Leafcutter Ant Exhibits

blp2120

B
One of the biggest dream animals for me would be the leafcutter ant. They are some of the most fascinating invertebrates in the world. Collectively, leafcutter ants cultivate billions of tons of plant material every year. They then feed the plants to fungi farms, which they then consume themselves. This would be a fantastic way to continue to add diversity to the game's roster. Currently the only invertebrates in the Planet Zoo lineup are giants. It would be nice to have smaller varieties in the animal lineup.

Leafcutter ants colonies are successfully showcased at a number of zoos worldwide, with London Zoo being a notably unique and interactive exhibit.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEniwH3gEPU
 

VetGirl330

V
I think that they would be an awesome addition, but they wouldn't work well as a static animal. Most of what makes these exhibits interesting is that the ants are in constant motion. I agree if the ants were moving and carrying pieces of leaf they would be visible. However, unless Frontier completely revamps their stance on exhibit animals we are not going to get animals in continuous animated loops, even though some, like the proposed ant, would benefit from such treatment.
 

Urufu1997

Urufu1997
I think they could implement it so that a special Magnifying Glass Wall gets added to the Exhibit. But maybe there could be one Problem. From Ant Forums I know that they often need complete Rooms with multiple Formicaria that are connected to each other. But maybe it would be fine if they wouldn't be completely realistic in the Game. I agree that they should have a looped Walking Animation. But how would we get a realistic Colony (not including a complete Formicarium Room)? Could 1 Ant in Reality be 10 Ants? Also how would the Queen work and that almost all of them will be female?
Edit: wow, just watched the Video. Didn't expect them to roam free on Ropes instead of a Connection with Tubes like it's normally used
 
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[VR] Deggial

[VR] Deggial
1) Leave-cutter ants are awesome! I love watching them in real zoos.
2) I am afraid, they are completely off-size in Planet Zoo. As mentioned already, their main appeal comes from the constant movement, the organized chaos of the hive. They only come “to live” due to their numbers and I don’t think, even animation loops (which I was musing about for hypothetical bird flocks already) could cope with the necessary individual counts (just think of the polygons necessary to represent those tiny animals at least halfway realistic! One could build two complete zoos out of this!)
3) (Toung-in-cheek argument) And finally imagine the hustle to sell excess animals via the trade center. If you think, these prolific giant bugs are stretching your patience, just multiply this by 1000 and wonder how it might feel to sell 1805678 female ants every other year ... ;p
 

Urufu1997

Urufu1997
[VR] Deggial said:
3) (Toung-in-cheek argument) And finally imagine the hustle to sell excess animals via the trade center. If you think, these prolific giant bugs are stretching your patience, just multiply this by 1000 and wonder how it might feel to sell 1805678 female ants every other year ... ;p
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I think if we get them, they don't have a Population Limit
 

ElectricMonk

ElectricMonk
VetGirl330 said:
However, unless Frontier completely revamps their stance on exhibit animals we are not going to get animals in continuous animated loops, even though some, like the proposed ant, would benefit from such treatment.
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As far as I know the only time they’ve ever commented on anything like this was after the beta, when they said there were no plans to include mammals or birds as (possibly loop animated) exhibits at launch. I have heard nothing to suggest that they have ruled it out all together - I don’t think there is a “stance”.... happy to be proved wrong but I’ve seen lots of people refer to frontier’s “stance” about this and have never had anyone show me any comment that qualifies as a definitive stance from anyone representing the devs.
 

AndyZoos

A
Exhibit animal or not, I'd love to see somebody try to create something like this in the game!

I could see this maybe working with some glass, using mulch. You'd probably need to get creative with the tunnels but I'm sure it would be possible if you found something super thin and buried it into the mulch enough...

Not the same thing as a real exhibit. But y'know, could still be a fun creative exercise!
 

NZFanatic

NZFanatic
Ashaantha said:
Maybe if we got ant colonies as a animated decoration rather then as individual animals.
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That's basically my thinking, too. They could do a few different 'exhibits' like this, where rather than individually placing animals like you do in proper exhibits, the animals are simply little loops that you don't actually need to take care of but fulfil an education and entertainment purpose with the guests. I envisioned something similar for caterpillars (alongside special effect props for butterflies so people could make their butterfly houses).
 

AndyZoos

A
NZFanatic said:
That's basically my thinking, too. They could do a few different 'exhibits' like this, where rather than individually placing animals like you do in proper exhibits, the animals are simply little loops that you don't actually need to take care of but fulfil an education and entertainment purpose with the guests. I envisioned something similar for caterpillars (alongside special effect props for butterflies so people could make their butterfly houses).
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This would actually be a fantastic/fun idea! They could be set-up similarly to the education boards. You place it down, and can cycle through the "special presentation" (or whatever it might be called).

I could see there being something for any variety of ants, butterflies/caterpillars, bees, etc. A similar approach could be taken for some other species too (naked mole rats, various fish) but unfortunately I don't see that ever happening.
 

Urufu1997

Urufu1997
NZFanatic said:
That's basically my thinking, too. They could do a few different 'exhibits' like this, where rather than individually placing animals like you do in proper exhibits, the animals are simply little loops that you don't actually need to take care of but fulfil an education and entertainment purpose with the guests. I envisioned something similar for caterpillars (alongside special effect props for butterflies so people could make their butterfly houses).
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Sounds like a great Idea. It could be possible to cycle trough multiple Species and I think I would even already know how I would include a Formicarium into a Wall🐜
 

DragonNTiger

D
Hmm... just a thought... but what if the workers were just animated decorations that appear as long as the exhibit is inhabited by the actual animals... and the actual animals you buy/trade are the Queens and the Drones?

FoxyDee said:
If anyone is interested, you can download a pretty awesome implied ant exhibit here:
steamcommunity.com

Steam Workshop::Ant Exhibit (by Toves)

steamcommunity.com steamcommunity.com

Its made by Toves. You cannot obviously see any ants, but I think it looks great. I reccomend to check it out.
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This is really cool looking... it also makes me wish there were smaller text and line objects... since all that fake text on display is made of like 500 different objects... each...
 
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DrStephenMeyer

DrStephenMeyer
this can easily be done with tricks to make it work! They all could be moving at the same speed! So they don't all need to be individual ants that you need to animate! I think first they need a good system where it is good to have these little small insects as the current system does not support it even with the tiny frogs.
 
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