Get to Know the Upgrade Station mod for ARK: Survival Ascended

Gear quality in ARK: Survival Ascended comes down to your last loot drop or blueprint, and that’s not always the roll you wanted. The Upgrade Station mod puts that gear back in your hands. Build a station on your server, then upgrade, augment, and blueprint weapons, armor, tools, and saddles yourself. In this Nitrado guide, we’ll show you how each of the mod’s stations works so you know what to expect before you install it.

The mod works with most base-game items and items added by other mods, so you can upgrade a wide range of gear without hunting for compatibility notes. Items without a quality index, such as C4, tripwire, and wooden spears, can’t be upgraded here.

The mod’s stations come in two styles: a wooden version and a reinforced metal version. Both give you full access to every upgrade the mod includes; the metal version’s only advantage is a larger internal inventory.

Upgrade Station

The Upgrade Station is the mod’s main structure. Use it to upgrade weapons, armor, tools, and saddles, or to salvage resources back out of items you no longer want. Place the item you want to upgrade in the station, and it lists the materials the upgrade needs. Add those materials to move the item up a quality tier, from normal toward ascendant, up to whatever durability cap that item allows. The station also repairs damaged gear, so you can restore a favorite weapon instead of replacing it.

Augment Station

The Augment Station is an addon you attach to your Upgrade Station rather than a separate structure. Once attached, it lets you apply crafted reagents as augments to weapons, armor, tools, and saddles. Augments adjust a specific stat, like a weapon’s damage or a tool’s durability, beyond what a standard upgrade covers.

Blueprint Station

The Blueprint Station is a second addon for your Upgrade Station. It breaks down a weapon, armor piece, tool, or saddle into a blueprint you can save or share with other players. Blueprint a saddle you’ve already painted, and every copy you craft from it keeps that same paint job, so you’re not repainting each one by hand.

Take Control of Your Gear

You now know what the Upgrade Station, Augment Station, and Blueprint Station each do. Together, they put gear quality in your hands instead of the loot table’s. Install the mod on your ARK: Survival Ascended server and start upgrading your favorite gear 🛠️