Hello, we're finished with our current ARK map and are ready to move to another, the plan being to do this every month. That said, we want to keep the characters and dinos when we switch maps. Is the only way to do this really to rent two servers and link them together through a cluster for a day until the transfer is complete, then just have the second paid server sitting around doing nothing until next month's server transfer?

The official supported method from WildCard is mostly how you described.

Before doing the below, tell your server / community that [Date / Date Range] will be the moving day, and they should be prepared to move on the date / days listed.

Step 1: Ensure no survivors have anything currently uploaded to the Obelisk on your server.
Step 2: Create a backup for your server, just in case something should not work as expected, you can restore this backup.
Step 3: Stop server.
Step 4: Create a new server on the map you wish to move to.
Step 5: Cluster the new map with the old map using the cluster tab.
Step 6: Move dinosaurs and survivors using the Obelisk / ARK Cloud system.
Step 7: Ensure no survivors have anything currently uploaded to the Obelisk on your servers.
Step 8: De-cluster the servers.
Step 9: Stop the older server.
Step 10: Create a backup of the server you will be decomissioning. This way you can restore this server if you decide to move back.
Step 11: Download or move the backup you created.
Step 12: Delete server you are decomissioning.

The host here only bills for the days you have a server. So while the bill is only $18 a month, it breaks down to $0.54 USD per day of usage.


That all said, there is an unsupported way of doing it.
Repeating:
UN-SUPPORTED.
Defined: This method has proven to work, but it has also been proven to wipe all of your data. Use at your own risk.

Step 1: Upload what you want to move to the other server..
Step 2: Stop Server.
Step 3: Create backup.
Step 4: Change map.
Step 5: Start server.
Step 6: Download your uploads.

Again, this method works, but you do run the risk of corrupting both servers/maps at the same time. So do this method only if you don't believe the $0.54 per day is worth it to use the supported method.