I've looked around but can't find anything recent on this. I would like to assign caretakers and security guards to a workzone so that (a) I can control what staffroom they use and (b) so that I have more control over patrol patters. But any time I assign them to a work zone, they just go chill in the staff room and never leave. Is there a way to do what I want?
Work Zone Advice
- Thread starter Birini
- Start date
I'm not telling you what to do, but this is how I organize my workzones...
First off, name them "Keepers - Animal, Animal & Animal" and "Vendors - Facility Name", etc. This seems to be the easiest way to name them so they stay organized in alphabetical order in your staff zone menu. For example, all of the keepers will be in a row and the vendors in another, just a simple way to stay organize. I must give Frontier credit for this as I think I saw it in a campaign zoo.
Secondly, I dont have workzones for every staff member in my zoo. I make workzones for keepers (usually 1 keeper per habitat animal and 1 keeper per 2 exhibit animals). Usually, I stick to around 3 habitats max in a keeper workzone. With vendors, I stick it to one "food court". For example, today I built my Caribou Cafe with 4 food/drink shops and assigned 6 keepers to it (3 vendors per every 2 shops). For research, I clump the mechanics and veterinarians together into one workzone. And finally for mechanics, I make a workzone named "Mechanics - Maintenance" and assign them to every habitat, vending machine, exhibit, toilet, and basically every facility in the zoo. Obviously, the bigger the zoo, the more mechanics you need in this workzone. As for educators, I usually do 4 or 6 animal talks and evenly place them throughout the "year". 2 educators for 4 talks and 3 educators for 6, and spread the talks out. For the security guards and caretakers, I dont assign them to workzones along with veterinarians that aren't for research.
As you can tell, I'm very organized and everything has to be even and symmetrical.
As for your situation, I haven't really played around with security guards and caretakers in workzones so I dont really know. If I had to take a guess, if you assign caretakers to certain staff rooms that means that they are only assigned to those staff rooms and wont do any of their other tasks. This may also apply to the security guards. Once again, I dont know if this is correct. Also, I dont know how big your zoo is, so I cant really understand where you're coming from.
Lmk if you need any more clarification or have any questions.
Hope this advice helps!
First off, name them "Keepers - Animal, Animal & Animal" and "Vendors - Facility Name", etc. This seems to be the easiest way to name them so they stay organized in alphabetical order in your staff zone menu. For example, all of the keepers will be in a row and the vendors in another, just a simple way to stay organize. I must give Frontier credit for this as I think I saw it in a campaign zoo.
Secondly, I dont have workzones for every staff member in my zoo. I make workzones for keepers (usually 1 keeper per habitat animal and 1 keeper per 2 exhibit animals). Usually, I stick to around 3 habitats max in a keeper workzone. With vendors, I stick it to one "food court". For example, today I built my Caribou Cafe with 4 food/drink shops and assigned 6 keepers to it (3 vendors per every 2 shops). For research, I clump the mechanics and veterinarians together into one workzone. And finally for mechanics, I make a workzone named "Mechanics - Maintenance" and assign them to every habitat, vending machine, exhibit, toilet, and basically every facility in the zoo. Obviously, the bigger the zoo, the more mechanics you need in this workzone. As for educators, I usually do 4 or 6 animal talks and evenly place them throughout the "year". 2 educators for 4 talks and 3 educators for 6, and spread the talks out. For the security guards and caretakers, I dont assign them to workzones along with veterinarians that aren't for research.
As you can tell, I'm very organized and everything has to be even and symmetrical.
As for your situation, I haven't really played around with security guards and caretakers in workzones so I dont really know. If I had to take a guess, if you assign caretakers to certain staff rooms that means that they are only assigned to those staff rooms and wont do any of their other tasks. This may also apply to the security guards. Once again, I dont know if this is correct. Also, I dont know how big your zoo is, so I cant really understand where you're coming from.
Lmk if you need any more clarification or have any questions.
Hope this advice helps!
I haven't had (or at least, haven't noticed) the problem of caretakers or security sitting in the staff room, although I did have that for educators if they weren't assigned to multiple talks.
For caretakers, I've only assigned them to workzones in my largest franchise zoo. I assign staff rooms as well as everything else in an area -- habitats, staff buildings, shops, atms, etc. The atms are particularly useful for setting the outer bounds of a zone -- like if I want them to go part way up a path, I'll add an atm and assign that as part of their work.
I do find them wandering around outside of their work zones quite a bit, but I think this might be because they seem to jump onto the "transport animals" task without regard to their workzones. (And when they do this, they then find themselves too far away from their original staff room and get exhausted!)
I've experimented a bit with assigning my caretakers to two different sets of tasks-- one set for all of the cleaning (which can be work zone specific), and a separate set for that only does transport. So basically treating them as if they were two separate staff types. But I admit I haven't definitively figured out if that keeps the cleaners from wandering about or not.
I haven't experimented with security workzones much, unfortunately, so I can't be much help there.
For caretakers, I've only assigned them to workzones in my largest franchise zoo. I assign staff rooms as well as everything else in an area -- habitats, staff buildings, shops, atms, etc. The atms are particularly useful for setting the outer bounds of a zone -- like if I want them to go part way up a path, I'll add an atm and assign that as part of their work.
I do find them wandering around outside of their work zones quite a bit, but I think this might be because they seem to jump onto the "transport animals" task without regard to their workzones. (And when they do this, they then find themselves too far away from their original staff room and get exhausted!)
I've experimented a bit with assigning my caretakers to two different sets of tasks-- one set for all of the cleaning (which can be work zone specific), and a separate set for that only does transport. So basically treating them as if they were two separate staff types. But I admit I haven't definitively figured out if that keeps the cleaners from wandering about or not.
I haven't experimented with security workzones much, unfortunately, so I can't be much help there.
I agree. I only do zones for keepers, shop staff and educators.
I've been struggling with the best way to do work zones in my zoos. I try to set them up so the keeper huts, staff rooms, and the workshops are very close to the entrance gates of the habitats they serve, but this gets harder and harder as the zoo expands. I always seem to end up with "ugly" work zones, especially when trying to get the water and electric facilities to have proper coverage and not be too close to guest paths.
Things will go well at first, with each keeper and mechanic managing a zone with 2-4 habitats, but at some point everything goes to heck. Suddenly animals aren't being fed, everything starts to break, and I have to constantly call keepers to feed and clean the animals. Then certain species always start to get sick, some animals have welfare issues, and the protesters show up. It's frustrating, because according to the staff reports, some of the keepers in the areas where animals are being neglected still have light workloads.
I think one issue is the need to design a zoo that is somewhat spread out so the guests don't all converge in the same place. But even when I place food and bathroom facilities around the park in each zone, and even when I put in transport rides so guests don't have to walk all the way across the zoo, some habitat areas (and their donation bins) are ignored and others become too crowded. There's also an issue with certain places being ignored by the maintenance people and security, so there will be pockets of crime and vandalism and areas where bins will start to overflow.
I've tried assigning the security guards and groundskeepers to work areas vs just having them "float," but it doesn't seem to make much difference either way. They simply ignore some areas, which makes for unhappy guests (and presumably less money).
There's a point where my zoos grow to a certain size and I have to keep hiring more and more staff, but it doesn't help all that much, and suddenly I'm hemorrhaging money due to the unhappy guests and the high staff salaries.
I've tried looking at real world zoos for inspiration in layout, but many of them are quite a lot larger and more spread out even than anything I've built in the game.
Things will go well at first, with each keeper and mechanic managing a zone with 2-4 habitats, but at some point everything goes to heck. Suddenly animals aren't being fed, everything starts to break, and I have to constantly call keepers to feed and clean the animals. Then certain species always start to get sick, some animals have welfare issues, and the protesters show up. It's frustrating, because according to the staff reports, some of the keepers in the areas where animals are being neglected still have light workloads.
I think one issue is the need to design a zoo that is somewhat spread out so the guests don't all converge in the same place. But even when I place food and bathroom facilities around the park in each zone, and even when I put in transport rides so guests don't have to walk all the way across the zoo, some habitat areas (and their donation bins) are ignored and others become too crowded. There's also an issue with certain places being ignored by the maintenance people and security, so there will be pockets of crime and vandalism and areas where bins will start to overflow.
I've tried assigning the security guards and groundskeepers to work areas vs just having them "float," but it doesn't seem to make much difference either way. They simply ignore some areas, which makes for unhappy guests (and presumably less money).
There's a point where my zoos grow to a certain size and I have to keep hiring more and more staff, but it doesn't help all that much, and suddenly I'm hemorrhaging money due to the unhappy guests and the high staff salaries.
I've tried looking at real world zoos for inspiration in layout, but many of them are quite a lot larger and more spread out even than anything I've built in the game.