The BIG Mutagen and Mutagel Guide

Mutagen and Mutagel are two new resources that came with Genesis Part 2. These affect, among other things, two topics close to all ARK players hearts—taming and breeding. Mutagen and Mutagel both have several uses, which I will explain to you. First, however, you probably want to know how to get Mutagen and Mutagel.

How to get Mutagen and Mutagel?

There are numerous ways to get both Mutagen and Mutagel, and I’ll show you the ones that are known. There might be updates to maps in the future or there will be mods that add additional ways of obtaining it, so take everything with a grail of salt.

Mutagel and Mutagen are both closely related. So closely that you can craft Mutagen from Mutagel and convert Mutagen back into Mutagel, for both of which you need a Chemistry Bench.

To make:

• 6 Mutagen, you require 800 Mutagel.
• The other way round, you can convert 4 Mutagen into 408 Mutagel.

Not quite a fair exchange, but there are easier ways to get Mutagen. Two of them I show you in more detail.

To farm Mutagel you have to go into the Space Biome of Genesis 2. Between the two rings worlds there is an area where you can find asteroids. On these asteroids you will find a variety of resources that change each in game day. There are a total of 8 different types of asteroids that can appear. Two of them are particularly interesting for us.

Ambergris Asteroids

The first is the Ambergris Asteroid. In addition to ambergris, it also offers stone, metal and Mutagel. Mutagel is a by-product if you either pick up the brown stones, farm them with the metal pickaxe or use a mining drill or a farming dino like an Ankylosaurus. The ratios of the different resources change depending on how you mine. You can tell if you are in the Ambergris phase of the asteroids by whether the air drops on the rings themselves are white. If they are, then you are in the Ambergris phase of space.

Black Pearl Asteroids

The second phase you want to look for is the Black Pearl phase. This is indicated by orange-gold drops on the ring world. If you collect black pearls on the asteroids, you will get Mutagel again as a by-product. It is therefore worth farming for the entire day in both phases before the asteroids change again.

Farming Mutagen Bulb Plants

But now you’re probably asking yourself “Why you should go to the trouble of farming and converting Mutagel when you can simply farm Mutagen?” Nothing about this undertaking is easy. To farm Mutagen, you have to find the Mutagen plants in Rockwell’s innermost part. This sounds easier than it is, because there are between 12 and 30 different places where you can find them. However, only three of them are active at any one time and once you have found and farmed them, there is an eight-hour wait for new ones to spawn.

In addition, farming also triggers waves of Summoners to spawn Rockwell’s latest invention of corrupted animals and sic them on you. So when you look at it more closely, hopping around on asteroids and farming as a by-product isn’t so bad.

But what do we use Mutagel and Mutagen for?

Tek Stryer Taming

Mutagel, apart from its job as a crafting material, also has the task of helping you hack the Tek Stryder. Depending on your level, you need a certain amount of Mutagel and a certain amount of completed missions. To hack the Stryder, you must have the Mutagel in your inventory, approach it and begin the process. The game then tells you at which part of the Stryder’s body the hacking process begins. A mini-game simulates the hacking process in which you have to click all the squares on a line and at the end the Stryder is yours.

Boost Animal Base Stats on a wild animal

Mutagen, on the other hand, is interesting for us breeders. Although you also need it for the final boss fight, its main use will be to improve the stats of animals. This process only works once and afterwards the animal will be marked as upgraded. You can recognise this marking by a yellow dot.

When you place mutagen in the inventory of a tamed animal, it will tell you how much mutagen it needs to increase the stats of that particular animal. This amount depends on the type of animal but not the level. For example, a level 1 Giganotosaurus would need the same amount as a level 224 Giganotosaurus.

If you have enough Mutagen, you feed it to your dino and that dino gets 20 extra levels on top of the ones they already have. The best thing is that these values can only go into life, stamina weight and melee but not into food, oxygen, or movement speed. Sorry, Daedons. Each of the stats will get 5 additional points.

The good thing is that these extra levels can be inherited. This means that you can create very high base animals. This saves you 10 mutation rounds, and you can start mating with a head start.

Free level ups on a bred animal

If you use mutagen on a bred animal, that is, an animal that you have raised yourself, then you get 4 additional levels. Unlike the 20, these are not wild levels that are added to the base value, but free level-ups that the game gives you on top. These do not inherit, but are rather to be understood as a boost of this animal in particular.

Even if 20 free levels feel overpowered, you still have to keep in mind how much effort you have to put in to get the amount of Mutagen needed for your pet.

For example, my Ankylosaurus needed 93 Mutagen per pet, while my Giganotoaurus needed 99. So it’s still a grind fest to farm the resources, but good enough to keep it balanced.

Mutagen is a nice tool to Min-Max your breeding lines and start with the best  base animal possible.

ARK Mutagen Bulb is not spawning

When looking for the Mutagen Bulbs in Rockwells inner Biom, it is really hard to find those plants. There are many loot spots where they can spawn and the long cooldown on a server with many players, can be annoying. There is also a bug with the display that is supposed to show if a mutagen plant is nearby. Sometimes it glows even if there isn’t.

How much Mutagen do animals need in ARK

Which dino is the best Mutagel gatherer?

I have tried the Ankylosaurus, a Mantis with a pickaxe and the Tek Styder.

The Ankylo and the Mantis got similar amounts of Mutagel per hit. The Styder got about 50-70% of the Ankylo and Mantis amount. It would still suggest the Tek Stryder because: The Ankylo is slow, and you can maybe empty two asteroids during the night. The Mantis harvests best with its right click charge jump. Most of the time it will yeet itself into space doing that.

While the Tek Stryder farms less per node, it will harvest 30 nodes at the same time and can easily travel along the whole space biome once in a day when connected to a dedicated storage.