The Megalosaurus is a unique creature in Ark that’s worth knowing about. It’s about the same size as a Carnotaurus, but can be as powerful as a Rex. What makes it special is how it changes between day and night, with different strengths and weaknesses depending on the time. It also has an impressive roar!
What is a Megalosaurus?
Summary
The Megalosaurus is a medium sized nocturnal predator that resides within two caves in the ark universe. They stand about the same size as a Carnotaurus, but are much stronger then them in many aspects. They are the only theropods in game to have feathers (Atleast of there size). They have the unique ability to grab small to medium sized creatures, even flyers as large as Argentavis.
What is their purpose?
The purpose of a Megalosaurus tame has both PvP and PvE reasons. PvE wise, it’s ability to grab medium sized animals (Such as Gallimimus and Kangaroos), and medium sized flyers (like Tapejara and Argentavis) make a Megalosaurus a tamers best friend. You can even dismount and it will still hold on to the animal. Best of all, during the night, they don’t aggro anything. So you won’t have to worry about your chosen animal attacking you or running away!
As for PvP, they can be quite useful if utilized right. Raiders can mobilize them as mounts during the night, with there added strength, can even go against rexs. With their ability to be un-detected by wild creatures, you can remain unseen until you launch your attack. They can immobilize enemy animals and flyers with there gripping ability, and tear them to shreds while holding them. They can also grab people to, and with there large health pool and torpor, won’t have to worry about taking much damage.
It should be noted that a lot of people generally disregard Megalosaurus for raiding in favor of animals like rexs due to there night/day cycle. They can only be utilized during the night, and raiders will have to watch the clock because once day hits, they become worthless. Only those truely dedicated and experienced with Megalosaurus should utilize them.
If you wanted a size comparison, here you go.
Day and Night
Day
Megalosaurus dinosaurs are very slow-moving and don’t really serve much purpose except taking up space in your game. If you don’t make them stay awake, they will fall asleep to prevent getting sleep debt. Sleep debt happens when a Megalosaurus is awake during daytime (from 5:12 to 20:20). The sleep debt can build up to 120, and when it reaches this maximum, your Megalosaurus will start to gain torpor as long as it’s phased in. Wild Megalosaurus also get sleep debt. This only happens if you’re riding the Megalosaurus during the day or if you use the “Set Awake” command, which I’ll explain soon. It’s important to know that they continue to poop and lay eggs while sleeping, so you’ll need to wake them up to check for these things.
Night
They may be sluggish during the day, but at night is when they truely become scary. They shrug off there sluggish nature and turn full-blown carnivore. With heightened speed, stamina, and health at night, they are a force to be reckoned with. During the night, they also gain one more advantage: they will aggro no wild animals whatsoever, even when attacking them. This is extremly beneficial when your grabbing a creature and trying to tranq/move it, or when your conduction night-time recon. Their eyes glow a yellowish color during the night, and occasionally they will randomly roar. Such a roar can be access with the C button. Be careful though, as the night is not as long as the day, and you don’t want to get caught in the middle of nowhere with a drowsy Megalosaurus.
Awake and Sleep Commands
Certain situations may require that your Megalosaurus needs to stay asleep or awake, so functions to there wheel were added to provide players the options to:
- Stay Awake
- Stay Asleep
- Remove Stay Lock
- Wake up
- Go to sleep
Stay Asleep has no negative side effects aside from slight accelerated hunger loss, but Stay Awake can be negative during the day, incuring sleep debt that may result in your Megalosaurus knocking out.
Sleep Debt
Summary
Sleep Debt occurs when a Megalosaurus is unable to sleep during the day, caused by “Sleep Deprived”. Overtime it’ll gain 120/120 sleep debt, at this point it will begin to gain torpor and feel “Drowsy”. There speed is extremly slow, they lose all there stamina so they can’t run, and there torpor rises very fast. Even when they knock themselves out, they will keep their sleep debt. When they wake up, if the “Stay Awake” Command is not applied, or it’s a wild Megalosaurus, they will sleep to get rid of the debt. Once they expell it, they will either sleep until night, or wake up if it’s already night.
The only way to get rid of sleep debt is to let your Megalosaurus sleep.
Locations
Currently, Megalosaurus can only be found in caves. To be more specific, they can only be found in TWO caves: The Central cave of The Island, and the Grave of the Tyrants in Scorched Earth. In my Personal opinion, I have gotten my Megalosaurus from the SE cave, but whichever cave you find the easiest is your best bet for getting Megalosaurus. Only 4-5 spawn at a time in a single cave though.
Central Cave Location
Scorched Earth Location
High Level Stats
If your curious to see just how powerful Megalosaurus are, heres a rare glimpse at some high level stats from a Megalosaurus I tranqed.
Tranqed
Stand Up
Breeding
The Basics
By far one of the trickiest animals to breed, Megalosaurus babies inherit their parents day/night cycles and will sleep during the day and be awake at night. However, a sleeping Megalosaurus baby will lose its hunger faster then you can replenish it. Shortly after it will starve itself to death.
In-Depth Explanation
This is going to be a long passage. In order to avoid Megalosaurus babies from starving themselves to death, you need to enable the “Stay Awake” command mentioned earlier. You already know that if Megalosaurus are awake during the day, they will gain sleep debt, and thus torpor. This is correct for babies as well, but there is a way to work around this so you can avoid your baby knocking itself out.
Before I go into detail, let me mention that its completely ok for your baby to knock itself out, but only if you are present there! If you are present for your baby knocking itself out, then all you need to do it make sure its fed and feed it stimulants to get it waking itself up. Note that the sleep debt WILL remain with the baby even when knocked out.
In order to get around your baby knocking itself out, you need to not have your baby rendered in. Little known fact: Megalosaurus do not gain torpor from sleep debt when not rendered in. It is wise to imploy the method of phasing your baby out atleast twice during the day to avoid it knocking itself out. Be mindful of its torpor though, as you may be calling it close.
When night time comes, you’ll want to have your baby act like a normal baby. In order to do this, you need to get rid of it’s sleep debt. You’ll have to let it sleep for a very short period, but don’t worry. As long as you watch its hp and give it raw meat to eat (which it will eat through very quickly), it will gain its hp back faster then it loses it. Once its sleep debt is gone, if its already night they will automatically wake up. From this point, they act like normal babies.
Do not forget to set “Stay Awake” on your babies at all time, else they will sleep and die.
Taming
Taming a Megalosaurus can be a difficult endeavor. Not only do you have to worry about the time of day that could effect your tranqing process, but you also have to worry about other creatures inside the cave. I’d recommend clearing them out first before you engage in tranqing your chosen Megalosaurus.
Kibble wise, your going to need Oviraptor kibble. Make sure you tame a good bit of them and stock on their eggs before you engage in any taming.
You will have to employ starve taming to tame Megalosaurus (You starve it to a point where it will then eat all the food required to tame it). Unlike other animals, Megalosaurus will automatically wake up at 20:20 each day, even if they are tranqed.
There are two strategies that come to mind when you want to tame a Megalosaurus: The Day strategy, and the Night Strategy.
Day Strategy
Using their sluggish nature against them, you can use a combination of your own tranquilizors and the sleep debt on Megalosaurus to knock them out. Remember: Sleep debt on Megalosaurus causes them to gain torpor. It is recommended you do this method at the break of morning, to maximize your time starving it. This is the safest method to tranq Megalosaurus, as during the night they are far more ferocious.
NIght Strategy
Megalosaurus dinosaurs are more active and stronger during nighttime. To counter this advantage, you can create sleep deprivation right before they wake up. Even with perfect accuracy hits, they’ll remain sleep-deprived as long as you prevent them from falling asleep. Whenever they try to sleep, shoot them to keep them awake. It’s best to start this process shortly before night begins, but allow yourself enough time to apply torpor effects to the Megalosaurus. While this approach is riskier, it gives you the maximum amount of time to starve them.
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