Getting Element on Lost Island can be tricky since it is not a particular Tek-heavy map but there are some ways regardless and I will show you all methods to get Element.
You can get Element on Lost Island by fighting the boss, harvesting Tek animals and using Feroxes. I collected some data on which method is the most effective for your gameplay.
This guide has been requested a few times—How to get Element on Lost Island. Lost Island is ARK Survival Evolved’s newest free community map and unlike other maps, is designed for a more primitive play style. The map exclusive Dinopithecus can disable Tek with their poop projectiles. And knock you out of the air if you use Tek armour.
But even though Lost Island is more of a “Low Tek” map, players naturally have the need to fall back to their unlocked Tek engrams. Be it for generators, cloners, or feeding troughs or to tame and breed Feroxes. But while on Genesis 2 element is lying around everywhere, Lost Island is the complete opposite. But there are some ways to get the rare resource and I present you some of them.
1. Boss fight against the Dinopithecus King
This should probably be the most obvious resource for Tek. The Dinopithecus King drops a set amount of Element when he dies, depending on the difficulty. For Gamma you will get 60 Element, for Beta 165 element and for Alpha 330 element on successful completion of the boss fight.
| Gamma | Beta | Alpha | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Element per Boss fight | 60 | 165 | 330 |
While the boss fight is probably the fastest way to get element if you already have suitable boss tames, there are two other methods to get element. The efficiency of these methods depends on how you scale them.
2. Tek animals as a source of Element Dust
On Lost Island are spawns for Tek animals. When you kill them, you can farm them. The resource you can get from them is Element Dust. This one can then be turned into Element itself. So let’s assume you breed these Tek animals to farm them for Element Dust – to calculate the efficiency of all available animals we first calculate the duration in which they grow up.
- Tek Parasaur: Growth time: 1d 2h 40 m
- Tek Quetzal: Growth time: 5d 12h 16 min 30sec
- Tek Raptor: Growth time: 1d 13h 2 min 13sec
- Tek Rex: Growth time: 3d 20h 30 min
- Tek Stego: Growth time: 2d 3h 26 min 25sec
After that we harvest them to see how much dust they give when farmed, and then we put this into relation to the growing time, so we can find out with which animal we use our time better and more efficient.
Different farming methods will give different amounts
There are 2 different farming methods we are trying out to find the one that is the most efficient in combination with the right animal.
Farming with a chainsaw:
- If you use a primitive chainsaw then Tek Rexes are the most efficient animal to farm
- If you use a damaged capped chainsaw then Tek Parasaurs are the most efficient animal to farm
Farming with a Mantis and a Pickaxe:
- a mutated Mantis with a primitive Pickaxe works best with Tek Parasaurs
- a mutated Mantis with a damaged capped Pickaxe works best with Tek Parasaurs as well
The overall BEST method to farm Element Dust from Tek animals is a mutated Mantis with a primitive pick. It will get about 4 times as much as a chainsaw on a Tek Rex.
Getting Dust from the Ferox
Last but not least there is also the Ferox. This method is not really very efficient though, because to tame or breed them you already need Element. But if you have Feroxes and drop them from your shoulder to the ground or release them from a Cryopod, they will dig around on the ground a bit and give you some Element Dust. It’s for sure more of a Meme-method than a real efficient method itself.
Turning Element Dust into Element
You can turn Element Dust in your own Inventory into “Unstable Element” which spoils into regular Element. This engram can be learned on Extinction at player level 58, and it requires 6 Engram points. Especially for maps like Lost Island, having this Engram unlocked is a good investment.
If you want to know how to get Element on Fjordur, check out this article here.