I got a suggestion for "better selection of tall trees", now thats rather vague so does anyone have any favourite tall trees that they want to see?
Someone better say california palm tree
Someone better say california palm tree
PZ2 Features Meta-wishlist
- Thread starter Captain Callum
- Start date
California palm tree and taller date palm trees (the ones we have are extremely short, their leaves almost touch the ground)
Idk if anyone said it yet but scheduling exhibits to be rotational, and animals becoming enriched by whatever was previously in the habitat 
Wishlist updated!
I am advising everyone to go back to the first post, especially the members that regularly return and +1 lots of suggestions, as I have written up some more guidelines for the meta-wishlist to try and prevent duplication votes. As I was tallying up the last few posts, I knew I was running into duplicates for popular suggestions, I'll let it slide this time but I do not want to do this everytime.
So the wishlist has reached 248 suggestions in under 2 weeks, this is by far more popular than my free update meta-wishlist which took months to reach the same stage. So far, the top 5 suggestions are:
I am advising everyone to go back to the first post, especially the members that regularly return and +1 lots of suggestions, as I have written up some more guidelines for the meta-wishlist to try and prevent duplication votes. As I was tallying up the last few posts, I knew I was running into duplicates for popular suggestions, I'll let it slide this time but I do not want to do this everytime.
So the wishlist has reached 248 suggestions in under 2 weeks, this is by far more popular than my free update meta-wishlist which took months to reach the same stage. So far, the top 5 suggestions are:
- Aviaries - 23 votes
- Exhibit Reworks - 23 votes
- New Planet Coaster 2 Features - 22 votes
- Aquariums - 16 votes
- Gamification - 13 votes
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I'd like to have the following options
For the monorail ride...
A redo of exhibit animals. Perhaps little .5m boxes that can be placed. This can even open the door for things like mice.
Continuing off of this, since many of these animals irl can't be kept with others, an exhibit animal/reptile breeding facility could be a new kind of building to help with breeding your species and keeping the babies which can be traded immediately for most reptiles.
Re-doing many of the animals in animation and especially models.
Giving us the ability to make procedural mesh tops for exhibits for things like felids and primates. Maybe we can choose the central poles, the strings it goes along, and then the tightness of the mesh itself. Anything so that I don't have to build a mesh topped enclosure piece by piece or only of square pieces because otherwise it looks boring
The ability to place ropes and vines on two points of contact simply by clicking on them. This would make placing them so much easier, especially for building a big jungle gym for monkeys.
More consistent seasons and seasonal animal variation
Population management
Model variants
More enrichment
Custom decals
Ontogeny
For the monorail ride...
- The ability to make a multi-car train
- Make 1 side the exit and the other side for viewing like the Bronx Zoo and the former Dallas Zoo monorails. This means that everyone gets to see everything without having to look over anyone's shoulder or turn their necks.
- The ability to have an audio track of your choice for all the different parts. Markers can be placed on the track to start and finish different audio clips. Someone can even narrate their own tour
- Controlling how fast the train goes along different parts of the track
A redo of exhibit animals. Perhaps little .5m boxes that can be placed. This can even open the door for things like mice.
Continuing off of this, since many of these animals irl can't be kept with others, an exhibit animal/reptile breeding facility could be a new kind of building to help with breeding your species and keeping the babies which can be traded immediately for most reptiles.
Re-doing many of the animals in animation and especially models.
Giving us the ability to make procedural mesh tops for exhibits for things like felids and primates. Maybe we can choose the central poles, the strings it goes along, and then the tightness of the mesh itself. Anything so that I don't have to build a mesh topped enclosure piece by piece or only of square pieces because otherwise it looks boring
The ability to place ropes and vines on two points of contact simply by clicking on them. This would make placing them so much easier, especially for building a big jungle gym for monkeys.
More consistent seasons and seasonal animal variation
Population management
Model variants
More enrichment
Custom decals
Ontogeny
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One thing I'd like is for them to do away with the globe for zoo selection. Just provide a selection of maps, both flat and featureless and terrain modified and challenging, in the available biomes, and let the player decide where the zoo is located. That way we'll avoid all the issues with the biomes being incorrect in certain places and so on.
To add on to this, I’d like to see more realistic biomes, for example, Florida should have barley if any snow.
Current standing for my wish-list as of today
If there are any edits to older posts, do mention what they are as I don't look back at older posts. I think the hybridisation is definitely a new suggestion.
It is, unfortunately I can't recall which additions were added when. I really wish the forums had a feature where you could check the editing history of a post...
Ideally "Florida" wouldn't even exist, is what I'm saying.
You'd pick a map that best represents it and just pretend it's Florida. That said, I'd also like to be able to customise climate parameters in sandbox maps, such as what weather patterns appear, what temperatures can be reached, and so on. So for example, you could pick a temperate map as a base, customise it to Florida's temperatures, turn off snow, and then build.
After a lot of delaying and procrastination I have finally come around doing one of these. On a plus side, many members came up with great ideas before me, that I might've forgotten if I made the list before.
First thing first aviaries, aquariums and exhibits
Free flight - I want out big flying animals to have completely free flight mechanic. To fly same way land animals walk. No enrichment "patching", no loops. This goes only for big habitat birds that would fly (I guess that would be mostly raptors, but there are others). I expect smaller birds that flock to be in WE.
Full customizable aviaries - I would be more open for compromises if we got aviaries in first game, but if we're waiting for sequel, I want completely customizable aviaries, in a same ways habitats are. Give us all building pieces necessary (mesh roofs and stuff) to create aviaries however we wish. This again only stands for big flying birds that would be habitat animals and would be capable of free flight.
WE Aviaries/WE rework - Walkthrough exhibits, in concept, are mostly fine as they are. I expect smaller birds that are kept in big numbers (or could be kept in big numbers) to be Exhibit animals, because otherwise I imagine managing them would be hell. As far as WEs go, I want to see more creativity: more shapes, more sizes (we need smaller ones) and most importantly WEs that aren't Walkthrough, a simple small aviary cage, like in many zoos.
Habitat Tanks - Similar to habitat aviaries, full customizable tanks that we can freely craft. This shouldn't be too big of an issue, Zoo Tycoon games already had good idea, just take that system and upgrade it.
Hybrid Tanks - Speaking of Zoo Tycoon, let us hybridize tanks with regular habitats. I mean, technically we already have this in PZ, but this is just a "precaution" wish, because I can imagine them giving us tanks as separate systems to habitats, and I want to mix my penguins and seals with fully aquatic animals.
Touch Pools - This could be a new form of exhibit, with looped animations and added option for guests to interact with it. This is for those smaller life forms, that might not be "attractive" enough for exhibits and habitats. Also I'm aware of some controversies regarding touch pools, so they don't have to be interactable or can have glass "roofs" if that becomes an issue
Exhibit Aquariums - Smaller aquariums that work the same way exhibit boxes do. For small schooling fish, eels, crabs, octopuses, seahorses.... It would need an update that would let exhibit species be mixed if they are compactible. Also different sizes and shapes of aquariums, speaking of which:
Exhibit box rework - Pretty straightforward, either let us crate it modularly, or give us more sizes and shapes to work with. Also like aquariums, make certain species able to share exhibits.
Now onto the animal models and selection
Model rework of base and early DLC animals - Another straight forward one, Frontier can make banger animals, which later DLCs show, so base game and animals from earlier DLCs should also get some love. Most pressing examples for me would be: Lion, Brown Bears, Grey Wolf, Giant Tortoises, Saltwater Croc, Jaguar, some Antelopes...
Animal Model variations - Same as colors and patterns, let animals with noticeable physical traits such as horns, antlers, tusks, manes, tails etc, have variety in how they look. Variation in shape an size of antlers and horns, also more visual damage such as broken horns and tusks, or even missing ones. That would lend some more soul to specific animals
Sandbox animal selector - In a spirit of the way sandbox is imagine to work, let us min/max or craft animals to our liking. Let us pick exact colors, patterns, scars, age, size, aforementioned model quirks...That thing leaf uses to show off mods looks like step in right direction.
Subspecies menu - Zoo Tycoon for Xbox had it, PK has it, maybe sort of drop down menu when species are selected where you would choose exact subspecies to your liking. Maybe it wouldn't be necessary to do this for every single animal in game, but definitely for those that are famous and wanted enough. This way subspecies don't take up space on animal list, and maybe further down the road future DLCs could have dedicated "subspecies/variation" slot in them, like exhibits, so they also don't take up space in paid content, yet deliver for those that need them.
New sandbox animal picker UI - I guess this can still go in this theme, but I feel like it would be necessary if they gave us animal selector. Let us have clearer animal list with more filters. Further let us just pick animals directly from that list and put them in habitats like in Zoo Tycoon. This of course would be Sandbox exclusive. Trade and Animal Market should still be a thing, cause it goes really well with the whole idea of Franchise mode.
Now I feel like this naturally leans to previous topic, and so far I haven't seen this mentioned that often or at all (sorry if you did and I missed it). That's why these next few ones might be controversial. This is about vibe, looks and general goofy-ness.
No more zookeepers moving animals - This again continues from new UI and Sandbox selector, with how we put animals in habitats. But I would also like some reworks on this even in Franchise. I don't have actual solution to how animal brought in market should be moved to its habitat, but I can't stand bouncing zookeepers and those goofy boxes. Some more realistic option would be proffered (by me).
No more moving in boxes/no more confetti - This sounds like something really minor, but for me how game looks is really important, and this can clash with how habitat and animals look. Also I loove spending hours setting up cinematic camera shots and perfect screenshots in my parks. I would love to be able to move animals freely, without aforementioned stuff that usually ruin my shots. If animals is in middle of an animation, just cancel it after game is un-paused like in ZT2
Update to staff and visitors - Give us people that match the looks of rest of the game. If it's too difficult to incorporate realistic humans, just do it line in JWE. They don't have to be high resolutions, they just need to not stand out. Then maybe I'll start letting guests in my parks for first time.
Visitor density - While I'm on the topic of visitors, maybe give us sliders to control density/or number of visitors in our parks (again at least in Sandbox, I understand that players that like challenges and franchise would find this cheating) so we can let out game breathe a little.
Moving along to animal behavior.
Herding and pack behavior - Self explanatory, make animals that naturally live in big groups show that in game, rather than move each on their own in all directions. Further down the line I'll ask for animal personalities, so in that spirit we may have something like "Rebellious" personality that would let naturally pack/herd animal to purposefully split off to do its own thing.
Offspring behavior overhaul - Animal cubs should act more like it, rather than independent individuals. This could be done with new animations such as nursing and carrying babies. Babies should follow their parents way more and sleep next to them. Of course every now and then they should go on their own to play and explore, but mostly they should be by their parents side.
Animal personalities - Along with model variations, this would further help with making each and every animal stand out and feel unique. There should be a pool of personalities that animals randomly acquire when they're bought or reach maturity. These personalities would dictate the behavior of animal and how it interact with environment, other animals, keepers and guests. Many before me listed bunch of different examples for what kind of personalities we could get, so to not make this list longer than it needs to be, I'll not repeat them here.
Interspecies interactions - Different species can already hunt each other so expand on that. I understand it would be a bit of a daunting task to come up with unique interactions for every animal, so maybe reserve unique animations only for animal that have interspecies enrichment with each other, and for others have a pool of generic animations, just to have something, even acknowledging/noticing other species would do for some of them.
Slow animals down - Someone else mentioned exactly this, but animals don't have to run all the time, let them walk more, add random sitting or standing.
Hitboxes fix - This is not animal behavior, but fixing it would "let" animals express themselves more. Fix what is possible on the animal side, (especially smaller animals) but also, someone had great idea, to be able to "turn off" hitboxes from certain scenery and decorative pieces. Now I don't want this to be black and white, so animals walk through walls, but some poles, ropes and stuff that wouldn't stand in a way of animals irl should have "toggle-able" hitboxes.
Now for objects, scenery and vehicles
Sign diversity and uniformity - More sign styles and designs are always welcome, but also there should be one uniformed style (like the ones we keep getting in later DLCs) that covers every animal in game so we can have consistent decorations throughout our parks. So not one or the other, but both different styles, and one uniformed style.
Sign transparency - One great idea I saw here, pretty basic, but let us change transparency of sings, so we can plaster them on walls like drawings
Playgrounds - Self explanatory, Zoo Tycoons had them shouldn't be that big of a deal to make
More educational scenery/Museum building pieces - This of course could be DLC stuff, but it wouldn't hurt to start it off in base game, and only add to it through paid content. As I said in some post where I talked about Museum DLC, I think we need more ways to fill our parks that aren't animal habitats. We already have restaurants, playgrounds would be move in the right direction, museums fit that niche. Here I'm talking about antlers, horns, skulls, skeletons, fossils, taxidermy, eggs, shells...
Crocodile hanging feeder - One very random idea that I forgot I asked for even before PZ base game released. Give us aquatic hanging feeders for crocodiles, maybe scaled down version of what they have in JWE. ZT2 mod crocodilia had it hanging from a buoy.
Rideable vehicles - At the very least that cart from ZT Xbox. But I also would love Jeeps and even Helicopters from JWE. I understand they wouldn't work in modern zoos, but since PZ lets us make huge parks with vast habitats, checking on your animals in those would be really fun
And other is just general gameplay stuff, I kinda spent a lot of time and attention writing all of this up, so this last one will be quickfire, and it honestly doesn't need much describing
+1 for Slower passing of time and realistic seasons patterns
+1 for easier and/or more flexible path system
+1 for scaling and resizing of objects (and maybe some plants)
and lastly +1 for City Zoo Map
First thing first aviaries, aquariums and exhibits
Free flight - I want out big flying animals to have completely free flight mechanic. To fly same way land animals walk. No enrichment "patching", no loops. This goes only for big habitat birds that would fly (I guess that would be mostly raptors, but there are others). I expect smaller birds that flock to be in WE.
Full customizable aviaries - I would be more open for compromises if we got aviaries in first game, but if we're waiting for sequel, I want completely customizable aviaries, in a same ways habitats are. Give us all building pieces necessary (mesh roofs and stuff) to create aviaries however we wish. This again only stands for big flying birds that would be habitat animals and would be capable of free flight.
WE Aviaries/WE rework - Walkthrough exhibits, in concept, are mostly fine as they are. I expect smaller birds that are kept in big numbers (or could be kept in big numbers) to be Exhibit animals, because otherwise I imagine managing them would be hell. As far as WEs go, I want to see more creativity: more shapes, more sizes (we need smaller ones) and most importantly WEs that aren't Walkthrough, a simple small aviary cage, like in many zoos.
Habitat Tanks - Similar to habitat aviaries, full customizable tanks that we can freely craft. This shouldn't be too big of an issue, Zoo Tycoon games already had good idea, just take that system and upgrade it.
Hybrid Tanks - Speaking of Zoo Tycoon, let us hybridize tanks with regular habitats. I mean, technically we already have this in PZ, but this is just a "precaution" wish, because I can imagine them giving us tanks as separate systems to habitats, and I want to mix my penguins and seals with fully aquatic animals.
Touch Pools - This could be a new form of exhibit, with looped animations and added option for guests to interact with it. This is for those smaller life forms, that might not be "attractive" enough for exhibits and habitats. Also I'm aware of some controversies regarding touch pools, so they don't have to be interactable or can have glass "roofs" if that becomes an issue
Exhibit Aquariums - Smaller aquariums that work the same way exhibit boxes do. For small schooling fish, eels, crabs, octopuses, seahorses.... It would need an update that would let exhibit species be mixed if they are compactible. Also different sizes and shapes of aquariums, speaking of which:
Exhibit box rework - Pretty straightforward, either let us crate it modularly, or give us more sizes and shapes to work with. Also like aquariums, make certain species able to share exhibits.
Now onto the animal models and selection
Model rework of base and early DLC animals - Another straight forward one, Frontier can make banger animals, which later DLCs show, so base game and animals from earlier DLCs should also get some love. Most pressing examples for me would be: Lion, Brown Bears, Grey Wolf, Giant Tortoises, Saltwater Croc, Jaguar, some Antelopes...
Animal Model variations - Same as colors and patterns, let animals with noticeable physical traits such as horns, antlers, tusks, manes, tails etc, have variety in how they look. Variation in shape an size of antlers and horns, also more visual damage such as broken horns and tusks, or even missing ones. That would lend some more soul to specific animals
Sandbox animal selector - In a spirit of the way sandbox is imagine to work, let us min/max or craft animals to our liking. Let us pick exact colors, patterns, scars, age, size, aforementioned model quirks...That thing leaf uses to show off mods looks like step in right direction.
Subspecies menu - Zoo Tycoon for Xbox had it, PK has it, maybe sort of drop down menu when species are selected where you would choose exact subspecies to your liking. Maybe it wouldn't be necessary to do this for every single animal in game, but definitely for those that are famous and wanted enough. This way subspecies don't take up space on animal list, and maybe further down the road future DLCs could have dedicated "subspecies/variation" slot in them, like exhibits, so they also don't take up space in paid content, yet deliver for those that need them.
New sandbox animal picker UI - I guess this can still go in this theme, but I feel like it would be necessary if they gave us animal selector. Let us have clearer animal list with more filters. Further let us just pick animals directly from that list and put them in habitats like in Zoo Tycoon. This of course would be Sandbox exclusive. Trade and Animal Market should still be a thing, cause it goes really well with the whole idea of Franchise mode.
Now I feel like this naturally leans to previous topic, and so far I haven't seen this mentioned that often or at all (sorry if you did and I missed it). That's why these next few ones might be controversial. This is about vibe, looks and general goofy-ness.
No more zookeepers moving animals - This again continues from new UI and Sandbox selector, with how we put animals in habitats. But I would also like some reworks on this even in Franchise. I don't have actual solution to how animal brought in market should be moved to its habitat, but I can't stand bouncing zookeepers and those goofy boxes. Some more realistic option would be proffered (by me).
No more moving in boxes/no more confetti - This sounds like something really minor, but for me how game looks is really important, and this can clash with how habitat and animals look. Also I loove spending hours setting up cinematic camera shots and perfect screenshots in my parks. I would love to be able to move animals freely, without aforementioned stuff that usually ruin my shots. If animals is in middle of an animation, just cancel it after game is un-paused like in ZT2
Update to staff and visitors - Give us people that match the looks of rest of the game. If it's too difficult to incorporate realistic humans, just do it line in JWE. They don't have to be high resolutions, they just need to not stand out. Then maybe I'll start letting guests in my parks for first time.
Visitor density - While I'm on the topic of visitors, maybe give us sliders to control density/or number of visitors in our parks (again at least in Sandbox, I understand that players that like challenges and franchise would find this cheating) so we can let out game breathe a little.
Moving along to animal behavior.
Herding and pack behavior - Self explanatory, make animals that naturally live in big groups show that in game, rather than move each on their own in all directions. Further down the line I'll ask for animal personalities, so in that spirit we may have something like "Rebellious" personality that would let naturally pack/herd animal to purposefully split off to do its own thing.
Offspring behavior overhaul - Animal cubs should act more like it, rather than independent individuals. This could be done with new animations such as nursing and carrying babies. Babies should follow their parents way more and sleep next to them. Of course every now and then they should go on their own to play and explore, but mostly they should be by their parents side.
Animal personalities - Along with model variations, this would further help with making each and every animal stand out and feel unique. There should be a pool of personalities that animals randomly acquire when they're bought or reach maturity. These personalities would dictate the behavior of animal and how it interact with environment, other animals, keepers and guests. Many before me listed bunch of different examples for what kind of personalities we could get, so to not make this list longer than it needs to be, I'll not repeat them here.
Interspecies interactions - Different species can already hunt each other so expand on that. I understand it would be a bit of a daunting task to come up with unique interactions for every animal, so maybe reserve unique animations only for animal that have interspecies enrichment with each other, and for others have a pool of generic animations, just to have something, even acknowledging/noticing other species would do for some of them.
Slow animals down - Someone else mentioned exactly this, but animals don't have to run all the time, let them walk more, add random sitting or standing.
Hitboxes fix - This is not animal behavior, but fixing it would "let" animals express themselves more. Fix what is possible on the animal side, (especially smaller animals) but also, someone had great idea, to be able to "turn off" hitboxes from certain scenery and decorative pieces. Now I don't want this to be black and white, so animals walk through walls, but some poles, ropes and stuff that wouldn't stand in a way of animals irl should have "toggle-able" hitboxes.
Now for objects, scenery and vehicles
Sign diversity and uniformity - More sign styles and designs are always welcome, but also there should be one uniformed style (like the ones we keep getting in later DLCs) that covers every animal in game so we can have consistent decorations throughout our parks. So not one or the other, but both different styles, and one uniformed style.
Sign transparency - One great idea I saw here, pretty basic, but let us change transparency of sings, so we can plaster them on walls like drawings
Playgrounds - Self explanatory, Zoo Tycoons had them shouldn't be that big of a deal to make
More educational scenery/Museum building pieces - This of course could be DLC stuff, but it wouldn't hurt to start it off in base game, and only add to it through paid content. As I said in some post where I talked about Museum DLC, I think we need more ways to fill our parks that aren't animal habitats. We already have restaurants, playgrounds would be move in the right direction, museums fit that niche. Here I'm talking about antlers, horns, skulls, skeletons, fossils, taxidermy, eggs, shells...
Crocodile hanging feeder - One very random idea that I forgot I asked for even before PZ base game released. Give us aquatic hanging feeders for crocodiles, maybe scaled down version of what they have in JWE. ZT2 mod crocodilia had it hanging from a buoy.
Rideable vehicles - At the very least that cart from ZT Xbox. But I also would love Jeeps and even Helicopters from JWE. I understand they wouldn't work in modern zoos, but since PZ lets us make huge parks with vast habitats, checking on your animals in those would be really fun
And other is just general gameplay stuff, I kinda spent a lot of time and attention writing all of this up, so this last one will be quickfire, and it honestly doesn't need much describing
+1 for Slower passing of time and realistic seasons patterns
+1 for easier and/or more flexible path system
+1 for scaling and resizing of objects (and maybe some plants)
and lastly +1 for City Zoo Map
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I want to add on to the aquariums that there should be touch tanks like the ray touch tanks you find at zoo Tampa and SeaWorld
They should be fully customizable and similar to “walkthrough habitats” where there’s guest interaction with the rays/ animals and all you have to do is have a compatible species and lower the tank wall
They should be fully customizable and similar to “walkthrough habitats” where there’s guest interaction with the rays/ animals and all you have to do is have a compatible species and lower the tank wall
+1 to thisIdk if anyone said it yet but scheduling exhibits to be rotational, and animals becoming enriched by whatever was previously in the habitat
This would be so cool. +1.Idk if anyone said it yet but scheduling exhibits to be rotational, and animals becoming enriched by whatever was previously in the habitat
Does anyone want to write up a detailed post or separate thread about all the types of features aviaries and aquariums could offer like with pictures and stuff? A lot of the good suggestions are really spread out across the 9 pages and I can't link to more than one post realistically. Entirely optional of course.
+1Idk if anyone said it yet but scheduling exhibits to be rotational, and animals becoming enriched by whatever was previously in the habitat
Another random thing I thought of today - can we do away with zookeepers actually needing to enter the habitat?
I think one of the big issues with climbing animals is the fact that most of their enrichment, aside from the climbing equipment itself, and feeders are ground-based, because keepers can't reach anything placed high up unless you add janky ramps to things. IMO this is kind of stupid. I'd like to be able to place hanging feeders in trees or on the tops of platforms to encourage climbing animals to, you know, spend most of their time climbing (in the case of truly arboreal species - koalas, gibbons, binturong and the like). I think that if they weren't coming down for food, then it might help the algorithm keep them in the trees.
Or if that's not the solution, there needs to be one. Like the whole reason I wish the koala was a WTE animal is because they just do not behave correctly in the habitat and to me it's immersion-breaking. We shouldn't see them on the ground at all except under extreme circumstances, so long as they can get from point to point without coming down. Plus, if keepers were able to auto-fill everything from the habitat gate, instead of having to wander around the habitat, it would mitigate the need to account for keeper traversible area and accessibility. You know all the people that want to build stupidly enormous habitats but can't because keepers take too long to reach anything and/or animals clump to where keepers can reach their enrichment? It would stop all that, too.
In general I want animal behaviours to be more realistic, even if it is "boring". I'd be perfectly happy if my lions spend half the in-game time just sleeping, or if my crocodiles spent most of their time floating in one spot or basking under a heat lamp (by the way, can you believe we never got a heat lamp enrichment item? So many animals use them!).
And another thing - hitboxes. Like, we know that the reason hitboxes are so janky is because animals need be able to turn 360degrees in any given space, at least I'm pretty sure that was the stated reason. If it's possible, it would be nice if the game could figure out the next possible spot to do a turn around, and go there if it can't turn where it is. Boom, no more huge doors for tiny animals (also, I don't know how true this is, but it often seems like Frontier doesn't adjust hitboxes after using the 'base' rig, so small animals retain the huge hitbox of whatever animal they were originally).
I think one of the big issues with climbing animals is the fact that most of their enrichment, aside from the climbing equipment itself, and feeders are ground-based, because keepers can't reach anything placed high up unless you add janky ramps to things. IMO this is kind of stupid. I'd like to be able to place hanging feeders in trees or on the tops of platforms to encourage climbing animals to, you know, spend most of their time climbing (in the case of truly arboreal species - koalas, gibbons, binturong and the like). I think that if they weren't coming down for food, then it might help the algorithm keep them in the trees.
Or if that's not the solution, there needs to be one. Like the whole reason I wish the koala was a WTE animal is because they just do not behave correctly in the habitat and to me it's immersion-breaking. We shouldn't see them on the ground at all except under extreme circumstances, so long as they can get from point to point without coming down. Plus, if keepers were able to auto-fill everything from the habitat gate, instead of having to wander around the habitat, it would mitigate the need to account for keeper traversible area and accessibility. You know all the people that want to build stupidly enormous habitats but can't because keepers take too long to reach anything and/or animals clump to where keepers can reach their enrichment? It would stop all that, too.
In general I want animal behaviours to be more realistic, even if it is "boring". I'd be perfectly happy if my lions spend half the in-game time just sleeping, or if my crocodiles spent most of their time floating in one spot or basking under a heat lamp (by the way, can you believe we never got a heat lamp enrichment item? So many animals use them!).
And another thing - hitboxes. Like, we know that the reason hitboxes are so janky is because animals need be able to turn 360degrees in any given space, at least I'm pretty sure that was the stated reason. If it's possible, it would be nice if the game could figure out the next possible spot to do a turn around, and go there if it can't turn where it is. Boom, no more huge doors for tiny animals (also, I don't know how true this is, but it often seems like Frontier doesn't adjust hitboxes after using the 'base' rig, so small animals retain the huge hitbox of whatever animal they were originally).
+1 to all you said. I have been thinking of some ideas too, for zookeepers:
- Zookeepers don't need a gate to enter a habitat where the fence is <1m high.
- Zookeepers can throw food into a habitat from a distance up to 4m.
- Animals can drink from water bodies in their habitat.
For realistic behaviours, I'd say:
- Koalas, binturongs, monkeys, gibbons, orangutans and other arboreal animals spend most of their time climbing.
- Koalas sleep most of the time. When they are awake, their approval rating skyrockets.
- Gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobo groups have one alpha male that looks physically distinct. When the alpha male dies, the healthiest male in the group takes over this role.
- Komodo dragons and pangolins are able to climb slopes up to 45 degrees.
Seconding this 100%. It just confuses new players and ultimately an avoidable obstacle to actually have their needs fulfilled.