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Breeding 101


Campi

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First a disclamer - No one except the devs (and i highly suspect even most of them don't really know any more) knows definitely 100% how it works. Some of the numbers/formulas are just by observation.

The stats on a dino are determined by a base value in each stat and level-up points which add a certain amount of values. Dino-Levels are the sum of those level-ups plus one. Lets look at a Rex for example.

A level 1 Rex has the following stats:
Health 1100.1
Stamina 420
Oxygen 150
Food 3000
Weight 500
Damage 122.1
Speed 90
Torpidity 1550.5

Now a level 2 Rex has one point in eighter one of those values.
Each point in Health adds 220 so one point in Health would be 1320.1, two points 1540.1 and so on.
Stamina: 42 per point
Oxygen: 15 per point
Food: 300 per point
Weight: 10 per point
Damage: 5.7 per point
Speed: 0 per point (on speed its 0 on all species - this is no error - wild points don't increase speed on any dino)
Torpidity: 93 points per level-point on any of the other stats

This way you can "extract" the points in any given stat (or use a tool like "ARK Smart Breeding" to do that for you). The values are different on the many species so best to use a tool so you don't have to know them.

The distribution of the wild-points among the 7 stats is purely random and can be eighter average or in favor of one or two stats. Those with uneven distributions are the ones you want for breeding. Because a average dino level 150 after taming around 220 will have about 30-35 points in each stat. But if you are lucky you can find 45+ and even above 50 in the wild (I only recently tamed a ptera with 51 in damage and i have a rex with unmutated 54 in food). Those are the ones you want since you can breed them with other dinos which are specialized in another stat to combine them into your super-dino. And do not only go for 150s when taming. The 51 damage ptera for example was a 145 only. You can get lucky on lower ones also. By pure luck you could even find a wild 150 with 149 points in one stat but the chances are higher for you to win the lottery 20 times in a row rather than that happening to you 

The only point to mention is that speed is always the same on any level no matter how many points went into it. But the points still get applied (except for flyers). Those are hidden points which can only be extracted by knowing the points on all other stats and the difference to the actual dino-level are the speed levels. You can say they are lost points. But keep in mind they still increase the dino-level and therefore the torpor-level which means they increase the resistance of your dino to stuns etc. which can make a difference in close combat situations. Also you'll need them to show off on your server to have the "highest level rex" 

Also for the offspring only the points a dino had in the wild + the extra levels he got from taming-efficiency count for the offspring. Any level-up you did after taming has no effect on the babies. This also means you don't have to level up your parents before you breed them further.

If you really want to breed a "super-dino" its important to know how these level-points are inherited to the offspring. On each stat the game chooses between the father and mother value with a higher chance to get the higher one of the two (55% for the higher and 45% for the lower one).
In addition there is a 3x 2,5% chance to mutate one stat which increases its point-value by 2. This can happen only as long as at least one parent has less than 20 mutations. Thats the value you see if you go to ancestry on a dino on top. It's listed for father and mother sepparatley. For the offspring of a dino the sum of both gets inherited over.

For the following example I'll only look at health:
You breed these 2 Rexes:
Father: 40 Points in HP (9900.1)
Mother: 30 Points in HP (7700.1)

Possible Childs:
1: 40 Points in HP - Points from the father carried over (55% chance)
2: 30 Points in HP - Points from the mother went over (45% chance)
3: 42 Points in HP - Points from the father went over + random mutation in HP (2,5% chance of mutation + the 55% chance of getting the stats from the father)
4: 32 Points in HP - Points from the mother + random mutation (2,5% chance + 45% chance for the mother side)
5: 44 Points in HP - Points from the father + 2 random mutations - 0,034375% chance (55% + 2 times 2,5%)
6: 34 Points in HP - Points from the mother + 2 random mutations - 0,028125% chance
7: 46 Points in HP - Points from the father + 3 random mutations - 0,000859375% chance
8: 36 Points in HP - Points from the mother + 3 random mutations - 0,000703125% chance

Options 3 to 8 are only possible if at least one of the parents has a mutation counter of less than 20 in their ancestry. The percentages stated on 5-8 are if both parents are below 20 if only one of them is below 20 you have a lot less chance for it to happen. 7 and 8 are such a rare case that for most people its a once in a lifetime thing - by probabilities one out of roughly 1500 babies gets this mutation.

Also the Mutation-Counter does not mean actual mutations. If you have a male with 1 mutation point with a female with 1 mutation point the child will have 2 mutation points even if none of the stats that were mutated went over to the child because the one from the other parent was chosen.

With this kept in mind if you want to get the maximum out of your breeding line I advise to first get a "clean" pair of base dino whom have all your highest stats of your breeding-dinos in but a mutation-counter of 0 => one male and at least one female. Then you start breeding those 2 together in hopes of getting more females (for faster breeding) and mutations in certain stats. After you have a mutation in lets say HP you breed the mutated dino with your unmutated base-dino so your mutation counter does not increase. This gives you a 55:45-chance to get an offspring with the mutation. The ones without the mutation you should let go since its a wasted mutation point. If you tame a new dino with one stat higher than you have in your base-pair already breed it with the base-pair - not the mutated ones - to get a new base-pair without mutations.

Now lets get to color-mutations. Colors are chosen the same way as stats on the offspring with the slight change that its always 50:50 on each color-region to get the color of the father or mother. In addition every time you get a mutation (2.5% chance) you can get a different color in one region which might not even occur naturally on those dinos (cyan, yellow, red, blue etc.). You do get a color-mutation with every stat mutation but it can happen that it mutates to the same color as the parent had or that its in a region where it looks the same so you might not really see it or it can go to a color-region that is not used on the dino (like region 2 and 3 on a rex).

Lastly imprinting: Imprinting improves all stats except stamina and oxygen but it has no effect on the offspring of those dinos. So only imprint on the final line you will actually use in boss-fights, harvesting or whatever you do with your dinos. No need to imprint on the breeding-dinos themselves.

PS: Personally I use this tool to keep track of all the dinos stats I own but there are several good ones out there I guess:

https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/39942-tool-ark-smart-breeding-extract-breeding-stats-dino-library-pedigree/


Update: Changed the probabilities since with my observations over the last years it seems to be 55/45 and not the common believed 70/30 split on higher/lower stats!

 

Breeding-Example with live data from my current server:

image.thumb.png.39e0e8e4c01ce2eec170a02e31719d3e.png

I'm aiming to increase DMG as much as i can on those Tek Rexes without increasing any of the other stats to get the most out of the first 20 mutations (higher chance for new mutations as long as both parents are below 20). 82 is a clean male and 83-105 are clean females all level 334 - meaning none of them have any mutations on them. 115 already has 6 mutations in DMG and is level 346.

Now to continue i start to make lots of eggs between 115 and the females. This can result in the following offspring:

  1. male/female level 334 - mutated dmg stat was not chosen => KILL (wasted mutation counter)
  2. male/female level 346 - mutated dmg stat was chosen but no new mutation => KILL (wasted mutation counter)
  3. male/female level 336/338/340 - mutated dmg stat was not chosen and 1-3 new mutations happened => KILL (wasted mutation counter)
  4. male/female level 348 - dmg value 63 - new mutation but not in DMG => KILL (wasted mutation counter)
  5. male/female level 350 - dmg value 63 or 65 - 2 new mutations but not both in DMG => KILL (wasted mutation counter)
  6. male/female level 352 - dmg value 63 or 65 or 67 - 3 new mutations but not all in DMG => KILL (wasted mutation counter)
  7. male/female level 348 - dmg value 65 - new mutation in DMG => KEEP
  8. male/female level 350 - dmg value 67 - 2 new mutations in DMG => KEEP
  9. male/female level 352 - dmg value 69 - 3 new mutations in DMG => KEEP

If the dino in options 7-9 is a male it replaces 115 and instantly gets to mate with 83-105 again to get the next mutation. Should it happen to be a female it gets bred with 82 (the clean male) until i get a male copy of it with the dmg value in to continue the lineage.

This way i ensure that only mutations in DMG go ahead and the 20 mutation points are reached only when i actually have 20 mutations in DMG to make everything go "faster".

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I realize what I am about to ask will surely identify me as a complete noob-iot. I have searched the forums here and on Reddit. Sure I have read through the majority of the ark wiki. I am sure there are videos on you tube that will go over this, however while at work, the network prohibits you tube. Again you could say just watch the videos when at home, fair enough, but for me when home, I want to play, not watch videos on playing.

Anyway the whole mating/breeding part is a mystery. I set the dino's to enable wandering but then they never seem to be close enough to one another to mate. If I make a pen for them, they get out, if I overburden them, they don't mate. I really want to try breeding Argies, but worry that once I enable wandering they will just fly off.

Is there a tutorial that goes through the list of available dino's and offers a better suggestion (pen/ breeding arena, etc.) as to what to set up to achieve the desired mating/breeding?

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19 minutes ago, Ice1089 said:

I realize what I am about to ask will surely identify me as a complete noob-iot. I have searched the forums here and on Reddit. Sure I have read through the majority of the ark wiki. I am sure there are videos on you tube that will go over this, however while at work, the network prohibits you tube. Again you could say just watch the videos when at home, fair enough, but for me when home, I want to play, not watch videos on playing.

Anyway the whole mating/breeding part is a mystery. I set the dino's to enable wandering but then they never seem to be close enough to one another to mate. If I make a pen for them, they get out, if I overburden them, they don't mate. I really want to try breeding Argies, but worry that once I enable wandering they will just fly off.

Is there a tutorial that goes through the list of available dino's and offers a better suggestion (pen/ breeding arena, etc.) as to what to set up to achieve the desired mating/breeding?

#1 how are they getting out of the pen? are you not enclosing it fully? to mate birds i use a thatch pen, 3x3 with doorways all the way around then fly them in. It works for other animals too, but for land based dinos use a dino gate or a behemoth gate depending on the size of the tame.

#2 Wandering tamed birds do not fly

 

#3 if all else fails you can get the tames close enough then place on wander and continuously whistle "stop all", although annoying this does work

 

for a bonus tame an oviraptor weigh it down with stone and place on wander, breed near it to reduce "cool down" timer for breeding the female again

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19 minutes ago, ItzGreenDawg said:

#1 how are they getting out of the pen? are you not enclosing it fully? to mate birds i use a thatch pen, 3x3 with doorways all the way around then fly them in. It works for other animals too, but for land based dinos use a dino gate or a behemoth gate depending on the size of the tame.

#2 Wandering tamed birds do not fly

 

#3 if all else fails you can get the tames close enough then place on wander and continuously whistle "stop all", although annoying this does work

 

for a bonus tame an oviraptor weigh it down with stone and place on wander, breed near it to reduce "cool down" timer for breeding the female again

The ones that I have tried so far are Terror Birds, I built a 2X4 pen out of fence foundation and fences. Completely surrounded, and 2 high, yet within minutes they were out and wondering around my base. It is good to know that wandering tamed birds don't fly, I may give up on the Terror birds and try an Argy or Pteradon.

I have been trying to get an oviraptor, but every time I try I end up killing it before it goes unconscious. I have been using the crossbow with tranq arrows, may have to use the rifle and tranq darts.
 

Thank you for the tips, they are very helpful, I am actually looking forward to trying to venture in to the breeding. However I am not set up just yet for this, my base needs some completion. Mating pens, and Hatching pen. working on getting Air Conditioners and Refrigerators first. I feel so ADHD in this game, start off with one project, then "ooo something shiny" then off in another direction I go. So much I want to get done and try, I just need to slow down and keep moving forward. Not sideways infinitely!

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try using standard foundations instead of fence foundations, that way they snap together. As far as focus I feel ya, there's a lot to do in ark, thats why its best to team up with people that counter you. Some love breeding, some love taming, some love building, others love farming/collecting. No one person can do it all, find something you like and do it, recruit or join a tribe to find others that like doing the things you don't have time to do.

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How do I know what stats the baby got? I bred an argue earlier today. The father pretame had 250 melee and the mother closer to 200ish. Once the baby popped, it was an "enemy" Dino until I clicked the imprint button. Then I was able to check its stats, but it had 343 melee. 

 

So how do I figure out who it won its stats from? I still unclear on the process. 

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