What's a "successful" Covering? Choco Breeding Q's

I've been doing a lot of Chocobo Racing lately, with the goal of breeding an ultimate Chocobo, but even after reading a bunch of guides about how star ratings are passed on through generations, I'm a little confused.

My biggest question is, what should I consider a "successful" covering? For example, if I breed a Retired G-4 male with a Gold Saucer female, is a "successful" covering any one where the fledgling has better parentage than the GS mother? In my head, I'm thinking I would then raise the improved fledgling up to Rank 40 and inbreed it with the original Retired father, and theoretically have a slightly better chance than before to get another improved fledgling? Eventually, my goal with all this is to get a male and female with 4-star everything, and then use them to climb to a Pedigree 9 racing bird?

Hopefully my question makes sense. Basically, I have a Retired G-4 male with four or five 4-star ratings, and I want to start taking steps to move toward a better gene pool. What should I be hoping for in my fledglings?

When starting out, a successful covering is one that introduces 4 star stats into the gene pool. Anything else ultimately doesn't matter. The eventual (middle) goal is to introduce 4 star genes for all stats. And then you want to get "guaranteed" 4 stars, where both the mother and father pass on 4 star stats.

If you're breeding a racer with a GS breeder, then a successful cover is a fledgling that preserves as many of the 4* traits as you can.

Eventually, you'll want multiple racers with 4* traits across all 5 stats to inbreed, so you have that chance of getting the all-star chocobo.

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Originally Posted by Jeykama

If you're breeding a racer with a GS breeder, then a successful cover is a fledgling that preserves as many of the 4* traits as you can.

Eventually, you'll want multiple racers with 4* traits across all 5 stats to inbreed, so you have that chance of getting the all-star chocobo.

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With this in mind, by the time I get my first Pedigree-9 Chocobo, should I ideally have several Retired Chocobos in my inventory, all with a variety of 4* traits, to choose from for repeated breedings? And then it's an RNG proposition to try to get the all-star Chocobo has a fledgling?

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Originally Posted by BrielleBeaudonet

With this in mind, by the time I get my first Pedigree-9 Chocobo, should I ideally have several Retired Chocobos in my inventory, all with a variety of 4* traits, to choose from for repeated breedings? And then it's an RNG proposition to try to get the all-star Chocobo has a fledgling?

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if you breed the pedigree 9 chocobo with an chocobo with a lower pedigree than 8 the new chocobo will not be pedigree 9.
the pedigree of the new chocobo will be the lower pedigree (of the parents) + 1

so if you breed a pedigree 9 with an pedigree 4 the child will be pedigree 5. best solution is to increase the pedigree first and then the stats. but you should try to catch as many good stats as you can on your way to pedigree 9. but the inbreeding will only start if you reached the highest pedigree and all the old chocobos you got on your way to p9 are wothless then.

(getting all 4 star stats will take more time than reaching p9)

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Originally Posted by Tint

. . . but the inbreeding will only start if you reached the highest pedigree and all the old chocobos you got on your way to p9 are wothless then.

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Is there any value to repeatedly raising P3 or P4 Chocobos to Rank 40 then Retiring and Covering repeatedly, versus waiting until P9? I imagine this would take many iterations, many level-ups, and failed RNG rolls to eventually get a Male and Female with 4-star everything.

I'm probably making this more complicated than it needs to be. Thanks for bearing with me.

Let's say my P9 Male Chocobo has the following parentage:

M | F
4 | 3
2 | 4
4 | 4
4 | 1
1 | 4

I get it to 40 to retire, and I breed it with my Retired P8 Female, whose star ratings are also pretty decent. Do I keep covering until RNG gives me a fledgling with 4 star in everything? And if that fails after 10 covering attempts, do I have to raise another P8 and P9 Chocobo to start again?

OR, once I get my first Chocobo to P9 and Rank 40, should I purchase a P8 Covering to breed with, then raise that P9 fledgling to Rank 40 retirement, so I now have two Retired P9s to breed with each other?

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Originally Posted by BrielleBeaudonet

Is there any value to repeatedly raising P3 or P4 Chocobos to Rank 40 then Retiring and Covering repeatedly, versus waiting until P9? I imagine this would take many iterations, many level-ups, and failed RNG rolls to eventually get a Male and Female with 4-star everything.

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Coverings are cheaper at lower rank, so if you're looking for a specific color or something, doing it at lower rank is viable. Just keep in mind that you make more MGP at higher ranks, so this is of questionable value.

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Let's say my P9 Male Chocobo has the following parentage:

M | F
4 | 3
2 | 4
4 | 4
4 | 1
1 | 4

I get it to 40 to retire, and I breed it with my Retired P8 Female, whose star ratings are also pretty decent. Do I keep covering until RNG gives me a fledgling with 4 star in everything? And if that fails after 10 covering attempts, do I have to raise another P8 and P9 Chocobo to start again?

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You don't need to go for all 4 stars. As long as it's an increase in 4 stars, it's a good one. Example:

M | F
4 | 4
4 | 1
4 | 4
4 | 1
1 | 4

I would consider this a success over your previous one, keep it, raise it, and use it for future covering.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

You don't need to go for all 4 stars. As long as it's an increase in 4 stars, it's a good one. Example:

M | F
4 | 4
4 | 1
4 | 4
4 | 1
1 | 4

I would consider this a success over your previous one, keep it, raise it, and use it for future covering.

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Ok, thanks a lot for this clarity! It seems like my progression steps are, in order:

1. Reach Pedigree 9, Rank 40.
2. Cover Retired P9 Chocobo with Retired P8 Chocobo until I get a P9 fledgling of opposite gender.
3. Raise the P9 fledgling to Rank 40, so I have two Retired P9s, opposite genders.
4. Cover the two P9s until I get a P9 fledgling with star improvement in some area.
5. Continue this repeating process: raising the slightly-improved P9 fledglings to Rank 40, retiring, then Covering with one of my other P9s until RNG gives an improved fledgling.
6. Eventually, with repeated P9 leveling, retiring, and covering, RNG will grant me a 4-star everything P9 fledgling. The chances should be a bit better with each generation.

That 4-star everything I get at the end should be good enough to consistently win R-240 & R-300 races for farming MGP, and certainly win all the Chocobo Challenge races.

Color sounds like an absolute nightmare to obtain--takes the RNG to a whole 'nother level.

Honestly? Just leave color for later. Once you have perfect chocobos, it'll be easy to max out its stats; the only RNG will be getting the color to take, which isn't too bad. You'd then repeat the process to perfect it again, but with two of the same color chocobos.

Can't thank this thread enough for your help, I feel like not many people really dived into this system at first, so it's hard to find really good, clear guides.

A neat tip: if you have 2 retainers, you can breed 3 fledglings at once, more if you have more retainers. Also P9 bought chocobos have the same chance of stats as a bought P2 chocobo, don't waste your mgp!!
Also, the lower the pedigree of the chocobos you are raising, the faster it levels up.

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Originally Posted by NessaWyvern

A neat tip: if you have 2 retainers, you can breed 3 fledglings at once, more if you have more retainers. Also P9 bought chocobos have the same chance of stats as a bought P2 chocobo, don't waste your mgp!!

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Sorry, what? Chocobo breeding has nothing to do with retainers. The NPC you talk to only accepts 1 covering pair at a time.

It's also untrue that P9 are the same as P2 MGP chocobos. Higher pedigree MGP chocobos have a better chance to have better hereditary traits/abilities, so if you want the chance to have something like Choco Cure III early on that's the one of the only ways to do it. The parentage stat randomness is the same though, yes.

I also recommend not waiting until P9 to do the inbreeding game. Higher pedigrees take a little more time to level (though it's not a big difference with the huge xp race buffs) but more importantly the racers in higher ratings are huge jerks and if you can hit R40 in the lower brackets it's less of a headache that way. Plus it was more fun for me to progress up the pedigree tree with my own chocos even if they are horribly inbred.

Once you hit rating 140 or so you can start learning random T3 skills/abilities to pass on, so use that Lethe Water to get skills you want until you breed good enough chocos to pass Challenge 12 (or was it 13) for the final manual set.

P9 max stat chocobo owner says hi. If you store a covering permission you can breed another chocobo immediately after, by storing 2 covering permissions in 2 retainers and keeping one in your inv you can breed 3 chocobos at once. Also pedigree of bought chocobos really doesn't have an effect on how many stars that bought chocobo will have. I once got a 7 max stat, chocobo dash 3 chocobo from a pedigree 6 bought chocobo. And trust me, I bought and bred a looooot of chocobos

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Originally Posted by NessaWyvern

P9 max stat chocobo owner says hi. If you store a covering permission you can breed another chocobo immediately after, by storing 2 covering permissions in 2 retainers and keeping one in your inv you can breed 3 chocobos at once. Also pedigree of bought chocobos really doesn't have an effect on how many stars that bought chocobo will have. I once got a 7 max stat, chocobo dash 3 chocobo from a pedigree 6 bought chocobo. And trust me, I bought and bred a looooot of chocobos

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Well, I stand quite corrected. I guess that speeds things up a lot.

Regardless, I also have a P9 20/20 choco after only racing since 2.45 breeding these chickens one by one, so either way I guess it doesn't change much until you start inbreeding.

I only mentioned the MGP choco pedigree thing because you're not going to find something like Choco Cure III on a P1 ticket, but you might on a P9 or wherever it starts at if one wanted to fish for higher tier skills before your chocos can naturally learn them.

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Originally Posted by NessaWyvern

P9 max stat chocobo owner says hi. If you store a covering permission you can breed another chocobo immediately after, by storing 2 covering permissions in 2 retainers and keeping one in your inv you can breed 3 chocobos at once. Also pedigree of bought chocobos really doesn't have an effect on how many stars that bought chocobo will have. I once got a 7 max stat, chocobo dash 3 chocobo from a pedigree 6 bought chocobo. And trust me, I bought and bred a looooot of chocobos

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So I should put a covering permission and a retired chocobo in my retainer, go to Bentbranch to do a covering, and if I grab the other slips from my retainer, I can go back to Bentbranch to immediately start another one?

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Originally Posted by BrielleBeaudonet

So I should put a covering permission and a retired chocobo in my retainer, go to Bentbranch to do a covering, and if I grab the other slips from my retainer, I can go back to Bentbranch to immediately start another one?

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Only the covering permission needs to be stored, you can keep the retired chocobo in your invy and breed from it again. :D each chocobo can only breed 10 times though. You can also have multiple fledgling slips in your invy (I like having them side to compare stats easily) It's only the covering permission slips that's restricted to one in your invy iirc.