Scientific Accuracy Feedback and Factual Suggestions Megathread

Love your feedback, great list! Unfortunatly, I haven't really seen Frontier respond to feedback anymore, well except to say that we should post it on the Issue Tracker, but issues that are posted there remain dormant 😕
Thanks! Figured reporting a bunch of different things separately on the Issue Tracker wouldn't be as effective, plus technically they aren't bugs.

It's better to stay positive; from what I've seen on the forums, Frontier values and interacts with its community, at least through their community managers. Give them some time, they are busy trying to meet deadlines. I'm pretty sure they'll take our accuracy feedback seriously, probably more so than us, since they put all their heart and soul into this project and already stressed couple of times they value accuracy.
 
Ok, so I needed some time to find additional errors as promised in my earlier response and I'm back with some results. Here are some posts I've made regarding accuracy:


This is probably the most annoying new thing. Tortoise animations have been messed up to compensate for the gameplay issues when there are other more viable solutions as I've discussed in the linked thread.


Reptile feeding costs are way off, thus not letting us replicate real life facilities, even with admission. Another thing is babies have the same feeding cost as adults.


Back in the beta enrichment items like sprinklers, waterfalls and jets let us set temperatures individually and if you set it outside the comfort range of animals it would create discomfort and low welfare. Now most of these items spray freezing water and animals do not complain at all.


This isn't a bug but I think it is worth mentioning. In a game where conservation is the main focus, I think we should have endangered versions of animals instead of domesticated variants. In this case the bactrian camel does resemble the wild species enough to be swapped with a few mild cosmetic changes. Same goes for domesticated llamas if they are planned instead of the wild guanaco.
 
This has been a very enjoyable read and well done for taking the time to put this together. I would add a caveat that PZ is a game at the end of the day not a wildlife documentary. I am sure some things have to use an artistic license for limitations of PC's and time wise with regards to hitting the release date.
 
Ok, so I needed some time to find additional errors as promised in my earlier response and I'm back with some results. Here are some posts I've made regarding accuracy:


This is probably the most annoying new thing. Tortoise animations have been messed up to compensate for the gameplay issues when there are other more viable solutions as I've discussed in the linked thread.


Reptile feeding costs are way off, thus not letting us replicate real life facilities, even with admission. Another thing is babies have the same feeding cost as adults.


Back in the beta enrichment items like sprinklers, waterfalls and jets let us set temperatures individually and if you set it outside the comfort range of animals it would create discomfort and low welfare. Now most of these items spray freezing water and animals do not complain at all.


This isn't a bug but I think it is worth mentioning. In a game where conservation is the main focus, I think we should have endangered versions of animals instead of domesticated variants. In this case the bactrian camel does resemble the wild species enough to be swapped with a few mild cosmetic changes. Same goes for domesticated llamas if they are planned instead of the wild guanaco.
Nice suggestions! I'll be adding the first three to the list. Actually I was already planning to make a separate thread for food costs as they are quite inconsistent for the time being, but I'm pretty sure they are simply testing things with food costs for now so I'm not really taking the current values as final. Some animals seem to still have beta values. As for the last suggestion, I agree 100%, I wish it was the Wild Bactrian Camel instead. Feel the same way about the Guanaco. I had similar thoughts when the roster was revealed.
 
This has been a very enjoyable read and well done for taking the time to put this together. I would add a caveat that PZ is a game at the end of the day not a wildlife documentary. I am sure some things have to use an artistic license for limitations of PC's and time wise with regards to hitting the release date.
Glad it was enjoyable to read, even though it is still lacking in a lot of departments. That's where I need the rest of the community to help me fill in the gaps. Can you be more specific about what you meant by using artistic license for limitations, so I can review the list? I tried to make sure there were no hard to fix suggestions that would be against artistic or design choices made for the game, but I might have missed a few.
 
please add China no tropical to list :( there is discrimination
No there isn't. The game groups 'subtropical' in with 'tropical'. New Zealand doesn't have any true tropical rainforests either but you don't hear me complaining about it, do you?
Don't worry, I've got you both covered. Both China and New Zealand are already on my list of locations with faulty categorization. The thing is, New Zealand is only as subtropical as Britain or Northeastern United States. It lies entirely in the temperate zone and has got nothing to do with subtropical both in climatic and biome sense of the word. Same goes for a big chunk of mainland China. I will respond to the case in detail on the thread itself.
 
Don't worry, I've got you both covered. Both China and New Zealand are already on my list of locations with faulty categorization. The thing is, New Zealand is only as subtropical as Britain or Northeastern United States. It lies entirely in the temperate zone and has got nothing to do with subtropical both in climatic and biome sense of the word. Same goes for a big chunk of mainland China. I will respond to the case in detail on the thread itself.

The northern tip of New Zealand is considerably more tropical than Britain or the Northeastern United States, more like eastern Australia in terms of climate.
 
The northern tip of New Zealand is considerably more tropical than Britain or the Northeastern United States, more like eastern Australia in terms of climate.
  • From a climatic point of view even the northern tip (Cape Reinga) has mean temperatures above 18C only for three months in a year when it should be all 12 to be tropical.
  • The northernmost ecoregion (Northland temperate kauri forests) is in the temperate zone.
For these reasons New Zealand lies completely in the temperate zone, with southern highlands being subarctic akin to the Scottish highlands.

This is why I used the Great Britain comparison as the climate range is shared except maybe for the milder Northern tip of New Zealand due to the lack of cold fronts and the lack of alpine tundra in Britain (which cancel each other out). I do get what you mean by that, but it is still far from being subtropical or tropical.
 
  • From a climatic point of view even the northern tip (Cape Reinga) has mean temperatures above 18C only for three months in a year when it should be all 12 to be tropical.
  • The northernmost ecoregion (Northland temperate kauri forests) is in the temperate zone.
For these reasons New Zealand lies completely in the temperate zone, with southern highlands being subarctic akin to the Scottish highlands.

This is why I used the Great Britain comparison as the climate range is shared except maybe for the milder Northern tip of New Zealand due to the lack of cold fronts and the lack of alpine tundra in Britain (which cancel each other out). I do get what you mean by that, but it is still far from being subtropical or tropical.

Well, I live here and visit Northland semi-regularly, so you're wrong.

Auckland is always hot, muggy, and raining. I've been to Singapore a few times, too, and it's comparable to that. The only thing that makes it 'temperate' is an arbitrary and broad climactic zone. Granted it never gets as 'hot' as true tropical zones but the weather patterns are extremely similar.
 
Well, I live here and visit Northland semi-regularly, so you're wrong.

Auckland is always hot, muggy, and raining. I've been to Singapore a few times, too, and it's comparable to that. The only thing that makes it 'temperate' is an arbitrary and broad climactic zone. Granted it never gets as 'hot' as true tropical zones but the weather patterns are extremely similar.
You talk as if this is my personal opinion. According to the classification methods used for the game, nowhere on NZ falls into the subtropical zone. If you simply ignore the scientific data and sources I present, there is no point in discussing it.

Instead, I would have expected you to present something like this as an antithesis, so there would actually be substance to what we are talking about. There are other classification systems (Trewartha/Carl Troll & Karlheinz Paffen climate classification) that classify regions like Northern NZ, Southern and Eastern US, Spain, Italy, Southern France, etc. as subtropical, but this is not what the game uses. I am assuming this classification system is more commonly used in New Zealand if this is what you are familiar with, but I would have expected you to approach it in another way than just saying "you are wrong".

Anyway, for these reasons, NZ falls short of being classified as subtropical according to the methods the game uses to classify bioclimatic regions. Northern NZ can be classified as hyperoceanic at best due to its maritime location and latitude.

This makes the Kermadec Islands of New Zealand (800-1100km north of NZ's North Island) the only universally accepted (i.e. according to every classification system) subtropical territory New Zealand has.
 
You talk as if this is my personal opinion. According to the classification methods used for the game, nowhere on NZ falls into the subtropical zone. If you simply ignore the scientific data and sources I present, there is no point in discussing it.

Instead, I would have expected you to present something like this as an antithesis, so there would actually be substance to what we are talking about. There are other classification systems (Trewartha/Carl Troll & Karlheinz Paffen climate classification) that classify regions like Northern NZ, Southern and Eastern US, Spain, Italy, Southern France, etc. as subtropical, but this is not what the game uses. I am assuming this classification system is more commonly used in New Zealand if this is what you are familiar with, but I would have expected you to approach it in another way than just saying "you are wrong".

Anyway, for these reasons, NZ falls short of being classified as subtropical according to the methods the game uses to classify bioclimatic regions. Northern NZ can be classified as hyperoceanic at best due to its maritime location and latitude.

This makes the Kermadec Islands of New Zealand (800-1100km north of NZ's North Island) the only universally accepted (i.e. according to every classification system) subtropical territory New Zealand has.
Yes, it makes no sense to have new zealand as tropical in the game when it isn't even subtropical according to most classification systems but have subtropical locations like eastern united states as temperate when it is subtropical on every classification system. Even tropical south florida is temperate on games map. total opposite.
 
I was going to post this reply to the other thread where a bunch of different maps were shared, but since that thread is closed now (naturally) due to unnecessary tension, I would like to share it here:

Please don't forget to not directly compare biome and climate maps. The two can be used as reference to discuss since the game's maps both have elements of vegetation and climate at the same time. However a direct comparison of apples and oranges wouldn't be accurate.

If anybody wants to further research both areas, I would suggest the following sources:

For biomes: This extensive source by Olson et al. 2001 (also known as WWF biomes) - includes both ecoregions and biomes (not climate)

For climate: This map by Beck, H.E., Zimmermann, N. E., McVicar, T. R., Vergopolan, N., Berg, A., & Wood, E. F. - "Present and future Köppen-Geiger climate classification maps at 1-km resolution". Nature Scientific Data - you can also find larger versions for each country by the same authors.
 
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