For some time I've seen people complain about the lack of things to do in the game or running out of things to do, and seeing as there are difficulty settings on Nublar's sandbox mode that add difficulty, I thought I would play around to see how to potentially create a custom challenge that is distinct from the challenge mode already in the game. After update 1.6 which added the ability to add a Hammond Foundation Fee and modifying dinosaur aggression, I had found a format that worked, which is what I will be sharing with you all today.
Custom Challenge
Main goal: Achieve a rating of 5 stars while having at least one of every species in the game.
As a custom challenge on Nublar means you will already have everything researched and will not be progressing with unlocks as you gain rating, some other factor besides "reach 5 stars" was needed for a level of difficulty, this is where the species count comes in to play. In order to make this challenge as difficult as possible, below are the steps necessary to take before starting the challenge:
1. Restart Nublar (start from scratch, no flattening terrain/clearing trees before setting the options.)
2. Set the following sandbox settings to what is indicated bellow:
Dinosaur Disease Level: High Disease
Weather Level: Heavy Storms
Dinosaur Escapes: High Escapes
Power Outage Frequency: High Outages
Dinosaur Lifespan: Normal
Contracts: Off
Cash: Low
Dinosaur Variety Difficulty: Hard
Dinosaur Rating Difficulty: Hard
Guest Count Difficulty: Hard
Economic Difficulty: Hard
Infinite Feeders: Off
Unlimited Power: Off
No failed Incubations: Off
Dinosaur Social Requirements: Normal
Dinosaur Population Requirements: Normal
Dinosaur Habitat Requirements: Normal
Hammond Foundation Fee: Extortionate
Dinosaur Combat Frequency: Maximum
Herbivores Able To Initiate Fights: On
All other Sandbox settings: optional
And then you are free to start. Beyond the rules listed above, the challenge is only considered complete when you hit 5 stars AND have at least one of every dinosaur species in your game. This does NOT require even a single dlc to be installed as it is based entirely on what dinosaurs are available in your copy of the game.
"So what makes this different or harder than Challenge Mode on Jurassic Difficulty?" Some of you may be asking? Well the main reason behind this custom challenge was mostly for a unique experience that was different from the normal challenge mode, which at times can feel like it is much more about min-maxing and has, at least to me, gotten very repetitive once you found a strategy that works. For that reason I wanted to try something with a little more creative freedom while still making it difficult. Besides this mode does offer some unique challenges not present in Challenge Mode. Firstly, the NEED to have every dinosaur in your park means a lot more enclosures and a bigger emphasis on managing space since you will mostly likely need every bit of space available to you. Secondly, the Dinosaur Escapes setting. I was not aware of this until after I tried this challenge for myself, but setting Dinosaur Escapes to High Escapes means that carnivores will attack fences even when at 100% comfort. They will relentlessly attack fences though, it is more like they test the fences for weaknesses, attacking once or twice and then going back on their merry way. This offers a degree of micro-management that is not present in Challenge Mode and forces players to constantly check on their enclosures while expanding their park, and the more carnivores you add, the more enclosures you need to keep an eye on...
With that said, it is pretty open to how you can tweak the challenge to make it more personalized or even harder on yourself.
Visually pleasing and functional park: Avoid min-maxing and create a good looking park that still meets all the requirements for the main goal. An additional option would be to make sure every enclosure has some way for guests to view the inside of the enclosure, which naturally ties in with the aesthetic goal of this stipulation. This is also the only stipulation I have applied to the base goal for my custom challenge as this is something I don't think of when doing the official Challenge Mode in the game.
Single-species exhibits: This one is self-explanatory, but don't allow any more than one species in a single enclosure. This of course means you will have, at the very minimum with NO DLC dinosaurs, 43 exhibits and at max with ALL DLC, 59 individual enclosures!
No building upgrades: This stipulation means applying NO upgrades to any Ranger Stations, ACU Center, Hammond Creation Labs, or any of the Power Stations, only relying on the base stats of those buildings.
One of every buildings: Similar to the goal of having at least one of every dinosaur, this stipulation would force you to have at least one of every building type in the game, including the Expedition Center, Fossil Center, Research Center, Innovation Center, Security Center, and Science Center despite them offering no real benefit on Nublar and therefore taking up more space.
No gene modifications: This one is debatable how much more difficult it makes the challenge, especially if you have the Dr. Wu DLC with the ability to modify comfort, space, and social requirements, though if the latter it would add a layer of difficulty in that respect, as well as not raising the base rating of the dinosaurs.
No deaths: This stipulation means that any death of a dinosaur before reaching the goal results in an automatic loss in the challenge, this includes death by another dinosaur, disease, or old age. This adds a time-constraint as you are racing to reach the perfect park before a dinosaur dies from old age, or worse still, your own mistakes.
Resetting money: This stipulation takes advantage of one of the options in Sandbox, which sets your money to 0. I have noticed just in my own playthrough that even with the Hammond Foundation Fee set to the max I was eventually able to get a high enough in-come that didn't impede my progress. This stipulation would require you to set your money to 0 after a certain period of time which would be set by you. Perhaps time it based on the day-night cycle at your setting, or reset the money after every storm. It would require a lot of attention but would potentially fix the money inflation problem.
No Global Operations upgrades: This stipulation is only for people who have the Secrets of Dr. Wu dlc and would require replaying the dlc on an older save file or starting a new file from scratch. This then requires all research to be obtained as per usual, except NOT researching the available options under Global Operations, as they provide only direct benefits at no cost beyond the original amount of money spent to research them.
Hope this is of interest to some of you, as this provided me with a unique experience and I have not seen any others discuss ways of implementing personal challenges like this outside of Challenge Mode itself. Not to mention seeing the final results of this kind of park would be a lot of fun to see.
Custom Challenge
Main goal: Achieve a rating of 5 stars while having at least one of every species in the game.
As a custom challenge on Nublar means you will already have everything researched and will not be progressing with unlocks as you gain rating, some other factor besides "reach 5 stars" was needed for a level of difficulty, this is where the species count comes in to play. In order to make this challenge as difficult as possible, below are the steps necessary to take before starting the challenge:
1. Restart Nublar (start from scratch, no flattening terrain/clearing trees before setting the options.)
2. Set the following sandbox settings to what is indicated bellow:
Dinosaur Disease Level: High Disease
Weather Level: Heavy Storms
Dinosaur Escapes: High Escapes
Power Outage Frequency: High Outages
Dinosaur Lifespan: Normal
Contracts: Off
Cash: Low
Dinosaur Variety Difficulty: Hard
Dinosaur Rating Difficulty: Hard
Guest Count Difficulty: Hard
Economic Difficulty: Hard
Infinite Feeders: Off
Unlimited Power: Off
No failed Incubations: Off
Dinosaur Social Requirements: Normal
Dinosaur Population Requirements: Normal
Dinosaur Habitat Requirements: Normal
Hammond Foundation Fee: Extortionate
Dinosaur Combat Frequency: Maximum
Herbivores Able To Initiate Fights: On
All other Sandbox settings: optional
And then you are free to start. Beyond the rules listed above, the challenge is only considered complete when you hit 5 stars AND have at least one of every dinosaur species in your game. This does NOT require even a single dlc to be installed as it is based entirely on what dinosaurs are available in your copy of the game.
"So what makes this different or harder than Challenge Mode on Jurassic Difficulty?" Some of you may be asking? Well the main reason behind this custom challenge was mostly for a unique experience that was different from the normal challenge mode, which at times can feel like it is much more about min-maxing and has, at least to me, gotten very repetitive once you found a strategy that works. For that reason I wanted to try something with a little more creative freedom while still making it difficult. Besides this mode does offer some unique challenges not present in Challenge Mode. Firstly, the NEED to have every dinosaur in your park means a lot more enclosures and a bigger emphasis on managing space since you will mostly likely need every bit of space available to you. Secondly, the Dinosaur Escapes setting. I was not aware of this until after I tried this challenge for myself, but setting Dinosaur Escapes to High Escapes means that carnivores will attack fences even when at 100% comfort. They will relentlessly attack fences though, it is more like they test the fences for weaknesses, attacking once or twice and then going back on their merry way. This offers a degree of micro-management that is not present in Challenge Mode and forces players to constantly check on their enclosures while expanding their park, and the more carnivores you add, the more enclosures you need to keep an eye on...
With that said, it is pretty open to how you can tweak the challenge to make it more personalized or even harder on yourself.
Visually pleasing and functional park: Avoid min-maxing and create a good looking park that still meets all the requirements for the main goal. An additional option would be to make sure every enclosure has some way for guests to view the inside of the enclosure, which naturally ties in with the aesthetic goal of this stipulation. This is also the only stipulation I have applied to the base goal for my custom challenge as this is something I don't think of when doing the official Challenge Mode in the game.
Single-species exhibits: This one is self-explanatory, but don't allow any more than one species in a single enclosure. This of course means you will have, at the very minimum with NO DLC dinosaurs, 43 exhibits and at max with ALL DLC, 59 individual enclosures!
No building upgrades: This stipulation means applying NO upgrades to any Ranger Stations, ACU Center, Hammond Creation Labs, or any of the Power Stations, only relying on the base stats of those buildings.
One of every buildings: Similar to the goal of having at least one of every dinosaur, this stipulation would force you to have at least one of every building type in the game, including the Expedition Center, Fossil Center, Research Center, Innovation Center, Security Center, and Science Center despite them offering no real benefit on Nublar and therefore taking up more space.
No gene modifications: This one is debatable how much more difficult it makes the challenge, especially if you have the Dr. Wu DLC with the ability to modify comfort, space, and social requirements, though if the latter it would add a layer of difficulty in that respect, as well as not raising the base rating of the dinosaurs.
No deaths: This stipulation means that any death of a dinosaur before reaching the goal results in an automatic loss in the challenge, this includes death by another dinosaur, disease, or old age. This adds a time-constraint as you are racing to reach the perfect park before a dinosaur dies from old age, or worse still, your own mistakes.
Resetting money: This stipulation takes advantage of one of the options in Sandbox, which sets your money to 0. I have noticed just in my own playthrough that even with the Hammond Foundation Fee set to the max I was eventually able to get a high enough in-come that didn't impede my progress. This stipulation would require you to set your money to 0 after a certain period of time which would be set by you. Perhaps time it based on the day-night cycle at your setting, or reset the money after every storm. It would require a lot of attention but would potentially fix the money inflation problem.
No Global Operations upgrades: This stipulation is only for people who have the Secrets of Dr. Wu dlc and would require replaying the dlc on an older save file or starting a new file from scratch. This then requires all research to be obtained as per usual, except NOT researching the available options under Global Operations, as they provide only direct benefits at no cost beyond the original amount of money spent to research them.
Hope this is of interest to some of you, as this provided me with a unique experience and I have not seen any others discuss ways of implementing personal challenges like this outside of Challenge Mode itself. Not to mention seeing the final results of this kind of park would be a lot of fun to see.