Been thinking about exhibit animals and how we could have some much-suggested other types of animals such as birds, flying bugs, and tiny mammals. Based on my tiny bit of zoo experience, I thought of this idea.
Proposal: A third type of animal container that is in between exhibit and habitat- I will call it a animal house here because I don't know what word might better describe this.
It could be like an exhibit cube but 2-3 times larger. A roof over it, a glass dome totally encased, and guests enter through a lil set of doors. It could have a path at two sides or they can exit the way they came in, and they can have a couple points of interest that they look at just like they look at exhibits currently. It could have educational boards inside of the animal house itself for guest education.
The inside can function like the exhibits do: it can automatically generate an environment to match what animal we put in it, so we would not need to decorate it all ourselves, but we can add more enrichment just like in exhibits, and perhaps chose what the walls look like, 2D or 3D etc.
I will now steal images from the Smithsonian website to illustrate what I'm talking about, though this is a massive version and the version in-game can be scaled back as needed.
And one real photo from Zoo Berlin
This would allow for things like exotic birds, bats, a butterfly house, with a lot of flexibility. You could put in meerkats, prairie dogs, jerboa, and little ground critters as well, giving them more space than an exhibit but not requiring us to build an entire hab for such small animals. It would basically allow for a 3rd animal type after hab and exhibit animals and it could have its own animal market.
Personally, I'd love if we could allow for 2-4 species in the animal at once if they are environmentally compatible, allowing us some additional customization over exhibits. The animals would need animations a smidge more advanced than current exhibit animals, but I don't think it should be too hard to animate a bird flying back and forth to a few locations, a butterfly or bat flapping about or resting on a fence? Meerkats scurrying from one place to another, and perhaps they can have animations unique to when a guest is observing them, running and hiding and then peeking out again? Something to make the animal house appear alive and active as the guests walk through it.
However a new type of exhibit is already a bit of an undertaking so I am not sure what the realities of this could look like if it was something the Frontier team actually implemented. I'd love to find out though, so I hope this is something they can consider.
Proposal: A third type of animal container that is in between exhibit and habitat- I will call it a animal house here because I don't know what word might better describe this.
It could be like an exhibit cube but 2-3 times larger. A roof over it, a glass dome totally encased, and guests enter through a lil set of doors. It could have a path at two sides or they can exit the way they came in, and they can have a couple points of interest that they look at just like they look at exhibits currently. It could have educational boards inside of the animal house itself for guest education.
The inside can function like the exhibits do: it can automatically generate an environment to match what animal we put in it, so we would not need to decorate it all ourselves, but we can add more enrichment just like in exhibits, and perhaps chose what the walls look like, 2D or 3D etc.
I will now steal images from the Smithsonian website to illustrate what I'm talking about, though this is a massive version and the version in-game can be scaled back as needed.
And one real photo from Zoo Berlin
This would allow for things like exotic birds, bats, a butterfly house, with a lot of flexibility. You could put in meerkats, prairie dogs, jerboa, and little ground critters as well, giving them more space than an exhibit but not requiring us to build an entire hab for such small animals. It would basically allow for a 3rd animal type after hab and exhibit animals and it could have its own animal market.
Personally, I'd love if we could allow for 2-4 species in the animal at once if they are environmentally compatible, allowing us some additional customization over exhibits. The animals would need animations a smidge more advanced than current exhibit animals, but I don't think it should be too hard to animate a bird flying back and forth to a few locations, a butterfly or bat flapping about or resting on a fence? Meerkats scurrying from one place to another, and perhaps they can have animations unique to when a guest is observing them, running and hiding and then peeking out again? Something to make the animal house appear alive and active as the guests walk through it.
However a new type of exhibit is already a bit of an undertaking so I am not sure what the realities of this could look like if it was something the Frontier team actually implemented. I'd love to find out though, so I hope this is something they can consider.
