Having watched a number of ARK: Survival Evolved LP episodes at YouTube I developed a mild interest in playing the game. I hadn't planned to actually take the plunge until, by sheer happenstance, discovering it on sale at Steam for $16.49US. At that price I figured it'd be worth the investment even if I play only sporadically. Thanks to my by-modern-standards slow DSL connection it took from circa 1530 yesterday afternoon until around 1400 today to download, discounting a two hourish YouTube break last night.

As luck would have, it my brother called needing help with a project just as the download finished. That set me back an additional 45min. Home again I installed the game and played until supper. I must say that graphics look mighty fine at default quality settings, even on my now six year old computer (i7 930 2.8gh CPU, nvidia GTX 670 4gb GPU). It runs acceptably smoothly. Once and awhile it pauses a few seconds, but that causes no harm and doesn't occur often enough to be a bother.

The game is geared toward multiplayer. I play single-player mode. (I suspect that has much to do with it running as smoothly as it does.)

As for my time in-game, I did surprisingly well at the start, quickly amassing a few levels, ample resources and basic beginners gear. I thought I had it made, then became overconfident and lost everything during a nighttime try for a nearby 'white' supply drop. (The only color low-levels are able to open.) That led to a series of missteps and misadventures, which I have not yet recovered from (and don't expect to for some time). A piece of luck: when things looked quite bleak a white drop materialized a stone's throw from my pathetic campsite. It contained an almost complete set of cloth armor, which I had not been able to remake, including two piece I do not yet have engrams for. What I now desperately need are food and hides. (Hides will let me craft a simple bed, which will act as a respawn point for one death only. A more sophisticated bed allows infinite respawns, but that's some levels away.) I also need to learn the engram for a storage chest, for obvious reasons. I ought to have done so last level, but foolishly spent them on two thatch house pieces. Live and learn, I reckon.

I'm gonna try and stick with default difficulty settings, but might reduce the amount of nighttime, since the game doesn't allow us to sleep the night away. This is understandable in multiplayer, but seems an unnecessary hardship in single player. (ARK nights are 'very' dark.)

I'll prolly play a bit more tonight.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Jun 27 2016, 03:52 AM

I can sympathise with the nighttime misadventures. Once the sun sets it's absolutely pitch dark, even with torches.

Once you get going on single player it's really fun. I messed with the settings to make resource gathering and dinosaur taming easier. I'd recommend the latter, since it can take tens of hours to tame some beasties. The sheer scale of the game is very impressive, I was absolutely blown away when I first saw some of the larger dinosaurs wandering around.

I heard that they recently added Diplodocus to the game, so I've been meaning to jump back in and going to see them for myself.





As for me, I've been playing a web game called Game of Thrones: Ascent. I originally played through it a couple of years ago, and just started a new game today.

You take on the role of a newly minted lord or lady, and work to build up your very own hold. You create your own banner, choose which house to align with (I chose Tyrell) and hire sworn swords which you use to complete quests. You can then equip items to your character and your sworn swords, and level them all up to improve your chances at successful questing. I have 4 sworn swords at the moment, 1 each dedicated to trade and intrigue with the other 2 dedicated to battle.

When you undertake a quest you choose which type of action you'll use. For example, I had to capture a rare horse and I could either chase it to exhaustion (battle), track it to a stream (intrigue), or bribe it with oatcakes (trade). Each action has the same outcome, but the action I'll take depends on whichever sworn sword is available. Your character also has these stats, which affect all quests that your sworn swords participate in.

Your character also has several 'alignments' which change depending on your actions and dialogue choices. You have Tradition (which leans towards either the Old Ways or the New Ways), Duty (which is either family or the realm), and Integrity (which is either cunning or truthful). I can't remember exactly what these do, but I think it has something to do with the sorts of choices and quests your character will be presented with in the future. You also get to choose from one of several backgrounds which have similar consequences.

It follows a mixture of book and tv show story stuff, and you sort of watch from the side lines with the occasional contribution (I have a minstrel that has been sent to travel to Winterfell with King Robert, for example). There are a whole ton of quests to complete, and all are well written and interesting with various choices and outcomes. Since I last played, there have been a load of updates and lots of new content added in. The game keeps its quests at the same place as the tv show, so as the show moves forward, so does the game.

Being a web game, lots of the actions take some time to complete - Early in the game it can just be a few minutes, then later on it can be several hours. I like being able to set a quest away, go and do some other stuff for a few hours, then come back to collect my rewards and start something else. Of course there is a 'gold' system wherein one can use real money to buy in-game gold to buy special items or speed up building, but the game does a decent job of balancing things so you don't need to splash the cash if you don't want to.

Overall - Very enjoyable, and probably the best GoT game I've ever played (though that isn't saying much).

Hmmm... There are two brontosaurus-like creatures on the smallish island I've made my noob base. I've been keeping out of their way as much as possible so don't know exactly what they are. I'll check tomorrow (assuming I play). Yeah, I'm thinking to make taming somewhat less time consuming. Resource gathering has seemed okay to me thus far, but we shall see. I did alter nighttime speed to '2.0', which I assume makes it pass twice as fast.

Speaking of taming, I came upon a beautiful red lvl 2 dodo and made it my first successful tame. Only, when it stood up after the taming it appeared to be stuck on a close by tree. I ended up having to crop the tree. I was as careful as I could be, but the dodo vanished with the tree. No death message, so not sure if it was a kill or a glitch.

ADDENDUM: Nope, my two are Brontos for sure. Attempted to take on a lvl 2 turtle thing that I figured would be an easy kill. Barely escaped its wrath, with broken bones and low health. Thought I was done for, but it gave up the chase as I forded a shallow inlet on the opposite side of my noob island. At last have a bed in place (the better one, with more than one use) so can be a bit more adventurous. Increased taming speed, but haven't had a chance to try it out. Does anyone know how to get rid of stucture-decay-over-time (or whatever its called)??? A fellow mentioned doing so in an LP episode but failed to explain how he did it. Seems legit to do so in single-player, where one doesn't have to worry about lots of abandoned thatch dwellers littering the landscape and possibly blocking important item spawn points. Or am I wrong?

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Jun 27 2016, 02:42 PM

Not much happening for me game-wise. Played a bit more ARK last night. Came upon a beautifully patterned red and gray Parasaus near my island. Had three narcotics on hand, so hoped to tame it. Alas, I got in no more than two hits before it took off across the water and entered an island I don't yet dare set foot on. Speaking of which, I visited another land mass next to my island camp, thinking it relatively noob friendly. Almost the first thing I noticed was the corpse of a sarco! As I see it, if something's around that can kill one of those it's no place for me. End of expedition. Didn't do much more than that except collect thatch for and begin to build a noob dwelling. I had all but decided to forgo a constructed home for the time being, then learned engrams for several items that must be placed on floors rather than ground.

Setting NightSpeed to 2.0 is starting to seem too fast for me. I'm thinking to change it to 1.5.

In Minecraftia, the Autarch did little more than harvest timber and crops at the hill fort.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Jun 29 2016, 03:03 PM

Had an enjoyable ARK session earlier today. Was exploring a beach along one of several land masses next to my little island. Some distance away but not terribly far from home I spotted an almost solidly dark green female parasaur. Decided to try and knock it unconscious, expecting it to successfully flee as all previous attempts had. Flee it did, getting stock between a boulder and tree in the process. Brought it down via slingshot. Put lots of mejoberries in its inventory. Force fed it several of the few narcoberries I had on me. Ran back to camp to grab three vats of narcotics. Got killed by a mega piranha crossing over to my isle. Spawned back in base. (Hurray for beds!) Grabbed narcotics. Rushed back to the death site . . . less than a minute away . . . to claim my gear. Did so. Found a safer ford, crossed and returned to the still unconscious parasaur.

Put narcotics in its inventory. Force fed it one. Added more berries. Stood guard as taming progressed. Some time later realized I needed yet more narcotics. Ran back to base for my last three narcotic vats. Rushed back to the parasaur. Spent the rest of that night babysitting it during the tame. Broke to find water when I almost died of dehydration. Success at dawn! Attacked by dilo just after naming the parasaur . . . easy kill. Returned home with tamed parasaur. Attacked by dilo as we reached base. Easy kill, but every piece of clothing broke during battle. Repaired clothing. Parked parasaur next to the beginnings of my thatch abode. Harvested shrubs for berries and fiber. Leveled, increasing melee damage. Bought engram for a parasaur saddle. Parasaur leveled . . . increased its health. Noticed a beaver dam had materialized on my island very near the house! Grabbed hundreds of cementing pastes and some rare flowers from dam. Called it a session.

On a less positive note, the white supply drop that appeared twice at one corner of my island early on has not done so in a very long time. It's possible I altered something too near its drop point?

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Jul 1 2016, 11:47 AM

Heh, nothing compares to the feeling of triumph you get when you manage to tame your own dinosaur. The Parasaur was the first dino I tamed too. These days I tend to carry as much narcotics as I can, for just such an occasion as you described.

As for the supply drops, there shouldn't be anything that can interfere with them. They'll spawn even if you have buildings underneath them. It's probably just because the map is so huge and they're randomly generated, which makes repeated appearances quite infrequent.
I have a green supply drop near my house which seems to spawn every few minutes, and another that only rarely makes an appearance.

Ark is a great game! Especially when you consider that there is no story in the game and yet you are still entertained by everything there is to do.

Taming takes longer than expected but it is worth it. Dinos are necessary for the best experience.

Haven't played ARK since my last post, but . . .

I've lately been following an early ARK YouTube LP, in which the player never gets far before he dies, loses everything, and needs to begin afresh (discounting levels, skill-up, and learned engrams). By sheer coincidence the episode I reached just before bedtime last night finds him once again almost gearless, his four tamed dilos lost and with few gathered resources. That's par for the course. What's not is that the whole brief episode (less that 5m) takes place on what has become my island home! The LPer seems to like it as much as I do, and plans to make it his base of operations. Sadly, he instead terminates the LP in frustration, with no further episodes. But at least you can see a bit of where I live, including the large rock under whose arch I have begun to construct my dwelling. My isle doesn't look quite like what you see in the LP, as I've stripped it of almost all trees (few of which have respawned yet), rocks other than the arch, and many shrubs (which thankfully regrow fairly quickly).


Good to know about the supply drop. Some further away seem to materialize almost every evening, or at least every other evening. I don't yet feel myself strong enough to reach them. Wish I had been able to tame the red & gray parasaur. It would have made a nice companion for the green. I don't recall its sex, if I ever knew. (The green is female.)


I halved taming speed, and am content with it at that setting for now. Still takes a long time. Even my lvl 16 (or was it 19?) parasaur took the better part of one ARK day and all that night to tame. Admittedly, I also shortened nights somewhat, that's still quite a bit of time. (Those are the only two settings I tampered with.) Yeah, I see taming as a one of the main draws of the game. I'd love have a flier, but suspect that's gonna be difficult in single player. Not sure it's worth attempting until I can craft a bow and narc arrows, neither of which engrams I have.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Jul 1 2016, 01:54 PM

I understand frustration. I ragequit playing PVP/PVE Ark because it is annoying to go to bed after building your base for 3 hours just to log in and find that alpha gamers came through and leveled your base (even a stone base can be leveled by a high level dino in a few minutes) because they didn't want competition near them.

Now I basically only play a private game that my brother and I have been playing on.

Today I experienced three steps backward for ever step forward. Started well enough, with me exploring further along the shoreline of the beach on when I tamed the parasaur. A white supply drop appears out that way from time to time. Wanted to see if I can reach it in relative safety. Turns out to be in the water between the conjunction of three land masses. That water is risky but in-and-of-itself not a deal breaker. What was was the huge predator that chased a herbivore to the drop and did battle there. I watched until the battle ended and the predator wandered off safe distance. Stepped into the water. The drop vanished. No biggie.

I'd been killing animals and collecting resources the whole way. Had amassed a very decent supply of meet and other goods. Saw a lone dilo. Decided to give battle. Mistake. Turns out it wasn't alone. I died. Not I big deal, I thought. Not terribly far from home. I'd respawn at base, grab two spears, rush back to the death site and reclaim my goods. Had ample time to do so.

Only, not only was my corpse gone, understandable under the circumstance, but my inventory pack was nowhere to be found. I searched and searched. No go. Then, still searching, that huge predator appeared not 20 yards away running toward me from across the water. Needless to say, I died. At this point I realized I wasn't going to get my goods back, if they still existed. Not with that predator roaming about. It was quite a setback, but not insurmountable. Worst was the pelts I lost . . . which would have given me enough for a parasaur sattle. Plus, I lost my reserve clothing set.

Spent some time remaking things and gathering meet. That done I decided to check out the beaver dam right behind my abode before heading out for more adventures. Nothing new in the dam.A nearby beaver attacked me, my first beaver encounter. I hoped for and quick and easy kill. It was . . . for the beaver. It killed me in nothing flat. No biggie. My corpse would be all of five seconds from my spawn bed.

It wasn't, nor were my goods. I looked and looked. Nothing. Zilch. I looked well into evening, admitting defeat when I began to starve without having collected anything to feed myself. Now I was in a bind. Those two total inventory losses greatly diminished many resources. What's more, I now had no more backup clothes. Those clothed had come from supply drops. Because of that I'd never bothered to learn engrams for three clothing pieces (hat, hands, feet). Hoped to avoid buying those engrams but instead wait and get the higher tier set. No chance for that now. I of course bought the missing engrams but would much rather have spent them elsewhere.

Spent the rest of my ARK day replenishing some of the many lost resources. Near the end I came upon a trike stuck between trees. Brought it down via slingshot. Filled it with the berries on-hand, force fed it a few narcoberries, ran back home for narcotic vats. Spent a long time attempting to tame the trike. Finally realized I would not succeed with available taming supplies, emptied the trike's inventory, and called it a loss. Returned to base. Put away remaining narcotics and gather supplies. Called it quits.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Jul 2 2016, 02:33 AM

I've been playing Tree of Savior, a free-to-play Japanese MMO.

So far so fun. The art style is absolutely gorgeous, with really nice background art and super cute character design. The soundtrack is pretty good too.

Gameplay-wise it plays really well. I'm using an xbox controller and the support for it is great, I didn't have to map all the keys manually which is a huge bonus. Combat is pretty simple and fun, though mobs tend to respawn really quickly, so you often end up getting a bit too close for comfort when something appears right on top of you.

The game has a really good class system too. You start off as one of four basic classes (Archer, Cleric, Swordsman, Wizard), and you can then move up a sort of class tree as you level up. I started as an archer, and I'll eventually be able to move on to classes like Hunter, Fletcher, or Schwarzer Reiter. Each class tree has at least 12 classes to it, so you can really go with whatever style you prefer.

I've only played a couple of hours so far, but I'll definitely be playing more.

Tree of Savior sounds interesting. I like the idea of a game based on Lithuanian mythology. But unfortunately its an mmo. Too bad...

I spent the afternoon getting the latest version of Morroblivion installed and gave it a whirl. But it was CTD'ing about every 5 minutes, so that did not last long. So instead I spent some time with Persephone's Oblivion game.

Spent almost the whole of my ARK time on the mundane task of gathering basic resources: wood, thatch, fiber, stone, flint, a small amount of metal and so on. In this I was somewhat more adventurous than in the past, braving a section of the dense jungle-forest to the immediate east of my little island home to strip it of those resources. To my surprise, I found not one (or more than one) hostile creature lurking there. I also unearthed a small stone ruin. Took my tame Parasaur along to increase the amount of goods I can gather before having to return home. Spent the entirety of three ARK days gathering, using nighttimes to stow items in my various chests. If I make this a habit I'm gonna need to return nighttime speed from 1.5 to its default setting of 1.0, as the current setting doesn't let me put stash everything before daylight.

I've mixed feelings about my chosen home. On the plus side, it's a nice noob location in that no hostile creatures spawn there save an occasional dilo. It's also one of only a very few spots on the map where beavers spawn. And the 'scary looking' island across the water turns out to be one of the best places on the map for a certain resource, I forget which, maybe metal? Not very important to me at the moment but will be later on.

On the down side, the water surrounding the isle is inhabited by mega piranha, which are native to the area and thus always a risk. After some levels those will likely become inconsequential, but I ain't there yet. Also, all land masses in the immediate vicinity are covered by dense jungle-forests in which all sorts of dangerous critters might lurk. As I progress this will become less restrictive but for now it keeps me pretty much confined to narrow strips of open land along various shorelines. None of these negatives means I'll move my base any time soon, but I understand there's a very nice base location not far east. I attempted to visit there yesterday (earth time) but ran into hostiles I couldn't deal with and had to abandon the quest.

Hit level 15! Bought engrams for upgraded chest and leg protection. Am still deciding on the rest. Lots of good stuff. Can't afford it all, not even close.

No deaths or near deaths. That might occur next session as I'm running low on meet, and need more hides.

I really enjoy quietly following the adventures and trials of such intrepid gamers here as Decrepit, hazmick and SubRosa as you all share differing games here. Living among and taming dinosaurs sounds amazing!

I've been on Ark myself today, for the first time since ~March. The first order of business was tracking down some of the new creatures - particularly the Whooly Rhinos and Diplodocus. They look awesome!

Second order of business was moving house. I was living in a small cottage that sat atop a very steep hill. It was nice, but didn't have much land around it which I could use. I found a large area sandwiched between two cliffs, overlooking a lake, which is much better. I've built a small stone cottage, and surrounded the immediate area with walls. A second area next to that has also been walled off and will act as a paddock for tamed beasties to wander around in.

There aren't any predators in the area, and a whole load of herbivores, so it's absolutely ideal. I did spot a Spinosaurus down by the lake but she wandered off after eating her fill of fish.

Took some screenies:

Birds eye view. The section on the left is where my house is, and where I'll be planting crops in the future. The section on the right is the paddock, and to the right of that is a large open area that's home to about half a dozen different species.

Workshop and cottage.

The lake. Home to 3 different fish species, and where I get my water.

A new ride.

Another earth day of resource gathering, to which was added taming. Tamed four colorful dodos, one of which disappeared while I was away harvesting. Tamed a trike, now my beast of burden on gathering expeditions. With him in tow I am able to stay in the field collecting resources from dawn until dusk without needing to return to base and stow things. Course I do that during the night, a pain in the rump. At some point I need to design a special 'receiving station' set up so that I can park my pack animal and be able to access all chests without having to be out of animal inventory range. Can't ride the trike yet. Think its saddle is available at lvl 25???? Wish mine was a higher level trike, but found it stuck between trees, making bringing it down via slingshot a breeze. Couldn't pass that up. Even with taming speed doubled its tame took a very long time. (My only game alterations remain changing taming speed for 1.0 to 2.0 and nighttime speed from 1.0 to 1.5. (Originally 2.0, but I found that too fast.).)

Had my first raptor encounter. Darn thing got the drop on me while harvesting. Miracle of miracles I survived, by a thread. My health was so low you couldn't tell I had any. Three pieces of clothing broke. Was down to my last spear. Had to stand in place for some time afterward recovering before risking the walk home. Wouldn't ya know it? Once on my supposedly safe island I got jumped by a herd of tiny predators. Thankfully the spear held up, letting me take 'em out without dropping below half health.

Braved a forest to the immediate west to reach a white supply drop. It had the same items the previous two did, a full set of noob clothes and a noob pants blueprint. Fine by me, they make nice backups. Braved those same woods later for what proved to be a blue drop, which I'm not qualified to access. Sadly, the only green drops I've noticed are far in the distance, too far for comfort at my level.

@hazmich: Nice abode you have there! A far shot better than mine, which is nothing more than some wood and thatch foundations, a few walls, lots of storage chests, a fire, a mortar and pestle, a bed and...and...nothing more I guess. Am thinking to buy the engrams for stone walls to fence off an area for my animals. Also thinking about farming, but will prolly hold off on that until in the 20s.


ADDENDUM: Holy Crappoly!!!!! Decided to attempt reaching the green drop that occasionally spawns evenings to the west northwest of my island home. Crossed the water without incident. Entered the jungle. Traveled some little way without incident. Then, all of a sudden, was jumped by a raptor or carno. Iomehow bested it, but was down to a mere sliver of heath. Had a few stimberries on me, which provided just enough healing to pull thru. Good thing too, coz a flock (?) of insects attacked in the darkness. I somehow destroyed them, and finished recovering. At last felt well enough to light a torch, I saw the corpse of a bloody bronto immediately above me! Looted it for a trophy, stepped away, saw a T-Rex not 20 yards away!!!!! It was not looking my direction at the time. You can bet I didn't hang around long enough to give it a chance to. Off I went through the jungle, lost, making my best guess as to where home was. Ran into a spitter, a normally easy battle, except it was still dark and I fought blind. That out of the way I resumed my trek, not long afterward climbing a hill to see my island at medium distance in the direction I'd been traveling. No problems from then until arriving home, helped by growing daylight.

I attempted the same drop several nights later with similar results. No more green drop runs for me, not any time soon.

Can at last complete my next-tier armor set. That'll hopeful help survivability, though not enough to brave another green drop run.

Am getting ideas on how to modify my base for better usage, though it means demolishing much already in place. We shall see.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Jul 6 2016, 11:54 PM

Oh yeah, insects are the main threat in forests. You can never see them coming, and they just swarm all over you. A good trick to remember is that they're attracted to corpses, the bronto you saw was probably what drew them in.


I decided to try my hand at breeding Trikes last night. First task was to find and tame a Dimetrodon, which are invaluable at maintaining comfortable temperatures for other dinos and players (and eggs). I'm restricting myself to only use certain technology, which doesn't include anything that utilizes electricity - namely air conditioners which are usually used in breeding.

Managed to find a Dime in the swamps to the south, tamed it without issue only for it to be devoured by a swarm of Megapiranha before it could get out of the water. No matter, try again...3 times this happened before I finally got a tamed Dime on land. Unfortunately I couldn't pick it up with my Argentavis (eagle) so I'd have to walk home. Got about half way and accidentally got too close to a Direbear - killed me and my eagle quite quickly. I spawned at home and ran all the way to my previous location to retrieve my gear and Dimetrodon, and finally got it back home.

The rest of the breeding process was pretty simple. I tinkered with the settings to make it take as little time as possible, but I was still standing around for quite a while. Finally hatched a little male Trike, and now I'm waiting for it to mature. Again, the process has been shortened as much as possible but it looks like it'll take another 9+ hours of constant monitoring before he's all grown up. Regardless of the time, it's very exciting and I'm very pleased with it all.

Newborn Trike - No taller than a blade of grass!

With mother for scale. No wonder he needs to eat so many berries to grow.

A juvenile, 3 real-time hours after birth. Already the same height as me, and cute as a bug.

Not a lot to report, ARK wise. My biggest scare occurred not within the game but while launching it. As I entered the world the game froze, then began to progress as what I'd guess to be something like a frame every 20 seconds. Turns out the entire computer was affected by the slowness. Took forever to bring up Task Manager and shut down the game, which was listed as not responding. Next launch went smoothly, and the borked launch didn't harm my save.

Decided to dispose of a beaver guarding the dam immediately to the rear of my abode. Last time I battled one it demolished me in nothing flat. But that was some levels ago. I've better armor now. The beaver in question was only level four. The bloody thing annihilated me. Not even close. My one saving grace, and it's an important one, is that unlike last time I was able to find my corpse and reclaim my goods. (I chopped up my corpse afterward for the meat.)

Otherwise I did little more than place a few wood walls and add several large chests to the house. I'm finally beginning to collect eggs from my tame dodos. Store them on my parasaur, where they last very much longer before spoiling.

Still not sure what to invest my engram points on. So much good stuff, and never enough points to get it all. Sort of wish I'd waited to invest in a trike saddle, as I don't expect to have enough hides any time soon.

Another slight game modification. I enabled the crosshair after acquiring a bow. I'm not always a fan of crosshairs, but like its presence here.

Also little to report here. Spent all day downloading an update - the Xbox version now has the Redwood Forest biome and Titanosaurs!

Tamed a new eagle an flew over to inspect the new biome. It looks incredible, and I'm thinking about building a little treehouse or something when I have the time. The update also added ruins that are dotted around the landscape, which look really cool. Found some ruins in the forest that gave off a very 'Amon Hen' (from LOTR) feel.

Didn't manage to spot a Titanosaur though, and it began to rain heavily so I returned home to continue babysitting the Trike. He's an Adolescent now, and should be fully grown in 2-3 hours.

An enjoyable if unsuccessful adventure yesterday evening. Attempted a nighttime green supply drop. Managed to reach this one, to find its 'crate' perched atop a large non climbable harvestable boulder. Destroyed boulder. Crate now floating in air, just out of reach. Could activate its menu at the highpoint of jumps, but unable to select the open option. It finally despawned. Realized after-the-fact I 'might' have been able to open the crate had I build a platform immediately beneath it. Should I attempt that run again I'll carry a wood foundation with me. (I'd make a special run to install one beforehand, but am not sure of the exact touchdown location.

Returning home, now daylight, crossing a sizable stretch of water, came upon my very first successful tame attempt, a low level Dodo. Thought it had died when I cropped away the tree on which it was stuck. How it came to be where I found it I don't know. Was able to bring it home and add it to my growing Dodo herd.