Are mutations points or numbers?

[DaddyMike72]

After collecting a few Rexes, I bred up a clean mating pair.  They both had 366 Melee.  While breeding them, I got a mutation that resulted in a white stripe down the back and the Melee got bumped up to 378.  During the Valentines event I tamed a 145 Rex that has a clean 378 Melee.  (Yes I know 400+ is possible, Ark just hasn't been that kind with my rex tames).  If I breed the clean 378 to the mutated 378, will it result in a 2 point bump in Melee or is it purely the numerical value of 378 that will transfer?

 

Thanks.

[DaddyMike72]

I think I figured my owned answer.  It isn't just the mutation that would swap, but the 366 Melee that the mutation is attached to?

[GP]

If you breed the mutated 378 with the clean 378 you will get 378 unless the baby gets its own mutation on melee.

[DaddyMike72]

That's sort of what I figured.  When I initially posted this, I was in the middle of folding the clean 378 into a new Mating Pair.  I got a clean female first and was able to breed her with the mutated one who also has a Health mutation.  The offspring came out with the Brick Red body and White stripe of the Health and Melee mutations, but had the 378 Melee.  This is when I figured that the mutation isn't independent of the stat it is attached to.  So basically when I do manage to get 400+ Melee tame, I will pretty much scrap the Melee mutation.

Thanks

[GrumpyBear]

Mutations just change a stat and a color zone.  Then they leave a trace in the count,  the count will stay, but the new stat doesn’t have to keep with it.   Basically it’s like if you tamed the higher melee but it comes with a 1 in the counter,  you will always inherit the counter,  but not necessarily the stat or color.

 You can have the same exact melee with mutating up from 300 or 350, all the way up to 431. One path took 11 mutations to get there, the other took 7,  you can mate the products of each line to guarantee a baby will have the melee no matter what,  it’s total count afterwards will be 18 (11/20  7/20).  The stats are independent of the count,  the count is like a turnstile going into Disneyland.  It records the mutation going in,  it doesn’t care if the mutation doesn’t stay.

 

the counters change in 2 different ways,  you can add counts together,  so no mutations on either side is always 0+0 = 0.... 1/20 1/20 mated with a 1/20 0/20 will come out 2/20 1/20 for a total of 3.....

the other way is you mutate and then a 0/20 0/20 can add anywhere from 1 more to 3 more. On either side or even both with more than one mutation at a time.

 

[TheDonn]

8 hours ago, DaddyMike72 said:

That's sort of what I figured.  When I initially posted this, I was in the middle of folding the clean 378 into a new Mating Pair.  I got a clean female first and was able to breed her with the mutated one who also has a Health mutation.  The offspring came out with the Brick Red body and White stripe of the Health and Melee mutations, but had the 378 Melee.  This is when I figured that the mutation isn't independent of the stat it is attached to.  So basically when I do manage to get 400+ Melee tame, I will pretty much scrap the Melee mutation.

Thanks

Yeah, if you get a 400+ clean new Rex stat, the 378 should be effectively cut out of the line.  And you are correct with the "attachment" of mutations, they kinda disappear and overwrite the stats and colors of the dino that makes the mutation.

The way I think of it is, the way they are coded.  They are as simple as can be coded.  Don't get hung up on my variable names...  Just the concept!

Rex example code: 

STAT VARIABLES = A, B, C, D, E, F, G

COLOR VARIABLES = J, K, L, M, N, O

MUTATION VARIABLES = X, Y

A through G are the stats, including wasted points but they all carry over and are considered when breeding.  J through O are color regions, inclusive of ALL six color regions though the Rex doesn't use all the color regions.  X and Y are mutation restrictors, nothing more.  They are probably part of a very simple if -> else statement that controls the mutation probability roll.  When a mutation happens, the BASE VARIABLES change for a stat, color, and mutation and then the "mutation" is 100% part of the NEW variable set with no real accurate "history" of what it was.  The new Rex code doesn't get more complex with each new mutation, otherwise ARK wouldn't run.  I mean come on, people used to crash ARK servers with 1000 lights in a small area!  We have Rexes (and many other creatures) with mutations in the tens-of-thousands.  If the code of one dino, in this case a Rex, isn't as simple as I have stated, then highly mutated creatures would have 5,000 additional variable assignments.  Every one.  So a boss-squad of 15-20 Rexes, all with 5,000 variables to record instead of 15 would be a massive amount of data. 

And each stat can hold a max value of 255...  Which means that one stat is one byte (2^8-1 because 0 is technically a position).  So I think the max size of one dino is ~15 bytes, which can be transmitted and recorded (server-side) easily.  Increase that by 5,000 and stuff gets messy real fast, especially when dealing with bases that are allowed to have 500 dinos out and rendered.  My Binary-Fu might be a bit off, but I hope the stupid rambling is clear.

 

5 hours ago, GrumpyBear said:

Mutations just change a stat and a color zone.  Then they leave a trace in the count,  the count will stay, but the new stat doesn’t have to keep with it.   Basically it’s like if you tamed the higher melee but it comes with a 1 in the counter,  you will always inherit the counter,  but not necessarily the stat or color.

 You can have the same exact melee with mutating up from 300 or 350, all the way up to 431. One path took 11 mutations to get there, the other took 7,  you can mate the products of each line to guarantee a baby will have the melee no matter what,  it’s total count afterwards will be 18 (11/20  7/20).  The stats are independent of the count,  the count is like a turnstile going into Disneyland.  It records the mutation going in,  it doesn’t care if the mutation doesn’t stay.

 

the counters change in 2 different ways,  you can add counts together,  so no mutations on either side is always 0+0 = 0.... 1/20 1/20 mated with a 1/20 0/20 will come out 2/20 1/20 for a total of 3.....

the other way is you mutate and then a 0/20 0/20 can add anywhere from 1 more to 3 more. On either side or even both with more than one mutation at a time.

 

I just wanna point out, I believe Grumpy is on point here.  Sometimes, people say things and no one backs em up, and it puts their shared information on the same level as anyone else who comes and says some weird kind of, "I've played ARK for 2 hours and I got it down" nonsense.  Grumpster got it all down though, in my opinion.