Mainly addressing this post to @Jens Erik as our Community contact point for the devs of Jurassic World Evolution 2.
First, thank you for interacting with us as much as you can and do. We know its difficult holding things back and we know that we, as a community can be demanding and at times a little impatient. The recent Feature Focus, the article in Game Informer, man, I have to say this time around, I am truly blown away by the potential Evolution 2 has. Based on just a fraction of what we know now as confirmed by primary sources, this game has the chance to become THE Jurassic Game and become a true successor to JPOG. While it was never intended to be such, its really unavoidable since JPOG continues to be the gold standard of Jurassic games. It seems like many systems and innovations developed for Planet Zoo are being implemented into Evolution 2 and that can only be awesome.
So, to get to the point, now that we know that mobile vet units, ranger units and paleo-vet hospitals/centers are confirmed a bit more about how they work as well as ranger monitoring outposts, we've heard quite a bit about dino injuries and how smaller injuries can be treated in the field while worse injuries have to be treated in the center. I'm assuming that this won't be an instant process and can leave vet teams/ranger teams exposed to potential dangers OR it will take time to heal in a center but one thing we've not really heard much about which I'm sure will be in the game are diseases.
With the new in-depth vet unit system (that was one of my wished for things btw, since we saw them in Jurassic World the film, they were mentioned in depth and we saw them at work in Jurassic World: The Evolution of Claire and in Fallen Kingdom where Zia wanted to be one, not to mention a whole new sweet unit truck!), something I'd like to ask about is diseases. In Evolution 1, diseases were random, some species were more weak against some and resistant to others and some illness were contagious, like if we let a corpse rot or avian flu wasn't taken care of ASAP.
In Evolution 2, the disease system needs to retain those basic elements but be greatly expanded on to go with the new in dept vet mechanic and thankfully, we already have a canon list of Dino-diseases straight from the marketing material for Fallen Kingdom, the Dino Protection group!
The Dino Protection group lists the following known dino diseases. My idea is to pass along to the devs to implement these diseases (and maybe a few surprises) and have the dinosaur animations, models and behaviors reflect the individual disease so we can see whats wrong. I'll list the information from the DPG site followed by my thoughts on how to show it and how to treat it:
Common Cold/Avian Flu:
Description: A viral disease which affects the respiratory system. It’s transmissible through airborne moisture and close contact, and can spread rapidly within herds. It's generally non-fatal in modern animals; however, some dinosaurs’ immune systems have never encountered this threat, meaning that this small virus can put their lives at jeopardy and should be taken seriously.
Prevention and Treatment: There is currently no cure, but cases were reduced when the animals lived in healthy environments with clean air.
In the case of Evolution 2, it could be Avian Flu.
My Thoughts:
Potential Symptoms: Repeated long periods of rest, snorting, sneezing, coughing.
Treatment: If the dino is not put into quarantine at the paleo center or in a quarantine pen, it becomes very contagious and can kill the animals if not treated. It can be cured but it takes time, a few in-game days. The player must move the animal using rangers and vets to a quarantine pen with a ranger outpost sensor inside and hit it twice with medicines but over a span of "days" then return it to its herd.
Bumblefoot:
Description: Inflammation of a dinosaur's foot caused when a cut or abrasion becomes infected, and then heals over. The resulting swollen abscess is very painful and reduces the animal's overall range of movement, and the odor that emanates from the swelling is also said to attract carnivores looking for an easy meal. This inflammation is more common in herbivore species such as Sinoceratops and Pachycephalosaurus.
Prevention and Treatment: Like modern elephants, herbivores like Triceratops and Brachiosaurus keep their hygiene at a high level with constant baths. Having access to a large, clean water source is a good preventative measure, as it enables the animals to clean any wounds on their feet as they wash themselves. Here's hoping we get the water placement system of Planet Zoo and animals that can and will swim and play in water.
My thoughts:
To reduce the chances of a random case of bumblefoot in heavier species, like sauropods, ceratopsians and pachys, the pen must have a sufficient amount of accessible water to which they can swim or roll around in, like we see the trike doing in the Dominion preview. Still, rarely, a case of bumblefoot will pop up. When it does, dispatch the mobile vet unit for field surgery/field care with the rangers. Its not contagious. The animal should limp, cry out, maybe hold a foot up like a dog does from time to time or rest more.
Ragged Tooth
Description: More common in predatory dinosaurs and marine reptiles. This sickness can occur from infection from inside the gum line. If a carnivore breaks a tooth during a hunt, it can become rotten, spreading bacteria throughout the mouth and causing an overall breakdown of the soft tissue in the jaw. The dinosaur will often become dizzy and make fewer successful kills, risking death by starvation.
Prevention and Treatment: Dinosaurs tend to survive the loss of one or two teeth if they become infected, but it’s a very painful experience for them, and they should be constantly monitored and administered antibiotics until the infection has passed.
My thoughts:
Any carnivore can get this from a fight with another carnivore or from a failed hunt. The percent should be low but not unheard of. Once a carnivore becomes afflicted, they try to scratch at their face with their arms or hind legs, work their jaws more often, shake their heads, grunt or growl in pain, eat less and hunt less and if not treated, they will slowly starve.
This could be treated using a mobile vet unit and ranger teams in the field. For severe cases (cases that have gone untreated and the animal is below say 50% health) paleo - vet center quarantine treatment may be needed (maybe a special water paddock for marine animals).
Bracken Fern Poisoning:
Description: Bracken, a type of fern which has existed for more than 55 million years and which many herbivorous dinosaurs eat, can be dangerous when eaten in excess. If too much bracken is consumed, poisoning can occur, resulting in thiamine deficiency, sluggish behavior, and secondary infections.
Prevention and Treatment: The best way to avoid this problem is to remove the ferns from their habitat and replace it with a dietary alternative.
My thoughts:
The herbivores are more prone to this if the specific plants in their enclosure aren't correct (similar to the Trike in JP1). Its not lethal but cause the animal to be tried, rest more, vomit (or an animation like it) and lowers your guest valuation for that animal and paddock since you aren't caring for your animals. The treatment is a visit from the vet truck.
Hookworms:
Description: Hookworms are a type of intestinal parasite from the roundworm group. The number of worms will typically determine the symptoms for the initial infection, which can include rashes, abdominal distress, and diarrhea. Infection can spread through contaminated dung or food sources.
Prevention and Treatment: Environmental hygiene is the most effective preventative measure against hookworms. If even a single case of this parasite is detected within a group, all specimens in the group must be treated. Once cleared from the animals, their habitat must be also treated so that infection does not reoccur.
My Thoughts:
While we all wish the dinos pooped (and that the compies could be placed in a paddock to eat the poop) its unlikely Universal will allow it so in this case, hook worms could come from contaminated food sources. Treatment would be a visit or two from the mobile vet truck and replanting the feeders or plants in a given environment. It should be pretty rare since that's a lot of work. The animal behavior displayed should be scratching, not eating, lethargy. Perhaps a later DLC could focus on park sanitation and details like that.
Ticks
Description: Due to the long grasses and dense undergrowth covering most of the island, ticks have become a common and unpleasant issue for dinosaurs. While not necessarily dangerous by themselves, they can be a vector for further blood-borne disease; some rare tick species can also cause serious complications, including paralysis.
Prevention and Treatment: A thorough check of all rescued dinosaurs. Eco-friendly anti-tick sprays.
My Thoughts:
An animal with a tick infestation should scratch themselves, rub against trees or roll on the ground, gradually losing health or being unhappy or grumpy. A visit from the vet truck to clear the ticks off and treat them with a preventative should be sufficient. If it goes untreated, the animal eventually catches Lyme disease, at which point a vet-clinic stay is required or the animal will lay down, be unable to move, go into a coma and die.
Rabies
Description: Contracted via contaminated meat or other infected animals, rabies is a killer and must be prevented at all costs. Though there is no record of an outbreak having occurred, the possibility of the disease making the leap to dinosaurs would be utterly devastating to what remains of the already dwindling population. A disease as virulent as rabies could cause extinction once and for all.
Prevention and Treatment: A sweep of the new territory (once established).
My thoughts:
Rabies should only affect carnivores naturally but it can be passed onto to herbivores by bites that the prey item survives so it can jump to herbivores. It is not transmissible to marine or flying animals. Behavior should slowly progress from head shaking, trembling, not eating or drinking, random outbursts of aggression. If not treated, the animal becomes permanently enraged, destroying anything it comes across, breaking out of its pen and causing havoc. If it reaches that point, the animal WILL die. It cannot be cured but we are not allowed to kill it off. The most we can do its tranquilize it and let it pass in peace.
However...if caught before that phase, it can be cured with a visit/stay/isolation in a vet clinic pen.
Quarantine times and treatment times will vary based on severity of illness and species in question but you can see and interact with the animal in the pen by using a ranger outpost or driving in a vet truck or ranger truck to medicate it yourself and do the care by hand.
I also think that ranger teams should secure an area, then the vet truck does its work and that ACU teams and vet teams can and should be visible ground units on foot and can be killed by dinos or even eaten if care is not taken (sneaky raptors defending their pack mates).
If you could pass long this idea to the devs that would be awesome. For everyone else, what do you think?
First, thank you for interacting with us as much as you can and do. We know its difficult holding things back and we know that we, as a community can be demanding and at times a little impatient. The recent Feature Focus, the article in Game Informer, man, I have to say this time around, I am truly blown away by the potential Evolution 2 has. Based on just a fraction of what we know now as confirmed by primary sources, this game has the chance to become THE Jurassic Game and become a true successor to JPOG. While it was never intended to be such, its really unavoidable since JPOG continues to be the gold standard of Jurassic games. It seems like many systems and innovations developed for Planet Zoo are being implemented into Evolution 2 and that can only be awesome.
So, to get to the point, now that we know that mobile vet units, ranger units and paleo-vet hospitals/centers are confirmed a bit more about how they work as well as ranger monitoring outposts, we've heard quite a bit about dino injuries and how smaller injuries can be treated in the field while worse injuries have to be treated in the center. I'm assuming that this won't be an instant process and can leave vet teams/ranger teams exposed to potential dangers OR it will take time to heal in a center but one thing we've not really heard much about which I'm sure will be in the game are diseases.
With the new in-depth vet unit system (that was one of my wished for things btw, since we saw them in Jurassic World the film, they were mentioned in depth and we saw them at work in Jurassic World: The Evolution of Claire and in Fallen Kingdom where Zia wanted to be one, not to mention a whole new sweet unit truck!), something I'd like to ask about is diseases. In Evolution 1, diseases were random, some species were more weak against some and resistant to others and some illness were contagious, like if we let a corpse rot or avian flu wasn't taken care of ASAP.
In Evolution 2, the disease system needs to retain those basic elements but be greatly expanded on to go with the new in dept vet mechanic and thankfully, we already have a canon list of Dino-diseases straight from the marketing material for Fallen Kingdom, the Dino Protection group!
The Dino Protection group lists the following known dino diseases. My idea is to pass along to the devs to implement these diseases (and maybe a few surprises) and have the dinosaur animations, models and behaviors reflect the individual disease so we can see whats wrong. I'll list the information from the DPG site followed by my thoughts on how to show it and how to treat it:
Common Cold/Avian Flu:
Description: A viral disease which affects the respiratory system. It’s transmissible through airborne moisture and close contact, and can spread rapidly within herds. It's generally non-fatal in modern animals; however, some dinosaurs’ immune systems have never encountered this threat, meaning that this small virus can put their lives at jeopardy and should be taken seriously.
Prevention and Treatment: There is currently no cure, but cases were reduced when the animals lived in healthy environments with clean air.
In the case of Evolution 2, it could be Avian Flu.
My Thoughts:
Potential Symptoms: Repeated long periods of rest, snorting, sneezing, coughing.
Treatment: If the dino is not put into quarantine at the paleo center or in a quarantine pen, it becomes very contagious and can kill the animals if not treated. It can be cured but it takes time, a few in-game days. The player must move the animal using rangers and vets to a quarantine pen with a ranger outpost sensor inside and hit it twice with medicines but over a span of "days" then return it to its herd.
Bumblefoot:
Description: Inflammation of a dinosaur's foot caused when a cut or abrasion becomes infected, and then heals over. The resulting swollen abscess is very painful and reduces the animal's overall range of movement, and the odor that emanates from the swelling is also said to attract carnivores looking for an easy meal. This inflammation is more common in herbivore species such as Sinoceratops and Pachycephalosaurus.
Prevention and Treatment: Like modern elephants, herbivores like Triceratops and Brachiosaurus keep their hygiene at a high level with constant baths. Having access to a large, clean water source is a good preventative measure, as it enables the animals to clean any wounds on their feet as they wash themselves. Here's hoping we get the water placement system of Planet Zoo and animals that can and will swim and play in water.
My thoughts:
To reduce the chances of a random case of bumblefoot in heavier species, like sauropods, ceratopsians and pachys, the pen must have a sufficient amount of accessible water to which they can swim or roll around in, like we see the trike doing in the Dominion preview. Still, rarely, a case of bumblefoot will pop up. When it does, dispatch the mobile vet unit for field surgery/field care with the rangers. Its not contagious. The animal should limp, cry out, maybe hold a foot up like a dog does from time to time or rest more.
Ragged Tooth
Description: More common in predatory dinosaurs and marine reptiles. This sickness can occur from infection from inside the gum line. If a carnivore breaks a tooth during a hunt, it can become rotten, spreading bacteria throughout the mouth and causing an overall breakdown of the soft tissue in the jaw. The dinosaur will often become dizzy and make fewer successful kills, risking death by starvation.
Prevention and Treatment: Dinosaurs tend to survive the loss of one or two teeth if they become infected, but it’s a very painful experience for them, and they should be constantly monitored and administered antibiotics until the infection has passed.
My thoughts:
Any carnivore can get this from a fight with another carnivore or from a failed hunt. The percent should be low but not unheard of. Once a carnivore becomes afflicted, they try to scratch at their face with their arms or hind legs, work their jaws more often, shake their heads, grunt or growl in pain, eat less and hunt less and if not treated, they will slowly starve.
This could be treated using a mobile vet unit and ranger teams in the field. For severe cases (cases that have gone untreated and the animal is below say 50% health) paleo - vet center quarantine treatment may be needed (maybe a special water paddock for marine animals).
Bracken Fern Poisoning:
Description: Bracken, a type of fern which has existed for more than 55 million years and which many herbivorous dinosaurs eat, can be dangerous when eaten in excess. If too much bracken is consumed, poisoning can occur, resulting in thiamine deficiency, sluggish behavior, and secondary infections.
Prevention and Treatment: The best way to avoid this problem is to remove the ferns from their habitat and replace it with a dietary alternative.
My thoughts:
The herbivores are more prone to this if the specific plants in their enclosure aren't correct (similar to the Trike in JP1). Its not lethal but cause the animal to be tried, rest more, vomit (or an animation like it) and lowers your guest valuation for that animal and paddock since you aren't caring for your animals. The treatment is a visit from the vet truck.
Hookworms:
Description: Hookworms are a type of intestinal parasite from the roundworm group. The number of worms will typically determine the symptoms for the initial infection, which can include rashes, abdominal distress, and diarrhea. Infection can spread through contaminated dung or food sources.
Prevention and Treatment: Environmental hygiene is the most effective preventative measure against hookworms. If even a single case of this parasite is detected within a group, all specimens in the group must be treated. Once cleared from the animals, their habitat must be also treated so that infection does not reoccur.
My Thoughts:
While we all wish the dinos pooped (and that the compies could be placed in a paddock to eat the poop) its unlikely Universal will allow it so in this case, hook worms could come from contaminated food sources. Treatment would be a visit or two from the mobile vet truck and replanting the feeders or plants in a given environment. It should be pretty rare since that's a lot of work. The animal behavior displayed should be scratching, not eating, lethargy. Perhaps a later DLC could focus on park sanitation and details like that.
Ticks
Description: Due to the long grasses and dense undergrowth covering most of the island, ticks have become a common and unpleasant issue for dinosaurs. While not necessarily dangerous by themselves, they can be a vector for further blood-borne disease; some rare tick species can also cause serious complications, including paralysis.
Prevention and Treatment: A thorough check of all rescued dinosaurs. Eco-friendly anti-tick sprays.
My Thoughts:
An animal with a tick infestation should scratch themselves, rub against trees or roll on the ground, gradually losing health or being unhappy or grumpy. A visit from the vet truck to clear the ticks off and treat them with a preventative should be sufficient. If it goes untreated, the animal eventually catches Lyme disease, at which point a vet-clinic stay is required or the animal will lay down, be unable to move, go into a coma and die.
Rabies
Description: Contracted via contaminated meat or other infected animals, rabies is a killer and must be prevented at all costs. Though there is no record of an outbreak having occurred, the possibility of the disease making the leap to dinosaurs would be utterly devastating to what remains of the already dwindling population. A disease as virulent as rabies could cause extinction once and for all.
Prevention and Treatment: A sweep of the new territory (once established).
My thoughts:
Rabies should only affect carnivores naturally but it can be passed onto to herbivores by bites that the prey item survives so it can jump to herbivores. It is not transmissible to marine or flying animals. Behavior should slowly progress from head shaking, trembling, not eating or drinking, random outbursts of aggression. If not treated, the animal becomes permanently enraged, destroying anything it comes across, breaking out of its pen and causing havoc. If it reaches that point, the animal WILL die. It cannot be cured but we are not allowed to kill it off. The most we can do its tranquilize it and let it pass in peace.
However...if caught before that phase, it can be cured with a visit/stay/isolation in a vet clinic pen.
Quarantine times and treatment times will vary based on severity of illness and species in question but you can see and interact with the animal in the pen by using a ranger outpost or driving in a vet truck or ranger truck to medicate it yourself and do the care by hand.
I also think that ranger teams should secure an area, then the vet truck does its work and that ACU teams and vet teams can and should be visible ground units on foot and can be killed by dinos or even eaten if care is not taken (sneaky raptors defending their pack mates).
If you could pass long this idea to the devs that would be awesome. For everyone else, what do you think?
