Planet Zoo News

Hayo Zookeepers!

So far on our journey with Planet Zoo, we had the chance to explore grand regions across the globe. We've had some incredible adventures together visiting different continents and experiencing new landscapes, all while getting to meet a wide range of wildlife. We've been scouting out our next destination, looking for more glorious animals to meet and learn more about, and it's time we announce where we are off to next.

But before we get to that, we have something else to share with you! Thanks to your feedback, we've been exploring ways to bring even more animals to life in your zoos, and so we are delighted to share with you all our very first Animal Pack DLC. This pack differs from existing DLC, in that it focuses mainly on giving you many more creatures to care for, as well as a timed scenario for you to get to know them better in as well.

With that in mind; we are thrilled to announce the Planet Zoo: Southeast Asia Animal Pack, which will arrive alongside free Update 1.5 on 30 March, 2021!

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The Planet Zoo: Southeast Asia Animal Pack will introduce you to eight spectacular, community-favourites, including one exhibit and seven habitat animals that will make for stunning additions to your zoos. We can't wait for you to meet the magnificent Clouded Leopard; unique Sun Bear; mischievous Proboscis Monkey; fascinating Binturong; marvelous Malayan Tapir; adventurous Ussuri Dhole; wonderful North Sulawesi Babirusa; and the intriguing Giant Malaysian Leaf Insect!

As you have come to expect, each of these animals come with their own requirements for them to live a long, healthy and happy life, so you'll need to be prepared to take on these new challenges. The Zoopedia will have everything you need to know to ensure you look after them correctly. We cannot wait to see all the creative habitats you'll build for your new arrivals, all while suiting your desired aesthetic!



The Planet Zoo: Southeast Asia Animal Pack will also include a brand new timed scenario! Get ready to travel to Perak, Malaysia, to see if you've got what it takes to take charge of a struggling zoo set in a tropical rainforest. This scenario will put all the skills you've learned to the test, to take it from a difficult challenge to a roaring success.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1567110/Planet_Zoo_Southeast_Asia_Animal_Pack/

The Planet Zoo: Southeast Asia Animal Pack will be available to purchase for £7.99 ($9.99, €9.99) on Steam from 30 March. While you wait, you can wishlist it on Steam to be notified of when you can purchase and jump in. Please note you will need to have the Planet Zoo base game in order to download and play this additional content.

We're very excited to bring you this new type of DLC, and we can't wait to see how you welcome these incredible creatures into your zoos. Keep an eye on our forums and social channels for all upcoming news and announcements! As always, we'd like to say a big thank you to all our PlanZo Fam for your wonderful support!

Hayo Zookeepers!

It's time for us to share some news about what you can expect to arrive in Planet Zoo soon. We're excited to reveal free Update 1.5, arriving 30 March 2021!

This free update contains multiple highly requested additions, as well as some quality of life changes. Thank you for sharing all of your feedback and suggestions with us, it has helped us sculpt this update and we're proud to reveal what we've got coming to Planet Zoo! This post will explain what you can expect and how it will affect your gameplay.

[h3]Multiple Zoo Entrances[/h3]
We've heard your requests - you will be able to place multiple zoo entrances in every gameplay mode. They will be expensive, but you'll be able to set up the perfect spawn points and entrances, further increasing the efficiency of your zoo! This will also add close options on your spawn points, so you can disable any that are outside the park boundaries, if you would like to. This means that you'll have complete freedom with the spawn locations, something we know many of you are after. These changes bring a new warning notification that will pop up if your newly placed guest spawn points are too far away from a ticket booth, which would lead to guest inefficiency.



[h3]Water Visual Setting UI[/h3]
Water volumes are now set up as fully interactable and selectable objects, meaning that you will be able to click on them to bring up their information panel (although, this will only happen if your cursor can detect the body of water - if you have the water completely covered in scenery, for example, you will also be able to find the water in the 'Select Lake' option in the Terrain Tools section).

Via the water's UI, you will find some trivia statistics about the lake, connection details for what cleaning and temperature facilities are affecting the lake, and, most interesting, customisation options. These options will allow you to change the colour of the lake via flexicolour and change the 'fogging' distance, which will allow you to make the lake more or less clear in visibility. We know this was something many of you were reporting feedback on, so we're happy to bring you these creativity options! These changes will be available for all the water around your zoos, meaning that you'll have these options whether it's within a habitat blueprint or it's a moat around your zoo. You'll be able to cater the water to your requirements!



Please keep in mind that changing the water visuals will override the visual cleanliness. This means that the water will look the way you have designed it to, but it does not affect its actual cleanliness rating in the game. You will still need to follow the correct steps when setting up your water to ensure you animals can enjoy it safely.

[h3]Billboards[/h3]
Custom Billboards will be making their Planet Franchise return in Update 1,5! With the introduction of Custom Billboards, you will be able to create your own bespoke signs around your zoos, meaning you'll be able to customise the signs to whatever you'd like to showcase in your zoos. Like in Planet Coaster, Planet Zoo's Custom Billboards will include new assets, such as screens, that will allow you to change the image on it to one of your own. The formats of the images Billboards will use are currently jpg, png, tiff, tga, and bmp.

You will also be able to override Habitat, Exhibit and Conservation Education Boards. However, you will still need to set up your boards to be pointing to the animal or topic in the UI menu, as this is what the guests need to understand what your custom image is trying to show them. We know that some of you enjoy creating custom videos alongside your custom images, and we're proud to announce that the Education Boards, Conservation Boards and Billboards will also be capable of displaying video. These work in the same way to images, but your videos will need to be in the webm format. You will be able to have audio in these videos.

Like in Planet Coaster, we will also be bringing Custom Audio to the speakers! The audio will need to be in flac or ogg format. When adding in your custom audio, you will need to set the Education Speakers up via the UI to state what species or topics your custom audio is representing, so your guests will understand. Customisation on the Education Speakers will also allow you to add in new music to the Educator Talk Points, which will play while the Educator is not giving a talk. As we're currently working on Custom Audio, we will be sharing an update for when you can expect to see them at a later date.

[h3]Free Timed Scenario[/h3]
Update 1.5 will have a new Scenario for you to tackle! Go back to the beginning, to before Bernie created his first ever zoo, at Goodwin House. Take over the renovation of Scholey Manor, the grounds of Bernie's first zoo, and build it into a thriving attraction. See if you can beat Bernie's record for a successful Lion breeding program in this new free Timed Scenario. We can't wait to see you tackle this challenge!

[h3]Timed Scenarios[/h3]
The Front End Globe UI that you see on the main menu screen has been updated to better present the Timed Scenarios to you, rather than it being hidden behind the Career button. This update is linked to the Scenario Rewards below.



[h3]Scenario Rewards[/h3]
We're adding the statues you see on the Globe of the Career and Timed Scenarios as scenery pieces that you will receive as a reward for completing them! Completing a medal on a Scenario level will earn you that medal's colour version of the statue (bronze, silver or gold) and unlocking a new level will unlock the stone version of that statue too. This means that there'll be a range of new scenery statues you can earn by completing a Scenario level, that you'll be able to place all over your zoos!

For those of you who have already complete the scenarios (which we read via your profile data), you will be presented with a fanfare on the Globe screen telling you that you've unlocked some or all of these statues already. Otherwise, when you complete a level, a fanfare will show you the new item you have unlocked. The locking mechanics behind these rewards works the same as if you haven't already researched an item - they appear with a lock on them in the scenery browsers, and any blueprints that use an item you haven't unlocked will have a lock on them.



[h3]Changes to UI (Franchise Web Browsers)[/h3]
We're switching the Franchise Animal Trading UI from using the webpage to using the same UI as our offline modes. The intention behind this is to both unify the feeling and features of the game modes, and also hopefully address usability issues some community members were having with the Market.



[h3]Save Franchise Zoos as Sandbox[/h3]
On the Front End My Zoos page, you can now use the 'Open as Sandbox' or 'Open as Challenge' option on your Franchise Zoos to save them as fresh Sandbox or Challenge Mode Zoos. This will also allow you to upload these separate saves to the Steam Workshop to share; we cannot wait to see your beautiful Franchise Zoos start popping up on the Steam Workshop.

[h3]Staff Traversable Area Map[/h3]
We've added a new habitat Heat Map Mode that shows the traversable area of Staff members within a habitat. You will be able to see where Staff members can reach, just like the animal traversable area Heat Map, and objects that the Keeper needs to reach such as feeding trays and drinking stations will also be highlighted.

[h3]Multi-Select[/h3]
We will be adding multi-select back into Planet Zoo! Designed to make it easier for you to manage your animals, multi-select will be in the form of a tick box that will be added to the Animal Storage tab across the different Planet Zoo modes.

[h3]Deep Swimming added to Gharials[/h3]
In Update 1.5, we will be adding deep water swimming to the Gharials. In future updates, we're looking at adding deep swimming to other animals in the roster. When we have more to share on these, we will let you all know.

This update will also arrive alongside some gameplay tweaks and bug fixes, which we've been working on with your suggestions and feedback in mind. Update 1.5 will go live 30 March, and you will be able to read the full list of Update Notes then.

To all the PlanZo Fam, we'd like to thank you for your continued support. We're looking forward to having a great 2021 with you all, and can't wait to share what else we've been working on soon. Keep an eye out for any announcements!

Hayo Zookeepers!

It's been awesome seeing all of your wonderful creations over the holiday period! Now we're back in the office, we're hard at work on some of the issues you've been sharing on the Frontier Issue Tracker and social media. Thanks for sharing them with us; we're now ready to release Update 1.4.3! Please take a look at the Update Notes below:

Planet Zoo - 1.4.3 Update Notes This update contains many more bug fixes, updates and some new content.
Bug Fixes Animals

• Addressed a number of issues with animals getting stuck while deep swimming.
• Addressed a number of issues causing swimming animals to escape the habitat.
• Tweaked animal deep swim navigation splines to have more variation.
• Fixed an issue where frame performance slowly decreases during run time as an animal keeps taking an infinite navigation path.
• Updated the following five animals' biome preferences on their education boards.
  
  • Desert was added to:
    • African Wild Dog
    • Cheetah
    • Common Ostrich
  • Taiga was added to:
    • Giant Panda
    • Formosan Black Bear
• Updated the Capuchin Monkey education board image to reflect the IUCN change on the conservation status from Least Concern to Vulnerable.
• Fixed multiple aquatic plant items not being available in the nature menu when the Aquatic Theme filter is applied:
  
  • Giant Rhubarb Plant
  • Lipstick Palm Tree
  • Ponytail Palm Tree
  • Titan Arum
  • Underwater Hydrilla Plant
  • Water Hyacinth Large/Medium/Small
• Fixed the Giant Otter not being tagged on the Mud Bath Enrichment, despite being suitable via the Zoopedia.
• Fixed an issue where the Frozen Blood Pumpkins and Fruit In Ice don't render when placed while the game is paused.
• Adjusted animal AI on using jetty bedding options.
• Animals no longer count as obstructions to lake placement, they will just be boxed on water being placed on top, hence improving the placement of water.
• Tweaked deep swimming animals scenery collision avoidance, will require existing lakes to be updated to cause the update to happen.
• Fixed issues with animal box buoyancy.
• Tweak path vs water hit checks to allow closer placement of path to waters edge (including water against glass barrier).
  
• Fixed the Giant Otter female's eyes turning completely white on certain animations.
• Fixed an issue where animals can float up walking to the side of a water filled glass barrier.
• Increased resolution on underwater feeder particles.
• Fixed issue causing animals to get stuck in place at the edge of water/land boundaries.
• Removed the word 'bear' from the Koala description in the Zoopedia.

Staff

• Animal Talks will now end if an escaped animal comes nearby.
• Guests now break out of viewing Animal Talks if the zoo closes.

Scenery

• Added height tags to Aquatic Waterfall Cliff assets.
• Fixed small gap between Climbable Branch 4m Irregular Shape and the surfaces its being placed on.
• Fixed the Spatial Data on the Painted Slate Roof Corner 2m Eave as it was not covering the whole asset. 
• Aquatic Assets - Fixed painted Slate Roof Corner 1m Eave missing the Painted Wood colour flexicolour option. 
• Fixed the Aquatic Habitat Large Blueprint requiring the Australia DLC.
• Fixed an issue where a scenery piece had a corrupted transform in a save, causing heavy performance issues when the game is un-paused.

Facilities

• Linked up the Water Temperature Regulator dial on the asset with the generated temperature.
• Fixed Caretaker and Educator sharing the same icon on staff room info panel while inside a staff building.
• Fixed staff room UI to correctly differentiate running costs and power costs.

UI

• Fixed Habitat Barrier widgets from overlapping in the vertical axis.
• Fixed access to group flexi colour UI after opening edit group UI.
• Fixed an issue where the Guest Happiness Rating doesn't dynamically update on the Guest tab in the Zoo Overview menu.
• Fixed issue an issue of giving frequent alerts that educators are spending a lot of time walking.
• Fixed an issue where the staff info panel would not open after using the workzone manager.
• Fixed an issue where locked buildings would be removed from workzones upon accessing the workzone editor.
• Fixed an issue with transport ride management price stepper not increasing at the same rate as the info panel.
• Fixed re-doing a deletion of a transport ride while ride info panel is open from causing an error.
• Renaming an animal in the management page now instantly updates the animal's info panel.

Localisation

• Various localisation fixes.

Stability

• Further crash and stability fixes.
• Performance tweaks and optimisations.

After further investigation, we will not be re-enabling multi-select in Franchise Mode with this update. This is due to a compounded issue with clicks not registering which we want to address. For those experiencing this issue, a temporary workaround of clicking the very bottom edge of a button can sometimes work. For further updates please continue to check here on the forums and on our social channels!

Please continue to share your issues on our Issue Tracker! We will continue to fix any of those troublesome bugs that aren't held in an exhibit. As a reminder, please also keep sharing your feedback on our official forums.

Hayo Zookeepers!

Thanks for sharing all your awesome feedback following the Aquatic Pack! It's been wonderful for us to see you get acquainted with the new animals, and we've loved seeing you create habitats for them. We'd also like to thank you for sharing any issues you've come across; we're now ready to release Update 1.4.2! Please take a look at the Update Notes below:



This update contains many more bug fixes, updates and some new content.

Bug Fixes

• Animals
  • Fixed an issue where animals would sometimes move a small amount in the opposite direction of their intended destination after surfacing from underwater swimming.
  • Fixed underwater particle trails exiting out of the water.
  • Increased the minimum height of the King Penguins slightly to amend scaling issues in social interaction animations.
  • Fixed Market Animals sometimes linking to the incorrect Zoopedia entry. 
  • Fixed animals escaping a habitat via the platform floats.
    
• Staff
  • Fixed an issue when the user deletes a staff room while there is an educator resting in it and they are also deleted from the park with it. This also fixes a rarer case where the same thing would happen to staff members that are only in the staff building to hide from a dangerous escaped animal.
  • Educators can now head to Animal Talk Points up to three months in advance, up from the previous one month preparation time, and will autonomously determine how much time they need to reach the Animal Talk Point.
• Scenery
  • Moved the new waterfall assets to the 'Construction > Special Effects > Water' building menu.
  • Fixed an issue where duplicating a plant could make it unable to place on water. 
  • Fixed a localisation error causing Arctic Buildings being incorrectly ordered in the Blueprints menu.
  • Added missing theme tags for Arctic Shelter Blueprints.
  • Platform float now aligns correctly to the water's surface when "Align To Surface" placement option is on.
  • Fixed names for several Double Pitch Corner roof assets where the name contained incorrect height information.
  • Fixed the researching of thick glass barrier on Challenge and Franchise mode so that it now works if all other levels of Barrier Research were completed before its addition.
• Timed Scenarios
  • Fixed players being unable to save the "Red Barn River Zoo" Timed Scenario due to it including a scenery asset from the Australia DLC. The piece has been removed from the starting save.
• Facilities
  • Water temperature regulator
    • Fixed an issue where increasing the range of a Water Temperature Modifier would not update to affect newly attached lakes.
    • Fixed an issue where notifications appeared for unsuitable temperatures when Animal Welfare was disabled.
  
  
  
• Guests
  
  • Balanced visibility so that Guests will use underwater viewing areas more when animals are deep swimming.
  • Reduced destination rating pull for Animal Talks to prevent Guests from walking from all over the zoo.
    
  
  
  
• UI
  • Fixes to transport ride management "Number of Trains" and "Cars per Train" steppers.
  • Ticket Price stepper in Transport Ride Management screen now increases in increments of $0.10.
  • Guests reached stat for Animal Talks Management UI is now displaying correctly and kept between saving and loading.
  • Resolution and border improvements to the shop branding banner images.
  • Fixed the locate pin on some Timeline events breaking the Animal UI temporarily.

Localisation

• Various localisation fixes.

Stability

• Fix for a crash that could happen after moving an already placed plant over water and then selecting a different plant.
• Further crash and stability fixes.

Known Issue

•  Franchise mode - Multi-select will be disabled as we look to investigate and carryout improvements to usability and functionality.

Please continue to share your bugs on our Issue Tracker! We will return in the new year to read your feedback, and suggestions, to continue improving Planet Zoo!

Known Issues: Multi-select for Franchise Mode Animal Storage - we are aware people have been experiencing issues with it. We have removed it for now, but we're aiming to release Update 1.4.3 early next year and we're looking to include a solution for the Multi-select in that update.