Hey everyone!
I hope you all are in great spirits and are looking forward to the holidays and welcoming the new year!
The new Malta expansion DLC and update came around 2 days ago and I have loved the new content introduced to the game. The Mideteranian Islands and the campaign have been my favorite so far, and when compared to JWE1's island hopping adventure, I feel this has handled it much better as I thought the narrative is better constructed for a multi-map game mode.
I also loved the new content that came with the DLC. The new maps are excellent with the new Mediterranean desert biome bringing about lovely vegetation, terrain, and music. I love the new building set, decorations, and dinosaurs, and I am looking forward to using these in sandbox mode. I ESPECIALLY love the dino exchange which makes attaining dinosaurs, eggs, and genomes a lot more fun, with a method to buy and sell dinosaurs to get richer as well as the unexpected surprises when handling dealers who may have sent over a dinosaur that was not advertised.
With all this said, I did encounter some issues during the end of my campaign game, one bug that made me take a break from the end game, and multiple odd design choices and issues when wanting to play with the new content in sandbox mode. I have not done all the update has to offer, I have yet to start the new challenge maps, but I want to bring up the negative parts of my experience in this post so to see if anyone has encountered any issues I have, share some thoughts, and in hopes that some could be handled in a quick fix before the holiday comes around when possible.
Also, note that any issues I have listed here will be given an issue tracker request later on once I am done with this post, and would link these issue tracker requests later on.
With that said, here is what I encountered:
1. TRANSPORT HELICOPTER BUG
My experience with the Malta campaign has been a stable one for the most part. Any bug I encountered are ones I could tolerate as they could be ignored or dealt with, such as the occasional dinosaur initiating a drinking or eating animation when socializing, the ranger vehicle bouncing around as though it is in a pinball machine, or the rare occasion a dinosaur decides to phase through fencing. These are issues I hope to see get patched but I could tolerate them for the most part.
One bug that I could not tolerate is the helicopter bug in which transport helicopters would be constantly waiting for their turn to pick up the dinosaur in the hatchery but none would initiate that pick-up. This is a bug I dislike since it unnecessarily halts the experience for an indefinite period of time and has no means of fixing this bug. I attempted to reload the save, activate and reactivate the lab, remove its power, disconnect the path, restart the game, restarted my PS5, and removed the PS5 cache. All of this to no avail as I still have those 3 transport copters hovering over the hatchery with no intent to pick up and drop off the dinosaurs.
This bug happened when incubating a batch of nasutoceratop eggs I bought from the market, in which they were meant to be airlifted to their enclosure. Aside from this batch, I also had an important Baryonyx batch with an incubated number of specimens to be sold for $10,000,000 which I can not trade due to the nasutoceratops batch still being stuck in transport, making the resources to incubate the 4 Baryonyx wasted.
My options were to build a new hatchery which could lead to another unresolvable transport bug, bring in dinosaurs from the market which could be limited due to three of the parks transport helicopters stuck waiting for the nasutoceratops, or restart the campaign as you could not restart each map, and there is no way to get rid of the incubation lab with a dinosaur mid transport. This overall discouraged me from getting 5 stars in the three campaign maps and had me move over to sandbox mode and have a more freeform park, which unfortunately has led me to encounter some oddities.
2. THE POWER STATION AND HOTEL ARE LATE RESEARCH ITEMS
This is also an unfortunate experience I had with biosyn's hydropower hub.
When playing sandbox mode, I tend to favor a more progressive form of play where you get to grow your park with scientists, research, expeditions, and manage any chaos the park would bring to reach the 5-star goal. One thing I find unfortunate about the Malta pack is that two key buildings are locked at later stages of research.
The first, like biosyn's hydropower hub, is that the power station is reserved at a later stage of research with no smaller alternative to working with. From my experience, I tend to not like this approach as it means you need to utilize the power backup generators until your park reaches a 3.5-star rating to access the building set's power generator. While it is interesting as a self-imposed challenge to use the backup generators, it is a tedious one as you need to constantly refill multiple generators which gets costly, and the generators could only ever provide 30 units of power at a time. Jurassic Park, Jurassic World, and DFW would have a smaller substation to research and use, which always comes off odd that in sandbox play, Biosyn and Malta building sets have no such small power station to research and utilize.
I understand to a degree why this is because both Biosyn's and Malta's power stations are technically large power stations. Both would provide 120 units of power and it makes sense why they are held off at 3.5 stars. But it still feels off as both of these campaigns would have these stations available from the start like Biosyn, or accessible via improved power technology research as was done in Malta's campaign. Either campaign mode makes the power station less of a pain since they were very accessible unlike how they are done via sandbox mode.
The second and honestly more annoying are the hotels. Like the power station, the Malta hotels are technically the advanced version, being large hotels. The difference is that they are researchable as part of the core guest buildings in the campaign game, whereas they are large hotel research in sandbox mode. Research that needs 500 guests in your park, which is difficult to reach since there is no small hotel to work with. This to me makes playing progressively via sandbox mode using the malta building set not easy to work with, and like Biosyn, makes me want to play with either the default Jurassic Park / World or DFW set, as they are complete, covering all the building sets needed for progressive park building in sandbox mode.
With that said, here is the most likely solution to this issue.
HAVE SANDBOX MODE LOAD A RESEARCH TAB THAT IS APPROPRIATE TO THE SELECTED BUILDING SET
Playing sandbox mode since launch, it is hard not to notice that the research tab in sandbox mode was using the Jurassic World UI, as this is mainly because of all the building sets in the game, Jurassic World has access to all of the new items that could be researched. While convenient, this has lead to some annoyances of having research items that are present in the research UI that when researched, introduce nothing to the game depending on the building set selected. Such examples include researching the monorail and zip-line in Jurassic Park and DFW, as well as the heavy fence in DFW.
The odd thing is that each building set has a more appropriate research tab when playing in Campaign, Chaos theory, or Challenge map that would utilize a building set that is not part of the Jurassic World set. Not only appropriately arranging research to the building set's availability, but also displaying images in the UI that is thematically appropriate to the chosen building set.
Sandbox mode could benefit from loading more appropriate research pages, where selecting a specific building set would have the game load the appropriate research in order to access the set's buildings and facilities without any issue, so hotels could be accessed early in Malta, Biosyn's and Malta's power option could be attained much sooner, and Jurassic Park and DFW not needing to have to deal with empty research cluttering the tab. All the while displaying the appropriate images that reflect the building set selected, making the sandbox game mode a much more immersive experience for the player when focusing on a building set that is neither Jurassic World nor All-Buildings.
Only two things need to be noted in this direction:
1) Dinosaurs availability via research:
In sandbox mode, all dinosaur options should be available. So if a building set like Jurassic Park is selected, the research would display the appropriate buildings and research of that building set with the appropriate UI, but the dinosaur section should remain vast and varied to contain all species in-game instead of loading a more limiting roster from the likes of chaos theory. Options are welcome in this game mode.
I believe the majority of the dinosaur research section should only be accessible if expeditions and fossils are on in sandbox mode. The research is to gain access to the dig sites, and if players are not out digging dinosaurs and are instead focusing on other methods such as live capture or the dinosaur exchange, it is better to remove the access to dinosaur research altogether to remove unnecessary research clutter for a more streamlined experienced. If the player wants to research the dinos again, they simply turn on the expeditions and fossils sandbox setting again.
The exception here are the hybrids, as I believe you could gain the necessary genomes of the ingredient dinosaurs via the exchange. So if the player gets the necessary genomes, they could then research the appropriate hybrids that would require the attained genomes. It may be well suited to have them in a category on their own as it may be possible to get the genomes earlier than usual with the exchange and a star ranking limitation is no longer needed if it limits hybrids to only be accessible later on in the sandbox game.
2) This is an opportunity to integrate the unique Biosyn research in sandbox mode:
The developers have introduced a very uniquely structured and animated research UI for the Biosyn campaign. There is potential to see this UI be updated to work in sandbox mode, and while the research is heavily focused on the research compound in Biosyn Sanctuary in Italy, it is not that far off to imagine Biosyn would have the research conducted in Biosyn Sanctuary if the player wants to build a Biosyn park off-site and have that research be carried over in whichever map the player wants to build in sandbox mode.
This could also extend to the amber mines, as the amber mines and research compound go hand in hand in an expedition and research-focused Biosyn Sandbox Park. The amber mines already this fantastical area full of ambers of mosquitos and feathers of a variety of creatures around the world from the Permian age all the way to the late Cretaceous. The sandbox version simply has to tweak the established amber mines from the Dominion Campaign to contain every other animal in the game bar hybrids. It will add some much-needed TLC to the Biosyn building set in sandbox mode to make it stand out from the other sets and freshen up a familiar gameplay style to Biosyn's multi-level expedition and research.
If the research tab gets some added attention in sandbox mode, it would greatly streamline the experience each building set provides if the player is not focusing on an all-building sandbox game mode out of aesthetical choice or console limitation. It would make the research thematically appropriate, and remove any awkward research gaps and empty modules the current setup for sandbox research has.
3. 100% GENOME FROM STAR LOCKED DINOSAURS HAMPERS THE DINO EXCHANGE EXPERIENCE
When playing sandbox mode in Malta, I was enjoying the progress I was making and was excited to get some great offers from the Dino exchange. I got a nice deal on the Amargasaurus and Nasutoceratops and was eager to go and start incubating some Market genomes when I noticed I have a ton of dinosaur genomes at 100%. Which I was surprised to find that I have 10 dinosaurs at 100% genome... Already?
Surely I didn't go on a shopping spree of that magnitude because I only had 3 million dollars to work with. I wondered why this is the case, and had a hunch. I changed the sandbox settings to easy mode and incubated some additional dinosaurs, only to see that upon reaching 2.5 stars I got 7 more dinosaurs unlocked with 100% genomes. They were in fact dinosaurs that were unlocked purely from star progression, and the reason why their genomes are popping up to 100% is that sandbox mode does not take the Dino exchange into consideration when it comes to genetic progression.
If the expeditions and fossils sandbox setting is turned off, which is what I had in this playthrough, dinosaur genomes would be at 100%. I turned the expeditions and fossils off since I want to gather genomes, eggs, and dinosaurs exclusively from the market. While this is annoying, the solution here looks to be simply turning on the sandbox settings for fossils and expeditions. That is what I attempted, but I see that the problem still persists.
It gets even more annoying when I decide to turn off research, which will have all dinosaurs at 100% genome, then turn on research. The game does not switch back to a 0% genome, and my sandbox save now has 100% genomes for all dinosaurs without the need to have any trade, expeditions, or research, regardless of what sandbox settings I would have on or off from that point.
This feels like an oversight.
I bring it up because now I have the hindsight knowledge that I should have fossils and expedition settings on when I want to play a Dino Exhange-focused park from the start. Besides Malta not having the fossil expeditions facility to utilize this sandbox feature, the irreversible dino genomes are something to be wary about if you like to play sandbox with a progressive park playstyle. It is easy to mess up and needs to be loaded to a previous save or a hard reset if you want to progressively fill the dinosaur genomes in sandbox mod, as it would otherwise diminish the market experience if players could accidentally get 100% genomes for dinosaurs that could not be reversed.
4. LIMITED MALTA DECORATIONS IN SANDBOX MODE
This is a surprising one, but I want to point out that Malta in sandbox mode technically has less decoration than that of the main campaign. The missing decorations are the classic lights, bamboo decorations, and shipping containers. I would like to bring it up if we could have those decorations available in a Malta-only sandbox mode, with a few more like the Jurassic Park crate, small classic light, Tents, and dinosaur cages from the JP and JW era to match the Underground Market theme of Malta. Otherwise, I would be happy if the decorations are at least the same variety as that in the campaign.
5. WHERE IS THIS FENCE?
A minor one but one I was surprised to see in the recent ad but not in the game. I believe this is the 4th ranked Jurassic Park fencing, which I find the Malta pack uses the one from Jurassic World instead. It is not a deal breaker by all means and rest assured it is nothing to lose sleep over, but I was looking forward to using that fence in the Malta Parks, as I think this fence looks aesthetically pleasing with this building set in particular. It could be a last-minute change from the developers, but I was slightly taken back to see it not accessible via the malta building set.
6. THE ATROCIRAPTOR COULD DO WITH TWO MINOR TWEAKS
This one is more subjective than the other listings shared above and is not a dire issue when playing the game. The Atriciraptor as a new dinosaur is great, but I feel like it is slightly hindered in two areas:
1. More thematic music:
The atrociraptor surprisingly lacks a theme when viewing the animal. It shares the same small carnivore theme when observing the animal in the enclosure, and with how much attention and excitement the Atrociraptor has in the Dominion movie and this Malta pack, I think providing it with a unique theme would make it stand out more from the standard small carnivore. The Velociraptor, Monolophosauurs, Pyroraptor, and Australovenator are all small carnivores with unique themes when observing them, and I think the atrociraptor should have one as well.
What it does have however is an introductory theme.... which I have not heard until I incubated and released a single Atrociraptor out of sheer curiosity.
Similar to the Alamosaurus, the atrociraptor has a unique theme when incubated and released from the hatchery, but it is only audible if you released a single specimen. Otherwise, like the Alamosaurus, they would use the standard music of their respective species. This could be because the atrociraptor's music is still in the works, but if that isn't the case, could we give both the Atrociraptor and the Alamosaurus their theme when incubating a batch containing two or more members? And I keep bringing up the Alamosaurus cause her theme is so excellent I sometimes throw away a good egg just to hear it when she leaves the hatchery and I wish it would play when we incubate two members similar to the Tyrannosaurus Rex's hatchery theme.
2. Make the Atrociraptor a tad stronger than the velociraptor:
One thing I can't help but notice is when a storm hits the park, I get a bit worried cause the Atrociraptor may attempt to escape, to which when I checked on the pack, they seem rather comfortable...
This was very odd as they have a comfort threshold more tolerable than that of the T-rex. Initially, I wanted the comfort to be raised up a bit till I realized... it is a designed dinosaur. I believe the theory is that the Atrociraoptor genome in dominion has been mixed with a bit of velociraptor from Isla Sorna, and the modified species were made specifically to be trained and sold in the underground dino market. So if that is the case, it would make sense for the atrociraptor to be able to tolerate more, because, at the very least, it gives off the impression of a more domesticated dromaeosaur in the Jurassic World franchise.
What I would then ask is to have the atrociraptor's attack stat be ever so slightly boosted. As is, they are one-to-one with the velociraptor in terms of stats which makes sense, same lifespan, resilience, attack, defense, and very similar environmental needs, but the velociraptor in terms of gameplay is harder to handle than the atrociraptor. This in part is due to the velociraptor having a low comfort threshold that any storm would make it attempt to escape, which makes it look like a wild animal when compared to the atrociraptor. So why not bump its attack from a 45 to a 55? It won't be the strongest attacker of the small carnivores, as the austrelovenator and herrerasaurus both hold that title at 58 attack points, but the boosted attack would balance out the otherwise very tolerable comfort of this dinosaur.
So if the velociraptor escapes, it is most likely due to the savage and wild temperament, and so the player has to plan her enclosure and security accordingly. The atrociraptor is more domesticated as it was made to be trained like a personal attack dog (but a dinosaur), so she is not that temperamental. However, if the player somehow messes up by placing in very poor conditions or leaving the gate open, the damage caused by a pack of atrociraptors would be much greater. Basically, if the velociraptor punished the player for attempting to tame a wild prehistoric animal, then the atrociraptor should punish the player for being very careless with a trained attack unit. At least that is how I see it, cause I feel they are too similar to each other that you would prefer the atrociraptor, as I feel there needs to be a bit more of a catch for a dinosaur that is just 12 points lower in appeal than the velociraptor.
7. THE JURASSIC PARK VISITOR CENTER STILL LACKS THE NEW UPGRADE OPTIONS
Lastly, this issue is not one that is brought up from the latest update, but one I was surprised to not see updated in this patch. It is just the Jurassic Park Visitor Center could not be fitted with either the improved efficiency upgrade more the more motivated staff upgrade. It has the same 3 upgrades since launch while the remaining 5 control center facilities have access to all 5 upgrades.
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So far those are the issues I have encountered so far. I wanted to share them here in case anyone else experienced these issues and may share their experiences and possible workaround. I will be posting them in the issue tracker later on when I get the chance, and I do hope the more simpler issues could get a quick fix soon before the end of the year holiday comes around, as it may be some time before we see the next update in 2023.
If you have encountered any issues, do share below, and be sure to share and support in the issue tracker I have linked below:
issues.frontierstore.net
All in all, besides these issues, I am really really REALLY happy about the state this game is in before the new year. There is potential for more growth but it honestly has become one of my favorite games ever and my absolute favorite Jurassic Park game. I love to come back and build a new park from the ground up and I have come to love the variety of dinosaurs, maps, and building sets the game has received this past year. I hope the game would see more support in the future with more updates and DLC, and whenever that may be, I wish you all to be in great spirits and health as we venture closer to the new year.
Take care, everyone!
I hope you all are in great spirits and are looking forward to the holidays and welcoming the new year!
The new Malta expansion DLC and update came around 2 days ago and I have loved the new content introduced to the game. The Mideteranian Islands and the campaign have been my favorite so far, and when compared to JWE1's island hopping adventure, I feel this has handled it much better as I thought the narrative is better constructed for a multi-map game mode.
I also loved the new content that came with the DLC. The new maps are excellent with the new Mediterranean desert biome bringing about lovely vegetation, terrain, and music. I love the new building set, decorations, and dinosaurs, and I am looking forward to using these in sandbox mode. I ESPECIALLY love the dino exchange which makes attaining dinosaurs, eggs, and genomes a lot more fun, with a method to buy and sell dinosaurs to get richer as well as the unexpected surprises when handling dealers who may have sent over a dinosaur that was not advertised.
With all this said, I did encounter some issues during the end of my campaign game, one bug that made me take a break from the end game, and multiple odd design choices and issues when wanting to play with the new content in sandbox mode. I have not done all the update has to offer, I have yet to start the new challenge maps, but I want to bring up the negative parts of my experience in this post so to see if anyone has encountered any issues I have, share some thoughts, and in hopes that some could be handled in a quick fix before the holiday comes around when possible.
Also, note that any issues I have listed here will be given an issue tracker request later on once I am done with this post, and would link these issue tracker requests later on.
With that said, here is what I encountered:
1. TRANSPORT HELICOPTER BUG
My experience with the Malta campaign has been a stable one for the most part. Any bug I encountered are ones I could tolerate as they could be ignored or dealt with, such as the occasional dinosaur initiating a drinking or eating animation when socializing, the ranger vehicle bouncing around as though it is in a pinball machine, or the rare occasion a dinosaur decides to phase through fencing. These are issues I hope to see get patched but I could tolerate them for the most part.
One bug that I could not tolerate is the helicopter bug in which transport helicopters would be constantly waiting for their turn to pick up the dinosaur in the hatchery but none would initiate that pick-up. This is a bug I dislike since it unnecessarily halts the experience for an indefinite period of time and has no means of fixing this bug. I attempted to reload the save, activate and reactivate the lab, remove its power, disconnect the path, restart the game, restarted my PS5, and removed the PS5 cache. All of this to no avail as I still have those 3 transport copters hovering over the hatchery with no intent to pick up and drop off the dinosaurs.
This bug happened when incubating a batch of nasutoceratop eggs I bought from the market, in which they were meant to be airlifted to their enclosure. Aside from this batch, I also had an important Baryonyx batch with an incubated number of specimens to be sold for $10,000,000 which I can not trade due to the nasutoceratops batch still being stuck in transport, making the resources to incubate the 4 Baryonyx wasted.
My options were to build a new hatchery which could lead to another unresolvable transport bug, bring in dinosaurs from the market which could be limited due to three of the parks transport helicopters stuck waiting for the nasutoceratops, or restart the campaign as you could not restart each map, and there is no way to get rid of the incubation lab with a dinosaur mid transport. This overall discouraged me from getting 5 stars in the three campaign maps and had me move over to sandbox mode and have a more freeform park, which unfortunately has led me to encounter some oddities.
2. THE POWER STATION AND HOTEL ARE LATE RESEARCH ITEMS
This is also an unfortunate experience I had with biosyn's hydropower hub.
When playing sandbox mode, I tend to favor a more progressive form of play where you get to grow your park with scientists, research, expeditions, and manage any chaos the park would bring to reach the 5-star goal. One thing I find unfortunate about the Malta pack is that two key buildings are locked at later stages of research.
The first, like biosyn's hydropower hub, is that the power station is reserved at a later stage of research with no smaller alternative to working with. From my experience, I tend to not like this approach as it means you need to utilize the power backup generators until your park reaches a 3.5-star rating to access the building set's power generator. While it is interesting as a self-imposed challenge to use the backup generators, it is a tedious one as you need to constantly refill multiple generators which gets costly, and the generators could only ever provide 30 units of power at a time. Jurassic Park, Jurassic World, and DFW would have a smaller substation to research and use, which always comes off odd that in sandbox play, Biosyn and Malta building sets have no such small power station to research and utilize.
I understand to a degree why this is because both Biosyn's and Malta's power stations are technically large power stations. Both would provide 120 units of power and it makes sense why they are held off at 3.5 stars. But it still feels off as both of these campaigns would have these stations available from the start like Biosyn, or accessible via improved power technology research as was done in Malta's campaign. Either campaign mode makes the power station less of a pain since they were very accessible unlike how they are done via sandbox mode.
The second and honestly more annoying are the hotels. Like the power station, the Malta hotels are technically the advanced version, being large hotels. The difference is that they are researchable as part of the core guest buildings in the campaign game, whereas they are large hotel research in sandbox mode. Research that needs 500 guests in your park, which is difficult to reach since there is no small hotel to work with. This to me makes playing progressively via sandbox mode using the malta building set not easy to work with, and like Biosyn, makes me want to play with either the default Jurassic Park / World or DFW set, as they are complete, covering all the building sets needed for progressive park building in sandbox mode.
With that said, here is the most likely solution to this issue.
HAVE SANDBOX MODE LOAD A RESEARCH TAB THAT IS APPROPRIATE TO THE SELECTED BUILDING SET
Playing sandbox mode since launch, it is hard not to notice that the research tab in sandbox mode was using the Jurassic World UI, as this is mainly because of all the building sets in the game, Jurassic World has access to all of the new items that could be researched. While convenient, this has lead to some annoyances of having research items that are present in the research UI that when researched, introduce nothing to the game depending on the building set selected. Such examples include researching the monorail and zip-line in Jurassic Park and DFW, as well as the heavy fence in DFW.
The odd thing is that each building set has a more appropriate research tab when playing in Campaign, Chaos theory, or Challenge map that would utilize a building set that is not part of the Jurassic World set. Not only appropriately arranging research to the building set's availability, but also displaying images in the UI that is thematically appropriate to the chosen building set.
Sandbox mode could benefit from loading more appropriate research pages, where selecting a specific building set would have the game load the appropriate research in order to access the set's buildings and facilities without any issue, so hotels could be accessed early in Malta, Biosyn's and Malta's power option could be attained much sooner, and Jurassic Park and DFW not needing to have to deal with empty research cluttering the tab. All the while displaying the appropriate images that reflect the building set selected, making the sandbox game mode a much more immersive experience for the player when focusing on a building set that is neither Jurassic World nor All-Buildings.
Only two things need to be noted in this direction:
1) Dinosaurs availability via research:
In sandbox mode, all dinosaur options should be available. So if a building set like Jurassic Park is selected, the research would display the appropriate buildings and research of that building set with the appropriate UI, but the dinosaur section should remain vast and varied to contain all species in-game instead of loading a more limiting roster from the likes of chaos theory. Options are welcome in this game mode.
I believe the majority of the dinosaur research section should only be accessible if expeditions and fossils are on in sandbox mode. The research is to gain access to the dig sites, and if players are not out digging dinosaurs and are instead focusing on other methods such as live capture or the dinosaur exchange, it is better to remove the access to dinosaur research altogether to remove unnecessary research clutter for a more streamlined experienced. If the player wants to research the dinos again, they simply turn on the expeditions and fossils sandbox setting again.
The exception here are the hybrids, as I believe you could gain the necessary genomes of the ingredient dinosaurs via the exchange. So if the player gets the necessary genomes, they could then research the appropriate hybrids that would require the attained genomes. It may be well suited to have them in a category on their own as it may be possible to get the genomes earlier than usual with the exchange and a star ranking limitation is no longer needed if it limits hybrids to only be accessible later on in the sandbox game.
2) This is an opportunity to integrate the unique Biosyn research in sandbox mode:
The developers have introduced a very uniquely structured and animated research UI for the Biosyn campaign. There is potential to see this UI be updated to work in sandbox mode, and while the research is heavily focused on the research compound in Biosyn Sanctuary in Italy, it is not that far off to imagine Biosyn would have the research conducted in Biosyn Sanctuary if the player wants to build a Biosyn park off-site and have that research be carried over in whichever map the player wants to build in sandbox mode.
This could also extend to the amber mines, as the amber mines and research compound go hand in hand in an expedition and research-focused Biosyn Sandbox Park. The amber mines already this fantastical area full of ambers of mosquitos and feathers of a variety of creatures around the world from the Permian age all the way to the late Cretaceous. The sandbox version simply has to tweak the established amber mines from the Dominion Campaign to contain every other animal in the game bar hybrids. It will add some much-needed TLC to the Biosyn building set in sandbox mode to make it stand out from the other sets and freshen up a familiar gameplay style to Biosyn's multi-level expedition and research.
If the research tab gets some added attention in sandbox mode, it would greatly streamline the experience each building set provides if the player is not focusing on an all-building sandbox game mode out of aesthetical choice or console limitation. It would make the research thematically appropriate, and remove any awkward research gaps and empty modules the current setup for sandbox research has.
3. 100% GENOME FROM STAR LOCKED DINOSAURS HAMPERS THE DINO EXCHANGE EXPERIENCE
When playing sandbox mode in Malta, I was enjoying the progress I was making and was excited to get some great offers from the Dino exchange. I got a nice deal on the Amargasaurus and Nasutoceratops and was eager to go and start incubating some Market genomes when I noticed I have a ton of dinosaur genomes at 100%. Which I was surprised to find that I have 10 dinosaurs at 100% genome... Already?
Surely I didn't go on a shopping spree of that magnitude because I only had 3 million dollars to work with. I wondered why this is the case, and had a hunch. I changed the sandbox settings to easy mode and incubated some additional dinosaurs, only to see that upon reaching 2.5 stars I got 7 more dinosaurs unlocked with 100% genomes. They were in fact dinosaurs that were unlocked purely from star progression, and the reason why their genomes are popping up to 100% is that sandbox mode does not take the Dino exchange into consideration when it comes to genetic progression.
If the expeditions and fossils sandbox setting is turned off, which is what I had in this playthrough, dinosaur genomes would be at 100%. I turned the expeditions and fossils off since I want to gather genomes, eggs, and dinosaurs exclusively from the market. While this is annoying, the solution here looks to be simply turning on the sandbox settings for fossils and expeditions. That is what I attempted, but I see that the problem still persists.
It gets even more annoying when I decide to turn off research, which will have all dinosaurs at 100% genome, then turn on research. The game does not switch back to a 0% genome, and my sandbox save now has 100% genomes for all dinosaurs without the need to have any trade, expeditions, or research, regardless of what sandbox settings I would have on or off from that point.
This feels like an oversight.
I bring it up because now I have the hindsight knowledge that I should have fossils and expedition settings on when I want to play a Dino Exhange-focused park from the start. Besides Malta not having the fossil expeditions facility to utilize this sandbox feature, the irreversible dino genomes are something to be wary about if you like to play sandbox with a progressive park playstyle. It is easy to mess up and needs to be loaded to a previous save or a hard reset if you want to progressively fill the dinosaur genomes in sandbox mod, as it would otherwise diminish the market experience if players could accidentally get 100% genomes for dinosaurs that could not be reversed.
4. LIMITED MALTA DECORATIONS IN SANDBOX MODE
This is a surprising one, but I want to point out that Malta in sandbox mode technically has less decoration than that of the main campaign. The missing decorations are the classic lights, bamboo decorations, and shipping containers. I would like to bring it up if we could have those decorations available in a Malta-only sandbox mode, with a few more like the Jurassic Park crate, small classic light, Tents, and dinosaur cages from the JP and JW era to match the Underground Market theme of Malta. Otherwise, I would be happy if the decorations are at least the same variety as that in the campaign.
5. WHERE IS THIS FENCE?
A minor one but one I was surprised to see in the recent ad but not in the game. I believe this is the 4th ranked Jurassic Park fencing, which I find the Malta pack uses the one from Jurassic World instead. It is not a deal breaker by all means and rest assured it is nothing to lose sleep over, but I was looking forward to using that fence in the Malta Parks, as I think this fence looks aesthetically pleasing with this building set in particular. It could be a last-minute change from the developers, but I was slightly taken back to see it not accessible via the malta building set.
6. THE ATROCIRAPTOR COULD DO WITH TWO MINOR TWEAKS
This one is more subjective than the other listings shared above and is not a dire issue when playing the game. The Atriciraptor as a new dinosaur is great, but I feel like it is slightly hindered in two areas:
1. More thematic music:
The atrociraptor surprisingly lacks a theme when viewing the animal. It shares the same small carnivore theme when observing the animal in the enclosure, and with how much attention and excitement the Atrociraptor has in the Dominion movie and this Malta pack, I think providing it with a unique theme would make it stand out more from the standard small carnivore. The Velociraptor, Monolophosauurs, Pyroraptor, and Australovenator are all small carnivores with unique themes when observing them, and I think the atrociraptor should have one as well.
What it does have however is an introductory theme.... which I have not heard until I incubated and released a single Atrociraptor out of sheer curiosity.
Similar to the Alamosaurus, the atrociraptor has a unique theme when incubated and released from the hatchery, but it is only audible if you released a single specimen. Otherwise, like the Alamosaurus, they would use the standard music of their respective species. This could be because the atrociraptor's music is still in the works, but if that isn't the case, could we give both the Atrociraptor and the Alamosaurus their theme when incubating a batch containing two or more members? And I keep bringing up the Alamosaurus cause her theme is so excellent I sometimes throw away a good egg just to hear it when she leaves the hatchery and I wish it would play when we incubate two members similar to the Tyrannosaurus Rex's hatchery theme.
2. Make the Atrociraptor a tad stronger than the velociraptor:
One thing I can't help but notice is when a storm hits the park, I get a bit worried cause the Atrociraptor may attempt to escape, to which when I checked on the pack, they seem rather comfortable...
This was very odd as they have a comfort threshold more tolerable than that of the T-rex. Initially, I wanted the comfort to be raised up a bit till I realized... it is a designed dinosaur. I believe the theory is that the Atrociraoptor genome in dominion has been mixed with a bit of velociraptor from Isla Sorna, and the modified species were made specifically to be trained and sold in the underground dino market. So if that is the case, it would make sense for the atrociraptor to be able to tolerate more, because, at the very least, it gives off the impression of a more domesticated dromaeosaur in the Jurassic World franchise.
What I would then ask is to have the atrociraptor's attack stat be ever so slightly boosted. As is, they are one-to-one with the velociraptor in terms of stats which makes sense, same lifespan, resilience, attack, defense, and very similar environmental needs, but the velociraptor in terms of gameplay is harder to handle than the atrociraptor. This in part is due to the velociraptor having a low comfort threshold that any storm would make it attempt to escape, which makes it look like a wild animal when compared to the atrociraptor. So why not bump its attack from a 45 to a 55? It won't be the strongest attacker of the small carnivores, as the austrelovenator and herrerasaurus both hold that title at 58 attack points, but the boosted attack would balance out the otherwise very tolerable comfort of this dinosaur.
So if the velociraptor escapes, it is most likely due to the savage and wild temperament, and so the player has to plan her enclosure and security accordingly. The atrociraptor is more domesticated as it was made to be trained like a personal attack dog (but a dinosaur), so she is not that temperamental. However, if the player somehow messes up by placing in very poor conditions or leaving the gate open, the damage caused by a pack of atrociraptors would be much greater. Basically, if the velociraptor punished the player for attempting to tame a wild prehistoric animal, then the atrociraptor should punish the player for being very careless with a trained attack unit. At least that is how I see it, cause I feel they are too similar to each other that you would prefer the atrociraptor, as I feel there needs to be a bit more of a catch for a dinosaur that is just 12 points lower in appeal than the velociraptor.
7. THE JURASSIC PARK VISITOR CENTER STILL LACKS THE NEW UPGRADE OPTIONS
Lastly, this issue is not one that is brought up from the latest update, but one I was surprised to not see updated in this patch. It is just the Jurassic Park Visitor Center could not be fitted with either the improved efficiency upgrade more the more motivated staff upgrade. It has the same 3 upgrades since launch while the remaining 5 control center facilities have access to all 5 upgrades.
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So far those are the issues I have encountered so far. I wanted to share them here in case anyone else experienced these issues and may share their experiences and possible workaround. I will be posting them in the issue tracker later on when I get the chance, and I do hope the more simpler issues could get a quick fix soon before the end of the year holiday comes around, as it may be some time before we see the next update in 2023.
If you have encountered any issues, do share below, and be sure to share and support in the issue tracker I have linked below:
Issue Tracker
issues.frontierstore.net
All in all, besides these issues, I am really really REALLY happy about the state this game is in before the new year. There is potential for more growth but it honestly has become one of my favorite games ever and my absolute favorite Jurassic Park game. I love to come back and build a new park from the ground up and I have come to love the variety of dinosaurs, maps, and building sets the game has received this past year. I hope the game would see more support in the future with more updates and DLC, and whenever that may be, I wish you all to be in great spirits and health as we venture closer to the new year.
Take care, everyone!
