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The highlight works thanks to a post process volume with a blendable material. Every time the Ghost Field touches an object, the blueprint checks if the object is "pick-upable", and if it is, it applies the material to it.
Technical Designer
ARK: Survival Evolved
ARK: Survival Evolved
ARK: Scorched Earth
ARK: Aberration
WORK SUMMARY
ROLE
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Technical Designer
RESPONSIBILITIES
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Creature & Character Gameplay Design and Scripting.
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Gameplay Systems Design and Scripting.
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Weapon Scripting.
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Armor Scripting.
MY WORK
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Creatures: Chupacabra (Nameless), Yutyrannus, Phoenix, Daeodon, Purlovia, Pegomastax, Ichthyornis, Chalicothrium, Pachyrhinosaurus, Ammonite, Lightbug.
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Structures: Power Node, Charge Lantern, Plant Species Z.
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Weapons: Charge Lantern Weapon, Oil Jar.
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Armor: TEK Helmet.
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Gameplay Systems: Charge System, Final Boss' wandering AI, Creatures' Swim Attack.
WEAPONS
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The Charge Lantern can immobilize several enemies at once, thanks to its charge rays.
When placed on the ground, the charge lantern becomes a powerful defensive structure.
OVERVIEW
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Game: ARK: Aberration
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Overview: The Charge lantern is a powerful weapon that emits a light known as "Charge". When attacked with Charge, enemies will become paralyzed, giving players an opportunity to run away from dangerous encounters. The lantern can be used not only as a weapon, but also as a structure. Players can place the lantern on the ground to create a safe area that prevents certain enemies from approaching their bases.
Charge Lantern Weapon against a group of Chupacabras.
Example of Charge Lantern Structure use.
WEAPON DESIGN
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Charge Lanterns create a cone of light in front of them. Any creature that steps into the cone is affected by Charge Energy. Players can control the size and the strength of the cone, depending on which creatures they are facing.
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The Charge Lantern is a necessary weapon for players that want to explore the Aberration map. They fend off some of the most dangerous enemies in the map: the Chupacabras and the Reapers.
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Charge Lanters are one of the best ways to defend players bases, because of their ability to be placed on the ground. To prevent unexpected attacks by Chupacabras, players can place several charge lanterns on the ground, around the camp, and turn them on to create a protective field of lied surrounding their base.
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Although useful, Charge Lanterns consume Charge Energy to stay on. The Charge consumption forces players to explore the Aberration map in search of more Charge energy, so that they can recharge their lanterns and keep their belongings safe.
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Charge Lanterns have the ability to weaken the Reaper, one of the strongest enemies in the map.
SCRIPTING SAMPLES
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Beam Spawning
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This script takes care of creating new charge beams. When detecting a new target, the charge lantern creates a beam particle effect that connects the weapon to the target. The particle can change its size, brightness, start point, and end point, which are adjusted based on the target and the weapon's location.
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To make the lantern look good in both first and third person, two different beams are created, one for each mode. The FPV beam is not visible in TPV, and vice versa.
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Beam dynamic adjustments
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To create the "Ghostbusters" effect for the Charge beams, their end point is randomized frequently. In addition to the variable end point, when the beams hit a target, they create an "acid erosion" particle effect, to give the impression that they are burning the target.
CREATURES
Chupacabras can become "Alpha" when they are separated from their group. Alphas are extremely dangerous as they can summon other Chupacabras to their aid.
Chupacabras are weak against Charge Light, and they will hide underground when exposed to it.
Chupacabra's Dossier
CREATURE INFO
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Game: ARK: Aberration
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Overview: The Chupacabra is one of the main antagonists of ARK: Aberration. The Chupacabra waits underground in the harder areas of the map. Once it ambushes a player, it will transform into a radioactive monster, and start summoning other Chupacabras to his aid. If not killed quickly, the Chupacabra will summon the terrifying Reaper creature.
CREATURE DESIGN
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Chupacabras create an unavoidable threat for players. Once encountered, players must either flee or quickly eliminate the Chupacabra. Ignoring the threat leads to an unsustainable situation for players, due to the Chupacabra summoning other Chupcabras and eventually a Reaper.
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Chupacabras are weak against Charge Energy. That means that only advanced players with Charge Lanterns can manage large Chupacabra groups.
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Chupacabras are very common in the harder areas of the map. This forces players to develop their Charge Weapons and Charge Structures if they want to progress in the game.
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The presence of Chupacabras effectively creates "Safe Zones" in the map (the areas covered in Charge Energy, which Chupcabras are weak to), that players tend to stick to. As such, Chupacabra help drive the level flow.
SCRIPTING SAMPLES
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Chupacabra's transformation into Alpha Chupacabra
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Logic for the Chupacabra's transformation into an "Alpha" Chupacabra. The script slowly increases the Chupacabra's mesh size, while playing a transformation animation. It also interpolates the Chupacabra's location on a timeline, so that the Chupacabra's feet always stay on the floor while the creature changes size.
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Burying logic
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This script controls the underground dive-in and dive-out of the Chupacabra when players are nearby. The logic needs to consider many things before allowing the Chupacabra to come out or bury, including:
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Is the player around?
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Are there too many Chupcabras on the surface already?
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Is the Chupacabra already in the process of burying?
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The script also controls the Chupacabra's collision, visibility, and movement while underground.
Roll Rat's Dossier
The Roll Rat can switch between walking and rolling modes.
The Roll Rat's roll mode allows for fast traversal of the large Aberration map.
CREATURE INFO
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Game: ARK: Aberration
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Overview: The Roll Rat is a creature that can travel at high speeds in the Aberration map, while carrying three players at the same time. Although they are not very well suited for combat, they are incredibly valuable as transportation, and they are also expert scavengers. Wild Roll Rats can enter the ground and extract valuable minerals and gems, that would be hard to find otherwise.
A review of the Roll Rat's gameplay
CREATURE DESIGN
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Roll Rats are weak creatures, but they are very useful for traversal.
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Once they have reached a certain speed, Roll Rats can be very dangerous as they damage anything in their path. However, if they encounter an obstacle, they will stop on their tracks.
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Although Roll Rats can travel at high speeds, they become harder to control the faster they go. Players will have to master the rolling in order to be able to maintain their speed for extended period of times.
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Rolling consumes stamina, which puts a hard limit on how far players can traverse using these creatures.
SCRIPTING SAMPLES
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Roll mechanics
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To create a sense of speed while rolling, a script interpolates several of the Roll Rats properties over time. Some of these properties include: overall speed, turning animation blend time, movement animation rates, and overall rotation rate, among others.
Phoenix's Dossier
CREATURE INFO
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Game: ARK: Scorched Earth
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Overview: The Phoenix appears only during heat waves in the Scorched Earth map. In order to tame it, players must use a flamethrower on it before the heat wave is over. Once tamed, the Phoenix is a powerful flying creature that can use a charge attack to set everything around it on fire. Players can also use it to throw fireballs at targets, as well as to cook food.
Phoenix's gameplay overview
CREATURE DESIGN
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The Phoenix only spawns during heat waves. Players must find a Phoenix's ashes before the heat wave starts, and be ready to tame it as soon as it spawns.
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The Phoenix has a powerful charge attack, where it flies at high speed setting everything around it on fire. However, the stamina cost of the attack is very high, and players can only use it for a few seconds. The attack also has a long build up time, so players must plan before they use it.
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The Phoenix can use a fireball attack, to set things on fire from a distance. The cooldown and the stamina cost on the attack prevents players from using it excessively.
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Phoenix's are the only dinosaurs that are immune to fire-based attacks.
SCRIPTING SAMPLES
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Phoenix's charge attack
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When players press "space", the Phoenix starts its charge attack. This script slowly accelerates the Phoenix until it reaches its final charge velocity. It also contains the logic for activating and deactivating the charge.
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Set surroundings on fire.
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This function detects flammable things around the Phoenix and sets them on fire. It is used for the Charge Attack.
Yutyrannus' Dossier
CREATURE INFO
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Game: ARK: Survival Evolved
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Overview: The Yutyrannus is a strong support dinosaur whose roars can scare off predators. He can be found in the wild surrounded by a Carno packs, which protect him in exchange for easy access to the Yutyrannus' victims. His roar not only scares enemies away, but it also encourages allies, giving them an attack and defense boost.
Yutyrannus' gameplay overview
CREATURE DESIGN
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The Yutyrannus supports other allies by giving them buffs that increase their attack and defense.
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The Yutyrannus can also use an alternative roar that scares off potential predators. Bigger predators require more exposure to the roar before they flee.
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A tamed Yutyrannus can use its roar to temporarily tame Carnos in the wild. The Carnos will then attack the Yutyrannus target for a few seconds.
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Yutyrannus are hard to tame due to the fact that they travel with Carnos. Taming a Yutyrannus requires careful planning in order to take down its "body guards".
SCRIPTING SAMPLES
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Roar's area of effect
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The Yutyrannus' roar affects character within a conical area. This function finds out if a character is inside a cone in front of the Yutyrannus. The cone's radius can be set by using the function's parameters.
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Find targets to scare.
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This script finds characters in front of the Yutyrannus and decides if the characters should be "scared" by the Yutyrannus roar or not. The function uses a sphere overlap to locate all characters around the Yutyrannus. The characters are then filtered, and the script chooses the ones that are within a conical area in front of the Yutyrannus. Finally, a line trace makes sure that the characters are not hiding behind a wall or obstacle.
Purlovia's Dossier
CREATURE INFO
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Game: ARK: Survival Evolved
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Overview: The Purlovia is a dinosaur that lives underground, hiding in small holes in the ground. When it detects a player on the surface, it jumps out of its burying spot, and performs a lethal claw attack that stuns its victim. The Purlovia then takes advantage of those seconds of confusion, and uses its violent bite attacks to kill its prey.
Purlovia's gameplay overview
CREATURE DESIGN
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The Purlovia's goal is to surprise players that wander carelessly in certain areas of the map. Purlovias can be spotted by the small mounts that they make when the bury. The presence of Purlovias in certain areas forces players to advance slowly, playing attention to the terrain.
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Once players tame a Purlovia, they can effectively use them as live underground mines. The Purlovia's burying mechanics even allows players to choose the length of the Purlovia's jump.
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Purlovias are a good defense mechanism for players's bases. Enemy tribes can't see the mounts created by enemy tamed Purlovias. By hiding Purlovias underground, players can defend their property effectively, and create ambushes for anyone that dares to enter their camp.
SCRIPTING SAMPLES
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Purlovia coming out of the ground
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When a Purlovia detects an enemy while underground, an jump animation plays and an impulse propels the Purlovia towards its target. Collision, visibility, and the character's rotation are also updated right before the jump, creating the effect of the Purlovia's jumping from under the ground.
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Purlovia's jump logic
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This script calculates the Purlovia's underground jump impulse. The function takes the terrain's slope, the distance to the target, the target's height, and the target's Z location, to accurately calculate the impulse necessary to reach the target.
Daeodon's Dossier
CREATURE INFO
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Game: ARK: Survival Evolved
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Overview: The Daeodon is a support dinosaur that is able to heal surrounding characters over time. Also known as the "Hell Pig", the Daeodon has an insatiable appetite, and it will consume a week's worth of food in just a few hours if you let it.
Daeodon's gameplay overview
CREATURE DESIGN
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The Daeodon's main skill is its healing aura, which can heal players and dinosaurs within a certain radius. To prevent overuse of the aura by players, the Daeodon has a huge trade-off: food consumption. While healing, the Daeodon consumes food at a very fast speed, effectively limiting the aura's duration to a few seconds.
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Daeodon' are very useful creatures, but they are expensive to maintain. Even when not healing, their food consumption rate is over 10 times that of a normal dino.
SCRIPTING SAMPLES
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Daeodon healing aura.
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The healing aura has a complex script, that makes sure that only the right characters are healed.
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It uses a sphere overlap to find nearby characters.
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It prioritizes characters who are already healing.
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It checks that only a max o X characters are being healed at the same time
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It makes sure that the Daeodon has enough food to keep healing.
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It consumes food based on the number of characters being healed at the same time.
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Healing amount calculation.
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The Daeodon provides different healing amounts based on different parameters (player vs dino, self vs other dinos, etc.). The script above makes sure that the Daeodon gives the right amount of health to the right characters.
Pegomastax's Dossier
CREATURE INFO
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Game: ARK: Survival Evolved
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Overview: The Pegomastax, also known as "The Thief", is a small dinosaurs that sneaks up on players and steals their most valuable possessions before running away. Tamed Pegomastaxs are the perfect ninja weapon to rid all of your enemies of their precious resources and equipment, as Pegos are the stealthiest creatures of the dinosaur kingdom.
Pegomastax's gameplay overview
CREATURE DESIGN
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The Pegos are designed to be an annoyance to players. They are the trolls of the dinosaur world.
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Despite their infuriating stealing skills, there are ways players can protect themselves against Pegos. Pegos will start by stealing the last item on the player's hotbar. Because of that, players can put their least valuable items on the last hotbar slot, and watch the Pego run away with worthless loot.
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Pegos are the only creature that can take items from players' inventories without the players receiving any notification. As such, they are valuable as tamed creatures. If used correctly, lucky players can get items from other players that they wouldn't be able to get otherwise.
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Their stealing skills tie into the taming gameplay. Pegos will get tamed if they steal and eat the right food from players. To tame a Pego, players need to follow them around, letting them steal the right resources until their taming bar is full.
SCRIPTING SAMPLES
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Pegomastax's stealing script.
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The Pegomastax uses the above script to choose which items to steal from players. If the item stolen is nutritious, the Pego will eat it and begin the taming process.
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Stealing jump.
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When stealing, the Pego jumps towards the player to grab whatever it cans before running away. This function calculates the necessary impulse for the Pego to hit the player as often as possible, when using the jump.
Ichthyornis' Dossier
CREATURE INFO
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Game: ARK: Survival Evolved
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Overview: The Ichthyornis is an seagull-like flyer that populates the beaches of the island. When untamed, Ichthyornis in the wild will hunt for fish in the ocean, eating the fish as they go. When tamed, they are valuable hunters that can find the healthiest and most nutritious critters to bring back to their owners.
Ichthyornis gameplay overview
CREATURE DESIGN
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As seagull-like creatures, the Ichthyornis pick on players that approach the beaches where they hunt, stealing their food and dropping their weapons to the ground.
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Although hard to tame, Ichthyornis are useful tamed dinosaurs that can make hunting a lot easier, by finding prey that has more meat and resources than regular prey.
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Ichthyornis are also useful in PVP combat. Due to their circular flying patterns and dive-bomb attacks, they are hard to hit by players, and they are perfect for distracting enemies.
SCRIPTING SAMPLES
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Ichthyornis Dive Up & Down
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The Ichthyornis signature attack is the dive. Whether it is to catch fish or to annoy a player, the Ichthyornis is able to dive down in a diagonal trajectory, and immediately dive back up to flying altitude. This script calculates the diving impulses necessary to perform both actions.
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Quality Prey.
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The Ichthyornis adds quality to the meat of any dinosaur it catches. This script modifies the harvesting properties of the Ichthyornis target, to make sure it gives better resources than usual when harvested.
ARMOR
The TEK Helmet lets player detect creatures through solid objects.
The TEK Helmet has a night vision mode that allows players to see in the dark.
OVERVIEW
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Game: ARK: Survival Evolved
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Overview: The TEK Helmet is an armor piece that allows players to see things that are invisible to the naked eye. Its three different vision modes (night vision, X-Ray vision, and night+X-Ray vision) let players avoid dangers in the ARK map.
TEK Helmet's night and outline modes.