Routine habitat check intervals (or whatever it is called in English)

[jemand123]

Hey there,

I just wanted to share some thoughts on the beloved AI of our little zookeepers and mechanics.
Here I'd like to focus on the setting in the last tab of the habitat overview menu.

If everything is set to default, a zookeeper will check the habitat every month, while the vet is visiting every three months and the mechanic only once a year.
Set aside that these intervals are, to put it mildly, a bit optimistic (those wooden barriers tend to break down every other week it feels),
they also seem not to affect the behaviour of our staff at all.

I tried multiple work roster configurations, namely:
- a roster including one habitat, one staff room, one keepers hut for a zookeeper and separately a roster with the workshop, the habitat and a staff room for a mechanic
- a roster including all of the above that both the keeper and the mechanic are assigned to
- a roster including two habitats (and the necessary buildings) assigned to two staff members with each of them having unchecked different tasks in their menu (i.e. one for cleaning, one for feeding...)
- several combinations either including or excluding certain buildings, also experimenting with distance and training level

Still - the results are the following:
- barriers break
- animals are hungry and require a keeper to be manually called to the habitat
- the time since last routine checkup is - in every habitat and in every configuration - always heavily exceeding the routine interval (I'm talking two years for a three-monthly basis)
- the staff members show a remarkable amount of idling time (mostly around 40-55 percent)

I can only suspect from that, that the game wants us to have to manually call a keeper or mechanic to the habitats every now and then (assumingly to make it feel like "micromanaging"?).

However, personally I think this is not how things should work. I'm fine having to care a bit more about maintaining barriers if I want to cut expenses for mechanic salaries, don't get me wrong here.
It's just that the game is suggesting I had the option to get rid of such events even if I don't.

Please let me know if you experience the same problem (and whether you think it's a problem - maybe it's just me?) - and Frontier: Please do something about it. My guests are tired of cheetas constantly
threatening their lives. Thank you.

 

[SunnyJDP]

I agree, I also find an issue with staff not doing their scheduled rounds - I can have a surplus of staff, where many of them are idling, yet routine visit time is ignored or not completed as you say.

Staff AI has been a major complaint since beta. It seems training staff does not improve their AI noticeably either. I hope it is a bug that will be fixed and not a "feature"

Edit: Especially with cleaning poop - I have a habitats full of poop - I assigned multiple keepers with only cleaning enabled to only one habitat, and they idle instead of cleaning the poop. The poop is accessible they just won't clean it

 

[Agathorn]

I had done some tests of this my self with the following configuration:

• Medium sized habitat (under 1km2)
• Keeper hut right across from habitat gate (so basically as close as you can physically make it)
• Food tray near the gate

With the current game speed it takes roughly 1 month of game time for a keeper to walk into a habitat, check for food, walk out of a habitat, make food, return to habitat, and place food. That is not even including cleaning. Therefore under IDEAL conditions it is impossible for a single keeper to maintain even a single habitat on a monthly basis. You need at a minimum, two keepers one set to only feed and one set to only clean to maintain a single habitat monthly. That will then fall apart when they go on break though and since you can't assign staff to shifts, you basically get to a position where it is impossible to setup a smooth running staff at your parks.

 

[Aero-Bubbles]

My zoo has so many keepers it’s unreal :/ time moves waaaaay to fast, it took my keeper (keeper hut was pretty much next to the habitat) 2 months to walk into the exhibit, walk out, go to the keeper hut, make the food and deliver it to the animals

 

[Dr4gon]

Do you know the staff, at least my test mechanic did, takes a coffee break of more than a week even when machines are breaking down?!

 

[Agathorn]

If we had shifts, then at least we could organize our staff so that there was always someone on duty, but as it is now they inevitably all align to the point where everyone is taking a break at the same time and then everyone is working at the same time, which is just hugely wasteful.

Staff need "shifts"

As I grow my staff pool I'm finding that managing them is a real mess. The biggest problem I have is the way they work. They don't coordinate at all, they just plow through work until tired then go rest. The end result is that basically all my keepers for example tend to be workign at the...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Aero-Bubbles]

I wish I could take a week long coffee break sometimes

Jokes aside, honestly it’s like you need to hire 2 keepers for every habitat, and 2 vets (depending on your animals) and even then, months can go by between an animal being fed. What’s kinda crazy is most animals cannot go that long without food.. irl. The speed at which the game moves is my #1 issue, I’d also like some way to keep track of my breedings.... it can take over a week for a keeper to walk down a straight path from what would be irl 20 feet.

 

[Dr4gon]

I wish I could take a week long coffee break sometimes

Jokes aside, honestly it’s like you need to hire 2 keepers for every habitat, and 2 vets (depending on your animals) and even then, months can go by between an animal being fed. What’s kinda crazy is most animals cannot go that long without food.. irl. The speed at which the game moves is my #1 issue, I’d also like some way to keep track of my breedings.... it can take over a week for a keeper to walk down a straight path from what would be irl 20 feet.

Yes, it's advised to keep their keeper huts and work zones close together, so it only takes 3 or 4 days to walk for them, and than go back for a bucket of food and forget the half of the food items in the habitat, which I may add are placed by the demand set by creating the habitat. You know you shouldn't place to many of them, but if you don't do it, the animal has welfare issues. It takes a staff member 6 days to feed the animal of a single habitat. God forbid they have two habitats to feed. That may take almost a month and he'll be dead tired.

 

[Agathorn]

Yes, it's advised to keep their keeper huts and work zones close together, so it only takes 3 or 4 days to walk for them, and than go back for a bucket of food and forget the half of the food items in the habitat, which I may add are placed by the demand set by creating the habitat. You know you shouldn't place to many of them, but if you don't do it, the animal has welfare issues. It takes a staff member 6 days to feed the animal of a single habitat. God forbid they have two habitats to feed. That may take almost a month and he'll be dead tired.

Not sure where you are getting 6 days when I'm seeing it take a month. As I said I had the keper hut directly next to the habitat and I only started counting time from the moment the keeper entered the habitat. Under IDEAL conditions for me it takes a month for a keeper to feed a habitat.

 

[Kai]

Yes, it's advised to keep their keeper huts and work zones close together, so it only takes 3 or 4 days to walk for them, and than go back for a bucket of food and forget the half of the food items in the habitat, which I may add are placed by the demand set by creating the habitat. You know you shouldn't place to many of them, but if you don't do it, the animal has welfare issues. It takes a staff member 6 days to feed the animal of a single habitat. God forbid they have two habitats to feed. That may take almost a month and he'll be dead tired.

I find you can 'hide' enrichment feeders on a roof in the enclosure so the keepers can't reach them & fill up your desired feeders (they still count toward the animal welfare values).

I've had a lot of issues with tiger cubs starving (have to put them in quarantine to get them to eat again). Said starvation/refusing to eat(from any feeder) seems to occur when when I've had the restraint board and blood pumpkins down. The pinyata seems safe for the use with the cubs though.