Tutorials

In *Project Dinosaur*, there are a lot of different systems and mechanisms that all work together to allow you to bring creatures from the distant past back to the present. We understand it can be overwhelming for new players to grasp all these different systems, so we made a page dedicated to teaching you all about how our mod works! We'll detail how to progress through the mod, step by step, below. We'd recommend if you're a newcomer, to work through these tutorials in order so as to get the best idea of how the mod works.

* The Basics

## The Basics

In order to bring your chosen dinosaur to life, there are several steps that need to be followed as well as machines and different items that are needed for each of these processes. Don't worry though! The explanation below will walk you through what you need to do so you can bring your creatures into the world like a pro!

### Harvesting Fossils

So, the first thing you need to do is to decide on which dinosaur you want. Once you've got that, next you'll need to locate the fossils that can produce DNA for that dinosaur. Different Y-levels in the world hold the different fossil types, starting at the Cambrian all the way at the bottom of the world and ending with the Quaternary at the top. These fossils have different types of dinosaurs that they can produce depending on the period in which the dinosaurs lived. For example, the Aphaneramma lived during the Early Triassic and therefore can be found in Triassic Fossils. Check out the **Raw Fossil** page, which explains at which level each fossil spawns and which dinosaurs can be found from which fossils, in order to find out where you need to dig in order to harvest the fossil for your dinosaur!

Now that you've found your fossil, you'll need **Plaster** to be able to mine it. Right click on the fossil block to encase it in plaster and then you can mine it safely with an iron or above pickaxe. Warning! If you don't plaster the fossil first, it will be too deliate to harvest and so will crumble into cobblestone or deepslate depending on the type of fossil, so make sure you have plenty of plaster on your before you go caving!

### Excavating Fossils

The next step would be to craft yourself a **Fossil Excavator**. This machine chips away at an encased fossil in order to reveal the time-specific raw specimen within it.

However, the excavator doesn't just work with magic! In order for it to break the encased fossil open, you need to supply it with one of three types of **Chisel**. Each type is made using different materials and the more expensive the recipe, the higher quality the chisel. Quality matters because it effects your chances of getting a viable specimen from the fossil you're excavating. For example, an iron chisel would be a lot more likely to mangle your fossil and produce junk items compared to a netherite chisel.

### Extracting DNA

 Once you have your fossil specimen, the next step will be to extract the DNA from that specimen. The **Core Station** will do just that. Craft the station and place your specimen inside, along with an empty **Syringe**. Then wait and watch as your DNA is extracted! You can't predict what type of DNA you'll get, apart from the pool of creatures available for your time-specific specimen, but don't worry! At this point there's very little that can go wrong so you'll definitely end up with viable DNA from this step!

### Synthesising DNA

 Only two more steps left to go! In this penultimate step, you'll need to combine your new DNA with at least three regular chicken eggs in a **DNA Recombinator**. This will combine the DNA with the eggs in an attempt to produce either viable terrestrial eggs, aquatic spawn, or live embryos depending on the method your creature would use for reproduction.

However, it's not so easy as just placing your DNA eggs into the machine. It's not a 100% chance that every single egg, spawn or embryo will turn out to be viable; in fact, there's a 2/3 chance that they will fail! It's all down to luck on which eggs, spawn or embryos accept the DNA and which don't. However, don't be downtrodden! Even one viable result is better than nothing! So, put your DNA into the machine, load it with up with eggs, and then wait for the magic to happen!

### Incubating Dinosaur Eggs

At this point, you'll hit a crossroads depending on if you recieved eggs, spawn or embryos from the above step. If it's spawn, then you're all done! You can just right click the ground (either in or out of water depending on what your creature needs) and your baby creature will be born! However, for eggs and embryos there's one more step. Depending on which one you have, you'll need one of two machines, although it's recommended that you craft both to aid in your future dinosaur endevours:

* For **Fertlised Eggs** you'll need the **Incubator**.
* For **Embryos** you'll need the **Embryonic Womb**.

Place your fertilised eggs with some hay to keep them warm into the Incubator, or combine your embryos with some **Nutrient Goo** in the Embryonic Womb and give it a little while to make sure your baby dinosaurs are ready to enter the world! Unfortunately however, there is still a 25% chance that your eggs or embryos may not survive to their hatching. If that happens, your egg/embryo will become a **Rotten Egg** and will be of no use apart from composting, or simply disposing of it. However, once the Incubator/Embryonic Womb is finished, you'll have either **Incubated Eggs** or **Foetuses**! Congratulations! Now all you need is to place them on the ground with a little bit of light for the eggs, or right click the ground for the embryos, and watch the miracle of life!

Make sure to check the next tab for all the information you need for looking after your new creature. Have fun!