Keepers need to just clean habitats...

[Sclurp]

We need to be able to tell a keeper to clean a habitat immediately rather than just selecting "Call Keeper". If a habitat has become a disease risk because of the amount of waste, I don't want my keeper to turn around and prioritise preparing food for that habitat. I need the urgent issue dealt with there and then. At the moment a lot of waste is being generated by a peafowl habitat in the campaign and it's causing a major headache. I have hired a keeper who just deals with cleaning habitats but I can't keep hiring keepers to do this (for every habitat no less).

It would be good if keepers do their checks and then decide what needs dealing with, i.e. if there are starving/dehydrated animals, then they deal with that first. If the habitat is a disease risk, they deal with that in the moment seeing as they're already there.

Ta

 

[P3NGU1N]

I was actually thinking about this today too.

Would be great if in the habitats maintenance panel we could separately change the feeding and cleaning under routine visits. That way we could set cleaning every month but feeding every 6, or whatever it takes.

 

[Moonfox]

We should be able to select a priority task, or to assign a particular task to one keeper. This would be great for full/large enclosures: one keeper feeds, one cleans. It would work even better with multiple enclosure gates.

 

[jeruntje]

We should be able to select a priority task, or to assign a particular task to one keeper. This would be great for full/large enclosures: one keeper feeds, one cleans. It would work even better with multiple enclosure gates.

You can already assign a particular task! Select a keeper and uncheck some off the tasks!

 

[Dr4gon]

When a habitat is particularly full I add two keepers to that habitat. One will be cleaning and the other one will be feeding. That can already be done. 2 lvl 1 keepers are more efficient than 1 lvl 5 keeper.

 

[Sclurp]

I know it’s not glamorous work but they should really just clean up before they go off somewhere else.

 

[P3NGU1N]

When a habitat is particularly full I add two keepers to that habitat. One will be cleaning and the other one will be feeding. That can already be done. 2 lvl 1 keepers are more efficient than 1 lvl 5 keeper.

But one or the other shows up on routine visit, not both. When the habitat was dirty, the keeper set to feed would show up. When the keeper set to feed shows up the animals get fed even if they aren't hungry. If I set a keeper routine to every month, the animals get fed every month. I've watched the keeper re-fill all enrichment items and food trays when animals still have 100% nutrition. Sometimes there is still food in the habitat when the keeper shows up to give them more.

 

[Jacob1989]

They definitely need to prioritize cleaning over feeding.

For instance even when it is time to prepare food, the keepers should first clean the habitat and then go to the keeper hut. People have complained so much about keepers not feeding animals that they probably changed this priority along with other things. This definitely needs to be reverted to how it was originally, and that is keepers cleaning first before heading to the keeper hut.

 

[Paul_Crowther]

You can choose which jobs Keepers focus on in their 'Employment' menu when you click on them. Turn off all but cleaning and they will focus on cleaning the habitat instead of doing other things.

 

[Heggy]

You can choose which jobs Keepers focus on in their 'Employment' menu when you click on them. Turn off all but cleaning and they will focus on cleaning the habitat instead of doing other things.

What if we could prioritize all of these tasks? Like a list of the same things we can currently turn off/on, but draggable. Keep the current system of toggle, but add a way to move them around. That'd be cool I think.

 

[Kiwolf]

When a habitat is particularly full I add two keepers to that habitat. One will be cleaning and the other one will be feeding. That can already be done. 2 lvl 1 keepers are more efficient than 1 lvl 5 keeper.

This kinda screams more mechanical issues.. because by all means a level 5 should out preform a level 1.. or 2 level one's for that matter.. So maybe this is something that hasn't been looked at with the keepers.. you also have to keep in mind it also depends on animal numbers as well as habitat size.. Plus, I doubt the game allows for more then one zookeeper within the time frame you specify to go in and deal with the animals in said habitat.. it might rotate them but i highly doubt it will allow both to go within (say you set it for every month) the month you specify.

 

[Jacob1989]

You can choose which jobs Keepers focus on in their 'Employment' menu when you click on them. Turn off all but cleaning and they will focus on cleaning the habitat instead of doing other things.

To be honest, turning off feeding just when it is time to feed, so they clean the habitat, and then turning it back on the second they finish cleaning the habitat, so they go straight to the keeper hut to avoid starving animals is a ton of micromanagement on each habitat. If they were to instead clean the enclosure by default before going to a keeper hut, that would be a universal fix for animals getting sick when it is time to feed them.

Even with multiple keepers and monthly visits you can't counter that right now, since you can't call a second keeper to the habitat as one is already "on it". This was functioning just fine until recently, but for some reason it was changed. I don't think the game should be balanced taking novice gameplay as reference, where players fail to place keeper huts close enough or set a proper feeding routine. That's like punishing the players who know what they are doing over those who do not.

 

[Moosegun]

Your zoo staff should work efficiently without the need for too much manual micromanagement. If you are finding to need to manually intervene too much in any activity then you need to change your setup. When I get any notifications in my zoo that something needs doing, if I choose to call a keeper (a lot of the time I dont) 80% of the time they are already doing that job. The other 20% they get onto it straight away. I run a pretty high staff level though.

 

[Environmentalist]

A definite +1, keepers should prioritize cleaning. I made a similar post regarding this very issue.

Please fix keepers not cleaning enclosures

During the zebra challenge this problem was at its climax since they poop a lot. I had only 5-6 zebras with a few young, several keepers just for one enclosure, monthly visits, yet they always favoritized going to the keeper hut over cleaning the enclosure. I never had issues other than it...

forums.frontier.co.uk

Your zoo staff should work efficiently without the need for too much manual micromanagement. If you are finding to need to manually intervene too much in any activity then you need to change your setup. When I get any notifications in my zoo that something needs doing, if I choose to call a keeper (a lot of the time I dont) 80% of the time they are already doing that job. The other 20% they get onto it straight away. I run a pretty high staff level though.

What they are saying has got nothing to do with zoo setup, the problem is with the base coding/mechanic. I described the situation in detail in my thread, go take a look.

 

[Moosegun]

What they are saying has got nothing to do with zoo setup, the problem is with the base coding/mechanic. I described the situation in detail in my thread, go take a look.

I cant comment on challenges as I only run large franchise zoos but my point is valid. Whilst I agree if your habitat requires food and cleaning at the same time then the keeper should be able to priorities BUT your enclosure shouldnt be that dirty that a keeper doing a feeding run causes a problem. I have NEVER in 450+ hours had a habitat so dirty animals have got ill, dont think I have even been close, the occasional warning but nothing else.

 

[Jaggid Edje]

I have NEVER in 450+ hours had a habitat so dirty animals have got ill, dont think I have even been close, the occasional warning but nothing else.

Then you've never had a habitat with a large enough number of animals that make things dirty. It is entirely impossible, with the current way that keepers work, to avoid once you reach a certain animal population number in some cases.

Peafowl habits once they reach around 20 peafowls in them (give or take), for example. If you claim you have had one of these and not gotten ill animals, I won't believe you...because the simple fact is that there's no way to avoid it...it gets dirty too quickly for the keepers to keep it clean with the current minimum frequency of them actually going to the habitat to work in the first place.

Same is true of reindeer once you get somewhere around 18 to 20. And if you try to make an African savannah habitat with every one of the animals that give each other enrichment bonuses, it can't be kept clean while leaving breeding on without sacrificing the animal welfare by keeping fewer adults than their social needs require.

Of course, the obvious solution is to reduce the number of animals actually in the habitat in the first place in those instances. But some people would rather fight the game than work within the constraints it presents. I've learned to keep peafowls just under the threshold and do my African savannahs as a pair of habitats with half of the species in each, separated by just terrain and a null barrier so that it looks like one big habitat, but I do wish I didn't have to do those things. I also will sometimes mix some of the savannah species a little higher, but then turn breeding off for some of them (and toggle it off and on as needed for the others).

 

[Moosegun]

Then you've never had a habitat with a large enough number of animals that make things dirty. It is entirely impossible, with the current way that keepers work, to avoid once you reach a certain animal population number in some cases.

Peafowl habits once they reach around 20 peafowls in them (give or take), for example. If you claim you have had one of these and not gotten ill animals, I won't believe you...because the simple fact is that there's no way to avoid it...it gets dirty too quickly for the keepers to keep it clean with the current minimum frequency of them actually going to the habitat to work in the first place.

Same is true of reindeer once you get somewhere around 18 to 20. And if you try to make an African savannah habitat with every one of the animals that give each other enrichment bonuses, it can't be kept clean while leaving breeding on without sacrificing the animal welfare by keeping fewer adults than their social needs require.

Of course, the obvious solution is to reduce the number of animals actually in the habitat in the first place in those instances. But some people would rather fight the game than work within the constraints it presents. I've learned to keep peafowls just under the threshold and do my African savannahs as a pair of habitats with half of the species in each, separated by just terrain and a null barrier so that it looks like one big habitat, but I do wish I didn't have to do those things. I also will sometimes mix some of the savannah species a little higher, but then turn breeding off for some of them (and toggle it off and on as needed for the others).

You are probably right, I do generally work within the games constraints for everything I do, but by the same token, everything in my game works properly lol. I do get your point though, I do have a large Savannah but it is only 5 species and probably runs to 16 animals maximum. My peacocks only ever get to about 12 before I sell off some. I am sure I have had larger flock of flamingos without and issue though, not got them in current zoo yet but my last zoo had 30+. The issue is how to fix it without making the AI even more of a burden on performance. I sadly think they need to make the AI simpler, not more complex.

Sounds like we play the game in a very similar way.

 

[Jacob1989]

The issue is how to fix it without making the AI even more of a burden on performance. I sadly think they need to make the AI simpler, not more complex.

It's not about making the AI simpler or more complex. This was already functioning properly before, but so many people complained about their animals not being fed just because they couldn't set their habitats up properly, the developers had to change the priority of things. It was poop first, food later, and now it got switched. It is actually an extra piece of coding that makes the keeper ignore the low cleanliness grade and head straight to the keeper hut.

 

[Adarra]

I've tried the whole 'assign one keeper to one task per habitat'-thing a few times now and it doesn't work as expected/intended. When there's an issue with a habitat (for instance starving animals, even with four keepers this issue still pops up in larger habitats) and I use 'call keeper' I'd expect said keeper to understand that animals need feeding. However, a lot of the time the keeper comes in, looks around, then goes to the hut to prepare the food, which I think is very inefficient. What also happens is that my 'cleaning keeper' turns up, starts cleaning and then the feeding keeper doesn't even come to the habitat! Probably because the AI thinks the other keeper is feeding the animals, even though I have that option turned off. It just doesn't work like it's supposed to and it's driving me up the wall. If I assign more keepers I just get one keeper that's doing all the work and the others are mostly idling. It's frustrating beyond belief, especially when I get 'this animal is starving' multiple times with a keeper CLEANING UP THE HABITAT instead of feeding the animals! So that whole 'switching of priorities' thing? Yeah, doesn't work.

 

[Moosegun]

I've tried the whole 'assign one keeper to one task per habitat'-thing a few times now and it doesn't work as expected/intended. When there's an issue with a habitat (for instance starving animals, even with four keepers this issue still pops up in larger habitats) and I use 'call keeper' I'd expect said keeper to understand that animals need feeding. However, a lot of the time the keeper comes in, looks around, then goes to the hut to prepare the food, which I think is very inefficient. What also happens is that my 'cleaning keeper' turns up, starts cleaning and then the feeding keeper doesn't even come to the habitat! Probably because the AI thinks the other keeper is feeding the animals, even though I have that option turned off. It just doesn't work like it's supposed to and it's driving me up the wall. If I assign more keepers I just get one keeper that's doing all the work and the others are mostly idling. It's frustrating beyond belief, especially when I get 'this animal is starving' multiple times with a keeper CLEANING UP THE HABITAT instead of feeding the animals! So that whole 'switching of priorities' thing? Yeah, doesn't work.

Can you define 'large' habitats, as I have said before I have really not seen a issue with cleaning in my zoo, so trying to get an idea of the sort of size you mean.

I have 11 staff workzones in my zoo currently. Most running a multiple keepers / multiple habitat setup, so 2/3 habitats 3/4 keepers (lvl 4/5) I can pretty much play the zoo without needing to assist at all, apart from unboxing animals...... One thing that really helps is pretty much all my facilities are under the habitat they are working on.