I've been keeping a close eye on my zoo's finances for well over 20 in-game years now and the one part of my finances that's constantly 'out of whack' when compared to everything else (even the weird refunds) is the food costs. They are insanely high. Even with an average of 8K guests per year and after keeping a very close eye on my animal populations and having to lay off and redesign work zones to get the most work done with a minimum amount of staff (apart from vendors, I think I have double the amount of vendors compared to all of my other staff, that's crazy!) my zoo has gone from 15 million dollars right after the latest patch to just around 9 million dollars right now. I have sold shops that were performing poorly, I've replaced most of my expensive staff with cheap staff (one star instead of four stars), everything is solar- or wind-powered, I make sure to keep the numbers of the most expensive animals down to a manageable number, and I'm STILL losing money. Something HAS to change about those food costs, because they're completely unbalanced and unrealistic compared to the costs and profits of everything else. This is not about guest happiness (the refunds are only around 20K a year, that's small compared to all the other costs), but about how 'out of whack' the current finances are.
Insanely high food costs
- Thread starter Adarra
- Start date
One thing I rarely do in this game is try to save money, i always find the better solutions is to try and make more. What are your food costs in relation to your income? It could be that you are not quite making enough income rather than losing too much.
I'm going to have to write this down, I'll get back to you on that. As to the question about making more money: My food costs average between 350K and 400K yearly. My income is around... let's see... 200K. But I have to admit that I have no idea/insight about how to figure out when guests think my food/drink costs are too high for them to stop buying, maybe that's an area I can increase on. I can't change my ticket prices, because then they'll start whining about how high they are. Eh, let's see... as I said I've reduced the amount of staff I'm using. I use perks on all my staff rooms, but that's not really a lot of money on a yearly basis. Donations are slowly increasing and guests seem to like the prices of my rides (IF they use them, 'cause that's a bug) but other than that I have no idea what to do. I'm currently quick selling all my animals instead of trading/releasing them and even then I'm barely breaking even.
After the latest update my zoo also ran right into very red digits!
I found that the my food cost were high, my staff wages even higher, sales down and donations also.
Here's what I have done and zoo is back in profit:
In the end my staff wages were halfened, guests were happier, they buy more, eat more and drink more and also fill the donation boxes again.
I found that the my food cost were high, my staff wages even higher, sales down and donations also.
Here's what I have done and zoo is back in profit:
- fired all animal keepers, except two 5* which were needed and replaced them with 1* newbies and so far only a few received an upgrade
- reduced shop guys
- fired all zoo keepers who had a yellow workload; were several waves of firing staff
- fired three of my five 5* vets and re-hired 1* vets
- halfened number of security guys
- shut down all unnecessary water cleanings and replaced power plants by wind and solar devices (as I read your power is already free of charge)
- checked the staff rooms and replaced all big ones with small huts; except where the big staff huts were necessary
- checked all prices for drink, food and souvenirs; added all "goodies" to the food and drinks; i.e. "little bit of ice" to the drinks, then checked cost of those and set the price exact to the double; souvenirs you can set the prices to 4x the cost
- at the end I also reduced the numbers of high cost animals; Lions are not more than 4 atm, Gorillas and Utans -1 of max pack size.
In the end my staff wages were halfened, guests were happier, they buy more, eat more and drink more and also fill the donation boxes again.
Charge for bathrooms and ATMs. Hike up the price on the rides too - every station if you have more than one. And check the prices at your shops too. This is how I keep my zoo profitable. I have a ton of staff all completely trained and making the highest wages. Lots of predators too. It can be done.
Make sure you have lots of ATMs everywhere. Initially, I had maybe two or three in a decent sized zoo. After I placed more ATMs, there was a very noticeable increase in income.
And donation boxes
I never seen them complain that they have to pay for ATM
I have been monitoring my food costs and I have noticed they are very random I have 2 adult grizzly bears with 3 cubs and for 2 years in game food costs were 9,999 and then I paused to do some construction and resumed the game and my grizzly bear food costs shot up to 26,999 for the rest of the year. Also I have noticed since the update as soon as January hits in a game year I have a deficit instantly of 13k in food costs and I always start in a negative figure every year. I have played 15 in game years since patch 1.1.1 and it happens the January of every game year a huge deficit. I again tested my polar bears with 2 adults and a cub the game had them at around 8k the cub matured and I moved him to the trade centre and food cost for the next year shot up to 18k again this happened when I paused and resumed to do bits and bobs. My zoo has for the last 15 years in game been stuck in the 170k-180k mark. Before the patch my zoo was at 280k and climbing. I have tightened up on staff and reduced number of animals but the numbers do not add up. I'm terrified to upgrade any of my animals food beyond grade one because the cost is so high.
I just loaded up my franchise zoo and a new year came round I had 182k and the 3rd of February I suddenly dropped to 167k instantly I checked and in 2 game months I spent 22k on food the rest accounted for wages and the other deductions.
I just loaded up my franchise zoo and a new year came round I had 182k and the 3rd of February I suddenly dropped to 167k instantly I checked and in 2 game months I spent 22k on food the rest accounted for wages and the other deductions.
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I can only confirm.
Yeah, I noticed that, too. Food costs do seem to be all over the place especially when it comes to lions. I have loads of high cost animals in my largest franchise zoo, all of them in habitats that never change regarding the number of food trays and enrichment, so there isn't more to fill and never anything on the ground. Tigers, elephants, cheetahs...all their feeding costs stay consisten and rise and fall accordingly when their numbers change, whether they've got babies or not. Now as soon as the lions get only two cubs the cost almost tripples from between 35-55k to about 85-100k sometimes even more. (Edit: just now the cost for my lions also went up from one year to the next by about 25k even though nothing changed in the slightest, all the other feeding costs stayed exactly the same) So there's definitely something weird going on there that doesn't make sense at all. I mean how on earth can two cubs eat almost twice as much as 5 grown lions? Thankfully I was able to balance it out with everything else and my zoo's still doing well but it's annoying nonetheless.
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I think the food costs are way too high. They need to be curbed back a bit.
It’s really about management skills. Like I get it can be frustrating, idk I just don’t want Frontier to keep making it easier and easier for people.
If you have carnivores in your zoo before you’re “stable” you’re going to run yourself into the ground.
If you have carnivores in your zoo before you’re “stable” you’re going to run yourself into the ground.
I agree with that and like I mentioned earlier my problem isn't that lions are too expensive in general or anything, I'm totally fine with them being more expensive to keep than other species. The problem I see with them is that the cost suddenly doubles or even tripples from one year to the next for no reason at all (or one that I could find anyway) and it only happens with lions (at least in my game), none of the other high cost animals like tigers or elephants. And for me that doesn't have anything to do with management skills, not when the game tells you the four lions you have cost 10k per feeding, they are fed twice a year so it correctly adds up to 20k total one year and then the next you suddenly pay 40k even though it's still the exact same set up with the exact same animals in it.
Exactly! Developers listen and fix lions!