just lost 8 lemurs because of this problem... please fix it!
Helpful information on Zookeepers
- Thread starter Chante Goodman
- Start date
Hello, i could be playing this game right now! but the feeding issue is so annoying that i and many others have taken the time to create an account on this forum just to complain about this. I have read your helpfull information however i just wan't to enjoy the game, when you send a vet to a sick animal they heal it when you send a mechanic to a broken thing they fix it when you send a keeper to a habitat they watch the animals die they are a sick breed these keepers of yours just let US tell them what to do aswell as keeping your own AI then the organised players can have fun your way and the lazy players like myself can have fun our way if there is an empty feeder and i tell my employee to fill it i expect them to do it the other staff do what they are told!
Kind regards
Zoo tycoon 2 Keeper
Kind regards
Zoo tycoon 2 Keeper
I am not really having a problem with my keepers. Yes, I do have animals that cannot find food or there isn't food to be had, but often it is an error on the creators part (ie: mine). My question, if answerable, is: Is there an EASY way to figure out just how many keepers are needed? IN other words, is there a limit as to how many habitats, or animals, that one keeper can efficiently handle? I know it also depends on the animal themselves, how much they eat or poop, but is there some type of guideline?
The "problem" stems from people equating a food tray with feeding and not the overall design of their park (ie enclosure size and staffing etc). Spamming food and enrichment items thinking it will increase the amount of food cover. This is just lazy, simplisitic or illogical thinking, especially in conversation, feeding is very regulated, you certainly dont overfeed causing food waste, cost and animal health issues. Imagine the whining if those were included in the game mechanic, I'm not against it as an option but people are already complaining about micro-managing larger zoos and you can already manually call a keeper to check the enclosure! The keeper visits enclosures routinely to see what is going on and then responds accordingly (clealiness, hunger state, calling a vet for animal health etc) so you need the enclosures accessible and not too far from sufficient numbers of keeper huts, with enough dedicated staff to cover the enclosure workload so that they end up visiting frequently enough for the number of animals in an enclosure which relates to the number of feeders and enrichment items which also has to relate to the number of animals. All of these are up to you as the designer. If you can't hack joining the dots, then have smaller enclosures with smaller numbers of animals. Start slowly and understand the mechanism first instead of instantly blaming the game.
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When some of my animals were dying, I had enough money to try whatever was needed to save them. I decided to see if it was fixable. I hired an overplus amount of keepers, gave them access to an overplus of keeper huts and staff rooms directly adjoining the habitat and assigned them to a workzone that was just that the habitat + keeper huts + staff rooms. I also changed the side with all the staff buildings to a staff path, so visitors couldn't physically block my staff.
After letting the game run, most of the keepers assigned to the workzone showed they didn't do anything for about 80% of the time, so I definitely had enough keepers. In the meantime the feeders were mostly empty -some feeders were being filled, just not enough of them-, a part of my Indian peafowls were hungry and actually dying while the exhibit was messy enough to give a warning message. Calling a keeper to check on the habitat didn't make a difference. Also I watched an animal walk past a feeder that still contained food, to die half a minute later of starvation.
What did I miss here?
Either I still don't understand the game mechanics or keepers are not very good in working together, which is needed in larger habitats. That's why I stopped trying to create bigger habitats with larger groups. Even though I would love to build bigger habitats and have several species together (of course after consulting the Zoopedia) without them dying of starvation.
It'd be nice if I as a player had any idea how much food my animals actually needed. We have a weight capacity for each feeder, but we don't know how much each animal needs to eat. How many feeders do I actually need to keep my animals fed if my keepers only fill once a month? The keepers are using information I don't have access to to make decisions I didn't tell them to make - navigating that system isn't management, it's confusing.
Its actually really easy. If your keepers put food on the ground then you dont have enough feeders. if they dont fill a feeder up. you have too many feeders. its that simple
People are having different experiences to yours though.
I honestly thought keepers putting food on the ground seemingly at random was a bug, some kind of visual mistargeting until now (granted I have keepers ignoring what look to be accessible restraint feeders to drop food on the ground of my saltwater crocodile habitat for some reason). That ought to tell you how unclear the mechanic is. Combined with certain enrichment objects also leaving little food piles, I don't want to watch my zoo keepers like a hawk to try and figure out if I actually have enough feeders in the habitat. The Zoopedia should tell me how much each species needs to eat per x time frame prior to adoption so I can plan my build. The game/keepers should whine loudly that there aren't enough feeders in a habitat for number of animals or a feeder is inaccessible rather than dropping food seemingly at random. I noticed there's a Habitat Contents dropdown in the Animal section of the Habitat info panel, and it displays a readout related to feeders, but it's unclear if the readout refers to food available in the habitat or maximum feeder capacity of the habitat. I'm currently seeing Habitat Feeders reading 0 on wildebeest and sable antelope in my mixed savanna, but welfare is good and habitat is maxed, food seems fine - everyone has just finished eating and feeders are now empty. What's that readout for?
Am I reading that right? That keepers only feed the animals in each exhibit "once a game year?" I have been playing fast and furiously or slow and meticulously (mostly on pause) so I haven't paid too much attention to the time... But is that really how often (or, rather, how inoften) that happens?
I just wanted to share a keeper/animal interaction that I witnessed last night.
In my large, American Prairie habitat, I have pronghorn and American Bison.
Last night I observed one of the Bison charge and knock down one of the keepers.
The keeper then got up and went along his business like nothing had happened
In my large, American Prairie habitat, I have pronghorn and American Bison.
Last night I observed one of the Bison charge and knock down one of the keepers.
The keeper then got up and went along his business like nothing had happened
I have had minimal issues with zookeepers which I have gotten around by meticulously assigning work zones and assigning some keepers to feed only and some to clean only and keeping one or two with both tasks after I lost my first and only animal to starvation. But now with a large savannah exhibit I am having a ridiculous amount of issues keeping my animals fed. 7 animals in the exhibit are hungry and the zookeeper enters and rather then address the hungry animals begins to clean the habitat. More animals get hungry, I uncheck clean exhibit off that zookeepers tasks hoping to prompt them to go to the keeper hut and make some food. Nope. Nothing. Continues to clean the habitat which is at 100% cleanliness. Extremely frustrating. Furthermore this keeper had to come running all the way across the zoo, despite having a work zone with all keeper amenities right next to this exhibit. I really think frontier should just add some sort of player override where you can opt to manually fill a food fish with a click. Waiting around for keepers to figure out the obvious while you sit there helpless watching as more and more animals get hungry and continue to starve is not anyone's idea of a good time.
If you have a large habitat it may too much work for one Keeper alone. Consider adding additional keepers and huts to large habitats so they can ensure the animals are best cared for.
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