Henlo fellow players. Have you ever wondered how many red dragons you would need to never run out of incubates? or when is the best time to earthquake an egg? There’s lots of lil gameplay tidbits that get passed around from player to player in the forums or in chat but i think are not written anywhere, hence i thought i’d start collecting them somewhere. This may be slow – but i may add a few things from time to time. (my memory sucks so trying to summon all of my dc knowledge in one go is never going to happen… and i’m always learning new things!)
I recommend reading my DC slang guide first because i cannot for the life of me explain these without throwing slang words here and there.
As usual, I have no idea over how to sort this so… CTRL + F your way on. Good luck!!
Q: What’s the difference between the age of an egg/hatchling and its time left to live?
A: They are opposite things. The timer on an egg/hatchling tells you when the creature will die, starting the countdown from «7 days left» when it has just been laid/caught/hatched. On the contrary, to know how old an egg/hatchie is, you have to count the time from its exact laid/stolen/hatched date, if it troubles you to do math with the timer. Usually when talking about an egg/hatchie’s time, we use the time left (the timer), so when we say an egg is:
-at 7d, we mean it’s a fresh egg with 7 days left to live, which was just bred, caught or summoned, and is 0 hours or less than 1 hour old.
-at 5d1: we mean an egg at 5 days and 1 hour left to die, also meaning the egg has lived 47 hours / or 1 day 23 hours.
-at 1d3h: it’s an ER egg, that has 27 hours left to die, or is 5 day 21 hours old.
Hope it’s not too complicated! o_o;; you can also ask other players in the forums or discord when in doubt.
BSA RELATED TIPS
Q: What are the effects of Incubate, exactly?
A: It takes off 24 hours from the time left to an egg. (but it does not make the egg be older by 24 hours). This is useful because eggs cannot hatch naturally before they have exactly 4 days left on their counter, so incubating the egg can help it hatch sooner.
Q: How many adult red dragons do I need to never run out of incubates?
A1: If you have a platinum trophy, and mostly raise freshly bred/caught eggs, incubating everything to scroll lock you will need 168 adult reds (and/or incubate Hunters) to never run out of incubates, according to Tini’s math.
A2: For a more active scroll, which regularly «incuhatches» eggs from the ap, the consensus is that you’d need 220 incubating dragons to never run out, but you could need more.
A3: more info on other trophy levels to be gathered.
Q: What are the ways to make an egg hatch unnaturally, before it reaches the «4 days mark»?
NOTE: Any egg cannot hatch at all unless it has lived at least 24 hours, down to the second. (this means, when its timer will say «6 days left» if not incubated, or «5 days left» if already incubated). Therefore, using any other mean to try to hatch it before that won’t work, or will result in a dead egg.
Option 1: Using the Kill action on it. It might force the hatchling out, but yes, it could also die, or it could successfully hatch but the hatchling may run away from you (into the ap).
Option 2: Using Earthquake, it will affect all of your eggs at once, but each egg will be affected differently depending on the time left on their timer, their cracking stage, and some randomized percentage of success. The possible results are: «the egg remains unaffected», «the egg has died», «the hatchling comes out, but you catch it», and, «the hatchling comes out, but runs away from you (into the ap)».
Q: What’s the ideal time to Earthquake (EQ) an egg to reduce risk of death and maximizing hatching success?
A1: According to Infi’s research, the best time is when the egg is around 5d12h (or 4d12h if previously incubated) AND it is at the stage 3 of cracking (when the egg has a crack going from top to bottom but has no hole in it yet). This means that all other eggs in your possession that do not meet this criteria will have way less chances of survival, so the general tip is to ask other people to hold your other eggs while you EQ. According to Annezor, to have better chances at hatching them they need to be at least 24 hours old, and ideally be at the stage 3 or 4 (with the smallest hole) of cracking.
A2: For turning Cantormaris eggs green, you should do things a tad differently, according to Moonshark: For bred eggs, first breed your Cantormaris eggs. BUT DO NOT CLICK ON THEM. now put them on a teleport and ask someone to «bounce» them back to you, without clicking on them! try not to accidentally give them any view yourself during this process. Once the eggs are back with you, incubate them if you can, directly from the BSA page. DO NOT CLICK THE EGGs YET. Now, you can immediately Earthquake them. They will not die. You are free to influence them now if you want. It is also recommended that you put them temporarily in a two-way private teleport with an optional message to yourself about not warding or precog’ing the eggs until they hatch. From there on, raise them normally and they will hatch green. For CB eggs, according to Annezor: incubate then Earthquake your Cantormaris egg before the 5 hours cooldown runs out. If they are at 0/0/0 stats they cannot die. Remember you can influence them afterwards and that will not change their color from green, but if you ward them or precog them afterwards they won’t hatch green.
A3: For trying to hatch Shumoga eggs as wild with Earthquake, … I’m still gathering info about this. According to Tini, for Shumoga eggs you bred yourself it is recommended that you also bounce them before trying to hatch them with Earthquake or Kill, as the parent’s bonus is detrimental to this process.
Q: Does using fertility on both parents improve my chances of getting an egg?
A: Nope. Fertility does not stack, so using it once is enough. Using it on both parents is a waste unless you’re trying to get a green Nilia pygmy.
Q: I stunned my hatchling and it is below the 4 days mark and has enough views to grow up but it’s still not gaining views even if I ER it. What can I do?
A: Stunning does two things to hatchlings, it adds a day to their timer, AND prevents the hatchling from gaining any more views for 48 hours. However, hatchlings need at least ONE more view on them to grow up after reaching the 4 days mark, even if they have enough views to grow up already (and eggs are the same, btw). This is why, when still under the 48 hours effect of Stun, hatchlings can’t grow up at all, UNLESS they leave your scroll – like when abandoning or gifting/trading the hatchling. We can use this knowledge on purpose to «remove» the stun effect by asking someone else to help us «bounce» the hatchling (sending it to them via teleport and then having them send it back to us). The bouncing will not remove the 24 hours added to the timer, however. Please have in mind that if the hatchling is already below the 4 days mark, and has enough views to grow up, it might «instagrow» when sent to someone else, so removing the stun effect is best attempted before the hatchling is ER.
Q: Why do people care that a hatchling was already stunned before?
A: Because you can only Stun a hatchling once in its lifetime. If you receive a hatchling in trade, but you’d rather trade it away for something else instead of keeping it, you may consider stunning it to give it more time to wait to be traded, especially if when you got it it was already close to reaching the 4 days mark. But if the hatchling was stunned already, you won’t be able to stun it again, meaning that maybe you should reconsider offering on it unless you really want to keep it, or are aware of the risk of it growing up on you and don’t mind that. If the stunned hatchling is already under the 4 days mark, and is gendered and with a ton of views, it might «instagrow» on you once it reaches your scroll, too.
Q: Why do people care that a Cantormaris egg has not been warded before?
A: Any egg can only be warded once in its lifetime. Therefore, if I own an egg, ward it, and then abandon or trade/gift the egg away, its new owner(s) will not be able to ward it again, even it it gets terribly sick. For Cantormaris eggs, their color depends on the last BSA used on them, therefore, if the receiver is getting a cantor egg via teleport but they want a white Cantormaris, they will need to be the ones to ward it as a last BSA. If the egg was warded before by another user, then they will not be able to get a white cantor no matter how hard they try.
Q: Why can’t I use <this BSA> on my egg/hatchling?
Incubate: an egg needs to be above 3 days left to be able to be incubated. It can also be incubated only once while you own it. (this last thing will be reset if you trade/abandon/gift the egg).
Influence: an egg needs to be above 3 days left to be able to be influenced. It can also be influenced only once while you own it. (this last thing will be reset if you trade/abandon/gift the egg, so it is possible to ask others to bounce the egg for you to erase a wrong influence and become able to influence it again). Influence also doesn’t work on valentines and most christmas dragons (but it does on halloween dragons, and bred holly and mistletoe eggs).
Stun: a hatchling needs to be above 3 days left to be able to be stunned. It can also be stunned only once in its lifetime.
Ward: an egg can only be warded once in its lifetime.
Teleport: Eggs from the biomes that are less than 5 hours old cannot be traded or abandoned (we call this window of time, «cooldown»). Eggs/hatchies from the market cannot be traded ever. Summoned eggs, eggs won through the monthly raffle or April Fools mints cannot be traded either.
Precog: doesn’t work on eggs/hatchlings with special gender (pastel dragons, ungendered neglected dragons) and valentines and most christmas dragons (because these have a fixed gender depending of their breed – the exception being bred hollies and mistletoes).
Bite: only «standard» dragons can be bitten, this means, you can’t bite two-headed dragons, pygmies or drakes.
Pollinate: an egg needs to be above 3 days left to be able to be pollinated.
Immolate: an egg needs to be above 3 days left to be able to be immolated.
NEW RELEASES RELATED TIPS
Q: Is there a schedule for the release of new breeds?
A1: not officially, but regular breeds’ new releases are more likely on the last weekend of the month, except for December, February and October. January releases are rare, but they can happen. The timing is usually at midnight in the game’s timezone, from saturday to sunday, but they can also rarely happen during the day on sunday, or from sunday to monday at midnight.
A2: There’s a few release dates that are fixed tho:
-May 21st is the game’s anniversary so it’s certain we’ll get new eggs on that day.
-October 31st, the yearly Halloween new breed drop (only lasts 24 hours).
-December 24th, the yearly Holiday new breed drop, lasts 3 days.
-February 14th, the yearly Valentine’s new breed drop, lasts 3 days.
Q: I saw the announcement of new breeds but I can’t find them on the biome(s). Where are they??
A: When a new release happens, the designated biomes will be forced to generate the new eggs and only the new eggs for 16 hours, down to the second, since the release started. After this time has passed, the biomes will start producing their regular breeds again, with the new breed(s) mixed in. The ratio at which the new releases drop then is still skewed towards generating more of the new releases than their intended final rarity, but since they’re usually snagged fast by players, to some it may seem that they are not dropping at all. I recommend stalking the corresponding biomes at the hourly drop, and at the five minutes’ drops.
Q: Then, what is the hourly drop? And the five minutes’ drops?
A: to be added when i’m alive again.
Thanks to all the folks at the unofficial discord who helped me collect these tips! 😀
