As everyone knows, in Sandbox Mode we have the ability to turn off animal welfare, which allows us to create more realistic zoos without worrying about some huge space requirements and often absurd foliage needs (which are great for those who play for a challenge, but not for realistic zoos where planting a tropical plant in the Arctic would be an exercise in futility). However, there is still one issue that is ever-present and rather annoying; the temperature needs of the animals.
My primary gripe with this is with regards to the Arctic and Himalayan animals. While zoos do often employ specific heated/cooled areas for their animals (often indoors, though there are of course also heated rocks and the like that are employed all over the world), it would be impossible for an entire habitat to be cooled enough for, say, a polar bear without having the whole thing built indoors. Naturally I'm aware that it is possible to do this in Planet Zoo, but even then to allow for enough natural light to get in you have to use copius amounts of glass, which would create the opposite effect in real life (the greenhouse effect, of course). More than that, it is entirely possible to house Arctic animals outside of the Arctic, and outside of their natural biomes, without significantly impacting their animal welfare.
I'm not asking for these animals to be overhauled. I get that there are balancing issues and that the "challenge" the heaters and coolers present is important to some players. What I would like, however, is for "turning off welfare" to have an effect on this issue. It's rather annoying that even with welfare turned off my Dall sheep and reindeer still throw up alerts about being "outside the ideal temperature range". Sure, I can ignore the alerts, and now I can dismiss them, but they just pop up again and again.
So I would like to put it to Frontier to perhaps look at this. I don't know whether the temperature issues being unaffected was intentional or if it was oversight, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to see it changed.
My primary gripe with this is with regards to the Arctic and Himalayan animals. While zoos do often employ specific heated/cooled areas for their animals (often indoors, though there are of course also heated rocks and the like that are employed all over the world), it would be impossible for an entire habitat to be cooled enough for, say, a polar bear without having the whole thing built indoors. Naturally I'm aware that it is possible to do this in Planet Zoo, but even then to allow for enough natural light to get in you have to use copius amounts of glass, which would create the opposite effect in real life (the greenhouse effect, of course). More than that, it is entirely possible to house Arctic animals outside of the Arctic, and outside of their natural biomes, without significantly impacting their animal welfare.
I'm not asking for these animals to be overhauled. I get that there are balancing issues and that the "challenge" the heaters and coolers present is important to some players. What I would like, however, is for "turning off welfare" to have an effect on this issue. It's rather annoying that even with welfare turned off my Dall sheep and reindeer still throw up alerts about being "outside the ideal temperature range". Sure, I can ignore the alerts, and now I can dismiss them, but they just pop up again and again.
So I would like to put it to Frontier to perhaps look at this. I don't know whether the temperature issues being unaffected was intentional or if it was oversight, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to see it changed.
