Element

Fuel and building block of the Tek Tier

Element is the advanced resource at the heart of the Tek Tier in ARK: Survival Evolved and ARK: Survival Ascended. It is a main ingredient of Tek armor and saddles, it fuels Tek structures and serves as ammunition for Tek weapons, and it can be turned into Element Shards for structures that run on those. The in-game text reads: "A strange, highly advanced material humming with energy. It dissolves when transferred across ARKs." In practice that means it cannot be moved between official servers or clusters.

Ways to obtain it

• Bosses: most bosses carry Element in their inventory when killed, more on higher difficulties, and the harvesting tool does not change the amount. Take it quickly, as it is gone after the teleport out of the arena. The ARK Wiki lists the Overseer, Moeder, the Corrupted Master Controller and the Titans as leaving none, plus Rockwell and Rockwell Prime in ASE; in ASA, Rockwell does give Element.
• Element Shard: 100 shards combine into one Element. Farming shards on Genesis or Crystal Isles and converting them is described as the most efficient method.
• Red Element: the Lost Colony fight pays out Red Element, and each one breaks down into two Element.
• Extinction: defending the Element Nodes that appear around the Wasteland can pay out Element, and Unstable Element (unlocked at level 58, made from 1000 Element Dust) turns into regular Element after a 2 minute timer.
• Aberration: a Charge Node forges it from Gem, Charge Batteries and Element Ore; counting battery and node recharge, that comes to 3 Element every 43 minutes.
• Genesis: HLN-A sells one Element for 2,000 Hexagon, and supply crates on Genesis: Part 2 hold small amounts.

Our records also count 104 crate types that can contain Element, such as the Broodmother Easy, Medium and Hard drops, the Beyla crate and the Astraeos Orbital Legendary.

What it is spent on

Our records count 71 recipes that use Element in ASA and 86 in ASE. A few examples from that list:

• 20 for each Tek armor piece, such as the Tek Chestpiece, Tek Gauntlets and Tek Leggings, and the same for every Federation Exo piece and the M.O.M.I.
• 30 for the M.S.C.M., and in ASE also for the M.D.S.M.
• 55 for the Megalodon, Mosasaur and Tapejara Tek Saddle, 75 for the Rock Drake Tek Saddle; the ASE list also has the Rex Tek Saddle at 40 and the Astrocetus Tek Saddle at 82.
• 40 for the Mjolnir Skin, and in ASA 20 for each piece of Cursed Tek armor.

It can also be broken down into Element Dust, at an 80% loss.

Weight and crafting notes

At 0.01 per unit, a full stack of 100 weighs just 1, so Element barely adds to your load. The ARK Wiki names the Charge Node, Tek Replicator and Exo-Mek as places where it is crafted, and our ASE record gives the conversion a crafting time of 30 seconds.