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Master of the Gene Pool

Breeding and mutating creatures is the definitive endgame of Ark: Survival Evolved (ASE). To create a satisfying environment for your players, you must balance the maturity speed with the imprinting window. This guide explains how to fine-tune your server to allow for rapid, high-quality breeding without making imprinting impossible.

Difficulty

Intermediate

Time

5 Minutes

Core Breeding Multipliers

All primary breeding settings are located in your GameUserSettings.ini under the [ServerSettings] header.
1

Mating Intervals

MatingIntervalMultiplier=0.05 (Lower is faster). This reduces the cooldown time required for female creatures to be ready to mate again.
2

Incubation & Gestation

EggHatchSpeedMultiplier=20.0 (Higher is faster). This affects both the time it takes for eggs to hatch and the duration of mammalian pregnancies.
3

Maturation Speed

BabyMatureSpeedMultiplier=20.0 (Higher is faster). This controls how quickly a baby grows into a full adult.

Balancing the Imprinting Window

A common mistake on boosted servers is setting maturity speed too high without adjusting the imprinting timer. If a creature grows up too fast, it will become an adult before it ever asks for a cuddle, food, or a walk, leaving it with a 0% imprint bonus.

Accelerating Mutations

While Ark does not have a single “Mutation Chance” multiplier in the vanilla configuration, you can still speed up the process through clever balancing.
By increasing the MatingIntervalMultiplier (making it lower), players can perform hundreds of breeding cycles per day. This naturally increases the frequency of mutations appearing in the population.

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Last Updated: January 2026 | Genetics: Built for perfection.