ARK Survival Ascended: How to use the Tek Bunker

ARK Survival Ascended Ragnarok and the Lost Colony Expansion Pass have some incredible new tech (or rather Tek) in them, with the Tek Bunker. Essentially, this is a drill that bores into the ground and lets you build an underground base for your tribe. The downside is that the Bunker is not really a viable thing to build in solo gameplay.

It takes a ridiculous amount of materials, and you need a Tek Replicator to even craft it. Heck, it takes 60 Engram Points just to learn this one, which is way down at the bottom of the Engram list. That said, it’s a very cool idea, and while not practical, it’s fascinating.

If you want to know how to get a Tek Bunker, we’re here to help you get and use it. Before anything, though, make sure you have the Lost Colony Expansion Pass, or you can’t get your hands on this drill.

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How to make and use a Tek Bunker in ARK Survival Ascended

You can make a Tek Bunker at the Tek Replicator in ARK Survival Ascended, but interestingly enough, it’s not a Tek unlock. You can find it down at the bottom of your Engrams list, at 80. If you have the Engram Points to learn it and the materials to make it, you can have this incredibly fancy drill. It requires:

• 150x Black Pearl
• 200x Crystal
• 300x Element
• 500x Cementing Paste
• 300x Electronics
• 5000x Metal Ingots

The Tek Bunker is very much a late-game project, but it's a fascinating one (Image via Studio Wildcard)

All this means is that it’s a very late game item to have. You can place it on a wide array of mostly flat areas, so put it in a place that works for you, and load it up with Element to fuel it. Once you’ve placed it, it begins making calculations beneath the Mesh. Once that’s done, interact with its Access Terminal.

Selecting Access Terminal loads a 9x9 grid, where you can build directly beneath you. You’ll see spaces that you cannot build on, which are denoted by red blocks. If you get an area that has more red blocks than anything, I recommend moving on. Just pick up the Tek Bunker and move on to another area.

You will require Tek Bunker Modules in Ark Survival Ascended, which can be crafted in the Tek Bunker’s inventory. Each Tek Bunker Module requires resources as well. It will also become incredibly costly and time-consuming pretty soon:

Tek Bunker Module x1

• 30x Black Pearl
• 2X Element
• 200x Polymer
• 100x Electronics
• 300x Metal Ingots

You can place these blocks individually, or you can drag and drop to fill up space a bit more easily. You can have up to eight layers, which can be selected on the left side to place these Tek Bunker Modules. These yellow blocks can be deleted using the Control Key on your keyboard.

Once you’re happy with some modules in position, select Apply Modules, and the Tek Bunker in Ark Survival Ascended will begin putting them in place for you. It seems like it would be better to do this in small chunks at a time, to make sure you’re happy with what you’ve done.

You can make a pretty massive base under the Mesh, with enough resources (Image via Studio Wildcard/YouTube/@Raasclark)

If you want to visit the underground base in Ark Survival Ascended, select Teleport to Last Visited Module on the Tek Bunker’s terminal. This will bring you down to your base. But once you’re down there, you need a way out. Go up to one of the various cubes that make up the wall and hold E to Add Terminal to Module. This will give you a way out.

This is your base, so you can make it as small or large as the terminal allows, and then put whatever items you want in here, provided they fit. A one-tile size base is incredibly tiny, so you may want to make enough Tek Bunker Modules to make something of a decent height and width. The maximum size seems to be 9 blocks high, 9 blocks wide, in a cube. It's pretty massive, but not cheap to build.

You can raid and destroy these bunkers, but do note that it will take a lot of damage from Tek Weapons to do so (Image via Studio Wildcard/YouTube@Raasclark)

It might feel like a sort of complex system, but once you’ve made an underground base, it will feel very satisfying. This could be a very cool way to make a breeding pen for animals like the cool new Veilwyns, so they can safely make babies without any risk of being attacked.

One thing that's worth noting is that if you're on a PVP server and you deal enough damage to someone's Tek Bunker set-up in Ark Survival Ascended, you will be able to access their terminal and teleport down into their base. If someone should destroy your Tek Bunker, however, all the things you have placed in it will hit the surface in a bag, so you can pick up the things you lost.

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Check out our other ARK Survival Ascended guides and features

• Ark Survival Ascended v67 patch notes
• Ark Survival Ascended: 5 best base-building spots in Ragnarok map
• Ark Survival Ascended: How does the Skill Tree work?