Quoted from purbeast:So not to be a dick, but that didn't clear anything up for me really.
I am talking about the challenge (competition mode - guess I didn't make it that clear) mode only with randomness turned off. So capturing dinosaurs isn't even in the picture when doing this since I didn't capture anything going straight into the challenge mode. So do you know why sometimes it would make me set traps and not others?
Additionally, you didn't really mention anything about how sometimes I get to the second paddock to escape and I have 4-5 rescues to make before progression, and sometimes I have 2-3 rescues to make before the next progression. It even happens when I have the jeep pointed the same direction when it happens sometimes.
It also doesn't take you always on the sides of the map with the shortest route. You can traverse through the middle too if you start flipping the car. I try to make sure to have it set the same way each time I progress though to take the shortest route but still haven't made it out.
All good, it's kind of confusing. Capturing dinos is always part of escape nublar whether you played through the game or are playing the challenge. Take a closer look when you start playing the escape nublar challenge and see if one side of paddsocks are fully lit. It has to simulate that you got to visitors center just as you would in a regular game because the mode relies on the fact you made it there. The side that it sets you up with is based on the way the truck is facing when you start it. Once you're in the mode however you can traverse to any of the paddocks on the way back. So yes, you can go to the trex, spinosaurus, and spitter paddocks during escape nublar, but they won't have been previously visited because the game sets you up with the shortest path on either side (again, based on the truck position when you started the challenge mode). This is definitely the reason you're seeing the set trap sometimes and not other times, because you will need to capture the dinos in paddocks you haven't already.
For example, if the truck is facing left, then it will set you up as if you captured all the dinos going up the left side of the island, so it will act like you have the pteradon captured. If you go to the pteradon paddock from the vitiors center you will not need to capture them because you already do. If you had gone to the raptor paddock instead you would need to capture it because you hadn't done it yet (since you had the left side lit up from the start). Maybe this makes more sense. Basically when you play the challenge the game has to simulate that you reached the visitors center because the gameplay directly involves going back through the island.
Also, the number of rescues is related to this. There will be more rescues to get on paddocks where you did not capture the dino already. So in our example above, the pteradon paddock will have fewer rescues to collect than if you went to the raptor paddock because you already have the pteradon and not the raptors.
This is also why you may be a bit confused with seeing different results when going the same way. If you start the challenge with the truck facing right, you will have all the dinos on the right side, which then makes the pteradon paddock have more rescues and the capture phase, while the raptors are already captured and so you need fewer rescues, and no capture sequence.
Hopefully this clears things up better.