A few (ridiculous) questions from a new player^^
- Thread starter Divinho
- Start date
Do you mean obtaining a zoo you accidentally deleted or do you mean regaining money for a zoo that lost it?
For the former, I'm not really sure if it's possible. For the latter, I'd suggest checking out the videos. They have all kinds of tips and tricks
Do you mean you are trying to recover a deleted zoo file you built or are trying to view a zoo that you downloaded from the workshop?
Ok thanks a lot...
How hard it is to build for a beginner^^
I wanted to make a rectangular building just to put the staff buildings and after making the rectangle I didn't know how to make the doors operational, if I removed the end of the wall it's too ugly.
Isn't it possible to put a wall in front of a door and have the door automatically embedded in the wall?
How do I rotate something 90 degrees?
With the W it rotates but if you have a floor that you want to rotate 90 degrees so that it is your wall, what do you do? Thank you in advance...
How hard it is to build for a beginner^^
I wanted to make a rectangular building just to put the staff buildings and after making the rectangle I didn't know how to make the doors operational, if I removed the end of the wall it's too ugly.
Isn't it possible to put a wall in front of a door and have the door automatically embedded in the wall?
How do I rotate something 90 degrees?
With the W it rotates but if you have a floor that you want to rotate 90 degrees so that it is your wall, what do you do? Thank you in advance...
For the doors of the staff buildings, there is a building wall piece which has a hole of the exact size of the door. You should use that piece (there's another wall with a hole for the windows). Any other door will be just a decoration, meaning that the door won't open and close and people will just pass through them.
For rotating pieces, there are two types of pieces:
- the pieces on a grid: they can only be rotated in one direction, so a floor piece, if it is a grid piece, will only be rotated on the floor and never turned up as a wall.
- the piece off grid: they can be rotated in any direction, so you can use it either as a floor, a wall, an inclined roof....
Hope this helps!
Ah okay, I'll get the part I need then^^
I will perhaps be satisfied with certain elements of the workshop because as much for the enclosures I think I will succeed in getting by, as for the other constructions it is too hard for me.
But I'm still going to try to finish this little construction, 4 walls, a roof and holes for the doors, it shouldn't be that complicated ^^
I will perhaps be satisfied with certain elements of the workshop because as much for the enclosures I think I will succeed in getting by, as for the other constructions it is too hard for me.
But I'm still going to try to finish this little construction, 4 walls, a roof and holes for the doors, it shouldn't be that complicated ^^
LadyDesigner has some good tutorials on buildings, paths, etc. Leaf has a few, I think and Rudi Renkamal (sp?) has quite a few tutorials of a variety of sorts. I know that Lady has some good (older) beginner tutorials on paths as I used them when I started out.
Re: building designs. Building in PZ is a bit complex (personally, I think the paths and water are worse but opinions vary). I watched (and still watch) a lot of videos on buildings. I'd suggest looking for some older builds because several builders (Leaf, Rudi) use a newish mod to make things easier. The other option, and one I use often, is to download a building from the workshop and modify/change or duplicate it to personalise it for my own zoo.
To be honest; I never bother with work-zones, until your zoo gets very large it's not really necessary. And, generally, the security guards and the ... uh, janitors, work best if they're not assigned to a particular work zone.
Educators can do ... three things, I think? No four, now. You can put down a talking point near an exhibit, when you go into the items screen, there's options to select the animal you want the educator to talk about and the month you want them to do it in. They'll come during that month and guests will gather and they'll do a little talk animation. Big education bonus.
They can do wandering education - you don't control that. If they're not doing anything else and don't need to rest, they do little chats (we don't see them, I don't think) as they walk around. Gives a bit of an ed bonus.
They can now do education talks for some exhibit animals; larger ones like snakes, mostly. You put down a talking point and select the animal in question. They'll do a talk and there's a little animation that includes them holding the animal (needs to be non-venomous or poisonous). Big ed boost.
The most recent addition is the walking tour. You'll need to find some videos on it as it's kinda complicated but the short version is that you set up a path with a series of little markers, the educator will walk along that designated path with a crowd of guests and stop to talk about each animal you marked. Evidently, you should also have stops at shops and food areas so guests can eat.
Educators are ... well, kinda lazy. They need a lot of rest between each event they do (don't give them a schedule event every month, they'll never make it). It seems to take them forever to reach their talking points and if the in-game month they were scheduled to lecture passes, they'll abort the assignment and they and the guests will be disappointed. They also work best if they have their own personal work zones - they don't need an 'area' but you can create work zones where you just select say: two educator talking points, and a staff room, then assign an educator to it.
Work zone do not have to be an area. You can, for example, make a work zone that is just four vendor shops, and a staff room then assign the vendors you want to staff those shops to that work zone - that helps keep the staff from being far away from their next schedule work area. Same for educators (recommended, IMO, in that case). Zookeepers and vets it's simpler to just manage a zone and opinions vary on whether or not you should assign janitors and security to zones at all. For crime control, some people assign the security to a zone just at the entrance and then have cameras in the rest of the zoo. The camera 'notices' the pickpocket, and when the security guard is at the entrance, they can catch the pickpocket before they leave the zoo. If you don't do that, and the security guard is on the other side of the zoo from a pickpocket event, they'll never reach the pickpocket before the crook leaves the zoo (there is a fun animation where the guard chases the pickpocket).
Re: building designs. Building in PZ is a bit complex (personally, I think the paths and water are worse but opinions vary). I watched (and still watch) a lot of videos on buildings. I'd suggest looking for some older builds because several builders (Leaf, Rudi) use a newish mod to make things easier. The other option, and one I use often, is to download a building from the workshop and modify/change or duplicate it to personalise it for my own zoo.
To be honest; I never bother with work-zones, until your zoo gets very large it's not really necessary. And, generally, the security guards and the ... uh, janitors, work best if they're not assigned to a particular work zone.
Educators can do ... three things, I think? No four, now. You can put down a talking point near an exhibit, when you go into the items screen, there's options to select the animal you want the educator to talk about and the month you want them to do it in. They'll come during that month and guests will gather and they'll do a little talk animation. Big education bonus.
They can do wandering education - you don't control that. If they're not doing anything else and don't need to rest, they do little chats (we don't see them, I don't think) as they walk around. Gives a bit of an ed bonus.
They can now do education talks for some exhibit animals; larger ones like snakes, mostly. You put down a talking point and select the animal in question. They'll do a talk and there's a little animation that includes them holding the animal (needs to be non-venomous or poisonous). Big ed boost.
The most recent addition is the walking tour. You'll need to find some videos on it as it's kinda complicated but the short version is that you set up a path with a series of little markers, the educator will walk along that designated path with a crowd of guests and stop to talk about each animal you marked. Evidently, you should also have stops at shops and food areas so guests can eat.
Educators are ... well, kinda lazy. They need a lot of rest between each event they do (don't give them a schedule event every month, they'll never make it). It seems to take them forever to reach their talking points and if the in-game month they were scheduled to lecture passes, they'll abort the assignment and they and the guests will be disappointed. They also work best if they have their own personal work zones - they don't need an 'area' but you can create work zones where you just select say: two educator talking points, and a staff room, then assign an educator to it.
Work zone do not have to be an area. You can, for example, make a work zone that is just four vendor shops, and a staff room then assign the vendors you want to staff those shops to that work zone - that helps keep the staff from being far away from their next schedule work area. Same for educators (recommended, IMO, in that case). Zookeepers and vets it's simpler to just manage a zone and opinions vary on whether or not you should assign janitors and security to zones at all. For crime control, some people assign the security to a zone just at the entrance and then have cameras in the rest of the zoo. The camera 'notices' the pickpocket, and when the security guard is at the entrance, they can catch the pickpocket before they leave the zoo. If you don't do that, and the security guard is on the other side of the zoo from a pickpocket event, they'll never reach the pickpocket before the crook leaves the zoo (there is a fun animation where the guard chases the pickpocket).
It did take me ... at least six months and quite a few videos before I was able to reliably build things I was happy with, so don't sweat it if that's not what you're into. There are a ton of workshop builds and also the pre-fabs that come with the zoo and the DLCs are fun too.
Welcome to Konigs Starter Tips, some simple things to improve your builds and make things more pretty.
1. Allways, allways, ALLWAYS try to get the elevation near the path and the path itself done as soon as possible. Nothing sucks as much as putting alot of work into it, finding one spot you dont like, for an example i had a moat for a habitat but there was a small bit that wasnt terraformed correctly and still stuck out of it because i allready put in the path. For this example to fix one tiny thing i used up allmost 2 HOURS of deleting, terraforming and trying to build the path again to get my path to line up again with the custom fence i build. It was quite the pain, so really try to finalise your path and all terraforming near the path rather early and defenetly before you actually decorate it.
2. What makes a good habitat? A good fence makes a good habitat, or rather a nice surrounding makes a good habitat. Want proof?
As you can see, the habitat is allmost completly empty, but the fact that i decorated the front and back of it makes it look great regardless, because even when the habitat itself is plain the view isnt and is beautiful. This comes in handy in multiple ways, but the number 1 things are traverseable area and filling the ground. To be frank, traverseable area sucks in this game, so what you persume as quite the sizeable habitat can quickly be cut down a LOT from decorative items, so moving most of them behind or in front of the habitat and therefor out of the traversable area allows for smaller habitats with more room for the animals then much larger ones where the inside is decorated, which should be especally helpfull in challange mode. The larger the habitat the worse does this work though on its own, sooo...
3. Break up the view by placing bushes, trees stones whatever as centerpieces in the habitats in clutters. This has 3 purposes. 1. You got something that distracts the eye from the plain nothingness in the middleground, 2. Makes it that not every part of the habitat is visible, aka making it look smaller and therefore easier to decorate and 3. it helps to destress animals and get them away from the visitor. You can even go so far and add backstage parts to the habitat to create more space to fill the space requirements and help decrease stress on the animals, an example for okapis, which are rather stress sensitive is here.
As you can see nothing fancy but thats exactly the point, but another thing you can see nicly here is...
4. Use the hell out of Dins Grass, Buffalo Grass, Flowers and Faux Rocks. These guys are Lifesavers in regards of making the ground itself prettier to look at. Only down side is that its worse for the pc performance then the paintbrush grass, but its also just way prettier AND does not despawn from far away. The flowers are part of the conservation pack and faux rox parts of the aquatic pac, but the grasses are both part of the base game.
5. Try sinking things into the ground. Sounds silly but often rocks and plants look better atleast partly submerged, especally in regards to creating bushes. As a confession, i allmost exclusivly use tropical plants for tropical houses and temperate and taiga plants from europe and asia for everywhere else (cause yk, european zoos are what i know) and while bramble bushes are nice and are frequently used, my most used bush is the beech sappling submerged. Looks beautiful, especally mixed with bramble bushes and oak sapplings and submerging it for the first time was unironically one of the most important moments for me learning the game.
And lastly 6. Use elevation to create panorama shots. Simply, a nice habitat is pretty but wouldnt it be a shame to be seen from one place while looking at this habitat? That obviously can work, but arranging habitats in a way that they are visible at the same time, becoming forground and/or background of other things, thats when a zoo really comes together and makes the habitats work synergisticly in making the view more then just the sum of its parts.
To showcase, have a little pic series from my favorite spot in my zoo.
Not the biggest transformation, but 2 rather simple looking habitats become much prettier now that they are combined, neat isnt it?
Thats it for now, if you want more tips just ask for it, im not the greatest builder out there, but i know enough simple stuff to make if you ask me some really pretty habitats ^^
1. Allways, allways, ALLWAYS try to get the elevation near the path and the path itself done as soon as possible. Nothing sucks as much as putting alot of work into it, finding one spot you dont like, for an example i had a moat for a habitat but there was a small bit that wasnt terraformed correctly and still stuck out of it because i allready put in the path. For this example to fix one tiny thing i used up allmost 2 HOURS of deleting, terraforming and trying to build the path again to get my path to line up again with the custom fence i build. It was quite the pain, so really try to finalise your path and all terraforming near the path rather early and defenetly before you actually decorate it.
2. What makes a good habitat? A good fence makes a good habitat, or rather a nice surrounding makes a good habitat. Want proof?
As you can see, the habitat is allmost completly empty, but the fact that i decorated the front and back of it makes it look great regardless, because even when the habitat itself is plain the view isnt and is beautiful. This comes in handy in multiple ways, but the number 1 things are traverseable area and filling the ground. To be frank, traverseable area sucks in this game, so what you persume as quite the sizeable habitat can quickly be cut down a LOT from decorative items, so moving most of them behind or in front of the habitat and therefor out of the traversable area allows for smaller habitats with more room for the animals then much larger ones where the inside is decorated, which should be especally helpfull in challange mode. The larger the habitat the worse does this work though on its own, sooo...
3. Break up the view by placing bushes, trees stones whatever as centerpieces in the habitats in clutters. This has 3 purposes. 1. You got something that distracts the eye from the plain nothingness in the middleground, 2. Makes it that not every part of the habitat is visible, aka making it look smaller and therefore easier to decorate and 3. it helps to destress animals and get them away from the visitor. You can even go so far and add backstage parts to the habitat to create more space to fill the space requirements and help decrease stress on the animals, an example for okapis, which are rather stress sensitive is here.
As you can see nothing fancy but thats exactly the point, but another thing you can see nicly here is...
4. Use the hell out of Dins Grass, Buffalo Grass, Flowers and Faux Rocks. These guys are Lifesavers in regards of making the ground itself prettier to look at. Only down side is that its worse for the pc performance then the paintbrush grass, but its also just way prettier AND does not despawn from far away. The flowers are part of the conservation pack and faux rox parts of the aquatic pac, but the grasses are both part of the base game.
5. Try sinking things into the ground. Sounds silly but often rocks and plants look better atleast partly submerged, especally in regards to creating bushes. As a confession, i allmost exclusivly use tropical plants for tropical houses and temperate and taiga plants from europe and asia for everywhere else (cause yk, european zoos are what i know) and while bramble bushes are nice and are frequently used, my most used bush is the beech sappling submerged. Looks beautiful, especally mixed with bramble bushes and oak sapplings and submerging it for the first time was unironically one of the most important moments for me learning the game.
And lastly 6. Use elevation to create panorama shots. Simply, a nice habitat is pretty but wouldnt it be a shame to be seen from one place while looking at this habitat? That obviously can work, but arranging habitats in a way that they are visible at the same time, becoming forground and/or background of other things, thats when a zoo really comes together and makes the habitats work synergisticly in making the view more then just the sum of its parts.
To showcase, have a little pic series from my favorite spot in my zoo.
Not the biggest transformation, but 2 rather simple looking habitats become much prettier now that they are combined, neat isnt it?
Thats it for now, if you want more tips just ask for it, im not the greatest builder out there, but i know enough simple stuff to make if you ask me some really pretty habitats ^^
Thanks to you three...
Last questions there, there is no possibility of enlarging or reducing the size of an object I imagine?
I am thinking of using a mountain as a vivarium, for electricity what do you recommend? To put a wind turbine on the top of the mountain or to make a hole in the mountain by putting a generator?
I looked on the workshop for a sign indicating "vivarium" or signs where each of the animals in the vivarium were written but I did not find them.
I may have looked badly, otherwise I will make them myself ^^
Last questions there, there is no possibility of enlarging or reducing the size of an object I imagine?
I am thinking of using a mountain as a vivarium, for electricity what do you recommend? To put a wind turbine on the top of the mountain or to make a hole in the mountain by putting a generator?
I looked on the workshop for a sign indicating "vivarium" or signs where each of the animals in the vivarium were written but I did not find them.
I may have looked badly, otherwise I will make them myself ^^
Thanks to you three...
Last questions there, there is no possibility of enlarging or reducing the size of an object I imagine?
I am thinking of using a mountain as a vivarium, for electricity what do you recommend? To put a wind turbine on the top of the mountain or to make a hole in the mountain by putting a generator?
I looked on the workshop for a sign indicating "vivarium" or signs where each of the animals in the vivarium were written but I did not find them.
I may have looked badly, otherwise I will make them myself ^^
I think I'm going to use things that have already been done and then I'm going to change them in my own way, it seems the easiest at the beginning and for learning.
Last questions there, there is no possibility of enlarging or reducing the size of an object I imagine?
I am thinking of using a mountain as a vivarium, for electricity what do you recommend? To put a wind turbine on the top of the mountain or to make a hole in the mountain by putting a generator?
I looked on the workshop for a sign indicating "vivarium" or signs where each of the animals in the vivarium were written but I did not find them.
I may have looked badly, otherwise I will make them myself ^^
I think I'm going to use things that have already been done and then I'm going to change them in my own way, it seems the easiest at the beginning and for learning.
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Just build it yourself, the worst thing that can happen is that you take awhile and learn what doesnt look good.
In the start nothing you make will be as good as the stuff from the workshop or youtube and thats okay it takes time and experience and the best way to learn is to just mess around and find out
In the start nothing you make will be as good as the stuff from the workshop or youtube and thats okay it takes time and experience and the best way to learn is to just mess around and find out
And when you made something youd like to show, why dont you drop it in the what did you do in planet zoo today thread?
Im sure it will be fun seing your growth as a builder ^^
Im sure it will be fun seing your growth as a builder ^^
Hey, no worries. A lot of us have horrendous builds. But in the "What Did You do in Planet Zoo Today?" thread, everybody is supportive and even give more suggestions
Thank you, you are all very nice here.
My new madness is to create a mountain to house my vivariums, I'm going to look for it on YouTube because my first attempt at a mountain looks like anything but a mountain^^
I had downloaded maps but I think I had to use them before playing so it's too late for me, I don't want to start my zoo again from scratch so the only possibility is to create this mountain myself or these mountains.
My new madness is to create a mountain to house my vivariums, I'm going to look for it on YouTube because my first attempt at a mountain looks like anything but a mountain^^
I had downloaded maps but I think I had to use them before playing so it's too late for me, I don't want to start my zoo again from scratch so the only possibility is to create this mountain myself or these mountains.
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