Winning Enclosures! Dinosaur Cohabitation Guide

Hey everyone! Are you struggling with the new social mechanics of Jurassic World Evolution 2? I did as well, which is why I have put together this guide for players to reference when constructing their dinosaurs homes. This guide aims to explain the new social mechanics, detail out each dinosaur specie's preferences/needs, and then provide a list of what are game winning enclosures! This will hopefully help you to design enclosures with multiple happy herbivore species.
I hope you enjoy this guide!

I will be sure to update this guide as I get more educated on the game. All the testing for this guide was done in Hard Challenge Mode or Sandbox Mode. If you have any tips/tricks please let me know so I can include them!

Introduction

Hello! Welcome to the guide!
What is this guide about?
This guide is all about the pesky new social mechanic that is having new or returning fans of the JWE game scratching their heads. It used to be that herbivores would all live in harmony, the only limit was the size of populations. Now you try to make a lovely enclosure full of diverse sauropod species and the dinosaurs become enraged! So what gives? I will try to help by explaining what I have learned through playing the game myself. All of the testing has been done (so far) in Hard Challenge mode. This guide is broken down into sections, which are summarized as: An overall explanation to the new social mechanics. A collection of charts depicting the social stats of each species, which are further broken down into; herbivores, carnivores, flyers, and marine species. Then finally a list of what combinations of species I love to use to maximize the number of dinosaurs in each enclosure.

Hopefully you find this guide helpful! Let's get into it!

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
There are many sites/guides that revolve around the same idea of trying to create good enclosures using the new social mechanics. I definitely want to be sure that you find what you are looking for, so I will be sharing links to other sources that have additional information. Enjoy! Happy park building!

-JWE2 Toolbox : Lists a lot of enclosure options.
PROS: It lists a wide range of enclosure ideas, easy to navigate (with pictures!), and includes the preferred food type.
CONS: Doesn't list enclosure size, doesn't include all species as it only details enclosures that would be smaller than 5,000 square meters (so I guess the only space indicator is that each enclosure is less than that), some of its enclosures don't work with species that are impossible to put together (flyers and carnivores) or species that will kill each other (pleisiosaurs and kronosaurs).
LINK: https://jwatoolbox.com/games/jurassic-world-evolution-2/enclosures


LINK TO GOOGLE DOC CHARTS
Sorry about the issues with the link.. I changed the settings so it should be anyone with the link can view. If you wish to edit then you can download the sheet yourself. This is the new link, please let me know if it works now!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14Gb84leKrQ_4COlTx1mZI1FoQJd4JJ20X32kWX0HtE0/edit?usp=sharing

Social Mechanics Explained

Social Mechanics

What are they! What is dinosaur comfort? And how do I know my dinosaur's social needs are met?

No worries! The new mechanics of your dinosaurs social needs can seem very daunting, as there is a lot more to keep track of. However, once you understand the basics, the rest will become very easy to understand. What are the basics?

To Summarize
Your dinosaurs each have a social need, which plays into their overall level of comfort. If you want your dinosaur to be comfortable, you will want to be sure their social needs are met. Every species has their own needs. The social need is broken up into:

• How many of its OWN kind does it need?
  
• How many of OTHER species can it tolerate?
  
• WHAT other species does it tolerate?

Keep in mind that when answering these question, part of the answer is determined by the size of the enclosure. A dinosaur may not tolerate as many other species if its enclosure is too small!
Before we get into explaining those aspects of the social need, we need to understand the fundamental difference between how the social need was determined in the first game and how it is determined now. That main difference is the introduction of the Territory mechanic.

Territory Explained
Your dinosaurs will now create a Territory within their enclosure. Territory is the space a dinosaur carves out for itself, once released each dinosaur will wander until they reach 100% comfort. At which point, the space highlighted by their territory is now, well, their territory. Unlike the first game where your dinosaur magically mapped out their entire enclosure at once, thus adjusting their comfort levels instantaneously, your dinosaurs now develope a territory within the enclosure. Essentially the dinosaur moves around within the confines of the enclosure until it is at 100% comfort. Once it is satisfied, its territory is complete. It is unlikely that a dinosaur will leave its territory once it is finished, allowing you the option of designing certain areas of an enclosure to cater to certain species. Sometimes their territory will also shrink, changing to only include the land needed to meet their needs. Cohabitation occurs when the bounds of these territories overlap, the area of a territory is highlighted when you look at a dinosaurs comfort stats as it walks around. Theoretically two dinosaurs that hate eachother, but have enough space to not have their territory overlap, should have no problem existing in the same enclosure. (In my experience this has never worked out. I tried to house Nasutoceratops and Pentaceratops together, their territories did not touch at all, and yet the alpha of my Nasutos would continue to stalk over to the territory of the Pentas to pick a fight.) Territory is the factor that encompasses all of the mechanics we are going to go over.

How many of its own kind does my dinosaur need/want?
This part is pretty self explanatory. It is exactly the same mechanic as the first game's Social stat for your dinosaur. Although in the second game, your dinosaurs are significantly more tolerant of large family sizes. Your dinosaur has a desired herd/pack (or flock or school) size. Some species, such as Homalocephale, desire a large herd size in order to be happy. Other species, such as Tylosaurus or Brachiosaurus, are just as happy being alone as they are in a small group of their own kind. And then further still, there are a few species that absolutely will NOT accept another or their own kind in their enclosure! (glares at Indominus) You can find out how many of its own kind a species wants by checking their comfort needs in the hatchery before you synthesize them. I will also list out the minimum population need for each species in the relevant tab.

How many other types of dinosaurs, other species, can my dinosaur tolerate in their territory?
This is very similar to the first game's Population mechanic, with the difference of it being determined by territory overlap rather than by how many different species are housed within an enclosure. What does this mean? A dinosaur that doesn't like a lot of other species CAN live in an enclosure with a bunch of other species IF its territory bounds don't overlap with the other territories. You can check the bounds of a dinosaurs territory by looking at its comfort needs while it is out in its enclosure. There is also a territory view in the viewport. You can see all the different territories, and where they overlap. Cohabitation is determined by the overlap. Every species can tolerate a certain percentage of cohabitation, an amount of their territory overlapped by another.

What other species get along with eachother?
This question is difficult. Over the game's updates the answer has changed. At first I thought there may be some simple rules to remember, but anything I come up with has multiple examples of exceptions. In general; A dinosaur will not tolerate another of the same species type. Carnivores and Herbivores do not coexist peacefully. Marine dinosaurs do not tolerate any other species. Compsagnathus gets along with everyone. Those are all generalizations! In the relevant tab I will list out what dinosaurs get along with eachother. Otherwise you really can't rely on any one rule, it is best to just read the details in-game to determine what the dinosaur can be housed with.

You may be asking, what is a species Type? That refers to the larger family of dinosaur that a species belongs to. Previously I mentioned Hadrosaur, Ornithomimid, etc. It's the same distinction as saying Canine or Feline. For example Dryosaurus and Gallimimus are separate species, but they are both Ornithomimids.

The last important thing to note about cohabitation is that technically there is a third option besides Liking or Disliking another species. A species can be Neutral to another. The difference is whether they will benefit from existing with another species type. If a dinosaur likes another species type, its comfort level will actively increase. If they dislike them, their comfort will actively decrease. If they are neutral, as in a type is not listed in Liked or Disliked, then nothing happens. The species still counts towards cohabitation, but it won't affect the other species mood. Going back to Nasutoceratops, it may like Nodosaurus and gain comfort from them, but Nodosaurus doesn't gain comfort from ceratopsids.

Overall, an enclosure with:

• One Sauropod species
  
• One Ornithomimid or Pachycephalid species
  
• One Hadrosuar species
  
• One Ceratopsid or Anklysaurid or Stegosaurid

Is going to be the best base for any enclosure setup.

Herbivore Stats

Preferred Foods and Social Needs of Herbivores

In this portion of the guide we will examine the different Herbivore Species enclosure needs. These charts were created with the goal of outlying which species would work best being enclosed with which other species. They do so by listing for each dinosaur: Preferred food, species, compatible species, and minimum population. I have not included info on Therizinosaurus, Indominus or Indoraptor, or Carnivores. I'm assuming that you are not going to try and house Herbivores and Carnivores together. I might make a mixed group section of the guide later on.

For food types the foods are divided into;

• Fiber (blue)
  
• Leaf (green)
  
• Fruit (pink)
  
• Nut (Yellow)

If a species prefers the food type listed, you will find a letter present in the column associated with that food type. The letter pertains to whether the food type they prefer is of the Tall type (shortened to T) or is of the Ground type (shortened to G). So for example, we can look at Gallimimus and see that in the green square for leaf there is a G, meaning that this species prefers to eat Ground Leaves.

Further to the right of the chart you will see the species dinosaur family listed. As mentioned, the dinosaur type is the overall family that the species belongs to. These families are;

• Sauropod (Shortened to SA)
  
• Anklyosaurid (Shortened to A)
  
• Ornithomimid (Shortened to O)
  
• Ceratopsid (Shortened to C)
  
• Stegosaurid (Shortened to ST)
  
• Hadrosaur (Shortened to H)
  
• Pachycephalid (Shortened to P)

You will see that there are columns for each of these types. For each species it is detailed whether the relationship is positive (represented by a dark green), neutral (light green), or negative (red). As an example, Nasutoceratops has light green squares in the SA column and the P column, which means they are neutral to Sauropods and Pachycephalids. It has a red square in S for Stegosaurids, and dark green squares in every other column. This means you absolutely should not house it with dinosaurs like Kentrosaurus or Stegosaurus, but it will be ok with anyone else, and it will actually benefit from dinosaurs like Struthiomimus or Edmontosaurus.

Below are the charts, these are just screenshots of the chart that I made. I provide a link to the Google Doc spreadsheet on the first page, so feel free to use it for yourself! I hope to update this spreadsheet as undoubtedly new species will be introduced.

Herbivore Compatibility Specifics

There are exceptions to every rule!
From this point I will list out which Herbivore dinosaurs have particular likes and dislikes. Sometimes a Herbivore will list that it doesn't like Ceratopsids, but it likes Triceratops. A dinosaur can have specific species that it wants or hates. The list will go in Alphabetical order and will only include dinosaurs who have these specific preferences. Please note that this list is NOT the only preferences of these dinosaurs! Please refer to my chart and then cross reference to this list to see why this list is necessary.

Apatosaurus-
Likes:
Brachiosaurus

Brachiosaurus-
Likes:
Apatosaurus
Camarasaurus

Camarasaurus-
Likes:
Brachiosaurus

Chasmosaurus-
Dislikes:
Pentaceratops
Nasutoceratops

Chungkingosaurus-
Likes:
Gigantspinosaurus

Gigantspinosaurus-
Likes:
Chungkingosaurus
Huayangosaurus

Huayangosaurus-
Likes:
Gigantspinosaurus

Nasutoceratops-
Dislikes:
Chasmosaurus
Pentaceratops

Pachyrinosaurus-
Dislikes:
Torosaurus
Sinoceratops

Pentaceratops-
Dislikes:
Chasmosaurus
Nasutoceratops

Sinoceratops-
Dislikes:
Triceratops
Styracosaurus
Torosaurus
Pachyrinosaurus

Styracosaurus-
Dislikes:
Triceratops
Torosaurus
Sinoceratops

Torosaurus-
Dislikes:
Triceratops
Styracosaurus
Sinoceratops
Pachyrinosaurus

Triceratops-
Dislikes:
Styracosaurus
Torosaurus
Sinoceratops

Carnivore Stats

Carnivore Food, Environment, and Social Preferences

This section of the guide is for listing out all the important stats of our Carnivores. The charts provided detail whether a carnivore species desires Rock or Sand in their enclosure, and then what food type is required for it to be comfortable. These charts are a lot simpler compared to the Herbivore charts.
In the chart is first listed the species of carnivore. Then there are colour coded columns;
Rock (purple)
Sand (yellow)
Meat (red)
Live Goat (green)
Fish (blue)

If a Y is present in the box, then that means that the species wants this in their enclosure. For example, Compsagnathus has a Y in both its sand and meat boxes. This means that Compsagnathus requires sand and a meat dispenser in its enclosure to be comfortable.
NOTE: Certain species can feed off of other feeders that are not given a Y in the box. This is due to the feeder not actually contributing to their comfort level. A Tyrannosaurus can eat from a meat dispenser, but in order to maintain its comfort it needs a live goat dispenser.

Below are the charts I created. I will try to keep them updated as new species are introduced. I also will include the link to the Google Doc chart in the Intro so you can feel free to use/edit as you wish!

Carnivore Compatibility Specifics

You may notice that in the Carnivore charts there is nothing to include what species are friendly to other species. This is due largely to the fact that in general, carnivores do NOT live peacefully with other carnivore species! Even if a species is listed as being "liked", they still can sometimes get into fights or even kill eachother. This section, exactly like the Herbivore section, will list out what Carnivores have specific species preferences. Unlike the Herbivore list, this one basically encompasses what you need to know about their likes and dislikes. Play it safe, don't house Carnivores together unless the game specifies that they like eachother.

Albertosaurus-
Likes:
Carnotaurus

Allosaurus-
Likes:
Ceratosaurus
Metriacanthosaurus

Baryonyx-
Likes:
Suchomimus

Carnotaurus-
Likes:
Majungasaurus
Albertosaurus

Ceratosaurus-
Likes:
Allosaurus

Compsagnathus- is a LOVELY BOY WHO LOVES EVERYONE

Indominus Rex-
Likes:
Velociraptor

Majungasaurus-
Likes:
Qianzhousaurus
Carnotaurus

Metricanthosaurus-
Likes:
Allosaurus

Qianzhousaurus-
Likes:
Majungasaurus

Suchomimus-
Likes:
Baryonyx

Velociraptor-
Likes:
Indominus Rex

Flyer Stats

Pterosaur's Statistics

For this portion of the guide we will take a look at our lovely new flying reptiles! The Pterosaurs are a new addition in the second game. They can only be made in an Aviary, and they require an Aviary in order to be safely housed. I would've said "in order to be comfortable", but if your Pterosaur manages to escape, it actually can find a suitable environment somewhere in your park and nest there. Of course they also will eat your smaller dinosaurs and your slower guests so probably best to keep them within an Aviary :)

Pterosaurs (and eventually marine reptiles) are even easier to keep happy. It seems the descending order is Herbivores being the most picky, then Carnivores being so-so, then Pterosaurs only really want one thing, and then lastly Marine Reptiles end up being the easiest to keep comfortable.
For the flyers they only have a few options of what they want to be comfortable (that is in addition to the open space, water, and fish that they all need); Rock, Sand, or Forest.

In the chart you will see the list of Pterosaur species currently known to be available for the game. I will be sure to update it as new species are introduced! Next to each species is a column for Rock (purple), Sand (yellow), and Forest (green). If the species requires the item mentioned in the column, then there will be a Y in the related box. For example, Tapejara has a Y in the green Forest box. This means that it requires Forest in its enclosure. You may notice that Maaradactylus is blank, it is blank because the species actually does not require any of the three options in order to be comfortable. It literally just wants water, fish, and open space.

Below is the chart I created in Google Docs. If you want to use the chart for yourself there is a link to it in the Intro of this guide. Feel free to use it as you'd like!

Flyer Compatibility Specifics

This is going to list out the Flyers' preferences to other flying species, similar to the sections on Herbivore and Carnivore specifics. Flyers are much simpler, they do not have preferences outside of what is listed here.

Barbaridactylus-
Likes:
Quetzalcoatlus

Cearadactylus-
Likes:
Quetzalcoatlus

Dimorphodon-
Likes:
Quetzalcoatlus

Geoseternbergia-
Likes:
Pterandadon
Tropeognathus

Quetzalcoatlus-
Likes:
Dimorphodon
Tapejara
Cearadactylus

Tapejara-
Likes:
Quetzalcoatlus
Dislikes:
Tropeognathus

Tropeognathus-
Dislikes:
Tapejara


With these preferences in mind you come to realize that yes, you can house any flyers together except for Tapejara and Tropeognathus. Also Quetzal is best boy fight me.

Marine Stats

Marine Reptile Needs

Lastly for the stats section of the guide we will take a gander at our Marine Reptiles. Marine animals are also a new addition to our parks. They can only be made inside a Lagoon, and they require Lagoons in order to be housed safely and comfortably. Easily these are the quickest to cover, so let's get right to it!

To understand the Lagoons, let's just quick run-through these things.
Lagoons require a LOT of space. Even the smallest species, Ichthysaurus, needs at least 3 lagoons to have enough space. And every other species is significantly larger than they are. For comparison, my Tylosaurus was not satisfied until he had 7 lagoons all to himself the selfish bugger. The marine species have weird social preferences, as it isn't determined by species but rather by size. I'll go over it in the following section.

Lastly, there aren't any environmental factors beyond;
Open Space
and... drumroll...
Food!

That's literally it. As long as you have about 8 Lagoons together with a few fish feeders, it should be able to house almost any of the marine species available to you. So enjoy! Again, a link to it is available in the Intro section of the guide. Feel free to use as you'd like!

Marine Compatibility Specifics

As I said, Marine Reptiles have their social preferences based off of size. So let us first list out what species are what size. Note: you can filter in the hatchery to see sizes as well.

Small Size:
Ichthyosaurus
Plesiosaurus

Medium Size:
Attenborosaurus
Elasmosaurus
Liopleurodon
Styxosaurus

Large Size:
Kronosaurus
Mosasaurus
Tylosaurus

Now that we know what size our friends are, we can go over the likes and dislikes of each of them. In my testing it seems that any Marine species is capable of starting fights and killing other dinosaurs if their comfort level is too low. So keep this in mind while designing enclosures. I also tested the limitations of the preferences, would a species kill another even if it is under the "Liked" category? From what I can tell, no but there are exceptions. I made an enclosure with Ichthy, Atten, and Krono. Everyone got along, no one ate anyone else. But despite saying that Atten is ok with Large species, the Atten was hunted by a Mosa. It might be that just Mosa will eat everyone? The loch ness monster friends in general get along with Ichthy (except Plesiosaurus), but you take a risk with large species.

Attenborosaurus-
Likes:
Small
Dilikes:
Medium

Elasmosaurus-
Likes:
Small
Dislikes:
Medium

Ichythyosaurus-
Dislikes:
Small

Kronosaurus-
Likes:
Small
Dislikes:
Large

Liopleurodon-
Likes:
Small
Dislikes:
Tylosaurus
Medium

Mosasaurus-
Likes:
Small
Dislikes:
Large

Plesiosaurus-
Dislikes:
Small

Styxosaurus-
Likes:
Small
Dislikes:
Large

Tylosaurus-
Likes:
Small
Dislikes:
Liopleurodon
Large

Conclusion

Thank you for reading through the guide! I hope that it has been helpful to you as you go and make your own park!

This has been one of the toughest guides for me to make, I have been losing my mind trying to keep up with every little DLC they put out. (I simply don't have the money to keep up with everything they release ;-; )

For future reference any dinosaur that is missing should be applicable to the general rules of this guide, and in-game you should be able to find it's details.

Thank you to everyone who has supported this guide!

Q/A

This section is dedicated to answering/addressing some of the lovely comments that I've gotten after making this guide.
First I'd like to say thank you all who have given this guide any attention. You are all very lovely, and know that even if I haven't called out your comment specifically, I have read it and enjoyed each and every one.

apophenia commented:
Nice write-up.
You should check out a website called JWE2 Toolbox. It lists many enclosures too.

Thanks! Yes everyone should use this tool, it is very cool and useful. They then asked -

What if I put more dinos of one same species into an enclosure. Will space requirements increase? If yes, by how much?

I'm guessing by "same species" you mean two dinosaurs that are the same species and not species type. Like two Gallimimus. Yes, space requirements scale with how many dinosaurs are in the enclosure, as do other needs like water and food. The same can be said for any increase in number of dinosaurs in the enclosure.

Humanimal commented:
Steam blocks the link to the Google-document. How do we fix that?

then
Darcie_1466 answered:
Just copy and paste into your browser

I'm glad to see when people work together in situations like this. The google doc should have permissions for anyone with the link, so just copying the link into google should work.

Godrik Underscore commented:
When you say eg, One Sauropod/ One Hadrosaur do you literally mean a single animal or do you mean a group each?

I mean one species, a group of them each :)


Ichthyovenator commented many good points:

Thank you for your feedback Ichthy, I've added sections to the guide that outline what species like other ones.

SteveSwann commented:
thank you :steamthumbsup:

:)

|iG| Vertigo commented many good points:

Thank you for your interest in the guide, I've done my best to address your points by making changes to the contents.

ShadowPrometheus commented:
You should make more guides, they're very handy! Keep up the good work!

Thank you for your kind words! I make guides because I like it and I enjoy helping other people.

Reddie Systeem commented:
Hey there, thank you for all the details on what the dinosaurs need. However the Winning Enclosures section looks a bit empty, was this always the case?

Thanks! Yeah idk, I made those sections with the intention of trying to come up with the best options for mid-maxing enclosures, but as I played it got more and more complicated to the point that nothing I wrote stayed relevant. Essentially the best winning enclosures are the ones you fill with your favorite dinosaurs, the game is pretty generous. Just have fun!

[Kotori]

Try the website Paleo.gg

[angry scorpion]

i jest use fake trees and other fake plants to be the forest thay need

[chris_mingus]

Scorpios Rex preferring packs of three is kind of funny considering two Scorpios couldn't even get along with each other in the cartoon.

[Hauw2x]

How do i get a tylosaur or mosasaur that is not aggresive? If anyone can give a tip it would be very helpful!

[TheOofertaffy]

Will this guide get updated to include the additions of the most recent DLC, more specifically for me the Megalodon?

[Darkwing Phoenix]

Part THREE:

Therizinosaurus likes Lystrosaurus, but Lystros dislikes Therizinosaurus. Doubt much will happen tho.

Dr Wu Hybrids vary, but Spinoceratops cohabits with Stegosaurus and Triceratops fine; Ankylodus works with Diplodocus, Ankylosaurus, and Alamosaurus; Indoraptor and Scorpios hate everyone, and most species dislike Dr Wu hybrids beyond one specific species. Check the species for more info.

Most species also hate the I Rex, Indoraptor, and Scorpios on principle, beyond Velociraptors and Spinoraptors with the I Rex.

[Darkwing Phoenix]

Part Two since it was too long?:

-Carnivores: Rocks from the Rocks tab can work for Rock needs as well as the Rock terrain brush. Works with flyers as well. Spinoraptor like Velociraptor and Indominus, and needs Meat and Fish and otherwise has the same basic needs. Flyers will also use rocks as perches if big rocks are in the enclosure (They'll take any perch they can get, TBH. Haven't baited any into escapes, but I wouldn't be shocked if they'd use fences and buildings if they escaped)

-Other: Most animals dislike all Dr Wu Hybrids (I Rex, Indoraptor, etc), except for the aforementioned Spinoraptor, Stegoceratops will cohab fine with Stegos or Trikes, Ankylodus does fine with a few specific species of sauropod (Alamosaurus and Diplodocus off the top of my head) and Ankylosaurus, Indoraptor and Scorpios hate everyone, and so on.

[Darkwing Phoenix]

Notes for newer DLC species:

-Aquatic: Nothosaurus and Archelon both need an item called Platform, which is found under the Big Ole Rocks tab in Environments (Not called that, but all the rocks). Slap a few down and they're happy as clams! Other species don't mind the platforms at all. I tend to make absolutely massive Lagoons anyhow (A "small" Lagoon to me is at least 12 pieces and loaded up with a million Fish Feeders and a handful of Shark Feeders and some Platforms for Nothos and Archies).

-Flying: A newer species, Jeholopterus, can only eat Insects, but doesn't mind other species of flyers. Pop a few Insect Feeders down, throw some Sand in (They prefer sand), and your flying potatoes are snug as bugs in rugs! Another species, Barbaridactylus, likes the Quetzalcoatlus, and the feeling is mutual. And while none need them, not one pterosaur turns their snout up at some Aviary Perches, and Jeholopterus and Dimorphodons will regularly use Viewing Galleries as perches.

[Higklif]

Thanks this is very helpful

[Reddie Systeem]

Hey there, thank you for all the details on what the dinosaurs need. However the Winning Enclosures section looks a bit empty, was this always the case?