ARK: Survival Ascended – Cosmos Guide

This is everything there is to know about the new Cosmo spider including where to find it, how to tame it, what to feed it and its abilities.

Cosmos are part of the Bob’s Tall Tales pack and are the unique creature added to Aberration by that DLC.

Where to find Cosmo

Cosmos are incredibly small and difficult to see and unfortunately have a habit of spawning underneath the floor or inside walls, but are very common.

Cosmos tend to slowly wander around on the ground but will sometimes hang from the ceiling by a web, swinging from side to side. Keep an eye on the ground but look for them hanging in the air as well.
You can find them a bit easier by using a tamed parasaur to scan for hostile creatures as it will ping nearby Cosmos.

They spawn all over the Green and Blue zones – literally everywhere – but seem most common in the Mushroom Forest and Luminous Marshlands respectively. They do not spawn in the Red zone at all.
In the Green zone they will sometimes spawn on top of giant mushroom trees, so if you are using a parasaur make sure you look up.

If you find one but it is stuck inside the mesh (in the ground or a wall), you can try to lure it out by having chitin in your inventory and getting close to it. If it lights up and makes a noise, it will start to follow you and can be led back through the mesh so that you can interact with it.

How to tame Cosmo

Cosmos are a passive tame and must be fed plant species Z seeds, ascerbic mushrooms or chitin.
To start the taming process, you must have chitin in your inventory even if you want to feed it using seeds or mushrooms. It will not approach you if you don’t have chitin.

1. Find a Cosmo and get close to it. If you have chitin in your inventory (any amount), it will light up and start to slowly approach you while doing a dance. Put the food item you want to feed it in your last hotbar slot, walk up to it and press E.
If it is an instant tame, congratulations.

However if it is not an instant tame, you now need to play a game with the spider.

2. After eating, the Cosmo will hop away very quickly until it gets a certain distance away from you and builds a burrow. Chase it but don’t get too close, wait until it stops.

Now that it is sat on its burrow, it will light up and you must play Red Light Green Light with it.
While the light is white, you can walk towards it. When the light changes to red, stop moving immediately. Once you reach it, press E on it while it is glowing white to feed it again.
This step repeats until it is tamed.

If you move while the spider is glowing red, it will shoot webs at you. These webs slow you down and do a small amount of damage and the Cosmo will hop away again. Be careful following it because it immediately glows red once it stops, and you can get scare it multiple times in a row if you go too fast. Every time you fail the minigame this way, the taming progress will drop slightly.

Be very careful while taming your Cosmo because, although they are not usually attacked by wild creatures, if you move while it is glowing red its webs can hit anything between you and the spider. If that happens, whatever it hits and whatever is allied to that creature will immediately attack and kill the Cosmo.
The only way to save it at this point is to kill whatever the webs hit as quickly as possible as almost everything can and will outrun a Cosmo and it will try to fight instead of fleeing.

Do not try to tame a Cosmo during an earthquake as it will attack you if you are moved by the shaking while the light is red.

What it eats after being tamed

Once you have tamed your Cosmo, it obviously now needs to be fed – but it will not eat chitin anymore.

Tamed Cosmos will eat any of the following foods, in order of effectiveness;
Plant species Z seeds (~150 food)
Raw meat (~50 food, also heals it)
Ascerbic mushrooms (~18 food)
All berry and crop seeds (~1 food)

Unlike araneos, they do not eat spoiled meat.

Abilities

Cosmo is a shoulder pet but despite glowing during the taming process, it is not a light pet and cannot glow.
When picking up a Cosmo, it will sit on your shoulder and at the same time will be added to your inventory as an item.

In your inventory or hotbar you can see that the Cosmo item has an ammo count.
Web ammo is consumed by most actions the Cosmo can perform and it will recharge over time after you stop performing those actions.
See the Controls section for more information on web ammo costs

Equipping the item will have your Cosmo run down your arm and sit on your wrist and from here you can use it properly.
Now you have equipped it, you can see that it says “Swing Mode” above your hotbar. Pressing R will change this to “Shooter Mode” and show the spider’s charge capacity.
See the following two sections for an explanation for each of these modes.

Although Cosmos are not light pets, they do have a charge capacity and charge regen stat.
This is because they have a special setting in their radial menu called “Charge-Infused Webs” that causes their webs to be infused with charge light.

They also have a special setting called “Threat Sense,” this will allow them to automatically enable Charge-Infused Web mode whenever a nameless or reaper is detected nearby. If you kill or escape the nameless or reaper, Charge-Infused Web will deactivate automatically.
While Threat Sense is activated, the Cosmo will flash in vibrant colours to show that it is activated. It has no function besides this.
These special options are explained further in the Shooter Mode section.

Swing Mode

While in Swing Mode, your Cosmo becomes a grappling hook.

If you look at any surface you will see a blue reticle.
Hold left mouse button and your Cosmo will shoot a web at it, letting you swing on it. Letting go of LMB will release the web but you will retain any momentum you built during the swing.

While swinging you can use Left Control and Left Shift to move up and down on the web and pressing Space will cause you to release the web and give you some extra height and speed.
Pressing right mouse button while in the air will quickly pull you in the direction you are looking but you can only do this once before having to touch the ground again.

You can gain momentum by moving back and forth and you will not take damage if you hit the ground or a wall, but going into water will immediately break the web and you cannot shoot webs while in water.
Beware that once your body goes above the point that you have attached the web, you will be forced to let go. You also cannot shoot webs to a surface that is below you, but it will still consume web ammo

While the Cosmo is equipped, it functions like any tool or weapon and you cannot use another item while holding it (do not try to use a crossbow while swinging, it won’t end well).
If you open any inventory it will unequip it and if you are mid swing you will fall.

Swinging with the Cosmo is very similar to mounting a bloodstalker from Genesis Part 1 so if you’ve ever used one of those it should feel a bit familiar.

See the Controls section for a full list.

Shooter Mode

While in Shooter Mode, your Cosmo becomes a weapon.

Left mouse button will shoot a web projectile where you are aiming which will damage and slow down any creature you hit with it. Holding LMB will auto fire until you let go or run out of web ammo. Holding right mouse button will aim down sights, significantly reducing the recoil/screen shake but also covering the majority of your vision.

You can also perform a melee attack with Left Control which will damage and slow down creatures like the projectiles. This whip attack does not consume web ammo so if you run out of ammo for projectiles, you can still use this.

With Charge-Infused Webs enabled, firing a web projectile at a nameless or reaper will afflict it with the charged debuff and weaken it. Firing the projectile at a surface will also create a small charge-light bubble, standing inside of which will give you the charged buff.

See the Controls section for a full list.

Controls

These are all of the relevant controls you will need to know once you’ve tamed your first Cosmo.
All of these are based on the default Mouse & Keyboard keybindings.

General controls
Hold R – Open the radial menu, lets you access Cosmo’s inventory or toggle Threat Sense and Charged webs
Press R – Switch between Shooter and Swing mode
Q – Unequip the Cosmo or reequip if it was your last equipped item
F – Double tap to drop Cosmo
N – Unsure of the function or if it even has any, but it adds a lightbulb to the Cosmo item icon.

Controls for Swing Mode
Left Mouse Button – Shoot web, hold to swing (Costs 5 web)
Right Mouse Button – Press in mid air to pull yourself forward (Costs 2 web)
Space – Press while swinging to gain some height and speed (Costs 2 web)
Left Control – Pull yourself up on the web
Left Shift – Lower yourself down the web

Controls for Shooter Mode
Left Mouse Button – Shoot web projectiles (Costs 1 web)
Right Mouse Button – Aim down “sights,” reduces recoil
Left Control – Web Whip, has a range of 5 meters

Other information you might want to know

The total capacity of web ammo is determined by a Cosmo’s overall level, not by any specific stats
All Cosmos have a minimum of 20 web ammo.
A fully levelled, perfectly tamed level 150 Cosmo will have 61 web ammo.

You can pick up items from the floor while swinging from a web
This includes rock drake eggs, though it’s not exactly the safest way to get them.

Cosmos can be bred and will lay eggs

Cosmos are immune to radiation damage

If attacked, a wild Cosmo will fight very aggressively
You can very easily be killed by one if you are not prepared.

Like the 4 light pets, Cosmos cannot drown

Wild Cosmos will not be attacked by any other wild creatures.

Sometimes Cosmos will become invisible when you drop them from your shoulder
It can be fixed by picking them up and dropping them again.
If they die while invisible, they will remain invisible.

While using the Fly or Ghost command, switching modes or unequipping the Cosmo causes you to move very slowly
I don’t know why this happens but it’s fixed by using the Walk command then using Ghost or Fly again.

Spawn commands

In regards to console commands, Cosmo is referred to as “JumpingSpider”
If you want to spawn one in, these are some of the commands you can use;

Tamed, level 150 perfect tame (replace number to change level) –
GMSummon JumpingSpider_Character_BP_C 150

Tamed, random level –
SummonTamed JumpingSpider_Character_BP_C

Wild, random level –
Summon JumpingSpider_Character_BP_C

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