C4 Charge
This advanced explosive can annihilate structures.
Details
- Category
- Ammunition
- Games
- ASE + ASA
- Expansion
- Base
- Recipe
- 7 ingredients
- Loot crates
- 80 crates
- Item ID
- 43
Engram
How you unlock it
- Required level
- 65
- Engram points
- 12
Learn these first
Maps
Found on 9 maps
Video guides: search YouTube for C4 Charge guides
How to craft C4 Charge
C4 Charge is crafted from 7 ingredients. The engram unlocks at level 65, costs 12 engram points, takes 5 seconds, gives 36.25 XP.
Ingredients
For one craft
Crafted in
Fabricator
Raw materials
If you craft every ingredient yourself
150Stone
60Flint
60Charcoal
60Chitin/Keratin
15Silica Pearls
10Obsidian
10MetalCrafted along the way: Gunpowder ×60, Sparkpowder ×60, Cementing Paste ×15, Polymer ×5, Electronics ×5, Metal Ingot ×5.
How to get C4 Charge
C4 Charge is found in 80 loot crates.
Loot crates
80 crates
- Aberration PurpleAberration and Valguero · ASA
- Aberration Purple BonusAberration and Valguero · ASA
- Aberration RedAberration, Valguero, and Crystal Isles · ASE
- Aberration Red BonusAberration, Valguero, and Crystal Isles · ASE
- Aberration Surface PurpleAberration · ASA
- Aberration Surface Purple BonusAberration · ASA
- Aberration Surface YellowAberration · ASA
- Aberration Surface Yellow BonusAberration · ASA
- Aberration YellowAberration and Valguero · ASA / ASE
- Aberration Yellow BonusAberration and Valguero · ASA / ASE
- Astraeos Desert RedAstraeos · ASA
- Astraeos Desert Red BonusAstraeos · ASA
Show all 80 crates
- Astraeos Desert YellowAstraeos · ASA
- Astraeos Desert Yellow BonusAstraeos · ASA
- Astraeos RedAstraeos · ASA
- Astraeos Red BonusAstraeos · ASA
- Astraeos YellowAstraeos · ASA
- Astraeos Yellow BonusAstraeos · ASA
- Astral MegalodonThe Island, Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, Lost Colony, The Center, Astraeos, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
- Astral MosasaurThe Island, Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, Lost Colony, The Center, Astraeos, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
- Astral Pulmonoscorpius RoyaltyThe Island, Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, Lost Colony, The Center, Astraeos, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
- Astral T-RexThe Island, Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, Lost Colony, The Center, Astraeos, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
- Astral TusoteuthisThe Island, Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, Lost Colony, The Center, Astraeos, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
- Fjordur RedFjordur · ASE
- Fjordur Red BonusFjordur · ASE
- Island Cave RedThe Island, The Center, Astraeos, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
- Island RedThe Island, The Center, and Ragnarok · ASA / ASE
- Island Red BonusThe Island and Ragnarok · ASA / ASE
- Island Swamp Cave RedThe Island, Ragnarok, Valguero, Lost Island, and Fjordur · ASE
- Island Underwater BlueThe Island and Astraeos · ASA
- Island Underwater RedThe Island and Astraeos · ASA
- Island Underwater YellowThe Island and Astraeos · ASA
- Island YellowThe Island, The Center, and Ragnarok · ASA
- Island Yellow BonusThe Island, The Center, and Ragnarok · ASA
- Lost Island RedLost Island · ASE
- Lost Island Red BonusLost Island · ASE
- Mission 'Bulbdog Fetch' HardGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Bulbdog Fetch' MediumGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Circuit Chase' HardGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Circuit Chase' MediumGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Downriver Run' HardGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Downriver Run' MediumGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Ferox Cull' HardGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Ferox Cull' MediumGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Maewing Poach' HardGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Maewing Poach' MediumGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Paracer Roundup' HardGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Paracer Roundup' MediumGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Shadowmane Prowl' HardGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Shadowmane Prowl' MediumGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Slide and Glide' HardGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Slide and Glide' MediumGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Slipstream Sweep' HardGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Slipstream Sweep' MediumGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Starwing Strike' HardGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Starwing Strike' MediumGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Team Downriver Run' HardGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Team Downriver Run' MediumGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Velonasaur Stalk' HardGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Mission 'Velonasaur Stalk' MediumGenesis Part 2 · ASE
- Outpost: Molten Works EasyLost Colony · ASA
- Outpost: Molten Works HardLost Colony · ASA
- Outpost: Molten Works MediumLost Colony · ASA
- Ragnarok Cave RedRagnarok · ASA
- Scorched Buried BlueThe Island, Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, Lost Colony, The Center, Astraeos, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
- Scorched Buried GreenThe Island, Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, Lost Colony, The Center, Astraeos, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
- Scorched Buried PurpleThe Island, Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, Lost Colony, The Center, Astraeos, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
- Scorched Buried RedThe Island, Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, Lost Colony, The Center, Astraeos, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
- Scorched Buried YellowThe Island, Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, Lost Colony, The Center, Astraeos, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
- Scorched RedScorched Earth, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA / ASE
- Scorched Red BonusScorched Earth, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA / ASE
- Scorched YellowScorched Earth, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
- Scorched Yellow BonusScorched Earth, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
- The Center RedThe Center · ASA
- The Center Red BonusThe Center · ASA
- Valguero RedValguero · ASA / ASE
- Valguero Red BonusValguero · ASA / ASE
- Valguero YellowValguero · ASA
- Valguero Yellow BonusValguero · ASA
- Wild BroodmotherThe Island, Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, Lost Colony, The Center, Astraeos, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
C4 Charge — Detailed Guide
An explosive that sticks
The C4 Charge is an explosive in ARK: Survival Evolved and ARK: Survival Ascended, described in-game as "This advanced explosive can annihilate structures." A thrown charge sticks to whatever it hits, survivors and creatures included, and goes off when triggered with the 
C4 Remote Detonator. One charge deals 1500 damage to a creature that wears no saddle.
The ARK Wiki rates C4 the first choice for raiding enemy bases; in PVP it calls it the most efficient tool for bringing structures down, thanks to its damage and blast radius. That radius also makes detonating it in confined spaces dangerous, and the charges only work once the attacker gets close enough to stick them on the target. Making them in large numbers is expensive.
Placing and detonating
- At most 50 charges can be placed at a time; placing more makes the oldest ones disappear.
- The remote triggers them from up to 50 foundations away.
- Exactly 2 charges destroy a metal door, and the wiki notes that placing and detonating them one at a time gives the most damage.
- Punching a placed charge sets it off, worth remembering if someone gets hold of the remote.
- Charges cannot be stuck to platform saddles, and they do no damage to Beehives.
Crafting C4 Charges
The engram unlocks at level 65 for 12 engram points; the 
Improvised Explosive Device is its prerequisite. Charges are crafted in a Fabricator or a 
Tek Replicator, and the wiki also lists the 
Exo-Mek. One charge takes:
- 60
Gunpowder - 50
Fiber - 10
Crystal (or 
Primal Crystal) - 5
Cementing Paste (or 
Achatina Paste) - 5
Hide - 5
Polymer (
Organic Polymer or 
Corrupted Nodule also work) - 5
Electronics
Crafting takes 5 seconds and gives 36.25 XP. According to the wiki, the most efficient run is 60 charges at once in a Fabricator on a single unit of 
Gasoline, using 3600 Gunpowder, 3000 Fiber, 600 Crystal and 300 each of Cementing Paste, Hide, Polymer and Electronics; that fills 68 of the Fabricator's 70 slots.
Weight and loot
A charge weighs 0.1 and they stack to 100, so a full stack weighs 10. Our records list it on 9 maps, among them The Island, Extinction and Astraeos, and 80 crate types can contain it, including the Aberration Purple and Red crates and the Aberration surface Purple crates.