Discovery World Mod Guide

Discovery World is a large content mod for ARK: Survival Ascended (CurseForge ID 938805). It adds more than sixty creatures that spawn in the wild, among them Tek, Skeletal, Flowering, Volcano and Ghost forms of familiar animals, together with Tek weapons, two buildable machines and a long list of base structures. Our database holds 141 creature entries and 214 items from the mod, along with 176 engram entries.

Before you start

• Who maintains it: Elly made the mod. Hypernatrema took it over on 8 June 2025, and since 2 October 2026 SYNTAXUNKN0WN handles updates and bug fixes. Support and announcements run through the current developer's Discord, linked from the CurseForge page.
• Natural spawns: the CurseForge page says every creature in the mod spawns on its own in the wild. You do not need to summon them.
• Going back to vanilla: the Discovery Transform Pistol (engram level 1) turns a Discovery creature into its vanilla counterpart.
• Alphas and boss: the CurseForge page lists the Ghost creatures as the mod's alphas and marks them untamable. The Summoner is the mod's boss.

The creature families

Much of the roster comes in themed families, and most families share one taming food (see the next section).

The rest of our creature list: Andrewsarchus, Amargasaurus, Astrodelphis, Candy Golem, Deinonychus, Desmodus, Dinopithecus, Discovery Gacha, Discovery Gasbags, Discovery Phoenix, Discovery Reaper, Discovery Rock Drake, Elephant, Ferox, Firelight, Griffin, Grimasaurous, Ice Elemental, IceWorm, Magmasaur, Maewing, Brain Slug, Pig, Poisonous, Schizomida, Shadowmane, Shieldhorn, Sinomacrops, Snow Griffin, Tropeognathus, Turkey, Whale and Wolf. The DodoRex and DodoWyvern are in as well, with base health of 80,000 and 666,666 in our data.

Taming foods

Many Discovery creatures want a special food. The mod labels each one with the creature it is for, and our creature data lists the same food for those creatures. The recipes below come from our item data.

Several recipes are built on vanilla dishes (Shadow Steak Saute, Enduro Stew, Battle Tartare, Lazarus Chowder, Sweet Vegetable Cake), and Pizza needs Wyvern Milk, so plan those ingredients before a tame.

The Summoner and its minions

The Summoner is the mod's boss. You call it with the Summoner Spawner, which unlocks at engram level 99. Its recipe takes one Alpha Broodmother Trophy, one Alpha Megapithecus Trophy and one Alpha Dragon Trophy. In our data the Summoner has 250,000 base health.

Our database also has a set of entries filed under the Summoner's minions in the mod's files. The ground set includes an Allo, Argent, Arthro, Basilisk, Carno, Mantis, Raptor, Rex, Snow Owl, Spiney Lizard, Spino, Vulture and Yutyrannus, plus Snow Griffin and Discovery and Zombie wyvern versions. The water set includes an Angler, Baryonyx, Cnidaria, Dunkle, Eel, Liopleurodon, Manta, Megalodon, Mosa, Piranha, Plesiosaur, Sarco, Tusoteuthis and a Tek Mosasaurus.

Meks and Stryders

The mod adds two machines, the Mek and the Stryder. The Unassembled Mek and Unassembled Strider items each build a new one when used.

Mek modules

• Discovery World M.D.S.M.: deploys a large dome shield.
• Discovery World M.R.L.M.: a swarm-fire rocket launcher. It fires Discovery World Rocket Pods (engram level 95), with 16 rockets in each pod.
• Discovery World M.S.C.M.: a long-range siege cannon. It fires Discovery World Cannon Shells (engram level 97).
• Discovery World M.O.M.I.: lets Meks combine into a MegaMek. It needs three more Meks nearby and only works within range of the Alpha King Titan.

Unequipping a module costs it durability, so pick a loadout and keep it.

Stryder rigs

• Excavation Rig: mines valuable resources such as stone and metal, and can link to a Tek Dedicated Box.
• Resource Attractor Rig: pulls in resources from mining drills and cuts inventory weight sharply.
• Phase Cannon Rig: fires heavy plasma blasts.
• Shield Generator Rig and Shield Projector Rig: a full bubble or a one-direction force field.

Tek weapons and gear

• Tek Sword: when infused with Element it cuts through metal and armor, and it has a charge attack.
• Tek Shield: blocks damage from the front. With Element it sends blocked bullets and projectiles back at the shooter.
• Tek Bow: prints high-velocity explosive arrows from Element Shards and can also shoot other arrows. Normal Explosive Arrows take 40 Gunpowder, 15 Fiber, 4 Metal Ingot, 1 Cementing Paste and 1 Polymer.
• Tek Phase Pistol: plasma beams of different strengths, paid for with Element.
• Tek Canteen: holds three times the water of a normal canteen and can cool it.
• Tek Grenade Launcher: listed on the CurseForge page with the other Tek items.

Saddles worth knowing

• Andrewsarchus Saddle (level 74): has a mounted minigun that fires advanced rifle ammo.
• Tropeognathus Saddle (level 65): carries a grenade cannon and a gasoline jet engine.
• Magmasaur Saddle (level 95): shields the rider from extreme heat.
• Astrodelphis Starwing Saddle: lets you pilot the Astrodelphis and fire plasma shots, and it scales with the creature's strength.
• Amargasaurus Saddle (level 55): needs six Amargasaurus Spikes. A spike placed in a Sap Tap also speeds up and increases its output.
• Wyvern Stone, Griffin Stone and Reaper Stone (levels 70, 60 and 93): armor pieces that raise the defense of those creatures.

Other saddles in the mod cover the Deinonychus (32), Maewing (19), Wolf (37), Pig (59), Elephant (66), Desmodus (74) and Whale.

Structures

A big part of the mod is base gear: compact versions of vanilla stations, resource extractors and quality-of-life helpers. Levels are the engram levels in our data.

The Tek side has no level listed in our data: the Tek Forge (bulk refining on Element), the Mini Replicator (needs Element and the Tek engram), the Element Extractor, Tek Refrigerator, Tek Storage, Tek Light, Tek Sensor, Tek Crop Plot, Tek glass walls and ceilings, and the Medium and Mini Cloning Chamber.

Tips

• Learn the taming food for each family before you hunt. Spare Ribs, Calcium, Jack Daniels and Element Liquid each cover a whole family.
• Stock Element early. Element Liquid, the Tek weapons and the Unassembled Mek and Strider all use it.
• Keep an Alpha Broodmother, Alpha Megapithecus and Alpha Dragon Trophy for the Summoner Spawner.
• Plan your power: the Air Conditioner and Egg Incubator need electricity, and the Mini Forge and Power Generator burn gasoline.
• The mod is still updated. If something here does not match your game, check its CurseForge changelog.

Every creature, item and engram of the mod is listed on its mod page, with spawn commands.