Flying creatures are notoriously unreliable and prone to dying stupidly. Here is my guide to avoiding unnecessary frustration for yourself: Preventative Measures Never fly if you are worried about being disconnected from the server! Disconnecting will cause you to immediately dismount off your current mount. There is only a 10% chance you will survive the fall and remain alive until you can log back in. There is also a 10% chance you will survive the fall, but die anyway to a nearby predator because your flyer is too far away or too stupid to protect you. And finally, there is a 80% chance you will plummet to your immediate death and curse the misfortune of your own making.* Don't dismount a flyer in poor visibility! I know it's tempting to grab beacons with flyers, but ignoring this advice is the #1 killer for most flyers and/or their owners. Landing in areas with clear view of your surrounds is the safest way to operate. Also avoid landing in areas with dense foliage whenever possible. Don't dismount at an unsafe landing zone! Similar, but still different from #2, being prepared to fly again when danger approaches is essential! A flyer with sufficient amounts of buffs to health will keep you alive long enough to fly away when most predators attack you. You lose that additional protection the second you jump off your flyer. Even then, some predators are known for dismounting riders (stay away from the Redwoods). Do yourself a huge favor and only land in areas free from danger. Lowjack it or lose it! The game provides a rudimentary transponder tracker to locate lost creatures. It's not perfect, but it works most of the time. Just be sure to set your own custom frequency before placing tracker nodes on creatures (accessed using attachment hotkey). Craft it or have someone craft it for you ASAP! You can also create an in-game note and record your frequency codes on it if you need help remembering. Have a parachute in your hotbar ready to fire. We've all accidentally dismounted before. Don't be that guy who does it on a flyer and immediately plummets to their death... But especially don't be that guy who then gets mad if no one wants to help you find said flyer you just jumped off. If some Good Samaritan still wants to help your silly ass, make the effort to reward them for their good deed. Don't leave a flyer unattended in an unsafe area. This really should be a no-brainer, but seriously, don't do this. Flyers are notorious for chasing after all manner of things and getting lost. If you want to leave a mount somewhere to guard an area (such as a cave entrance), it should be land based; they are "less" prone to wandering off. If you are expecting serious combat, consider a faster land-based creature instead. Unlike earlier versions of Ark, there is a wide selection of fast land based creatures that are great for combat. A land-based dino will never stray far from you and is much more reliable protection should you be attacked while dismounted. They typically make for much better protection when harvesting large amounts of resources. Comparably, they can also carry far more than most flyers. *These values have been scientifically evaluated to be 100% accurate. All arguments saying the contrary are invalid. Okay, lets say you are confident in your survival abilities and those of your flyer. You've read my warnings above and are willing to ignore them because you think you are some kind of badass or something. Well then consider the following before blindly charging into combat with a flyer... Preparing A Flyer For Combat More Speed = Wider Turning Radius = Lower DPS NOTE: This point assumes you can modify the speed of flyers. Generally speaking, flyers have notoriously poor Damage Per Second compared to their terrestrial counterparts. I'm not saying they can't be viable in combat, they just can't put the damage down as fast as land based creatures. To make matters worse, the faster your flyer is, the more likely they are to "overshoot" whatever they are trying to attack. At excessive speeds, this causes them to spasticly fly around in circles while not contributing to killing much of anything. Not saying more speed is bad, but this aspect is something to be aware of anyway. There is definitely a sweet spot for each flyer where "fast" can become "too fast". Behavior Commands: Pre-flight Checks! Set Stance to NEUTRAL; when dismounted, it is best to have your flyer remain on the ground where you left it. This is the best "defensive stance" for tamed creatures. This prevents them from attacking unless you or they get attacked (perfect for hunting from safe position). Set Target Range to LOWEST to encourage your flyer to only attack things that attack it. Set follow distance to HIGHEST to discourage it from flying stupidly in circles above your head and out of reach in its pathetic attempts to "follow you". (VERY IMPORTANT!) Whistle at it to "Follow You" ('T" by default) only AFTER doing the above. Now you should have a flyer that responds somewhat effectively to threats. Always keep it on follow when in the wild to prevent it from stupidly flying away. When done correctly, you should have a much more reliable flyer that won't be so quick to abandon you at the first sign of trouble. Here is a well behaved Ptera using the above settings that is sitting patiently while still set to "following me": Finally, a word about setting Behavior to PASSIVE: Generally speaking, DON'T DO THIS. A passive creature will NEVER defend itself. While this is certain to keep your flyer stationary when you get attacked while dismounted, it is almost certain to kill said flyer if you get killed before you can jump back on and fly away. Ignore this warning at your own peril.
