The Best ARK: Survival Ascended Cryopod Mods

Why ARK: Survival Ascended Players Install Cryopod Mods

Your ARK: Survival Ascended tribe has more tames than pen space, and every trip home to swap a Rex for a Yutyrannus eats into time you would rather spend out on the map. Vanilla cryopods solve part of that problem. They still hold you to rules about where you can release a creature, how soon you can re-pod one, and how long a pod holds its charge. Modders have built whole systems around those rules, adding storage, automation, and passive resource generation the base game never offers on its own. In this Nitrado guide, we break down the top cryopod mods for ARK: Survival Ascended: Super Cryo Storage, Dino Depot, and Pelayori’s Cryo Storage, so you can pick the one that matches how you actually play.

How Vanilla Cryopods Work in ARK: Survival Ascended

Cryopods are small capture devices that store a tamed creature so you can move or stockpile it without walking it across the map. You can find them in supply drops, or craft them at a Tek Replicator once you are far enough into the tech tree to unlock the engram. Releasing what you store depends on the Cryofridge, and the base game builds several limits around that structure.

Vanilla cryopods carry these restrictions:

• You can only release a creature inside the Cryofridge’s activation radius, which the game sets at 6,500 units, roughly 43 foundations across.
• The Cryofridge needs power to function. Without it, you cannot release stored creatures.
• After placing a new Cryofridge, you wait 90 seconds before you can release anything from it.
• Cryofridges cannot be placed on platforms built onto a tamed creature, like a saddle platform.
• If a creature takes damage right before you pod it, you wait 30 seconds before you can re-pod it.
• A cryopod starts discharging the moment you get it and runs flat in about 30 days. If the charge reaches zero, the creature inside dies and is gone for good. A powered Cryofridge or Tek Sleeping Pod recharges the pod and holds the timer off.

Most players read these limits as a PvP balancing measure. Instant, no-cooldown storage would hand one side a real advantage mid-fight. On a casual or PvE-focused Nitrado server, though, the same rules mostly just slow you down between builds and breeding runs. That is the gap the mods below are built to close, and they do not all close it the same way.

Quick Answer: Which Cryopod Mod Should You Install?

If you want the deepest overhaul of vanilla cryopods with everything configured through in-game menus, install Super Cryo Storage. If you want that same depth plus control over every setting through .ini files, install Dino Depot instead. If you would rather keep the vanilla Cryofridge system mostly intact and simply add a faster capture tool, a recharge terminal, and a few quality-of-life extras, Pelayori’s Cryo Storage is the lighter-touch pick, and it is the most downloaded of the three by a wide margin.

Top Cryopod Mods for Your ARK: Survival Ascended Server

Each of these three mods answers the same problem in a different way. Here is what each one adds to your server, object by object.

Super Cryo Storage

Super Cryo Storage rebuilds cryopods and Cryofridges into one connected system, adding three objects to the game: the SCS Gun, SCS Collection cryopods, and the SCS Terminal. You need to reach character level 51 before any of those recipes unlock. After that, capturing and releasing tames runs entirely through in-game menus. None of the mod’s behavior settings sit in an .ini file.

SCS Gun

The SCS Gun replaces your regular cryopod launcher. Aim at the creature you want and fire to pull it into an SCS Collection cryopod, as long as you are already carrying one.

SCS Collection

SCS Collection cryopods do the same job as a vanilla cryopod, with a rounder shape and a color-coded glow: pink for a female creature, blue for a male, and yellow when the game cannot determine gender. You can also switch on a small hologram of the stored creature, so you know what is inside without opening your inventory first.

SCS Terminal

The SCS Terminal is where Super Cryo Storage does its heaviest lifting. Place one, equip the SCS Gun, hold R (X on Xbox, Square on PlayStation), and select the admin option to open its settings.

From there you can switch a long list of terminal behaviors on or off, then tune the timers that control how the terminal reacts to what is stored inside it.

The toggle options include:

• Enable Cryo Sickness: Turns the Cryo Sickness debuff on for released creatures.
• Enable Baby Auto Trap: Automatically captures babies in range if the terminal holds SCS Collections.
• Can Capture Dino In Combat: Lets you pod a creature even while it is fighting.
• Cryo Terminal Can Collect Fertilized Eggs: Automatically collects fertilized eggs nearby.
• Cryo Terminal Can Incubate Eggs: Automatically incubates eggs stored in the terminal.
• Can Gain Kill XP Deleting Dinos: Awards XP when you delete a dino from the terminal’s inventory.
• Can Enable Mating In Range: Lets creatures within range mate with each other.
• Can Spay Dinos In Range: Sterilizes creatures within the terminal’s range.
• Can Capture All Dinos In Range: Captures every tamed creature in range at once, given enough SCS Collections.
• Cryo Gun Can Capture Items In Bags: Pulls loot from nearby bags straight into your inventory.
• Give Imprint To Deployer: Passes a creature’s imprint to whoever releases it, which makes trading tames between players workable.
• Deploy With Structural Prevention: Stops a released creature from spawning inside a structure.
• Deploy With Flyer Prevention: Keeps flying creatures grounded when released instead of airborne.
• Enable Passive Generation: Lets the terminal passively collect resources your stored creatures produce.
• Enable Unfertilized Egg Generation: Collects and stores unfertilized eggs from stored creatures.
• Enable Poop Generation: Generates feces from creatures stored in the terminal.
• Stored Babies Can Auto Imprint: Automatically imprints babies the terminal collects.
• Beetles Can Convert Poop: Turns stored poop into fertilizer automatically when a beetle sits in the terminal’s inventory.
• Distributing Fertilized To Crops: Sends fertilizer from the terminal’s inventory to nearby crop plots.
• Capturing Dinos Report To Tribe Log: Notifies your tribe log whenever a dino is stored in the terminal.
• Auto Transfer To Dedicated Storage: Admin option that moves eligible stored resources into dedicated storage on its own.
• Gacha Generation And Pellet Distribution: Lets Gachas held in the terminal generate resources and distribute pellets.
• Oasisaur And Titanosaur Capture Controls: Admin toggles for whether these two large creatures can be podded at all.

A Restack All button tidies stacked SCS storage in one click, which matters once a terminal’s inventory gets crowded.

The terminal’s settings also cover timers and range:

• Cryo Terminal Max Range: Sets how far the terminal’s effects reach.
• Capturing Time: How long it takes to capture a creature outside combat.
• Capturing Time In Combat: How long it takes to capture a creature mid-fight.
• Cryopod Throw Distance: How far you can throw a cryopod to catch a creature.
• Cryo Sickness Time: How long the Cryo Sickness debuff lasts after release.
• Oviraptor Bonus Multiplier: How much faster an Oviraptor speeds up egg collection.
• Egg Generation Speed: How quickly the terminal produces eggs.
• Poop Generation Speed: How quickly the terminal produces feces.
• Resource Generation Speed: How quickly the terminal produces other passive resources.
• Baby Growth Speed: How quickly babies stored in the terminal grow.

A second settings menu inside the terminal handles fertilizer and poop distribution on its own, so you can route what your stored creatures produce straight to nearby crop plots instead of letting it pile up.

Every one of these settings lives inside the terminal’s in-game admin menu, so that menu is the full extent of what you can tune. The one thing you handle outside it is the crafting list: server admins who want the mod’s items gone entirely can hide its engrams through Game.ini, using the snippet on the mod’s CurseForge page.

Dino Depot

Dino Depot takes the same idea in a different direction. It adds the Dino Digitizer, Dinoballs, and the Depot Terminal, with two further objects covered below. Nearly every behavior tied to them can be adjusted through the mod’s .ini files as well as its in-game menus.

Dino Digitizer

The Dino Digitizer is the tool you use to capture a creature into a Dinoball. It has a long capture range, and your target glows purple so you know you have the right creature lined up. Anything the creature was carrying transfers into your inventory the moment you capture it.

Dinoball

Dinoballs are Dino Depot’s version of a cryopod: small transparent spheres showing a hologram of the stored creature, with its name, level, and species set on a ring around the sphere. You can craft them one at a time or in stacks of 20. One thing worth knowing before you empty a batch into a tight space: a Dinoball does not always place the creature exactly where you aimed, so release them one at a time whenever position matters.

Depot Terminal

The Depot Terminal is where Dino Depot earns its reputation. Place one on your server and your stored creatures keep producing resources and breeding instead of sitting idle in storage.

Approach the terminal and press E to open a search menu that filters stored creatures by gender, age, mating readiness, and whether the imprint belongs to you.

Hold E instead to open a radial menu, then select the settings option to reach the terminal’s configuration controls.

Those settings include:

• Allow Passive Production: Lets the terminal passively generate the resource types you selected.
• Unfertilized Eggs Production: Allows the terminal to produce unfertilized eggs.
• Allow Auto-Capture: Captures any creature in range automatically, as long as the terminal holds Dinoballs.
• Tribute Structure: Lets the terminal function as a tribute structure.
• Egg Incubation: Automatically incubates eggs held in the terminal.
• Fertilized Egg Searching: Separates fertilized eggs from infertile ones in search results.
• Radial Toggles: Turns the options in the hold-E radial menu on or off.

Two newer additions round out the mod. Gene Storages let you check and adjust a stored creature’s genetic values without pulling it out of a Dinoball first, and a Display Case puts a tame on show instead of leaving it packed away.

Past those menu options, Dino Depot’s .ini files hold over 200 configurable settings covering resource types, production timers, and terminal behavior. Editing the files directly asks for some comfort with plain text configuration, so back up your world first if that is new ground. The mod’s creators publish the full settings list as a Google Sheets document, linked from the mod’s CurseForge page.

Pelayori’s Cryo Storage

Pelayori’s Cryo Storage, listed on CurseForge as Pelayori’s Cryo Storage (Crossplay!), takes a different line from the other two. Rather than replacing the Cryofridge system, it keeps it. That makes it the most conservative of the three, and also by far the most downloaded, with roughly 14.1 million downloads for creator pelayori.

The mod adds a Cryogun, a Cryofridge, a Cryo Terminal, and a Neuter Gun. The Cryogun automates the capture itself, so you are not lining up every single tame by hand. The Cryo Terminal handles the day-to-day work from one structure: it recharges cryopods, picks up babies automatically, and lets you destroy dinos you no longer want. The Neuter Gun is a standalone tool for neutering or culling a creature on demand, separate from the cryopod system.

Because the mod keeps the vanilla Cryofridge requirement, it suits players who want quality-of-life upgrades rather than a rebuilt system. You can configure it two ways: hold R (or your rebound reload key) and pick the cryopod entry from the radial menu for in-game options, or edit GameUserSettings.ini directly for finer control.

If Super Cryo Storage and Dino Depot are built for admins who want to redesign cryopod storage from the ground up, Pelayori’s Cryo Storage is built for players who want cryopods to work a little better without changing how they behave.

Cryopod Mod Comparison

Here is how the three mods stack up side by side.

The mod ID is the number you enter in your Nitrado Web Interface when you add one of these mods to your server.

How to Install a Cryopod Mod on Your Nitrado Server

Installing any of these three mods on your Nitrado ARK: Survival Ascended server follows the same route:

1. Log in to your Nitrado Web Interface.
2. Add the mod’s ID number to your server’s active mod list.
3. Save your changes and restart the server.
4. Load into your server and confirm the mod’s items appear in your crafting menu.

Dino Depot’s .ini settings and Pelayori’s GameUserSettings.ini options both need file access beyond these four steps, on top of what their in-game menus already cover.

Choosing the Right Cryopod Mod for Your ARK: Survival Ascended Server

All three mods answer the same problem, and the right pick comes down to how much control you want and how much file editing you are willing to do. With Super Cryo Storage, the settings are all set through in-game menus, and although there are plenty of them, you cannot go past what the admin menu allows. Dino Depot hands you that extra layer through its .ini files, at the cost of some comfort with plain text configuration. Pelayori’s Cryo Storage skips the overhaul and stays close to how cryopods already work, which is a fair part of why it is the most downloaded of the three.

Install whichever one matches your tribe, and you will spend less time babysitting a Cryofridge and more time out taming.

ARK: Survival Ascended Cryopod Mods FAQ

What Are Cryopod Mods in ARK: Survival Ascended?

Cryopod mods expand or replace the base game’s cryopod and Cryofridge system. Vanilla cryopods work fine but hold you to limits on range, power, and cooldowns. Mods like Super Cryo Storage, Dino Depot, and Pelayori’s Cryo Storage add passive resource generation and automation, and in two of the three cases, storage built around the mod’s own terminal rather than the vanilla Cryofridge.

Does ARK: Survival Ascended Have Cryopods Without Mods?

Yes. Cryopods and Cryofridges are both part of the base game, available from a supply drop or crafted at a Tek Replicator once you unlock the engram. The mods on this list build on that system rather than introducing cryopods from scratch.

What Is the Difference Between Super Cryo Storage and Dino Depot?

Super Cryo Storage configures entirely through in-game menus, with no .ini settings file to edit. Dino Depot covers similar ground and adds .ini configurability on top, giving you over 200 settings to tune if you want that level of control. The comparison table above sets them side by side.

Do These Mods Support Passive Resource Generation and Automation?

Super Cryo Storage and Dino Depot both do. Their terminals passively collect eggs, waste, fertilizer, and other resources from stored creatures, and both support automated egg incubation and baby growth. Pelayori’s Cryo Storage is built around faster capture and terminal maintenance, including automatic baby pickup, and its mod page does not list passive resource generation among its features.

How Do I Install a Cryopod Mod on My Nitrado ARK: Survival Ascended Server?

Log in to your Nitrado Web Interface, add the mod’s ID number to your server’s mod list, then save and restart the server. Once it is back online, the mod’s items and structures become craftable in-game.

Which Cryopod Mod Should I Choose for My ARK: Survival Ascended Server?

Choose Super Cryo Storage for deep in-game control without touching files, Dino Depot if you want .ini-level customization, and Pelayori’s Cryo Storage if you would rather keep the vanilla Cryofridge system and smooth out the rough edges around it.

How Do Super Cryo Storage and Dino Depot Display Stored Dinos?

Super Cryo Storage’s SCS Collection cryopods glow a color tied to the creature’s gender and can show an optional hologram of what is inside. Dino Depot’s Dinoballs display the stored creature’s name, level, and species on a ring around the sphere, and the Depot Terminal’s search menu filters stored creatures by gender, age, and more.

Do These Mods Remove Vanilla Cryopod Limitations Like Power and Range Requirements?

Super Cryo Storage and Dino Depot both run their own storage systems, built around the SCS Terminal and the Depot Terminal rather than the vanilla Cryofridge, so release behavior follows each mod’s own settings instead of the base-game rules. Pelayori’s Cryo Storage takes the opposite route. It keeps the vanilla Cryofridge and puts its attention on faster capture and terminal automation instead.

What ARK: Survival Ascended Mod Lets You Disable Cryo Sickness?

Super Cryo Storage includes an Enable Cryo Sickness toggle in its terminal admin menu. Switch it off, and creatures released from an SCS Collection cryopod skip the Cryo Sickness debuff.