Temperature issues with the animals from Europe pack (grassland)

[Aramar]

Hello!

With the Europe pack we have received three animals that live in the Mediterranean forest: the fallow deer, European badger and Eurasian lynx. They all have the grassland biome (which corresponds with the Mediterranean forest) and support temperatures until 38 ºC. However, the European grassland map temperature is quite often 42 ºC, so we have to put coolers or the animal welfare is seriously damaged. As you can imagine, building a habitat in a zoo in the natural biome of an animal and having to modify the temperature with coolers is not cool, so:

Option 1: the three animals should have higher tolerance to heat
Option 2: the European grassland map should be modified and lower the maximum temperature it reaches, making it different from the African grassland map.

I've created an issue if someone wants to contribute: https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/46202

Thanks!

 

[DrBurrito]

Hello!

With the Europe pack we have received three animals that live in the Mediterranean forest: the fallow deer, European badger and Eurasian lynx. They all have the grassland biome (which corresponds with the Mediterranean forest) and support temperatures until 38 ºC. However, the European grassland map temperature is quite often 42 ºC, so we have to put coolers or the animal welfare is seriously damaged. As you can imagine, building a habitat in a zoo in the natural biome of an animal and having to modify the temperature with coolers is not cool, so:

Option 1: the three animals should have higher tolerance to heat
Option 2: the European grassland map should be modified and lower the maximum temperature it reaches, making it different from the African grassland map.

I've created an issue if someone wants to contribute: https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/46202

Thanks!

I'm currently in preparation of a feedback thread on temperature requirements, therefore have been testing with temperature tolerance values quite a bit in the past month. I can tell you that what you described isn't specific to those 3 animals.

I categorized temperature tolerance values into 4 categories, from most to least tolerant. The category you are referring to is the 3rd one on my list, which had 13 animals up until this last pack. Animals in this category cannot cope with the extreme temperatures of their native biomes when outside of shelter, but are perfectly fine when in shelter/indoors, without additional heating or cooling. Then there's the 4th category, with 7 animals, which I think is the only troublesome category. Animals in this category get low welfare during thermal extremes even when they are in shelter, which makes the use of coolers and heaters mandatory.

Hopefully, if I can find some more time in the following weeks, I will finish up and post it.

 

[Aramar]

If only they used the shelters when it's hot...

 

[DrBurrito]

If only they used the shelters when it's hot...

That's interesting. Normally rest of the animals in the game seek shelter when the temperature suitability bar turns yellow. Then in the case of the new animals, it might be an issue with this mechanic. Didn't get a chance to test with the new ones yet, thanks for the heads up.

 

[Veah]

Option 2: the European grassland map should be modified and lower the maximum temperature it reaches, making it different from the African grassland map.

Option 2 please
It's nonsense that you choose to build a zoo in southern France and then voilà! you are teleported to the Serengueti

 

[ElectricMonk]

Option 2 please
It's nonsense that you choose to build a zoo in southern France and then voilà! you are teleported to the Serengueti

That’s the case for every biome in the game, it’s not limited to grassland Europe.

 

[Roxxsmom]

If only they used the shelters when it's hot...

I've noticed that the animals will generally make a beeline for their shelter when it snows or gets too hot for them, except when they are eating. And the game dynamics make it so the weather often changes faster than the animals can finish their food (and the protesters show up within seconds). My keepers love to feed my temperature sensitive animals outside right before a snow storm or heat wave, even though I make sure to have feeders indoors as well. They aren't big on checking the weather forecast, evidently.

Though the male lions love to just sit outside and shiver for no reason when it snows, and my arctic wolves love to sit outside and melt when the taiga biome (to which they are supposedly adapted) gets too hot for them from time to time. They really are lazy beasts, evidently.

IRL, of course, animals hang out in the shade when it is hot, but I've never noticed that trees make for cooler areas when it's warm, or act as a windbreak or anything like that when it's cold. I suppose that it's asking too much for a game to take into account the various mechanisms by which organisms lose and gain heat in real life (even many reptiles can maintain temps above ambient temperatures via basking) environments and how real life environments can vary in temp due to things like convection, conduction, radiation, evaporation.

This is why I don't feel too guilty about a bit of judicious fudging with the heaters and coolers so as to mimic realistic micro-climates in certain outdoor parts of enclosures too. It really should be several degrees cooler in the shade and feel a bit warmer within a stand of trees that break the wind, and if the game doesn't provide that...

 

[DrBurrito]

Option 2 please
It's nonsense that you choose to build a zoo in southern France and then voilà! you are teleported to the Serengueti

Like @ElectricMonk has pointed out, that's the case for every biome and continent in the game, so unless a complete overhaul is made to the game, no specific region should get special treatment. The only acceptable exception is the new custom maps for each continent that we tend to get with some packs (e.g. custom 'Desert' biome textures for Oceania and custom premade 'Tropical' map for South America), which have an identical temperature gradient to the generic maps of the same biome type. For instance, I would have loved to get a custom premade seaside 'Grassland' map in the Europe Pack representative of the Mediterranean forests & scrub biome, but that would have been difficult to implement since the Mediterranean basin spans 3 continents. Said map should also keep the existing temperature gradient as no other custom map to date had custom temperature gradients.

As for how accurate temperatures on the European 'Grassland' map are, the lack of a winter regime is the only major problem. As a result, temperatures are always 30 °C or higher. Otherwise temperatures of around 37-42 °C make more sense on the Mediterranean basin than in the Serengeti, which is a savanna, but very close to the equator, therefore never experiences temperature extremes or heatwaves on the same level as the Mediterranean basin, or any other lowland grassland/savanna/steppe/scrub region further from the equator, which underlines the fact that, unless they overhaul the entire globe with custom temperatures for every locality, which seems to be an impossible feat, no continent should get special treatment, as inaccurate temperature are the case for every biome and continent in the game.

Mapping the hottest temperatures around the world

From 49.6C in Canada to 53.2C in Kuwait, Al Jazeera looks at where the hottest places are on Earth.

www.aljazeera.com

 

[Aramar]

Like @ElectricMonk has pointed out, that's the case for every biome and continent in the game, so unless a complete overhaul is made to the game, no specific region should get special treatment. The only acceptable exception is the new custom maps for each continent that we tend to get with some packs (e.g. custom 'Desert' biome textures for Oceania and custom premade 'Tropical' map for South America), which have an identical temperature gradient to the generic maps of the same biome type. For instance, I would have loved to get a custom premade seaside 'Grassland' map in the Europe Pack representative of the Mediterranean forests & scrub biome, but that would have been difficult to implement since the Mediterranean basin spans 3 continents. Said map should also keep the existing temperature gradient as no other custom map to date had custom temperature gradients.

As for how accurate temperatures on the European 'Grassland' map are, the lack of a winter regime is the only major problem. As a result, temperatures are always 30 °C or higher. Otherwise temperatures of around 37-42 °C make more sense on the Mediterranean basin than in the Serengeti, which is a savanna, but very close to the equator, therefore never experiences temperature extremes or heatwaves on the same level as the Mediterranean basin, or any other lowland grassland/savanna/steppe/scrub region further from the equator, which underlines the fact that, unless they overhaul the entire globe with custom temperatures for every locality, which seems to be an impossible feat, no continent should get special treatment, as inaccurate temperature are the case for every biome and continent in the game.

Mapping the hottest temperatures around the world

From 49.6C in Canada to 53.2C in Kuwait, Al Jazeera looks at where the hottest places are on Earth.

www.aljazeera.com

So basically that leads to my option 1. Frontier has adjusted several animal temperatures to better fit in their biomes in the past. Update 1.8 has modified the Formosan black bear, for example.

 

[DrBurrito]

So basically that leads to my option 1. Frontier has adjusted several animal temperatures to better fit in their biomes in the past. Update 1.8 has modified the Formosan black bear, for example.

I still need to do research on the new animals, but I can tell you that my upcoming feedback thread proposes several possible solutions for all category 4 animals, as well as some of the category 3 animals, where plausible.