I watched this video by BestInSlot yesterday and he explains how the dominance and alpha system works. It's pretty detailed and involved. I had to watch the video like 3 times. It's great that Frontier put that much effort into it, though it can be annoying. It's funny cause I don't remember the game explaining it at all from what I saw. It's good that BestInSlot did this video. I saw some people having issues with dinosaurs fighting a lot and I have had some issues of my own with the system so I figured I would post this here for people to see if they haven't already.
Source: https://youtu.be/2dessSx3eFY
Dominance and alpha system explained stop dinosaurs from fighting
- Thread starter PCMR4Life
- Start date
He did a good job, but I'd like to expand on it with my experiences.
There are four Traits that increase Dominance: Aggressive, Social, Strong, and Defensive. Aggressive and Social give a flat 30% increase to Dominance, while Strong and Defensive add 25 points to Attack/Defense respectively, which gives a Dominance increase I haven't calculated yet. If you want an Alpha dinosaur that's guaranteed to not have any challengers, what you should do is mod the genes so that you can get as many of those to manifest on a dinosaur as possible. If it's a species that can get the Aggressive Trait, factor that in as well, because you only have limited points to use for modding genes. BUT, and this is a big but, dinosaurs can only have a maximum of three Traits, and if they can have any negative traits like Sickly, Needy, Large Appetite, etc, that will make it a bit more challenging.
Using Velociraptor as an example, it has a good chance of getting the Aggressive Trait, a built-in 25% chance of getting the Social trait, but it also has a 75% chance to get Intolerant and a 50% chance to get Fit. You have six points for gene modding with raptors, so you have a few options. What I found works best is removing Intolerant with three points, increasing Social by one point, and putting the last two into Offense, giving it a 50% chance for Social and a 50% chance for Strong. Synthesize batches until you get a raptor with Aggressive, Social, and Strong, then incubate it. When you synthesize the batch of raptors that will be the rest of the pack, make sure to reset the genetics first so that none of them will be Social or Strong (and while I haven't tested it yet, try not to pick any with Aggressive, that might also play a factor in causing dominance fights). Release the single Alpha raptor first so it establishes itself as the Alpha, then release the rest. You now have a pack with a very powerful leader who none of the others will dare challenge.
If a species doesn't have the chance for the Aggressive trait, you can either put points into the Defense gene to try to have a Social-Strong-Defensive Alpha, or stick with Social-Strong and don't have the other members have either of them. As long as the base and total Dominance are higher the Alpha will retain his crown. This also works best for herbivores that can fight each other for dominance like all of the armored herbivores and Iguanodon. Be aware that there are herbivores that can get the Aggressive Trait, if you want them to share an enclosure with other dinosaurs don't use that as one of the Dominance Traits, if not then go ahead.
Hopefully that helps everyone who's been having problems with dinosaur dominance fighting!
Addendum: the Antisocial Trait also has a 30% Dominance increase, but its other effects are 30% greater social need and 30% less chance to socialize. So any dinosaur that has an inherent Antisocial chance you can leave it if you want to for the same Dominance increase, the only major difference is do you want a brooding loner Alpha or a gregarious buddy-buddy Alpha.
There are four Traits that increase Dominance: Aggressive, Social, Strong, and Defensive. Aggressive and Social give a flat 30% increase to Dominance, while Strong and Defensive add 25 points to Attack/Defense respectively, which gives a Dominance increase I haven't calculated yet. If you want an Alpha dinosaur that's guaranteed to not have any challengers, what you should do is mod the genes so that you can get as many of those to manifest on a dinosaur as possible. If it's a species that can get the Aggressive Trait, factor that in as well, because you only have limited points to use for modding genes. BUT, and this is a big but, dinosaurs can only have a maximum of three Traits, and if they can have any negative traits like Sickly, Needy, Large Appetite, etc, that will make it a bit more challenging.
Using Velociraptor as an example, it has a good chance of getting the Aggressive Trait, a built-in 25% chance of getting the Social trait, but it also has a 75% chance to get Intolerant and a 50% chance to get Fit. You have six points for gene modding with raptors, so you have a few options. What I found works best is removing Intolerant with three points, increasing Social by one point, and putting the last two into Offense, giving it a 50% chance for Social and a 50% chance for Strong. Synthesize batches until you get a raptor with Aggressive, Social, and Strong, then incubate it. When you synthesize the batch of raptors that will be the rest of the pack, make sure to reset the genetics first so that none of them will be Social or Strong (and while I haven't tested it yet, try not to pick any with Aggressive, that might also play a factor in causing dominance fights). Release the single Alpha raptor first so it establishes itself as the Alpha, then release the rest. You now have a pack with a very powerful leader who none of the others will dare challenge.
If a species doesn't have the chance for the Aggressive trait, you can either put points into the Defense gene to try to have a Social-Strong-Defensive Alpha, or stick with Social-Strong and don't have the other members have either of them. As long as the base and total Dominance are higher the Alpha will retain his crown. This also works best for herbivores that can fight each other for dominance like all of the armored herbivores and Iguanodon. Be aware that there are herbivores that can get the Aggressive Trait, if you want them to share an enclosure with other dinosaurs don't use that as one of the Dominance Traits, if not then go ahead.
Hopefully that helps everyone who's been having problems with dinosaur dominance fighting!
Addendum: the Antisocial Trait also has a 30% Dominance increase, but its other effects are 30% greater social need and 30% less chance to socialize. So any dinosaur that has an inherent Antisocial chance you can leave it if you want to for the same Dominance increase, the only major difference is do you want a brooding loner Alpha or a gregarious buddy-buddy Alpha.
Last edited: