The animals in the new pack are looking fantastic, including everyone's favourite big bird! However, there are a few recommendations I have for touching up the emu that actually have nothing to do with the model itself - instead, these are small, easy fixes to the way the animal functions in game. I hope by getting this out early we can see these small grievances addressed in the next patch!
The emu should be a walkthrough animal. Although many people think of them as aggressive like their cassowary cousins, emus actually tend to be very docile and friendly animals and are therefore usually suitable to be kept in walkthrough habitats. Emu walkthroughs seem to be especially common in Australia and New Zealand, but are still apparently relatively common elsewhere in the world too. Certain emu individuals may be too aggressive to be allowed to interact with guests but this is the same with any other large animal kept in walkthroughs (kangaroos, deer etc), so I don't see why it means they should be singled-out as non-walkthrough.
The emu should have interspecies enrichment with the red kangaroo and red-necked wallaby. This is perhaps the most confusing of these issues. Sure they can be kept together in-game regardless, but kangaroo-emu-wallaby is by far the most obvious interspecies enrichment group for Australia and it's a shame for it to go to waste. I can understand not having the red kangaroo and red-necked wallaby share a bonus (even though they probably still should) given they don't really overlap in distribution, but the emu heavily overlaps with both and often grazes alongside them in the wild, not to mention how commonly they are mixed in captivity. It's especially bizarre to not give the kangaroo a bonus with the emu after making it share an interspecies bonus with the koala, when those two marsupials don't overlap in range and are almost never kept together in real life zoos.
The emu should have the temperate tag. I understand that when the average joe thinks of emus they imagine them striding across the harsh desert, but this is not the only environment they occur in nor even one they are particularly well suited to. Emus actually occur in a great variety of different habitats, and this includes a variety of temperate environments in south-eastern Australia - temperate forests, woodlands and grasslands, coastal heathlands, and even subalpine regions. They're actually more common in temperate areas than in the tropics, and yet while they have the tropical tag in game, they are missing suitability for the temperate biome.
Again these are only very minor issues, but addressing them would just make the emu that little bit more perfect. Please consider these changes Frontier!
The emu should be a walkthrough animal. Although many people think of them as aggressive like their cassowary cousins, emus actually tend to be very docile and friendly animals and are therefore usually suitable to be kept in walkthrough habitats. Emu walkthroughs seem to be especially common in Australia and New Zealand, but are still apparently relatively common elsewhere in the world too. Certain emu individuals may be too aggressive to be allowed to interact with guests but this is the same with any other large animal kept in walkthroughs (kangaroos, deer etc), so I don't see why it means they should be singled-out as non-walkthrough.
The emu should have interspecies enrichment with the red kangaroo and red-necked wallaby. This is perhaps the most confusing of these issues. Sure they can be kept together in-game regardless, but kangaroo-emu-wallaby is by far the most obvious interspecies enrichment group for Australia and it's a shame for it to go to waste. I can understand not having the red kangaroo and red-necked wallaby share a bonus (even though they probably still should) given they don't really overlap in distribution, but the emu heavily overlaps with both and often grazes alongside them in the wild, not to mention how commonly they are mixed in captivity. It's especially bizarre to not give the kangaroo a bonus with the emu after making it share an interspecies bonus with the koala, when those two marsupials don't overlap in range and are almost never kept together in real life zoos.
The emu should have the temperate tag. I understand that when the average joe thinks of emus they imagine them striding across the harsh desert, but this is not the only environment they occur in nor even one they are particularly well suited to. Emus actually occur in a great variety of different habitats, and this includes a variety of temperate environments in south-eastern Australia - temperate forests, woodlands and grasslands, coastal heathlands, and even subalpine regions. They're actually more common in temperate areas than in the tropics, and yet while they have the tropical tag in game, they are missing suitability for the temperate biome.
Again these are only very minor issues, but addressing them would just make the emu that little bit more perfect. Please consider these changes Frontier!
