5:18 is my best time so far. Time went 12 hrs, 6:41, 6:04, 5:18. I think with optimal strategy, times under 4 hrs are possible.
If you visit the JWE Reddit page, you might have seen this, but here are some strategies that I've found successful. It's very possible some of these will prove not optimal as the community continues to develop strategies.
- Having a spreadsheet with dino stats is quite valuable for planning purposes. I have a custom one that I use, but there's several floating around that are good.
- Build plan in the beginning is power station --> expedition center --> fossil center --> substation/wiring/roads. Priority #1 is to get first struthiomimus fossil expedition going. After that, I use down time in between expeditions to build an enclosure. I always use the one Hammond lab / many pens strategy. My first Hammond lab feeds at four pens usually. Due to costs, I only construct the Struthi/Edmontosaurus pen at first. Then Triceratops/Huayangosaurus, then Ceratosaurus, when those dinos are ready to go.
- I start the game by building ~10 struthiomimus. They're the cheapest $/star in the game, at $3,333 incubation cost per star. Only three others (Archaeornithomimus, Dilophosaurus, Dracorex) are less than $5k/star. This makes struthis the best choice for the very beginning.
- Beware overdoing struthis in a single pen, as sickness runs rampant and can be a royal pain prior to accuracy upgrades. The common cold can (and will) spread like wildfire. I usually limit my pens to ~12 dinos in the beginning. Even later ones are typically <15 dinos. The last thing you want is to have so many panicking dinos that your sick guy never stops running, and other dinos prevent your jeep from getting a good shot. (Although I almost always have the AI do the shooting. My time is better spent elsewhere.) In my experience, space is NOT the primary - or even a significant - restraint in this mode, so don't try to cram everything in.
- I didn't use any genome modifications unless a mission required them (e.g. release X of rating Y....and even then, I only used the mods that you start the game with). 99% of my dinos were 100% authentic, 0% modified. Why? Because mods are expensive. A fully modded dino costs 3-5x an unmodded dino, for a 2-3x improvement in rating.
- Star/$ value for 0-star dinos goes Struthi-->Dracorex (research)-->Crichtonsaurus (research)-->Sinoceratops (research)-->Ceratosaurus-->Huayangosaurus-->Triceratops-->Edmontosaurus. This doesn't account for other costs such as fencing/area, research, pop/social limits, etc.
- I regularly cancel missions that aren't worth running. Any "X beats Y" fight mission is a waste. Most fight missions in general are a waste if you're stacking dinos in your pens. Photo missions are easy, but take valuable time. All-time worst are the "Reach X Stars" as those can take forever. My bread-and-butter are dig/genome related missions, plus building requests I would usually do anyways. If you get a mission that is achievable, but would take 5min, you need to weight whether you have the time and ability to cancel and complete more missions instead.
- Economy is maintained through completing contracts prior to getting 1.0 star upgrades. I always cancel contracts right at the beginning unless I can complete them without any dinos. E.g. I cancel the photo contract that's always been one of the three.
- I get to the one star unlocks by having a struthi/edmonto pen (12-16 dinos), a huayang/triceratops/sinoceratops pen (12-16 dinos), a ceratosaurus pen (3x), a draco pen (8x), and a crichtonsaurus pen (4x to be later filled with 4x ankylosaurus). Although my last/fastest game
- After 1.0 star upgrades, economy is maintained mostly through dig yield improvements (research this first!) and running constant fossil expeditions. Once you get to ~2.5 stars, your park income should be reasonably steady as well. Still, I regularly cancel or complete contracts until I hit around 3.5 stars, after which point it's a race to the finish line.
- Mid-game, it's all about getting variety up. I pretty much use every dino from the first two islands + at least 50% from the third. I think there's probably some serious improvements I could make in this stage, so I won't say too much about it.
- AVOID VELOCIRAPTORS LIKE THE PLAGUE. They will constantly get agitated (80 comfort) and escape during storms, causing you no shortage of grief. Clicks spent on corralling escaped dinos are clicks that could be spent on running more expeditions and finishing more contracts. The only use for them is at the end game, when releasing 5 at once is a nice bump to both dino rating points and variety. Dilophosaurus (70 comfort) are much better, especially when using electric fences.
- I typically avoid all large carnivores except Ceratosaurus (which I spam 3x per enclosure when appropriate), or Metriachanthosaurus & Baryonx (both early game carnivores, both easily researched, both with a social limit of 2). These three are the best $/star ratio for all large carnivores and have a high threshold for discomfort (55/50/70 respectively).
- I never use a 1-per-pen carnivore (e.g T-Rex) as it's not the best use of space. Plus T-Rex (85% comfort threshold) goes bonkers during storms, so she must be put down by ACU the moment you get a storm warning.
- Once Diplodocus is available, spam them like crazy. 8 per pen, high star rating, good efficiency ($5,123/star), easy pen requirements. I ended my game with 16 diplos. I'm a fan of any sauropod. Build your first sauropod pen large enough for Camarasaurus and put 8 diplos + 5 brachis + 7 camaras in there. Build a second pen and put 8 diplos + at least 4 apatosauruses + carnivores. Remember that none of my large carnivore trio (Cerato/Metri/Bary) hunt sauropods.
- I haven't yet used this strategy, but I think going for small pens full of Ankylosaurus/Crichtonsaurus/Nodosaurus would be an incredibly efficient use of both space and $. Not that I've ever come close to running out of space.
- Once you get heavy steel electric fences, build a couple extra power plants and begin to spam Dilophosaurus everywhere that's appropriate. At a comfort rating of 70, they won't get agitated enough to do more than minor damage to fences during most storms. It's still a risk, but you can spam 12 per pen, which is 828 star rating for $3.8M with low space requirements. Best deal in the game once you can keep them under control. I end each game with at least 24 dilophosaurs; one game I had double that.
- Even with electric fences, I'm still wary of raptors. I did have a pen with six raptors + 3 ceratos that gave me zero issues despite 3-4 storms, but...yeah. Still wary.
- The powerhouse dino pens once your economy is going are all some combination of sauropod+small carnivore+one of the three big carnivores. Mix and match as you will; they'll all live in relative peace. Well, not peace...but not death, either.
- Keeping a 5-star rating for food/etc is easy and should always be maintained. As BestInSlot described, Restaurant/Clothes/Arcade is the golden trio...though I typically do invest in gyrosphere rides (fun, dino visibility) and The Bar (drinks) sparingly.
- You won't get to 1 star dino rating until you have a net 2500 dino score. At this point, your variety hit will still be at least 500, so you really need 3000+ stars for 1 rating. After that, as best I can tell, park stars are awarded as follows:
2500 = 1 star dino component
4375 = 2 star dino component
6250 = 3 star dino component
8750 = 4 star dino component
10000 = 5 star dino component
