ARK being as popular as it is unfortunately also has its downsides. In particular, full offical servers. While there’s something to be said for switching to unofficial servers, that’s not always an option, particularly when you already have spent some effort on your base.

Fortunately, Steam offers a built-in queueing solution for servers, saving you from the trouble of having to retry until you’re finally able to connect. And this is how it works: Begin by going to your Steam server list (In the Steam Client use View -> Servers). You should now see something like this:

If you right-click on the server you want to join in that list, the following context-menu will appear:

Now click Connect to Server, which will bring you to this window:

And this is where the magic happens. A click on Auto-Retry (highlighted in white above) will uncover this menu:

Set the radio-button to “Join the server as soon as a player slot is available” and click on “Join Game”. Steam will take care of the rest!