Roll Rat

The Roll Rat is one of the Creatures in the Aberration-DLC of ARK: Survival Evolved.

Behavior
A passive creature, it does not attack unless provoked, by either attacking it or stealing any resources it has dug up after burrowing and emerging.

Wild Roll Rats regularly dig underground and pop back up in the same spot, unearthing gems. They frequently unearth Green Gems, sometimes unearth Blue Gems and rarely unearth Red Gems. Collecting the unearthed gems makes the Roll Rat hostile. They lose this ability after taming.

Appearance
The Roll Rat shares many similarities to that of a Naked Mole Rat. However, unlike a Mole Rat, it is far larger and has a armored plating covering its' back.

General
The Roll Rat is a generally passive creature until it is either attacked by the player or if one picks up gems that are laying nearby. When that occurs, the Roll Rat will become hostile and will attack the player. Although its damage is fairly high even at low levels, it is not an exceptionally fast creature. Put a decent amount of space between the two of you, and it will cease combat easily.

Strategy
If you are on more of a fresh character and do not have access to Large Bear Trap yet still wish to fight a Roll Rat, your best bet is to not leave its side during combat. Note that with its large turning circle, it is prone to falling off cliffs.

Weaponry
It is most preferable to utilize ranged weapons and attacks if you have the means to immobilize the Roll Rat; however, as noted above, hugging the Roll Rat's side during melee combat is your best chance at downing it. Be sure to back off quickly when it occasionally begins rolling.

Dangers
The only two ways to make a Roll Rat aggressive is to either steal the gems it unearths or to attack it directly. Otherwise, it is completely passive. As it is sometimes a source of the rare Red Gems, this provocation is often worth the risk.

Weakness
Roll Rats possess mediocre speed when not rolling, and their large turning radius oftentimes make them easy targets.

Taming Strategy (PC)
The Roll Rat has a unique variation to the Passive Taming mechanic; rather than directly pressing E to feed an item to the creature, you have to wait until it burrows down into the ground. Aim at the hole and press 0 (zero) to throw the food at the hole and repeat every time it burrows back in until it is fully tamed. It only accepts as its food source for taming.

Once tamed, however, the Roll Rat has a standard herbivore diet.


 * Quick Steps


 * 1) Place a single in the last inventory slot.
 * 2) Wait for the Roll Rat to burrow. Once it's tail is up in the air, it's time to throw.
 * 3) Aim at the hole and press 0 (zero) to throw the at the hole. Note that this does NOT make you eat the honey.
 * 4) Repeat all steps until tamed.

The Roll Rat occasionally begins its burrow animation but instead just unearths food - avoid being trigger happy if you have limited resources. You cannot pick thrown honey back up.

Also be aware that because of its large turning circle, it is prone to falling off cliffs midway through the taming process.


 * Notes


 * It appears as though you can "claim" a Roll Rat tame by throwing the honey on the ground in front of it. On PC, other attempts to feed it this way are ignored.
 * The Roll Rat's tame is cancelled if it enters combat. This completely resets ownership, progress and effectiveness.
 * The Roll Rat occasionally damages nearby units when it eats or emerges from its hole. This damage does not cause you to enter combat.

You have to wait until the Roll Rat starts to burrow and then throw near them to eat.

Utility
Unlike the overwhelming majority of creatures in ARK: Survival Evolved, the Roll Rat's saddle has a durability component that is damaged by combat, or by collisions with clippable resources (except foliage) while rolling. This reduces its usefulness in combat.

Roles

 * Transport: Roll Rats can transport several people safely and quickly by rolling. When riding the rat and holding, , or , it rolls forward at a fast pace. On its way, it breaks rocks and trees that are in its path; however, this reduces the durability of the.
 * Harvester: The Roll Rat is a good harvester and a decent Mushroom and Berry harvester and will even harvest berries and mushrooms by itself.
 * It also has 80% weight reduction for and.
 * Fertilizer: As with most creatures, feed Roll Rats and they will produce a very high amount of feces.
 * Bulldozer: Rolling into trees, large mushrooms and rocks will destroy them. This can be used to clear out areas of land quickly to be used for construction, although the resources from the trees and rocks are not harvested. In the same vein, Roll Rats can bulldoze their way through wood and stone structures with relative ease, making them primitive base breakers or turret removers. They do more damage the faster they're going and leveling up melee damage amplifies the damage they deal.
 * Travel: the Roll Rat is one of the best land travel mounts, they are faster than a, or even a . and more fun to travel with unlike flyers like the.
 * Raider: on PVP the roll rat can be one of the best Raiders, with their roll they Can quickly break  and s, also they can't be immobilized by  and it gives you nearly protection from.

Weight Reduction
The Roll Rat reduces the weight of the following resources by the listed amount while they are in its inventory:

Notes/Trivia

 * The torn dossier for this creature was first revealed on October 28, 2017.
 * In the dossier for the Roll Rat it is shown to be a bareback ride tame however in game you need a saddle in order to ride it, this is presumably a mistake.
 * The Roll Rat's ability to roll resembles that of, however the RMB must be held down for the Roll Rat to continue rolling, and the Doedicurus's saddle does not take damage when rolling.
 * The dossier states that the Roll Rat's roll can dent even metal. However this is currently not the case as the roll does no damage to metal structures (but is devastating against stone structures.) Whether or not this is a bug or intentional is currently unknown at this time but as it stands, however it may be talking about its metal saddle and how it breaks over time.
 * Roll Rats gain more movement speed while rolling if levels into movement speed are invested and/or if they're imprinted. This can make Roll Rats the fastest creature for land travel by far but controlling them at such speeds is nigh impossible. Movespeed-invested Roll Rats would not be advised for travel on Aberration or Extinction due to the nature of the maps (Aberration has several steep cliffs and Extinction doesn't have a barrier at the map edges to stop your momentum which can lead to the death of you and your Roll Rat should you cross the edge.)
 * Oddly enough, Roll Rats take full damage from bullets, unlike nearly every other creature in the game.
 * In the Seeker dossier, it shows a group of Seekers attacking a Roll Rat.
 * Real Naked Mole Rats eat plants but they mostly eat the roots and bulbs of the plant. Ark's Roll Rat have adapted to eating the Giant Bee Honey.
 * Roll Rats are a type of Mole Rat that have some how adapted to grow a unusual size. It has also adapted to curl up into a ball and roll around giving it the name Roll Rat.
 * However, Helena's claim that Roll Rats exibit this behavior is contradicted by the fact that wild Roll Rats in-game have never been seen to roll up in a ball and can only do so when tamed and eqipped with a saddle. On the contrary, Wild Roll Rats can dig but as soon as they are tamed, they lose this ability.
 * Helena mentions in her notes about wild Roll Rat's eating plants and fungi. While they do when tamed, they can only be tamed by giving it Giant Bee Honey first.
 * Mole Rats in real life have a eusocial structure similar to, bees, ants, termites and wasps. The Naked Mole Rats are lead by a queen and are the only mammals with this behavior, however Ark's Roll Rat does not have this behavior or is at least never shown similarly to the . The  and  species however do show it.
 * While taming it is also possible to throw the Giant Bee Honey while being riding on a tame e.g. Argentavis. It is not necessary to stand next to the hole. This makes taming easier and safer.
 * They are future relative of the Mole Rat that had to adapt to the changes of the environment in Aberration after the Ark became damaged.