Please, just have have the keepers fill up whatever we place in the habitat

Agathorn

A
This attempt to make keepers "intelligently determine the proper amount of food for a habitat based on the number of animals" is just causing nothing but confusion, bugs, and grief and what is the upside? What is the benefit to having it this way?

Just make it simple, and just have the keepers fill up the food in everything we place in the habitat. Whether that is a food enrichment item, an enrichment item and a tray, or 10 trays, doesn't matter. Just fill them up. Simple.
 

Fortunanovesia

F
Think this best idea too.

Just turn it around: if the player is the opinion, the keepers should fill up 10 feeders and 20 enrichment items, they will do that. But in consequence every feeding turn will cost more money.

You should the keepers make filling uo everything there is in the exhibit, but tie each filling of feeder and enrichment item to price the player has to pay.

So we could choose how much we want to pay for each time filling up the feeders. But we would be sure, the keepers will do their job and no animal will be starving, cause they arent able to find food.
 

Agathorn

A
You do already pay. The food comes out of your budget, costing more for higher tier food. So the more food used the more it costs you, which is the only reason I can think of that they did it the way they did, but this is a management sim so the player should be the one to decide how much food goes in there (indirectly, by placing feeders) not the AI.

I still have a Pangolin habitat where I've been trying everything to get it "unbroke" but no matter what keepers just refuse to put any food in it. Any at all. They won't even fill food enrichment items. I've tried several different ones. None of this would be an issue if the AI didn't try to be smart and just blindly filled what was in there.
 

xesta

xesta
yes, yes, yes. let me decide if I want 50 trays in my habitat filled with food. it's my decision, why does the game figure it out for me when it can't even get it right half the time lmao. if it rots and makes my animals sick, that's MY problem I should have to learn to deal with. if it wastes a lot of money, that's MY problem to learn to deal with. the buggy AI shouldn't be the one running the decisions here.

if I have one food tray and the right amount of food enrichment, and the zookeeper is NOT feeding the food tray, that just seems stupid. do zookeepers irl do this? not give the animals food in their trays? don't think so mdude
 

Silhouette

S
You can even see in finances how much money is being spent on animal food, so there's really no excuse to trying to prevent players from overspending on food. If they're bleeding money, they could just see that and adjust accordingly.

I've noticed from watching players that almost none of them really check their finances, even when hemorrhaging money... Which is odd, because in management games (even PZ) I spend a good chunk of time checking out where I'm spending and earning money... But this isn't really thrown at the player as important to do, thus brings about the reason possibly that Frontier thought it best not to have players manage their own expense.
 

carazan

carazan
Silhouette said:
You can even see in finances how much money is being spent on animal food, so there's really no excuse to trying to prevent players from overspending on food. If they're bleeding money, they could just see that and adjust accordingly.

I've noticed from watching players that almost none of them really check their finances, even when hemorrhaging money... Which is odd, because in management games (even PZ) I spend a good chunk of time checking out where I'm spending and earning money... But this isn't really thrown at the player as important to do, thus brings about the reason possibly that Frontier thought it best not to have players manage their own expense.
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I spend WAY too much time trying to understand the finances tab. I mean yeah it shows how much money is going to animal food but.. I wanna know where, how, why... Like is it food enrichment, food going bad, just straight up my animals are eating it all ?
 

Silhouette

S
carazan said:
I spend WAY too much time trying to understand the finances tab. I mean yeah it shows how much money is going to animal food but.. I wanna know where, how, why... Like is it food enrichment, food going bad, just straight up my animals are eating it all ?
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I think this is an instance where Frontier is lacking in their knowledge of management games. Definitely the more information the better. Tropico 6 for example you're running an entire nation, and yet you can see such precise information, right down to how much food you're producing, what types of food, and even the plantation/farm it's coming from.

It's almost overkill, but at least it gives you that option to be as in depth as you want. PZ barely scratches the surface for sure
 

Agathorn

A
carazan said:
I spend WAY too much time trying to understand the finances tab. I mean yeah it shows how much money is going to animal food but.. I wanna know where, how, why... Like is it food enrichment, food going bad, just straight up my animals are eating it all ?
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It is how much money you are spending on the food (any food) for your habitats. If you go into a habitat and find the super secret hidden section where you can set the food quality (assuming you have researched better food) you can see how much it costs.
 

ZooKate

Z
I agree. Their mechanic isn’t working and they need to fix it ASAP. Instead of telling us it’s working as intended because no, no it’s not, peoples animals are still starving to death. This issue makes the game unplayable. This was probably the number one reported issue in beta and still is.

Please just make it so the keepers will fill all food items (enrichment and dishes) when empty, just keep them filled, if the food rots oh well the keepers will just have to change it. People are still having issues with keepers not filling food items and the water items as well. And no it’s not a pathing issue.

It’s a game, not everything needs to be realistic . This mechanic isn’t working so please change it. For people saying well my animals are being fed, same, some of mine have been fed to. But every animal on every zoo should be being fed, no animals should be starving to death.

Waited months to play this game and I still can’t
 
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Dae

Dae
One of the issue with that mechanic is that the AI can't anticipate changes. Births, adding new animals, releasing/selling them... the keepers prepare food without knowing what we have in mind for our habitat, and they don't anticipate at all. The second issue is for big habitat, since the zookeepers will just put food near the entrance instead of spreading it in many points in order to let animals get all over the habitat. The third issue is there are still bugs, and these are deathly bugs.

In real life keepers are able of anticipation and of following orders about where to put the food.
 

Amancham

A
Dae said:
One of the issue with that mechanic is that the AI can't anticipate changes. Births, adding new animals, releasing/selling them... the keepers prepare food without knowing what we have in mind for our habitat, and they don't anticipate at all. The second issue is for big habitat, since the zookeepers will just put food near the entrance instead of spreading it in many points in order to let animals get all over the habitat. The third issue is there are still bugs, and these are deathly bugs.
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That exactly! The system works a-okay if you have the same amount of animals all the time in a habitat just big enough so they don't feel crowded and nicely round so the food is right in the middle, along with the food enrichments so that no matter where the animal is, it has a short enough way to get to its food IF the keeper finally puts it in.

As ist is now, I do have a huge savannah like enclosure with many different animals, so yes, it's huge. It needs to be, no? But with that my issue is, that an animal might be at the far end of the enclosure and feeling hungry, but now they have to walk all the way to the one food tray that is actually full. IF it is full. What's the point of having the ability to create beautiful, big enclosures for roaming animals, if it results in animals starving or their welfare dropping because they are hungry and the one food item that is currently filles, is too far away.

At least the water issue can be solved. I only put down the tabs that don't need refilling, because I can put those in different spots and the animals can use them no problem. so finally I got rid of the dehydration issue, but food is still an issue.
 

Agathorn

A
Yeah this is one of the reasons I suggested this in beta and again now. Not only because of the bugs but I feel annoyed that I'm playing a management sim that takes control AWAY from me. I have perfectly valid reasons for wanting to put AND FILL multiple food trays in a habitat.

  • Maybe I have a large habitat and I want multiple sources of food so that there will always be some near an animal regardless of where in the habitat they are
  • Maybe I have slow animals like tortoises where if they get more than 2 inches away from food, they starve to death before they can get back to it
  • Maybe I want to encourage an animal to explore and wander more of the habitat, or I want to play food trays at each of the viewing areas

I am the manager here, so please don't take control away from me.
 

Amancham

A
Yeah, I also noticed yesterday when I struggled to feed some of my ostrich chicks, that the keeper did come back when called, walked to prep the food (while the hunger meter was happily ticking down and quickly reached red), filled up one enrichment for them and immediately the adult ostriches were happily munching away again, with the chicks running literally for their life to get some food before it was all gone. The adults were supposedly not hungry at that point but happily eating (maybe needed enrichment more than food?) and the chicks would not have survived another round of 'waiting for the keeper to prep the food'. I'll keep watching them.
 

Sherrie

Sherrie
Its not always the keepers fault, my animals are dropping like flies and most of the starvation deaths have been caused by animals walking past full dishes of food and not even attempting to eat, it's really spoiling the game for me, as there's nothing I can do to make them eat. I feed the top grade food, so its got to be a bug.
 

Agathorn

A
Sherrie said:
Its not always the keepers fault, my animals are dropping like flies and most of the starvation deaths have been caused by animals walking past full dishes of food and not even attempting to eat, it's really spoiling the game for me, as there's nothing I can do to make them eat. I feed the top grade food, so its got to be a bug.
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Yes this problem also exists but they are separate things. Even if ALL the bugs were fixed I still want control over this. I want to be able to put multiple food dishes and have them all filled. I have reasons for wanting to do so as stated above that have nothing to do with bugs. That said, it also just eliminates several of the keeper AI bugs we are encountering.
 

Rockpolitik

R
Or as I've heard someone else mentioned, it is baffling that I, as the zoo manager/boss, can't tell my keepers on when or how much the food should be refilled.

I really liked the food enrichment items and totally aware the devs repeatedly say the keepers prioritize those over food trays but I'd also like my keepers to fill the food trays, too. When I visit zoos part of the fun is to see a zookeeper unload a bunch of food on a plank of wood and the animals surround it to eat together. Food enrichment items are okay, but I'd like the trays to be filled, too.
 
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