I don't want inbreeding between parents and children.

[alskdgasd]

I'd appreciate if the team would consider giving us some way to prevent incest/inbreeding. It actually really bothers me to have a cute family of giraffes that I enjoy one minute, and then come back a few minutes later to find that the baby aged up and got pregnant by her father. I understand this was meant to be a feature (I think?), but I'd greatly appreciate an option to prevent this from happening (not ONLY in sandbox mode, please. I can't stress that enough). I thought that the "mate" feature would do exactly that, but as soon as my american bison baby aged up her father immediately became her mate. I don't like that. It honestly ruins the game for me.

 

[Dr4gon]

Sorry, animals are like that. The only one who can prevent inbreeding is you ;-)

 

[alskdgasd]

Sorry, animals are like that. The only one who can prevent incest is you ;-)

Good thing that it's a video game, then. I don't care what animals are like in the wild. Since I'M in control of the zoo, I should be able to prevent it.

 

[Dr4gon]

I give my animals a number behind their names as soon as they get born. A number 1 can never mate with an other number 1. It's far from flawless, but it's better than nothing.

 

[Agathorn]

Its part of the challenge. You need to manage the breeding. Letting you turn it off means letting you just disable a large part of the game's intended challenge. IF they added such a feature it would almost assuredly be in sandbox only.

 

[alskdgasd]

The problem is then is that it takes the fun out of the game for me. I can't control if a number 1 breeds with another number 1, or ensure that alpha males only breed with the females I intend for him to breed with. After the giraffe fiasco I immediately jumped to every animal that matured. My american bison's father IMMEDIATELY became her mate, so I had to sell her. Any animal with a polygamous status is just going to breed with their children and any animal that's monogamous is just going to immediately kill each other over alpha status. It makes me not want to play if the challenge of the game is to prevent the parents from impregnating their own children.

I really don't care about inbreeding as far as siblings go, but parents mating with their children before I even have a chance to stop them really bothers me. And I seriously don't care how accurate it is to real life because there are a lot of disgusting practices behind the dairy industry that I certainly wouldn't enjoy as a realistic feature in a farming simulator. There's a line that should be drawn sometimes on life simulation.

 

[Charmmy Colour]

Why are we assuming this is realistic?

In most cases, is not! Most animals don’t breed with their parents, siblings and off-spring out of pure instinct. How the heck would a herd species survive if they inbreed themselves to death? There’s exceptions of course, but most animals recognize their immediate family and don’t try to breed with them.

Zoo Tycoon 2 had that right. But also, ZT2 had a proper family tree so...

 

[TheGaijin87]

just do it like me, have 2 habitats, one for the parents and the youngest children and as soon as they are getting anywhere close to being adults i put them in the second habitat. so im never running the risk and have people pay twice for the same animal

 

[Morbad]

There's a line that should be drawn sometimes on life simulation.

And everyone's lines are different. Trying to cater to every peeve would quickly bloat any video game beyond usability or recognition.

Why are we assuming this is realistic?

Because it often is, especially in the case of population bottlenecks or other limited opportunity scenarios, such as a small group being confined to an exhibit in a zoo.

In most cases, is not! Most animals don’t breed with their parents, siblings and off-spring out of pure instinct. How the heck would a herd species survive if they inbreed themselves to death? There’s exceptions of course, but most animals recognize their immediate family and don’t try to breed with them.

Animals will mate with what's available. In healthy wild populations inbreeding is fairly uncommon because there are usually other options.

Zoo exhibits are not healthy wild populations and real zoos often must separate, trade, or even kill animals to prevent inbreeding.

 

[cerealfruitcakes]

I always go into the animal panel list, sort it by age & give all the new babies/young animals birth control. You can't set birth control in their individual window before maturity but you can in the panel list. Maybe what would be really helpful is having an option for automatic birth control with new births.

 

[Charmmy Colour]

And everyone's lines are different. Trying to cater to every peeve would quickly bloat any video game beyond usability or recognition.



Because it often is, especially in the case of population bottlenecks or other limited opportunity scenarios, such as a small group being confined to an exhibit in a zoo.



Animals will mate with what's available. In healthy wild populations inbreeding is fairly uncommon because there are usually other options.

Zoo exhibits are not healthy wild populations and real zoos often must separate, trade, or even kill animals to prevent inbreeding.

Danish zoo kills giraffe to prevent inbreeding

Saying it needed to prevent inbreeding, the Copenhagen Zoo killed a 2-year-old giraffe and fed its remains to lions as visitors watched, ignoring a petition signed by thousands and offers from other zoos and a private individual to save the animal.

phys.org

I understand there’s a problem with inbreeding in limited populations and lack of space and options. Sometimes this isn’t even the zoo fault per se, and animals that have all they need still inbreed just because.

But this isn’t like the default, inevitable setting. If you have a healthy male Gazelle with three or four female ones, for which he already showed interest and bred; and his daughter grows up, I shouldn’t be trying to breed with her! He have options and we are assuming perfect space and conditions too on the game, and sometimes of course there’s a weirdo that tries to bang anything.

But it’s not something that always happens and you should expect as a common and natural thing. In most cases, the zebra will recognize it’s his daughter and won’t try to mate with her if there’s no outside factors forcing him.

Edit: Theres definitely animals a lot more inclined to inbreed just because they can, and I’m fine having to manage them this way. I just think it’s absurd in a lot of them. Of course I expect having to manage cousins and such too, and having inbreed happening if they can find other mates/their needs are not meet.

 

[Agathorn]

The feature to disable it already exists. Just enable contraceptives. It won't do it for you automaticlly no, but you can manually do it.

 

[KaoRu]

I'd appreciate if the team would consider giving us some way to prevent incest/inbreeding. It actually really bothers me to have a cute family of giraffes that I enjoy one minute, and then come back a few minutes later to find that the baby aged up and got pregnant by her father. I understand this was meant to be a feature (I think?), but I'd greatly appreciate an option to prevent this from happening (not ONLY in sandbox mode, please. I can't stress that enough). I thought that the "mate" feature would do exactly that, but as soon as my american bison baby aged up her father immediately became her mate. I don't like that.

I don't care if it's realistic. It's disturbing and depressing, and it ruins the game for me.

I just go on the Zoo tab where it shows all the animals I own and go off their ages. The oldest are the parents and the youngest are of course the offspring and I give them all the pill until I release/trade them or until one of their parents die (or I decide to release them - by this time they'll be too old to trade).
You have to pay attention to the notification telling you your animals are about to mature that's how I've been able to control any inbreeding. The only inbreeding I'm accepting is my Spiders as it's just too much of a headache sorting them as they breed way too much (which is also a good way to get money). At first I controlled it but they breed ALOT where eventually you don't care.

 

[Morbad]

It isn't a "this feature isn't my favorite" scenario of not being able to please everyone.

That's exactly what it sounds like. You want a feature to automate a process that you could be doing manually (applying contraceptives until those animals you want to breed are placed together and away from unacceptable mates) to achieve a very specific and arbitrary end result.

But it’s not something that always happens and you should expect as a common and natural thing. In most cases, the zebra will recognize it’s his daughter and won’t try to mate with her if there’s no outside factors forcing him.

Edit: Theres definitely animals a lot more inclined to inbreed just because they can, and I’m fine having to manage them this way. I just think it’s absurd in a lot of them. Of course I expect having to manage cousins and such too, and having inbreed happening if they can find other mates/their needs are not meet.

The default should be rational odds and biases deduced from observed behavior of real animals, weighted for the conditions they are kept in. I can't comment on the accuracy of specific in-game examples, except that to have inbreeding wholly absent wouldn't be very plausible.

Yes, inbreeding is a serious genetic problem for zoo operators and animal conservationists, but there are so many other issues that can be just as problematic that do not have arbitrary 'opt out' options. A specific inbreeding/consanguinity filter would look like the imposition of human cultural values on animal populations...which might make sense for a bible game, but not for an educational park simulator, even if it's a relatively soft and abstract one.

 

[alskdgasd]

That's exactly what it sounds like. You want a feature to automate a process that you could be doing manually (applying contraceptives until those animals you want to breed are placed together and away from unacceptable mates) to achieve a very specific and arbitrary end result.



The default should be rational odds and biases deduced from observed behavior of real animals, weighted for the conditions they are kept in. I can't comment on the accuracy of specific in-game examples, except that to have inbreeding wholly absent wouldn't be very plausible.

Yes, inbreeding is a serious genetic problem for zoo operators and animal conservationists, but there are so many other issues that can be just as problematic that do not have arbitrary 'opt out' options. A specific inbreeding/consanguinity filter would look like the imposition of human cultural values on animal populations...which might make sense for a bible game, but not for an educational park simulator, even if it's a relatively soft and abstract one.

You can't even kill your patrons in planet games like you could in the original tycoon games, yet I'm being unreasonable for asking for a feature to be tweaked so it doesn't include something I'm personally bothered by? Not even ALLOWING mothers/fathers to breed with their children isn't automating a feature.

 

[Louise123]

You can put adult animals on contraceptives (not sure about youngsters) so you could either put your young animals on it if you can or the adult male until you're ready to make a new enclosure, trade the father etc

 

[Charmmy Colour]

That's exactly what it sounds like. You want a feature to automate a process that you could be doing manually (applying contraceptives until those animals you want to breed are placed together and away from unacceptable mates) to achieve a very specific and arbitrary end result.



The default should be rational odds and biases deduced from observed behavior of real animals, weighted for the conditions they are kept in. I can't comment on the accuracy of specific in-game examples, except that to have inbreeding wholly absent wouldn't be very plausible.

Yes, inbreeding is a serious genetic problem for zoo operators and animal conservationists, but there are so many other issues that can be just as problematic that do not have arbitrary 'opt out' options. A specific inbreeding/consanguinity filter would look like the imposition of human cultural values on animal populations...which might make sense for a bible game, but not for an educational park simulator, even if it's a relatively soft and abstract one.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to get rid of inbreeding completely. Inbreeding happens, and sometimes it does without a real good explanation why. I do think managing and avoiding inbreeding it’s a cool mechanic on PZ.

I just feel that, right now, it’s really extreme. Let’s say I have 3 pairs of unrelated flamingos and they breed and have a total of 8 chicks. The chicks grow up and I don’t put them on the pill because I want them to mate too with one of the others chicks. But instead they breed with their siblings or their parents! Why? Again I understand if they could be factors promoting that like bad care, or even if there’s random individuals that are just like that. But I don’t feel that it’s normal to expect them all to inbreed as default, and putting them on the pill also prevents the group to grow altogether. I don’t think we should go around disabling the pill in two specific individuals, wait then to breed, and proceed to the next pair one by one.

It’s a little overkill in my opinion.

 

[Silhouette]

I'm on the fence about this.

On one hand I agree with Charmmy. While I have no problems using contraceptives (and I do), I also do think inbreeding is at an extreme level right now. It's an issue I had since beta. I'll take their example of flamingoes because that's a really good one. There's zero reason for relatives to be mating if there's other available mates for them. Do you really think zoos irl would be able to manage inbreeding in birds like that, when they have flocks in the hundreds?

Cases like that, and other animals like herd animals, should be less receptive to breed with one another. Of course it should only be 100% safe if you use contraceptives but if a flamingo has a mate they shouldn't just suddenly change to mating with their child, and vice versa. The children should only mate with relatives if there's no other options (so again, use contraceptives to be 100% safe).

On the other hand, and I'm sorry I don't mean to offend but, I disagree wholeheartedly with disabling inbreeding altogether. You can't really take a human emotion and apply it to a situation like this, and then try to make a moral argument out of it. I'm sorry that it disturbs you so much for animals to inbreed, but it's just a way of life. Animals don't have morals like we do, so their idea of mating with parents/siblings/children doesn't affect them the way it does with humans. If it bothers you, like others have said, figure out ways around it like in real life. For example if your dog or cat were to have puppies or kittens, your work around is to get them neutered/spayed as soon as they're old enough to prevent them from mating with one another. Similar idea here.

 

[alskdgasd]

I'm on the fence about this.

On one hand I agree with Charmmy. While I have no problems using contraceptives (and I do), I also do think inbreeding is at an extreme level right now. It's an issue I had since beta. I'll take their example of flamingoes because that's a really good one. There's zero reason for relatives to be mating if there's other available mates for them. Do you really think zoos irl would be able to manage inbreeding in birds like that, when they have flocks in the hundreds?

Cases like that, and other animals like herd animals, should be less receptive to breed with one another. Of course it should only be 100% safe if you use contraceptives but if a flamingo has a mate they shouldn't just suddenly change to mating with their child, and vice versa. The children should only mate with relatives if there's no other options (so again, use contraceptives to be 100% safe).

On the other hand, and I'm sorry I don't mean to offend but, I disagree wholeheartedly with disabling inbreeding altogether. You can't really take a human emotion and apply it to a situation like this, and then try to make a moral argument out of it. I'm sorry that it disturbs you so much for animals to inbreed, but it's just a way of life. Animals don't have morals like we do, so their idea of mating with parents/siblings/children doesn't affect them the way it does with humans. If it bothers you, like others have said, figure out ways around it like in real life. For example if your dog or cat were to have puppies or kittens, your work around is to get them neutered/spayed as soon as they're old enough to prevent them from mating with one another. Similar idea here.

I'm going to uninstall the game and stop playing. That'll be my solution. That isn't my idea of fun and some of the responses I've received on this thread have been toxic. Too bad I can't get a refund.

 

[SatiricCross]

When it comes down to it, you have control over your own experience in the game. If you don't want an animal to breed with another, contraceptives have been provided. Other people have different breeding goals from you, and inbreeding is one of the ways people achieve those goals. I understand that this is a situation that personally offends you, but you can decide not to participate in it.