Question about zoo planning

[Villanelle]

The planning / set up phase continues. I don't usually follow a process this detailed but it's fun to do sometimes.

- Made a grid out of beams to match the grid on my canva map so that I could line up my layout with the plan. Ooh girl I wish the in-game maps had a grid overlay feature:

- Changed my mind about map skirt and went for the beautiful NA Taiga map because I wanted more mountain scenery. This map is not square like grasslands, so had to change my grid to 7 x 8 squares both in canva and with the beam blueprint. Did a bit of rejigging on canva and added a bunch of modded animals.

- Started lining up the layout with the plan, terraforming and making shape outlines for the main buildings:

- Threw down a quick car park, adapting a blueprint I already had:

- Got distracted and built a waterfall:

- Did some more terraforming and placed down some main paths to finish the overall layout, matching the plan. How'd I do?

I can delete the grid now and start working on each area. I'll improve the terraforming and pathing as I get to each area, but now I know where everything is going to go. That helps me a lot because I like to jump around and work on different areas, not in a linear way but much more scattershot, so having the layout done gives me confidence to do that. Everything has space to grow without blocking myself later on.

Not sure what area I feel like starting with, maybe its beach vibes today on this sunny sunday I don't want to touch the ranch / wild west / rainforest areas until the new DLC comes out in case we get scenery to help with that, so I'll probably stick to the coast and African zones for now.

 

[DarthQuell]

The planning / set up phase continues. I don't usually follow a process this detailed but it's fun to do sometimes.

- Made a grid out of beams to match the grid on my canva map so that I could line up my layout with the plan. Ooh girl I wish the in-game maps had a grid overlay feature:
View attachment 423936
View attachment 423937


- Changed my mind about map skirt and went for the beautiful NA Taiga map because I wanted more mountain scenery. This map is not square like grasslands, so had to change my grid to 7 x 8 squares both in canva and with the beam blueprint. Did a bit of rejigging on canva and added a bunch of modded animals.

View attachment 423939


- Started lining up the layout with the plan, terraforming and making shape outlines for the main buildings:

View attachment 423938

- Threw down a quick car park, adapting a blueprint I already had:

View attachment 423940

- Got distracted and built a waterfall:

View attachment 423941

- Did some more terraforming and placed down some main paths to finish the overall layout, matching the plan. How'd I do?

View attachment 423942
View attachment 423945

I can delete the grid now and start working on each area. I'll improve the terraforming and pathing as I get to each area, but now I know where everything is going to go. That helps me a lot because I like to jump around and work on different areas, not in a linear way but much more scattershot, so having the layout done gives me confidence to do that. Everything has space to grow without blocking myself later on.

Not sure what area I feel like starting with, maybe its beach vibes today on this sunny sunday I don't want to touch the ranch / wild west / rainforest areas until the new DLC comes out in case we get scenery to help with that, so I'll probably stick to the coast and African zones for now.

Ambitious. Love the layout so far

 

[The Sea Blimp]

all of this is way more planning than I do, which is basically no plan at all I just go into starting a zoo and decide what section I want to build for and plan for that section as I go

 

[Villanelle]

all of this is way more planning than I do, which is basically no plan at all I just go into starting a zoo and decide what section I want to build for and plan for that section as I go

I do that too just depends how I feel. I haven't done this detailed of a plan for a couple of years, but discovering canva draw led me down this rabbit hole!

 

[Villanelle]

Progress so far!

I'm about halfway through the coastal route. It is vaguely Oceania-themed, but with the combination of cultures somewhere like New Zealand, with a boat jetty and a lighthouse thrown in there among the thatch rooves and whatnot.

4 habitats so far: little penguins, quokka & kiwi, NZ fur seal (mod) and a seabird aviary with pelicans and cormorants (mods).

I'm just about to add the salties and the sealions. The route will culminate in some raccoons messing about around a tropical beach party bar.

Here come some pics:

 

[Villanelle]

(continued)

 

[Villanelle]

The birds are brilliant!

Do you like my salad bar and lemonade stand?

 

[The Sea Blimp]

So usually when the next PZ pack is about to be announced I try to wrap up the sections I am currently working on so I can go straight to building for the new guys. Luckily I was just about to start the next section of my zoo anyway and i figured, why not plan it out this time? This is where I'm at currently, about a little over halfway through the NA section, although I expect the south America section will be much smaller in size due to you know, a lack of polar bears and moose and bison and the like.

 

[Fallax]

@Villanelle This is awesome, I'm impressed with the planning and how quickly you managed to make all that... It would take me months

 

[Villanelle]

@Villanelle This is awesome, I'm impressed with the planning and how quickly you managed to make all that... It would take me months

Thank you! TBH I made heavy use of blueprints - mostly my own ones, repurposed and slightly tweaked, like the lighthouse and the shops. I got the boats from the workshop, I'm super impressed with whoever made them, they are super detailed! The rest is all mine

Aside from that I have managed to speed up quite a bit recently and I was feeling proud today that I've come quite a long way in the last year or so, so thank you for the compliment, means a lot

 

[Villanelle]

Well, as they say, the best laid plans of mice and zookeepers oft do go awry...

This is so dumb check this out. I was using the NA taiga map, which has a mountainous south where the entrance is, sloping down to a lakeside at the other end. When I lined up my plan I kept the planned entrance on the same side as the ingame map entrance, without particularly thinking about it. With my coastal zone nestled into the mountainside and my rolling prairie hills looming jankily over the edge of the lowland map skirt. SO FREAKIN DUMB.

I was fighting against the natural terrain of the map, which is at a slight angle, the whole time. My lighthouse was tucked into a cliffside. Everything looked...off.

So yeah. I blueprinted everything important and started a new map It was pretty painful but I pulled a late night and am just about caught up with where I was. I also took the opportunity to resize all my habitats, I always build too big, they are much more realistic now. Glad I made the decision to make this change before it got any further along! I swear this game reteaches me the lesson of how to handle mistakes more often than most other life pursuits!

Will post some pics a bit later.

 

[Villanelle]

I'll keep posting in here as it pertains to planning - how to get around mistakes; things to watch out for that you might forget to consider (like map orientation!)

I finished moving the coastal area over. It looks sooo much better now, but even with almost everything blueprinted it still needed a lot of re-doing, because paths.
Worth it though, this other end of the map looks much more receptive of a more lush and tropical area. There will be a lot of rainforest between this and my temperate area, so the map has a natural flow to it now (or will do, when more stuff is on it!)

Size is the lesson I need to learn the most. Here's a comparison of my old v new habitats:

Old

New

The penguin habitat was a right mess. I've cleaned it right up, it looks good now and ready to add more detail:

The lighthouse makes sense now, although one annoying thing is the direction of light means that it will always be in shadow. I usually factor light direction in when planning buildings, but I don't have much choice about this one.

See how much better it looks in full sun? Oh well, lose some gain some. At least it's looking over a coast now, not into the depths of a mountain!