Safari Pack

I know there's quite a lot of African animals already but I still feel shorted because of certain iconic animals being amiss still.
My proposed wishlist would be featuring the following:
Safari Pack:

Habitat Animals:

Southern White Rhino (or) Eastern Black Rhino
Meerkat
Blue Wildebeest (or) Southern Gerenuk
Cape porcupine (or) Rock Hyrax

Exhibit Animals:
Jackson's Chameleon (or) Mwanza flat-headed rock agama

Plants:
Shepherd's tree
Cape Rush
Yellow Fever Acacia

New Features:
  • Herbivores stay closer showing greater herd integrity
  • Grass (long) terrain are now grazed by herbivores turning to short, requiring sprinklers and/or rain to maintain length and terrain composition. (Or you can simply repaint!!)
-Animal talks can now integrated in safari rides, able to choose species of animal to highlight in each tour.

Should there be any ideas from the community, the thread is open for debate, thank you!!
 
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I would say One rhino, Haartebeest, Secretary Bird and Meerkat

I would love a herd feature for suitable species
Gee, how could I've missed the secretary bird!!! Thank you :)
Also which rhino would be your pick? Personally Black rhino since there's a sign in the base game
 
I don't really have a strong preference between the white or black rhino, but I think that one of them is pretty much mandatory. I'd go as far as saying it's the single most glaring omission in the game's roster. Meerkats are another non-negotiable in my eyes. Hopefully Frontier doesn't think they're too small to properly implement.

Beyond that, I'm a bit less decisive. A leopard ranks right up there with those two as a must-have, but I'd prefer to see the Amur leopard. But if the African leopard is our ticket to getting a leopard, I won't complain a bit.

My top picks from there would look something like grey crowned crane, fennec fox, hamadryas (or less ideally olive) baboon, secretary bird, red river hog, serval, crested porcupine. That alone is more than enough for two separate DLC packs... But I'd also openly welcome the honey badger, civet, caracal, blue wildebeest, dromedary.... There's just too many good options from Africa. It's unfair, really.
 
I think Africa still has a lot to offer regarding animal species, these are the ones I would like to see at some point:

  • White rhinoceros
  • Meerkat
  • Crested porcupine
  • Honey badger
  • Secretary bird
  • Generuk
  • Fennec fox
  • Fossa (if we include Madagascar)
 
I'd like to see the meerkats appear in a desert-themed pack, if only to free up space in a potential Africa Pack for something else.

My rhino pick is definitely the southern white rhinoceros. They're not as endangered but they are far more unique. They are openly social animals and live in small herds a lot of the time, and they are grazers rather than browsers which sets them apart from other rhinoceros species. Additionally, they are a far-cry from the Indian rhinoceros in terms of looks, whereas the black rhinoceros, though defintiely different, does more closely resemble it. I also have a bias because I've worked with white rhinos before.

As to the others, man, it's a hard choice. I could compile a pretty hefty list of African animals I'd like to see;

- Crested porcupine.
- Southern ground hornbill.
- Secretary bird.
- Grey crowned crane.
- Gerenuk.
- Sitatunga.
- Red lechwe.
- Common waterbuck.
- Klipspringer.
- Hamadryas baboon.
- Walian ibex.
- Topi.
- Hartebeest.
- Bontebok.
- Helmeted guinea fowl.
- Leopard tortoise.

and of course exhibit animals, such as my personal favourite the Giant African Millipede, or Parson's chameleon, the black mamba, and so on.
 
I think it shows how diverse, iconic and generally popular African animals are for zoos. It's amazing how lopsided the game already is with them and yet, we can still come up with so many requests of fairly recognizable animals, and the two most requested animals are both from Africa - an African Rhino and a Meerkat (an otter and a penguin may have been requested as much but we have these now.)

I know my top 15 animals, 6 of them are African animals. I could easily roll out as many African animals I'd like to see as continents we have only a handful of animals of. There's enough support for not just one but at least two DLC (assuming the DLC format stays the same). So while I'd like North America and Europe to get packs, I would absolutely not be disappointed if Africa came first.
 
I think it shows how diverse, iconic and generally popular African animals are for zoos. It's amazing how lopsided the game already is with them and yet, we can still come up with so many requests of fairly recognizable animals, and the two most requested animals are both from Africa - an African Rhino and a Meerkat (an otter and a penguin may have been requested as much but we have these now.)

I know my top 15 animals, 6 of them are African animals. I could easily roll out as many African animals I'd like to see as continents we have only a handful of animals of. There's enough support for not just one but at least two DLC (assuming the DLC format stays the same). So while I'd like North America and Europe to get packs, I would absolutely not be disappointed if Africa came first.
Indeed, which is very much the idea of this pack too, a pack of any animals you'd find in an African safari.
Alternatively though, should Frontiers choose to go with other animals instead of meerkat, I'd wish to see it still in something like a Small Mammals Pack which could work with other small African animals like fennec foxes too.
 
Indeed, which is very much the idea of this pack too, a pack of any animals you'd find in an African safari.
Alternatively though, should Frontiers choose to go with other animals instead of meerkat, I'd wish to see it still in something like a Small Mammals Pack which could work with other small African animals like fennec foxes too.

I know I'm desperate for meerkats, so this is me personally speaking only, but if they were to put most of their effort on meerkats and give us very similar animals to what we already have for the other three habitat animals (say a Rhino, a jackal and some other similar animal) I'd be totally fine with that. Or as you say a small mammals pack would work well, too.
 
I know I'm desperate for meerkats, so this is me personally speaking only, but if they were to put most of their effort on meerkats and give us very similar animals to what we already have for the other three habitat animals (say a Rhino, a jackal and some other similar animal) I'd be totally fine with that. Or as you say a small mammals pack would work well, too.
Aye, god save the meerkat monarchy 😂
 
  • Crested porcupine.
  • Southern ground hornbill.
  • Secretary bird.
  • Grey crowned crane.
  • Gerenuk.
  • Sitatunga.
  • Red lechwe.
  • Common waterbuck.
  • Klipspringer.
  • Hamadryas baboon.
  • Walian ibex.
  • Topi.
  • Hartebeest.
  • Bontebok.
  • Helmeted guinea fowl.
  • Leopard tortoise.

Would love to see this in PZ, i think an African DLC would benefit the most from an only animal pack.
Maybe ancient Egyptian building pieces would fit that theme but these animals wouldn't match that theme.

It's one of the few strong themes that already has enough building pieces imo.
 
Africa is a real tough one, because there are ton of species left to include in the game that are commonly found in zoos across all confinements. You could easily create 4 African DLCs back to back with the current model and still no even scratch the surface of what is currently missed in the game. It is almost like pulling teeth making a list of animals for Africa, and the same goes for foliage and construction materials/props. The African theme we received with the base game was great, but greatly limited in choices, I could make a whole new thread about that along, with all the recommendations and observations I have taken. In any case based on the current DLC model, my choices would be:


Habitat animals

Southern White Rhino
Giant Eland
Hamadryas Baboon
Marabu Stork

Exhibit Animal

Meerkats (new exhibit designed with looping borrowing animations)
 
Meerkats (new exhibit designed with looping borrowing animations)

I probably wouldn't like that. I had the idea in another thread of a way to do burrows, with an enrichment system similar to climbing, since many zoos discourage active burrowing in meerkats and mongooses especially (tunnel collapse can be a huge risk with the wrong substrate, which is something I'm sure you know about as a zoo architect). However, if we had something like the climbing enrichment, with 'chambers' repalcing the platforms and 'tunnels' replacing the logs and sticks, we could design a unique underground shelter for burrowing animals like meerkats.

Alternatively, a simple enrichment item that consists of 'tunnel entrances/exits' would be cool, with the meerkats popping into one and then popping out of another somewhere else. I think they should be habitat animals - they wouldn't be any smaller than the baby pangolin and the game seriously needs more small animals to challenge our creativity.
 
I would also love to see more African animals in the game - there are so many more potential species to choose from. For me personally, two things of importance are including more threatened species and including species able to be kept in mixed-species enclosures. These are some examples I can think of:

Threatened animals:
  • Black footed cat (Vulnerable), Desert/Grassland
  • Eastern black rhinoceros (Critically Endangered), Grassland

Animals particularly well-suited for mixed enclosures (I have included any other African animal these species are mixed with in a real zoo):
  • Bat eared fox (Least Concern), Desert/Grassland: Aardvark, African elephant, bongo, common warthog, common ostrich
  • Egyptian goose (Least Concern), Aquatic/Desert/Grassland/Temperate: African elephant, bongo, giraffe, hippopotamus, nyala, okapi, plains zebra, Thomson's gazelle
  • Ellipsen waterbuck (Least Concern), Grassland/Tropical: African buffalo, bongo, common ostrich, gemsbok, giraffe, nyala, okapi, plains zebra, pygmy hippopotamus, sable antelope, springbok, Thomson's gazelle
  • Red river hog (Least Concern), Grassland/Tropical: African buffalo, bongo, bonobo, common ostrich, giraffe, mandrill, nyala, okapi, plains zebra, Thomson's gazelle
  • Southern white rhinoceros (Near Threatened), Grassland: Bongo, common ostrich, gemsbok, giraffe, plains zebra, sable antelope, springbok, Thomson's gazelle
  • Yellow backed duiker (Near Threatened), Grassland/Tropical: Bongo, common ostrich, giraffe, okapi, plains zebra, springbok, Thomson's gazelle

Animals that are both threatened and well-suited for mixed enclosures:
  • Addra gazelle (Critically Endangered), Desert/Grassland: Bongo, common warthog, gemsbok, giraffe, plains zebra, sable antelope, springbok, Thomson's gazelle
  • Grey crowned crane (Endangered), Aquatic, Grassland: African buffalo, African elephant, giraffe, nyala, okapi, plains zebra, sable antelope, springbok, Thomson's gazelle
  • Red capped mangabey (Endangered), Tropical: Mandrill, pygmy hippopotamus, Western lowland gorilla
  • Southern ground hornbill (Vulnerable), Grassland: Bongo, common warthog, giraffe, nyala, okapi, Thomson's gazelle

As for exhibit animals:
  • Eastern green mamba (Data Deficient)
  • Pancake tortoise (Critically Endangered)
  • Kihansi spray toad (Extinct in the Wild)
  • Seychelles giant millipede (Endangered)
 
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