Help

Getting Started

DodoNest is a web and iOS app for keeping your ARK: Survival Ascended tribe organized. It covers servers, bases, tasks, duty rosters, dino breeding records, boss run scheduling, and a marketplace for trading dinos and boss seats.

Creating an account

Go to the sign-up page and create an account with your Apple ID, your Google account, or an email address and password. After signing in you are taken to your dashboard.

Setting up your profile

Click Profile in the top navigation. Add a display name and, if you play ARK, your in-game character name and a friend code. Your friend code is the short string that other tribe leaders use to find and invite you.

Creating a tribe

From your dashboard, click "Create a tribe." Give it a name and a short tag between 2 and 8 letters. The tag appears next to your tribe name throughout the app. You become the leader of any tribe you create.

Joining a tribe

A leader or admin from the other tribe needs to invite you by searching for your friend code from their tribe settings. Once sent, the invite appears on your dashboard under pending invites. You can accept or decline it from there.

Switching between tribes

If you belong to more than one tribe, click your tribe name at the top of the page to switch to a different one.

Tribe Overview

The tribe overview is the first page you see when you open a tribe. It gives you a quick picture of what is happening across the tribe.

Message of the Day

Leaders and admins can pin a message at the top of the overview. Use it for reminders, current goals, or anything every member should see. The message can be up to 500 characters. Click Edit next to the message to update or remove it.

Stats tiles

Four tiles show the current counts of open tasks, active dinos, bases, and total boss kills. Clicking a tile takes you to the relevant section of the app.

Announcements

The most recent tribe announcements are listed here. Click any announcement to read the full text. Leaders and admins send announcements using the button at the top of this section, and tribe members with the iOS app receive a push notification each time one is sent.

Activity feed

A running list of recent actions across the tribe: completed tasks, boss kills, new announcements, and members joining.

Resources

A simple inventory tracker for tribe-wide materials like metal, polymer, or anything else you want to keep track of. Leaders and admins can add and update entries. Each entry has a name, quantity, an optional unit, and optional notes.

Members panel

Shows every current tribe member and their role. Leaders can promote a member to admin, demote an admin back to member, or remove someone from the tribe. Click Invite to look up a player by their friend code and send them an invitation.

Servers

Servers are the foundation of your tribe setup. Bases, dinos, boss runs, and duty assignments all live under a server.

Adding a server

Click "Add server" from the server management page. Choose between Official Network and Unofficial or Private.

For official servers, type at least two characters to search the live server list. Each result shows the player count, map, and connection info. Select the server you want and confirm. The name, map, address, and server type fill in automatically.

For unofficial or private servers, fill in the name, choose a map, select a server type, and optionally add a connection address and notes.

Editing a server

Leaders and admins can edit any server by expanding its card and clicking Edit. You can update the name, address, notes, and other details.

Archiving a server

Archiving removes a server from the active list without deleting any of its data. Bases, dinos, and boss run history for that server are all kept. Archived servers appear in a separate section at the bottom of the page, and you can restore them at any time.

Deleting a server

Deleting a server is permanent and removes everything tied to it, including all bases and dinos. A server must be archived before it can be deleted. A confirmation step is required.

Assigning members to servers

Inside an expanded server card you can assign tribe members to that server. This is for reference and does not affect what members can access.

Bases

Bases belong to a server and track where your structures are built. They also handle render timers and generator fuel alerts.

Adding a base

Click "Add base" from the server card or from the bases page. Give it a name, choose a type (Main Base, Outpost, Cave, Water, Breeding, or Storage), and optionally add coordinates, bed names, a teleporter label, and notes.

The render interval controls how many days can pass before the base is considered overdue. A value of 3 means you should log in and render the base at least every 3 days. The default is 3 days.

Render check-ins

After you have logged in and loaded the base in-game, open the base card and click Rendered. This resets the render timer. You can only check in on the same base once per hour.

When a base has not been checked in within its render interval, a warning appears in your notification bell. If it is significantly overdue, the alert shows as critical.

Generators

Each base can track up to 20 generators. For each one, set the type (Regular or Tek), the fuel type, the current fuel amount, and an alert threshold.

The app estimates how long the current fuel will last:

• Regular generators use 1 gasoline per hour.
• Tek generators use 1 element every 18 hours, or roughly 100 element shards per 18 hours.

When the estimated remaining runtime drops below the alert threshold you set, a warning appears in your notification bell. If the generator has run out entirely, the alert becomes critical.

Tasks

Tasks let you track and assign work across the tribe. They live on a board with three columns: Open, In Progress, and Done.

Creating a task

Leaders and admins can create tasks. Fill in a title, choose a priority (Low, Normal, or Urgent), and optionally set a due date, description, a linked server, and specific assignees.

For work that repeats on a schedule, set the task type to Recurring and enter how many days should pass between each repetition. When a recurring task is moved to Done, it resets to Open automatically with a new due date.

Moving tasks

Any tribe member can move a task from Open to In Progress or from In Progress to Done. If a task has specific assignees listed, only those assignees and tribe leaders and admins can mark it Done.

Priorities and due dates

Urgent tasks appear at the top of their column. Tasks with due dates that have already passed show an overdue indicator.

Searching and filtering

Use the search box to find tasks by title or description. You can also filter by server, priority, or a specific assignee. All active filters can be cleared at once.

Duty Schedule

Duty tracks recurring jobs that someone in the tribe needs to take care of: refueling generators and rendering bases.

Generator duty

Create a generator duty to record who is responsible for keeping a generator fueled. Set a due date, optionally assign it to a specific member, and add notes. Any tribe member can mark a duty as complete.

Render duty

Render duty works the same way but focuses on logging in to render specific bases. When creating a render duty, select a server and choose which bases need to be rendered. If you pick all bases or leave the selection empty, the title reflects that automatically.

Repeating duties

When creating a duty, you can turn on Repeat and set an interval in days. When someone marks that duty complete, a new one is created automatically with the due date shifted forward by the interval you set. The schedule is based on the original due date rather than the completion date, so the cadence stays consistent even if someone finishes early or late.

If a repeating duty is overdue and you are a leader or admin, it appears as an alert in the notification bell alongside generator and render alerts. This way someone can step in if the assigned person has not completed it in time.

Completing and reopening duties

Any member can mark a duty Done. Completed duties move to a collapsed section at the bottom of the list. Leaders and admins can reopen a completed duty if it was closed by mistake.

Dinos

The dino tracker is a registry of your tribe's dinosaurs. It supports full stat tracking, mutation counts, and color region IDs.

Adding a dino

Click "Add dino" and fill in the species, name, sex, level, status, and owner. You can also record all six in-game stats (Health, Stamina, Oxygen, Food, Weight, and Melee) broken down by base points, mutation points, and points added after taming. Mutation counts and color region IDs can also be saved.

Any tribe member can add a dino and is set as the owner by default. Leaders and admins can assign ownership to any tribe member.

Editing a dino

Regular members can only edit their own dinos. Leaders and admins can edit any dino, including transferring ownership to a different member.

Changing status

A dino can be Active, Cryo, Lost, or Dead. Active and Cryo can be switched freely. Lost and Dead are permanent and cannot be undone. A dino cannot be set to Lost or Dead while it has an active marketplace listing. Remove or close the listing first.

Deleting a dino

Leaders and admins can permanently delete a dino record. This is blocked if the dino has an active marketplace listing.

Boss Runs

The boss section covers two things: a log of kills your tribe has already completed, and a scheduler for planning future runs.

Logging a kill

Any tribe member can log a boss kill. Select the boss, the difficulty, the date and time, and which tribe members participated. You can also record the element reward and any notes.

Scheduling a run

Leaders and admins can schedule an upcoming boss run. Set the boss, difficulty, date and time, maximum number of attendees, and any notes. Scheduled runs are visible to all tribe members and can be used as the basis for a marketplace boss seat listing.

Cancelling a run

The person who created the run, or any tribe leader or admin, can cancel a scheduled run.

Marketplace

The marketplace is where tribes list dinos and boss seats for other tribes to claim. All listings are publicly visible without an account. Creating and managing listings requires a leader or admin role.

Dino listings

A dino listing advertises one dino or a breeding pair from your tribe. Set a price in one or more resources, write an optional description, and choose an expiry of 7, 14, or 30 days.

To claim a listing from another tribe, sign in, open the listing, and click Claim. You cannot claim your own tribe's listings.

Boss seat listings

A boss seat listing offers spots in one of your scheduled boss runs. Set the boss, difficulty, date and time, number of seats, and price per seat. Other players can claim individual seats, and you confirm or decline each claim from your listings page.

Dino collections

A collection bundles several dinos into a single listing. Useful for selling an entire breeding line at once. Buyers claim the full collection in one step.

Managing your listings

Go to Marketplace from the navigation and look for the My Listings section. You can close an active listing or permanently delete listings that have expired, been sold, or been cancelled.

Character Profile

The character profile tracks your in-game ARK character's progress, including boss kills and your current maximum level.

Setting up your character

Go to Profile from the top navigation, then open the Character section. Enter your character name, current level, in-tribe role, and whether your profile should be visible to the public. You can also log boss kills at specific difficulties, which feeds into the maximum level calculation.

How maximum level is calculated

In ARK: Survival Ascended your character's maximum level increases through several sources:

• Base cap: 105 levels.
• Boss kills: completing a boss on Alpha, Beta, or Gamma awards between 5 and 15 levels per boss. Only the highest difficulty completed for each boss counts.
• Explorer notes on The Island and Scorched Earth: up to 10 extra levels.
• Bob's Tall Tales notes on Scorched Earth, Aberration, and Extinction: up to 15 extra levels.
• Genesis Part 1 HLN-A glitches: up to 5 extra levels.
• Chibi pets: 1 extra level per chibi level, up to a maximum of 5.

The character profile calculates your current maximum from your recorded kills and bonuses and displays it alongside your character level.

Notifications

Notification bell

The bell icon in the top navigation shows a badge count when you have unread alerts or announcements. Click it to see the full list, with critical alerts shown first.

System alerts

The app generates alerts automatically in three situations:

• Generator low or out: when a generator's estimated remaining runtime falls below the threshold you set, a warning appears. If the generator has run out of fuel, the alert becomes critical.
• Render overdue: when a base has not been checked in within its render interval, a warning appears. Significantly overdue bases show as critical.
• Task overdue: any open or in-progress task whose due date has passed generates an overdue alert.

Clicking an alert takes you directly to the relevant base, generator, or task.

Announcements

Tribe announcements appear in the notification dropdown for 30 days. Unread ones are marked with a dot. Clicking an announcement opens the full text.

iOS push notifications

When a tribe leader or admin sends an announcement, members with the iOS app installed receive a push notification. If you are not receiving push notifications, open the Settings app on your iPhone, find DodoNest, and make sure notifications are enabled. If notifications are on but still not arriving, try signing out of the app and signing back in.

Roles and Permissions

Every tribe member has one of three roles: Member, Admin, or Leader.

Member

Members can:

• View all tribe data
• Add bases and log render check-ins
• Add and edit their own dinos
• Log boss kills
• Create and complete duty entries
• Move tasks between columns
• Claim marketplace listings from other tribes

Admin

Admins can do everything a Member can, plus:

• Create and manage tasks
• Add and edit servers and bases
• Edit any dino, including transferring ownership
• Schedule and cancel boss runs
• Send tribe announcements
• Create and manage marketplace listings
• Manage tribe resources
• Invite and remove regular members

Leader

The tribe leader has all admin permissions, plus:

• Promote and demote members
• Transfer leadership to another member
• Access and change tribe-wide settings
• Delete the tribe

There is always exactly one leader per tribe.

Locked tribes

If a tribe is locked by a platform administrator, all write actions are blocked for all members. Members can still view tribe data but cannot make any changes until the tribe is unlocked.

Troubleshooting