Hello everyone! Welcome to the 1.11.0 Meta Suggestions list, your one-stop place for all suggestions big and small (except for animal wishlists, we don't do that here!). In the running for over two full years now, we have been fortunate enough to see over 50 things added into the game by virtue of this list, and the hard work the CM and Dev team do to accommodate our wishes and ideas. While you're sifting through the list, keep in mind that new additions to the list are made in red (so you can see what the freshest ideas are) and at the bottom of the list you'll see that the newest added features are reflected in green. Happy reading everyone, I'll see you at the bottom of the list!
Zoopedia, Biome and Geography Issues
Thanks for reading everyone! If you have any additional suggestions, or see something that was added that I missed, please comment below!
As always, @Jens Erik @Eltanin Casciani @Francesca Falcini @Tim Smith , if you discuss any of these points with the dev team and they tell you something is impossible, for one reason or another, feel free to post that here and I will happily remove it! Thanks again for all the hard work you've done for us as a community, we all very much appreciate it!
Zoopedia, Biome and Geography Issues
- Make the following appropriate biomes changes for the following animals/biomes
- Desert: Jaguar, American bison
-
- Taiga: Bactrian camel, European fallow deer
-
- Aquatic: Cape buffalo
- Evidence for Cape buffalo explained further down
- Tropical Rainforest: American alligator
-
- Desert: Jaguar, American bison
- Taxonomy errors:
-
"Timber wolf " refers to specifically to three North American exclusive subspecies of gray wolf. Using the Zoopedia's distribution map, along with the overall model design and the different translation names, we can logically come to the conclusion that this is in fact supposed to specifically be the Rocky Mountain Wolf, aka the Mackenzie Valley Wolf. This means it's named should be changed, and all references to Europe be stripped away from it's Zoopedia entry and distribution map.
- As a further expansion on this point, the translated names pointed out here are very inconsistent.
- Rename the “African buffalo” to be the Cape Buffalo. The full Latin name in the Zoopedia along with the distribution map indicate this is meant to be this specific subspecies only, and not a catch-all for the entire species. Thus, the name is incorrect and should be changed. As such, the Tropical Rainforest biome no longer applies. It should have Aquatic regardless, as the Cape buffalo frequents wetland regions. The rest of the bio will need to be edited.
- The “Pronghorn antelope” is not an antelope at all. The word should to be removed from the name, so it reads only as “Pronghorn”. The rest of the bio will need to be edited.
-
- For the "Nature" tab, Central American should be added to North America and removed from South America, in order to be accurate to geography and geopolitical issues.
- Any animal that lives in Central America but only has the current South/Central tag will need to have the new North/Central America tag added.
- General Zoopedia Errors:
- Add Baird's tapir and giant anteater to North American Zoopedia filter (the rest of Central American animals are correctly there)
- Binturongs do not live in Singapore, as such this should be removed from it's range in the distribution map and Zoopedia description.
- Puff adder needs the Asia tag
- Zoopedia and map does not accommodate spectacled caiman's range into Central America (North America).
- Reindeer should have better tolerance to heat. Currently they have 16 C as maximum temperature, even less than the king penguin.
- Biome changes
- Add Aquatic biome to Goliath frog and make it the biome shown in the exhibit box.
- New Features
- Allow glass, roof and bottom on exhibit boxes to be set to null individually. There is a mod that allows this, but being an official part of the game would be preferred. This will allow us to create custom displays and would go a long way for creativity options, which is easily the biggest complaint for exhibits currently. Can be implemented into the drop down menus that already exist for choose between window, opaque and background art.
- Allow a toggle option either in the game settings or in the exhibit's settings that automatically sends newly matured animals directly to the trade center, to make balancing populations less tedious, especially when playing on triple speed.
- Add two smaller options for various species
- The smallest would house the invertebrates and tiniest frogs.
- The medium would house some of the snakes and frogs.
- The large would continue to be used by the largest animals, like the iguanas, but all species can continue to use these as well.
- Here is a little visual aid made by @Iben for what something like this could look like!
- Consistency issues
- Add 3D façade for the Aquatic biome vivarium. I was greatly disappointed that no effort was made to give it one since the base game biomes (Desert and Tropical Rainforest) both have one.
- Edits for/to major behaviors (Diving, burrowing, climbing, swimming, bathing, chorusing/calling)
- The following animals need to spend more of their time climbing, especially climbing trees; binturongs, koalas, capuchin monkeys, Chinese pangolin and red pandas. These animals in particular should not be spending so much time on the ground.
- Specifically, red pandas and binturongs should be spending at least 80% of the time climbing on trees and climbing frames. Koalas should literally only be on the ground to poop and when moving to a tree feeder, so 95% of the time at least.
- Add Chinese pangolin to the climbing system, and give it the binturong's "hanging" animations. This species of pangolin is actually notably arboreal and also has a prehensile tail like the binturong.
- Finish adding diving to relevant species: Baird's and Malayan tapir, Nile monitor, Moose, Hippo
- Not diving, but re-add the swimming animations for the Galapagos island tortoise that existed in beta.
- Add some more unique animations while diving such as tigers and bears play fighting.
- Allow all crocodilians to be able to "rest" at the bottom of bodies of water.
- Allow the following relevant animals to have bathing animations: both species of giant tortoise, hippopotamus, both species of tapir, both species of elephant (with an animation that uses the trunk to shower themselves please!), jaguar, both tiger species, all bear species, Asian water buffalo and both rhino species.
- Allow cheetahs to climb certain types of small trees, as they can in the wild.
- Allow the following animals to burrow; African wild dog, warthog, Chinese pangolin, Spotted Hyena, Timber/Mackenzie Valley wolf, Fennec fox (small), Arctic fox (small)
- Add chorusing for bonobos, chimpanzees, all lemur species, African wild dogs, spotted hyenas and African lions.
- The following animals need to spend more of their time climbing, especially climbing trees; binturongs, koalas, capuchin monkeys, Chinese pangolin and red pandas. These animals in particular should not be spending so much time on the ground.
- Expanding enrichment usage
- Give all canids that do not already (except fennec fox, due to size constraint) access to rope toy, swimming pool and tennis ball enrichment items (fennec fox has this latter one anyways).
- Add natural termite mound use and animations to chimpanzee, bonobo, pangolin, aardvark and meerkat. Currently, these can only use the non-natural one.
- In congruence with this, give the giant anteater access to the artificial termite mound
- Give forage wall access to all remaining bear species and all primate species. Currently only the sun bear uses it, what a waste!
- Give hammock access to jaguar, giant panda, Formosan black bear and snow leopard.
- Replace herb scent marker with blood scent marker for polar bears.
- Give disco ball access to the bonobo and King penguin, since the chimpanzee and Cape penguin can use it, they may as well also.
- Give the moose the underwater herbivore feeder.
- Give the prairie dog access to the small and large food bowls. They currently only can use the "arboreal" feeding platforms, which are gigantic compared to their size.
- Give the Dall sheep access to the goat climbing mountain.
- Allow European fallow deer to use the hanging grazer feeder, the skittles (both types), the metal frame waterfall, the large balls (all types), and the large barrel feeder.
- Allow Dall sheep, moose, caribou, black wildebeest, bongo, gemsbok, nyala, sable antelope, Cape buffalo, and American bison to use the scarecrow feeder.
- Allow all other bears to use both the water pool like the sun bear.
- Allow all canids to use the skittle feeder and the bubble machine.
- Allow proboscis monkeys to use the suspended forager and the musical keyboard.
- Allow jaguars to use the restraint feeder.
- Allow sun bears to use the fixed roller feeder, the large balls (all types), and the tree scatter feeder.
- Allow giant pandas to use the bamboo feeder and large balls (all types), and allow the giant panda to use the block of frozen fruit.
- Allow king penguins to use the slow feeder.
- Allow alpine ibex to use the hanging grazer feeder.
- Allow Japanese macaques to use the small barrel feeder and the bobbin (both types).
- Allow mandrills to use the small barrel feeder and small balls (all types).
- Allow dholes to use the chew toy.
- Allow clouded leopards and cougars to use the firehose ball.
- Allow African penguins and black-tailed Prairie dogs to use the water jet.
- Allow the rest of the crocodilians (gharial, saltie and dwarf caiman) to use the platform floats, since the American alligator can.
- Allow both elephant species to use giraffe feeder to showcase trunk skills.
- Allow both caimans to use Rubbing Pads like other crocodilians.
- Allow mandrills, moose, and all other felids (only current user being the Clouded Leopard) to use the Rubber Duck.
- Allow the Nile lechwe to use the plant screen.
- Allow Komodo dragons to use the dog ball.
- Allow other bears to use the chew toy (currently only used by the sun bear).
- Allow mandrills and Japanese macaques to use the tree forager.
- Allow Arctic foxes to use the tunnel.
- Allow sun bears to use the firehose ball.
- Add underwater plant feeder to both hippos.
- Give the snow leopard access to the goat climbing mountain and rename the object "Rock climbing mountain". This makes sense given that snow leopards inhabit rocky, mountainous habitats similar to the Alpine ibex and Dall sheep.
- Allow both tapir species and capybara to actually make use of the mud wallow and have animations for it (rather than just be able to walkthrough it and get dirty).
- Allow both species of elephant to use the melon feeder, with an animation that shows them crushing the melon underfoot.
- Allow both species of elephant to use the wind chime enrichment item.
- Give the badger access to the following items: both termite mounds, tree forager, grab ball, small colorful ball and bark rubbing pad. The badger has almost no enrichment items, one of the worst cases in the game!
- New enrichment item ideas
- Add a "sentry post" style enrichment item for meerkats, modeled after a tree stump (preferably some generic enough to fit in any setting). New animations only need to be created for getting onto the object, when on the object, the current "sentry" animations can be reused with no issue.
- Add two new enrichments items: smaller versions of the forage box and mud wallow. This would be intended to be used only by smaller animals/smaller groups of animals. The current items are quite large, and can thus limit habitat design.
- A smaller version of the waterfall enrichment, for similar reasons to the above point. It looks a bit odd when using the giant one for a small flamingo habitat for instance.
- Sleeping log/tree limb! One or two variations, perhaps a natural branch and one that's more of a generic log (flexicolor please). This would hang off of the edge of a hill or climbing platform and would provide unique sleeping/resting animations for the relevant animals, being lynx, mountain lions, binturongs, red pandas, clouded leopards, sun and moon (Formosan) bears, jaguars, lions. Super easy way to get animals climbing more often, and for longer.
- Leafless, broken trees, but as enrichment items, with specific sets of climbing animations for different animals.
- Water slide object that must end in a connection to a body of water, being used by otters, seals and sea lions.
- Each biome should have a tree for a natural scratching post, except the aquatic biome. Currently the tropical rainforest and taiga biomes are the only two with trees that fit.
- Temperate fall leaves sleeping pile.
- Pine needle sleeping pile.
- Artificial islands that can be placed in flatbottomed water up to a certain depth. Would be great for flamingos and other wading birds, but all semi-aquatic animals could use them. Faux rock material so it would be flexicolor. Could have some different variants where one has a few holes in it for the player to put plants etc, rather than just being totally flat and round. Maybe one with some rockier edges.
- Fallen tree/log/stump feeding stations, similar to the ones from ZT2 (Seen in the back of this photo). These should contain fruits and veggies, or insects for insectivores. Probably not meat for predators, definitely not fish for piscivores.
- Blood pumpkins, but without the blood. Elephants really enjoy crushing pumpkins and squash with their feet and then eating them. Could be scaled up into giant ones.
- Salt licks for hoofstock, at the very least. Salt is an integral part of animals' diet and zoos all over the world use salt licks to give them this vital nutrition.
- Bones and antlers as a chewing enrichment for canids.
- Clear pvc pipe feeder enrichment for giant anteaters and sun bears to show off their specialized tongues.
- Heat rocks that can be used by reptiles and big cats to lounge on. Must be in an area where there is electricity.
- UV lamps for habitat reptiles to bask under while indoors, since UV light is important for them to be healthy.
- Enrichment items that encourage natural browsing behaviors.
- Give ambiance speakers a small privacy bonus for shy animals.
- Make the Bactrian camel a walkthrough habitat. Since this is supposed to be the domesticated animal, not the wild one, it makes sense to allow this as a walkthrough animal.
- Change any food texture items with polar bear food enrichment to be meat exclusive. Some still use a mixed fruits and veggies texture, which is fine for any bear species except polar bears, which are hyper-carnivores and would never eat fruits or vegetables, except very, very rarely in captivity only. Not common enough to justify the texture remaining the same.
- Every known animal model issue/error
- California sea lion: The male model is much too small in comparison to the female model. Sea lion males are always far larger than the females, regardless of captivity vs wild. The male model needs to be made larger.
- Southern white rhino: The rhino calf is the model of a juvenile animal, but is the size of a newborn infant. If the animal is to remain the infant size, the model needs to be reworked so that the horn is removed, as baby rhinos do not yet have horns. If the animal is intended to be a juvenile, then the model need to be made bigger, and the size of the head and feet need to be increased a bit.
- Malayan tapir: Purple coloration, Baird's tapir mark on head is leftover, nose is too short, hump not pronounced enough etc. There. Are. Plenty. Of. Threads....that discuss this issue. I think of all the model errors, this is the most egregious, partially because the art team was able to make a sign that looks exactly like a proper Malayan tapir while the actual animal model is a 1 to 1 reskin, and partially because we know that Frontier is aware of this issue, and has patched other animals (binturong, dhole) but seemingly doesn't care enough to fix this one.
- Gharial: Skin texture should be slightly darkened, scutes missing from the back/spine, body is a bit too bulky/pudgy, head shape needs to be narrower. This 3D rendering shows how the changes to the model should be made.
- Galapagos Island tortoise: Model is too small for a full grown adult. These can usually get quite bigger than the ones in PZ are capable, as this picture will show.
- Aldabra tortoise: Has the same issue as the above, the model is too small for a full grown adult. These can also get quite big, as this picture will show.
- Jaguar: Fur is too fluffy and a bit too darkly colored (brown). The body is too lithe like a leopard, and should be stockier and more muscled. The head should be slightly enlarged and made more muscular, there should not be black on the front of the ears, and the spot patterns should be darkened.
- West African lion: Probably the single most complained about animal until the binturong and Malayan tapir issues came. The lioness is good, but the cubs need these spots or mottling on them. If they were juvenile animals it wouldn't be an issue, but they are clearly designed as cubs. The male lion needs it's mane entirely redone with the updated fur shader/texture, the original one looks like plastic. Both male and female adults need the snout elongated. Male needs mane variations (both coloration and maneless variants).
- Grizzly bear: Needs a rework because it's the wrong kind of thick. It looks way overly fat, instead of stocky with a good mix of muscle and stored fat. It literally has the body shape of a potato. This is what an actual Grizzly looks like.
- Himalayan brown bear: Let's all be frank. This was an animal added to the base game to help pad out the roster. It's nearly an exact carbon copy of the Grizzly bear. Look at this picture and you tell me if you think Planet Zoo's bear is close to accurate. It's way too fat, the coloration is too dark, the ears are wrong. Just not great all around.
- American bison: Slightly too small, the head needs to be a bit larger and in general should be a bit taller. Here is a diagram that compares what the average size of an America plains bison looks like when compared to an average size adult human. In Planet Zoo, the keepers are usually as tall as the bison's hump (which itself needs to be made a bit taller).
- Bactrian camel: This is also undersized. Here is a similar diagram for you to compare sizes with. In addition, the Planet Zoo camel has the face of a dromedary camel, not of a Bactrian camel. It also needs color variations including white, dark brown, cream and gold/ginger. Seeing as this is intended to be the domesticated Bactrian camel and these variations are common in captivity.
- Cheetah: The adults are good, but the baby cheetahs are carbon copies of the adults, when they are clearly supposed to be infant/cubs. Here is what PZ made. Now compare it to a real cub. Unfortunately, not even close.
- Snow leopard: The face and body are too fat, overall should be more lithe. The face should be a little elongated and the eyes slightly enlarged. It is also far too small. The snow leopard in game is the size of the clouded leopard but this is totally inaccurate, it needs to be sized up.
- Spotted hyena: Neck arch and hind legs need to be a bit more exaggerated than the PZ version. Also, the "mane" needs to be more pronounced.
- Nile monitor: Skin patterning on the adult is somewhat inaccurate, but not game breaking. What is however, is that the babies are carbon copies of the adult, just smaller. This is totally inaccurate compared to how they should actually look.
- Koala: Too cute and stylized, looks like a plush toy. The lines around the mouth should be more defined, the nose should be more defined. The ears should be whiter, and for once you have here a PZ animal that actually should have more fur but it doesn't. The ears need to be more scraggily, seen here.
- Rocky Mountain wolf: Animal is overall too fluffy and way too fat, especially the face. It has jowls for crying out loud, it's so fat. Here are some pictures of what an actual North American gray wolf looks like.
- Chimpanzee: Make adult face darker, not pink. Usually only infants have pink faces.
- Cape buffalo: Just doesn't hold up compared to the new water buffalo. At minimum it needs to be resized up and retextured with the new fur shader.
- General foliage ideas:
- Less bushy bamboo options. Sometimes we just want to be able to use the taller stalks and not have gigantic leaves and branches obscuring vision. This happens even with the smallest Bengal bamboo size. Some nice options would be arrow bamboo, golden bamboo and/or black bamboo.
- Taller, skinnier trees. This follows the same logic as above, we want to use trees that aren't so short and fat they obstruct vision. Around 3-4m up for the foliage to start appearing would be good for line of sight. Good examples of this include the yellow fever tree, bald cypress tree and water tupelo trees.
- More grasses. The drinn grass was a fantastic addition, but we could use at least 2-3 more species. We haven't gotten any since then.
- More Western palms (and palmettos). I've changed this to specify "New World" palms as the Africa pack and 1.6 update did a good job adding some fantastic African palms. The new world, especially North America, is lacking still. (Hint hint Washingtonias please!!)
- More aquatic plants. Specifically, some more sea grass and giant kelp would be fantastic choices.
- Even more natural looking climbable branches and logs.
- Wood chip piles and flat wood chip surface covering items (just like the mulch items). These are heavily recommended by the AZA and EAZA for many habitats such as elephant and rhinos. In Goron’s video interview with a habitat designer, this was talked about and he specifically noted how PZ does not have any wood chip items.
- Individual cattails, reeds and bamboo pieces.
- General rock ideas:
- Add in 5-10 new medium and large models for the fake rocks, with some updated texturing, still make them flexicolor.
- Add new faux rock items in the shape of the flat “rock cladding” items the “real” biome rocks have. Make flexicolor, same as the current faux rocks.
- Kopje texture and shaped style rocks
- Faux rock baobab tree (the tall, skinny, dead kind that zoos tend to use). The Australia pack concept art makes it seem we almost got some.
- Dynamic snow rocks, using the taiga or tundra rocks as the base. Functions that same as the dynamic moss rocks.
- Foliage options for regions that are underrepresented in general:
- Aquatic-Saltwater/Coastal/Brackish (As mentioned above, the aquatic biome in general is lacking, but the saltwater side is especially lacking.)
- Aquatic-Freshwater/Riverbank
-
[*]Amazon sword plant
[*]Java fern
[*]America/Canadian pondweed
[*]Flamingo plant
[*]Common river rush (any subspecies from any continent)
[*]Duckweed
[*]Moss covered sticks and logs that change orientation, like the moss covered rocks. Version totally covered in moss as well. Could use the same models as the new birch branches.
-
- Europe-Grassland (I would 100% include any Mediterranean climate plants here since there is no scrub or Mediterranean biome in game right now)
- Europe-Temperate
- South America-Grassland
-
[*]Pampas grass
[*]Cashew tree
[*]Yerba maté
[*]Chilean mesquite tree (would also be desert)
[*]Nandubay tree (Pro tip Frontier: Rheas supposedly love this tree, in case you ever wanted to add them, you should pair them with this tree)
[*]Hippeastrum flower
[*]Wolf apple (As the rheas love the nandubay tree, the maned wolf loves the wolf apple tree!
-
- South America-Desert
- North America-Grassland
-
[*]Mountain mahogany (Confusing name, but this exists in the desert as well as chaparral, not just mountain areas)
[*]White prairie clover
[*]Bluebunch wheatgrass
[*]Blackfoot daisy
[*]Any variety of North American milkweed
[*]Prairie cordgrass
[*]North American June grass
[*]Cane bluestem
[*]Great plains yucca
-
- North America-Temperate
- North America Tropical
-
- Aquatic-Saltwater/Coastal/Brackish (As mentioned above, the aquatic biome in general is lacking, but the saltwater side is especially lacking.)
- Fix tag issues for existing items:
- Give umbrella thorn acacia the Asia tag (Exists in Middle East and India)
- Give Spanish moss temperate tag
- Give papyrus sedge, blackthorn bush, common water lily, Italian cypress tree, elm tree, hawthorn bush, ivy and oak tree Europe tag, and add Grassland biome as well (All of these exist across the Mediterranean)
- Rename cypress to Italian or Mediterranean cypress
- Add a drop down menu when creating a new zoo that allows you to choose a background that corresponds with that biome. For instance, creating a new taiga map allows you to choose between the vanilla map background, or any of the custom made scenario/campaign ones. The full list of map backgrounds that we would be able to choose to use is:
-
Vanilla (Tropical rainforest, temperate, grasslands, desert, tundra, taiga)
[*]Special location based- Desert: Australia outback
- Tropical rainforest: South America Andes
- Scenarios with unique maps
- Temperate: (Goodwin house, Panda Park, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Red Barn River, Bernie Goodwin Memorial)
- Tropical rainforest: None
- Grasslands: (Great Caldera Safari Park, Myers Lake Island, Myers Entertainment Park)
- Desert: (Mexico Conservation Park, Tanami Roadside Zoo, El Darar Bazaar)
- Tundra: (Goodwin Arctic research, Karst Mire)
- Taiga: None
-
- Add at least one new map background for each continent. With the restrictions of how PZ biomes work, there are many locations that do not look accurate when trying to build a zoo in that location. For instance, trying to build a temperate deciduous forest zoo in the Eastern U.S, but the only map background is for the English countryside. Here are some of my favorite options:
- Europe: Gieranger Fjord to represent Scandinavia. Almeria, or some similar place in Italy, Greece or Croatia, to better represent the Mediterranean, with which there is currently no accurate map type or background.
- Oceania: New Zealand beaches to represent, well, New Zealand! None of the current maps or biomes truly represent NZ.
- North America: The Great Smoky Mountains, to fix the example issue I highlighted. Also, North American Prairie, for similar reasons as the temperate biome. The current grasslands background and plants look too African savannah to convincingly look like the Great Plains.
- Asia: Himalayan Valleys for Nepal, China, India and Tibet.
- Africa: Mount Kilimanjaro. Africa is actually quite well off, but this is so iconic that it would be an incredible background.
- South America: Torres del Paine, to give some better representation to the cooler temperature areas of South America, like Chile and Argentina.
- Topographic map items of each continent, with different depths to show either biome regions or elevation, similar to the style of the globe on the main screen. Different elevation, or biomes (whichever you decide) are flexicolor to each other (Level 1, 2, 3 etc.)
- Additionally, one large world map item in this style
- Focus on more cohesive theming for any statues added into a free update. What I mean by this is, instead of giving the hippo or Nile monitor for instance, a random theme for a statue, give them some statues in the theme of the new Africa pack, that way they can all be used together. Another example, give the Baird's tapir a statue that fits the SA pack theme.
- I previously asked for artwork and statues to be added for animals that had no items in game, which was somewhat remedied, however it is still an issue. Here is the list of animals that have no representation at all
-
Aardvark, Cape Buffalo, African Wild Dog, Aldabra Giant Tortoise, Bactrian Camel, Bongo, Bonobo, Common Warthog, Formosan Black Bear, Galapagos island tortoise, Gemsbok, Himalayan brown bear, Komodo dragon, Mandrill, Nile monitor, Nyala, Okapi, Pygmy Hippo, Snow Leopard, Springbok, Thomson's Gazelle, Lehmann's dart frog, Golden dart frog, Gila monster, Yellow anaconda, Boa constrictor, Giant leaf insect, Eastern brown snake, Death adder, Giant cockroach, Goliath frog, Goliath beetle, Titan beetle, African giant snail, Lesser Antillean iguana
- Concrete wall panels, similar to the plaster or mud ones.
- More rope items.
- Mesh pieces for the purpose of constructing covered habitats, ones that make it easy to do non-traditional, non-flat roofs. Think triangular and circular pieces.
- More variations of restaurant tables.
- Ability to set all genetic categories such as size, longevity etc and choose the color morph.
- Also allows the ability to choose if the animal is a baby or not.
- Also includes the ability to disable scarring.
- Refresh button in the Sandbox Market generates four new animals on demand rather than having to either wait or buy the animals.
- Animal Ambassador Talks
- Adds a new staff type "Animal Ambassador Speaker/Keeper" OR gives new functionality to the Animal Educators.
- Adds a talk point similar to the currently existing talk points.
- Allows a staff member to show off an exhibit animal outside of the exhibit to zoo guests, similarly to how many zoos do this in real life.
- Animals must be present in your zoo in order to be used.
- No venomous animals, poisonous animals or amphibians are able to be used. The first two are straightforward enough, the amphibians should not be allowed because skin-to-skin contact with amphibian species is highly unadvisable. The only was this would be ok is if guests are not animated to pet the animals and the staff member is wearing gloves.
- Veterinary points for exhibits
- Essentially an animals talk point but use by vet staff types. This reflects real world practices how a vet will come to the habitat of an animal for a small, quick checkup instead of transporting the animal to the vet clinic.
- A random chosen animal in the habitat will wilk over to the other side of the vet point, similar to how the talk points work with animal feeding.
- This "check up" will reduce the frequency of animals developing sever enough injuries or diseases that result in needing to be taken to the clinic.
- Still functions in sandbox mode even if animal welfare is checked off.
- Guests who observe this interaction receive an education bonus.
- Path changes and additions
- The ability to make 2m and 3m wide paths without using exploits involving placing queues. This should at the very least be implemented for staff paths.
- Add same color variations of staff paths without the logo imposed. Also, a new or color or two, such as a sandy brown, would be great.
- Ability to place trash cans on sloped paths.
- Add a null path option.
- Add null kerbs to the terrain paths.
- Add one way paths OR add the ability to make a path one directional as a checked box option.
- Allow paths to be placed much closer to barriers and water bodies.
- Give a better error description than “path blocked”, rather specify what is blocking it.
- Add an option to the null barrier that allows a toggle for visibility through it.
- Tone down severity of light/godrays indoors
- Space apart the barriers addition and extension buttons when building barriers as they often overlap, forcing you to change angles while building, which is restrictive.
- Smaller version of the walkthrough habitat gate.
- Null Version of both would be good as well. Option made of metal or glass would be nice but not as needed, especially if a null option is made.
- Add the ability to link bench or table objects to one or more food or drink shops, to increase the chance of guests using those objects.
- Add the ability to also link benches and tables to keeper talk points.
- Add the ability to set a zoo section, so guests wont leave the section until they visit everything in it. This can include habitats, exhibits and restaurants.
- Add an option in Sandbox to keep food, enrichments and water always filled, and also the ability to fill it manually without the staff having to do it.
- Add a temperature control slider on the weather widget that allows the player to set the current temperature.
- An even more intuitive feature would be an additional slider that allows the min and max temperature to be player set.
- Add animal tags to climbable trees if the animal can actually climb said object. I have noticed that not every climbing animal can climb every tree with the climbable label, which means it’s very annoying to try and have to figure this out for yourself.
- Habitat land size reductions for these animals:
- Australia mandates that koala habitat space is 20m^2 for a koala, with an additional 10m^2 per each new animal. The largest habitat size was around 100m^2…..PZ mandates minimum size for a Koala be 180m^2. Visual representation found here. I recommend the new minimum be 100m^2.
- The AZA specifies the minimum land requirement for a pair of red pandas be at least 40m^2, with more being preferred if possible. I would recommend shrinking the land requirements to something more realistic, from 220m^2 for one animal to a new minimum of 150m^2. Keep climbing area the same.
- The AZA specifies the minimum land requirements for a pair of binturongs be around 42m^2. Taking into the recommended 8-10 feet^2 (2-3m) verticality that is required, I would recommend reducing from PZ’s requirements of 182m^2 per animal, to a new minimum of 150m^2 per animal. Keep climbing area the same.
- For all the above reasons, greatly reduce the area needed for the platypus, it is far to large and restrictive.
- Add large and small circular billboards.
- Ability to specifically turn off "About to mature" notifications
- There is a game decoration that is clearly an Asian elephant that displays the name of "African elephant sign".
- Take a break from the timed challenges and just make them regular campaign maps, even if they're a simple one-off without voice acting. This is highly requested by both people on the forums, and on the PZ Reddit.
- Add in TikiChicki food stores and vending machines. This was the only base game PC store that was left out of PZ base game
- Consider adding the PC world’s fair stores in a free update (since they are paid dlc for PC this may be a big ask, but I don’t think people would buy a store dlc for PZ)
- Add the ability to make longer zoo names.
- Add option to disable animal scarring, if not in all game modes, then at least sandbox mode
- Add a “still water” or “slow flowing water” effect (or 2) to the game. We have plenty of options for fast moving water, such as water falls and rapids, but none for slow or still water.
- Increase giant panda star appeal to be the max amount in the game. As pandas are so rare in captivity to begin with, and generally seen as "cute", their rarity and real life popularity status should be reflected as such in the game.
- Decrease size of California sea lion and faux rocks hitboxes.
- Add the ability to group multiple separated building groups into one larger group. This works well for free form construction items but does not exist when using grid-base building pieces and can bee very inconvenient.
- Add a toggle option to walkthrough habitat gates that allows or does not allow guests to use the gate when toggled. Can help reduce stress in animals when needed.
- Change the default setting for blueprints to "off", rather than "on" when loading up a park file.
- Increase grace period that offspring will not fight with parents, for both gameplay purposes and for realism. 2-3 years should be the minimum, but it could be larger than this. Make it proportional to the total lifespan for the animals.
- For example, lions mature at 3 years old and become sterile at 15 years old. So giving male lions 3 in game years to live with their father would be a good compromise. At 6 years old they will start to challenge their father.
- Flexicolor staff uniforms, as seen in Planet Coaster.
- Add the triggers system from Planet Coaster. Allow us to hook up VFX/speakers/billboard to the ride system and the education talks
- Add the ability to set a custom duration time for the education talk
- When changing the color of flexicolor items there is still a blue outline. Clicking the color square again usually removes it, but it should always work right away
- Add a visual indication to climbing pieces like with the jetty platform so we know which pieces are causing a part of the climbing structure not being climbable/traversable
- Link up vistapoints to an animal talk point, so that you can create custom guided tours for your educators to take your guests on
- Add flexicolor to more ingame base sets, notably the plastic roofs, the indian sand stone set, the metal plank set and the thatch roof set.
- Make the beams/plank set consistent. We've gotten a bunch of sizes and updated throughout the years, but now the sets are inconsistent. Give them all the same length options, as opposed to the lengths they have today.
- Allow hippos/crocodiles to sleep underwater not only just "in water".
- Small clawed otters should spend more time huddled close together, the way the baby rhino stays close to the mother.
- Faux Rock Pebbles from the European DLC should be able to retain flexicolor from one to another just as the other Faux Rocks do, and vice versa between the two groups. This is currently not the case and means we have to manually change the color each time, for each of the smaller rocks.
- A new tickbox that allows for flexicolor randomization. This picks from withing a certain radius on the color picker screen and changes the color of the flexicolor item to a shade of color within that player-set radius.
- Add the ability to control all lights in a selected group, including color change and on/off settings.
- When placing barriers, trying to save the game as a new save file results in an "error".
- This problem with the tundra maps. Further detailed here.
-
[*]Spotted hyena black hole chest warping. Here are some pictures for reference. Pic 1 and Pic 2.
[*]Koala in passive climbing on a tree while being at the bottom of the trunk, so it clips into the ground.
[*]Animals swimming through barriers and walls.
[*]Fix the male grizzly eyelids animations (missing bones on both left and right eyelids).
[*]Formosan black bear always has it's mouth open.
[*]Angle-snap remaining in place while rotating habitat gates even if the box isn't checked.
[*]Burrow screens reset every time the game is closed/left.
[*]The habitat gate rotation is not working correctly. It appears to be linked to the angle rotation for construction items, changing the setting in the barrier tab does nothing.
[*]The palm thatch roof eaves aren't listed under "roof trims" like all the others are.
[*]After placing an item with angle snap and closing the object placement window, placing a new object results in the angle snap slider being locked. To unlock it, angle snap needs to be toggled on and off.
[*]Clouded leopard climbing just generally not looking good or functioning.
[*]Malayan tapir purple hue on the back
[*]Water buffalo turning in a straight circle.
[*]Proboscis monkeys are not playing an animation with the frozen fruit block of ice, they just stand there. Picture evidence.
[*]Red crowned crane should have the flamingo rest animation removed as it results in a clipping beak. Cleaning it up to reduce the bad clipping look is also fine.
[*]Also with the crane, as explained here by Iben, there is a very bad glitching issue with the feathers distorting.
[*]Fountain bamboo hit boxes are currently huge.
[*]Some of the branches on the common ash tree don’t actually connect to the trunk.
[*]Capybaras swimming is glitched, they swim upside down underwater.
[*]As seen here, the Asian small clawed otter is also glitched while swimming.
[*]European badgers have a glitch with their animation when using the dog ball food enrichment item
- Added “food carts” and trucks with the shop counters.
- Added a null shop/counter only variant.
- Added a search bar to animal trade centers.
- Added Aleppo pine.
- Added aquatic biome to beaver.
- Added continent tags to all rocks, allowing them to still be used when filtering strictly by continent.
- Added desert biome tags to cheetah, common ostrich, African wild dogs and pronghorn.
- Added different sized education boards by way of custom billboards.
- Added diving for jaguar and the two tiger species.
- Added diving to polar, grizzly, sun and Formosan black bear.
- Added Europe and Asia tags for moose and updated zoopedia map.
- Added in a significant amount of non-grid building pieces for existing sets and made them all flexicolor.
- Added in more faux rocks.
- Added in prop eggs items.
- Added more ambiance sounds by adding custom sound speakers.
- Added more art for animals by adding custom billboards.
- Added more natural climbing frames and branches.
- Added more statues for existing animals.
- Added natural birch branches.
- Added path kerbs and barriers.
- Added smaller signs for shops.
- Added staff heatmap to show where keepers can and cannot walk in habitats.
- Added taiga biome tags to Formosan black bear, giant panda and American bison.
- Added temperate and tundra compatibility for moose.
- Added train all staff button.
- African elephant name changed to specify African bush/Savannah elephant.
- American alligator bio no longer references saltwater crocodile.
- Bramble bush now have North America and Asia tags.
- Fixed capuchin facial glitch.
- Fixed grid flickering issues when building paths and construction tools.
- Fixed the moose info sign.
- Fixed visibility issue with water/tanks by allowing custom colors and visibility.
- Fixed water surface plants (lilies, lotus etc.) being navigable, so animals no longer walk on them, breaking immersion.
- Increased both cold and snow tolerance for the Formosan black bear.
- Increased cold and snow tolerance for Bactrian camel and American bison.
- Increased size groups for American alligators, both mixed and same-sex.
- Made mesh fences see-through.
- North Sulawesi Babirusa name was changed to be the appropriate species, and the distribution map is fixed to reflect this as well.
- Rainbow eucalyptus now has an Oceania tag.
- Red kangaroos are now walkthrough.
- Readded the all-white llama skin variation.
- Significantly changed diving depth restrictions for all animals.
- Updated African bush elephant conservation status from V to E.
- Updated animal icon for the binturong to show the new model.
- Updated capuchin conservation status from LC to V.
- Giving burrows to prairie dogs and meerkats.
- Give exhibits flexicolor water.
- Giving us a way to make shallow flat bottomed water that keepers can walk through (terraces).
- New camera mode fully implemented and not hidden as a "cheat".
- "1-2 placeable “pond” items so we can have small water objects without actually using the terrain tools, which can be a bit hard to use for small areas...probably unnecessary with the terrace tool so I'll check this off.
- Added bald cypress trees and “knees”.
- Added the flexicolour editor to selections of similar objects in Multi Selection mode.
- Added flexicolour to forage pool feeder.
- Renamed "Underwater box feeder" to "Underwater fish feeder".
- Allow a checkbox setting in the settings tab to disable animal scarring (this was added for animals that are bred in your zoos but not for animals bought, so it's half implemented).
- Bug: The "Merge Items into Group" button is now mislabeled "Move Selection" when multiple items are multi-selected. In addition to this, the "move selection" button now says "advanced move selection". This is fixed as of the 1.9.0 update.
- Added Aquatic Biome tag to the Danube Crested Newt and Moose
- Reduced the navigation size for the Asian Small-Clawed Otter
- Fixed Explore Camera falling through elevated paths
- Fixed Asian short clawed otter mistakenly labeled Critically Endangered, it is classified as Vulnerable.
- Added plants for North America, Asia and Europe grasslands
- Added backstage props (kinda? They were part of the Conservation pack, so not the free update, but they still got added so)
- Added small habitat gate variants
- Added the rest of the shop counters
- Somewhat fixed deep swimming glitches, but unclear to what extent. Yet to be clarified which animals are fixed.
- Fixed the sacred scarab beetle biome
Thanks for reading everyone! If you have any additional suggestions, or see something that was added that I missed, please comment below!
As always, @Jens Erik @Eltanin Casciani @Francesca Falcini @Tim Smith , if you discuss any of these points with the dev team and they tell you something is impossible, for one reason or another, feel free to post that here and I will happily remove it! Thanks again for all the hard work you've done for us as a community, we all very much appreciate it!
Last edited:
