Breeding Same-Stat Mutations From Both Parents Onto One Baby

[🦊 Hermit]

So I've done some casual stat breeding in my time on Ark, getting all the best stats from multiple dinos into one offspring etc. However I've only recently started intensivley breeding for stat mutations, so my experience of this is very limited.

I'm currently trying to breed dimorphs to take into Ragnarok's caves. I have high stat parents, and I'd like to stack at least 3-4 HP and 3-4 melee mutations onto the offspring. I bred these parents until I had a male and female both with exactly the same high stats, then started breeding them together to produce offspring of the same level - that way I could easily see if any of them had mutations, because they would be 2 levels higher.

In my first batch of eggs I got 2 males with a melee mut each, one male with a HP mut, and one female with a HP. So I figured I'd breed the female with the first melee male, to get a female child with one HP and melee mut, then breed that child with the second melee male to stack both melee muts into one creature. Breeding the first male with the female went fine, and I soon had a female with one HP and one melee mutation, which I then placed with the second melee male to produce more eggs.

My issue is, however, that after a large number of eggs, this second melee mutation from the second male just does not seem to be getting inherited by any of the offspring, at all. Some of them have the HP stat from the mother, and/or the melee stat which the mother inherited from the first melee mutation father. But not one single one of them has ever yet gotten the second melee mutation from their paternal side.

On the topic of mutations, the wiki states that:

'When an egg hatches, its stats are randomly selected from either parent, with a 55% chance to get the better of the two. Regardless of this though, a mutation from one parent can still affect a stat taken from the other.'

https://ark.gamepedia.com/Mutations

Reading this, I was of the understanding that the HP and melee mutation on the mother's side, AND the melee mutation on the father's side, could both be passed on to a child, regardless of which stat the child inherited. So while not guarenteed, there was a chance that I would eventually get a baby with 1 HP mutation and 2 melee. Can anyone tell me if I'm mistaken in this, and what it is that I'm doing wrong? Or am I just having a really bad run not getting any children with those stats, and should continue as I am?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks ;)

[Nokim]

my advice, see previous threads, some cover all this.

[🦊 Hermit]

I haven't been able to find any info on this issue specifically, but I will try another search to see if I can come up with anything.

[Chaser the Tiny Hippo]

You got multiple dimorphs with the same melee stat. You don't specify what it is, so I'll use 42 for my example.
2 of them get a melee mutation. They now have 44 points into damage each.
What gets transferred to the baby are the points. They both have 44, so that's what will be passed down, even though it's from 2 different mutations.
You'd have to get another mutation from the 44dmg dimorphs to get it higher.

[Nokim]

https://steamcommunity.com/app/346110/discussions/0/1743343017613104423/?tscn=1533764890

[🦊 Hermit]

Originally posted by Tiny Hippo:

You got multiple dimorphs with the same melee stat. You don't specify what it is, so I'll use 42 for my example.
2 of them get a melee mutation. They now have 44 points into damage each.
What gets transferred to the baby are the points. They both have 44, so that's what will be passed down, even though it's from 2 different mutations.
You'd have to get another mutation from the 44dmg dimorphs to get it higher.

They do have the same stats, yes. The parents were level 242 with 1175.5 HP and 469 melee, then in the first generation of mutations the male melee muts got 483 melee, while the male and female with HP muts were at 1225.5 HP. All four were at level 244, of course.

Then I bred the first melee male with the HP female and got a female 246 with both a melee and a HP mutation. And now I'm trying to breed that 246 female with the second 244 male, which has the second melee mutation.

So you're saying that the game just keeps track of the stats after a mutation has been added, not the actual mutations themselves? I was under the impression that it registered a mutation as a 'thing', a factor which would add on levels whatever the stat, and that multiple mutations would operate on the stat regardless of what the stat started out as. So It would take the base stat from one parent, decide that the mutation from that parent will be passed down and so add 2 levels to the stat, and then also decide that the second mutation from the other parent would also be passed down, and so add 2 levels again.

So I'm mistaken in that understanding?

Originally posted by Nokim:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/346110/discussions/0/1743343017613104423/?tscn=1533764890

I appreciate the link bro, thanks for that^^ However I'm afraid I don't really see how it has a bearing on the issue I described above? Sorry if I'm missing it, my bad.

[Chaser the Tiny Hippo]

Originally posted by Hermit:

So you're saying that the game just keeps track of the stats after a mutation has been added, not the actual mutations themselves? I was under the impression that it registered a mutation as a 'thing', a factor which would add on levels whatever the stat, and that multiple mutations would operate on the stat regardless of what the stat started out as. So It would take the base stat from one parent, decide that the mutation from that parent will be passed down and so add 2 levels to the stat, and then also decide that the second mutation from the other parent would also be passed down, and so add 2 levels again.

Only the stats are passed down, yes.
Those 2 extra levels into melee are the dino's new stat. The only indication that it's from a mutation that the game keeps is the mutation counter telling you it has had a mutation.
Mutations themselves do not get passed down, only stats and colors do.
However, it will register as a second mutation for the mutation counter, even though it doesn't actually have any effect besides maybe color.
To increase the starting damage any further, you need another mutation.

[🦊 Hermit]

Right, I see...so I can't take two mutations of the same stat on different dinos and pile them on top of each other. Guess that means the other two males with the extra melee and HP muts are surplus to requirements then, that's a shame. But thanks for clearing that up, refines my understanding of the game mechanics a little more^^ Guess I'll work on getting a male with the HP and melee then breed that with the female instead.

[Nokim]

mutations are just points, points on stats are easy to track.every mutation or point value has a chance at transferring to the offspring.

if you understand how to transfer stat points from 1 or 2 parents to an offspring then you know part of it is waiting for the right combination. I hatched and killed 100trex yesterday to get that 1 offspring that was both female 4 points worth of mutations and had all the best stat points from both parents + an extra 2 point mutation into the stat that i wanted, so i could breed it again with my non mutated male, and start the process over again. my next trex female with 4 mutations and the 4th mutation in the right points may take 100 eggs, maybe 300 eggs..who knows.


its important to understand and know how "lost" stat points are possible and how to track them. that is where the link helps to understand all that.

[🦊 Hermit]

Yeah, thanks for the info^^ I did understand that the mutations added 2 levels to the stats, however I didn't realise that the mutations themselves were not tracked as additions to those stats. Thought that they would work as separate factors rather than overwriting each other.

Cheers for the assistance, both of you :) Saved me a good bit of time breeding extra, unessecary babies there lol, now that I understand better I should be able to get my dimorph army much faster.