Climbing system is too much of a black box

[Bearcat9948]

After that original post, I made a new zoo with different 8 habitats, all the same size. 8 habitats per species, using the binturong, koala, red panda and proboscis monkey, and 8 random types of trees. The binturong did climb some of them, in fact they all climbed some of them. Which leads me to something that I'm convinced will at least partially help this issue (not the OP issue) but might at least make creating habitats for arboreal animals a bit less of a headache.

Every tree in the game that has the climbable tag is not necessarily climbable by every animal that can climb, if that makes any sense. So I'm going to suggest that every object that an animal can climb gets the tag of that animal, so we know what can and cannot climb said tree, which at the very least would save us a lot of time and headaches. I tried for hours to get a binturong to climb a foxtail palm tree, because the game says it's navigable by it and has the climbing tag, but it refused to do so.

And there are definitely issue with amount of time spent climbing vs not. It's not a huge deal for chimps, bonobos, and gorillas (orangs are a different story but without brachiation, honestly, who cares?). Binturongs and red pandas need to spend around 85% of their time in trees or on climbing frames. Koalas should literally only come down to poop or eat and then go right back up.

Also, will messing around with the koalas, I read in the Zoopedia that the min requirements are 180m^2 for a single koala.....Australia mandates the min size be 20m^2 with an additional 10m^2 for each new koala. The biggest koala habitat I could find was around 110m^2 in total. I have no idea where the got 180 but it needs to be reduced to at least 25m^2.

 

[SalamAnders]

So I just added binturongs to the game for the first time, and I wasn't expecting much after hearing the complains. So how did it go?

Spoiler: They both do this!

Spoiler: And this!

I haven't even added food or enrichment or anything to motivate the climbing behavior. They do this by themselves well around 85% of the time.

I think the key might be to have the climbing structures as the easiest area to move around on. I got a lot of rocks, logs and plants that I noticed makes the accessible land area quite a puzzle. I guess that could be the reason for why this is working close to perfect for me. Or maybe I just got lucky

 

[Bearcat9948]

I would recommend everyone watch this video by Rudi detailing how climbing works, or rather why it doesn't work well.

@SalamAnders Also, there is a difference between their willingness to climb trees and natural items vs player made climbing frames. That's the issue I usually talk about personally

 

[XT]

Ive never seen a binturong climb a tree. I have trees and structures and they always use the structure (and I've seen mine hang upside down several times). I suspect that trees are ... coded as second rate climbing options in the system (however you would say that tech-wise). They (and most of the climbing animals) still spend too much time on the ground. Orangs, koalas and monkeys should spend no time on the ground if there's any other option.

 

[NZFanatic]

Ive never seen a binturong climb a tree. I have trees and structures and they always use the structure (and I've seen mine hang upside down several times). I suspect that trees are ... coded as second rate climbing options in the system (however you would say that tech-wise). They (and most of the climbing animals) still spend too much time on the ground. Orangs, koalas and monkeys should spend no time on the ground if there's any other option.

Well, actually, arboreal animals in zoos do tend to become more terrestrial over time due to the absence of predators and the fact that a lot of their food winds up on the ground. It doesn't mean they shouldn't climb more in the game, they definitely should, just that some terrestrial behaviour certainly isn't abnormal.

There are exceptions, such as with the koala, but red pandas, monkeys, and certainly orangutans often spend time on the ground in many zoos.

 

[XT]

Well, actually, arboreal animals in zoos do tend to become more terrestrial over time due to the absence of predators and the fact that a lot of their food winds up on the ground. It doesn't mean they shouldn't climb more in the game, they definitely should, just that some terrestrial behaviour certainly isn't abnormal.

There are exceptions, such as with the koala, but red pandas, monkeys, and certainly orangutans often spend time on the ground in many zoos.

This is true but if Frontier is going all in on the idea of an idealized zoo, including expecting us to create habitats well beyond what zoos and the AZA often recommends, then it seems they should reflect the natural behavior we're supposed to be aiming for with all that inconvenience. I know that zoos don't especially like the fact that their arboreal animals spend more time on the ground than natural - it creates disease risk.