Planet Zoo News

Hayo Zookeepers!

Make sure to fill up your gas tanks and get those snacks ready, because we're going on a road trip! We'll be travelling from the tall forests of the American west coast, all the way to the swamps of Florida and beyond in our next Planet Zoo Pack!

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Introducing, the Planet Zoo: North America Animal Pack, available to download and buy alongside free Update 1.7 on 4 October, 2021!

Which animals will we meet on our journey? Let's find out! In this Animal Pack you'll meet 7 mesmerising habitat animals: the industrious American Beaver, the towering and majestic Moose, the sleek and smart California Sea Lion, the shy and solitary Cougar, the enormous American Alligator, the highly-sociable Black-tailed Prairie Dog and the elusive yet adorable Arctic Fox. Joining them is a personal favourite as our exhibit animal: the American Bullfrog! One of the largest frogs in North America, they are known for their bright green skin.



With so many new animals to look after and care for, you'll need some enrichment items to go with them! These include the Pronghorn Piñata, Skittle Feeder, Melon Feeder, Underwater Feeder, and the Beaver Pool which will help your industrious friends show off their skills to amaze and impress your guests.

We'll also be bringing you a new timed scenario with this Pack, set in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Put your skills to the test and make this small zoo into a success story!

Planet Zoo: North America Animal Pack will be available for purchase for £7.99 ($9.99, 9.99€) on Steam from 4 October. Want to be one of the first to know as soon as the Pack releases? Then head over to Steam and wishlist now! Don't forget that you'll need to own Planet Zoo to be able to enjoy the Planet Zoo: North America Animal Pack.

Which animal are you most looking forward to? From now until launch we'll be heading on a road trip together to meet them all, so make sure you stay tuned to our social channels!

Hayo Zookeepers!

It's time for another insight into what you can expect to see coming up in Planet Zoo! We're happy to announce that free Update 1.7 will be available to get your paws on from 4 October!

Our team has been hard at work trying to bring you some of your most requested features, as well as a few surprises! The first of these we revealed last week, with the announcement of our upcoming Custom Heightmaps, but it's now time to reveal what else you can expect. Update 1.7 will bring you varied terrain options, deep swimming for cats, animal talk seating areas, path barriers, a scenery placement randomisation toggle, and some quality of life improvements to the Zoopedia!

For more information on all of this, read on below:

Mapping Tools
Custom Heightmaps are making their way to Planet Zoo! These will allow you to really get creative with your map terrain via uploading image files. For more in-depth information on how this will work, check out our forum post from last week!

But wait, that's not all! We also have new Terrain Type options coming to give you even more variation in pre-made maps.



When you go through your standard set-up for starting a new zoo, you will now have a new option: Terrain Type. From here, you'll be able to select "Flat", which is your standard map area that you know and love, or "Sculpted", a range of new options, with one new sculpted option per biome type. We won't spoil all of these so you can discover them yourselves, but one special one is the "Desert - Oceania" map, a flat desert with a mountain in the middle similar to Uluru!

You will now also be able to use Scenario Zoo maps in Sandbox Mode! There are 9 timed scenarios and 14 regular scenarios, which means 23 new terrain maps and 30+ new terrain variants! Though, please note that scenario maps are not available in Franchise Mode. Scenario Zoos in Sandbox Mode will also have the new "Terrain Only" button which removes everything except the terrain, another variation for you to start out with! This is perfect for people who want to jump into a Scenario Zoo terrain, but still have the freedom to create their own zoo from scratch.

Swimming Changes

Following the Bears from the 1.6 Update, some of our big cats will be getting their paws wet with Deep Swimming. The cats taking the plunge will be:

• Jaguar
• Bengal Tiger
• Siberian Tiger

This will include the male, female, and juvenile of each species. Be sure to start adjusting your habitats, as we bet they can't wait to make a splash the second the update drops!

To go alongside this, we're also implementing some tweaks to the swimming depth requirements for individual species. This should allow diving turns for deep swimming animals to remain smooth, while also preventing clipping! Minimum depth requirements range from 2-4m.

Animal Talk Seating Areas

Rally up your guests because it's time for a show! Animal Talks are going to be bigger and better than ever with the addition of new Seating Areas, increasing the capacity per Educator and helping you better control the flow of guests around these areas.

Pick one of our new talk-specific seating options and link an Animal Talk Point to it, and guests will now be able to sit and really give their full attention! But don't fret, you will still be able to use the Animal Talk Points as standing attractions as well. What animal will you pick as your first to have its very own seated education area?



Path Barriers

On top of the new Seating Areas to help you control your Zoos guest flow, we're also adding Path Barriers! These will render areas of path inaccessible to guests and staff alike, allowing you to direct the traffic in your zoo more accurately. For areas where you want guests to have the option to pass, but to be less likely to do so, we're also adding in Kerbs. These will discourage guests from crossing, but they will still use it if the area is otherwise too crowded or there is no other route.

Scenery Placement Randomisation

Ever been placing lots of the same scenery item, and had to manually adjust it each time to keep things looking natural? Well, no longer! We're introducing a new Randomisation Placement Toggle which, when turned on, will randomly change the rotation of the item you are using in between each placement. This will allow you to create an organic appearance much faster than before!
We know this will be a game-changer for foliage and rock-heavy builds. What are you most excited to use this on?

Zoopedia Changes

Finally, we're adding a few quality of life improvements to help with your Zoopedia usage:

• The Animal Management screen has a new Zoopedia link button, connected to the listed animals
• Animal Management and Animal Market buttons have been added to the Zoopedia, taking you to the filtered animals
• Habitat space requirements have now been added to the Zoopedia UI
• Biome filters have also been added to the Zoopedia filter options

And lastly, we've also added the option to quick trade from the Animal Management screen! This will work similar to Release to Wild, and means that Quick Trading is now available beyond the Trade Centre.

We hope you're looking forward to all of these new changes! The update will come with various other tweaks and bug fixes, so as always, we will have a full list of patch notes for you on launch.
There's more news from us still to come very soon, so be sure to keep an eye out on our social media, but for now we'll be hanging out on Twitch to chat about update 1.7 and spend some time with you all. See you there at 17:00 BST!

Hayo Zookeepers!

Thank you to everyone who has been playing the Africa Pack and 1.6 Update, we're getting some really impressive builds coming in with the new content and love to see it! We'd like to extend an extra-special thank you to everyone who has submitted reports & helped bring issues to our attention. Today, we have another update for you that should address the bulk of these (such as mesh now being properly see-through!). As always, please keep sharing your feedback, reports, creations, and more!

Alongside the other fixes, we also have resolved one particular UI bug that is included below, but felt it was worth sharing the issue tracker link for it too so you're all aware as this one was having a big impact on your zoos: https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/40828



General Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Animals
  • Fixed a typo in the US-English Fun Fact #4 for the Arctic Wolf showing a wrong temperature value
•  Scenery 
  • Fixed a bug that required ownership of the Africa Pack in order to place the Western Chimpanzee Reward Statues
  • Updated mesh construction assets so they will now allow line of sight
• Game Modes
  • Sandbox
    • Sandbox Options
      
      • Fix an issue with "Increase Guest Stay" in Sandbox mode preventing donations
        
• UI
  • Fixed bug in the Animal Management UI that would cause the "Select All" toggle to select all animals in the zoo, even when the list is being filtered
• Audio
  • Fixed custom .flac audio files not looping
• Stability
  • Fixed a rare loading crash where the game saved an animal that thought a staff member that didn't exist was carrying it
  • Fixed a crash that could occur due to a name parsing issue on the world records screen in the zoopedia
  • Fixed a crash that could occur due to too many audio events near in animals in water
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when having or placing the frozen fruit enrichment
  • Fixed a crash when switching from one custom audio file to another
  • General Crash Fixes
• Performance
  • General performance tweaks and optimisations

Hayo Zookeepers!

It's been a pretty incredible few weeks, it's so great to see you all enjoying the Africa Pack as well as Update 1.6, not to mention seeing entries for the forum competition coming in!

We've been reading all your feedback and this update will address quite a few of the things you've brought up (shoutout to tag updates as well as some crash fixes!). As always, please keep sharing your feedback, creations, and generally carry on being amazing to chat with
Here are the patch notes for Update 1.6.2:

Planet Zoo - 1.6.2 Update Notes General Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Animals
  • Fixed an issue where animals were drifting during lethal fights
  • Fixed an issue where the female Sun Bear would not use the water pool
  • Fixed an issue with the Formosan Black Bear and Grizzly Bear where they were unable to navigate the habitat while climbing
    
  • Fixed an issue with jump height calculations, resolving occurrences where animals could escape over barriers above their height requirement 
  • Fixed an issue where animals would get stuck in place after pouncing on some food enrichment
  • Fixed the tip of the African Penguin beak intersecting with the upper beak
  • Staff will hold onto boxed animals longer when transporting if the destination looks like it's failing, to try and regrab the destination
  • Meerkat holes are now interacted with correctly when the habitat they are located in is changed
  • Fixed stray geometry on the Southern White Rhino tail during defecation
  • Fixed food enrichment items recording the number of uses in the last 12 months
•  Scenery 
  • Fixed tags on several items and blueprints:
    • Removed the Africa Pack tag from all variants of the African Oil Palm, Fever Tree, Drinn Grass and Nitraria Retusa Bush
    • Removed the King Penguin tag from the Curio Ball enrichment
    • Removed misleading flexicolour tag from North African Fence panels
    • Removed Wood material tag from Animal Trade Centre
    • Added missing flexicolour tags to:
      
      • Exhibit
      • ATM Sign
      • East Asia Decorative Parasol Paravents
      • East Asia Decorative Parasol Fan
      • East Asia Bridge Stone Walkable
      • Classic Windows
      • Classic Metal Chain
      • Classic Door Tops
      • Classic Door 01
      • African Windows
      • African Disc Bunting Rope
      • Arctic Picnic Canopy
      • Arctic Picnic Bench
      • Carbon Fiber Panels 4m x 2m
      • Carbon Fibre Curved Roofs
      • Aquatic Sculpture Otter Concrete 01, 02, 03 & Mirrored
      • Aquatic Faux Rock Tree Trunk
      • Aquatic Faux Rock Tree Branches
      • North African Door
      • North African Door Handle
      • North African Decorative Plaster Arch
    • Streamlined tagging setup for all blueprints of the following categories:
      • Shop Shells
      • Staff Facilities
      • Exhibits
  • Fixed the East Asia Wall Light 02 Lantern asset so it will now turn automatically and can also be manually turned on or off, also added flexicolour  
    
  • Fixed the following light assets as being displayed as "Not Powered" on pre-made buildings in El Darar Bazaar timed scenario. This will also address the glowing windows from appearing as needing power/generators: 
    
    • African Window 04
      
    • Indian Wall Light Bracket
      
• Game Modes
  • Sandbox
    • Sandbox Options
      
      • Added an 'Enable staff fleeing' option to sandbox to prevent staff fleeing from dangerous escaped animals too 
        
      • When toggling off 'Enable animal escapes' players will no longer get a notification for escapes, and animals will not enter the escaped state. Instead they will be boxed if they are without a habitat; or moved back to the gate if they are free to wander too far
        
      • Disabled notification alerts for overcrowding and fighting when those are toggled off, also stop guests commenting on animal temperature if that is toggled off
      • Re-enabled breakdowns option as it was missing from the sandbox settings
        
    • Added tooltip for final preset "Individual Zoo Settings" in sandbox settings
• UI
  • Misc
    • Fixed an issue where in some cases clearing the species search would leave the species search box disabled 
      
    • Fixed an issue where large numbers of "Joined a pack" notifications appeared when loading into a zoo 
    • Fixed a typo in the US-English zoopedia description for the Sacred Scarab Beetles. Users of the imperial measurement system no longer need to be afraid of 80 foot long Scarab Beetles 
    • Fixed an issue where switching tabs with a species search bar filled in would give inconsistent results switching back to the same tab
      
• Stability
  • Fixed startup crash for extremely large well paved zoos 
  • Fixed crash caused by animals trying to drink from a lake which had just been deleted 
  • Fixed crash caused by an enrichment object spawner being deleted while it was in the process of resetting itself
  • Fixed crash caused by animals trying to start moving towards an animal talk simultaneously
  • Fixed crash caused by rapidly placing and deleting enrichment objects
    
  • Fixed crash caused by keepers trying to clean up a Meerkat hole which had just despawned
    
  • Fixed an infrequent audio crash in the billboards
  • Fixed a load crash for Vista Points that were assigned to habitats that were deleted
  • General Crash Fixes
    
    
• Performance
  • General performance tweaks and optimisations

Hayo Zookeepers!

It's been incredible seeing you all get to know our latest arrivals, and especially seeing you all explore the new scenery too! Thank you as always for all your feedback and raising any issues you've found, this update will help alleviate some of those and we are working on others at the moment (like some of the tags on a certain few trees!). Please keep sharing your feedback, but also what you're creating!

For this update, read on below to see the patch notes:

Planet Zoo - 1.6.1 Update Notes General Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Animals
  • Fixed an issue with the tennis ball enrichment item falling through terrain when travelling at high speeds
  • Fixed an issue with the bamboo feeder trapping animals and appearing to hover in the air when interacted with
  • Fixed an issue where the slow feeder showed up in the Meerkat's toy research list in the zoopedia, despite the Meerkat not using it
  • Fixed an issue where animals would not pounce on enrichment items at the edge of their habitat
  • Fixed an issue where the female King Penguin's head twisted whilst deep swimming
  • Fixed the Juvenile Meerkat not playing animations when interacting with termite mound
  • Fixed consistency issues with animal rotation during pouncing
•  Scenery 
  • Added missing flexicolour tags to heater and cooler habitat assets
  • Added missing Africa Pack animal tags to the shelter blueprints
  • Fixed an issue where Aquatic Pack shelters were missing from the shelters building category
  • Fixed an issue where advanced duplicating a selection in scenery group edit mode would add together its translation or rotation, causing bad scenery placement
  • Fixed a usability issue when deleting the habitat target of a webcam
  • NOTE: We are aware of the foliage/tree tags from update 1.6 being tagged for the Africa Pack and will be addressing this soon! 
• Game Modes
  • Sandbox
    • Fixed the infinite guest cash toggle option in sandbox settings not working
• UI
  • Misc
    • Fixed issue where the value showing the capacity of the trade centre would get cut off in the Trade centre UI
    • Fixed a small number of UI issues and a crash occurring when a vista point's target or the vista point itself is deleted through undo
    • Fixed the guest info panel saying their target is "Removed Destination" when the guest is navigating to a Vista Point
    • Fixed the Facility UI so it will now display the correct training level of staff members inside them
• Stability
  • General Crash Fixes
• Performance
  • General performance tweaks and optimisations