Keepers need to just clean habitats...

[Adarra]

I have one habitat that's constantly giving me animal alerts. It houses four species: giraffes, sable antelopes, buffalos and ostriches. It is about 15.000, eh, I don't know what it is in English. Square metres I think? I have troughs placed throughout the habitat in several locations so the animals are never far from one. I have food enrichment items that cover their needs as well (and I have those spaced out as well). I did experiment with placing all the food items and troughs and such close together, but that led to the animals only sticking to that part of the habitat, which led to guests complaining about not seeing the animals (and why would they have a large habitat if all they do is hang around in one quarter of it?).

I had four keepers assigned, with two being cleaning only and two being feeding only and I kept getting 'X animals is hungry/starving'. Then I read somewhere that assigning more than two keepers doesn't make them more efficient, so I switched to one cleaner and one feeder. Still got the notifications. So I changed both of them to feeding AND cleaning, and I still get those notifications. The keeper hut and other facilities that are assigned to this habitat are literally just outside the gate. I have a workgroup assigned to this habitat with two keepers and one vet. I do use the multiple habitats/multiple keepers for other habitats, but only if they're close together and small enough to not merit indivual work groups or keepers. For the large habitat (savannah) I have once dedicated group set up.

 

[Jaggid Edje]

@Adarra, what I do is put the food all near the keeper gate, but put the enrichment toys and one entrance to hard shelter (where it is even present) near the viewing areas that visitors frequent. This gives visitors good views of the animals quite regularly while still keeping Keepers efficient.

Also, regarding assigning more than 2 keepers. On those large habitats with a lot of animals, you can run into a problem where the animals just require too much food for how frequently a keeper is going to bother checking it. African savannah habitats, in particular, if you try to have all of the species that give each other enrichment bonuses in one habitat are just too big. I've limited it to no more than 4 to 5 species in my games and that's worked well.

And yes...I agree they should do something to make it possible to make the habitats larger with more animals in them without having these issues.

 

[Adarra]

Okay, thanks for the advice, I'll try that!

 

[DrBurrito]

You can choose which jobs Keepers focus on in their 'Employment' menu when you click on them. Turn off all but cleaning and they will focus on cleaning the habitat instead of doing other things.

I think what the players mean is a solution that doesn't require micromanagement. Even then, turning off all but cleaning takes effect for future tasks, not the one the keeper is busy with. I also agree the keepers can delay placing of food a bit even if they've arrived with a bucket and first clean up the place if it's not clean enough.

A second solution could be (but includes micromanagement) hitting the "call keeper" button actually calling a second keeper to the habitat instead of focusing your view on the keeper that is already inside the habitat and feeding. Even now the additional keepers that come to check habitats when another keeper is feeding the animals already automatically clean the place (even if the first keeper is still on their way to the keeper hut), so this shouldn't be very hard to implement.

 

[Sclurp]

I think what the players mean is a solution that doesn't require micromanagement. Even then, turning off all but cleaning takes effect for future tasks, not the one the keeper is busy with. I also agree the keepers can delay placing of food a bit even if they've arrived with a bucket and first clean up the place if it's not clean enough.

A second solution could be (but includes micromanagement) hitting the "call keeper" button actually calling a second keeper to the habitat instead of focusing your view on the keeper that is already inside the habitat and feeding. Even now the additional keepers that come to check habitats when another keeper is feeding the animals already automatically clean the place (even if the first keeper is still on their way to the keeper hut), so this shouldn't be very hard to implement.

Yeah, here's the thing:

If a keeper is checking a habitat and enters and sees a mountain of waste and animals in poor health due to sickness, is it unreasonable that the most urgent matter is taken care of there and then before leaving to prepare food?

As the poster above touched on, there's a useless 'Call Keeper' button. That should be a "Over here guys, we've got a problem over here!" button; in other words "Fix this NOW please"

But the game asks for the player to micro manage this aspect of the experience when we really need to crack on with the scenario objectives, or building a fantastic new habitat for something else or upgrading parts of the zoo that don't work etc...

 

[Jacob1989]

Yeah, here's the thing:

If a keeper is checking a habitat and enters and sees a mountain of waste and animals in poor health due to sickness, is it unreasonable that the most urgent matter is taken care of there and then before leaving to prepare food?

As the poster above touched on, there's a useless 'Call Keeper' button. That should be a "Over here guys, this we've got a problem over here!" button; in other words "Fix this NOW please"

But the game asks for the player to micro manage this aspect of the experience when we really need to crack on with the scenario objectives, or building a fantastic new habitat for something else or upgrading parts of the zoo that don't work etc...

Yup, I think we need both fixes. Both a universal cleaning priority fix, and then a functional call keeper "micromanagement" fix. Both can come in handy in different situations.

 

[Jacob1989]

I especially love when they are stuck in a keeper hut - habitat loop without cleaning at all. running forever for food when everything's sick and still getting sicker because of poop. Meanwhile the poor vets keep treating and bringing animals back so they can get sick again.

 

[Adarra]

Usually I just put all the sick animals into quarantine asap when I see that happen. Or, when they're not sick, I'll place all of them in my trade center to give the keeper time to thoroughly clean the habitat. But that's a silly solution, of course. A keeper, or even TWO (what a novel idea!), should focus on the most pressing matter at hand first. If that means cleaning the freaking habitat first, then they should clean the freaking habitat first! Or maybe even 'call for help' if the AI feels it's too big of a habitat? How about make it so that more than one keeper can do one specific task AT THE SAME TIME?

 

[Jacob1989]

Usually I just put all the sick animals into quarantine asap when I see that happen. Or, when they're not sick, I'll place all of them in my trade center to give the keeper time to thoroughly clean the habitat. But that's a silly solution, of course. A keeper, or even TWO (what a novel idea!), should focus on the most pressing matter at hand first. If that means cleaning the freaking habitat first, then they should clean the freaking habitat first! Or maybe even 'call for help' if the AI feels it's too big of a habitat? How about make it so that more than one keeper can do one specific task AT THE SAME TIME?

Yeah, I do the same. Sending everything to the trade center when you see keeper hut fixated keepers and disease level cleanliness warning at the same time is sadly the quickest and most efficient way to prevent it. But if you let the AI deal with it using the built in system, which should be intended, it is sad to watch.

Sending all or most to the trade center also stops keepers going back to the keeper hut in loop since there isn't anything to feed and the habitat food level stays high until they get out of it. So yeah they clean an empty habitat better than a populated one.

 

[Jacob1989]

Sorry to bring this up again, but I did a test recently after the last patch and the same issue still persists. I would like to include the details of this extreme test so it is clear to everyone how problematic the current priority system is:

Since we all know the implications of the stuff discussed earlier, I wanted to take it to the next level by trying something even more ridiculous and the staff carried out the way I expected. So I let a habitat go dirty by extending the schedule to 12 months. When the diseases level cleanliness notification popped up, I changed the frequency to one month and called the keeper. Located the keeper running to the habitat, ticked off their "Feed Habitat" toggle; the game stopped the keeper in their tracks (they stopped running and slowly started walking towards the habitat) and sent a new one that has food ticked on. I repeated the same procedure until I ran out of keepers. Even then, the last keeper to arrive still didn't clean the habitat and went to prepare food with their food setting turned off. So basically your only option to manage a cleanliness crises is by sending the animals to quarantine so that last keeper on the staff list that arrives with their food bucket drops it and starts cleaning seeing no animals inside. The only way they clean habitats during times of crises is if there are no animals inside. Note that I did this test without assigning keepers to habitats to find out keeper priorities.

Oh, btw, the other keepers that slowly walked towards the habitat went in, noticed the last keeper was "taking care of things", and they left without cleaning. They didn't go to the keeper hut either, since one was already on the way.

 

[MrHappy]

I think there are some Keeper issues to be resolved and they may become more complicated by ticking the options for specific tasks, ie one Keeper for cleaning and one for transporting animals. Give them a pay rise then crack the whip by assigning all of them to all jobs. See what happens.

 

[Adarra]

Thanks for testing this. It confirms what I've still been noticing as well. It doesn't matter how many keepers you assign to a habitat, if the habitat is dirty they'll STILL ALWAYS FEED THE ANIMALS FIRST. Always! Even if you have, as you say, the option of 'feed animals' turned off. It's insane behavior that's making it at times impossible to keep a habitat clean, unless you place the animals in quarantine/trade center, clean the habitat, and then put them all back. INSANE!

 

[Jacob1989]

Thanks for testing this. It confirms what I've still been noticing as well. It doesn't matter how many keepers you assign to a habitat, if the habitat is dirty they'll STILL ALWAYS FEED THE ANIMALS FIRST. Always! Even if you have, as you say, the option of 'feed animals' turned off. It's insane behavior that's making it at times impossible to keep a habitat clean, unless you place the animals in quarantine/trade center, clean the habitat, and then put them all back. INSANE!

It's almost as if the call keeper button is only for food. When you tick it off while the keeper is on their way running, the game doesn't even see the necessity to send them to the habitat in a hurry anymore and send a different keeper who has food ticked on until you run out of keepers to only have food delivered by the last keeper that has food ticked off.

This unfortunately happened because of so many people crying about animals not being fed properly just because they couldn't set their scheduling or staff building positions properly and then blame the game's code, when the game never had any feeding problems to begin with. Those issues were either because of player error and/or setting a much less frequent schedule to lower food costs, which is again human error. If food costs are too much that's another balancing issue entirely which shouldn't result in people crying for hungry animals. All this balancing caused by misinformation now resulted in actual balancing and multi-layered priority issues that never existed.

 

[wowman]

check out this video as it explains how to 'fix' this problem.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=u-mUbrv5im8&feature=emb_logo

 

[Jacob1989]

check out this video as it explains how to 'fix' this problem.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=u-mUbrv5im8&feature=emb_logo

All due respect, this video is not about the issue discussed on this thread. Wish more people had watched this video before complaining about food in the past, so the problem discussed here wouldn't have been created in the first place.

Also there is something wrong in the video. Keepers don't decide which habitat to visit and when. The code takes the times from habitat settings and sends the keepers accordingly, even when not allocated a workzone. So if there are starving animals that's human error and not AI issues like the video describes for this specific issue.

 

[paul78]

The only time I have a problem with starving animals is if the keeper gets stuck on the path. Usually when I get the notification it’s the first thing I look for. A funny story in my previous zoo I had four African elephants and I got the notification saying the habitat was susceptible to disease so the zoo keeper was stuck on the path. He was a very busy man for awhile as they left their exhibit quite a mess.

 

[NZFanatic]

Having worked in zoos, oftentimes one keeper will be assigned to multiple habitats and still get everything needed done in a day.

 

[Thtp15]

...
I had four keepers assigned, with two being cleaning only and two being feeding only and I kept getting 'X animals is hungry/starving'.
...

I currenlty have a Greater Flamingo habitat (around 9000 m2 land, around 12000 m2 water, around 180 animals). I assigned two keeper for food and two for cleaning (to be sure that always one for each task is available if they need a break). Until now I did not recognized that cleaning was a problem. The only problem I think (not yet verified but I will do) is that it seems, because of the large habitat and the number of animals, that the first feed animals get hungry close after the last are feed. But it is currently just a feeling not yet verified. But because I will try to raise the number of animals to 500 I will have a look on this. So having two keepers assigned to feed the animals and let them both feed the animals at the same time would help to care for larger habitats (currently it seems not be implemented in the game or if then I did not recognized yet). What I did recognized that at least a keeper feeds an animal while another cleans the habitat at the same time.

And yes, there is a problem you can call a keeper, but not decide what task cleaning or feeding. Also it seems you can not recall until all keepers left the habitat thereafter, which can take a while on big habitats because there is an ongoing come and go. Maybe for food stuff it could help to use the button on the enrichment (not checked yet).

This is just sharing my observation for know. Hope I can come back soon with some verified information about this.

 

[Jacob1989]

I currenlty have a Greater Flamingo habitat (around 9000 m2 land, around 12000 m2 water, around 180 animals). I assigned two keeper for food and two for cleaning (to be sure that always one for each task is available if they need a break). Until now I did not recognized that cleaning was a problem. The only problem I think (not yet verified but I will do) is that it seems, because of the large habitat and the number of animals, that the first feed animals get hungry close after the last are feed. But it is currently just a feeling not yet verified. But because I will try to raise the number of animals to 500 I will have a look on this. So having two keepers assigned to feed the animals and let them both feed the animals at the same time would help to care for larger habitats (currently it seems not be implemented in the game or if then I did not recognized yet). What I did recognized that at least a keeper feeds an animal while another cleans the habitat at the same time.

And yes, there is a problem you can call a keeper, but not decide what task cleaning or feeding. Also it seems you can not recall until all keepers left the habitat thereafter, which can take a while on big habitats because there is an ongoing come and go. Maybe for food stuff it could help to use the button on the enrichment (not checked yet).

This is just sharing my observation for know. Hope I can come back soon with some verified information about this.

Sure there are ways around it. I never had issues with starving animals either, when people were complaining about it. However the point of this post is about how unpractical and problematic the base coding has become when they changed it after people complaining about animals starving.

The fact that we can find ways around the faulty system doesn't make it right.

 

[Thtp15]

Ok, here is a short update:
So I can confirm that one keeper will feed the animal while one cleans the habitat (in my case each of them has one specific task and only this habitat assigned). Also if you have two keepers assigned to one habitat only with cleaning task they are able to clean the habitat both at the same time.

On the attached picture you see my big Greater Flamingo habitat and you can see that while one keeper is currently feeding, the two other keepers clean the habitat. All at the same time (in my personal opinion quite realistique for such a big habitat). Would be greate if keepers who feed could do this kind of work sharing too. But sadly this currently seems not be implemented :-(

I also recognized on another habitat (for aldabra greater tortoises) that my keeper could not finish feeding until the habitat gets to dirty. Even if the habitat is not that big there are many tortoises insided and therefore many food enrichment items (maybe need to use bigger and therefor less of them?). Because it looks like they go a little bit cross-country while filling food enrichment it tooks him some time to fill all of them. I seem to remember that anywhere someone wrote or talk about that keepers always first check if any animal is hungry and then if this tasks is done/or no animal is hungry they start cleaning (already before the update), but could not find the source any more :-( However I understand your point and it would be helpful if we could do an emergancy call for a specific task instead of just calling a keeper, because sometimes cleaning could be a task with more priority then feeding.