While some, like health, are easy to understand, ones like fortitude are more complex and might take a little more explanation.
What is Fortitude in ARK?
Fortitude measures how much you are affected by specific status effects. The higher your fortitude, the better your resistance to heat, cold, poison, and other things. Fortitude is one of the options you can choose to increase when you get a point to level with your stats.
Should I Level My Fortitude in ARK?
You absolutely should level your fortitude. It’s one of those things that seem tedious but is actually really important. When you’re traveling in a cold environment, fortitude helps you stay up longer and keeps the dreaded ice cube from popping up quite so quickly. When traveling in a hot environment, fortitude makes sure you keep your cool as long as possible. It can delay how long it is before you see the fire status effect that warns you you’re getting too hot. Fortitude reduces the amount of torpidity you take from certain attacks. It might help you get away from fights more quickly and save your life at times. One funny thing that fortitude does is it decreases the amount you defecate when a Rex does his terrifying roar. However, other stats are vital, too, and you only have a small number of points to assign in the long run. Consider leveling fortitude a bit to give yourself a boost, but take advantage of all the other options to raise your fortitude in different environments to use your character points for things like health, carry weight, and stamina.
How Do Points Affect My Fortitude?
For every point you assign to fortitude, you have one more point in your ability to stay awake before you pass out. Players start with 50 torpor resistance which means until their torpor reaches 50, they pass out. If you add a point to fortitude, it becomes 51. You also increase your insulation, which is like resistance to both hot and cold. Each time you level up fortitude, you get an extra 4.5 points into your insulation. So with one point in fortitude, your hypo and hyperthermic insulation is 4. If you have ten points into fortitude, they become 45. You have to spend 45 points in fortitude to stand temperatures of 23 degrees Fahrenheit. This would be a large number of your points and demonstrates why it’s essential to consider other ways to improve the stats increased by fortitude.
Ways to Increase Stats Affected by Fortitude
You don’t have to only level your fortitude to improve your interaction with the world. Many other things increase your fortitude-adjacent stats and might cost less than using character points. Bear in mind: these don’t increase your fortitude. However, they improve the stats that fortitude effects, which lets you save your points for other skills.
Foods That Increase Insulation
Cooking food is a vital step in doing any dangerous activity in ARK. One benefit to some foods is that they increase your hyperthermic and hypothermic insulation. If you’re going to a cold place, you want to increase your hypothermic insulation. If you’re going to a hot spot, you want to increase your hyperthermic insulation. Fria Curry is a dish designed to help you withstand cold temperatures. It’s described as a spicy curry that fills the body with warmth. The practical effect of this is that you gain a 50 point bonus for your hypothermic insulation. To make Fria Curry, place the following items into a cooking pot:
One container of waterTwo narcotic20 azulberryTen mejoberryFive rockarrotFive longrass
It takes one minute to craft a Fria Curry. It will spoil in five hours if you keep it on your character, twenty hours in the inventory of a tamed dino, two days in a preserving bin, or 20 days in a refrigerator. The effects of Fria Curry last for 15 minutes. Bring multiple to help you through your quest. Calien Soup is kind of like Fria Curry, except it grants a 50 point bonus to your hyperthermic insulation. It’s described as a refreshing vegetarian dish. It also slows down how quickly you go through water. To make Calien Soup, place the following items into the cooking pot:
One full container of watertwo simulant20 amarberriesten mejoberries20 tintoberriesfive citronal
It takes one minute to craft a Calien Soup. It will spoil in five hours if you keep it on your character, twenty hours in the inventory of a tamed dino, two days in a preserving bin, or 20 days in a refrigerator. The effects of Calien Soup last for 15 minutes. Bring multiple to help you through your quest.
Armor That Increases Insulation
Almost every armor offers some kind of benefit with heat and cold protection. Cloth Armor
50 armor50 hypothermic insulation 60 hyperthermic insulation
Hide Armor
100 armor85 hypothermic insulation -25 hyperthermic insulation
Fur Armor
200 armor249 hypothermic insulation -105 hyperthermic insulation
Desert Cloth Armor
200 armor31 hypothermic insulation 130 hyperthermic insulation
Ghillie Armor
160 armor24 hypothermic insulation 155 hyperthermic insulation
Chitin Armor
250 armor43 hypothermic insulation -35 hyperthermic insulation
Flak Armor
500 armor60 hypothermic insulation -25 hyperthermic insulation
Hazard Armor
325 armor50 hypothermic insulation 300 hyperthermic insulation
SCUBA Suit
Five armor70-270 hypothermic insulation -15 hyperthermic insulation
Riot Armor
575 armor60 hypothermic insulation -17 hyperthermic insulation
Tek Armor
900 armor255 hypothermic insulation 208 hyperthermic insulation
As you can see, some types of armor improve your hypothermic insulation to withstand cold environments but make it harder for you to be in hot climates. For example, fur armor increases your cold resistance by 249, but it lowers your heat resistance by 105 degrees. If you’re entering environments with both hot and cold stages – like the final boss path in the volcano on The Island – you may need to bring more than one type of armor if you don’t have access to Tek Armor yet.
Building to Increase Insulation
If you stand inside a building of any kind, you get a 112 point boost to your hypothermic insulation and a 56 point boost to your hyperthermic insulation. Holding a torch gives you a 50 point boost to cold resistance but lowers your heat resistance by 25 points. Using a standing torch doubles both of those. They’re great options for quick and cheap sources of heat and light. The benefit of the standing torch is that it leaves your hands free – but you can’t move with it, which is the benefit of the standard torch. A campfire does the same bonus to cold resistance and lowers the heat resistance by the same amount as the standing torch. As you move away from it, the amount of each decreases. Each air conditioner provides a 100 point boost to both resistances. It only provides that for a space of two foundations, though. You don’t have to build around the air conditioner because it will give that bonus no matter where it’s placed. However, the bonus does decrease as you move away from the unit. Air conditioners are often used to hatch dinosaur eggs because of their steady effect on heat and cold.
Ways to Increase Torpidity Resistance
If you’re interested in fortitude because you want to increase your resistance to torpidity, you might be surprised to find there aren’t many ways to do so. You can eat stimberries to drop your torpidity quickly. Each one quickly helps you shake off the effects, which can help you stay conscious. However, you also increase the amount of water your body uses. These are best used near a source of potable water. Each berry you eat gives you -10 points of torpidity. You can also craft stimulant, which requires stimberries and sparkpowder. These decrease your torpidity by 40 points per serving, which means it works more quickly than stimberries and is a better option in emergencies. Like stimberries, stimulant drains your water more quickly. One of the best ways to mitigate torpidity is to wear armor with a high armor rating. The more damage you take, the more your torpidity increases. Ultimately, you can choose to increase your fortitude, or you can choose to put those points into other areas and address fortitude attributes in different ways. While players agree that at least one point needs to be put into fortitude – because it stops certain creatures from one-shotting you and knocking you out right away – there is a lot of debate beyond that. Armor is easy to make and an essential part of the game, as is food. In the end, you can choose what items in your character stats have value to you and whether fortitude is something you want to focus on.
