Challenge Mode Tips

[Pirelli913]

Patch 1.4 was released today with a bunch of new features and/or changed features. With it a new Challenge Mode that includes three new trophies.

 

The trophies are as follows:

 

 Jurassic measures

Reach 5 stars on Jurassic difficulty challenge mode

 

 The essence of chaos

Reach 5 stars in challenge mode (any difficulty)

 

 Clocked at 32 mph

Reach 5 stars in Challenge mode in under 3 hours (medium difficulty or above)

 

Truth be told, everyone should be going for at least two of the trophies simultaneously, be it Jurassic measures and The essence of chaos or The essence of chaos and Clocked at 32 mph.

 

The problem is figuring out the most effective way to accomplish this. Therefore, feel free to add your tips to this thread. The fact you can do Clocked at 32 mph in three hours on medium is nice as you know your time limit and the game will keep count as well so you don't have to guess. The problem is figuring out how to increase your park's rating in that short window. 

[Pirelli913]

So after messing around with it somewhat, achieving 5 stars on Jurassic difficulty will probably be your last trophy. It'll also be a grind. Achieving 5 stars in 3 hours seems like a challenge, but if you pace yourself to get a star every half hour, you'll complete it int 2.5 hours, which seems tough, but is doable. The problem is how stressful it'll be. Achieving 1 star in 30 minutes is actually easy, but upon completing that, a lot more opens up, meaning you'll have to think fast to both construct buildings and remember to send out dig teams/excavate fossils.

 

To start with, build an expedition center followed by a small power station. When facing the entrance, I usually build the expedition center to the right of it and the small power station to the left of it. Don't forget to build a substation so the expedition center, fossil center and research center all have power. Speaking of, build those two to the right of the expedition center and connect everything to the entrance with paths.

 

So in other words:

 

1. Expedition center.

2. Small power station.

3. Substation.

4. Paths.

5. Fossil center.

6. Research center.

 

The moment the expedition center is built and has power, send out a dig team. "Best In Slot" recommends going after one species at a time. The Struthiomimus (Dinosaur Park Formation) is a good choice, because they're cheap and you can cram a bunch into one SMALL enclosure and raise your rating quickly.

 

Now you need to start researching things. The first two research items you should go after are restaurant and clothes shop under BUILDINGS. Again, "Best In Slot" says these are two of the three research items to increase the facility rating to 5 stars fast (the other you can't unlock yet). Two more research items to acquire quickly are Savannah Cosmetic Genes under GENETIC RESEARCH and Success Rate 1.0 under BUILDING UPGRADES.

 

Savannah Cosmetic Genes gives a +25 to whichever dinosaur you incubate with it, which obviously raises its rating and the overall park's rating.

 

Now construct a hotel, restaurant and clothes shop and a Hammond creation lab (with gate and fence in a 2x2 squared area). Leave enough room for a Monorail station (which you will unlock upon achieving 1 star, but it'll cost 1 million to research so keep that in mind).

 

Once the dig team has exhausted the site where you got the Struthiomimus genome, add the Savannah cosmetic gene to one and incubate it. Add the arid pattern gene to another and incubate it, too. (Arid pattern doesn't need to be researched.) Move on to another species, either Edmontosaurus or Triceratops. I recommend Triceratops as it has patterns available immediately once you reach 50%, which will increase its rating by +25.

 

After you've incubated your first two Struthiomimus', you should have around 0.5 stars. (Don't forget to add a ground herbivore feeder!) Focus on one of the other two species until the dig site is exhausted, then incubate it. Once you incubate your second species go to the Lance Formation (which has all three previously mentioned dinosaurs) and start digging there.

 

Remember to keep an eye on your contracts and complete them for cash as quickly and often as possible. The early contracts are all pretty easy to complete.

 

After the initial six items mentioned above, you should now also have:

 

7. Hotel.

8. Restaurant.

9. Clothes shop.

10. Hammond creation lab.

11. Fence (with gate).

12. Ground herbivore feeder.

 

Make sure everything is connected via paths and substations.

 

You should have a MINIMUM of two Struthiomimus and one or two other species by now as well (hopefully with cosmetic genes added on). A small power station can house up to 60 units of power. Everything mentioned above will take you to 58 units, meaning building anything else will short something else out. To fix this, research improved output 1.0 under BUILDING UPGRADES and that'll allow you to construct both the viewing gallery and ranger station.

 

If done fast and efficiently, it should push you over 1 star in 30-32 minutes (give or take). If you're still under, add another dinosaur (now that their genome should be higher, and thus, a higher rating) and that should do it.

 

If you look at your facility rating, it'll probably be at 5 stars, but your dinosaur rating will be crap.

 

The purpose of the Monorail station is that you're not gonna add too much more to the existing park you have, but instead use the Monorail to create other smaller parks with the same basic items (hotel, restaurant, clothes shop, dinosaur enclosures with new dinosaurs, etc).

 

This is basically a starting point for anyone else having trouble, and I'll try and add more to it when I get better. That 1 star rating is easy, but I can't push myself past it... yet.

[Pirelli913]

A few more quick tips (and I apologize for not adding to this - I don't feel like stressing myself out so I've been playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider on its hardest difficulty instead):

 

1. The MOMENT you hit a 1 star rating (if it's within a time frame you're satisfied with - 30-32 minutes preferably) MANUALLY SAVE your game! That way if you make a mistake, you won't have to start from scratch all over again, but can instead start from your 1 star park.

 

2. Incubating dinosaurs costs money - sometimes a lot of money. MANUALLY SAVE in ANOTHER save slot BEFORE you incubate. If incubation costs $250,000+ and it fails, that's money that was wasted (and in challenge mode, it can't be wasted). Load up and try again.

[SpursTrophies]

The main thing that has helped me so far on the Jurassic Challenge is carefully watching my rating and variety on the dinosaurs. I had a previous attempt where I got stuck at 3 stars where I ran out of money and all of my dinosaurs were crap. This time I've slowly built up, focusing on staying profitable and replacing dinosaurs as I get more stuff unlocked (IE selling or letting a carnivore kill a 30 rated triceratops so I can replace it with a 55 rated triceratops etc).

[SpursTrophies]

I got a bit further than I did the first time I tried this, but sadly I got stuck in the same endless loop where my park was just profitable enough to keep me from failing but not enough to where I could actually reasonably advance. Think I'm going to pull the plug on attempting this challenge, it definitely has gone from me enjoying a game I hadn't played since I platinum'ed to a game I'm starting to actively hate.

[R3DLNR]

I completed the jurassic measures trophy today and thought I could put some advice for those struggling.

 

The start is quite crucial. If you dont get off to a good start you will need to restart as you'll end up in the 'loop' where you only make enough money to 'sustain' what you have but not to grow which happens around 3-4 stars.

 

At the beginning build a power station, expedition centre, fossil centre, use large paths to connect (seems to help transport rating til mid/late game) build a hammond centre in an open space and build a 'holding' area with room to branch off in 3-4 other areas eventually.

 

Build your first pen and house 2 of each dinos ie. tri, struth, hya. When you can afford to, create your second pen that branches off your holding pen (off hammond centre) build 2 ceras as theyll give your income a boost. Utilizing one hammond centre not only saves the construction cost but power as well.

 

Saving is your best friend, you have 5 save slots and I saved every 30 mins or when I hit a new star so I could revert when needed which I only needed to do once. If you have a storm and dinos break out and people get killed it's probably worth reverting. Hurricanes arnt scripted and will take different paths on earlier saves possibly doing less damage.

 

When you expand you will use the same method to build more pens and dinos, I highly recommend leaving all the pens around each hammond centre with either carnivores OR herbivores.

 

The hammond fee is the bane of this game mode. For me it averaged at about 80% of my profit but I always stayed in the positive. At 2 stars I had about 100k income per minute (imp), at 3 I had 180k imp, at 4 i had 250k+ imp and by the time I got to 4 stars I had 350k imp. I reckon if you are way lower than these figures (especially 2 - 3 stars) then restart as you'll get stuck in the loop

 

I made alot of money from selling unneeded fossils and cant stress this enough, get 3 dig teams asap and research all the fossil centre upgrades.

 

When you can use heavy electric fences for your dangerous carnivores and double skin the perimeter and internal fences, if there is a storm and they get freaked out they will only break thru 1 layer before the storm leaves and they calm down again. 

 

When a hurricane hits follow it around ready to drop fences to quickly patch any damage done before dinos get out. Using this method I only had 1 indorex escape the whole game. Also I had 8 shelters around the island and wasn't afraid to open them, I never had 1 human casualty, meaning no lawsuits.

 

I kept a large area from the start open and dedicated it to power plants and then had a ranger station close to that so any sabotages were easy and quick to fix even if I had to drive there manually. I used increased output upgrades as I didnt see the use for outage protection.

 

Concentrate on mainly herbivores near the start as the fencing available is pretty crap, only start trex, Raptors, barynx when you have electric or even better electric concrete fences available.

 

Dont worry about the variety penalty, it seems high at the start but end game when you have 25+ varieties of dinos that will disappear and you will be able to pump out multiple high rating dinos ( my favs were dilophosaurs and tsitisaurs seen they have high social and can squeeze 100k+ rating out of them easy)

 

I ended up with 107 dinos and the rating was just over 10,000 total. Took me just over 15 hrs to complete. Had 4 hotels and only built monorail at end once I needed to get my transport rating over 80.

 

Finally, dont feel the need to rush this playthru. Plan carefully where you place things and be thoughough on your research and you will get all the way!

 

I'll keep adding stuff as it comes to me. Cheers

Edited September 30, 2018 by R3DLNR
Remembered info

[Pirelli913]

1 hour ago, R3DLNR said:

I completed the jurassic measures trophy today and thought I could put some advice for those struggling.

 

I'll keep adding stuff as it comes to me. Cheers

Good tips. When I go after the Jurassic difficulty trophy, I'll refer back to your post. A few questions:

 

1) The par time for Jurassic difficulty is 12 hours, correct? What if you go over that time?

 

2) Do you remember how long it took you to achieve 5 stars on Jurassic difficulty?

 

Thanks. 

[R3DLNR]

I went over 12hrs and theres no penalties I ended up just over 15hrs in total.

 

I was lucky enough to do it on my first attempt. Practice makes perfect so keep at it.

[Pirelli913]

 

Thanks to a guide on YouTube, I was able to achieve Clocked at 32 mph. Final time was 2 hours, 55 minutes. Below are the two guides (parts 1 and 2) I used:

 

 

[PeachyJacobs]

It's a great guide! I used it myself, clocked in at 2:54. A couple tips I used that aren't in the video are to use the wide paths to help with transport and also to increase the amount of staff at your shops as needed so you don't need to put in a heap of shops of the same type.

[Pirelli913]

A few more tips:

 

1. Use cosmetic genes. They boost a dinosaur's rating by 25% and if you have a bunch, they'll improve the variety bonus as well. I achieved 1 star with six dinosaurs: 2 Struthiomimuses (each with a different cosmetic gene) and 4 Triceratops (two with one cosmetic gene and two with a different cosmetic gene). All 6 had 100% genome.

 

I achieved my 5 stars (and thus, the trophy) by hatching 3 Diplodocus, each with a different cosmetic gene.

 

2. This is mentioned in the video, but in case you miss it, incubate the Indoraptor no later than 2 hours, 38 minutes. It'll take a while to research and once complete, don't forget to incubate it! I made that mistake once and at 2:59, I had to reload as I knew it wouldn't hatch in time.

 

3. Also, between 10 and 20 minutes prior to the three hour mark, your park WILL be hit by a storm. The game auto saves right before it hits, but pray it won't be a tornado like what happened to me. If it is, reload the moment you see it head towards the fences. Fixing buildings is easy, but rounding up escaped dinosaurs AND fixing their paddocks is a nightmare. Manually save in a new save slot once the storm passes.

 

The good news is this will only take 3 hours and you don't have to do it all in on sitting. I spread it out over 4 days because I found it so stressful. Stars 1-3 were each done on a different day and stars 4-5 were done back to back because when I hit 4 stars, I knew I was close and just wanted to finish.

 

A rule of thumb: Watch the guides above and then try and beat his time, star for star. By staying ahead of his time when you reach each star, you know you'll achieve your goal.

 

On average, you want to achieve 1 star between 30-32 minutes, 2 stars between 1:20 and 1:28, 3 stars between 1:55 and 2:03, and 4 stars by about 2:32.

[SpursTrophies]

I havent even tried Clocked yet, but I will definitely use that guide when I do.

I took a break to play Spider-Man for a few weeks cause I was so sick of the Jurassic Challenge, but I'm back on it now. Doing it way different than my first attempt: instead of trying to rush to beat the 12 hours, I'm just building money up at 1 star atm. Since I'm not actually doing anything but research and expeditions, my hammond fee hasnt gone up yet so I'm saving frequently to see how long I can keep this up. Right now I'm at 1.1 star with about 15 dinosaurs (I didn't bother to put any cosmetics on them since they'll die long before I get to 5 stars) but I am up over 8 million which is more than I remember ever having on my first run through. My plan is to build up enough money to add tons of dinosaurs with modified genomes at once to get to 2 stars then hopefully do the exact same thing and build lots of money up again. It's time consuming but hopefully it will pay off in the end.

[SpursTrophies]

Thank you so much for your post R3DLNR it helped me immensely, particularly the parts about your final dino rating and how much you were making per minute (I constantly checked it and made sure to keep my stores as profitable as possible basically anytime I had downtime).10,000 dinosaur rating seems to be the magic number for the jurassic measures trophy. I got mine with 81 total dinosaurs, as my T-Rex had well over 1,000 of that 10k due to combat bonuses. Makes me wonder if you could feasibly complete this trophy with just a single pen with a modded T-Rex and Raptors in it and just constantly pour weaker dinosaurs in for them to kill. You'd obviously have to mod your key dinosaurs specifically for lifetime to make them live as long as possible since a death by old age would immediately cripple your rating.

Probably not worth the effort though, each combat win was getting my T-Rex between 50-100 points so you'd have to pour a lot of dinosaurs in there.

 

[SpursTrophies]

On 10/15/2018 at 0:22 AM, Pirelli913 said:

A few more tips:

 

1. Use cosmetic genes. They boost a dinosaur's rating by 25% and if you have a bunch, they'll improve the variety bonus as well. I achieved 1 star with six dinosaurs: 2 Struthiomimuses (each with a different cosmetic gene) and 4 Triceratops (two with one cosmetic gene and two with a different cosmetic gene). All 6 had 100% genome.

 

I achieved my 5 stars (and thus, the trophy) by hatching 3 Diplodocus, each with a different cosmetic gene.

 

2. This is mentioned in the video, but in case you miss it, incubate the Indoraptor no later than 2 hours, 38 minutes. It'll take a while to research and once complete, don't forget to incubate it! I made that mistake once and at 2:59, I had to reload as I knew it wouldn't hatch in time.

 

3. Also, between 10 and 20 minutes prior to the three hour mark, your park WILL be hit by a storm. The game auto saves right before it hits, but pray it won't be a tornado like what happened to me. If it is, reload the moment you see it head towards the fences. Fixing buildings is easy, but rounding up escaped dinosaurs AND fixing their paddocks is a nightmare. Manually save in a new save slot once the storm passes.

 

The good news is this will only take 3 hours and you don't have to do it all in on sitting. I spread it out over 4 days because I found it so stressful. Stars 1-3 were each done on a different day and stars 4-5 were done back to back because when I hit 4 stars, I knew I was close and just wanted to finish.

 

A rule of thumb: Watch the guides above and then try and beat his time, star for star. By staying ahead of his time when you reach each star, you know you'll achieve your goal.

 

On average, you want to achieve 1 star between 30-32 minutes, 2 stars between 1:20 and 1:28, 3 stars between 1:55 and 2:03, and 4 stars by about 2:32.

Just a quick note to anyone trying this in the future: don't panic if you're a bit behind those times at the end. I just got locked and was behind on all 3 of the first times (I hit 1 star at about 34 minutes, 2 stars at 1:30 and 3 stars at 2:10.) Money is a lot easier to make on medium difficulty so I once I hit 3 stars I had tons of it built up and started releasing the giant sauropods six at a time. Ended up releasing into 2 pens: 10 brachiosaurus, 14 diplodocus and 12 camarasaurus and got 5 stars at 2:55 without ever releasing a single carnivore and only having 4 pens. I got hit by a storm at 2:50 and realized in my rush to increase my dino rating that I had been neglecting my stores so my facility rating had dropped to 4.5, so I probably could have done it a bit faster if I had paid better attention to that part.

Edited October 18, 2018 by ComplicatedMC

[Pirelli913]

I'm in the process of doing my Jurassic Challenge (though I'll probably take a short break for Spider-Man's first DLC releasing tomorrow) but I just wanted to stop in and give one HUGE tip (albeit time consuming) that'll help immensely.

 

If you're like me and you hate the contracts, they are RANDOM. On top of that, even if the contract screen pops up, you can SAVE your game, choose a contract and if you don't like it, reload. The game will load up prior to the contract screen popping up giving you a few seconds before it shows again. By CONTINUOUSLY reloading if I got a contract I didn't like, I'd eventually get one suiting my desires and I could complete it. Completing contracts gives you, on average, 100,000 to 200,000 much needed cash.

 

If I got a contract to take a picture and I hadn't built the ranger station yet, I'd reload. I'll be honest, it was a lot of reloading, but in the end, I reached 1 star at just under 70 minutes, and if I keep this pace up, I'll be happy. Someone mentioned to try and have 100,000 income per minute by 2 stars. I had 90,000 per minute when I hit 1 star.

 

To reiterate, save after completing a contract and reload if you get a contract that you feel will take too long. Yes, it will take you a while to make any progress, but in the end, you'll feel better about your chances with each contract you successfully complete.

Edited October 23, 2018 by Pirelli913

[SpursTrophies]

I just took the small financial hit and dropped them haha

Best of luck on the Jurassic Challenge, it annoyed the hell out of me but its definitely possible. My best advice to add to R3DLNR's earlier post is to mod your dinosaurs for lifespan as much as possible, it not only helps get your dinosaur rating to 10,000 points faster but it makes it much less likely that you'll start losing dinosaurs to old age (dinosaurs dying all at once and hurricanes are usually what killed my earlier attempts at the trophy). On my successful attempt I made a bunch of crap dinosaurs to get to 1 star, then basically fed them to my T-Rex to boost its rating once I had enough money/research to replace them. Then with all the lifespan bonuses I never had to worry about my dinosaurs dying from old age again.

[Pirelli913]

With the upcoming paid DLC as well as a free update patch (both releasing on November 20th), I've decided to persevere through Jurassic Difficulty and try for the trophy ASAP. I normally take a lengthy break with each new star I achieve, but I went from one star to three stars in about 6.5 hours. Longer than I would have liked, but I could care less about time as it's the 5-star rating I'm after. I have around $30,000,000 and, aside from a few hiccups, I've done well, albeit taking longer than I would like. I probably won't hit that 12-hour par time, but that one trophy is pushing me forward.

 

A helpful hint I learned from someone else is once you can dig for Diplodocus, do so and spam them in an enclosure as they raise the rating quite a bit. I had 4-6 and was so close to 3-stars that I added two more. When I released them, bingo! Hoping to achieve 5-stars this weekend. For those wondering about the paid DLC and free update, the major additions are below:

 

DLC - Three new hybrids:

 

Stegosaurus + Triceratops

Ankylosaurus + Diplodocus

Spinosaurus + Velociraptor

 

Two new dinosaurs:

 

Troodon

Some giant hadrosaur whose name I forget but that is supposed to be bigger than all the current ones in-game.

 

The DLC will also have new gene mods like lowering a dinosaur's standards so it's not as picky. Meaning there is the potential of having two T-rexes in the same pen together or having the large herbivores (Apatosaurus, Camarasaurus, etc) not needing as much forested area.

 

Free update:

 

Day/night cycles (but only after you achieve 5 stars on each island)

Dinosaur sleep cycles (like in JPOG)

Herd/pack behavior where one will be alpha (like in JPOG)

[Pirelli913]

Woohoo! I finally did! I got 5 stars on Jurassic Difficulty!

 

It said I completed it in 13:32, but the play time said 12:48, so I dunno. I'm just glad to be done and can now prepare for the upcoming DLC. A couple notes regarding that:

 

It's 13-15 (pounds, dollars, Euros depending on where you're from). I initially thought that was insane, but BestInSlot has said according to sources that it'll take about 8 hours to do everything within the DLC. That eases my annoyance level a bit. Tbh, I'm more looking forward to the Troodon and the "comfort" gene, so dinosaurs aren't so high maintenance.

 

As to Jurassic Difficulty, here are some tips regarding enclosures:

 

Diplodocus is one of the best rated dinosaurs you can have and is the best sauropod you can have. Best of all, it's low maintenance. It can have up to 8 of its own species in its pen and up to 24 total in its pen. This means spam the crap outta it and put a bunch of hadrosaurs with it.

 

Dilophosaurus is another low cost/high income dinosaur. It can have up to 12 of its own species in its pen and 22 (I believe) total. So you could put it with Diplodocus and they'd both be happy.

 

Another pen idea that someone else recommended is 4 Ankylosaurs and 4 Crichtonsaurs.

 

Whenever you reach halfway up to the next star (1.5, 2.5, etc) incubate a bunch of dinosaurs and release them. Doing so will usually raise the rating a bit. I was sitting at 4.6 to 4.9 stars and decided to hatch a bunch of Diplodocuses and Dilophosaurs and that pushed me over the edge. 

Edited November 10, 2018 by Pirelli913

[SpursTrophies]

On 11/9/2018 at 9:09 AM, Pirelli913 said:

With the upcoming paid DLC as well as a free update patch (both releasing on November 20th), I've decided to persevere through Jurassic Difficulty and try for the trophy ASAP. I normally take a lengthy break with each new star I achieve, but I went from one star to three stars in about 6.5 hours. Longer than I would have liked, but I could care less about time as it's the 5-star rating I'm after. I have around $30,000,000 and, aside from a few hiccups, I've done well, albeit taking longer than I would like. I probably won't hit that 12-hour par time, but that one trophy is pushing me forward.

 

A helpful hint I learned from someone else is once you can dig for Diplodocus, do so and spam them in an enclosure as they raise the rating quite a bit. I had 4-6 and was so close to 3-stars that I added two more. When I released them, bingo! Hoping to achieve 5-stars this weekend. For those wondering about the paid DLC and free update, the major additions are below:

 

DLC - Three new hybrids:

 

Stegosaurus + Triceratops

Ankylosaurus + Diplodocus

Spinosaurus + Velociraptor

 

Two new dinosaurs:

 

Troodon

Some giant hadrosaur whose name I forget but that is supposed to be bigger than all the current ones in-game.

 

The DLC will also have new gene mods like lowering a dinosaur's standards so it's not as picky. Meaning there is the potential of having two T-rexes in the same pen together or having the large herbivores (Apatosaurus, Camarasaurus, etc) not needing as much forested area.

 

Free update:

 

Day/night cycles (but only after you achieve 5 stars on each island)

Dinosaur sleep cycles (like in JPOG)

Herd/pack behavior where one will be alpha (like in JPOG)

The new dinosaurs are nice enough I suppose, I regret buying this DLC though. So much time spent sitting completely still in photograph mode trying to take a stupid picture for these trophies haha

[Pirelli913]

5 hours ago, ComplicatedMC said:

The new dinosaurs are nice enough I suppose, I regret buying this DLC though. So much time spent sitting completely still in photograph mode trying to take a stupid picture for these trophies haha

I personally didn't sit long in photo mode to take the required pix necessary to either advance the plot or obtain a trophy.

 

Where I did sit a while was during the Spinoraptor mission. Damn thing goes berserk nearly right out of the hatchery. Had to load up a previous save and when I made its enclosure, I triple fenced it in. Then, I had the helicopter hit it with an endless supply of darts while it ran on an endless supply of fuel and I manually drove a jeep around to constantly repair the fences it kept attacking while I slowly built up enough funds to unleash a modified Indominus Rex to kill it.

[SpursTrophies]

14 hours ago, Pirelli913 said:

I personally didn't sit long in photo mode to take the required pix necessary to either advance the plot or obtain a trophy.

 

Where I did sit a while was during the Spinoraptor mission. Damn thing goes berserk nearly right out of the hatchery. Had to load up a previous save and when I made its enclosure, I triple fenced it in. Then, I had the helicopter hit it with an endless supply of darts while it ran on an endless supply of fuel and I manually drove a jeep around to constantly repair the fences it kept attacking while I slowly built up enough funds to unleash a modified Indominus Rex to kill it.

hahaha yeah I had no idea what was coming so it broke out immediately and I had basically 0 money to do anything about it and wasnt gaining money since all my guests were in shelters.

Reloaded and waited until I had 10M in the bank before I actually released the Spinoraptor, then released a modified T-Rex to kill it. Once you know whats coming, its not too bad. My big complaint was just having to sit in the jeep staring at a dinosaur waiting for it to do something haha

[Spinosaurus Rex]

What worked for me in sub 3:00 medium difficulty challenge mode playthrough:

 

I've prepared 8-10 giganotosaurus with aggresive instincts modification which boosted one dinosaur rate to ~270. Then saved the game.

 

Released them at the same time, it has given me about 2200 - 2700 dinosaur rating boost. It was much more than I needed and even variety penalty wasn't enough to lower dinosaur rating below 5 stars. By the 2:45 time, you will have enough cash for this if park was run moderately properly.

 

The dinosaurs start to kill each other, but you will have good rating for about 3 minutes, it's time to improve guest facility rating. Remember where to place restaurants, shops etc, then reload the game because you probably won't manage to get 5 stars on first try.

 

After reloading, place facilities in proper places where you know guest boost will happen. Then after releasing giganotosaurus (or other dinosaur if you like) all the guest facilities will be filled instantly, just remember to make 5 people run every shop/restaurant. I received a transmission with congratulations for getting 5 stars as soon as I released last giganotosaurus.

[Pirelli913]

Another helpful tip for doing Challenge Mode on Jurassic Difficulty (IF you have any of the DLC packs and/or dinosaurs):

 

I've mentioned previously that early on when constructing your park, you really don't need to complete a ton of research. (Refer to previous posts in this thread on what to research.) However, only after you reach 2-3 stars, in the research area, you'll have a bunch of dinosaurs (mainly from the various DLCs) that you can unlock via additional research. Initially I said this was a waste to spend money on. It's a waste early on when you don't have Dig Yield equipped to your dig teams. Once you've researched Dig Yield, after you reach 2-3 stars, start researching new dinosaurs. Reason for this is that even if you don't use them, the Dig Yield bonus allows you to find extra minerals that can be sold. The two best ones are 320 K and 400 K and that's an insane amount of income on Jurassic Difficulty that will really help.