Help with Challenge mode

[JLoco11]

You have the patience of a saint. But how on earth do you deal with the problem of not having enough species you need?

That wasn't my video, that was someone else's. I couldn't speak to how he did his run.

But each dino is worth X amount of points, and each island has a certain point threshold to get to 5 stars. Nublar is 10,000, Sorna is 11,000 & both want 26 species........... but Pena is 6,400 with 16 species. Research Tacano is 8,400 with 16 species. When you unlock sauropods and spam them, they give massive point boosts.

Someone on reddit created this Google doc that has ALL the info for every dino in the game. It helps you know how many dinos you need for them to be happy and how many you can put in a pen together. That's the key to filling each enclosure with dinos that fit. Otherwise you won't know that 8 dracorex don't work with 5 stegos. And that Dreadnoughtus & Camarasaurus in the same pen means you need the entire g island to keep both of them happy.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...LihiNzrFk/edit

[Agent_Reptile]

That wasn't my video, that was someone else's. I couldn't speak to how he did his run.

But each dino is worth X amount of points, and each island has a certain point threshold to get to 5 stars. Nublar is 10,000, Sorna is 11,000 & both want 26 species........... but Pena is 6,400 with 16 species. Research Tacano is 8,400 with 16 species. When you unlock sauropods and spam them, they give massive point boosts.

Someone on reddit created this Google doc that has ALL the info for every dino in the game. It helps you know how many dinos you need for them to be happy and how many you can put in a pen together. That's the key to filling each enclosure with dinos that fit. Otherwise you won't know that 8 dracorex don't work with 5 stegos. And that Dreadnoughtus & Camarasaurus in the same pen means you need the entire g island to keep both of them happy.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...LihiNzrFk/edit

I understand about the point system and I get that certain dinosaurs don't work together and have different requirements (I five stared the whole campaign mode). And I nearly five stared two of the other islands including Nublar within about 500 points each, but every other minute one of my dinosaurs would die of old age so that all forward progress was halted as I was left trying to replace dinosaurs that had died of old age which not only meant I needed to replace said dinosaur to keep others happy, but also that the funds I was trying to save to keep going were undercut by the Hammond foundation. Other problems I noticed in this mode included dinosaurs being dehydrated and yet they were right next to water and starving while they were right next to the feeder. Instead they would panic and run around like crazy not knowing what they were doing.

[JLoco11]

Dino behavior is impossible to control, even with herbivores. Only option is multiple small water sources and multiple feeders in a pen. There are times a dino is LITERALLY standing in water next to a feeder but is hungry and thirsty and does nothing.

Early dinos dying shouldn't be too much of an issue by end game. Most of the early ones are struthis, trikes and probably some hadrosaurs. Most are low points, low social requirements.... so you can lose a few without too much of an issue. By time you unlock the better rated dinos, the points you lose will be made up by the biggest dinos.

I assume you have dig yield on your expedition center? Because they bring in a TON of money at the end of the game, like $600,000+ every dig. The hammond foundation hurts like hell, but the digs & contracts bring in enough money to offset it. Raising prices constantly at the stores also helps.

How many hammond centers are you using? Usually 3 does the trick..... maybe a 4th if you really need to spam dinos at the end. That helps with dying dinos while incubating new ones.

[Agent_Reptile]

I fill all three spots on the expedition center with dig yield and it wasn't the trikes or struthis that were dying that became the issue, but rather the Troodon* and even dilophosaurs. As far as contracts go I had all three be impossible and desperately needed all funds to try and save up to pay to have the feeders supplied and try and clone a diplo once in a while so I couldn't cancel out of any of them. Also I had three of the Hammond centers up and running on the smaller island (one for herbivores and two for carnivores) and put restaurants, arcades, and cloths shops near each observation spot and hotel.

[JLoco11]

What order are you incubating dinos? Because if your carnivores are dying, then 2 things are possibly happening. Either you're incubating the higher valued dinos too early or your runs are taking too long where dinos are dying off.

If it's an issue of release schedule, ideally you should be following this pattern:

Struthis (4 in a pen is fine unless you get contracts to release more)
Huyango
Sinoceratops
Triceratops. You can release 4 of each of these dinos, although if you get contracts that go past these 4, then start removing from the bottom up. Trikes are least valuable.

8 Dracorex in their own tiny pen (and if your facilities are on point, you should be rate at 1 star at this point)

4 Crichtonsaurs
4 Ankylos

2 Chungkings
13 Iguanadons & Olorotitans (any combination of these are fine)
2 Corythosaurs
1 Edmontosaurus (Edmontosaurus is by far the worst herbivore in the game for the price.... just use 1 for the species bonus, otherwise it's a colossal waste of money)

If you have a chance, throw 4 Torosaurs into the pen with the Dracorex for another species and another maximum limited pen

You should be WELL into 2 stars on any island at this point. Probably well past 2 stars, pushing 2.5-2.8 stars. That's 4 pens, 13 herbivores without a single carnivore, and all of these are cheap replaceable dinos.

If you're comfortable with challenge, while you created all the above pens (probably from just 1 hammond center), you could be releasing carnivores at a separate hammond center & pen. I don't release Cerato & Baryonyx until I have electrified steel.... it saves me the headache of them breaking out during a storm. While you then fill your park with carnivores, you should be gathering sauropod genome.

By time you get sauropod genome & incubate them since they take forever, you can plot out the final dinos that you need. The sauropods exponentially increase your park rating. Filling a pen with Diplos and Brachios (including all the above dinos) will have you on the cusp of 4 stars at Nublar and Sorna with 20 species. The final ones are literally whatever you want, but you might need a big carnivore on Sorna for the extra 1,000 points the island needs. Giga or Spino are the best choices, although Spino gets angry quick in storms.

Around the 4 1/2 hour mark, Struthis should be dying. Around the 5 hour mark, all the others in the first pen are dying. By the 6th hour, the first pen & second pen should all be dead and your armored dinos will be dying of old age. You can always sell them before they die to gain money off them instead of losing them. Once I lose 1 dino, I sell the others I bred with it... get some money from them to breed new ones.

[Flint2025]

If you've increased dinos ratings once you get around 4 stars... Start nulling genes and putting a few cardio genes in their cheaper replacements so they live longer. Keep your variety and only lose a few points. That's what i started doing to deal with my dinos dying of old age.

[Agent_Reptile]

Okay I went back to an earlier save of my Nublar island and just completed it after whatever the one is that gives you the green triceratops. I wound up with a dinosaur rating of 11000 and quickly dropped in some more viewing posts on top of dropping prices and finally pushed me over the limit. While I know you shouldn't bother cloning certain dinosaurs I found that doing the research on them to get access to the fossil fields helps at lot with funds and just dropped in a bunch of apatosaurs and diplodocus. Also dropped funds into increase the speed of the cloning process and had three troodons die on me from combat as my genetically superior ones killed the baser ones I cloned forgetting to check the social limit size.