Saddles allow you to ride various creatures in ARK: Survival Evolved. Riding a creature requires crafting the correct saddle and equipping it from the creature's inventory. some saddles have 'special abilities'.
Saddle Stats
Most Saddles made with Engrams have 25 Armor. Carbonemys, Trike, Pachyrhinosaurus, Diplodocus, Paracer, Paracer Platform and Bronto (not platform) have 20 Armor. The Titanosaur Platform Saddle has 1.0 Armor. Saddles made with Blueprints can have better stats. With the exception of the 
Roll Rat Saddle 
, saddles don't lose durability, and it is not visible on tooltips.
Crafting Information
Titan Platform Saddles are not included here as they are not crafted, but automatically equipped on tamed Titans.
Saddle Armor
By gathered in-game data, the following formulas were derived for calculating damage reduction to dinos from armor.
The general formulas are as follows:
- DamageMultiplier = 100 / (100 + Armor Coefficient * Armor)
- TotalDamage = Damage * DamageMultiplier
- DamageReduction = 1 - DamageMultiplier
The value of the Armor Coefficient varies based on the source of the damage and are shown in the following sections.
Explosives
For explosive damage against saddles, the Armor Coefficient has a value of 1.
- DamageMultiplier = 100 / (100 + 1 * Armor)
Example using 750 explosive damage (Grenades and rockets from a primitive Rocket Launcher) against a creature:
| Armor | Damage Multiplier | Total Damage | Damage Reduction |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1 | 750 | 0% |
| 25 | 0.8 | 600 | 20% |
| 30 | 0.769230 (repeating) | 576.92 | 23.08% |
| 40 | 0.714285 (repeating) | 535.71 | 28.57% |
| 50 | 0.666666 (repeating) | 500 | 33.33% |
Firearms and Melee Weapons
For bullet damage and player melee weapon against saddles, the Armor Coefficient has a value of 4.
- DamageMultiplier = 100 / (100 + 4 * Armor)
Example using 60 bullet damage (bullet from a Simple Pistol) against a creature:
| Armor | Damage Multiplier | Total Damage | Damage Reduction |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1 | 60 | 0% |
| 25 | 0.5 | 30 | 50% |
| 30 | 0.454545 (repeating) | 27.27 | 55% |
| 40 | 0.384615 (repeating) | 23.08 | 61.54% |
| 50 | 0.333333 (repeating) | 20 | 66.66% |
- As of patch 231.4 turrets do 2.2x damage vs. all dinos.
Dino Attacks
For dino damage, the Armor Coefficient varies on the attacker. It can vary widely with some examples are shown below:
- Attacks from Rexes and Brontos: 4 (50% damage reduction from a 25 armor saddle)
- Attacks from Alpha Raptors: 1 (20% damage reduction from a 25 armor saddle)
- Attacks from Mantas: 0.4 (9.09% damage reduction from a 25 armor saddle)
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Other