How to Unlock and Power Tek Tier Items in Ark
Take your tribe to the sci-fi era with Tek Tier armor, bases, and weapons. Knowing who to fight to unlock the best engrams is the key to dominance.
The Tek Paradigm
Unlike regular crafting items, Tek Engrams cannot be unlocked using regular Engram Points over time. They are strictly gated behind defeating the map Guardians (the Bosses) at specific difficulty levels (Gamma, Beta, Alpha).
Key Tek Engram Boss Drops (The Island)
- Tek Replicator: Unlocked by defeating any boss on any difficulty. The cornerstone of crafting all other Tek items.
- Tek Transmitter: Unlocked by defeating the Dragon (Beta or Alpha). Acts as a portable Obelisk for transferring dinos and items anywhere on the map.
- Tek Generator: Unlocked by defeating the Megapithecus (Beta or Alpha). Powers Tek structures wirelessly using Element.
- Tek Teleporter: Unlocked by defeating the Dragon (Alpha). The ultimate transport network for your tribe.
- Tek Rifle & Armor: Split primarily across the Alpha iterations of the Megapithecus, Broodmother, and Dragon.
Farming Element to Power Tek
Tek gear requires Element both to craft and to use as fuel/ammo. The primary ways to obtain Element include:
- Boss Fights: The original method. Slaying Guardians drops varying amounts of raw Element (e.g., Alpha Dragon drops 300 Element).
- Element Dust (Extinction / Genesis): On Extinction, hitting lampposts and Enforcers yields Element Dust. 1000 Dust can be crafted into 1 Unstable Element, which spoils into 1 solid Element.
- Element Veins (Extinction): Defending massive orbital Element Nodes yields thousands of dust, shards, and solid element.
- Aberration Charge Nodes: Crafting element manually by gathering Element Ore, Red Gems, and Green Gems inside the radioactive zone.
Admin override: You can completely unlock Tek Engrams for a player via the server console using the command
Cheat UnlockEngram followed by the blueprint path, or use auto-unlock mods for PvP environments focusing heavily on endgame.