Can you get over 20 mutations in a single stat? If so, what's the point of the #/20 Mutations when looking at ancestors?

[KonaManta]

Hey there, I'm new to breeding and I'm trying to breed up an army of super rexes for bosses. I've heard you can essentially breed up super dinos in any stat you want, so long as they don't cross lvl 450 on official or 255 points in a single stat on single player.

so is that 'random mutation' on either parental side when looking at ancestors actually an inhibitor? If you can get way over 20 mutations in a stat, why's that there? Does it actually do anything?

Thanks for helping a confused dude out!

[Liralen]

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL4fDTRg4Ig and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ae0XiuxWTI

on how to do it. Both are really long videos, but is a fraction of the time you'll spend on mutation breeding.

I'm not really sure what you mean with the "so is that 'random mutation' on either parental side when looking at ancestors actually an inhibitor? If you can get way over 20 mutations in a stat, why's that there? Does it actually do anything?" I think the above videos might clear that up.

[Liralen]

BTW, I make spreadsheets to record original stats and use the Awesome Spyglass mod, which enables me to see the original stats, at any time, so I don't need the Smart Breeder app and I can level them up if I want.

[KonaManta]

Thanks Liralen,
I've actually watched those videos but maybe I need a refresher.
When you click 'show ancestors' it shows that you can get up to 20 mutations on either parental side. I guess my question is, if you can actually go over 20 mutations, what's the point of the 20? I'm wondering if there's some sort of restriction.

[Liralen]

Originally posted by KonaManta:

Thanks Liralen,
I've actually watched those videos but maybe I need a refresher.
When you click 'show ancestors' it shows that you can get up to 20 mutations on either parental side. I guess my question is, if you can actually go over 20 mutations, what's the point of the 20? I'm wondering if there's some sort of restriction.

If I'm understanding your question correctly (there's a high chance I don't ;)), once you get 20 mutations on the paternal side, your babies can then only get mutations on the maternal side, thereby halving the chance of getting of getting the mutation you want. Of course, if you've gotten to that point, you've realized that mutations can occur on either side, and it really doesn't matter when breeding them.

If you're preferring a male (as you should, because of the time it takes for females to be able to breed), even if the game says that it occurred from his mother (which also doesn't add up with the data I collected, but it happens regardless. I suspect the game randomly attributes this part, but not sure yet), his offspring will usually show up on the paternal side.

Whatever the reason, once you've obtained a dino that has reached 20 mutations on the paternal side, a mutation on the paternal side doesn't count any more. Only mutations that occur on the maternal side count.

This is a wild guess on my part (I haven't gotten that far), but I'm guessing that doesn't mean that once you've obtained 20 stat mutations in a stat, that does not mean that you cannot breed them with another mutated dino, and have their existing mutations reflected in a baby, but rather that the baby cannot be mutated if it inherits 20 mutations on the maternal and 20 mutations on the paternal side.

[DreadCthulhu]

The main reason to pay attention to the /20 counter is that after a tame passes 20/20 mutations, it will no longer be able to generate new mutations. Basically, the game first generates the stats for a baby when you mate, then it checks the father to see if it can generate a mutation, then if under 20 rolls for mutation chance, then it checks the mother's counter, then if under 20 does the mutation roll. This is why when you are stacking mutations you generally want a line of mutated males, and unmutated females; that way even when the father's side passes 20 mutations the clean females can still trigger a new mutation. That way you can keep going past 20 mutations, though your rate will be cut in half.

As for how the counter itself works, the paternal side will simply be the father's paternal & materal counts added to together; the maternal side is simply the mother's pat+mat counters added together. The counter will also go up by 1 if a parent generates a new mutation; if the father generates new mutation it goes on the pateral counter, if the mother than maternal.

[KonaManta]

@DreadCthulhu - thanks for the clarification. So what I get from this is that each stat can be mutated 40 times, but after the first 20 the mutation chance is cut in half. (Did I understand that right?)

For some reason I thought you could mutate a stat until you hit the level cap on official, or 255 points in a single stat on unofficial. I didn't realize it actually stopped at 40, but that explains why there's the 20-mutation cap on each parental side.

Thanks for the help!

[Liralen]

Originally posted by KonaManta:

@DreadCthulhu - thanks for the clarification. So what I get from this is that each stat can be mutated 40 times, but after the first 20 the mutation chance is cut in half. (Did I understand that right?)

For some reason I thought you could mutate a stat until you hit the level cap on official, or 255 points in a single stat on unofficial. I didn't realize it actually stopped at 40, but that explains why there's the 20-mutation cap on each parental side.

Thanks for the help!

That's my understanding, too. But I'm still a newb when it comes to mutation breeding. I've been trying to do it properly for the past month or two (I have breed mutations before, but very badly, until I watched Meshells videos). But I haven't reached the end stages, by any means.

However, if you're playing unofficial, the S+ mod has a mutator device which results in all babies having a mutation. I've used two of them and have found if both are activated, it results in the possibility that babies will obtain +4 increase to a stat, but only counts as 1 mutation against the mutation limit.

[william_es]

If one parent is at 20/20 mutations, it's actually worse then just halving the chance...

As liralen pointed out, it rolls for a mutation on each parent (as long as that parent is not 20/20 for mutations already), but the weird part is that if it does trigger a mutation, it then rolls again to decide where the mutation goes, mother or father side.

So once a male reaches 20/20 (or higher), it will skip rolling mutations at all for the male.

It then checks the female, and if the female gets a mutation... it then rolls to see if it goes on the male or female's breeding line. And if it rolls male side at that point, since the male isn't eligible for any mutations anymore, it disregards it entirely. poof gone.

By the way, this entire mutation process is rolled three times overall. So it's possible to have a double or even triple mutation, though it's INSANELY rare. A guy with 8000+ hours said in one thread he'd seen a triple mutation 3 times, ever (and all in useless garbage stats too).

[Liralen]

Originally posted by william_es:

If one parent is at 20/20 mutations, it's actually worse then just halving the chance...

As liralen pointed out, it rolls for a mutation on each parent (as long as that parent is not 20/20 for mutations already), but the weird part is that if it does trigger a mutation, it then rolls again to decide where the mutation goes, mother or father side.

That may also explain some weirdness I've experienced that has not made any sense because I'm still at the stage of trying to obtain mutations on the parental side, by mating them only with females with no mutations.

Male babies can be born with the desired mutation, but the mutation occasionally occurs on the maternal side, even though the male parent has been mutated several times, whereas the mother has no mutations.

However, even if the male has inherited a mutation from his mother, his offspring will usually show all mutations occurring on the paternal side, unless what you just described happens again.

[n[1]k*]

Originally posted by KonaManta:

@DreadCthulhu - thanks for the clarification. So what I get from this is that each stat can be mutated 40 times, but after the first 20 the mutation chance is cut in half. (Did I understand that right?)

For some reason I thought you could mutate a stat until you hit the level cap on official, or 255 points in a single stat on unofficial. I didn't realize it actually stopped at 40, but that explains why there's the 20-mutation cap on each parental side.

Thanks for the help!

No, each stat could be mutated up to 255 points, but that is the limit, after that you can't mutate or level up anymore, that's why you stop at 253 or 254 (if you go crazy with the mutations, as it takes really long time to reach that). For official servers the level cap for the creatures is 450, and 500 for Gen exclusive, X and R creatures. You can level creatures 88 times, so on officials you see those crazy min maxed dinos born at lvl 362 and 412 for Gen/X/R creatures. The 20 you see in the ancestry line is the limit (as a sum of its parents mutations counter), after that this dino can no longer give a new mutation. So if your newest baby is a male, with 1 mutation shown on the mat. side and 19 on the pat. side, he now have 20, he reached his limit, so when it replaces its father, only the clean females could continue to give new mutations, but then your chances are approx. halved of course. There's a way to avoid that, by continuously breeding a pair, swapping the parents, and once the mutation counter as a sum goes above 2,147,483,647 it reaches negative numbers, and since that is less than 20, you breed a female with a negative numbers with your male which reached his mutations limit, so you have a male which can continue to give new mutations.

[DreadCthulhu]

Originally posted by KonaManta:

@DreadCthulhu - thanks for the clarification. So what I get from this is that each stat can be mutated 40 times, but after the first 20 the mutation chance is cut in half. (Did I understand that right?)

For some reason I thought you could mutate a stat until you hit the level cap on official, or 255 points in a single stat on unofficial. I didn't realize it actually stopped at 40, but that explains why there's the 20-mutation cap on each parental side.

Thanks for the help!

No, 254/255 is the limit, you can do way more than 40 mutations on a stat. Basically, by having a line of mutated males, and clean females, the females can keep generating mutations no matter how many mutations the male side has. For example, lets say you have a male that has 20/20 on his paternal counter, and 1/20 on his maternal side. You mate him with a clean female and get a new mutant. That babie's counter will say 21/20 paternal, 1/20 materal. Then you mate him, and the next mutant baby will say 22/20 pat 1/20 mat. Since you are using clean females, the counter only increases on the males side. The female side always resets on the next generation, and will be zero for no new mutations, 1 for a new one, or very rarely 2 or 3 for double/triple mutations.

[KonaManta]

Haha okay. Ark breeding is way more complex than I thought. Thanks for answering everyone.

So basically...

-As long as I'm chaining mutated males with NON-mutated females, I can go until I hit the 255-point limit
-I just need to switch out the old male with the new mutated male each time
-Once I hit 20 Mutations the mutation rate will cut in half or so, but I can still keep going until I hit 255 points

And that's it, yeah? After those first twenty the chance of a mutation stays the same, right?

[skyguard]

The thing is, you do not want to go up to 255 points in any stats (wild side), if you do, it will be locked and you won't be able to put any levels in that stat, so stop at 254.