How to tame a Karkinos (cannon trap) and use it for metal runs and PvP

Why the Karkinos is a cannon tame

The Karkinos is a giant crab, and ordinary knockout tools do not work on it. The wiki is explicit: it cannot be knocked out with arrows, darts or animal torpor attacks, so you need something heavy such as a Catapult Turret or a Cannon. It is tamed by knockout, prefers Exceptional Kibble, and will accept Spoiled Meat if you have none.

The catch is where you hit it. The wiki warns that hitting the limbs deals heavy damage to the crab instead of torpor, and a high-level one can die before it ever falls asleep. Raconin's video is built around this: a stone trap that stops the crab, a ladder platform for a cannon, and a single clean shot. The wiki quotes the best case: one cannon ball knocks out even a max-level Karkinos if you land it right.

Materials list from the video

Plan on a few extra cannonballs. Raconin notes that a perfect hit needs just one, but a hit to the wrong area deals mostly damage and, depending on level, can kill the crab.

Building the trap

The layout is easiest to follow with the video open beside you, because several pieces depend on the exact orientation. The sequence below matches the order Raconin builds in.

1. Lay the base. Place three normal foundations side by side. Attach five triangle foundations to them, then three more triangle foundations connected to those five.
2. Extend the entrance. From the middle of the three back triangle foundations, snap three normal foundations forward. This is the lane the crab will walk down.
3. Close the end of the lane. On the last of those three foundations, stack two double doorframes on top of each other.
4. Wall the triangle side. On the outside of each triangle foundation, place two double doorframes, exactly as shown in the video. Raconin's list of 12 walls covers the wall pieces for the whole build; follow the video for exact counts per side.
5. Make the roof corners. On the side with the three normal foundations, place one triangle roof on the left and one on the right. Change them into roof corners and turn the points inward. These are what the crab walks over.
6. Build the cannon platform. On the other side, where you only have the two double doorframes, place the two ceilings, one extending forward and one backward. Attach the two ladders to the back ceiling so you can climb up.
7. Mount the cannon. Snap it onto the front ceiling and aim it as far down as it goes.

The wiki calls a stone trap made of dinosaur gates or pillars “the most reliable method” for this creature, with the warning that a Karkinos can jump out of a trap once contained. Closing off every opening matters.

Luring and knocking it out

1. Lead the crab to the trap. Walk it toward the entrance and cross the two roof corners yourself. It follows you in and gets stuck inside.
2. Climb the ladder and load a cannonball. Wait until the crab turns to face you.
3. Aim for the head and body, not the claws. Raconin says only a head shot gives torpor. The wiki tells you to aim for the crab's body and avoid the limbs. In practice, aim at the main shell and head and treat the claws as the danger zone.
4. Fire once, and check. A correct hit knocks it out instantly. A wrong one deals damage and can kill a low-health crab.

Feeding and the Sanguine Elixir shortcut

Put Spoiled Meat or Exceptional Kibble into the crab's inventory. Torpor drains slowly enough that you are not racing: the wiki's table for a cannon knockout puts the time until torpor runs out at about 26 minutes for a level-1 Karkinos and about an hour and five minutes for a level-150.

The video adds an optional shortcut. A Sanguine Elixir placed on hotbar slot 0 and used while looking at the unconscious crab gives it an instant 30% of the taming bar. The wiki confirms the 30% boost and adds that an elixir works only once per creature, so a reset tame cannot use a second one. It also notes the Elixir is crafted from 200 Blood Packs on a saddled Desmodus (see our Desmodus guide) and has a four-hour spoil timer. The wiki lists the Elixir under Fjordur, so check whether your map and server offer it before building the plan around it.

Other ways the wiki lists to tame it

Raconin's trap is one of several routes. The wiki lists these, each with a caveat, which may help if you cannot build the full structure:

The wiki also lists boulder hits to bring a crab down before the final cannon ball: two at level 1, eight at level 60 and sixteen at level 150. Raconin's single-shot approach avoids that work, but it needs the precise hit.

Where to find one

The wiki lists the Karkinos in the Habitat of Aberration, Valguero, Genesis: Part 1, Crystal Isles, Genesis: Part 2 and Fjordur, and notes that in ARK: Survival Ascended it also spawns in a cave south of the Green Obelisk on Ragnarok. The wiki also says they are mostly found in rivers, so a trap on a raft may be worth considering.

Pre-flight checklist

• Cannon and spare cannonballs on the platform
• Food (Exceptional Kibble or Spoiled Meat) in your inventory
• Optional Sanguine Elixir on hotbar slot 0, checked for spoilage
• All trap openings closed, and both ladders attached
• A binocular or similar to check the crab's torpor

Mistakes that cost the tame

• Hitting the claws. The commonest failure. You deal damage, not torpor.
• Leaving a gap in the trap. The wiki warns that Karkinos can jump out of traps once contained.
• Standing in grab range. The wiki says a grabbed target will not be released and a grab can be fatal. Stay on the platform.
• Bringing only one cannonball. It may be enough, but you will regret it if it is not.
• Using an expired Elixir. Check the spoil timer before you make the trip.

Once it is tame, the video also shows why it is worth it. We cover those uses, metal farming on Aberration and PvP defence, on a separate page: Karkinos farming and PvP uses.

Why you would farm with a crab at all

Raconin's video makes a clear argument: the Karkinos is worth owning even after the tame, especially on Aberration. It is a strong mount in a map where conventional flyers are not an option, and it can pick up other creatures and move them. That pickup is the basis of a metal run, and, in PvP, a way to remove an enemy tame from your base. If you have not tamed one yet, start with the Karkinos taming guide.

Some background from the wiki helps. The Karkinos is available on Aberration (the map is part of ASA), can cross water without drowning and is immune to radiation, which matters because the wiki says radiation seeps in at specific locations, mainly the Element regions. Non-immune creatures need a Mushroom Brew roughly every two minutes. The Aberrant Ankylosaurus is also radiation-immune.

The metal run: Karkinos carries the Ankylosaurus

The Ankylosaurus is ARK's classic metal harvester. On official servers, the video says, a tribe-mate sits on the Ankylosaurus to mine while you carry the pair with the Karkinos. That lets you cover difficult ground quickly, and farm for longer, because the Karkinos can move the Ankylosaurus to the metal nodes without you walking it there.

1. Bring both creatures to the start point. Each needs to be tame and set up. Have a friend ride the Ankylosaurus if you are on an official server.
2. Pick up the Ankylosaurus with the Karkinos. The Ankylosaurus's drag weight is 160, well under the 250 the wiki lists as the Karkinos's carrying limit.
3. Carry it to a metal location. The wiki says the Karkinos can hold two creatures at once and will not drop them unless you tell it to.
4. Release, farm, repeat. Let the Ankylosaurus down, mine the nodes and collect the metal. In ASA the wiki says an unridden Ankylosaurus only auto-harvests while under half its weight capacity, so a rider helps.
5. Move on. Pick it up again and carry it to the next cluster. The loop is the point: the Karkinos saves the walk.

On many unofficial servers you can do this solo if solo farming is enabled, per the video: pick up the Ankylosaurus yourself and farm normally. The wiki's Karkinos page mentions the same pairing and recommends two players, because you otherwise have to dismount, mount the Ankylosaurus and swap back each time.

Weight and efficiency: what the wiki numbers say

The comparison is nuanced. Raconin says the Karkinos can carry far more weight than the Ankylosaurus, which is true of the base stat, and the Ankylosaurus's own metal weight reduction is large, so the real gain from the pair is travel, not inventory size. Tip: set the Ankylosaurus to the Harvest Only setting for metal (added in patch 68.5, per the wiki) so it is not wasting swings on stone and flint.

PvP: removing a turret-soaking Stegosaurus

The second use in the video is defensive. Raiders often send a Stegosaurus ahead to soak up turret fire, while rockets finish the turrets off. The wiki's Stegosaurus page describes the tactic and lists, among defenders' counters, throwing the stego away with a Quetzal or a Karkinos, which buys time because cryopods have a cooldown. It also suggests a deathpit near the base.

1. Mount the Karkinos near the base edge. Be ready before the push, not during it.
2. Grab the Stegosaurus. Its drag weight is 250, which is within the Karkinos's limit.
3. Carry it away from the turrets. The video suggests moving it far from your base or dropping it somewhere it cannot soak fire.
4. Throw it. The wiki says the Karkinos throws held creatures in the direction of the camera, for 30 stamina.

Other jobs for the same claws

The wiki describes a few more uses worth knowing. A Karkinos can carry harvesters such as a Moschops to resources it cannot reach itself. A Venom Farmer tactic on the wiki says that as long as you stay under 50% weight, your Karkinos will automatically pick up the Nameless Venom. And the wiki calls its armoured shell a good tank against enemy survivor bullets and Auto Turrets, with the caveat that it is a poor choice against Tek turrets.

Metal run checklist

• A tamed Karkinos at a level that can hold its own, and an Ankylosaurus saddled and ready.
• A partner for the Ankylosaurus on official servers, or confirmation that solo farming is enabled on yours.
• The Ankylosaurus set to Harvest Only: Metal if you are chasing ore.
• Somewhere to deposit the metal: carrying capacity is the limit, so plan your trips around it.
• A way to handle radiation for creatures that are not immune, if your route enters Element regions.

Defender order of operations

1. Spot the soaker early. A Stegosaurus with a rider ahead of the raiders is the signal. The wiki notes attackers often use an imprinted one with hardened plates and a good saddle.
2. Decide whether to remove it or kill the rider. Without Tek turrets it is hard to hurt a plated stego, so removing it is often the better choice.
3. Grab and throw. Use the claws as shown in the video, away from your turret line.
4. Expect them to come back. The wiki says the throw buys time because cryopods have a cooldown, not that it ends the raid.

Karkinos numbers worth knowing

The wiki lists a grab as costing 5 stamina with a 1.5-second cooldown, and a throw as costing 30 stamina every 1.48 seconds. A single claw slam deals 32 damage every 0.89 seconds and a two-claw slam 50 every 1.55 seconds. Those figures explain why the loop works: the stamina cost of picking up and moving a creature is small, so a Karkinos can carry, drop and carry again without running dry, while the throw is expensive enough that you will not spam it.

When something else is better

Raconin is upfront that the Karkinos run is an early-to-mid-game method. Later, he says, a Tek skiff paired with a Magmasaur farms far more metal. The wiki backs half of that: the Magmasaur page says it exceeds the Ankylosaurus in metal gathering and cuts metal weight by 75% in its inventory. It also lists the Magmasaur on Genesis: Part 1, Lost Island and Fjordur, not Aberration, and says neither the Argentavis nor the Karkinos can carry it. We could not confirm the Tek skiff setup on the wiki, so treat that part as Raconin's experience.

In practice: on Aberration, the Karkinos and Ankylosaurus pair is the practical choice because the later options simply are not on the map. If you are playing a map that has them, plan for the upgrade.

Frequently asked questions