Rockwell

See also: Corrupted Master Controller, Andross, Rockwell Node, Rockwell Prime.

Rockwell is the Boss in 's Expansion Pack Aberration and one of the two primary antagonists of the ARK storyline. He was one of the few explorers who had written Explorer Notes containing recipes before he went insane "ascending" with his Edmundium (simply known to villagers as ) experiment, as evidenced by his notes.

Basic Info
The place to activate the teleporter to the Rockwell Arena depends on currently unknown conditions. For some players only the Terminal shows the summon icons, the survivors can see them also in the Obelisks on the surface or in loot crates.

Behavior
When the survivor enters the Rockwell Arena, Rockwell's tentacles will attempt to attack them by slamming into the ground, electrocuting the ground, and shooting balls of energy at the survivor and their tames.

Appearance
This former explorer is a humanoid monstrosity. He is gargantuan in size, ranking second largest in game. His limbs and hair have been replaced by many tendrils with the larger tendrils possessing wicked spikes presumably made of bone. His face is an equal atrocity with one half still resembling a human face whilst the other half is covered in element filled veins topped off with overgrown fang like teeth. His torso is more or less a guard box for his only surviving organ, his heart, that acts as a pump for his element filled veins that are present all over his body.

He stands at 142 meters tall, with his tentacles being 160 meters long on the surface, and he weighs 52,236 metric tons.

Lore
Edmund Rockwell is a survivor from the main story of ARK. He was Helena's close friend on The Island, both of them sharing a common passion for science and tea. When referring to his past life, he seems to be from Victorian Era England (19th century), derived from his tales of hunting wildlife in Africa and India - territories under British authority at the time.

While on The Island, he settled tensions between tribes by acting as a neutral party and mediator during negotations; his successes with diplomacy earned him a reptuation of respect and renown. He would later use this reputation to acquire test subjects for his Rockwell Recipes - some willing, and some not so willing. Rockwell was also one of the first survivors to discover an artifact, and likely the very first to realise their significance and roles within the ARK. Once he became aware of their significance, he once again used his influence to get the tribes of the island to recover many of these artifacts for him.

When Helena and Mei-Yin investigated one of the Obelisks without informing Rockwell, he took it as a sign of betrayal, believing that Helena was trying to get one over on him and keep the secrets she may discover to herself. He formed an alliance with the Roman general, Gaius Nerva, believing that the might of Gaius' tribe, the New Legion, was his best chance at uncovering the mystery of the ARK before anyone else. He eventually made it to The Island's Tek cave and discovered the valuable resource of Element, giving it the name Edmundium after himself, and was transported to the Scorched Earth ARK.

During his travels in the desert, he began to run experiments on the limited amount of Element samples he recovered from The Island's Tek cave. He also began to grow increasingly weary of other survivors, feeling a particular hatred to those he deemed too ignorant to be worthy of the ARK's secrets. Eventually, Rockwell reunited with Helena; still harboring resentment toward her, but appearing outwardly co-operative. Together, they left the Scorched Earth ARK with the help of Raia, ending up on Aberration.

Soon after arriving on the Aberration ARK, Rockwell was introduced to Diana and Santiago's tribe; he disapproved of their use of Element to construct suits of advanced Tek armor, but appreciated the power they provided the wearer. He talked his way into the company of the tribe's scientists and researchers, and began his feverish obsession with Element again, this time experimenting on small critters and his own blood. Eventually, his derangement reached a peak when he injected liquid element into his own body, believing that it would trigger his ascension to godhood. He instead mutated into a hideous abomination, attacking the tribe, killing Diana in the process, and fleeing deeper into the ARK. He seemingly met his end when he was confronted by Helena and Mei-Yin in combat, but survived to become the de facto Overseer of the Aberration ARK.

When the Aberration ARK fell onto Earth, Rockwell makes plans to gather an army by making the Genesis Simulation a factory for generating survivors that rally to his cause, he corrupt a part of the genesis ship and create his own creatures like the Shadowmane and the Noglin, his goal is to conquer a habitable planet to corrupt it like the corrupt ring of the ship.

Tribute Requirements
The following items are needed to open the Aberration Portal:

Tribute Spawn Commands
Uses these commands to give yourself all the items needed for tribute:

Drops
Gamma=

Beta=

Alpha=

Unlocks
Gamma=
 * -|Beta=
 * -|Alpha=

Base Stats and Growth
Gamma Rockwell=

Beta Rockwell=

Alpha Rockwell=

General
Rockwell stands inside the middle of the arena with a single path to him, surrounded by both his tentacles and a pool of inaccessible pure molten Element. While his tentacles are up he can not be harmed. The arena is not irradiated, because of this, feel free to bring any armor better than hazard suits to ensure survival.

Strategy
Destroy each of his tentacles before being able to attack his stunned body. Rinse and repeat until he is dead. The more mounted survivors fighting, the better the odds.

When the tentacles begin their AoE shock/dismount attack avoid it immediately and wait it out. It has a short wind-up and charge-up indicating when it's about to start. The attack can also be canceled if the tentacle is destroyed.

will begin spawning in, with a strong mount these can be dealt with.

s are not recommended as you can accidentally dismount and blind yourself with them. could also work, however they are unreliable and inefficient when compared to any of the four lantern pets. You can use Meks to kill Rockwell but to get the Mek in you have to throw it out of the cryopod when you hear the whoosh of the boss fight.

With the utilization of you are able to do the entire boss fight on foot. Both Reapers and Nameless ignore you(unless you come too close to them) and you are able to clear the tentacles entirely with shotguns.

On gamma difficulty the fight can take less than ten minutes with two survivors(no less than 3 cactus broth each) with with more then 230% damage, with 400 bullets each. You won’t use all of your ammo, but keep in mind, Reapers and Nameless may still attack if they come too close to you, so it’s best to plan for that with extra armor, bullets, and a charge pet(this won’t affect the cactus broth unless the tame is thrown down).

For higher difficulties, you could be looking at needing not only 3-4x as much ammo, but more armor and weapons as durability will be used up quickly.

Bring standard food materials and any buffs you think will help you. s or healing custom foods are highly recommended as Rockwell will still attack periodically.

When you are fighting Rockwell, you can fight him from one position at his front. You can shoot all of the tentacles(on gamma taking between 3-4 shots each with 230% damage) and then shoot him in the chest. There is no need to run around the arena to shoot the tentacles as the barrier that blocks you from falling into the molten element does not affect projectiles. (You might need to run around a little bit to hit the ones behind him, so don’t except not using stamina)

This strategy can be considered cheaper than with tames as you're only risking items, which can be farmed without spending days raising or Reaper. Plus, you don’t have to deal with bunches of creatures chasing after you for the entire fight.

• If you wish, instead of using defensive armor, you can use a full set of to reduce your detection range from 12 meters(which is an effect of cactus broth) to 6 as ghillie halves your detection range. This can be used to help deal with nearby creatures if one is anxious of the such. But this does come with the added risk of less armor, but high quality ghillie might still help and have decent protection. But because of durability this is risky.

Recommended Tames

 * Light pets such as the, , and the  will all be effective and are recommended due to helping against the Nameless and Elemental Reaper minions.
 * Due to Aberration not having rexes for Rex Rushing can be used as a substitute instead thanks to it always being night on Aberration they will always have the night buff. Pair a megalosaurus of the opposite gender with the one you are riding for the mate boost to deal its maximum damage to Rockwell.
 * A couple of Rock Drakes can also be very effective due to being able to not only compete with the arenas Elemental Reaper minions but also doing increased damage against Nameless, the ability to turn invisible, allowing the rider to fire from the saddle while mounted, allows a passenger to ride on it as well, and they can also be equipped with a Tek saddle. The Tek Saddle can allow one more passenger, allowing 3 survivors to ride one Rock Drake with. This allows 3 Rock Drakes with a Tek saddle to carry 3 survivors each, giving the final survivor the option to ride a megalosaurus for raw damage. This in turn allows the rest of the tame slots to be used for megalosaurus to damage Rockwell in his downed state, allowing maximum damage to be done in a short amount of time.
 * Given that it is the survivor's first time and the Rock Drake, Tek saddle isn't available, the Rock Drakes can carry 2 people each with their normal saddle.
 * While not nearly as mobile, Aberrant stegosauruses are often chosen as an alternative to the Rock Drake due to it's tankiness and ability to heal from.
 * Having a can also be useful as a way to deal heavy damage once Rockwell is downed thanks to its increased stats when not around charge light making it a very strong tame.
 * If survivors are willing to put the effort into micromanaging their food, the can also be valuable due to their healing ability, But cannot be brought to aberration on official servers.

Dangers

 * Rockwell will often spew out purple energy balls at the target survivor, wounding anything around (including shoulder-mounted dinos) and inside of it with the exception of his tentacles. This includes the survivor while riding a mount, to be prepared for this bring multiple suits of armor and medical brews to increase your chances of survival. This projectile will also target camouflaged Rock Drakes. The darker the projectile color (with red being the most dangerous), the more damage it will do upon exploding.


 * Shooting the projectiles will cause them to burst. Shooting it near other projectile will cause them to explode them as well, but if any survivor or dino comes into contact, they will get hit by it.


 * He will also call out a constant wave of Nameless and a few to defend him after he emerges from the Element pool for the second time. The last time he emerges from the Element pool, the aforementioned dinos will constantly spawn and could overwhelm every survivor and their dino, making killing Rockwell a priority to stop them from spawning.


 * After losing a certain amount of health, Rockwell's tentacles start an electrification AoE attack. This attack dismounts, hinders, and damages survivors. Watch the tentacles and stay away from this attack which will be especially deadly when other creatures are nearby. You cannot remount in the electrified area.
 * For some reason, wearing a full set of riot armor is ill-advised as you can die from hypothermia despite it being 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Be sure to wear 4 riot armor pieces and a different armor type for the 5th piece.

Weakness
Edmund Rockwell has only one weakness to his health: His heart. It becomes exposed after all the tentacles are killed momentarily.

Elemental Reaper Kings are weaker than their other wild counterpart, making them very easy to kill. Despite this, to be able to kill them effectively, they must be affected by charge light.

Nameless spawns disregard presence of other enraged alphas, and transforms into them after a while. Unlike the ones outside the arena, these do not call for Subterranean Reaper King. Despite this, it's best not to underestimate them due to their swarm.

Other than his tentacles and his inability to move around, he does not possess any other weakness.

Dossier Code
There's an encoded message on the teaser dossier, which uses the same code as in Ascension. The message decodes to

""I am not a god. I am more than that. Infinitely more. I am everything. This world, this ARK, it is my body. "

"I can feel every bit of it, every footstep of man or beast that falls upon my skin, and every root that digs into my flesh. They are all mine. Everything in this world happens only by my will.  "

"The ones who put me here have long since fled, but though I hate them, I accept their escape. It is their reward, for they placed me upon this throne.    "

"Yet should anyone else challenge me, they shall receive no mercy. My wrath will be swift and terrible, and my enemies will know only pain. I am everything.  ""

Notes/Trivia

 * In-game/Media
 * The boss was first introduced in the community crunch 111 on 2017-12-08.
 * In the Genesis part 2 teaser video, Doctor Who star David Tennant voices Rockwell.
 * In another article it was stated that Tennant would be the De facto voice of Edmund Rockwell for Genesis part two
 * Rockwell is sometimes referred to as ‘the Master’ or just Master, evidence by his new role as the corrupted master controller in the Genesis DLC and the Explorer notes
 * Interestingly Rockwell is the only Corrupted Human in the entire game, it's unknown if Humans can even become naturally Corrupted as Rockwell turned into a massive abomination by experimenting on himself and despite the entire planet being taken over by the Corruption and the Titans not a single Corrupted Human was ever shown aside from Rockwell.
 * Rockwell is the largest being on Aberration.
 * Rockwell was the largest being in the game until the Extinction Expansion Pack came out with the replacing Rockwell for that title.
 * Unlike the other bosses, Rockwell's dossier appears purple in tint (perhaps due to Aberration's color and its theme of mutation/corruption), as opposed to the turquoise color associated with normal bosses. This shares a similarity in terms of different colors with the King Titan.
 * You can summon Rockwell at an like other bosses. However, Rockwell possesses his own terminal in the style of a Tek Cave.
 * Rockwell is one of the only 2 bosses to have a Tek cave with the other being the.
 * When a Rockwell tentacle comes in contact with a dead Reaper's acid burn, he is temporarily stunned and left in a "T-pose" state until the effect wears off.
 * Rockwell remains stationary, if not invulnerable, until all his tentacles are destroyed.
 * The of Rockwell is obtainable by hitting him with a  from the platform where his chest is exposed as he is doing his death animation.
 * Rockwell is one of the only 2 characters the survivor meets with the other being Helena and he is the only one you fight against.
 * Interestingly neither are technically "human" anymore by the time you meet them as Rockwell had become a Corrupted Human/Overseer hybrid and Helena became a Homo Deus.
 * Rockwell is the largest creature in the game. He is as tall as a King Titan but when his tentacular hair goes up he is 5 m taller.
 * Second tallest if you treat himself in the final form as a part of Rockwell Innards and Corrupted Gardens which are as big as The Center mod map
 * Lore
 * Edmund Rockwell proclaims as Edmundium.
 * Contrary to popular belief, Rockwell is not the creator of the Nameless and Reapers, as both were on Aberration during the time Rockwell was there as a human, and long before then. They were present during Mei-Yin's first hours on the Aberrant ARK, and she had arrived much earlier than Rockwell and Helena, almost 2 years prior to their arrival.
 * In terms of amount of time, Mei Yin arrived 1355 days or 3.6 years after Diana woke up on Aberration and Helena and Rockwell arrived on day 1898 or 5.2 years after Diana woke up on the ARK.
 * Santiago refers to the events in respective chronological order where Rockwell ascended with Element as the "Rockwell Incident" in an addendum in his Extinction explorer notes.
 * The incident began when the Tek village was celebrating Helena's mission with Mei Yin and Santiago on managing to prevent the ARK's self-destruction by hacking into the and shutting them down while Rockwell moved undetected to gather Element samples to what he considered "enough". His right arm has grown to abnormal sizes by a self experiment with Element.
 * Rockwell ascended by an injection of a mixture of his blood with molten, pure and transformed into a horrible monster of tentacles. He proceeded to attack the Tek city while a Tek villager sent a distress call to Helena, Santiago, and Mei Yin. When the trio arrived back at the village, Diana died in Mei Yin's arms with Rockwell heading into Aberration's depths.
 * He was eventually defeated by Mei Yin and Helena and cast into the depths of Aberration. Helena wrote a letter about who Rockwell used to be out of grief in the aftermath.
 * Evidenced by the Explorer Notes, and by what happens in the boss fight, it appears that when Mei Yin and Helena banished Rockwell into the depths of Aberration, he somehow fell into the Guardian's chamber before assuming its place. This is likely how Rockwell states that he was "placed upon this throne". Since the Guardians are technically part of the ARK itself, Rockwell was connected to the programming and everything else which runs the station. This could easily explain what he means by saying the ARK is "his body".
 * Evidenced by the same as above, Rockwell may have "taken over" Aberration. Granted the ARK was already damaged beforehand.
 * Upon his defeat in the boss fight, as there is a purple dome which seems to suddenly appear around the arena, that then begins to shatter and break apart, being replaced with a blue light, while showing the player various holograms. In a sense, Rockwell's defeat seems to trigger the ARK to properly work again.
 * Since Rockwell is technically a Guardian, he becomes an autonomous part of the station. The station continues to summon him in a never-ending cycle of imprisonment, battle, and death by the survivor's hands, serving as a strangely dark, yet poetic end for a man who became so corrupt and deluded.
 * It seems that if an overseer is completely destroyed, the ARK it is operating will slowly start to crumble and ultimately self-destruct.
 * After Diana and company's Tek bomb completely destroyed the overseer, the ARK suffered a malfunction.
 * In lore, Helena, with the aid of Santiago, managed to prevent the ARK's self-destruction by hacking into the obelisks and shutting them down. Cast down into the depths of Aberration, Rockwell began to mutate into a living conductor of Element, therefore claiming his role as the new overseer, which allowed the ARK to be stable.
 * Based on his physical appearance, Rockwell isn't able to talk and only roars. His last 3 explorer notes are all written in ARK code. However, in the Genesis Simulation, Rockwell is somehow able to speak to the survivor via HLN-A and in the Arrival Protocol since the simulation coding and the mysterious ARK code could be translating what he is trying to say.
 * With the release of Genesis part 2 a new side to this version of Rockwell can be seen.
 * - This version of Rockwell lacks the ability to ‘grow’ or even vocalize as seen on the colony ship
 * - the reason for this is likely the same reason Aberration hasn’t exploded yet...
 * - as the overseer and Guardian of Aberration ,Rockwell is controlled by the station and it’s AIs left by the overseer.
 * - this greatly hampers his power and capabilities and prevents him from achieving his potential as seen is Gen Part 2
 * - It can therefore be said that Aberration acted as Rockwell’s prison and prevented him from exceeding the stations design.
 * - upon Aberrations destruction at the end of Extinction, Rockwell is freed and can finally achieve his potential.