Imprinting
Imprinting is a way to improve the stat-values of a bred creature. It involves different actions of caring during the maturation process.
By default game config, only the player who claimed the newborn baby can imprint it. If this player manages to care for it during the maturing phase, the creature will get stats bonuses and an additional bonus of up to 30% in each damage and resistance when this very player rides it.
Giving care
Imprinting is prompted by the baby, juvenile, or adolescent dinosaur showing a text "Wants Care In: HH:MM:SS" hovering over it. Once the timer runs out it wants one of three types of care:
- Request for a random Food item (Full list of Food demanded) - put it in your 0 or right d-pad slot and press the use key (E,
, 
, 
). Food requested is not always respective to the type of creature. Carnivores may request berries, and herbivores may request meat. - Wants to cuddle - just press the use key (E, , , )
- Wants to walk with the player - Whistle follow for about 0-20 foundations distance from starting location (walking in circles does not seem to fulfill this, walk directly away from the baby in a straight line). If the little creature is sitting in the pouch of a
Procoptodon then moving the Procoptodon also counts as walking it.
This will raise imprinting progress and set a timer for, currently, about 8 hours (~4 before v275.4) until you can imprint further. Any imprinting done is permanent and will not decay if you neglect to imprint the creature afterwards.
If the creature asks for something you don't have or don't want to feed, it is possible to cryopod it, then release it back out. This will change what it wanted in the first place. For example: if it asks for superior kibble, crypod it, and when you release it, it might ask for something easier like a cuddle, walk or berry, but it also might ask for something harder, like extraordinary kibble. Since it's completely random, it is possible it might ask for the same thing prior to the crypodding. Keep in mind that putting it in the cryopod will also pause the imprint/maturation timer.
Each care session will increase Imprinting affinity by a set amount, based on total maturation time. It is approximately: Imprinting Affinity Gain = 8 Hours / Total Maturation Time of Species. The displayed value is rounded from the actual value, thus, for a Parasaur, which is ~33.33333%, it displays as 33% per care, but after 2 care intervals you will have 67% (actually 66.66666%). The exact amount a creature will gain per cuddle is 100% / floor(TotalMaturationTime / cuddleInterval). E.g. a Parasaur will get 100% / floor(26.56 h / 8 h) = 100% / 3 = 33.33333% per cuddle. Note: 
Carcharodontosaurus and 
Giganotosaurus will cap the imprint amount at 4% instead at 3.33%, resulting on a lot more of extra-time than what one imprint request would require.
Imprinting table
The following table represent the approximated imprinting percentage per interaction (approximated) at server default settings (BabyCuddleIntervalMultiplier=1.0 and BabyMatureSpeedMultiplier=1.0).
The Imprinting formula
The amount of each imprint scales between the total maturation time and the different multipliers in the game config:
- TMT: the creature total maturation time, in seconds, from hatch/born baby stage to adulthood, at 1.0 MSP speed. This value varies for each creature species.
- MSP: the baby mature speed multiplier, namely
BabyMatureSpeedMultiplier. - CIM: the baby cuddle interval multiplier, namely
BabyCuddleIntervalMultiplier. - IAM: the baby imprint amount multiplier, namely
BabyImprintAmountMultiplier. - DCIT: the default baby cuddle interval time of the creature, in seconds. That is, amount of time between imprint requests with CIM set at 1.0. By default and for all non mod-creatures, DCIT is set to 28800 seconds (8 hours).
Note: to avoid potential divisions by 0, MSP, CIM and IAM cannot be less than 0.000099999997: any smaller value will be automatically converted to that value.
The following formula computes the imprint amount added at each imprinting action. The obtained value (V) is then clamped between 0 and 1.0 (100% imprinted):
V = IAM / (TMT / (MSP * DCIT * CIM) - 0.25)
As stated, V is clamped between 0 and 1.0: any value resulting greater than 1.0 will be converted back to 1.0. This happens also when V is added to the the previous imprinting value baby creatures requiring more than one imprinting actions.
Note: the game code performs such formula in a different order of operations and rounding operation may results slightly different values from what users can compute by their-own.
This formula can be used to advanced players and server admins to understand how the imprinting values will scales depending on the chosen settings. However, due the slightly different rounding operations performed by game code, it's always suggested to test for any creature that may not have enough time to get an extra imprint cycle depending on the chosen game or server settings.
Finally, remember when using Single Player Settings, additional multipliers are multiplied to CIM and MSP config values, despite being default at 1.0 or having a custom value. Such values are changed before applying the formula.
Genesis Baby Boon buff
Genesis 2 mission Slide and Glide is an edge case that adds with the world effect Baby Boon an additional variable to Imprinting Formula. The formula can be rewritten as follows:
V = IAM * ISM / (TMT / (MSP * DCIT * CIM) - 0.25)
Where ISM is the Baby Imprinting Speed Multiplier given by Baby Boon world effect, which value depends by the difficulty of the mission.
Note: this behavior can be changed disabled with the appropriate world effect settings in the game config.
Examples
To compute how much imprinting % a 
baby-Rex gains at each care/cuddle at Official 1.0 settings:
- TMT for rex is 333333.3125 seconds
- MSP, CIM, IAM are set at 1.0
- DCIT as usual is 28800
The formula
V = IAM / (TMT / (MSP * DCIT * CIM) - 0.25)
becomes:
V = 1 / (333333.3125 / (1 * 28800 * 1) - 0.25) V = 1 / (333333.3125 / 28800 - 0.25) V = 1 / (11.57407335 - 0.25) V = 1 / 11.32407335 V = 0.088307 V ~ 9 %
Note: the game code will perform such computation in a different order and the rounding operation will result in a slightly higher value than 0.09. The result implies a Rex gains approximately 9% of imprinting on each care/cuddle action at Official 1.0x settings, for a total of 11 imprints required to get a 100% imprinted Rex.
To compute how much imprint % would get the same baby-Rex at each care/cuddle at Official 3.0 settings:
- TMT for rex is 333333.3125 seconds
- MSP, IAM are set at 3.0
- CIM is set at 0.6
- DCIT as usual is 28800
The formula
V = IAM / (TMT / (MSP * DCIT * CIM) - 0.25)
becomes:
V = 3 / (333333.3125 / (3 * 28800 * 0.6) - 0.25) V = 3 / (333333.3125 / 51840 - 0.25) V = 3 / (333333.3125 / 51840 - 0.25) V = 3 / 6.18004075 V = 0.4854 V ~ 49 %
Note: the game code will perform such computation in a different order and the rounding operation will result in a slightly different value.
The result implies a Rex gains almost 49% of imprinting on each care/cuddle action at Official 3.0x settings, for a total of 3 imprints required to get a 100% imprinted Rex.
Bonus
- It will increase the stat-values of all stats by 20% at full affinity, including speed and torpor; this boost does not apply to stamina, oxygen and crafting skill. It increases the base stat, and is not subject to addition and subtraction modifiers (such as the giga's health penalty, which is substracted AFTER the multiplicative imprinting Bonus is applied), thus the final value may be more or less than 20%. For details see Creature stats calculation.
- Mountable flying creatures will not receive an imprinting bonus to movement speed. (Excluding the Snow Owl until patch PC - 304.44 and mobile flyers)
- Once fully matured the stat bonuses will remain on the dino regardless if it is ridden by the imprinter or even if the dino is traded to another tribe.
- There is a damage and resistance bonus of 30%. This stacks with the imprinting bonus, but only if the player who did the imprinting is riding the creature.
- Example: Base damage is 150%. A 100% imprint would increase this to 180%. When being ridden by the player who raised it, it deals an extra 30%, making the total base damage a potential 234%.
- When the imprinting affinity is less than 100%, the stat bonuses and rider bonuses are decreased to that amount, thus 50% affinity results in +10% to stats and 15% rider bonuses.
- A fully imprinted dinosaur ridden by whomever imprinted on it is capable of taking on enemies more than twice as powerful as it would've been unimprinted.
- All of its bonuses are multiplicative.
- 20% increased health means 20% more time to dish out damage.
- 20% increased damage.
- 30% reduced incoming damage means only 70% of the incoming damage is taken, resulting in 1 / 0.7 = 1.43x the normal time you need to kill the creature, meaning 43% more time to dish out damage.
- 30% increased outbound damage.
- 1.2 X 1.2 X 1.43 X 1.3 = 2.67 times as much damage dished out before dying (calculated with not rounded numbers).
- Because the additive taming bonus is not multiplied by the 20% stat increase, these numbers will often be off by a little bit, but not typically by much.
Training
|
This section is about content exclusive to the DLC: Extinction |
This feature is currently exclusive for 
Managarmr
Added in 287.110 to curb the issue with baby Managarmr's behavior, this feature lets you train babies, allowing the imprint timer to shorten by 30 minutes (or up to 2 hours, based on the imprint timer setting), and also reduce the possibility for grown up Managarmrs to constantly jump or dash randomly when attacking without a survivor on it. There is a cooldown of two hours at least once its trained before a baby can be trained again.
Unlike the imprint timer, the training cooldown timer will continue even if a baby is put in a cryopod.
Bugs
- The
Diplocaulus imprint is currently bug, because it is swimming the priority option is Take Oxygen with the interaction button, and because the baby amphibians can't be out of water leaves the players without knowing what the baby wants.
- It is still possible to get the imprint by being lucky that the baby wants to walk and do it, however the player can't know when the baby want this, so the best option is to whistle follow and hope for the best, if that's not the case the player can save the baby on a
Cryopod and repeat until it gets the imprint.
- It is still possible to get the imprint by being lucky that the baby wants to walk and do it, however the player can't know when the baby want this, so the best option is to whistle follow and hope for the best, if that's not the case the player can save the baby on a
- On default settings, the
Gacha grows faster than the amount of imprint it can get, Gacha can therefore not reach a 100% imprint rate.
Notes
- The imprinting system was added in patch 242.0
Sanguine Elixir can give an extra one-time only 30% imprinting bonus to each non-adult creature.- The imprinting-bonus is not inherited to the offspring
- Utilizing
Cloning Chamber will not give the imprinting bonus to the cloned dino even if the dino being cloned has imprinting bonus. - Not caring for the baby just gives you a creature like before the imprinting-system was introduced. There is no penalty for not caring.
- For private server owners, high dinosaur baby maturing speed can make it impossible to reach 100% on imprinting some kinds of dinosaurs. It is suggested to learn about dinosaurs' maturing timers from Breeding page before adjusting the multiplier(and 1.5x, 2.0x events), and to check them with the imprinting formula.
- The same applies for default single player setting: maturing is 36 times faster while imprinting only 6 times as often[1]
- 275.4 changed the default cuddle interval from 4 hours to 8 hours.
- 287.110 introduces Training feature, but only for Managarmrs.
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