What did you do in Planet Zoo today?

Started working on a few custom trees, naturally palm trees are a good start. Currently have 3 trees - the makalani palm, raffia palm, and chinese fan palm.

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Trying to find that sweet spot between "basic" and "neat" (or rather - "doesn't take forever" and "still looks cool"):

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The "outbuildings" will just be admin stuff (I'll hide the trade centre and staff rooms in there). I will not be building a carpark, I have no idea how any of you have the patience for it. While it usually looks nice I feel like it is not worth the piece count and effort. At most I'll do a small staff carpark adjacent to the building on the left.

I'd probably be more into carparks if they were functional, or at least if we had dedicated pieces (single-piece parking space markings, asphalt-textured panels, signage, that sort of thing - oh, and definitely more vehicles). I did wonder if they would include something along these lines in PZ2, but given that none of it is in PC2 I doubt it.
 
Have I bitten off more than I can chew? 😂

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This has taken me ages so far and it's not even that complex. I spent far too long trying to get the windows and doors right - kind of sucks that we can't overlap the emissive panels without it looking janky in the dark. I really don't want to have to repeat this process on the other side of the building but I'm not sure the old copy-paste trick will work right. We'll see.
 
Finished the Fruit Bat Ravine.
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I actually changed the roof slightly since taking these but not enough to warrant new screens. Basically just doubled the length of the glass panels to let more light in. I like the effect of seeing the bats through the scarab tank from the outside.

The vibe I'm going for is a zoo that isn't world-class but has a semi-decent budget. They can build nice habitats and contain rare species, and take part in AZA/EAZA species survival plans, but you're not going to find massive glass domes or excessive levels of hard theming. This would be a relatively newer building in the zoo, perhaps built to contain a species the zoo received from another facility. All my fruit bats are female because it's sandbox and there's no point in dealing with all the additional bats that would inevitably spring up but we can just pretend otherwise.
I like this very much. Great work!
You know you can turn on exhibit animals are being sold automatically? Depending on what maximum number you chose.
 
I like this very much. Great work!
You know you can turn on exhibit animals are being sold automatically? Depending on what maximum number you chose.
Yeah but since the baby exhibit animals are just...new adults, there's not really much point in sandbox. Thanks for the compliment! I have started a new zoo but I think I'll save that bat house as a blueprint and move it over, or at least the shell of it.
 
Great to see that you got started! Hopefully youll keep the spark and not drop the zoo after what i would call a pretty dope looking planet entrance
I'll do my best. I'm pretty happy with the entrance and will work on it more tomorrow. The trouble with the late shift at work is that although I have the whole morning to do stuff, I gradually lose enjoyment of my free time as the time to leave for work draws closer. I guess you could call it going into "waiting mode". I'm not entirely sure what to do with the little building on the right - right now it's got a quarantine in it but that's about it. It's mostly for show anyway, I guess.

I'm going to put a vet clinic opposite the administration building so they share that little carpark (thus saving me the effort of building a second carpark). I've also got (vague) ideas for a reptile house near the entrance. I'm considering somewhat mimicking the layout of Dublin Zoo - basically one massive loop around a long lake in Phoenix Park, Dublin, but I'll play it by ear and see what happens.
 
I'm not entirely sure what to do with the little building on the right - right now it's got a quarantine in it but that's about it. It's mostly for show anyway, I guess.
It could be some sort of visitor/reception center. The kind of space for those who are not the average zoo visitor. Eg. the place to get season pass, where school trip groups meet, wheelchairs for people with reduced mobility, etc. Lockers too?
 
It could be some sort of visitor/reception center. The kind of space for those who are not the average zoo visitor. Eg. the place to get season pass, where school trip groups meet, wheelchairs for people with reduced mobility, etc. Lockers too?
Honestly I made a building sort of like that in my other zoo. For me it’s “office space”. The marketing team, researchers, managers, and everyone can use a quiet space with some computers. Of course, I also make it an empty and building and just play pretend.
 
Started work on two of the big savannah habitats. Left will be giraffes, zebras, ostriches, and probably another species (sable antelope or wildebeest), right will be white rhinos, scimitar-horned oryx. The "islands" of foliage are inspired by Auckland Zoo. While these habitats are often barren due to the herbivores destroying plants, it's actually more challenging IMO to make a bare habitat look interesting than to simply add a few interesting features. The giraffe paddock and rhino paddock are separated by log walls closing the gaps between the island on the right. There will be a few backstage areas for these habitats where the different species can be separated. The ostriches will be non-breeding as they often (though not always) are in zoos - usually the birds themselves simply don't breed in mixed species habitats.

This section will wrap around the outer boundary of the zoo. I'm thinking I'll also include the African buffalo, addax, okapi, and bongo, along with the usual predators, and then somewhere along the way a rocky section for the baboons and smaller species (meerkats, dik-dik, etc.). Then gorillas somewhere here, too.

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Also, I believe there is a trick to getting enrichment items into the ground without morphing terrain - if anyone knows it, can someone please explain it or link me a video? When I do the rhinos I want to put in a couple of mud wallows near each other to create the illusion of a larger single wallow but hiding them with rocks doesn't work as well, and I've seen YouTubers manage to do more.
 
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Animals are in! Three giraffes, three zebras, five ostriches, and four wildebeest. One zebra is already pregnant.

I'm going to rebuild both the giraffe house and the zebra house at the back, neither is how I wanted it, and the giraffes can't even use theirs (not a huge deal, because it's sandbox, but still - what a stupidly huge hitbox, even considering a 360 degree turn!).

You might notice a little rustic fence to the left of the paddock. I'm going to put something there, but haven't decided what yet. I'm considering okapi, but it might be a little close to the entrance and too busy. If I make it large enough, I could do black rhinos, and then the zoo will (eventually) have all three species (how I wish a Sumatran rhinoceros was coming - that would be very fun). Alternatively, red river hogs; I believe they are relatively common in European zoos.

Obviously there's room for landscaping and decorating, and I might block off a portion of the paddock viewing and put in a carnivore opposite the giraffes (painted dogs or maybe hyenas). There's also the potential for another green island sort of near the back to block the guest view of the backstage area, and to break up the space a little more, but we'll see. Overall I'm pretty happy with how this has turned out. Aside from the two buildings being crap, it's pretty much exactly how I envisioned it.

Edit: Oh and I just noticed it now but I need to do something else with that stupid forage box.
 
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