How to Eat Fast in Ark: Survival Evolved
Eating quickly in Ark: Survival Evolved can be crucial for survival. Whether you’re in the middle of a dangerous encounter, recovering from a fight, or simply trying to maximize your efficiency, knowing how to rapidly consume food is a valuable skill. The fastest way to eat in Ark involves using a combination of understanding the game mechanics, efficient inventory management, and a few specific techniques. Primarily, the most rapid way to eat involves rapidly tapping the use key (usually “E” on PC) while your cursor is hovering over the food item in your inventory. However, the speed is also dependent on the type of food and your current hunger level.
Understanding the Mechanics
Before diving into specific methods, it’s essential to understand the underlying mechanics related to eating in Ark. Your character has a hunger stat, which depletes over time and faster during strenuous activities like sprinting or fighting. Consuming food replenishes this hunger stat. The speed at which you consume and the amount of hunger replenished varies based on the type of food. For example, cooked meat generally provides more hunger replenishment than berries, but they still consume at the same speed when eaten. It’s also worth noting that eating is not always instantaneous; there is a small delay between each consumption action, even when rapidly tapping.
Rapid Eating Techniques
Inventory Navigation and Key Binding
The key to eating quickly lies in how efficiently you can access and consume your food. Using the inventory menu and your use key simultaneously is crucial:
- Open Your Inventory: Press the designated inventory key (usually “I” on PC, or corresponding button on console) to open your inventory.
- Hover Over Food: Position your mouse cursor over the food item you want to consume.
- Rapidly Tap the Use Key: Quickly and repeatedly press the use key (usually “E” on PC, or corresponding button on console) while your cursor remains over the selected food. Each tap will initiate the consumption of one food item.
This method allows you to consume multiple food items in rapid succession. The better you are at consistently tapping, the quicker you’ll be able to eat. While the default key binds can be used, some players find it easier to rebind the use key to a more easily accessible button for rapid-fire input, or even use a mouse with macro functions.
Type of Food and Stack Size
While the eating animation speed is consistent, the amount of hunger replenishment varies greatly depending on the food consumed. Therefore, selecting the right food for rapid consumption can make a noticeable difference:
- High Saturation Foods: Cooked meats, prime meats, and kibble provide significant hunger replenishment compared to berries and other raw foods. Consuming these can minimize the total number of actions required to fill your hunger meter.
- Stack Size: Stack sizes are important too; if you only have one or two of an item like prime meat, it will run out fast, so having a stack is a good idea.
- Prepared Meals: While not always optimal for instant eating, complex food recipes made in the cooking pot provide various benefits and might be useful for maintaining hunger levels more efficiently in the long run.
Avoiding Interruptions
Eating speed can be negatively impacted by interruptions. Being attacked by creatures or experiencing other disruptions can cancel eating actions. Therefore:
- Find a Safe Spot: Before trying to quickly eat a large amount of food, secure your position or find a safe place where you won’t be interrupted.
- Prepare in Advance: Before heading into dangerous territory, make sure you have a good stock of high-saturation food ready to go in your inventory.
Additional Tips and Tricks
- Hotkeys: Assigning food to hotkeys can make accessing and eating it faster, especially on PC.
- Macros: Advanced users can use mouse macro functions (if they are available to them) to automate the rapid-tapping process, but this may violate some servers’ rules.
- Stay Well-Fed: Prevent situations that require rapid eating by keeping your hunger levels up. Regularly consuming small amounts of food before becoming critically hungry can be a strategy to never have to eat in a rush.
- Understanding Temperature: Remember that extreme temperatures affect how fast hunger depletes; being cold will make your food bar deplete faster, and being hot will make your thirst go down quicker.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What is the fastest way to reduce hunger in Ark?
The fastest way to reduce hunger is by using the method described above: open inventory, hover over food, and rapidly tap the use key. The most effective way to reduce hunger fast is by eating high-saturation food like cooked meat, prime meat, and kibble in succession.
2. Does the type of food affect eating speed?
No, the animation of consuming an item does not change in speed, although the amount of hunger it replenishes does. High-saturation food replenishes more hunger, which translates to fewer eating actions and quicker overall hunger management.
3. How can I quickly access food in my inventory?
Using hotkeys for frequently used food items will allow for much faster access than navigating menus. Set hotkeys for common food items in your inventory.
4. Can I speed up eating using server settings?
No, the server settings do not have an option to directly change eating speed, but many settings affect the rate at which hunger depletes, or how fast food is gathered or cooked, and these can indirectly impact how fast you eat.
5. Does movement affect the speed I can eat?
No, movement does not affect the eating animation. However, sprinting or doing other strenuous activities will deplete your hunger faster, which could indirectly impact how quickly you need to eat again.
6. What’s the best early-game food to eat?
Berries are a good source early on, as they are easy to gather. However, you should focus on acquiring meat quickly because cooked meat provides a much greater hunger replenishment.
7. How does temperature affect my hunger?
If your character is cold, their food bar will go down faster, meaning you’ll need to eat more often. Staying thermally insulated can help slow hunger loss.
8. Is there a “starve taming” method for players?
No, starve taming only applies to creatures. You cannot “starve” your character to eat more efficiently. However, you can always be at peak hunger levels when preparing for a long journey, so you don’t need to eat on the way.
9. Does the stack size of my food matter?
Yes, having a larger stack size available means less time spent managing inventory and accessing more food items, making eating more efficient.
10. Can I eat while swimming?
Yes, you can eat while swimming, but be mindful that any disruption like an attack will cancel your eating action, and you will need to restart it.
11. Is it faster to eat a single stack at a time?
No, the fastest way is to open your inventory and hover over a food stack and rapidly press the use key, even if there is more than one available to be consumed.
12. What is the most efficient way to maintain hunger?
Consistently consuming small amounts of high-saturation food, preventing your character from becoming critically hungry, is the most efficient way to maintain hunger. Also, be sure to stay warm.
13. Do complex recipes fill you up faster?
Complex recipes may provide secondary benefits or high levels of hunger replenishment and will assist in maintaining your hunger more efficiently, although they do not reduce the time it takes to eat, per item consumed.
14. Can I use macros to eat faster?
While some players may use macros to automate rapidly pressing the use key, this is often against server rules, and you must check the specific rules of your server before using them.
15. What should I do if I’m constantly getting hungry?
If you’re constantly getting hungry, focus on reducing strenuous activities, improving your thermal insulation and consume high-saturation foods more often to stay ahead of the hunger curve.
By mastering these tips and techniques, you can efficiently manage your hunger and stay alive in the dangerous world of Ark.