Breeding 101

[Thredra]

Nicely done! great information!

[zeroBurnAcidCool]

Question:

Towards the useless stats, ox*,food(useless?)speed*ect. If you can avoid increasing these at any point does it add to other areas or it doesn't matter if points go there the limit is the limit. ?

At the moment i have a 21 speed dino, others i have 44 if it matters i can keep it down. (just got twins 1 baby has it 44, the other baby has the lower speed 21) the level did change 1 is 268 the other 254, so in my eyes it matters since anything above 450, was it? would get deleted.

So am i right in thinking it matters and i should avoid increasing the dud stats as much as possible? I would put in the time to adjust each to the lowest points possible.

Edit: I see you mentioned speed and torpor, however you also mentioned level in that the higher level would mean better torpor or does added points in speed alone increase the torpor?

hope you can see my confusion and questions.

[Campi]

19 hours ago, zeroBurnAcidCool said:

Question:

Towards the useless stats, ox*,food(useless?)speed*ect. If you can avoid increasing these at any point does it add to other areas or it doesn't matter if points go there the limit is the limit. ?

At the moment i have a 21 speed dino, others i have 44 if it matters i can keep it down. (just got twins 1 baby has it 44, the other baby has the lower speed 21) the level did change 1 is 268 the other 254, so in my eyes it matters since anything above 450, was it? would get deleted.

So am i right in thinking it matters and i should avoid increasing the dud stats as much as possible? I would put in the time to adjust each to the lowest points possible.

Edit: I see you mentioned speed and torpor, however you also mentioned level in that the higher level would mean better torpor or does added points in speed alone increase the torpor?

hope you can see my confusion and questions.

Higher level increases torpor resistance. Any level. It does not matter if its speed points or HP points or food etc. So higher levels are kinda good (although on most dinos torpor doesn't matter much anyways). I usually try to get all 7 stats with top-values into my breeding line (even oxygen,food) to get higher levels "to show off". But as soon as i get close to level 377 on officials (fully leveled with +73 would get 450) i scratch one of those levels out of the dino. It is a bit more work to get rid of it after breeding it in but you get to show higher levels till you reach the limit .

 

Fun fact: If you intend to get rid of those stats from the start and use ARK Smart Breeding you can set negativ weightings in the breeding plan and it will actually give you breeding options to get the lowest stats in on those values:

In this example the "Best possible" now has the lower stats on Ox,Fo and Sp. and the higher stats on the rest.

[zeroBurnAcidCool]

Nice i didn't think to put negatives i should've checked silly me, but the information will be monumentally helpful as i am trying to do exactly that and i managed to get a little ways into the attempted goal.  

The idea behind what i am doing is I wanted to attempt to be able to pump more points into more important area's, however i suppose people are saying we can't get past 255 points in one stat so i feel like i maybe wasting my efforts. Any comments directed to this ^ would be welcome.

Would show things myself but i am more directed at the power and usefulness of the dino in question atm the tek rex and finding a good process with the least amount of dinoes possible.

I have a few images to show as this was a test so idk yet if i will continue with the line being shown and adjust it now that you've mentioned the ability to put in negative stats and get higher HP into the line.

Two babies 1 has all the lower stats desired the 2nd has a more balanced food(i guess) being on the bar of what I think would be needed for fights and weight as well, wrong image (810 is the other weight.).

I probably should make a thread about this but at the moment my questions are being answered by you and i would think you would know more than most.

Thank you again for addressing my comments.

I like that in breeder this shows up as gold, tamed at those points btw.

[Vmarcelli]

This was so helpful, appreciate the post!

[Defo]

Thank so much for informations !

[PsychoDad]

On ‎6‎/‎30‎/‎2017 at 11:02 AM, Campi said:

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 which 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.

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:

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".

good job, thanks

[Khaotik08]

I cracked the code to mutations and god Dino’s if your interested. The mutation counter seems arbitrary, but it’s not. It is true that you cannot get mutations if the total mutations on a dino are greater than 20. But there is a way around this.

mutations counts are combinations. If I mate a fem with 22 mutations (left) 2 mutations (right); the baby that comes out will show 24 mutations on the maternal side. If you use a female that have 50 total (20 left 30 right or whatever) and a male that has 50 total. That baby will come out with 100 total.

****heres the broken mechanic. 

Keep doubling that number until you hit 2.2-2.5 billion (it’s hard because the counters only show up to 9 digits). Once u hit 2.5 billion, the next baby will show a negative mutation count. Once your negative, you can keep mutating forever. As long as that number keeps coming negative. 

 

[Valkyriethevaliant]

Thank you!

[Ababagogy]

This is a great post, and thanks for putting it up. This lines up with my knowledge too. In addition to your information, it is possible to get more mutations by “cleaning” the mutated dinos. This is done by breeding a fully mutated Dino with an unmutated dino (you will need to repeat this until you get a baby with all the desired stats). This will cause the mutation counter to turn from 20/20 (if it’s maxed) to 0/40 or 40/0 (the mutation total is seen once cleaned). This “cleaned” Dino can be bred with any unmutated Dino to have a 1.25% chance of a mutation (half of the normal 2.5 due to only one of the mutation columns being free).

[SkyHale]

thanks for your time

[doon88]

Thanks for the guide,  alot of info there

[Xerxi]

Super useful, thanks for sharing this!
Been reading a lot about breeding, but this post has some super useful tips that I haven't seen anywhere else. ☺️

[frenchycaro]

Thanks for this guide, it was useful and clear

[gottardi25]

Thanks fir the Information.

Can i stack mutations and levels like 500 times so that i have 200 Points in Dm?

[levpet]

Thanks

[Campi]

On 8/7/2019 at 9:05 PM, gottardi25 said:

Thanks fir the Information.

Can i stack mutations and levels like 500 times so that i have 200 Points in Dm?

As long as you keep one parent below 20 mutation points yes. The Tek-Rexes from the example in the first post are currently at 30 mutations and 111 dmg points on my server.

[rubitodeoro]

Great guide my guy! I just have one question for you, do you know if its true that a 20 mut counter  on the female side will prevent babies from mutating just like if it was maxed out on both sides?

I use this same breeding method with cloned females once I get the stats on a male and a female, I just recently ran into a good player that told me about it when I asked him if he knew why my 22/1 rhinos where not mutating anymore. 

Thanks!

[Diseris]

Think my brain exploded 

[Ghettie]

Always something new to learn on Ark. Thanks!

[crow2707]

Definitely was worth the read thank you