Fire's Complete Guide To Stat Combining And Mutation Breeding
- Check out the epic tale of the mighty tribe Leviathan!
- Check out the epic tale of the mighty tribe Leviathan!
Mutations: A deep dive
The following section will go over the following elements in the list below. Keep in mind, this is some of the most advanced stuff in the game, as you soak in this new information, keep in mind the previous steps that led up to this because they are all intertwined. Of all the processes of breeding, I say with full confidence that this method is the best all around for getting the stats and or colors you want as time and resource efficent as possible. With that said, I won't go into depth with other ways of stacking or keeping lines clean since I have tried them all and found none to rival the method I'll explain in this chapter.
What is a Mutation?
A mutation is a random event while breeding that offers a slight increase to one of your dinos base stats as well as a random color applied to a random region. When bred properly, you can stack these mutations upon one another and eventually bypass the 20/20 to get dinos of mass destruction. There is a small chance of getting a mutation every time you breed your dinos, I believe it is around 2% or a 1 in 50 but can be changed depending on the server settings.
How to detect mutations?
Simply put, you'll notice the 2 level increase if your line is completley combined but most likely, you'll just see the change in color, there are a few reasons you dont notice a new color on your mutated dino that I will get into in the next section. You'll also notice a +2 point increase in a random stat. If your server has a mod that allows you to see the points, it becomes very easy. Without one however, you'll have to keep a close eye on the stat values themselves, I reccomend naming your dino with the stats you are looking for so you can easily determine the base if they get leveled or imprinted. You may notice that a dino has an obvious mutation but you do not see the change in stat, the extra points went into movement speed, this stat's base points can be increased but it does not affect the base speed value. All that being said, the easiest way to check for mutations is click the small button under the torpidity stat and it will show the dinos ancestory and mutation numbers. Keep in mind, this mearly shows the numbers and these numbers can rise rapidly, compounding one another if you breed already mutated dinos but the stats will not increase. If you see 150/20 and 60/20, that dino is extremley messy and does not really have 210 mutations. This happens because it does not take into account the same mutation beng bred back into the line, only the number of total times a mutation has been passed down. Later, we'll get into how to keep your line clean and avoid this.
Colors and color regions
There are a specific set list of colors that dinos can have in ark, there are 226 in total ranging from every color you can imagine. Dinos start with a natural set of colors (natural being a set list of values for that creature) and the colors can mutate into any other color on the list. The exeption is during events when dinos can spawn with set event colors replacing their natural colors. There are 2 to 6 color regions on each dino so if a mutation lands on a color region that does not exist for that dino, it will not have a color change but is still a perfectly valid stat mutation. Yes, with a dead stat and dead color regions, a dino can mutatate with no change at all to appearence or stats, only a +2 to the overall level.
Stacking Mutations
Ah yes, probably the best part of this entire guide, this is where you will see increased stats, amazing colors, and get tons of eggs to do with as you please. Kibble, FFA, exp (gummy!) or just fodder, it is up to you. To begin stacking, you want to put all of the f 0/0s (female dinos with no mutations on either side) and pile them up somewhere. I personally prefer to line them up shoulder to shoulder in offset lines so you can easily run between the legs and grab the eggs or baby but it depends on the type of dino and the space you have. If you have been blessed with the hatchery or soul terminal, USE IT! The hatchery means you can pack them in tighter without any worry that you cant get the eggs and the terminal does the same with dinos that give live birth. Once that is sorted, take your male, you'll start out with your perfect male with no mutations but if it has one or two it is alright at this point, as long as the females have none. All this will do is slow your process once you reach 20 mutations on one side by cutting the probibility of your desirable mutation by half. Breed the Male with all your females as often as possible, use mutators if at all possible because it turns the 2% mutation rate into 100% and that will give you basically gurenteed stat increase every time you breed if you have enough f 0/0s. I would reccomend 20-30 f 0/0s per stat you are mutating for the best possible chance of a baby when you use mutators and without them, hundreds would be ideal for stacking. On a server without mutators, I would reccomend building a small breeder base that is very hidden, there are crevices in the genesis 1 snow and the underside of a genesis 1 meteor hardly ever get messed with. Throw out all the f 0/0s as babies because they have mutch, mutch smaller hitboxes and you can basically stack as many as you can throw out into a tiny area. This being said, you will have to collect the eggs and or babies so I really only reccomend this if you have access to the hatchery or sould terminal. Anyway, back to stacking. Once you have your male with perfect stats bred with all your f 0/0s until you get a baby that has a mutation into a stat you need. For example, I got a health mutation on a spino. Now, the line will split. You continue to breed your perfect male half the time looking for mele mutations and your male with +2 health will now be bred with all the 0/0s until you get one with +4 into health. With that, stacking begins. As long as you continue getting as single mutation into that stat from the parent of that same stat type, a dino with 10 mutations will have them all into that stat and it will have +20 poitns base. This is the best way to do it because the chances of getting mutations drops by 50% when the male side reaches 20/20 and you want to get 20 mutationbs before the probability drops. Now, the male side can no longer mutate but the female side can. Your new spinos will be 20/20 M and 1/20 F but as long as you keep breeding these with the f 0/0s, it will push the 1 over to the dads side and become 21/20 and 0/0. This can go forever but keep in mind the soft level cap of 450 on official (dinos above 450 will be deleated on restart) and the soft cap of every base stat on ark is 244. The true hard cap is 245 but you cannot level the dino with 245 levels into a stat. It is best to put 254 and level the stat as needed. Good luck!
Probability and Clean lines!
It is of highest importance that you keep your lines clean even if it may seem easier to take shortcuts that will undermine the line itself for short term benefits. As you know, a clean dino has 0 mutations on both sides and there is a maximum of 20 before the dino can no longer mutate. However, as explained before, you can push all the mutations to the male side by breeding with f 0/0s, up until the point of getting 20/20 and the dads side cannot mutate, you need to be very careful with stacking but past that point, the probability will not change as long as the female side is clean. Using a mutatior, take the 100% mutation rate, 1/7 that the desired stat mutates, and 1/2 chance that the males stat mutates. Additionally, you have a 50% chance to get a male. That means 28 females would be the lowest ideal number you would need to get a good shot at a mutation every time you breed. Once you get over 20 mutations, you need to factor in an additional 50% chance that the dads side will not mutate. Before, the moms side could mutate the dads stat since stats are determined before mutations but since that is no longer, it cuts your chances to a 1/56. It is not as bad as it sounds however, there is a 1/28 chance you will get the stat you need but of that, 50% will be a female. Since you cannot stack with females, you would need to breed the female until you get a stat on a male. During this process, you can breed the other stat with the f0/0s trying to get a mutation while breeding your origional perfect male with no mutations with the female with the stat to try and get a male that is clean on one side but has the stats for a perfect male. Do not worry that the mutations are flipped int he ancestory, they will self correct in the next generation.
Simulation
Torpidity in Breeding
Torpidity can confuse many aspiring breeders, torpidity of dinos is PURELY determined from level. There are no torpidity points, torpidity mutations, or torpidity levels. If you have a higher level dino of the same type, it will always have more torpidty. If your tribemate ever says "HEYY I got a torpidity mutation!" Give them a big wet eel slap for me please
Movement Speed in Breeding
Movement speed is a strange stat, it's points can increase but the base stat will not. The only way to increase movement speed is to imprint the dino and apply levels manually. An old patch prevents fliers' movement speed from being increased but it can be enabled/disabled in settings and some boosed servers allow it.
Breeding on Official
On official, breeding is an extremley long term endevor so you want to keep in mind the sheer amount of time and space you'll need. On official, there is a soft level cap of 450 due to some hacked in dinos causing problems. Any dino over 450 will be removed upon a restart similar to how overcapped blueprints are reset back to server cap. Also, without any mutators and long breeding cooldowns, you want more f 0/0s, as many as you can possibly keep safe in your base for the best chance at mutations. Since there are no mods to help out, I reccomend using the stats in their names instead of the points but just keep in mind the 254 stat cap and 450 level cap. You may notice that you cannot even max out two stats on offical so you really want to make sure the stats you are mutating are very important. Something you can do to get more levels in is combining extremley low level stats that you do not need such as food and oxygen into your line so it leaves more room for desirable stats
Breeding on 5x-25x
I spent most of my time breeding on a 4x (before the rate double). With access to mutators but not hatcheries and enhanced spyglasses, also breeding cooldowns of less than 6 hours, I could get awaya with very little f 0/0s, 20 for each stat worked perfecetly. If this is the case for you, make sure to keep up with the element consumption of 10 times the amount of mutators multiplied by the number of times you breed. Although, element is so easy to get nowdays, I'm not sure why I am even saying it. Back when I played, 8 ele gachas fed off y fruit produced more than enough element for the mutating process. Depending on the server, you want to make sure you know if you have access to the hatchery and enhanced spyglass becasue those will determine how you pack your f 0/0s and how you name the dinos to keep track of stats.
Breeding on 100x-1000x
On these rates, you almost always have access to op breeding mods such as soul terminals and everything else you could need. You are going to want to go for capped lines on these rates so a very important part of the process is taming a dino that has an EVEN number of points into the desired stat. This is very important becasue mutations give 2 levels at a time and there is no way to get your stat from 243 to 244, you will always be one point short of cap. Also, something I found strange about capping lines is you need to apply a strange little eqation to your procerss when finishing up a line. M = (p/2-1). p is the number of points needed to max out the stat (subtract your current stat points from 254) and M is the number of mutations you need to apply to max out the stat. You may wonder why you subtract one from the total number of pulses you need to max it out and honestly I have no idea, I could take a guess at it but nothing really stands out, just trust me, it works. Try it out for yourself.
Mods: expedite the process
As stated in the previous sections, the hatchery in the S+ mod, enhanced spyglass such as the binoculars or super spyglass, soul terminal, and of course the mutator help incredibly with the process of breeding and if you have acess to then, use them!
Other ways of breeding (not reccomended)
I debated even writing this and it hurts to think about all the time and stats wasted to awful ways of breeding but maybe as an experienced breeder, you can have a laugh at these. If you see your tribemates breeding in any of these ways, maybe send them over here or give them a talking to, spare everyone a little time and brain cells. Lets start with how I began breeding and how many other beginners may try and start. (and before you judge me too hard, this is from the same guy who learned from the guy who thought narcotics were a waste in official taming because you can just use a club to keep the dino out... So, take a bunch of dinos and stick them in a huge pile. Enable breeding and replace the lowest level with some of the new ones that are higher base level. This is a very primitive way of stat combining based purely of the level of all the base stats combibined. Pretty soon, I began noticing colors and increased stats that were not on any others, this must be those mutation things! I excitedly kept breeding and the colors began to spread throught the "line" If one was I ended up with a whole bunch of dinos all with nearly identical levels and awesome colors, thinking my line was finished, I began to use them and give them to tribemates. My pride was shattered a bit when Mera, my tribeleader at the time said they were ok but very dirty and we'd need a real line from our allies. From that moment on, I set off to learn all there is about breeding. Some other ways Ive seen people breed, is not keeping clean F 0/0 but instead "wiping the line" or breeding with a clean 0/0 whenever both sides were more than 20 allowing for a couple of mutations before it became a disaster again. Please dont do this.
Wrapup
Thank you Haku, Mera, Planet, and V for giving me a great head start and the tribes of Leviathan, Implant Collectors, COG, Registered Rex Offenders, Boomers, and more for the chance to fight within or along side you on the glory days of deli. I hope all who are reading this learned so much and honestly do not hesitate to ask me personally if you have any questions or if I need to fix something. Best of luck to all of you and may you raise some insane lines! Don't just go for gigas and stegos too, think outside the box my gamers! Throughout my time on ark, I bred spinos and they absolutely destory on aberation, lava cave, pvp at blue on on rag, they are just overall amazing creatures that are not to be underestimated, especially with thir 50% mate boost buff, water buff, and standing up for more damage, they will tear bred gigas apart and I know that from experience! Anyway, enough about spinos, have fun out there guys!
The image above shows the magnificent trio consisting of Hunter, Raptor and I after proudly defeating rockwell
(part of my school assignment)
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