Q+ ARK Viet Nam Mod Guide

Q+ ARK VIET NAM is a large creature overhaul for ARK: Survival Evolved (Steam mod ID 2798950531), made for the Vietnamese ARK community. Its Workshop page counts 18 creature tiers and more than 2,500 new creatures, over 100 structures, 40 bosses and more than 300 new materials. Our database holds 1,119 creature entries and 2,223 items from the main mod. The author warns that it is not meant for new players: its creatures are aggressive, they hunt you across the map, and they can break metal and Tek structures.

Before you start

• Development has stopped: the author says on the Workshop page that he can no longer work on the mod. He asks every server to add DisableCrashServer1=True under the [ArkVietNam] header in GameUserSettings.ini to prevent crashes.
• Expansions: the higher tiers are not in the main mod. The Workshop page says you need both Q+ ARK VIET NAM EXPANSION (2859800474) and Q+ PLUS EXPANSION (2874602715) to play them. Without the two, you only get the lower tiers.
• Maps: the creatures spawn on every map, Lost Island included. Wyverns appear everywhere, so a base on a mountain top is not safe from them.
• Base defence: the creatures can attack every kind of structure, Tek and Structures Plus included. The author names the Tek shield as the one thing that keeps them out.
• Starter kit: the Q+ Starter Pack Metal Tools gives a crossbow with arrows, the Q+ Multitool, Q+ Sickle and Q+ Poison Pike, plus a tamed Pteranodon with a saddle. It costs one Thatch.

The tiers

Only Alpha creatures are tamed in the normal way. Every tier above Alpha is reached by evolving a creature you already own, one step at a time. Wild creatures of those tiers are not tamed: you knock them out for the materials that evolution needs, and each tier gives its own. The table follows the order of the mod team's site.

The author's rule is that every fifth tier can breed, which is why Alpha, Infernal and Monster are the breeding tiers. The site's Trooper sheet also marks Trooper creatures as breedable, and lists a "Rare" version of each Trooper creature that only appears through breeding. In our database the Trooper, Neko and Venom creatures belong to Q+ PLUS EXPANSION, and some Trooper creatures carry a role in their name, such as Trooper Heal Direwolf, Trooper Defence Carnotaurus or Trooper Damage Arthropluera.

From the Elemental tier up, creatures have new skills on the X, Z, Q, R and Left Ctrl keys. A Daeodon of the Infernal tier or higher can also heal the creatures around it with Alt + A.

Evolution

Evolution runs on kits. The site lists one kit per species for each step, so an Alpha Rex needs the Rex kit of the Alpha-to-Exalted step, not a general one. The recipes are shown in the evolution machine, and the tier materials for them come from knocking out wild creatures of the higher tiers (see the table above). Those materials are per species too: knocking out an Exalted Allosaurus gives Allosaurus DNA, and an Infernal Argentavis gives an Argentavis Tooth.

1. Craft the right kit for your creature and its current tier.
2. Put the kit in the creature's inventory, and nothing you want to keep.
3. Ride it and press Ctrl + X.

Everything left in the creature's inventory is lost when it evolves. The kits go Alpha to Exalted, Exalted to Toxic and so on up to Lion to KED. The last three are listed apart: a Trooper kit, then Trooper to Neko and Neko to Venom. The site does not say which tier the Trooper kit starts from.

Taming, knockout and drops

Alpha creatures

The Alpha tier is where every line starts: the site's Alpha sheet lists more than a hundred tameable species, from Achatina and Allosaurus to the Alpha Phoenix and Yutyrannus. Random Alpha eggs also spawn across the map, at up to 300 an hour with a cap of 400 on the map at once. A tamed Turkey set to wander lays them in its inventory, about one an hour.

Knockout tools

Every tier has its own tranquilizer dart and its own Narcotic. The Q+ Alpha Tranq Dart, for example, takes one Alpha Narcotic, one Tranq Dart and one Simple Rifle Bullet. Many tiers also have a tranq grenade and a rocket tranq, the first tiers have tranq arrows, and there are a Q+ Tranq Bola and a Q+ Tranq Sniper Rifle. The torpor of each dart is a server setting, and the defaults climb steeply:

If you just want a creature dead, the FAQ points to the Q+ Fire Arrow, which drains 20% of the target's health over 10 seconds.

Debuffs and auras

Wild Q+ creatures put debuffs on you and your tames. Players protect themselves with a Q+ Quiver, made in the Q+ Factory. Tamed creatures wear an aura, such as the Q+ Aura of Elemental or Q+ Aura of Night King. A higher tier needs the aura of its own tier.

Tier drops

Each tier has its own Blood, Heart, Hide and Kibble (Q+ Alpha Blood, Q+ Exalted Heart and so on), and most tiers have their own Leather, Fabric and Silk for gear. Kibble and Q+ Bread are made in the Q+ Cauldron. The author says every kibble is made from crops: the Q+ Alpha Kibble takes ten each of Lemon, Corn, Apple and Dodo Eggs, plus one Bread and one Alpha Heart.

Wyverns and babies

• Higher-tier wyverns do not spawn in the wild. The FAQ says they appear when you kill a wyvern of the tier below: kill a Shadow Blood Wyvern to get a Legend Blood Wyvern. The settings sheet lists this behind DisableSpawnOnDeath, which is True by default, so a server has to set it to False.
• Alpha Wyvern babies drink Alpha Wyvern Milk, and Rock Drake babies eat Nameless Venom.

Bosses and Dragon Balls

Bosses are summoned at the Q+ Summon Boss, which unlocks at level 90 and costs 5,000 Metal Ingots, 4,000 Obsidian and 5,000 Crystal. Crafting a boss blueprint there opens a portal, and the boss arrives 30 seconds later. A tribe can own three of them by default.

• Alpha to Night King: each tier has a Broodmother, Crystal Balrog, Crystal Wyvern Queen, Demon, Dinopithecus King, Harpy and Ice Giant.
• Shadow to Fear: an Ice Giant for each tier.
• Dominus and Lions: a Dire Bear boss, listed in our database as the Angry Mother Bear.
• KED and Trooper: a Spinosaurus boss each. Neko: a Thorny Dragon boss.
• World bosses: the site lists the War Dire Bear, War Dragon, War Horse, War Karkinos, War Mammoth and War Wolf.

Q+ bosses drop Q+ Dragon Balls. Most tiers have their own ball, from the Q+ Toxic Dragon Ball to the Q+ Neko Dragonball. They are crafting parts for late items. The Q+ Aura of Elemental needs a Toxic Dragon Ball, and the expansion stations (Q+ Alchemy Expansion, Q+ Cauldron Expansion, Q+ Evolution Expansion and Q+ Factory Expansion) each need a Fear Dragon Ball. Killing the Infernal boss also unlocks the Element, Mutagen and Alpha Wyvern Milk seeds.

Stations, resources and seeds

Three structures carry the mod. Build them first:

The author stresses that Metal is central to the mod, because so much of the Factory's output starts from it. The Workshop builds the craft tables: the Q+ Tannery Rack for Leather, the Q+ Loom for Fabric, the Q+ Sewing Machine for Silk, the Q+ Carpenter table for Flank and the Q+ Sawmill for Lumber.

Production buildings

• Q+ Lumber Mill: wood and thatch over time.
• Q+ Farmer: hide and meat over time. Q+ Fisher: fish meat.
• Q+ Mine Camp: exchanges Metal, Stone and Obsidian.
• Q+ Water Well: gives up to 20,000 water.
• Q+ Ant Hill, Beaver Dam, Bee HoneyTree, Wolf Den and Wind Mill: Ant Pheromone, Pearls, Bee Honey, Rabies and Flour.

Seeds

Instead of farming nodes, you grow resources. Every seed is crafted in the Q+ Alchemy Table and planted in a medium or large crop plot. The list runs from Stone, Flint, Obsidian, Crystal, Oil and Electronics seeds to gem seeds, Wyvern Milk seeds and a Blood and Heart seed for most tiers. A Stone seed plus the Mine Camp gives you Metal. The Q+ Awesome Crop Plot (level 36) needs no fertilizer or water and yields more. Q+ Apple and Q+ Lemon come from seeds as well.

Gacha

Q+ Gachas give Q+ resources, and the higher the tier, the more they give. The FAQ adds that feeding them plant Y traps makes them produce three times as much, and faster. Higher tiers also add Q+ Leaves: 2% on an Exalted Gacha, 4% on a Toxic one, and 5% Leaves plus Alpha Blood on an Elemental one. Gachas have a saddle for each of the first tiers, made from the Silk of that tier: the Q+ Alpha Gacha Saddle takes 25 Alpha Silk, 55 Q+ Copper Ore, 150 Chitin or Keratin and 25 Flank.

Saddles, armor and potions

• Saddles: every tier from Alpha to Venom has its own saddle list. Our database counts 600 saddles in the main mod.
• Armor: Flask and Ghillie sets for the Alpha, Exalted, Toxic, Elemental and Infernal tiers, a Ninja set and a Night King Tek set.
• Utility items: imprinting potions up to 500%, a Breed potion, Mutation potions, an instant grow-up item and elixirs for speed, stamina, weight and insulation.

Server settings

Settings go at the bottom of GameUserSettings.ini, under an [ArkVietNam] header. Add only the lines you want to change. Some useful ones, with their defaults:

• DisableCrashServer1=True: the crash fix the author asks for (from the Workshop page).
• EnableAuraWildCreaturesToPlayer=True: set it to False and wild Q+ creatures no longer put their aura effects on players.
• EnableTrooperCreatures, EnableNekoCreatures, EnableVenomCreatures (all True): set to False to keep that tier out of the wild.
• TierAlphaMaxAllow=30: how many Alphas of each species spawn. Each tier has its own key, from TierExaltedMaxAllow=25 down to 2 for Fear, Dominus and Lion. Never set one to 0, the sheet says it must be at least 1.
• AlphaTranqdartTorpor=1200: the torpor of each tier's dart, with one key per tier.
• SummonBossLimit=3: Q+ Summon Boss structures per tribe.
• DisableStartKit=False: set to True to stop the Pteranodon help on every spawn.
• DisableSpawnOnDeath=True: set to False so killed wyverns bring the next tier.
• EnableGaChaGodSpawn=True: set to False to stop a mini boss from spawning in the wild.
• AwesomeCropLimited=500 and WolfDenLimit=5: building limits, the crop limit per tribe.
• ChangeTextWhenKilled: the message shown when a player dies.

The expansions

The main mod's Workshop page says the upper tiers need both Q+ ARK VIET NAM EXPANSION and Q+ PLUS EXPANSION, and that without them you only get the lower tiers. Both expansion pages call themselves stackable and link back to the main mod. In our database, Q+ PLUS EXPANSION holds 438 creatures and 614 items, and its creatures are the Trooper, Neko and Venom lines, Rare variants included. Load all three if you want the full ladder.

Tips

• Tame good Alphas early. Every higher form starts from one.
• Empty a creature's inventory before you press Ctrl + X. Nothing in it survives the evolution.
• Craft the matching Quiver and aura before you fight a new tier. Tier debuffs are the main danger.
• Get your first seeds going early. Stone and the Mine Camp give you Metal without mining.
• Keep the Dragon Balls from bosses. The aura and expansion recipes need them.
• Protect your base with a Tek shield. Walls alone do not stop these creatures.

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

Further reading: the mod team's own Q+ ARK VIET NAM website lists every spawn code and setting.