Imprinting

Imprinting is a way to improve the stat-values of a bred creature. It involves different actions of caring during the maturation process.

Only one player can imprint a newborn baby. 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 . 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
 * 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 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.

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 and oxygen. 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)
 * 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 feature is currently exclusive for 

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.