Wooden Tree Platform

Building up in the trees

This platform is called the Wood Tree Platform in ARK: Survival Ascended and the Wooden Tree Platform in ARK: Survival Evolved. The in-game text sums it up: "Attaches to a large tree, enabling you to build on it!" The platform itself is a 12-sided structure.

Where it can be attached

The ARK Wiki limits it to the largest trees: those of the Redwood Forest biome; on Ragnarok, the big lake trees and the hexagonal cliffs near the lighthouse; and on Valguero, the giant jungle and the aberration biome. The wiki also says it cannot be used on Aberration or Extinction, and for Aberration it suggests a Metal Cliff Platform on cliffs instead.

Each suitable tree has two snap points, and both can hold a platform, which allows a tree house of two stories, or a floor with a ceiling above it.

Getting it in place

The lower snap point is high above the ground. Players either build walls and a ladder next to the tree to reach it or use a flying mount; any flyer works, and the platform can be placed straight from the saddle. Placing it on foot from the ground sometimes works as well, but a platform misplaced this way cannot be picked up again.

The deck has no snap points of its own, so walls and ladders will not attach to it, and lining things up neatly has to be done by hand. Anything placeable on the ground can go on it, however: a Wooden Foundation or Wooden Fence Foundation lets you start walls, and crafting stations such as the Smithy or Refining Forge, chests and a Preserving Bin can sit directly on the deck.

Engram, recipe and durability

The engram unlocks at level 33 for 28 engram points, with the Wooden Foundation, Wooden Ceiling and Wooden Wall as prerequisites. A Smithy, a Tek Replicator, an Exo-Mek and the Argentavis, Castoroides and Thorny Dragon saddles can craft it, according to the wiki. A craft takes 3 seconds and gives 0.498 XP:

• 1600 Wood or Fungal Wood
• 600 Cementing Paste or Achatina Paste
• 600 Fiber
• 200 Metal Ingot or Scrap Metal Ingot

A platform weighs 90 and has a stack size of 1. Our records count 27 crate types that can contain one, for example the Aberration Blue and Aberration Green crates and their bonus versions. As a wooden structure it is safe from non-explosive ranged attacks, stone weapons and bare hands, and the wiki names aggressive creatures that cannot damage it either, the Raptor, Direwolf, Sabertooth and Titanoboa among them. It adds that the Magmasaur can damage wood even though it is listed as unable to.