Extinction Core Mod Guide (ASE)

Extinction Core is a large PvE overhaul for ARK: Survival Evolved (Steam mod ID 817096835). It fills the map with stronger Alpha, Prime, Apex and Tek creatures, hostile human tribes led by chieftains, roaming bosses and summoned Primordial beings, and gives you new tools to tame and fight them. Our database holds 582 creature entries and 550 items from the mod. The author has put the mod on indefinite hiatus, so expect no further updates. For the separate ARK: Survival Ascended remake, see our Extinction Core Ascended guide.

Before you start

• It is built to be hard: the mod was made to bring difficulty back to PvE. Players who wrote guides for it warn that you will die often, even after a week, and that no tame or base is ever completely safe.
• Bosses roam: big threats walk, fly and swim around the map, and some can break through Tek structures. A Tek Forcefield helps, but not against everything (an Apex Giganotosaurus gets through, for example).
• Pick a base site with care: a cave or high ground with only one way in on foot is the safest choice.
• Admins, two warnings: do not spawn Oblivion - Primordial Darkness unless you want to wipe the server. It cannot be force-tamed or killed without an admin command, and it kills every creature around it. Do not force-tame the Guardian Deities either: older builds corrupted save files that way, and later builds kill the tame on the spot.
• Hidden inventory: a guide notes a bug where your inventory looks empty, often after death. Hold the access key and pick the other inventory from the radial menu to reach your items.

Creature groups

Some Primes are worth taming for what they make. One guide says the Prime Shinehorn produces Aberration gems, the Prime Featherlight produces gas balls and the Prime Otter produces black and white pearls. Among the holiday creatures, the Unicorn makes dyes, the Yeti gives skins and the Easter Bunny makes Treats.

The Pygmy is a Jerboa variant that cannot be tamed but is worth killing. It comes in five colours, and each colour drops a different kind of loot: green drops resources and ammo, blue drops armor, cyan drops weapons, yellow drops saddles (including Alpha saddles), and red drops Prime resources and gems.

Taming and knockout

Taming food and tools

• Carnivore Treat and Herbivore Treat: one Treat instantly tames nearly any carnivore or herbivore in the mod. Bosses drop them, and the Easter Bunny makes them from a large stack of carrots over a few hours.
• Xeno Kibble: a high-affinity food that most creatures below the Alpha tier love. Players found it works better than normal kibble but poorly on Alphas. Prime and Alpha creatures drop it.
• Golden Kibble: the Alpha equivalent, made from ten each of Rockarrot, Longrass, Citronal and Savoroot. The Golden Dodo's golden egg also works on Alphas.
• Sedative: drives a creature to full torpor and empties its food bar, so a knocked-out tame keeps eating and finishes sooner. Used on your own tame, it puts the creature to sleep. Engram at level 60, crafted in the mod's Workbench.
• Opiate: lowers torpor and makes the creature hungrier. Give it narcotics right after, or it wakes up. It does not work on Alphas or very large creatures. Potent Opiate works only on Alphas.
• Detox: removes all torpor at once, with no drawbacks. Engram at level 60.
• Baby Food: Carnivore Baby Food (fish meat and Tintoberries) and Herbivore Baby Food (Amarberries and Azulberries) feed young tames and slightly heal adults. Both are level 2 engrams.
• Wild babies can be tamed passively, or knocked out and fed berries, vegetables, Treats or kibble.

Knocking creatures out

The Compound Bow is the mod's strongest tranquilizer weapon. Its Compound Tranquilizer Arrow, Compound Stun Arrow and Compound Fire Arrow unlock at level 80. The stun arrow freezes a creature for a few seconds and knocks most flyers out of the air, but it does not work on bosses. The mod also adds a Tranquilizer Spear, a Tranquilizer Pike for melee knockouts, a Shocking Tranquilizer Dart and a Tranq Spear Bolt for the harpoon gun. One guide's authors found a well-bred Dilophosaurus a strong knockout tame, able to put down even a DodoRex.

Helmets and disguises

• Alpha Carnivore Helmet and Alpha Herbivore Helmet: most Alpha carnivores or herbivores ignore you while you wear one, unless you attack them. That makes passive taming much safer. They drop from Apex creatures.
• Tribe hats: each colour's hat stops that tribe from attacking you, but the disguise fails when the chieftain or another tribe is near. Hats are crafted from a Call To Arms, Black Pearl, Fiber and Prime Hide.
• Call To Arms: makes a truce with all the tribes until their chieftain comes close.

Taming by force

Two special beasts are tamed by beating them into submission. The DodoBeast Feather makes a truce with DodoRexes, Dodo Wyverns and Zomdodos and lets you beat down the Tek Beast of Darkness. RhesusBeast Blood does the same with the ape family for the Tek Ultimate Bokito. In both fights only Primordial-tier creatures or better can deal damage.

Tribes and chieftains

The tribes are humans and creatures that are always hostile. Their mounts carry banners in the tribe's colour. By difficulty, the colours are Yellow, Green, Cyan, Red, Purple, Orange, Black, Brown, Blue and White. Ordinary tribesmen can be tamed and drop kibble, ammo, armor pieces and potions. Chieftains cannot be tamed.

Killing a chieftain gives unique dyes (each one has a Chieftain Dye Pack) and the engrams for the indestructible Prime armor of its tribe's type, from Burlap to Riot. Chieftain gear such as Krieg's Gas Mask, Eichorst's Shield, Blade of Tyrannus and Setrakian's Bow is also in the mod. Psycho, Supreme Warchief is also in the mod. One guide reports that two unboosted level 100 Alpha Rexes without saddles can usually beat a Cyan tribe and its chieftain at level 100.

Progression and bosses

Prime and Tek armor

Prime armor never breaks. The cloth, hide, fur, chitin, ghillie, flak, riot, desert and SCUBA sets all exist, and every Prime piece of one type has the same armor value. The Primal Tek creatures each unlock one Tek piece when killed:

Above these sits the Supreme Tek set, Psycho's own armor. It never breaks and has no Element cost, though it needs Element to activate.

Essences, matrices and saddles

Each boss mount has an Essence (Broodmother, DodoRex, DodoWyvern, Dragon, Megapithecus and Manticore Essence) that is needed for its saddle, and a Matrix that is needed to bind it to you. Craft the Primordial Matrix from one of each of the six boss matrices. Each boss mount also has an Improved saddle. One guide says the Guardian Deities have a 25% chance to drop one, at the time of the guide.

Summoning the Primordials

Build the Tek Totem (80 Element, 3,300 Metal Ingot, 350 Crystal, 120 Black Pearl, 160 Polymer), put the tribute materials in, and it summons a Primordial being. Each tribute needs one Primordial Matrix and the matching Improved saddle, along with:

On top of that, the tributes take Element and some boss parts.

The Alpha Reaper King can be raised to Primordial tier with Psycho's Offensive Gift and Psycho's Defensive Gift. Odracir, the Supreme Reaper King also lives in the mod, together with his Praetorians.

Items and stations

• Workbench: the mod's main crafting station, at level 45 (15 Metal Ingot, 150 Stone, 90 Wood, 60 Prime Hide, 30 Obsidian).
• Safe: a compact metal vault, at level 65.
• Industrial Forge: refines resources in bulk and runs on gasoline, at level 85.
• Tek Originator: combines materials and blueprints into the strongest items. It needs Element to run.
• Blood Vial, Fortitude Vial and Oxygen Vial: restore your creature's health or stamina in full, with a cooldown, or give it extra oxygen. All three are level 30 engrams.
• Experience potions: from Small to Huge, usable on yourself or a tame. The Supreme Experience Potion gives the most and works once an hour.
• Gems: Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire, Amethyst and Diamond drop from Alphas, and the type depends on the species. They go into high-end recipes.
• Prime resources: Prime Blood, Prime Hide, Prime Pelt and Prime Chitin or Keratin, used for the best items.
• Utility: the Grappling Hook for the crossbow, a reusable Parachute, the Climbing Pick and Glider engrams, and infinite-use Scissors.
• Costumes: Scion of Fire, Nature and Winter costumes for many vanilla creatures, Bionic and Apex costumes, and Omega costumes for the Broodmother, Dragon and Megapithecus. Omega costumes cannot be taken off again.

Tips

• Get an Alpha taming helmet early. Passive taming among Alphas is far safer with one.
• Keep a Sedative and a stack of narcotics ready for every long tame.
• Hunt Pygmies by colour for the loot you need.
• If your attacks do no damage, the target is above your weapon's tier. Bring a stronger tame instead.
• Kill Apex creatures for helmets, trophy packs, Element and Alpha saddles.
• Fish loot is improved in the mod, so fishing is worth your time.
• The mod is on hiatus and both guides used here are from 2018 to 2020. Check in game when a detail looks different.

Further reading: Extinction Core - mini poradnik on Steam (Polish) and Мод: Extinction core - ID on Steam (Russian).

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