What do you want to do in Planet Zoo

[Hugo98]

Okay, so my plan for my new zoo is to finish the markhor/ibex area today or tomorrow, so I can move on. Originally I wanted to build for the bears (spectacled and sloth) next but I think I do a South America House first.
Since my zoo is a classical European city zoo the idea is that the old pachyderm house that used to have elephants, rhinos, hippos and tapirs was renovated and turned into a South American house. The only pachyderms left are the tapirs.
I plan to include these species:
1. Baird's tapir, capybara, giant anteater and greater rhea (this will be the largest habitat)
2. Giant otter, the second largest habitat
3. Ocelot
4. Capuchin monkey + nine-banded armadillo
5. Cuvier's dwarf caiman
6. Free roaming in the center of the building: White-faced saki and three-toed sloth
(7. Bush dog)

All of them will have outdoor habitats except for the caimans and sakis/sloth.
Not sure about the bush dog yet. I definitely want them in my zoo but I haven't decided yet if I will include them in this building or combine them with the spectacled bears.

 

[DarthQuell]

So, in Wanyana Park, I've noticed that I don't have enough guests going to a corner in my zoo where I have cheetahs, black rhinos, and even a restaurant. Everyone would rather go into the donkey petting zoo.
So, I had the idea to put a train to kinda lead people around. But I'm struggling with it. Does anyone here have experience using the in-game rides?

 

[Marvinb]

Okay, so my plan for my new zoo is to finish the markhor/ibex area today or tomorrow, so I can move on. Originally I wanted to build for the bears (spectacled and sloth) next but I think I do a South America House first.
Since my zoo is a classical European city zoo the idea is that the old pachyderm house that used to have elephants, rhinos, hippos and tapirs was renovated and turned into a South American house. The only pachyderms left are the tapirs.
I plan to include these species:
1. Baird's tapir, capybara, giant anteater and greater rhea (this will be the largest habitat)
2. Giant otter, the second largest habitat
3. Ocelot
4. Capuchin monkey + nine-banded armadillo
5. Cuvier's dwarf caiman
6. Free roaming in the center of the building: White-faced saki and three-toed sloth
(7. Bush dog)

All of them will have outdoor habitats except for the caimans and sakis/sloth.
Not sure about the bush dog yet. I definitely want them in my zoo but I haven't decided yet if I will include them in this building or combine them with the spectacled bears.

The zoo of cologne has an imo wonderfull example of a historic building being turned into a south america house as some inspiration.

 

[NZFanatic]

I want to include servals in my zoo. That's what I want to do.

In all seriousness I'll probably pick the game back up in a couple of weeks and do what I always do to get back into it after a long absence; a big flat zoo. Trouble is the new CK3 DLC is dropping at the end of this month and I have zero doubts I'll be glued to that again for the forseeable future.

EVENTUALLY I'd like to revisit or restart the last zoo I was working on, the layout loosely inspired by hilly Wellington Zoo. I was really proud of it so there is a chance I might just jump into it again, and now that we have the white-faced saki one of the key missing pieces - a second NWM - is available.

 

[TremendousTimAllen]

My plans have taken a turn after a couple of real zoo visits and despite enjoying my zoo, I feel I haven't been able to properly capture a realistic zoo feeling. In general I'm trying to get a more detailed plan to map out some ideas for a new zoo, since I've realised that you really don't want to have to abandon your progress part way through so I want to have a concrete plan before I start afresh. If only there were a Temperate map that didn't snow...
I'm hopefully still achieving the goal of including every species (which I realise is not realistic, both in terms of real life accuracy-no zoo has every species-and in terms of computer performance) but I'm going to see how far I can get.

Since I'm going for realism, I'm trying to avoid the use of any heating/cooling outdoors. I've hit a snag trying this, and maybe this isn't the place to ask but I'm wondering the tolerance of species to exist outside of their listed temperature ranges. Because, by my count, 31 species actually won't tolerate living in any biome, as either the biome's min or max temp exceeds their tolerance. For example the American Alligator tolerates 6-35° but every biome exists partially outside that range (Taiga, Temperate, Tundra reach below 6°, Desert, Grassland, Tropical go above 35°). So for at least some periods of the year the Alligator won't be meeting its needs no matter the biome you're in. Now through experience I know that African Spurred Tortoise won't produce Welfare issues in Tropical biomes despite their max temp tolerance being only 38 and Tropical reaching 44 during heatwaves. I'd never actually noticed this discrepancy previously... which begs the question: how far outside of the animal's normal range can you get away with? Assume that every other Welfare parameter is perfect. If anyone knows please help! And if anyone is curious I'll happily share my list of animals that tolerate 0 biomes. Fun fact: the Bactrian Camel is the only species to fully tolerate all biomes!

Now that's out of the way, I've been taking a bunch of photos in real life of different buildings, bridges, and other structures which I think would be cool to include in my zoo or inspire me in one way or another. I think this is super helpful to achieve realism, and avoid the dreaded mistake I always make of building small box buildings with very little in the way of designs. I think in my last post I mentioned a little bit about working on backstage areas, and I think this is probably the single best way to capture the realism of a zoo. It's so easy to make a building and assume that's all that's needed, but there are so many details, not the least of which is making a decent-looking keeper area which inherently requires a lot of planning to structure your zoo's paths around them. If anyone has little pieces of advice I'm all ears!

 

[Milurian]

Im in the planning process of starting a new zoo based around the city island map from the base game campaign. The plan is to try and fit all animals with every need met on the island using expanded map borders to get access to the whole thing.

 

[Hugo98]

The zoo of cologne has an imo wonderfull example of a historic building being turned into a south america house as some inspiration.

Oh yeah! Thanks for mentioning it. It's indeed a wonderful building which I may steal some inspiration from

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

It is again i with slightly different plans.
The tropical house took on a slightly larger and more boney shape, swallowing one half of the yellow habitat(s), the dark blue area got actually turned into a barn owl aviary and barn and to the left of the lake the first "themed" area was finished with the tortoise garden and a dik dik habitat.
The current main goal is to finish the exterior of the tropical house (purple) and to finish atleast the outline of the outdoor habitat of the babirusa and small clawed otters (red) which so far can only be seen on the outside across the lake. This would completly surround the lake and mark the first loop of the zoo as mostly done.
Afterwards (or along side/before cause im a scatter brain) i will fill in the rest of the area around the tropical house, with outdoor aviary cages in the orange, binturongs in either pink or dark blue and something else in the other. The dark green will either be its own small filler habitat or combined with the blue one for a larger one, but potentially this will be were i put some meerkats/prariedogs. Still unsure about the last inhabitant of the tropical house, potentially the porcupine that marvin suggested or maybe even the malayan tapir, but we will see, im allways open to suggestions!
View attachment 407151

Welp guess who cant play the game without trying to make a plan at the end of the session?
Currently in the mood for south america like pretty much everyone so i segmented a possible new "themed" area with the 4 yellow enclosures, which will either feature domestics (waterbuffalo, pig, goat, chicken) or a rag tag team of south american animals (rhea + maras in my heart, both saki and capuchin in a monkey row enclosure or a small monkey house with a habitat on each side, ocelot defenetly in a row enclosure and a 4. mystery option from the existing south american animals i havent decided on yet/implied coati enclosures cause you cant go wrong with that.
For the asian stuff, pink is the malayan tapir outdoor area, orange are outdoor cages for the free flying birds, red will be a mixed enclosure for "mouflon" and an "asian deer" with big horn and fallow deer as stand ins and i havent decided for the purple. Originally i intended for the binturong, but i dont really feel them right now even if there are no other better options in my mind right now besides an implied fishing cat enclosure, but im very much open for suggestions.

 

[DarthQuell]

Originally i intended for the binturong, but i dont really feel them right now even if there are no other better options in my mind right now besides an implied fishing cat enclosure, but im very much open for suggestions.

What about something like a combination ASCO and gibbon enclosure? Gibbons frolicking up in the canopy and otters enjoying the warm water below

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

What about something like a combination ASCO and gibbon enclosure? Gibbons frolicking up in the canopy and otters enjoying the warm water below

Both are allready present, lar gibbons got an island in the lake and the bit below the tropical house is chared by ASCO and Babirusa

 

[DarthQuell]

Both are allready present, lar gibbons got an island in the lake and the bit below the tropical house is chared by ASCO and Babirusa

Dang. Ok, let's shoot with red pandas, then

 

[NZFanatic]

i havent decided for the purple.

Orangutan?

 

[The Sea Blimp]

Welp guess who cant play the game without trying to make a plan at the end of the session?
Currently in the mood for south america like pretty much everyone so i segmented a possible new "themed" area with the 4 yellow enclosures, which will either feature domestics (waterbuffalo, pig, goat, chicken) or a rag tag team of south american animals (rhea + maras in my heart, both saki and capuchin in a monkey row enclosure or a small monkey house with a habitat on each side, ocelot defenetly in a row enclosure and a 4. mystery option from the existing south american animals i havent decided on yet/implied coati enclosures cause you cant go wrong with that.
For the asian stuff, pink is the malayan tapir outdoor area, orange are outdoor cages for the free flying birds, red will be a mixed enclosure for "mouflon" and an "asian deer" with big horn and fallow deer as stand ins and i havent decided for the purple. Originally i intended for the binturong, but i dont really feel them right now even if there are no other better options in my mind right now besides an implied fishing cat enclosure, but im very much open for suggestions.
View attachment 426277

uhhh I'm not sure if they're already in this zoo but what about either sloth bears or sun bears for the purple?

 

[Markiz]

i havent decided for the purple

Chamber for delivering Byzantine princes?

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

Orangutan?

Ironic as this will be in a way an Orang-Utan enclosure. The theme of the building is an old great ape house that was repurposed as an asian tropical house, with tapir in the gorilla habitat, otters and babirusas in the chimp and  the purple would have been the orang utans. Good Suggestion though!

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

uhhh I'm not sure if they're already in this zoo but what about either sloth bears or sun bears for the purple?

Havent thought about them but hobestly the sunbear especally could be worth a thought as this zoos old school bear Pit is inhabited by a Horde of macaques. Would be quite the swap

 

[CaprinemasterAT]

I plan to build an enclosure called : "Namibia Fiesta" with the black rhinos, but I am unsure, wich Animals I should also put in there.

 

[Markiz]

I plan to build an enclosure called : "Namibia Fiesta" with the black rhinos, but I am unsure, wich Animals I should also put in there.

If it's just a habitat, I don't think Black Rhinos are "pairable" well with other animals.

If it's a section then animals like Aardvarks, Meerkats and Gemsboks would work

 

[CaprinemasterAT]

If it's just a habitat, I don't think Black Rhinos are "pairable" well with other animals.

If it's a section then animals like Aardvarks, Meerkats and Gemsboks would work

The thing is: in real zoos, black rhinos sometimes live together with other species, I don't know, why platz Zoo exclude them, the same problem I have with the saki

 

[Lord of the Vegetables]

I've been planning this current zoo I'm making for a while now, since the Southeast Asia pack if I'm not mistaken. It's gone through several different iterations but I figured I'd share my current plan that I'm liking a lot.

Spoiler: Overhead view w/o labels

It's kind of a huge plan and I'm sure lots of things will change as time goes on
I'm calling it the "San Ramentos Zoo" (subject to change) and it's intended to be based in California, very heavily inspired by the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park, but not intended to be a replica or anything like that.

Spoiler: Zoo Entrance Close-Up

Spoiler: "Zootique" Gift Shop + Exit

The green labels are things that I already have built, I built the Gibbon exhibit two days ago but I want to go back into the Tiger, Otter, and Babirusa exhibits and change the foliage to look a little nicer. I had a Clouded Leopard exhibit built but I deleted it because it was one of the first things I'd made and I figured it could stand to be updated. I'd also like to add in a third Tiger enclosure (there are already 2) and possibly another large structure with a restaurant nearby.

Spoiler: Overhead view of Tiger Forest area

Once I wrap up fixing the whole Tiger Forest area I'm going to move onto the "Explorer's Basecamp" which will be the sort of Children's Zoo area. I plan on having the Insect Zoo's interior resemble the inside of a fallen log, so it'll appear as if you've shrunken down to the size of a bug! (Who knows if I'll be able to accomplish that, though)

I really wish we had Sumatran Tigers because it would 1) be more accurate to the area I'm building, and 2) the current Tiger models look... questionable... at times.

Additionally the red text saying "Patagonia Trek" and "Southern Swamps" would be areas based on Patagonia and the Everglades respectively, I just haven't found places for them yet Feedback is appreciated!