After Challenge 4, this should be fairly easy. Despite a tough looking set of conditions and a cramped landscape, a completion between 6-8 hours is reasonable.
Par Time – 14:30
• Starting Cash $3,000,000
• Wild Dinosaurs
• Negative Physical Traits Greatly Reduce Dinosaur Lifespan
• Terrain Editing Costs: Extreme
• Staff Salary: Extreme
• Max 6 Power Sources
• No Building Upgrades
Of note is the Negative Physical Traits condition. 'Weak' is the most common you will encounter with the dinosaurs used in this guide*. 'Sickly' also counts but you shouldn't need any dinosaurs with that trait. These dinosaurs will usually live for just 5-10 years, which equates to just a few minutes of game time. Often it is a waste of time and money to incubate them.
*Short Lived may afflict the wild Gigantspinosaurus and Compsognathus and will reduce their lifespan as normal. Do it if it’s part of a larger batch, but make sure you have the social group minimum covered
without these dinosaurs. It may even be worth save-scumming when you synthesize as you can waste plenty of time and money on ‘dud’ batches full of dinosaurs that will only live a short time.
Just like
Challenge 1, staff salaries are extreme so be cautious when hiring staff.
Storms in this park are a little different. Sand storms will shut down power stations and cause occasional building damage. They will also cause Silicosis, a disease that will heal over time. Nothing too taxing considering what you've already experienced.
Finally, you will be making good use of the 4 species of Wild Dinosaurs. You may lose a few early with the Short Lived trait which is fine. If they start to die of age, you will want to replace them. You can go like for like, which will require extra research not mentioned in the guide, or fill Enclosures 1 and 2 with a set of new dinosaurs, based on what's available.
Paleo.gg is an excellent resource for planning and making sure dinosaurs are happy with each other.
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Start up a Jurassic difficulty challenge game at the 5th location, Southwest USA. Pause once you are in control.
Go to the Scientists menu tab. You will have employed a full deck of highly skilled and
very expensive staff. As tempting as it is to keep them, you need to fire most of them. You should be familiar with the ‘starting’ requirements by now – you want 5 Logistics, ideally with just 2 Scientists. Aim to get that at least with the cheapest combination of staff.
You won't need to worry about Genetics or Welfare for a while - the first research item of note is the Paleo-Medical Facility which will need 5 Welfare.
Remembering back to Challenge 1, a total salary per minute of around $100,000 is ideal but you can afford to go over it a little if you must.
Place a Science Centre to the left of the Response Facility. Build Enclosure 1 to the right of the starting area.
• Structures > Attractions > Viewing Gallery (4/0/0)
Once the Science Centre is built, get started on your first research.
While that is going, manually take control of the capture helicopter.
Fly over to the Chasmosaurus. Tranquilise all 6 of them. Pause once you have done so and transport them all into Enclosure 1.
• Structures > Guest Comfort > Core Guest Buildings (2/0/0)
This becomes available as soon as you get those Chasmosaurus. Depending on your scientists, you may be able to research Core Guest Buildings before the Viewing Gallery is complete. If not, do it immediately once the Gallery is done.
Build a Viewing Gallery on the Enclosure 1 fence. Place a set of Small Amenities, Emergency Shelter, Restroom and Small Hotel (leave some room above the hotel as you’ll be putting a second one there in a moment).
Get back in the helicopter and fly over to the far left of the area and tranq. the 6 Nodosaurus. Pause and transport them back into Enclosure 1 as well.
• Structures > Infrastructure > Staff Centre (3/0/0)
• Structures > Attractions > Guest Attraction (5/0/0)
• Structures > Power > Improved Power Technology (5/0/0)
Build the Innovation Centre to the left of this area and a Guest Attraction below it. Fit a second Small Hotel up above the first one (or somewhere in that vicinity) and a Staff Centre beside it.
Build a Small Power Station down to the left of the Science Centre and Pylons/Small Substations to power everything. Remember to demolish the Backup Generator once it’s all operational.
Finally, place another Viewing Gallery on the Enclosure 1 fence.
• Structures > Guest Comfort > Wide Path (5/0/0)
• Structures > Amenities > Improved Amenities (5/0/0)
Replace the Small Amenities near the Arrival Point with Medium.
Things will be getting crowded to replace the paths in the busy areas with Wide ones.
• Structures > Guest Comfort > Monorail (3/0/0)
Now
move the Response Facility over to the next large area to the left.
You may want to skip to the next step and build the Monorail Station before you move the Response Facility so you can get the placement right.Run power from the existing Small Power Station and place a Small Substation.
Build a Monorail Station nearby. Run the track back to the first area and place another Monorail Station where the Response Facility was previously.
• Structures > Infrastructure > Paleo-Medical Facility (2/0/5)
• Structures > Guest Comfort > Main Thoroughfare (9/0/0)
Place a Paleo-Medical Facility over by the Response Facility.
Build Enclosure 2 as shown in the earlier image. #2 will be the larger one on the left and #3 the smaller to the right.
Place a pair of Viewing Galleries on the fence along with an Emergency Shelter and Restroom. Put a set of Small Amenities here but turn them off for a moment.
Manually fly the helicopter down to the Compsognathus. They can be a pain to see so use the compass to spot them if you need to. Tranquilise all 14 and transport them up to Enclosure 2.
• Welfare > Enclosures > Carnivore Feeder (1/0/3)
This becomes available once you start tranq’ing the Compy’s. Do the research and place a couple of feeders in Enclosure 2 asap.
As pointed out by
Gruntfire in the comments, it should be easier to use the send/summon commands to herd the Compy's into the enclosure. This frees up the Capture/Transport teams to move the Gigantspinosaurus while you manually herd the Compy's.
Wait until the transport teams have scooped up at least half the Compy’s then manually tranquilise the last of the wild dinosaurs, the Gigantspinosaurus*. Transport them into Enclosure 2 with the Compy’s. You should be able to turn on the Small Amenities beside the enclosure now.
*The transport teams take so long. With 14 Compy’s to transport, the Gigantspinosaurus can lose health and even die if you tranquilise them too soon.• Structures > Guest Comfort > Large Hotel (9/0/0)
• Species > Armored Herbivores > Ankylosaurids 2 (2/9/0)
Add a Large Hotel to the hub below Enclosure 2. Fitting it in can be a pain. Worst case, there is plenty of room below the Paleo-Medical Facility so you can reshuffle buildings in that direction.
Demolish the pair of Small Hotels back at Enclosure 1 and replace them with a single Large Hotel (shown earlier).
Build an Expedition Centre below the Paleo-Medical Centre and complete the research for the Polacanthus. Send your team out and extract their genome to 100%.
The next area to develop will be down and to the left, but you want to run the Monorail track down to the area shown. As you can see from the image below, you will be squeezing in a Lagoon shortly. For now, just run the track – placing the Monorail Station is optional for now (if you do, build a Small Power Station nearby to power it).
You want to run the track further to the left and build another Monorail Station. Build a Small Power Station, Emergency Shelter, Restroom and, most importantly, a Hatchery here. You can build Enclosure 4 in front of the Hatchery too.
Once the Polacanthus genome gets to 100%, send your expedition team after the Muttaburrasaurus genome. Now pause and read over the next paragraph.
You’ll want to save-scum the Polacanthus synthesis. You need to release 2 dinosaurs
with the Needy trait. This unlocks the research to get rid of it later on, which you will need. They have a 50% chance. Save-scumming is recommended.
Enclosure 3 will comfortably hold 3-4 the Polacanthus, but remember you just need the 2 Needy dinosaurs. Unless you have
really bad luck, release more than that is just wasting time and money.
If you are comfortable jumping between tasks, the next 2 phases can be completed in any order. You’ll be building and populating Enclosure 4 with herbivores and building the 6-section Lagoon you saw earlier and populating it with Ichthylosaurus.
The herbivores are ‘easier’ but the lagoon will generate more income and unlock the Large Amenity faster (which in turn leads to even more income).
For simplicities sake, the guide will address them one at a time.
The next step is to release 6-8 Muttaburrusaurus, 4-8 Kentrosaurus and 3-4 Amargasaurus* into Enclosure 4, so you can release them directly from the Hatchery. Gather their genomes to 100% and get them out.
*The Amargasaurus in particular has a small batch size. If you get a batch of just 1 with a negative trait (marked with the little orange circle) it’s not worth incubating the batch. It will die very quickly. You’re better off synthesizing another batch. You may even want to save-scum the Amargasaurus creation.• Structures > Attractions > Tour Rides (5/0/0)
• Welfare > Gene Modification > Confined Space Adaptation (2/9/0)
Build a Tour Ride around Enclosure 4, along with a pair of Viewing Galleries if you haven’t placed them already.
As you work through the last set of dinosaurs, Confined Space Adaptation will become available. It will be necessary for the next phase.
All this should have you hovering around a 2.5-Star Park Rating.
• Structures > Amenities > Advanced Amenities (9/0/0)
Research this as soon as it becomes available (2.5-Stars). They won’t be particularly profitable yet, but place a set near the Hatchery and Enclosure 4.
• Welfare > Dinosaur Creation > Lagoon (4/0/9)
The next phase will be Lagoons. Complete the research and build a 6-section Lagoon as shown previously. As always, save before you start placing sections in case you cannot fit them all in - this area is particularly finicky. Extract the Ichthyosaurus genome as you go about it.
Build another guest hub with a Monorail Station, Small Power Station, several Viewing Galleries, Emergency Shelter and Restroom. Place a set of Large Amenities here too. At some stage you will want to put another Large Hotel in this area as well.
Release 10 or more Ichthyosaurus into the Lagoon. They are prone to negative traits. Their minimum social group is 6, so bear this in mind. It’s not uncommon for several of them to die early due to the negative traits and for the total number to drop below their social minimum.
This will provide access to the next reptile, the Tylosaurus.
While you are extracting the genome, build another 6-section Lagoon over to the far-left. Add all the same buildings as before.
When it reaches 100%, modify the Tylosaurus genome to have Humble 100%. Make a save.
The Tylosaurus cannot have the Antisocial trait. This will lead to them being unhappy in the 6-section Lagoons and becoming sick, which in turn will reduce guests’ welfare happiness.
Save-scum if you need to and ensure none of the reptiles have that trait. Aggressive and Intolerant are fine.
The research to Group Adaptation, which gets rid of the Antisocial trait, is a pain. It’s much easier to just save-scum. They only have a 25% chance so it shouldn’t be too annoying to manage.
You’re going to release 2 Tylosaurus into each Lagoon (4 in total), along with at least a batch of Ichthyosaurus (again, be mindful of negative traits/social minimum) into Lagoon 2.
Once each Lagoon has the pair of Tylosaurus and 6+ Ichthylosaurus, the Large Amenities will be at or near to capacity. At Lagoon 2 to the left, if they are at capacity you can build a set of Medium Amenities back towards the Monorail Station. Such is their appeal, all the amenities should be run at a profit and as you continue they will almost all reach capacity.
A final Large Hotel here will ensure 100% Accommodation satisfaction.
As you go about this, start to gather the Carnotaurus genome.
Build Enclosure 5 near the Hatchery. All the ‘support’ buildings should be in place already – just place a couple of Viewing Galleries and a Gyrostation on the fence. Don’t forget a Gate so your Rangers can get access.
• Welfare > Enclosures > Live Prey Feeder (2/0/5)
Obviously you want this researched and placed beforehand. Release anywhere from 4-8 Carnotaurus into Enclosure 5.
Research and develop the Majungasaurus genome, which will be that final dinosaur.
Now all you need to do is keep releasing Carnotaurus and Majungasaurus into Enclosure 5. The Carnotaurus is a little cheaper to synthesize (400k vs 425k) and incubate (800k vs 850k) but and only has a slightly lower appeal rating (300 vs 308). Unless you're flush with cash, the Carnotaurus is probably the way to go.
Enclosure 5 can easily hold over 20 dinosaurs which will take you well over the $2,000,000 income per minute target and pass a 5-Star Park Rating. Remember to double-check your Accomodation, Restroom and Shelter satisfaction.
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22 Jan 23: Solutions for all 5 base-game challenges with related achievements have been posted. I'm now working on the rest of the walkthrough.
I welcome all constructive criticism: please post a comment or send me a PM if you have any feedback. I hope this helps!