# ARK Smart Breeding: predicting what an ARK pairing will inherit > ARKStatsExtractor is a Windows desktop tool for ARK: Survival Evolved that extracts possible level-ups from creature stats, keeps a library of your animals, and computes breeding plans and pedigrees. It ships as an installer or a portable zip, and it reads the game rather than intercepting it. **cadon/ARKStatsExtractor** — A tool for the game ARK: Survival Evolved. Extracts possible levelups of creatures to get the values for breeding. With library and pedigree-view. - Repository: https://github.com/cadon/ARKStatsExtractor - Stars: 536 · Forks: 271 - Language: C# - License: MIT - Published: 2026-10-22 · Updated: 2026-10-22 · Language: en - Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/cadon-arkstatsextractor ## It works from your savegame, not by watching the game ARK Smart Breeding is a tool for the game ARK: Survival Evolved that extracts possible level-ups of creatures to get the values for breeding. Save your creatures in a library, sort and compare their stats, view their pedigree, use the breeding-plan to get the best possible creatures and keep track of the growing babies with timers. The mechanism is the part worth being clear about, because it determines what you need in order to use it. The input is an import of your creature data, not a live connection to a running ARK server. The known issues section spells out the consequences: the Capture Ark Window feature, which reads the game window directly, is described as rather inaccurate, limited in detail about creatures and limited in supported resolutions, and the README says to use Creature Import instead. So the tool's reliable path is to import from ARK exports rather than to scrape the game window. That is a design decision with a real trade-off. Reading the live window is convenient because it works while you play, and it is the fragile path because it depends on recognising text on screen at a resolution the tool supports. Reading an import is a different kind of dependency, on being able to produce the export file at all. The project is written in C#, the licence is MIT, the default branch is dev, and the last push was on 2026-10-19, the same day as the newest release v0.74.1.1. The release naming follows the game's own versioning, ARK Smart Breeding 0.74.1.1. That is the design in one fact: the tool tracks the game's data so extraction stays correct. ## What a level-up extraction actually gives you The word extraction in the name refers to something specific: working out, from a creature's current stats, how much each stat would gain at each possible level. That is the input to every breeding decision in the game. When you pair two creatures, each stat of the offspring is inherited from one parent or the other, and then improved by the level-ups each parent can still deliver. So if you know each parent's remaining level-up potential per stat, you can predict the outcome of a pairing before you run it, and choose the pairing that lands the stats you need. The screenshots the README lists show the tools built on top of that number. There is a Library view, an Extractor view, a Breeding Plan view, a Pedigree view, an H-pedigree for inheritance tracking, Taming Infos, and a Raising List. The pedigree view is the part that goes beyond arithmetic. A pedigree records which parents produced which offspring, and the H-pedigree tracks inheritance, so you can see which ancestor a particular high-stat line came from. Over a long breeding program that is the difference between a collection of animals and a documented breeding history, and it is why the tool is a library rather than a one-shot calculator. The Raising List and the timers are the third piece. A creature that has just been born is not finished, and the value of a plan is in knowing when to collect the animal before its stats stop improving. Timers for growing babies close that loop. ## Two downloads, and the difference is how the app installs The README's answer to which version to take is short and practical. For an installation in the system's programs folder, suitable for single user installations, use the setup-ArkSmartBreeding-(version).exe installer. For a portable or shared installation, extract the ARK.Smart.Breeding_(version).zip in an arbitrary folder. So there is no package manager step and no build step in the normal path. The releases page hosts both artefacts, and the README links the latest release directly from the top of the file. The portable form is the interesting one for a game tool. A shared install means several people can run the same copy from a network location, and it means the tool does not need to be installed per user, which is convenient when you are the person who manages the server and you want a copy handed to a member of the tribe. For anyone who does want to build from the repository, the layout gives you the pieces. There is an ARKBreedingStats/ directory holding the application, an ARKBreedingStats.Tests/ directory for the tests, an ARKBreedingStats.sln solution, a build.ps1 PowerShell build script, a setup.iss file for the installer, an ASB-Updater/ directory, an ArkSavegameToolkit directory, a docs/ directory, a CONTRIBUTING.md, a _config.yml for the GitHub pages site and a translations.txt for localisation. The ArkSavegameToolkit is a submodule, given the.gitmodules file, kept as a separate module rather than a folder of source in this repository. Note also that build.ps1 means the build path is Windows oriented, which is consistent with an application distributed as a Windows installer. ## The known ARK bugs that make extracted values wrong The most useful thing in this README is the known issues section, because it tells you when the tool's numbers and the game's numbers disagree, and it is a long list with specific values. The problem is that certain species may show wrong stat values in game, which prevents a correct extraction. Mostly the stat health is affected, sometimes weight, stamina or food. And the README is blunt: currently there is no known workaround for this bug in ARK. The list is concrete. Desert Titan has a health base value of 250000 against an in-game 200000, and Desert Titan Flock goes the other way, 4000 against 7500. Electrophorus and its aberrant variant go from 180 to 260. Gacha is affected in weight, with the increase per level dropping from 0.04 to 0.02. Ice Titan goes from 350000 to 230000, Pegomastax from 120 to 200. Procoptodon is hit twice, with the taming addition for health going from 0.75 to 0.5 and the stamina taming addition from 0.1 to 0. And Troodon is a food problem, with the base value going from 200 to 100. Two Titanoboa and Pulmonoscorpius variants and their aberrant forms are listed too, with health moving from 170 to 300 and from 280 to 300. What this means in practice is that a breeding plan involving a Desert Titan or a Troodon will be computed from a base value the game is not actually using, so the predicted offspring stats will be off by the difference listed. The tool cannot fix it because the fault is in the game, and it cannot detect it either, because the extraction reads the data as the game stores it. There is a second known issue category, an imprinting bug. Creatures sometimes forget to increase their values properly after imprinting, and the README lists three workarounds: upload and download the creature from a Tek Transmitter, Supply Drop or Obelisk, use a Cryopod, or leave render range for a couple of minutes and return. Those are actions in the game rather than in the tool, which is the tell that this one is a game-side fault as well. ## The Creature Import path, and where the documentation lives The README recommends Creature Import over the window capture feature, and links it as a page on the project's wiki under Importing-Creatures with the anchor ark-exports. So the intended workflow is export from ARK, import into the tool, and let the extraction run. Everything else in the tool, the library, the plans, the pedigrees, operates on the imported creatures. The documentation itself is on the project's wiki rather than in the repository, and the README points at two pages specifically: the Manual, which carries links to external resources like guides and videos, and Extraction issues, which is where to go if something does not work. That split is sensible for a tool with a user community and a Discord server, both of which the README links. The Discord invite is at the top of the file next to the download links, which is where questions about a specific creature or a specific pairing would be answered. One practical consequence of the wiki-based documentation is that the README is a starting point rather than a manual, and it assumes you know what ARK exports are and how to produce one. The tool is for people who already play the game seriously, and it does not try to explain the game itself. For a reader evaluating the project without playing ARK, the screenshots and the release cadence are the useful parts. The recent releases show regular updates, which is the maintenance question that matters for a game-adjacent tool. ## Where ARK Smart Breeding is the wrong tool Three cases, and they are all consequences of the same design decision. First, if your creatures are on a server whose administrators will not produce an export. The tool imports your creature data; it does not connect to a running game. On an official or rented server you may have no way to obtain the export at all, and the window capture fallback that would have covered you is the one the README calls rather inaccurate with limited supported resolutions. For a private or solo world where you control the files, none of this matters. For a tribe member on someone else's server, it is decisive. Second, if you need certainty rather than a prediction. The tool computes what a pairing will produce from the level-ups it can derive, and the known issues section is a list of cases where the game disagrees with the data the tool reads. Where a species is affected, the prediction is wrong in a way that does not announce itself. Third, if you want a managed platform rather than a desktop application. This is a Windows executable with an installer, a portable zip and an updater, and the documentation lives on a wiki with a Discord for support. There is no hosted version and no API, and the repository's own tooling is a PowerShell build script and a GitHub Pages site. The licence is MIT, which means nothing stands in the way of running it, studying the extraction code, or contributing a fix for one of the listed species bugs, and the CONTRIBUTING.md file in the repository is where that process is described. Given that the game changes its data, that contribution path is the reason the project keeps working at all. ## Conclusion Adopt ARK Smart Breeding if you breed creatures in ARK: Survival Evolved and want to know what a pairing will produce before you run it, and you are comfortable exporting creature data from your own installation. Do not adopt it if your creatures live on a server whose admins will not share savegame exports, since the tool's input is an ARK export rather than a live game connection. Verify first which build you take, the installer or the portable zip, and check the known issues list for the species whose in-game stats are currently wrong, because that affects what the extracted values mean. ## FAQ ### What does ARK Smart Breeding do? It extracts possible level-ups of creatures to get the values for breeding, then lets you save creatures in a library, sort and compare stats, view pedigrees, compute breeding plans and track growing babies with timers. It is a C# desktop tool for ARK: Survival Evolved, licensed MIT. ### How do I install ARK Smart Breeding? Download the latest release. For a normal single user installation use the setup-ArkSmartBreeding-(version).exe installer, and for a portable or shared installation extract the ARK.Smart.Breeding_(version).zip into any folder. There is no package manager or build step in the normal path. ### How does ARK Smart Breeding get the creature data? Through Creature Import from ARK exports. The README recommends this over the Capture Ark Window feature, which it describes as rather inaccurate, limited in detail about creatures and limited in supported resolutions. ### Which creatures have wrong stats in ARK Smart Breeding? The README lists species whose in-game stat values prevent a correct extraction, mostly affecting health but sometimes weight, stamina or food, including Desert Titan, Electrophorus, Gacha, Ice Titan, Pegomastax, Procoptodon, Pulmonoscorpius, Titanoboa and Troodon. It states there is currently no known workaround for this bug in ARK. ### What is the imprinting bug in ARK Smart Breeding and how is it worked around? Creatures sometimes forget to increase their values properly after imprinting. The README suggests forcing a recalculation by uploading and downloading from a Tek Transmitter, Supply Drop or Obelisk, using a Cryopod, or leaving render range for a couple of minutes and returning. ## Sources - [cadon/ARKStatsExtractor on GitHub](https://github.com/cadon/ARKStatsExtractor) - [Issues](https://github.com/cadon/ARKStatsExtractor/issues) - [License: MIT](https://github.com/cadon/ARKStatsExtractor/blob/dev/LICENSE) - [README](https://github.com/cadon/ARKStatsExtractor/blob/dev/README.md) - [Releases](https://github.com/cadon/ARKStatsExtractor/releases) --- Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/cadon-arkstatsextractor