What do people feel about exhibitions overall?

[Jester Day]

I feel like they missed the opportunity to include an extra exhibition or two in the Arctic pack, but then again, I haven't seen many wishlists for exhibitions at all and wondered what, if anything, people think of them. I feel like they should be a lot less work than habitat animals, and an extra exhibition would have padded the Arctic DLC out nicely (note: I am myself quite happy with the DLC, and have no real suggestion of what said exhibition animal should have been.).

But that said, how do they stand overall?

Do they feel cheap and clunky in comparison to habitat animals?
Are they mostly seen as easy cash-cows because of their quick breeding times and cheap cost?
Do they actually add something to the game at all?
Are there any improvements to the idea of exhibitions themselves that anyone has been thinking about?

For myself, I do enjoy them being there, and representing smaller animals and the importance of also smaller animals in their ecological niches is something I like is being underlined, but I would have liked them to be somehow less fiddly to micromanage, perhaps an option to automatically move one or two pairs to the exhibition trade centre then apply contraceptives automatically, then replace as the former generation dies out naturally? I feel like that would be a nice QoL-update.

However, share your thoughts, wise and unwise, about exhibitions.

 

[P3NGU1N]

I like to use them when expanding. Basically just something for the guests to look at while walking to the next habitat. Sometimes if I decide to do a building for a viewing area I'll throw an exhibit in there with a bathroom and some education stuff.

The first thing I do is put them on contraceptives and ignore them until I have to replace them.

 

[Prince Chester the Third]

I do love exhibits, and yes I would love to get more. Freebies are always nice. I do enjoy making indoor buildings with them. It's a great way for guests to get out of the heat or cold. I know from experience, especially during the hot summer, that I enjoy visiting these types of things; and it's cool to see the habitats of smaller animals and the conservation efforts to maintain them. I can think of a few ideas, Reptile House, Mouse House, Mammal House, Bird House (birds that wouldn't be in an aviary), Fish House, Insect house.

Chinchilla, Fennec Fox, Short-Eared Elephant Shrew, Black-Footed Ferret, Mexican Prairie Dog, Squirrel, Chipmunk, Dwarf Mongoose, Damaraland Mole-Rat, and Common Degu could work for some mammals. Some of these could probably be put in regular enclosures instead of exhibits, but I don't know what Frontier considers exhibit stuff. There are plenty of snakes and insects to choose from, and different types of salamanders and lizards.

 

[Harai]

I like the exhibits and I've done 2 large buildings to house them all (herpetarium and insectarium), its always crowded and I use it as a opportunity to give some thermal comfort to the guests (put some coolers if its a hot region, some warmers if its a cold region)
I agree that we could have some quality of life improvements in micromanaging them, maybe a notification option that warns us if the exhibit may go empty soon (when the last pair has reached old age), and I would love some slightly larger exhibits (2 cells instead of one, or perhaps building pieces that we could link together as much as we wanted to make a larger terrarium).

 

[Merit Selket]

I do like them. they are perfect to design the entrance area of a zoo, I hope we will get more variety in size and design in the future and more species aswell.

 

[Firestar97]

I like the Exhibits but they get so fast overcrowded or empty if the Animals are on Contraception (except the Golden Poison Frog for some reason). I would really like something like a automatic Management-Tool for them. I want my Reptile-/Insect-/Spider-House to get even bigger. There are already all South American Exhibit-Animals and very often the Animals are unhappy because of too many Animals or the Exhibits are empty and I notice it very late

I feel like they missed the opportunity to include an extra exhibition or two in the Arctic pack

A Russian Desman or some kind of Lemming could maybe work as Exhibit-Animals (even though I don't know if the distribution Area of the Russian Desman is part of the Arctic)

 

[Kai]

I like the idea of having smaller species in the game but not the overall implementation. When it was first mentioned I thought the exhibit enclosures would come in varying sizes, and the animals would be properly animated - I find the tiny exhibits & static looping animations to be very lackluster. While don't mind the bugs and smaller reptiles/amphibian species, I think housing large snakes/iguanas in those tiny cages is a bit...unusual (they have much larger indoor enclosures at the zoos I've been to).

• I really wish we could build custom sized exhibits, or at least have access to a small, medium and large exhibit.
• I do not use them for anything but farming donations/money (as they're a great way to work around the stupid food costs for habitats).
• I would highly prefer if you could set up an exhibit and have zookeepers deal with the micro (selling babies, buying new animals)
• I don't consider them as part of the animal roster when we're talking about how many animals are included in the base game.

I do not want to see animals like the fennec fox as an exhibit animal - they should stick to bugs, suitable small reptiles, amphibians & fish (unless they want to add larger exhibits).

 

[Firestar97]

I do not want to see animals like the fennec fox as an exhibit animal - they should stick to bugs, suitable small reptiles, amphibians & fish (unless they want to add larger exhibits).

I also don't know why someone would want a Fox that requires way more Space in a small Exhibit. I would understand if a Sloth or Slow Loris would be in a Exhibit

 

[Prince Chester the Third]

There are Zoos in the USA, such as the Smithsonian Zoo and Bronx Zoo, that have small mammals in exhibits. The exhibits in Planet Zoo are small, they would have to be bigger to acomodate something bigger; I would love to see bigger exhibits in game some day. I agree that stuff like insects, reptiles, and small rodents are more suitable for current game purposes. I'll be happy with whatever Frontier decides to throw in exhibits. I'm just tossing around ideas.

 

[QueenOfTheNorth]

I feel like they missed the opportunity to include an extra exhibition or two in the Arctic pack, but then again, I haven't seen many wishlists for exhibitions at all and wondered what, if anything, people think of them. I feel like they should be a lot less work than habitat animals, and an extra exhibition would have padded the Arctic DLC out nicely (note: I am myself quite happy with the DLC, and have no real suggestion of what said exhibition animal should have been.).

But that said, how do they stand overall?

THEY COULD'VE ADDED A LEMMING! GAH! I would've loved a silly little lemming. That's ok, maybe in another DLC pack.
I personally really love the exhibits and the fact I can build a reptile house or a bug gallery with them. Right now I have this huge glass conservatory with all tropical plants and critters. That said, I'd love to see different sized exhibits/terrariums in the future, like a medium 2-tile or large 4-tile for example, more space for larger animals like the anaconda and iguanas. The speed at which the small animals reproduce also drives me a little nuts, because like every 30 minutes I'm shoveling piles of baby scorpions out of there lol. I like being able to manage the exhibit animals on their own roster and attend to them individually, but I don't want to micromanage their insane reproduction rates/narrow social-space margins in addition to attending all my larger zoo animals, so they all just get contraceptives until/unless that's tweaked.

 

[VioletGrey]

I like them a lot, but they get overcrowded in about five seconds.
It would be great if they included some that were twice the size in some future DLC.

 

[Masteradstriker]

My thoughts on Exhibit Animals

Hello guys. I want to discuss the Exhibit Feature, i.e. the terrarium/vivarium which holds small herptiles and arthropods. They seem to be an interesting feature that no other zoo game had before. Allow me to share my views on this. 1.The terrariums, which currently look like giant cubic tanks...

forums.frontier.co.uk

This is a thread I made a few months back discussing this very topic. In short, here's my view:

-More variation of exhibit sizes are needed. Looks silly to have a poison dart frog in an exhibit that big. It'll be hard to spot em.

-A little bit more animal movement animations won't hurt. I get it though, herps and invertebrates don't move a lot in real life. Something a bit like the 2013 Zoo Tycoon's mini exhibit animals.

-I don't think putting small mammals in a glass box like that is a good idea.

 

[Maky1355]

I usually use them to boost my guest numbers at the beginning of a zoo (especially franchise), but they die so fast if I forget about them for a bit they either breed like crazy and are all 0 welfare - great, like space is the only thing that matters, I think welfare needs some balancing for one. The second option is my whole snake/spider/whatever house is empty and I need to manually replace all of them. God I hate that. Maybe this slowing time down thing will help. Maybe we could get a "automatic restock/maintain" option or something since they just cost regular cash.

 

[Kiwolf]

I usually use them to boost my guest numbers at the beginning of a zoo (especially franchise), but they die so fast if I forget about them for a bit they either breed like crazy and are all 0 welfare - great, like space is the only thing that matters, I think welfare needs some balancing for one. The second option is my whole snake/spider/whatever house is empty and I need to manually replace all of them. God I hate that. Maybe this slowing time down thing will help. Maybe we could get a "automatic restock/maintain" option or something since they just cost regular cash.

I agree on both fronts. I think the animals in the exhibits should have an automatic restock/maintain to them. They are nuts to keep up.

 

[P3NGU1N]

They should at the very least automatically close when the animals die. I've had angry guests complain the exhibits were empty when I didn't even know they became empty.

 

[Kai]

-More variation of exhibit sizes are needed. Looks silly to have a poison dart frog in an exhibit that big. It'll be hard to spot em.

That one I don't actually mind. The local zoo does indeed have them in around a 1.5m wide, heavily planted, ceiling high enclosure and I love it. They keep an assortment of different species of dart frogs in there. It's certainly hard to spot but that's part of the fun.

Would love to see a range of XS - XL size exhibits though (assuming the current size is small).

 

[Kiwolf]

Maybe consider making the exhibits customize-able, rather then set sizes... that way there are a lot less issues. Some people are going to want bigger exhibits while other's don't mind the smaller.. So do a one fits all type scenario.

 

[Kai]

Maybe consider making the exhibits customize-able, rather then set sizes... that way there are a lot less issues. Some people are going to want bigger exhibits while other's don't mind the smaller.. So do a one fits all type scenario.

The issue with that is they'd have to redesign how you would add in the rocks/plants/etc enrichments to the habitat. If they're predesignated sizes they can place them in specific places with the on/off toggle (like the current exhibits).

 

[willibix]

I think exhibit need some rework. Rid of temperature and humidity setting, those are just... boring, useless. Autoset educational panels and speakers. Auto-sell lower stat babies, Auto-send babies to trade center... etc.
Gamers decision should have some sort of impact, if it's all the same or the decision is too obvious (like setting the temperature, extracting babies or keeping the highest stat individual), it's simply not a game feature (game theory 101). that raise the question ; what sort of game value exhibit have once you get rid of all the farming annoyance ? Not much. We could get : Exhibit educational presentation by some scholar... some link to the other educational panel around... Specialized merch boost range... IDK, something that make managing exhibit more of a game feature (where decision have meaning of some sort).

 

[AndyZoos]

Chinchilla, Fennec Fox, Short-Eared Elephant Shrew, Black-Footed Ferret, Mexican Prairie Dog, Squirrel, Chipmunk, Dwarf Mongoose, Damaraland Mole-Rat, and Common Degu could work for some mammals. Some of these could probably be put in regular enclosures instead of exhibits, but I don't know what Frontier considers exhibit stuff. There are plenty of snakes and insects to choose from, and different types of salamanders and lizards.

I agree with you on some of these (shrews, various squirrels, mole-rats, degu) all make sense for inclusion as exhibit animals in the current sizes. However, I think things like chinchillas, ferrets, and mongoose would need more ground space than the exhibits currently allow. That is, the exhibit would need to be wider or longer for it to make sense for those animals.

I'd also prefer that fennec foxes and prairie dogs be included as habitat animals given the way they are typically housed in zoos (at least here in the US).

When it was first mentioned I thought the exhibit enclosures would come in varying sizes, and the animals would be properly animated - I find the tiny exhibits & static looping animations to be very lackluster. While don't mind the bugs and smaller reptiles/amphibian species, I think housing large snakes/iguanas in those tiny cages is a bit...unusual (they have much larger indoor enclosures at the zoos I've been to).

• I really wish we could build custom sized exhibits, or at least have access to a small, medium and large exhibit.
• I do not use them for anything but farming donations/money (as they're a great way to work around the stupid food costs for habitats).
• I would highly prefer if you could set up an exhibit and have zookeepers deal with the micro (selling babies, buying new animals)
• I don't consider them as part of the animal roster when we're talking about how many animals are included in the base game.

I do not want to see animals like the fennec fox as an exhibit animal - they should stick to bugs, suitable small reptiles, amphibians & fish (unless they want to add larger exhibits).

Agreed on all counts here. Being able to customize the size of the exhibits for different animals would be great. Even if they were pre-determined sizes/heights.

I also don't know why someone would want a Fox that requires way more Space in a small Exhibit. I would understand if a Sloth or Slow Loris would be in a Exhibit

I think an exhibit that was double the size of the current one would look really cool with a slow loris in it!

There are Zoos in the USA, such as the Smithsonian Zoo and Bronx Zoo, that have small mammals in exhibits. The exhibits in Planet Zoo are small, they would have to be bigger to acomodate something bigger; I would love to see bigger exhibits in game some day. I agree that stuff like insects, reptiles, and small rodents are more suitable for current game purposes. I'll be happy with whatever Frontier decides to throw in exhibits. I'm just tossing around ideas.

The Mouse House at the Bronx Zoo is one of my favorite parts of that zoo, and I would love to be able to re-create something like that in Planet Zoo!

The issue with that is they'd have to redesign how you would add in the rocks/plants/etc enrichments to the habitat. If they're predesignated sizes they can place them in specific places with the on/off toggle (like the current exhibits).

I doubt that we'll ever get the level of freedom that we have with standard habitats, but having a little more flexibility in deciding how rocks, plants, etc. can be placed in the exhibits would be really fun. Not sure how tough that would be to implement but... I'd love or that to be a thing if it can somehow happen.