What did you do in Planet Zoo today?

[Aramar]

Who starts a brand new area in a park the day before getting new hints about the future? Me!

I started building "the oasis", a new area of my Biopark Australia zoo. Even if the park is located somewhere in the outback, I wanted to have a lush area in the zoo with more tropical animals and also other Australian animals that don't live in the desert. The first inhabitants are cassowaries, and they have a dome for themselves.

Next to them there are some giant tortoises:

And finally some shops:

 

[GGG2021]

Started a new Zoo - Amazonia

 

[NZFanatic]

New DLC has me hyped so I've gone back to my zoo. It's been a while but I still have a ton of ideas for it, which never happens.

Next to where the water buffalo are, I've built a little Asian small-clawed otter habitat. This was inspired by a Natgeo documentary called Wild India, which goes into detail in the episode "Elephant Kingdom" about the Brahmaputra River Basin. Water buffalo, Indian rhinoceroses, and otters all live together there, along with tigers. Granted, in Brahmaputra they are smooth-coated otters, a related species, but until Frontier decides to go absolutely ham with diversity and give us a bunch of same-y animals in random packs (I'll buy an Otter Pack, just watch me!) I've made do with the ASCO (which does occur in India anyway). The plan is to put Indian rhinos in the empty space on the other side of the otters. "Tiger Trek" as the area is called has quickly become "Wild India" it seems (if only we were getting a blackbuck. Unfortunately the blue wildebeest is not a good stand-in ). Since I'm on an Asia roll in this part of the zoo I might just double-down and put in some other Southern Asian species; I already have a spot perfect for binturong, and I'd like to do sun bears in this zoo, too.

 

[Captain Callum]

Now heres a different more realistic addition that i never thought of ever doing - gondola track supports! As much as i hate the gondola ride looks ingame i cant exactly have a steam train fly over the san diego zoo which is known for its gondola ride or skyfari i should say. The gondola is a A-B ride but i need multiple gondolas at once so each station loops around before stopping to let guests off. We can see double tracks for this purpose once going to front street (the entrance) and the other goes to northern frontier (back of the zoo). And yes these are really tall - 40 metres tall which i hope to reach the real highest point of 57 metres over the central canyon

 

[Hugo98]

Now heres a different more realistic addition that i never thought of ever doing - gondola track supports! As much as i hate the gondola ride looks ingame i cant exactly have a steam train fly over the san diego zoo which is known for its gondola ride or skyfari i should say. The gondola is a A-B ride but i need multiple gondolas at once so each station loops around before stopping to let guests off. We can see double tracks for this purpose once going to front street (the entrance) and the other goes to northern frontier (back of the zoo). And yes these are really tall - 40 metres tall which i hope to reach the real highest point of 57 metres over the central canyon

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Looks great! Makes the gondola ride looking much better than with the original supports.

 

[Aramar]

I kept working on the Oasis at Biopark Australia with a second dome, which houses koalas and wombats. Both animals have outdoor areas too, and the dome includes a shop.

Wombat side:

Koala side:

 

[Captain Callum]

Looks great! Makes the gondola ride looking much better than with the original supports.

It really does! It's a shame it requires 500 pieces per support to look realistic but I can't cannot stand the default support at all. Looking at various zoo gondola rides I cannot wonder where frontier got the idea from

 

[GGG2021]

Now heres a different more realistic addition that i never thought of ever doing - gondola track supports! As much as i hate the gondola ride looks ingame i cant exactly have a steam train fly over the san diego zoo which is known for its gondola ride or skyfari i should say. The gondola is a A-B ride but i need multiple gondolas at once so each station loops around before stopping to let guests off. We can see double tracks for this purpose once going to front street (the entrance) and the other goes to northern frontier (back of the zoo). And yes these are really tall - 40 metres tall which i hope to reach the real highest point of 57 metres over the central canyon

Yep - just need a real gondola - with a cable and many transport options - kills the game for me . . .

Brilliant support structure as well - must have it!

 

[Swjosdotschka]

Not today, but in the last couple of days / weeks I build a Flamingo habitat (feels like me 30s), a staff building and the entrance to another section of my zoo (not pictured).
Now going to hop ino game and wondering what I can do for the combined grassland / desert section...

 

[Captain Callum]

Yep - just need a real gondola - with a cable and many transport options - kills the game for me . . .

Brilliant support structure as well - must have it!

alright i dont want to use this thread to promote my workshop but yeah these are complete as a blueprint to use

Steam Workshop::Realistic Gondola Track Support

steamcommunity.com

 

[Fabian]

Since so far I have only built something for the raccoons, I decided that it was time for me to finally get something for my money from the Twilight Pack, so I designed a little skunk habitat! Really surprised by their size requirements for the habitat – see how tiny they are?! They need 222m² of space, and I gave them 235m² here – but only after being forced to expand the habitat a fair amount. They are almost vanishing in this habitat. (Granted, that giant tree trunk didn't do me any favors regarding their traversable area, but I didn't want it to look so plain.)

And since finishing the skunk habitat, I have already started building something for the foxes and maaan they won over my heart. Absolutely in love with them. I have decided to divide their habitat and build an entire fox section, with dedicated habitats for silver foxes, red foxes and arctic foxes. And a badger habitat in the center

 

[NZFanatic]

The Indian rhinos are in!

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

Since so far I have only built something for the raccoons, I decided that it was time for me to finally get something for my money from the Twilight Pack, so I designed a little skunk habitat! Really surprised by their size requirements for the habitat – see how tiny they are?! They need 222m² of space, and I gave them 235m² here – but only after being forced to expand the habitat a fair amount. They are almost vanishing in this habitat. (Granted, that giant tree trunk didn't do me any favors regarding their traversable area, but I didn't want it to look so plain.)
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And since finishing the skunk habitat, I have already started building something for the foxes and maaan they won over my heart. Absolutely in love with them. I have decided to divide their habitat and build an entire fox section, with dedicated habitats for silver foxes, red foxes and arctic foxes. And a badger habitat in the center

#ReasonsWhySandboxIsTheSuperiorMode

 

[NZFanatic]

#ReasonsWhySandboxIsTheSuperiorMode

I don't know. I play Sandbox exclusively but I saw someone ask a question the other day; what do you actually do when you've built your zoo? And it made me think, what do I do? I enjoy breeding animals and seeing the herds move and all that but once the zoo is built, or mostly built, I move on to a new zoo pretty quickly. I can see why a lot of people prefer the economy modes, because then there's at least a challenge however small it may be.

That said I don't actually want to be challenged, which is why I play Sandbox.

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

I mean i play this game to built my zoos. Management is shallow, any kind of not building related choice is none existant and genes can easily be ignored anyways.
+ i can simply activate the aspects that i like in sandbox if i ever feel like "managing" my zoo

 

[Swjosdotschka]

I don't know. I play Sandbox exclusively but I saw someone ask a question the other day; what do you actually do when you've built your zoo? And it made me think, what do I do? I enjoy breeding animals and seeing the herds move and all that but once the zoo is built, or mostly built, I move on to a new zoo pretty quickly. I can see why a lot of people prefer the economy modes, because then there's at least a challenge however small it may be.

That said I don't actually want to be challenged, which is why I play Sandbox.

If PZ would be my only hobby I had more zoos active and definitely would start playing franchise or challenge mode as well. I watch it a lot on YT lately and I love the slow progression and updates on older habitats like in real zoos.

But given I have little free time and 3 hobbies I just want to let my creativity run wild. But I do feel like franchise players stick to their zoos a lot longer than most of us sandbox players.

On the other hand I have Planet Zoo Plus i i installed to have better space requirements and turn off escapes, because sometimes animals can jump waaaay to high.

 

[Ounze]

I built the Indian Rhinos, Bactrian Camel, and Przelwalski's horse, About to build the rest of India once my researchers catch up. My effort to build every species in a single franchise zoo is almost ready to take advantage of the new DLC! Year 62, with 15k CC and 2 million cash in reserves, the zoo is going well, even if the rendering time is a lot at times.

 

[NZFanatic]

I mean i play this game to built my zoos. Management is shallow, any kind of not building related choice is none existant and genes can easily be ignored anyways.
+ i can simply activate the aspects that i like in sandbox if i ever feel like "managing" my zoo

I just think all modes have their value

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

Theoretically yes, but a challange mode that isnt challanging and just a time trial that makes the best fleshed out mechanics unviable and a management base mode in a game with bad and meaningless management that also lets you deal with tons of annoyances so far arnt modes that really have value, especally as you can just tweak sandbox to have money and be much much harder then challange mode while still being fun with things like reduced funds, low visitor numbers and less annoyances as you can simply turn of most of them

 

[NZFanatic]

Theoretically yes

No, not "theoretically". Clearly a ton of people are getting something out of Franchise Mode, therefore it is proven fact that it has value. Just because it doesn't suit your needs doesn't mean it's inferior. Not everything has to be some weird competition.

It would be super easy for a Franchise player to come along and say that Sandbox has no value. Any argument you made against such a statement would be worthless, too, because you're only looking at it from your own perspective.