Ark Survival Evolved Spyglass - The Most Useful Item

I think the most useful non-weapon gadget in Ark Survival Evolved is the spyglass.  The spyglass is a small telescope that magnifies the world at a distance of course, but it also gives you valuable information.  Point it at a dino and it will tell you what it is, its level and whether or not it is mate boosted.  If you’re riding a low level 10 Rex and spot a level 5 and 10 carno in the distance you can take them easy.  If you spot a mate boosted level 50 and 110, both you and your dino are probably going down.  The only drawback of the spyglass telescope is that it can be difficult to use, due to its high magnification.  It takes some getting used to especially when riding on a flyer. 

To craft a spyglass you will need these materials:

5 – wood

10 – Hide

10 – fiber

2 – crystal

Crystal can be hard to get early in the game.  I believe it may require a metal pick to harvest, or the chance of getting crystal is very, very low with a stone pick.  No equipment such as a smithy is required to craft the spyglass in the game. 

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How to Craft the Simple Pistol and Review in Ark Survival Evolved

Is the Simple Pistol in Ark Survival Evolved worth it?  In my opinion, it’s a fun little gun probably better suited to PVP than PVE.  It is patterned after an 1850’s colt cap and ball revolver.  These guns were very popular in the American Civil War.  In the game, the simple pistol has a removable cylinder, and while the real guns do have a removal cylinder, it really can’t be considered a quick reload.  In the game, the pistols appear to be about three times the size of the real-life gun, and least compared to my survivor. 

The simple pistol isn’t really that expensive to craft.  It only requires 60 metal ingots, 5 wood and 15 hide.  It must be crafted in the smithy.  The gun only does 63 damage per shot, but you can fire 6 shots in rapid succession to deal 378 damage before reloading, not too bad.

The only thing that I would say is not really worth it, is the scope on this gun since it is a close-range fast-firing weapon.  Some of the pistol attachments, like the scope or flashlight can be handy. The scope on the long rifle is great, but on the pistol, it is not very useful.  However, there is little reason not to equip it if you just happen to have an extra lying around since it only adds a weight of 0.1.  I liked playing around with the pistol in PVE, but I have to admit that it really isn’t very useful in most day-to-day game situations.  Maybe if I was trying to get through a cave it might be nice to deal some quick damage to titan boa or another creature as it closes the distance and then switch to a sword.   

The longneck rifle is probably the best firearm in the game, see video below.  

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How to Save Game in Ark Survival Evolved Single Player?

If you have problems with crashes due to graphics driver crashes, or whatever you might want to force Ark Survival Evolved to save your game progress.  Saving is particularly helpful after you have had some epic moment like defeating a Giga, taming a super high level Argentavis etc.  The game atomically saves at certain intervals, but it might miss your epic moment. 

To save in the single player is very easy on PC.  I assume this also works on the Xbox, it’s just annoying using the keyboard on console. 

Open the console in game by hitting the tab key

Type:  “enablecheats” hit enter

Re-open the console in game by hitting the tab key

Type: “saveworld’ hit enter

You should notice the game pause for a moment while it saves, then you are good to go.  I wish I knew how to avoid crashing the game.  Sometimes I go for days without any problems, and then it will crash three times in one day.