ARK Taming Calculator
Choose a creature, its wild level and the food you plan to use. The calculator runs the game’s own taming formulas on game-file constants - food count, tame time, taming effectiveness, post-tame level, narcotics and tranq counts - for any server rate from 1x to 50x.
Results
Torpor & knockout
| Knockout weapon | Torpor / hit | Hits (body) | Hits (head) |
|---|
Headshots multiply tranq weapon torpor ×2.5 on most creatures. Bring ~15% extra ammunition for misses and torpor decay during the knockout.
All foods compared (same level & rate)
| Food | Amount | Time | TE | Post-tame lvl | Narcotics |
|---|
Special-mechanic tames (not in the calculator)
| Creature | Mechanic |
|---|---|
| Carcharodontosaurus | Knock out with tranqs, then tame by feeding it creature corpses (drag them close). Builds a feeding-frenzy meter instead of using the standard food-affinity table. |
| Fire Wyvern | Hatched from wild eggs (Scorched Earth / Ragnarok / Valguero). Raise on Wyvern Milk - no standard food-affinity taming. |
| Rock Drake | Hatched from wild nests (Aberration / Genesis 2 / Fjordur). Raise on Nameless Venom. |
| Reaper Queen | Tamed by letting a wild Reaper Queen impregnate you at low health, then surviving the birth. No food table applies. |
| Titanosaur | KO with cannons/rockets; tames at fixed level, starves after ~16–20h on official settings, cannot be fed. One tame per instance. |
How ARK taming math actually works
Every creature needs a fixed amount of taming affinity that grows
linearly with its level: affinity = base + per-level × wild level.
Each piece of food adds affinity at a per-creature rate (preferred kibble is
400 per piece, raw prime 150, raw meat 50), multiplied by your server's
taming rate and the hardcoded 4x bonus the live game applies since patch 313.5.
The count you need is simply affinity ÷ affinity-per-food, rounded up.
Taming time comes from hunger: a KO'd creature only eats once its food stat drops far enough, and each species drains food at its own rate. Better foods restore more hunger per feeding, so the creature eats sooner and the tame finishes faster - kibble tames are roughly 5x faster than raw meat for the same creature.
Taming effectiveness decays per feeding as
TE = 1 / (1 + ineffectiveness × feedings ÷ affinity-per-feeding),
which is why fewer feedings of better food preserve TE. Bonus levels are
floor(level × TE / 2) - displayed above as the level you'll see
the moment the tame finishes, with the perfect-tame ceiling alongside.
Taming FAQ
What is taming effectiveness?
Taming effectiveness (TE) starts at 100% when the creature is knocked out and decays every time it eats (damage taken lowers it further). It decides how many bonus levels you get: bonus levels = floor(wild level × TE / 2). A level 150 tamed at 98.7% TE gains +74 levels (224); the same tame at 55% TE only gains +41 (191). Better food = fewer feedings = less TE decay, which is why kibble beats raw meat.
How many narcotics will I need?
Narcotics cover the torpor the creature loses during the tame. Each narcotic adds 40 torpor, a narcoberry 7.5, biotoxin 80. Big-food creatures (Rex, Giga, Doedicurus) usually stay under for the whole tame at 1x; slow tames (raw meat, high levels, low rates) burn hundreds. The calculator shows the exact number for your setup, assuming it takes no extra damage.
What level should I tame?
On official ASE servers wild creatures max at level 150 (using the 1x column). Post-tame you add bonus levels from taming effectiveness - a perfect 150 tops out at 225. Levels above 150 in the calculator are for unofficial servers with raised wild dino levels.
Why does kibble tame 5x faster than meat?
Preferred kibble gives 400 taming affinity per piece versus 150 for raw prime and 50 for raw meat, and its high food value means the creature eats sooner. Fewer, faster feedings also preserve taming effectiveness. Non-preferred kibble (wrong tier) is worse than raw prime - only 16 affinity - so always match the tier the creature prefers.