What "animal ageing speed" have you set?

[VR] Deggial · Dec 19, 2019

And what are your experiences with your choice?

1) Has the new option fullfilled your hopes regarding the attachment to your animals / your own stress level?
2) Did you adjust it after a while? If so - how (faster or slower)?

Personally, I have set the slider to '3', mainly because I still want options to increase or decrease the speed after some more testing.
(Which is not done, due to limited time to play. But I think, I am comfortable with the set speed so far.)

Jaggid Edje · Dec 19, 2019

When I first started playing after getting the option, I set the speed to 3 and was happy with it, so since then I loaded all of my existing zoos to set them all to 3.

In practice while playing, I actually adjust it based on what I'm doing. Early on when I'm still doing a lot of construction, I am turning it all the way up to 5 so that I can leave time moving while doing construction without being bombarded with animal maturation and births that need my attention. But when I'm not doing a lot of construction I set it back to 3, or even 2 if my main goals have to do with births and maturations at that point.

Gotta say, this option is the single best thing to be added to the game. I hated having to constantly pause and now I can set the speed to what I want based on what I'm doing and not need to pause hardly at all. I frequently go through each habitat one at a time to rotate the enrichment toys and I also love that I can leave time moving while doing this without feeling I'm falling way behind on other things that need attention.

LN · Dec 19, 2019

Currently playing sandbox, where I have turned off aging and births.
So I haven't felt the need to use it yet.

Dr4gon · Dec 19, 2019

It's at 5, to make me enjoy the young animals longer. Not so many alerts and some times I completely forget it's running

Maky1355 · Dec 19, 2019

4, I wanted to go 5 but so far I love it. Plus I have a little bit more breathing room if I want to increase. I really love that you can change it on the fly and for every zoo separately.

daisymayuk · Dec 19, 2019

I have been trying to work out if it changes the need for food or not, so the frequency for keeper visits. I have it on 3 but may increase it a bit more I love my Red Pandas and they dont live very long. However, it doesnt change the constant need for repairing stuff that seems to fill my game time more than anything.

Jaggid Edje · Dec 19, 2019

Nope, @daisymayuk, it doesn't seem to effect the need for food.

What are you needing to repair that takes your time, btw? If it's things that mechanics repair and you are constantly needing to take the time to "call them", you need to have more mechanics who are NOT researching. They will do all of the maintenance tasks without any intervention by you if they aren't researching. I can't remember the last time I had to take any of my own time to repair anything in the game.

daisymayuk · Dec 19, 2019

Jaggid Edje said:
Nope, @daisymayuk, it doesn't seem to effect the need for food.

What are you needing to repair that takes your time, btw? If it's things that mechanics repair and you are constantly needing to take the time to "call them", you need to have more mechanics who are NOT researching. They will do all of the maintenance tasks without any intervention by you if they aren't researching. I can't remember the last time I had to take any of my own time to repair anything in the game.

really... I have 4 fully trained mechanics and its not a very big zoo they have finished all the research and I have them set to check everything every 3 months but it always says last visit a year ago so i dont know if thats actually working. none of them say they are over worked but they do run a lot! Its been really bugging me so i wrote it down when i started playing last night and there was 11 mechanic alerts in the 1st 5 mins. There are water and power things being vandalised even tho they are hidden in shop huts and some behind walls as well with only staff paths to them. I have put security cameras by them but is seems to make no difference. it seems when ever im trying to work out something to do with the animals im interrupted by mechanic alerts, or animal escapes.

Jaggid Edje · Dec 19, 2019

@daisymayuk:

Setting things to 3 months is just making things worse, so change that. They are spending too much time going to things that don't need any attention yet which is a huge waste of their time, stopping them from actually doing their work that truly needs doing.

Habitats are fine at 1 year. They will NOT break if the mechanics actually get to them when they are due at the 1 year mark. I always use 1 year for my habitats and I can't remember the last time I had a habitat wall break.

For water and power I set them all to 9 months rather than 1 year for their maintenance schedule. It might be a little extra work for my mechanics, but it helps make sure to get them checked when a mechanic is actually walking past them, so the end result is actually keeping my mechanics more efficient (instead of them having to run all the way over when it breaks down, they get taken care of within the normal maintenance wandering through work zones).

Also Try tightening up your mechanic work zones if they aren't spending all their time researching. They way it works is they patrol between things in their work zone, and go to things that are past their scheduled date as they go past them while wandering, so if they have huge, sprawling work zones (or no work zones at all), they won't be super efficient

Regarding the vandalized water and power. That's just the game being obtuse about what it's telling you. They wear down over time but the game marks them as vandalized objects once they degrade enough....they haven't really been vandalized.

Even my largest zoos have only 4 to 5 mechanics (not even fully trained, only 4 stars) and they keep up with everything following the above guidelines.

daisymayuk · Dec 19, 2019

Jaggid Edje said:
@daisymayuk:

Setting things to 3 months is just making things worse, so change that. They are spending too much time going to things that don't need any attention yet which is a huge waste of their time, stopping them from actually doing their work that truly needs doing.

Habitats are fine at 1 year. They will NOT break if the mechanics actually get to them when they are due at the 1 year mark. I always use 1 year for my habitats and I can't remember the last time I had a habitat wall break.

For water and power I set them all to 9 months rather than 1 year for their maintenance schedule. It might be a little extra work for my mechanics, but it helps make sure to get them checked when a mechanic is actually walking past them, so the end result is actually keeping my mechanics more efficient (instead of them having to run all the way over when it breaks down, they get taken care of within the normal maintenance wandering through work zones).

Also Try tightening up your mechanic work zones if they aren't spending all their time researching. They way it works is they patrol between things in their work zone, and go to things that are past their scheduled date as they go past them while wandering, so if they have huge, sprawling work zones (or no work zones at all), they won't be super efficient

Regarding the vandalized water and power. That's just the game being obtuse about what it's telling you. They wear down over time but the game marks them as vandalized objects once they degrade enough....they haven't really been vandalized.

Even my largest zoos have only 4 to 5 mechanics (not even fully trained, only 4 stars) and they keep up with everything following the above guidelines.

Thank you

I will try changing the checking thing and look at the work zones. I have actually seen a woman walk up a short staff path to a generator (just after I had put it in and was working out how to hide it) and kick it after saying she didnt like seeing the staff facilities. I missed the screen shot as my chin was on my lap in disbelief but got this just after.

Monsarona · Dec 19, 2019

I haven't touched the slider yet. Mainly because I am still working on the career scenarios and most of the time I want my animals to breed quickly in those modes.

But tbh I never felt like the current aging speed was too fast for the most part. I might try it at a x2 if that's an option when I get back to franchise.

Jaggid Edje · Dec 19, 2019

daisymayuk said:
Thank you I will try changing the checking thing and look at the work zones. I have actually seen a woman walk up a short staff path to a generator (just after I had put it in and was working out how to hide it) and kick it after saying she didnt like seeing the staff facilities. I missed the screen shot as my chin was on my lap in disbelief but got this just after.

ROFL, that's awesome. I should have said it's not "always" vandalism...in that case.

Hopefully the patch yesterday that fixed visitors going onto staff paths stop that from happening again.

Also, just as a point of information. "Hiding" transformers is pointless. All that matters is the distance that they are from the visitor paths. There is no line of sight detection for that stuff, merely a spherical radius of negative impact. When placing staff buildings and power/water, bring up the heat map for "negative visitor reaction" and place them such that the red circle doesn't overlap any visitor paths. Easy Peasy. No amount of decorative hiding will make a difference if you put them too close.

That being said, I still dress mine up visually because it looks better to ME...and I'm more important than the zoo visitors anyway.

mmppolton · Dec 19, 2019

what hapen if each visitors that kick it get kick out the zoo and it jus hiden

paul78 · Dec 19, 2019

Since I usually play sandbox I turn it off. I usually close the zoo also if I just want to build without the hassle it usually helps frame rates on large zoos.

daisymayuk · Dec 19, 2019

Jaggid Edje said:
ROFL, that's awesome. I should have said it's not "always" vandalism...in that case. Hopefully the patch yesterday that fixed visitors going onto staff paths stop that from happening again.

Also, just as a point of information. "Hiding" transformers is pointless. All that matters is the distance that they are from the visitor paths. There is no line of sight detection for that stuff, merely a spherical radius of negative impact. When placing staff buildings and power/water, bring up the heat map for "negative visitor reaction" and place them such that the red circle doesn't overlap any visitor paths. Easy Peasy. No amount of decorative hiding will make a difference if you put them too close.

That being said, I still dress mine up visually because it looks better to ME...and I'm more important than the zoo visitors anyway.

Im off to re design all my zoos HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Monsarona · Dec 19, 2019

The only staff facility or whatever that guests don't really care about is the solar panel. That can be right next to the path with no negative impact. However, they have a much smaller power radius.

Lilo · Dec 19, 2019

To pull the thread back on topic... Mine is currently set at 3 (started with 2) but I'm likely to push it up to 4 or 5 soon, just taking it slow to see how it feels while playing. It is by far my favourite feature ever, I don't have to have my game constantly paused anymore and I can take a while to admire my animals without a million things going wrong! Props to Frontier, I think they've found the perfect balance to please all play styles.

annakl1226 · Dec 19, 2019

Currently 2 but I’ll probably up it when playing today to see how I feel about it higher. So far I’m really happy with it. I actually want to name my animals now which I never have so that’s super exciting to me. I feel more connected to them now.