I have this problem A LOT.... and the food just sits there until it spoils... I had one animal starve and dehydrate so bad and i couldn't figure out why... turned out he was glitched in one spot and couldnt move... by the time i forced him to move... he died of starvation... while eating.
Please, just have have the keepers fill up whatever we place in the habitat
- Thread starter Agathorn
- Start date
sigh I don't even have my game running that much, I build mostly, but my animals die from starvation all the time, because the staff only fills zthe enrichment feeders and the animals refuse to use them.
I guess, instead of letting the staff decide which feeding they prioritise, let THE ANIMAL choose. That way, staff will fill any and every feeding tray or food enrichement item and the animals can choose freely.
Whatever will be done, it HAS to be done, because, yes, animals starving in front of my eye when I do indeed care for them pretty well is demoralizing here.
I guess, instead of letting the staff decide which feeding they prioritise, let THE ANIMAL choose. That way, staff will fill any and every feeding tray or food enrichement item and the animals can choose freely.
Whatever will be done, it HAS to be done, because, yes, animals starving in front of my eye when I do indeed care for them pretty well is demoralizing here.
I'm afraid, this might actually be 'by design' as they have said in an interview or livestream that animals remember where they got their food from. So my best guess is, due to us users putting down several food trays and enrichments in hopes of their animals not starving, and the STAFF deciding which ones to fill, the animal AI might have noted that food is at spot X while the next time around spot X remains empty and only enrichment Y is filled, so instead of realizing that there is food elsewhere, the animal starves, thinking that there is no food.
I think a huge issue in this case is, that frontier tries do do something better than other games, by making the keeper intelligent and only feed as much as needed at that point, but player intuition from previous game experience says that if I put in 5 trays, 5 trays are filled for the animal.
I also feel that animals prioritize the enrichment feeders over normal food (which makes sense, since keepers do the same) but then they don't want to feed from the tray if they need some enrichment right now and rather starve to death than eat what is there (or they have used that enrichment already in this month and would gain less benefit from it, so they want the other enrichment filled)
I've had animals just sitting there starving while the food enrichment item had food in it. Then when the keeper came in and put food in the TRAY (because there were enough animal for both), THEN those starving animals went to the tray and ate.
I also have the problem with the keepers not filling all feeders. I made a huge walk-through habitat for lemurs. There are eneugh feeders throughout the habitat but if the keepers decide to refill the feeders on the nothern section, then all animals that are on the south side of the habitat will starve because the animals don't seem to be intelligent enough to know where the food is. And because you never know which feeder will be refilled, it's also hard to place them strategically. At least we shoud be able to manually give keepers the order to refill specific feeders.
I see another issue here with this design... I built a huge exhibit with all African grassland animals, so lots of animals needing lots of food, the same keeper is just walking back and forth putting food down... Not only are the animals eating it faster then the zookeeper can place it, i'm having animals starve to death because the one zookeeper can't handle all the food on their own. They need to have it so more than one zookeeper can fill food at the same time, so they can get everything filled asap.
Since we still haven’t got an update on this issue I have some ideas.
1. The zookeepers should automatically know when the animals are at 50% hunger or less and fetch them food. If an animal reaches starving the zookeeper should come and place the food right by that animal. This is even when they are not “checking up on the exhibit”.
2. Multiple zookeepers should be able to feed the same exhibit at the same time. This is essential for large exhibits. One keeper can’t handle it at all, leads to animals constantly starving even after the keeper leaves the exhibit.
3. Zookeepers seem to fail at knowing how much food the animals actually need or they fail at knowing when animals are getting hungry.
4. Slow down game time so the zookeepers can keep up, if 101% not gonna happen then lower hunger rates. But would definitely prefer the game time to be fixed.
5. Add an option if you want the zookeeper to fill food trays or enrichment first or an option so they’ll fill everything or half and half. I personally would prefer if food was just kept In the exhibit at all times. If this could be added as an option that should keep all parties happy.
6. Have the zookeeper fill the objects then if the animals still need more food they should just drop bigger piles in one spot instead of wasting time walking around the exhibit dropping the food around.
7. Raise enrichment and food tray capacities and fill them 100%. For example let’s say you have three lions and the keeper thinks they only need the enrichment filled. Well fill it 100% then go on your way. Even if filling it 100% is “too much food”.
8. If you click on a food tray or enrichment and call the keeper they should fill it regardless if the zookeeper thinks the animal needs food or not.
1. The zookeepers should automatically know when the animals are at 50% hunger or less and fetch them food. If an animal reaches starving the zookeeper should come and place the food right by that animal. This is even when they are not “checking up on the exhibit”.
2. Multiple zookeepers should be able to feed the same exhibit at the same time. This is essential for large exhibits. One keeper can’t handle it at all, leads to animals constantly starving even after the keeper leaves the exhibit.
3. Zookeepers seem to fail at knowing how much food the animals actually need or they fail at knowing when animals are getting hungry.
4. Slow down game time so the zookeepers can keep up, if 101% not gonna happen then lower hunger rates. But would definitely prefer the game time to be fixed.
5. Add an option if you want the zookeeper to fill food trays or enrichment first or an option so they’ll fill everything or half and half. I personally would prefer if food was just kept In the exhibit at all times. If this could be added as an option that should keep all parties happy.
6. Have the zookeeper fill the objects then if the animals still need more food they should just drop bigger piles in one spot instead of wasting time walking around the exhibit dropping the food around.
7. Raise enrichment and food tray capacities and fill them 100%. For example let’s say you have three lions and the keeper thinks they only need the enrichment filled. Well fill it 100% then go on your way. Even if filling it 100% is “too much food”.
8. If you click on a food tray or enrichment and call the keeper they should fill it regardless if the zookeeper thinks the animal needs food or not.
Honestly, I just think they should give this management option back in our hands again. Let the keepers feel everything and anything we place. If we place too much and the food won't be eaten in a certain amount of time, it will rot. So putting too much food tray will cause money issues and maybe health issues for the animals. That way it would add a new management factor without us getting frustrated about starving animals because of a system that is forced on us.
Irl zookeeper here - it’s actually more likely we evenly distribute stuff across enrichments/trays rather than only putting food in enrichment. In fact, enrichment by feeding is usually completely separate and surplus to the weighed diet, at least in my experience. It depends on the animal you’re looking at, and most animals are scatter fed these days anyway. Trays are also useful when you have animals that are older or food that you want to monitor the intake of more closely (such as pellets) so it seems silly to have them in our enclosures and the keepers not use them at all. I think a more even distribution across all feeders is the most realistic option, plus a few kilos surplus food - I think this could easily be something we could manipulate in the animals tab of our habitats, eg. giving 10% extra food, with the obvious repercussions of food rotting and making animals sick + financial losses if we give too much extra and the animals aren’t eating it. That way it’s optional as well.
I really feel like this would totally be fixed right now (at least an effective bandaid until a better solution can be reached) if calling a zookeeper to a specific food container forced them to fill it, regardless of their personal judgment.
My personal judgment is better when my baby lemurs are literally starving to death because the adults get all the enrichment food first, and by the time the babies get there, it's all gone. I get the principle of "zookeeper knows best!" but 1) it's a management game! and 2) no, zookeeper doesn't!
Just let us force items to be filled and deal with (manage) the money/cleanliness consequences. I would rather juggle those aspects than watch my animals starve to death when I'm desperately trying to feed them & being stopped by the game's own "superior" AI. At least until Frontier can fix whatever is causing this, just let me manage my management game zoo!
My personal judgment is better when my baby lemurs are literally starving to death because the adults get all the enrichment food first, and by the time the babies get there, it's all gone. I get the principle of "zookeeper knows best!" but 1) it's a management game! and 2) no, zookeeper doesn't!
Just let us force items to be filled and deal with (manage) the money/cleanliness consequences. I would rather juggle those aspects than watch my animals starve to death when I'm desperately trying to feed them & being stopped by the game's own "superior" AI. At least until Frontier can fix whatever is causing this, just let me manage my management game zoo!
+1 Supporting this 100%, as this has been a problem I've run into, to the point I don't want to play so my animals don't die. I've seen their post about it, I've tried everything that was recommended, and its still happening. Or at least add a feature that lets us take care of things ourselves? They had that in the old tycoon games
I actually haven't bothered with normal food trays anymore in some of my latest enclosures. weren't filled/used anyway. But yeah, still annoying, this whole situation. And honestly, I haven't played since they took the servers down for maintenance. started the game, closed it down again. Can't be bothered. Too bad, I can't return it, due to having played way too many hours for that.
Actually I'm not sure if what's proposed here is a good idea...
This game already has too much micromanagement (especially if your zoos get bigger). If the player had to monitor the population for dozens of his habitats and then remove or add "food-serving-items" every time the population de- or increases that would make the micromanagement getting even more out of control.
IMHO it's ideal if the keepers provide the food that is needed. Maybe this needs a bit of bugfixing, but it shouldn't be changed to a system where you'd constantly have to rearrange your habitats.
This game already has too much micromanagement (especially if your zoos get bigger). If the player had to monitor the population for dozens of his habitats and then remove or add "food-serving-items" every time the population de- or increases that would make the micromanagement getting even more out of control.
IMHO it's ideal if the keepers provide the food that is needed. Maybe this needs a bit of bugfixing, but it shouldn't be changed to a system where you'd constantly have to rearrange your habitats.
I had a hungry bear, and the keeper didn't feed it. But every time the keeper entered the habitat, the hunger was gone. An other bear which was perpetual thirsty didn't drink. I moved the bear in the pond, nothing happens. I moved it to the water bowl, again nothing happens. I moved the bowl and again the bear to the bowl, it started drinking. 
Bears are weird. They seem to have some bug or maybe its intentional, but they often just lose their hunger.I had a hungry bear, and the keeper didn't feed it. But every time the keeper entered the habitat, the hunger was gone. An other bear which was perpetual thirsty didn't drink. I moved the bear in the pond, nothing happens. I moved it to the water bowl, again nothing happens. I moved the bowl and again the bear to the bowl, it started drinking.