I know it says anky is the best which i used to believe until i tried magmasaurs , my magmasaur ls level 200 with 350% damage ( not even leveled ) gets 750 from the small nodes and like 1300 from the big ones , my harvest rating is x2 but anky at x2 gives 250 to 330 from the smaller ones and 800 at most from the big ones , on any map that has magmasaurs just get any level 90+ , imprint it and level up damage and weight , if you wanna be smart with it you don’t have to level up weight on the magmasaur , you can tame an argy anky and magmasaur , collect metal with the magmasaur , put it in the anky and pick it up with an argy then go home , that compensates for the fact that you can’t pick up a magmasaur and he doesn’t have weight reductions on metal

Forget the anky+argy or magmasaur, just get a rhyniognatha and pick up a vault, cryo an anky and go to any metal spawn, put down the vault and harvest the metal with the anky and put the metal in the vault, then cryo the anky, pick up the vault and off you go to the next metal spawns. The metal in the vault does not weigh anything to the rhynio so you can collect an entire vaults worth with the rhiniognatha

On the island if you are starting off build a raft an head to herbivore (south east island) once you arrive knock out an anky and make a saddle use him to excavate some metal and load it onto your raft herbivore has no predators and lots of metal making it ideal for new tribes or tribes with low metal needs also if your lucky a basilo (a slender type of whale) will spawn in the bay these are good for the arctic and provide oil happy hunting!

Get a paracer, and put as big of a platform on top via foundations and add a ramp that goes down. This can be done with one person but the more the smoother. Get as MANY ankys on the paracers back as possible pump weight in all except one pump that anky with melee. Also keep an argy on top. Use the argy to move your one melee anky. Get metal, go back to paracer and load all of the ankys on its back with metal. Since ankys have weight reduction and don't add to the paracers weight you can carry much more metal at a time. This can be scaled up infinitely, only problem is sometimes the ankys can fall but keeping an argent will help load them back on the paracer

Best way to get metal early game, farm supply drops for an ascended metal pick or blueprint for it (They aren’t THAT rare). After that, craft it if it is a blueprint and use on metal rocks. Ideally set up on a mountain where there is a lot of metal. Boom, you have enough metal to supply 5 war-tribes.