Adobe Pillar

Adobe support from the ground up

Adobe Pillars give support to whatever is built on them, in both ARK: Survival Evolved and ARK: Survival Ascended. The ARK Wiki describes a pillar as a foundation in stackable form. The in-game text: "The adobe pillar adds structural integrity to the area it is built under. Can also act as stilts for buildings on inclines." Scorched Earth introduced it, and the wiki also lists it on Valguero, Fjordur, Ragnarok, Lost Island, Genesis: Part 2 and Crystal Isles.

Unlocking and crafting a pillar

The engram unlocks at level 17 for 8 engram points, and crafting also needs level 17. Pillars are made in the inventory, take 3 seconds each and give 3.8 XP. One costs:

• 40 Clay
• 20 Wood or Fungal Wood
• 10 Thatch

A pillar weighs 4 and stacks to 100, so a full stack weighs 400. Our records count 58 loot crates that can contain one, for example the Astraeos Desert Blue and Purple crates and the Genesis Blue and Cyan crates on Genesis Part 2.

Placing and stacking

A pillar can stand on flat or slightly uneven ground, or attach to the top or underside of foundations, ceilings and other pillars. Once the first is down, further pillars snap above or below it where there is room. A column of pillars that reaches the ground and has a ceiling on top counts as a foundation, and you can keep building on it.

From one pillar, ceilings can reach 2 pieces out in each straight direction and 1 piece out diagonally, not counting the center one; the wiki's diagram counts 13 supported ceilings in total. Walls cannot go on the outermost ceilings unless something else supports them from below.

Things to watch for

• Support only counts if the pillar is snapped to the piece it should hold; standing underneath is not enough. Reinforcing an existing building therefore means working from the top down.
• When a pillar is destroyed, the pieces that depend on it are destroyed too, and a demolished pillar refunds nothing for those extra pieces.
• Bridges are a common use: start with a foundation, run 2 ceilings out, add pillars under the second ceiling down to the ground, then repeat.
• Ladders can be fixed to pillars, which makes tall, narrow towers possible.
• A pillar snapped to an existing ceiling pokes through it. Covering all the pillars with a new ceiling layer and then demolishing the lower ceilings hides this.