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, Wyverns want  Wyvern Milk  and Rock Drake wants  Nameless Venom ) - put it in your 0 or right d-pad slot and press the use key (E, , ) or a random crop/berry (in Extinction) regardless if the baby is herbivore or carnivore.
• 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.

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), 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)
• 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% × the imprinting bonus, but only if the player who did the imprinting is riding the creature.
  • Example: If the displayed damage is 150% and the player who did an imprinting of 80% is riding the creature, the creature's damage is 150% * (100% + (30% * 80%)) = 186%
• 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 42% more time to dish out damage.
  • 30% increased outbound damage.
  • 1.2 X 1.2 X 1.42 X 1.3 = 2.65 times as much damage dished out before dying.
  • 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  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, and it will not continue to tick down while its cryofrozen.

Notes

• The imprinting system was added in patch 242.0
• 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)
  • The same applies for default single player setting: maturing is 36 times faster while imprinting only 6 times as often
• 275.4 changed the default cuddle interval from 4 hours to 8 hours.
• 287.110 introduces Training feature, but only for Managarmrs.