Getting overwhelmed by breeding animals

[Sunlight Stylus]

I need conservation credits but as my franchise zoo gets larger and larger I spend more time pausing the game and responding to maturing animals that need to be sent to the trade center. Is it possible to toggle habitats to auto send newborn and/or maturing animals to the trade center for me to look over periodically. I feel like I get a notification ever minute leading to me managing population levels more than building an actual zoo.

I also would like the same for exhibits as some exhibit animals have short life spans and Id like to have extras around but then they breed way to often.

 

[Arrakai]

Changing the aging of the animals usually helps alot with that. You will earn CC slower, but your time playing and your stress lvl will improve alot! The only zoo's I ever have aging at normal is my breeding zoo's and there I usually only have one or a few species. In every other zoo I have the aging set to +5 (you can start with +2-3 and see how that feels)

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

Easiest solution is to play sandbox. Way less tedious then franchise. + I can actually build relatshionships with animals as they dont just die away what feels like every 5 min

 

[Sunlight Stylus]

Easiest solution is to play sandbox. Way less tedious then franchise. + I can actually build relatshionships with animals as they dont just die away what feels like every 5 min

Changing the aging of the animals usually helps alot with that. You will earn CC slower, but your time playing and your stress lvl will improve alot! The only zoo's I ever have aging at normal is my breeding zoo's and there I usually only have one or a few species. In every other zoo I have the aging set to +5 (you can start with +2-3 and see how that feels)

Problem with sandbox is I like the money aspect of management sims and I get more fun out of building a zoo under constraints. Im the type of guy that played zoo tycoon with the minimum starting cash.

As for changing the aging rates, that would help and eventually I might do that if I have to, but its flawed for a few reasons:

1. I don't like the idea of building multiple zoos to get around the "meta-game". I now have to manage a second zoo for the sole purpose of getting animals for my "real" zoo? I'd rather get credits for playing the game naturally.
2. I like the idea of the time scale all being synced to the in-game world time and I don't want to lose that. I its nice to look at an animals maturity rate/lifespan in the zoopedia and understand what that means in terms of how long i've been playing that zoo in particular.
3. Default settings should be what a game is balanced around and intended to be played with and I seriously doubt the devs plan for players to play in 1 minute bursts, constantly getting taken out of the park building aspects of the game.
4. Lastly, and most importantly in my mind, work arounds dont feel like compelling reasons to ignore a problem that could potentially be fixed.

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

I can respect that, but honestly, there is no challamge in franchise, just tedium. Also you can limit the amount of starting cash and stuff that you have in sandbox too. Thats the cool part, it lets you mix abnd mash features however you want.
For example you could deactivate only the protestors, so that they dont scream acrosd the map because ylur scorpion tank is full

 

[Arrakai]

If you only care about making one zoo, I would agree with Köning, Sandbox is probably your best option

The best part about Franchise, and the reason I only play this mode, is that you can have multiple zoo's and move your animals freely between them

"work arounds dont feel like compelling reasons to ignore a problem that could potentially be fixed", well the animal aging settings were implemented for this exact reason. Players complaigned about animals aging to fast and too much happening in the zoo's, so they coudn't keep up. Since it was basicly impossible for Frontier to change how the time worked in the game without having to redesign everything (as alot of things in the game are based on the times passed, not just animals aging) they just changed it so that we players could slow down animal aging and by doing so, enjoy their animals and play the game with less stress.

 

[SanRazo618]

I play franchise cause I love the connectivity between my zoos. Ever since they added the feature I play with aging slowed 5 times. It has worked wonders for me. When you build a bigger zoo you still find yourself managing populations a lot but I can’t imagine playing on normal speed ever again. I like to get more connected to my animals and build huge zoos . Because most zoos don’t only have 20 species in them

 

[Laura_91]

You can see all your animals in the zoo menu. I cant remember the full process and im at work so can't check. But I think there's an animals tab which shows all animals. You can put babies on contraceptives from there. And also select animals to release or send to trade centre.

 

[KellyL]

I use the 5x aging slowdown also, and I play sandbox with the same money/cc constraints as franchise. It works great.

 

[SanRazo618]

I guess it’s important for me too add also I don’t have a “breeding zoo” I make CC just fine on 5 times slower speed. Then again I like to take things slow

 

[Skalea]

I can respect that, but honestly, there is no challamge in franchise, just tedium. Also you can limit the amount of starting cash and stuff that you have in sandbox too. Thats the cool part, it lets you mix abnd mash features however you want.
For example you could deactivate only the protestors, so that they dont scream acrosd the map because ylur scorpion tank is full

My opinion is that the money aspect in franchise gives you an indication of how efficiently your zoo is run. This "management" aspect is what I am most interested in the game.

Problem with sandbox is I like the money aspect of management sims and I get more fun out of building a zoo under constraints. Im the type of guy that played zoo tycoon with the minimum starting cash.

As for changing the aging rates, that would help and eventually I might do that if I have to, but its flawed for a few reasons:

1. I don't like the idea of building multiple zoos to get around the "meta-game". I now have to manage a second zoo for the sole purpose of getting animals for my "real" zoo? I'd rather get credits for playing the game naturally.
2. I like the idea of the time scale all being synced to the in-game world time and I don't want to lose that. I its nice to look at an animals maturity rate/lifespan in the zoopedia and understand what that means in terms of how long i've been playing that zoo in particular.
3. Default settings should be what a game is balanced around and intended to be played with and I seriously doubt the devs plan for players to play in 1 minute bursts, constantly getting taken out of the park building aspects of the game.
4. Lastly, and most importantly in my mind, work arounds dont feel like compelling reasons to ignore a problem that could potentially be fixed.

DEVS PLEASE READ THIS.

I understand the comments from other players, but for me Franchise (as a play mode) just stops being fun when I pass a certain number of animals in my zoo.

I give you 10/10 for the creativity and animals, but the management is so lacking right now ! My idea of fun in Planet zoo is creating efficient systems, watching them run with an occasional tweak or fix, developing more systems to make more money when the previous ones run smoothly, all until you have your perfect zoo. I do not want to spend all my time micro-managing previous systems which should be able to run efficiently on their own ! This is what I thought Franchise was about, but it just turns into a tedious pause grind because of (uninteresting) gene splicing and fights in enclosures as soon as the kids from your one couple of animals mature. One couple regardless of the size of enclosure !

In my opinion, Planet Zoo is close to being the perfect modern zoo management / creation game. But I think Franchise needs an important rework on gene curing and animal growth before it can be fun. Who the hell wants a game where all of the play time is spent going from enclosure to enclosure manually pressing "release into the wild"....

PS: also let me select bins, benches and so on for deletion in bulk

 

[ElectricMonk]

+1 to sandbox with cash restricted. I play with aging slowed x4 and mentally recalibrate years to seasons…. On animal breeding though (and management) zoos generally don’t just breed as many animals as they can all the time - they’d quickly run out of space for them all. Rather, for species that breed readily in captivity, they restrict breeding by, for example, separating males and females… a key part of zoo management is managing breeding. If you don’t want to run around keeping such a close eye on animals breeding or ageing up don’t let them breed just like in real zoos.

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

My "Problem" with planet zoo as a managememt game is, that i really dont see it.
I dont count putting down staff rooms and creating zones as a management game.
It could be an aspegt, but right now its literally the main feature.
Its not a bad feature, but to actually make this game even somewhat close they would need to redesign alot of animals, besides slowing everything down by a ton.
Some examples include:
-deactivating the trading center as a way to store and without a problem taking care of the animals.
99% if the problems in this game are solved by just putting things in the trading center and will be even more so as soon as things about seperation come into the game.
For example, i build a seperated pen for breeding and pregnant animals for my nyalas, sounds cool right?
But beside the game giving me no possibility to actually build doors and stuff, the animals cant be let there, making it in practise a seperate enclosure with lots scenery attached, i can only move animals per hand.

In Franchise, this decision would have made things way more tedious, especally because theres no penalty to keep them all together.
Oh no? Their social group is to large and you are not happy anymore?
Why is my incentive to get rid of that some annoying and loud protestors and not something like "we are stressed, we dont breed".
That change alone would validate what i did and put an extra management layer thats fun without being tedious (because its basicly optional) for everyone

 

[ElectricMonk]

Yep. TBH I think PZ is, at best , a middling management game, but an EXCEPTIONAL building game. In any mode cash isn’t an issue after about 1/2 an hour of play and CC (which is a pretty clunky mechanic) is nearly as easy to get (especially after you have one successful zoo in franchise). From a management POV there are lots of improvements that could be made, some fairly easily some would require a rebuild from the ground up. Nevertheless, PZ is, IMO, easily the best zoo simulator ever released… and that’s as it currently stands. Each DLC and update makes it better and better and better. It is, by far, my most played game on steam and probably the best value for money (in terms of money vs. hours) purchase I’ve ever made. If I was asked how good it was by someone not particularly into animals or building, but just looking for a deep and complex management game though…..

 

[Skalea]

In fact would say that I do not need Planet Zoo to be a deep and complex management game. I just wish Franchise was not tedious.

Mandatory lion farming for CC, constant repetitive micro-management required for gene curing / management of animal numbers just kills the game for me. I do not even have the time to look at my animals because of the constant alerts these (unnecessary ?) systems cause.

 

[Sandy1853]

Wouldn't it already be a solution if there was an option like being able to chose which tasks must be fulfilled by the zookeepers? As in real life, the manager of a zoo wouldn't be the one to look at every animal and sort out the ones that are matured. We are already able to tell the keepers who is only in charge of cleaning or feeding, and for this reason I had the idea of adding something like population control to their job description. So the player is able to choose, if the animals should be brought to the trade center or traded immediately at a specific age.