dinos that summons several max level dinos to defend itself. They are highly aggressive and will attack you on sight. The Raptor and Carno are easy, but the Rex and Giga are very hard, even with Boss tames. They heal super-fast so you need to constantly be doing damage to it or it will heal up between hits. They also add an effect to your mount that does a nasty bleed so Bring lots of healing vials. It is best to do these guys with two players so you can keep the damage going between heals or the Rex and Giga will heal back to full in the time it takes you to pop a healing vial... they auto heal that fast.

They drop a dino body part pack (for arena fights) and Apex Dino skin. The dino body part pack CAN transfer between servers before you consume it. This is an effective way to bring dino body parts between Rag and Center servers.

Cheese Tip: A high level Wyv or Alpha Wyv can perch on a rock or ledge, lean over and bite the Raptor ad Carno to death with little damage returned, plus avoid the minions. A little cheesy, but it works.

I have killed the Raptor and Carno with cheese tactics, but the Rex killed my favorite Alpha Wyv (360 tame, 431 RIP) trying to do the cheese. The hitbox for a Rex is just too big or I was just not in the right spot...

Scions
These guys wander around and will not agro you, but they are tough. There are several named Scions (Winter, Nature, Fire, etc.) and they each have different effects. Some will reduce Tupor, reduce Stamina, etc. They are tough and should be taken down with care.

They drop random skins and other random loot.

Deity
Very tough and will destroy Alphas with ease, the AoE damage alone will kill all the Alphas you bring in the first few seconds. I do not recommend bringing any Alphas. I killed one with two players on Boss Apes and a Healing Pig on Follow. Use healing vials and Detox.

Deity will drop an artifact pack, saddles, loot and (I forgot the rest).

Primordial Summons
These are the top Boss tames you can get. There are three, the Primordial Spide, Ape and Dragon.

To summon them:
1) Defeat all bosses (to unlock their Matrix).
2) Defeat a Deity - Unlocks the Tek Totem and Matrix (Nature for the Spider, Winter for the Ape and Magma for the Dragon)
3) Build the Tek totem
4) Build the Primordial Matrix Lvl 140 (Requires the Matrix for each boss)
5) Build the Primordial Summons (Primordial Matrix, Boss essence and Arena Boss head/Trophy)
6) Right click and Consume the Summons from your inventory to spawn.

Spider (Sithica) - (Can KO with poison plasma shots)
Ape - Damage
Dragon - Fly and Damage

Updated: 1/25/2018