Base Stats (Wild Lv150)
| Stat | Base Value | Per Level (Wild) | Per Level (Tamed) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Health | 700 | +140 | +5.4% |
| Stamina | 200 | +20 | +10% |
| Weight | 270 | +5.4 | +4% |
| Melee Damage | 100% (13 base) | +5% | +1.7% |
Taming Guide
| Food | Amount (Lv150, 1x) | Time | Effectiveness |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regular Kibble | 8 | ~10min | +100% |
| Vegetables | 80 | ~48min | +95.2% |
| Mejoberries | 107 | ~48min | +91.8% |
Special Abilities
ok so the Carbonemys doesn't have flashy abilities like a Wyvern's breath or a Rex's roar. but what it does have is an absolutely ridiculous amount of tankiness for something you can tame at level 10. I genuinely think it's one of the most efficient tanks in the entire game when you consider the effort-to-reward ratio.
the shell gives it natural damage reduction which stacks with its saddle armor. combine that with the already high base HP of 700 plus the fact that you can start pumping health immediately, and you get a creature that can absorb an absurd amount of punishment for how early you can get it. it's kind of unfair, really.
the Carbone also swims surprisingly fast for a turtle. I mean it's not gonna outswim a Megalodon or anything, but it's way faster in water than it is on land, and it can hold its breath forever. solid early exploration mount for rivers and coastal areas before you have proper ocean tames. and if you're a new player on a PvP server, the Carbonemys is probably going to save your base more times than you can count — raiders will burn through half their ammo trying to kill this thing while you escape out the back. I've been on both sides of that equation and let me tell you, the turtle is way more annoying to deal with than it has any right to be.
Taming Strategy
taming a Carbonemys is one of the easiest tames in the game. these things are so slow on land that you can practically just walk backwards and shoot them and they'll never catch you. I've literally tamed them at level 1 with nothing but a slingshot and some patience. they just can't close the distance fast enough. the head hitbox is huge so you barely even need to aim.
and look — if you can't tame a Carbonemys you might need to reconsider whether ARK is the game for you. it truly does not get easier than this. the only thing that can go wrong is if another predator wanders in during the tame, which does happen because turtles hang out on beaches and beaches are where raptors and carnos love to patrol. so clear the area first or build a quick thatch fence around your unconscious turtle. it's not hard, but it's one of those things you don't think about until a raptor shows up and kills your almost-tamed turtle. and then you're just standing there staring at the corpse wondering why you didn't build a fence. yeah, been there.
for food Regular Kibble is ideal obviously — takes like 10 minutes with 8 kibble and you get 100% effectiveness, basically perfect. but if you're an early-game player, which you probably are if you're taming a Carbonemys, you might not have kibble yet. and that's fine because Mejoberries work great. 107 Mejos at 1x rates gets you about 92% effectiveness and takes about 48 minutes. that's plenty good enough for a turtle you're probably going to use as a bullet sponge anyway. so don't stress about optimizing the tame — just knock it out, feed it berries, and get back to whatever you were doing. if you want maximum effectiveness just wait for it to starve a bit before feeding it the first berry so it eats faster when you start and you lose less on the effectiveness decay. true for all herbivore tames really.
one last thing — the Carbonemys has surprisingly high torpor for its size and it drops pretty slow too. so once it's knocked out you really don't need to babysit it with narcotics. a stack of narcoberries is more than enough for the whole tame. you can literally go do something else while it's unconscious and just check back every few minutes. which is a nice break from the constant stress of most ARK tames, honestly.
Best Uses
the Carbonemys is first and foremost a turret soaker, and this is where it really earns its keep in PvP. I've seen tribes with dozens of these things lined up outside their base, bred specifically for health with capped saddles and nothing else. they just march them up to enemy turret towers and watch the bullets bounce off while the rest of the raid team moves in.
it's one of the most satisfying things to watch in the entire game. turrets are supposed to be the ultimate defense, and this dopey turtle just waddles up and says nah I'm good. the shell gives it natural armor that stacks with the saddle, so even a primitive saddle turtle can soak hundreds of bullets. a good ascendant saddle turtle can soak thousands. I'm not exaggerating these numbers. they're just that tanky.
in PvE the Carbonemys makes a great early-game bodyguard because it can tank alpha raptors and carnos while you shoot them from a safe distance and it's one of the few early tames that can actually survive an alpha encounter without getting instantly obliterated and I remember when I was new to the game my Carbonemys was literally the only thing that kept me alive through the mid-game because every time something scary showed up I'd just hop on my turtle and tank it while I figured out what to do and it never let me down not once and I still keep a couple turtles at every base even now just for old times sake and also because they're actually useful for taming other creatures since you can park them nearby to tank while you tranq something dangerous
an underrated use for Carbonemys is as an egg farm for Regular Kibble because they lay eggs fairly frequently and Regular Kibble is used for taming a surprising number of useful creatures like the Doedicurus Ankylosaurus and Pteranodon and if you have 5 or 6 female Carbonemys with one male you'll have more Regular Kibble than you know what to do with and you can use the extra eggs to make kibble for purposes other than those creatures and it's one of those things that seems obvious in hindsight but most new players don't think about
Carbonemys vs Doedicurus - Which Tank Is Better?
this comparison doesn't really make sense for combat because the Doedicurus is a stone gatherer, but people still ask so here it is. the Doedicurus has a ball form that gives it massive damage reduction similar to the turtle's shell. but the Carbonemys has way more base HP and is tamed much earlier — saddle at level 10 versus level 30 for the Doedic. the turtle is also faster in water which matters for certain raids and resource runs.
so for pure tanking the Carbonemys wins. for resource gathering the Doedicurus wins. you should probably have both because they serve completely different purposes. they're both herbivores that eat berries so feeding them is basically free. there's no reason not to tame both early in your playthrough since neither one is particularly difficult or expensive to get. it's that simple.
Breeding Tips
breeding Carbonemys is pretty chill compared to most creatures. the egg incubation takes about 1 hour 15 minutes at 30-34C, so just throw the eggs in a campfire circle and wait. baby phase is about 2 hours 18 minutes, juvenile is 9 hours 15 minutes, and adolescent is 11 hours 34 minutes. total maturation time of just under 24 hours — really fast for a creature with this much tank potential.
for mutations it's all about health. you could make an argument for weight, but the turtle's purpose 99% of the time is to absorb damage. so pump health mutations and level nothing but health. you'll have an absolute monster of a tank that can soak turrets for days. the saddle is cheap too, so you can easily craft high-quality saddles without breaking the bank.
Pro Tips
first thing if you're using Carbonemys for turret soaking in PvP always bring multiple turtles one is not enough because even the tankiest turtle eventually goes down under sustained turret fire and if your only turtle dies mid-raid you're suddenly very exposed and very screwed and I've seen entire raids fall apart because the turtle pool ran dry and the raiders had to retreat with nothing to show for it so bring at least 3 per turret tower and keep a breeding pair back at base to replace losses and you'll never run out of tanks no matter how many bullets the enemy has stored
second the Carbonemys saddle is insanely cheap to craft 95 fiber 170 hide and 10 cementing paste that's it you can craft one at level 10 with resources you probably already have lying around from just playing the game normally and this means you can afford to experiment with saddle quality by crafting multiple saddles and keeping the best one and the low crafting cost also means replacing a lost turtle is basically free which is a huge advantage over something like a Rex where losing one sets you back hours of work
third — don't underestimate the turtle in the water. it swims way faster than it walks and it doesn't need oxygen, so you can use it to explore the ocean floor early in the game before you have scuba gear. it won't attract every shark in the area like a raft does. you can dismount to grab pearls or oil and remount without worrying about drowning, which is a huge quality of life improvement over trying to swim manually. I actually did most of my early ocean exploration on a Carbonemys before I ever tamed a Megalodon, and it worked better than you'd expect.
and one more thing tame a Carbonemys even if you don't think you need one because at some point you will need to tank something and you'll be glad you have a 30k health turtle sitting in your base ready to go and the cost of taming and feeding one is basically zero so there's literally no downside and I've never regretted having a spare turtle around but I have definitely regretted not having one when I needed it and that's a lesson you only need to learn once