Welcome to  ARK: Survival Evolved – Basic Breeding Mechanics Guide.

This guide will give you ideas on how to breed dinos, the pros and cons for different birth types, and any special mechanics that may be required for certain species.

How to start gestation/incubation

So, breeding. It’s a great way to get loot. It can help you get the best stats possible for your dinos. It can also make it easier to reproduce rare creatures. But how do you do it?

These steps are for gestation breeding.

1. You should obtain a male and a female of the same breedable animal species.

2. Make sure the creatures are close enough to each other to mate.

3. Open the radial wheel of one of the creatures and move to “Behaviors”.

4. Select “Enable Mating” from the Behaviors Radial Menu. This will allow the creature’s ability to mate with another species that has mating enabled. If all went well, hovering over the creature will display the sentence “Ready to Mate”. It will be just below the creature’s stats.

5. Repeat steps 3-4 with the other member.

6. If all the steps are taken correctly, an icon with a bundle of flying hearts will be displayed above their nametags. This signifies that they are mating.

7. After mating, the female will be given a “Gestating” device that displays information such as torpor and progress in taming wild animals. It will also have a timer.

8. The Gestating timer will end, and the baby will spawn at the female’s back. It is best to claim it as soon as you can. Your tames will think it is an enemy and it will starve quickly.

9. You should raise the baby until it is old enough to feed and care for it. Or, you can kill it to get its blood. It all depends on the species.

There are a few steps that you need to follow for incubation breeding.

1. You should obtain a male and a female of the same breedable animal species. Again.

2. Make sure the creatures are close enough to each other to mate. Obviously.

3. Open the radial wheel of one of the creatures and move to “Behaviors”. Can you see that they are mostly the same?

4. Select “Enable Mating” from the Behaviors Radial Menu.

5. Repeat steps 3-4 with the other member.

6. They will start to mate, but wait until it stops. After this, it starts to change a lot.

7. Unlike gestation breeding, eggs will be produced immediately after mating, and not at the female’s rear (. (Or that of both dinos; see next section)). The egg will have two stats: Egg Health and Egg Incubation. Health is a percentage, and Incubation is a timer with a percent.

8. Keep the egg at the right temperature and protect it from the elements.

9. If the egg is not on the ground, it will hatch once the incubation timer has reached 0%. It must be manually hatched if it is in a Genesis incubator. This is both a blessing and curse.

10. You can raise or kill the baby using the same method as in gestation breeding.

Now that you know basic breeding techniques, I will show you how to breed more complex creatures.

Complex Mechanics of Complex (and Sometimes Not Complex) Species

Some creatures have unique features that make breeding their species easier or more difficult. To specify…

-Maewings don’t have genders. BOTH parents will lay eggs if the two are bred. You could also breed these two children to make two more Maewings …. and then breed them again. It never ends. You basically have unlimited Maewings as long as you keep at most two Maewings alive.

Wyvern Milk is a special feed that only baby Wyverns eat. The Wyvern Milk is obtained by making a wild Wyvern female of any non-Crystal species conscious with tranquilizers. Although tamed Wyverns do not need milk, Wyvern infants do require it regardless of whether their eggs are wild-breeding or domestic. Even if you find a male and a female of the same Wyvern type, your days of visiting the Wyvern trench aren’t over.

Young Crystal Wyverns can eat any meat, but they also eat most of the wild foods that make up their species’ diet. They can eat the same foods as their species’ adults. Although there are Primal Crystals in the wild Crystal Wyvern adult inventory, they are only used as a stronger taming food for wild Crystal Wyverns. They are not required to feed babies but can still be used by tame Crystal Wyverns.

Sulfur is the only food that -Magmasaur baby Magmasaur babies eat. There are no exceptions. Stone can be eaten by adults, however.

The -Desmodus child has about the same dietary variety as their parents. They eat only Blood Packs, the bane of singleplayer players. Tamed adult Desmodus species can extract Blood Packs from the victims of their melee attacks, making it easier for their children to eat.

-Deinonychus babies eat a LOT. I mean A LOT. They can cleave through food like Dodorexes. Prepare accordingly.

Tek creatures such as Voidwyrms and Tek Raptors. They shouldn’t be bred. They are. Whose idea was it installing functioning reproductive systems on robots …??

Good Species to Farm

Some species have loot which makes it possible to breed and slaughter them. This could include resources, taming foods, or just about anything.

-Tek creatures drop electronic components, scrap metal and oil. All four of these are valuable. Voidwyrms can also drop Gasoline or Mutagen, which is very convenient.

-Ovis drops raw mutton. This powerful food can be controlled even though it spoils quickly. It is also very nutritious when cooked. They are near perfect farm animals because of their pelt and “Slaughter”, options on their “Options” radial wheel.

-Kariku Drop Organic Polymer, which will invariably be required.

Do note that slaughtering creatures is complicated when Friendly Fire is off. Ovis is the exception to this rule, thanks to the built-in Slaughter option.

The pros and cons of gestation breeding

Pros

-Do not depend on temperature to allow your baby to exist.

-Are not at risk of the baby being taken by Icthyornis or Pegomastax if they are in inventory…because they CAN NOT be in inventory

-Baby is immediately present, allowing the baby to be born near outdoor feeding troughs/Maewings. It does not need to be fed or led to the trough/Maewing.

– Usually have fewer restrictions on breeding and baby food than egg-layers.

Cons

-A baby born immediately could cause accidental starvation.

-Cannot use with Genesis egg incubators. This means there is no way to select when the baby will be born.

It is more difficult to choose a birth location because the mother will need to fit in that location.

-Always are less powerful than egg-layers.

The pros and cons of incubation breeding

Pros

-Can be used in conjunction with Genesis egg incubator. This allows for more time to prepare the child because of the manual hatching.

-Are usually of stronger species than the gestation-using species.

It is easier to choose where the egg hatches because even the largest eggs are small enough to be carried in your inventory.

In a pinch, eggs can be eaten for nutrition.

Cons

-Require the egg to be at the desired temperature. This will make it more difficult for the child to live through childhood because the egg can die.

Eggs can be accidentally eaten. Be careful.

-Eggs of small size can be lost or forgotten.

– If not in stock, could be taken by wild Icthyornis and Pegomastax.

Egg Temperature Techniques

Eggs have a very important mechanism: eggs that are too cold or too hot will cause their Egg Health to drop until they “die” (or). There are other ways to ensure your egg survives to become an embryo without the Egg Incubator. This is because temperature controls make it easy to raise eggs.

-Dimetrodon may affect the temperature to help in the raising of eggs. They are rare and often appear close to dangerous creatures like the Titanoboa and Sarcosuchus.

-Keep the egg inside. Insulating in the open air is not a good idea.

-Use campfires. They raise the temperature, and eggs will almost always be too cold before they become too hot.

If you have the funds, build a dedicated egg-raising facility. It should be able to accommodate many campfires, breeding-helper dinosaurs, and feeding tubes if Maewings are not available. Also, ensure that the material is not worse than stone. The egg will likely be destroyed if the structure that shelters it is damaged.

Conclusion

Although many players know this information and probably more, someone always needs it. This person needs it a lot. Breeding is one of the best ways to gain powerful dinos and farm resources. Steam guides are for both the many and the few. It doesn’t matter how many people know the information; as long as at least one person doesn’t, it doesn’t matter. You came here because you were bored or because you needed the information. We thank you for reading this guide, even though you didn’t read it.

If you’re familiar with my previous guide for a different game, there may be major differences. This guide is more like a step-by, or a collection, of lists than my original guide. This is because ARK breeding is easier to present in this format. Two, it is more focused on the core concepts of the concept than a large collection. Three, because of my mood when writing it, lists and steps were easier than long paragraphs like the (guide and, apparently, the end of this).

 

This is all about ARK: Survival Evolved – Basic Breeding Mechanics; I hope you enjoy reading the Guide! If you feel like we should add more information or we forget/mistake, please let us know via commenting below, and thanks! See you soon!