What did you do in Planet Zoo today?

[NZFanatic]

Christ this is so annoying. I'm rebuilding the above giraffe house. I threw down a quick shoddy barrier to make a testing habitat, put in my 100% size gene male giraffe, and started building. All fine and dandy, he can fit through the door.

Move the new giraffe house to the habitat, plonk it down...the much smaller females apparently can't fit through the door. The massive doorway already looks stupid. Making it bigger will be so much worse. It's sandbox mode so I guess I can just say "stuff you then" to the giraffes and they'll be fine without access, but still.

 

[NZFanatic]

Anyway, here it is:

As you can see, there are separation pens alongside, each gated to the other. Not the most realistic system but it looks the part. As stated before the giraffes can't actually use ths shelter despite the massive doorway. This took me far longer than it had any right to. Edit: I might redo the separation pens with custom fences, too. Maybe tomorrow. I've started work on the rhino paddock in the meantime anyway, which is very similar in style.

 

[markun]

Anyway, here it is:

View attachment 406093
As you can see, there are separation pens alongside, each gated to the other. Not the most realistic system but it looks the part. As stated before the giraffes can't actually use ths shelter despite the massive doorway. This took me far longer than it had any right to. Edit: I might redo the separation pens with custom fences, too. Maybe tomorrow. I've started work on the rhino paddock in the meantime anyway, which is very similar in style.

Definitely recognisable as being inspired by Auckland’s giraffe house, I like it.

 

[NZFanatic]

Definitely recognisable as being inspired by Auckland’s giraffe house, I like it.

Yes indeed, though now that I've looked at it again I'm like...I can do better. Again. And since I've given up trying to get the giraffes to use it, it will be easier to rebuild. I kind of want to attempt that neat pattern on the real Auckland giraffe house walls. Should be doable, I think.

The zebra stable I rebuilt is much more on point but I don't have any screens of it. It's even more basic but sometimes utiliarian is what you want, especially for backstage areas.

 

[Xrystal]

Previous Post showing what I started with : https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...lanet-zoo-today.553635/page-379#post-10463003

Well, 2 crashes later. Today's work involved researching the animals I currently had in my China zoo and checked to see if the location ( if the zoo was really the whole of China - or part of it seeing as it is big rofl ) was correct.

So, once research was done I found out that the Pangolin and Clouded Leopard were usually found in the foothills of the Himalayas. Which, in my world zoo mind map should be in the bottom left of the zoo so that the entrance on that part would tie in with an equivalent in the India zoo when I make it. The built in zoo entrance would tie in with the Malaysian/Indonesian island area.

And thus, the Himalayan Foothills area was created containing just 2 biggish habitats but if I find any other animals that are usually in this area I have some space to add them too. The staff and animals have been moved here and their old area repurposed as a simple forest for now.

Once I can see people are using this area and the money has climbed back up to 400k or so I can look into the next areas to update/create.

Animals in the zoo and where they should roughly be ( with some decision making when more than one place is available so the animals are spread out a bit ) .

Bactrian Camel - Lop Nur Desert - North area of the zoo leading to the entrance tied to the Mongolian/Russian Zoo
Prz... Horse - Either Tinjiang Grassland Desert left of Lop Nur, or Gansu Province to the right. I'll decide later which one as Red Foxes are also found in Gansu Province.
Snow Leopards, Pallas Cat and Takin can all be found in the Qinghai Xizang Plateau - I'll make this huge area on a mountain in the centre area of the zoo and rather than have the guest amenities under the mountain, I will include them on the Plateau amongst the habitats for the 3 animals.
Giant Panda can be found in Sichuan mountains south of the plateau so will also be in the central area of the zoo map.
Red Panda can be found in Yunnan Province south of Sichuan, so this will likely be the habitat nearest to the entrance which is perfect as it is a popular animal.
Binturong can be found in the Guangxi rain forests east of Yunnan so a perfect south east habitat.

 

[NZFanatic]

Take Three. I must hate myself.

 

[Xrystal]

Well, 2 crashes later. Today's work involved researching the animals I currently had in my China zoo and checked to see if the location ( if the zoo was really the whole of China - or part of it seeing as it is big rofl ) was correct.

So, once research was done I found out that the Pangolin and Clouded Leopard were usually found in the foothills of the Himalayas. Which, in my world zoo mind map should be in the bottom left of the zoo so that the entrance on that part would tie in with an equivalent in the India zoo when I make it. The built in zoo entrance would tie in with the Malaysian/Indonesian island area.

And thus, the Himalayan Foothills area was created containing just 2 biggish habitats but if I find any other animals that are usually in this area I have some space to add them too. The staff and animals have been moved here and their old area repurposed as a simple forest for now.

Once I can see people are using this area and the money has climbed back up to 400k or so I can look into the next areas to update/create.

Animals in the zoo and where they should roughly be ( with some decision making when more than one place is available so the animals are spread out a bit ) .

Bactrian Camel - Lop Nur Desert - North area of the zoo leading to the entrance tied to the Mongolian/Russian Zoo
Prz... Horse - Either Tinjiang Grassland Desert left of Lop Nur, or Gansu Province to the right. I'll decide later which one as Red Foxes are also found in Gansu Province.
Snow Leopards, Pallas Cat and Takin can all be found in the Qinghai Xizang Plateau - I'll make this huge area on a mountain in the centre area of the zoo and rather than have the guest amenities under the mountain, I will include them on the Plateau amongst the habitats for the 3 animals.
Giant Panda can be found in Sichuan mountains south of the plateau so will also be in the central area of the zoo map.
Red Panda can be found in Yunnan Province south of Sichuan, so this will likely be the habitat nearest to the entrance which is perfect as it is a popular animal.
Binturong can be found in the Guangxi rain forests east of Yunnan so a perfect south east habitat.


View attachment 406240

Phase 2 of the upgrade was to move the Pandas to the Sichuan Reserve ( towards the center of the map ). Their old area was turned into a walking park with educational elements with a few vending machines nearby. The 200k left after the Foothills were created very quickly fell to 40k with money being lost to wages and animal food ( almost always the reason for money loss for me rofl ). So, added 4 more swallowtail butterfly walkthroughs, 2 on each side. 3 of them however had to be set to moving to storage as the 2 near the entrance and one of the new ones bought me to the limit of the auto selling process. Thankfully the alerts let me know when a potential exhibit animal storage addition when the butterflies breed happens rofl. So, for now, it's manual selling every breeding cycle or two. Which has thankfully bought me back up to near the money I had before I started the move, although money goes down by 40k or so a year instead of up by 30k, but hopefully as I move stuff out of the central area and add more shops etc, more profit will surface. fingers crossed.

 

[NZFanatic]

Right! I am officially done with the giraffe paddock. I've done considerable work on the rhino paddock, too, but it's still ongoing. I really like the effect, though - when it's finished I'll share an overview shot. It looks like just one big habitat. Anyway, I love how the giraffe paddock turned out, and I'm finally happy with the backstage giraffe house. The giraffes can't use it but the doors are at least a realistic size. As you can see there are separation pens between the giraffe house and the hoofstock stable. I did try and do three or four attempts at custom fences but I couldn't figure out what worked best, and in the end most of the example images I found just had basic chain link or mesh anyway, or deer fence (you know, wooden posts and wire barriers), so I just used the chain-link barrier again (or as I call it...Old Faithful).

Bonus shot of my big male giraffe. I named him Zabulu in honour of a male giraffe that featured on The Zoo (New Zealand's version, featuring Auckland Zoo) many, many years ago, since this whole area is inspired by Auckland Zoo. Obviously I still need to decorate the background a bit, by which I mean, put down a dungheap of plants and mess with the terrain a bit.

 

[NZFanatic]

And the rhino paddock is done! The backstage area features separation pens (again) and a second smaller habitat for the male rhino when it's not breeding season (I will most likely enlarge it a little, but it is functional). The habitat includes five scimitar-horned oryx and so far two southern white rhinoceros, with the intention of breeding them into a small herd (aiming for five or six total).

I still haven't decided what to put in the little nook next to the giraffe paddock. It's a small, narrow space marked out. I'm leaning towards pigs - either warthog or red river hog. Also, I'm going to put a pair of cheetah habitats opposite the main paddocks (one for the male, one for the female).

 

[NZFanatic]

Well...disappointingly, I might have to do some significant reworks of both habitats. They're too large. My keepers aren't going to the strategically-placed feeders and are just dumping food outside the shelters, so instead of the animals heading out towards the guest viewing to eat, they're all rushing back and hanging around the backstage areas. I can conceivably alter both without causing too much destruction, but I'll be damned if I have the motivation to do it right now. Something like this:

 

[KoenZoo]

Can't you maybe put the entrance to the exhibit somewhere in the front and hide it with foliage/rocks?

 

[NZFanatic]

Can't you maybe put the entrance to the exhibit somewhere in the front and hide it with foliage/rocks?

The whole habitat is lowered at the front, so no, not without considerably more effort.

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

Well...disappointingly, I might have to do some significant reworks of both habitats. They're too large. My keepers aren't going to the strategically-placed feeders and are just dumping food outside the shelters, so instead of the animals heading out towards the guest viewing to eat, they're all rushing back and hanging around the backstage areas. I can conceivably alter both without causing too much destruction, but I'll be damned if I have the motivation to do it right now. Something like this:

View attachment 406486

Aww man what a shame for such a nice habitat.
Personally thats where i just stick with the "its sandbox" card and rather continue building something new then demolishing whats allready finished, as thats just pretty demoralising to me. There are enough other things to build so bad keeper pathing be damned

 

[Veah]

Well...disappointingly, I might have to do some significant reworks of both habitats. They're too large. My keepers aren't going to the strategically-placed feeders and are just dumping food outside the shelters, so instead of the animals heading out towards the guest viewing to eat, they're all rushing back and hanging around the backstage areas. I can conceivably alter both without causing too much destruction, but I'll be damned if I have the motivation to do it right now. Something like this:

View attachment 406486

Is it because they can't access that part of the habitar, or just because they don't want to because it's too far?

 

[NZFanatic]

Aww man what a shame for such a nice habitat.
Personally thats where i just stick with the "its sandbox" card and rather continue building something new then demolishing whats allready finished, as thats just pretty demoralising to me. There are enough other things to build so bad keeper pathing be damned

Thankfully, I can keep the bulk of both habitats. I don't have to rebuild them from scratch, just shrink them a little. While I prefer the bigger space...

Is it because they can't access that part of the habitar, or just because they don't want to because it's too far?

...it's the latter. They can access it fine, the slope is very gradual, they just won't.

 

[Marvinb]

Would the easy way be to blueprint the stables and back walls and put them further forward? That way you dont have to redo the front side

 

[NZFanatic]

Would the easy way be to blueprint the stables and back walls and put them further forward? That way you dont have to redo the front side

I ended up just bringing the path in further. The rhino paddock needs a little more touching up but they both still look good, to my eye at least. I'll share pics tomorrow. Hopefully the keepers will do what I want now. I had a horrible thought that it was a bug, which would suck, because then I would have made the alterations for no reason.

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

Everybody kept their stuff a secret for the zoo olympic challange, but lets just say i was cooking this morning

 

[Xrystal]

Well...disappointingly, I might have to do some significant reworks of both habitats. They're too large. My keepers aren't going to the strategically-placed feeders and are just dumping food outside the shelters, so instead of the animals heading out towards the guest viewing to eat, they're all rushing back and hanging around the backstage areas. I can conceivably alter both without causing too much destruction, but I'll be damned if I have the motivation to do it right now. Something like this:

View attachment 406486

I get a slightly different problem with my Prz.. horse habitat. I had the work shared with the Bactrian Camel habitat and the horses were always starving. I then made them into separate zones with separate workers and I am still sending the starving horses to the vets to get fed that way.
However, when I check the keepers are setting the food up, but in a specific order and it takes a while for the horses to realise where the nearest food source to them is. Thankfully, they don't dump the food on the floor. Instead they just take a while going around the habitat placing the food.in the relevant containers.

 

[NachoB]

I get a slightly different problem with my Prz.. horse habitat. I had the work shared with the Bactrian Camel habitat and the horses were always starving. I then made them into separate zones with separate workers and I am still sending the starving horses to the vets to get fed that way.
However, when I check the keepers are setting the food up, but in a specific order and it takes a while for the horses to realise where the nearest food source to them is. Thankfully, they don't dump the food on the floor. Instead they just take a while going around the habitat placing the food.in the relevant containers.

They need to fix these issues for a sequel (or now that we are getting another pack for a future update maybe). Or at least in sand box let us place the food ourselves. I do turn off some requirements like the need to poop, space and foliage needs but i don't want to turn off the need for food or water.