Aug 18, 2020

Planet Zoo - Free Update 1.3, coming on 25 August, 2020

Planet Zoo - Frontier Developments

Hayo Zookeepers!

We're pleased to reveal free Update 1.3, coming to Planet Zoo 25 August, 2020.

This free update contains community requested features and some exciting new additions to Planet Zoo! This post will go in-depth about the upcoming additions, and how it will affect your gameplay.

Animal Colour Variation

We're excited to introduce a differences in animal colour, which will make it easier to identify individuals around your zoos. We've done so by sticking to known and realistic colours, and by improving upon the general appearance of groups and herds with subtler differences in colour.

We've added a way for you to see colour and pattern information from the Animal Market trading window, to make it easier for you to carry out your breeding and population goals, and to provide our colourblind players with information. This includes the scientific terms for the Colourmorphs we use in-game, such as if an albino is classed as Albino, Leucistic, or simply another colour.

The availability of inheritable Colourmorph genes in the animal market population is now variable per species, in particular:

6% (approx.) of the Jaguar population are now Black Jaguars
Bird and Reptile Albinism or Leucism are now more likely than before; in-line with natural results
Llama colourmorphs are extremely common, and follow the same breeding rules as albinos, with an additional set of colour variations

In addition to the Colourmorph genetics, your existing zoo animals carry existing genetic information for both colour and pattern. This information applies colour variation on top of the animals existing textures, and allows for subtle and gradual changes in colour between different animals.

When animals breed, their offspring create colour and pattern values in a range around the average of their parents, most often looking similar to at least one of their parents. However, there is now a small chance that colour or pattern will pick a value far away from the parent colour, perhaps looking more like a distant relative.

The team researched animal colour and pattern variation, and found that documentation was rare and highly variable in quality depending on the species. We've done our absolute best to stick to research photo reference, and do them justice. With this in mind, we've tried to avoid colouration that only applies to single, individual animals, as the contrast of colour would begin to look strange in groups.

We have not added colour variation to exhibit animals, partly because their environments are so dense it is harder to distinguish minor variation at a distance. The highly saturated and often very distinct colours and patterns would be more suited to additional Colourmorphs.

Animal Food Management Page

The team are adding an Animal Food Management page, to provide you with one location to see all of the animals and habitats in your zoo and what Food Grades the animals are being given. In this menu, you'll be able to see:

The projected food costs for the year
How many keepers are assigned to look after your animals in a habitat
How much time has passed since your animals were last fed
Whether your animals are hungry or not
The total cost per year for feeding all of your animals.
The total number of keepers in the zoo
The total number of keepers assigned to habitats
The total number of keepers not assigned to habitats

You'll be able to change the Food Grades for your animals in this menu. This menu has been designed with community feedback in mind, to make it easier for you to access and stay on top of Food Management around your zoo for multiple habitats.

New Sandbox Map

A brand new landscape set in a location to be revealed soon! With new terrain textures, surroundings and sky.

Timed Scenarios

With this update, we are adding a free Timed Scenario in Estonia! Make sure you check it out!

Timed Scenarios task you with completing objectives against the clock, awarding Bronze, Silver and Gold medals based on how long it takes for you to complete a scenario. We'll be providing you with a list of objectives, but unlike Career Scenarios, these objectives must be maintained once they're achieved, or they will become incomplete again.

Vending Machines

Vending Machines have been heavily requested, so we're introducing them into Planet Zoo! These work as a cheaper alternative for your guests to help satisfy their needs, but it's important to note that the food and drink from the Vending Machines don't satisfy as much as an item from a shop. They require power to work, so make sure you place them around power sources.

Our veteran Planet players should know that the placement of vending machines differs to Planet Coaster; in Planet Zoo they are placed like a path extra, such as a bench or a bin, and not like a shop with a path connection.

Staff Management Multi-select

Thanks to community feedback, we're adding in multi-select to the Staff Management UI, meaning that you can select more than one member of Staff at the same time. With this, you will now be able to:

Train multiple Staff at once
Give multiple Staff pay rises (in increments of $10)
Assign multiple Staff to work zones
Fire multiple members of Staff at once.

Quality of Life

We've been reading your community suggestions and, thanks to your feedback, we have created a variety of new features:

Dismiss Functionality for Zoo Alerts

You'll now be able to dismiss zoo alerts using the new trash can icon.

Scenery Light Toggle

You'll now have the ability to turn on or off scenery lights all the time, instead of them just coming on automatically at night. Lights will not work without power unless they're solar powered.

More Creativity!

We're thrilled to bring you additional creativity with new scenery assets! The foliage includes plants and smaller sapling trees to complement their larger cousins, while we're adding in three new paths, and the free rocks have been made to complement our new Biome.

Update 1.3 will be paired with bug fixes and gameplay tweaks that are designed to improve your Planet Zoo experience - you'll get the full list of Update Notes when 1.3 goes live on 25 August!

Thanks to you all for providing us with feedback, suggestions and support. You've been absolutely fantastic.

May 12, 2020

Planet Zoo - Update 1.2.4

Planet Zoo - Frontier Developments

Hayo Zookeepers!

Update 1.2.4 is now available to download! Thanks to all the community who made Issue Tracker reports and sent in their save files; this update contains a range of fixes for bugs that were reported to us directly. Please continue to use the Issue Tracker for any bugs you come across, and make sure you read the Issue Tracker FAQ to understand how you can benefit from it best. Without further ado, here's the Update Notes for Update 1.2.4:

Planet Zoo - 1.2.4 Update Notes

Animals

Loading older saves with invalidated habitat navigation is now handled in the loading screen instead of compiling it in-game; a loading screen tip has been added to notify you when this is happening. It alerts you to save afterwards so the rebuild doesn't need to take place again. Animals get boxed and reopened at the habitat gate if navigation is regenerated.
Updated fight notifications:
- Animals that are likely to injure each other are now back in the animal alerts, and marked as 'Dangerous Fights'. The distinction is intended to be more forgiving to non-perfect social setups, such as deliberate Reindeer rutting.
- Fixed a bug that caused each fight to be reported twice in the timeline.
- To make the timeline easier to browse, older matching fight notifications are automatically removed; only the most recent and relevant one remains.
Albino genetics are now inherited in sandbox (or any non-franchise mode).
Drinking station access improved for animals.
Guests can now walk through Llama habitats.
Food quality options are now always correct for species in mixed habitats with different levels of research.
Komodo Dragons can now physically interact with Large Ball or Large Snow Ball again.
Giant Anteaters now physically interact with the Rubbing Pad enrichment item.
Fixed an animal data issue that could cause significant consequences:
- Fixed an issue where a small number of animals were sized either extremely large or small in Franchise mode.
- Fixed an issue where juveniles could be born with injuries in Franchise mode.
Fixed an issue that lead to the Saltwater Crocodile defecating incorrectly.
Giant Anteater will now attack the habitat barriers.
Improved Giant Anteater juvenile's neck movement when eating.
Improved Jaguar juvenile interacting animations with the Scratching Post.
Improved Jaguar juvenile interaction with the Rubbing Pad.
Fixed Giant Anteaters clipping when male and female fight.
Fixed juvenile Giant Anteater tongue flailing when returning to mouth after eating.
Fixed Jaguar male and female floating when sitting on top of the Rubbing Pad.
Fixed female Jaguar being offset when using the Rubbing Pad enrichment item.
Fixed juvenile Tiger and Bear animation issues which caused the animal to deform.
Fixed the Jaguar adult deforming when interacting with a Jaguar juvenile.
Fixed Bengal Tiger juvenile deforming when interacting with Cardboard Box or Gift Box enrichment items.

Scenery

Art improvements made to ivy assets.
Improved LODs on Black Spruce Tree 03.
Fixed waterfall particle effect emitting in the wrong direction.
Fixed an issue where the Palm Thatch Roof Dormer Small would hover off the ground/structure when placed.
Fixed a number of art quality issues on the Palm Thatch Roof Set.

Staff

Fixed an issued where Staff sometimes become stuck when boxing animals and when entering Trade Centre.

Transport Rides

Fixed an issue where single station transport rides would have guests stuck on them.
Fixed Gondola removing snow and rain from below each carriage.

Heaters, coolers and exhibit temperature modifier can now be displayed in Fahrenheit.
Plants with a correctly matching biome will no longer incorrectly show as incompatible on animal info pop-up.
Plants with incompatible biomes can now be removed all at once from the animal info pop-up, in line with incompatible continents.

General

Stability and Crash fixes.
Improvements to the crash reporter.

Apr 7, 2020

Planet Zoo - Update 1.2 and Planet Zoo: South America Pack now LIVE!

Planet Zoo - Frontier Developments

Hayo Zookeepers!

Join us as we go on an exciting tropical adventure that will have you and your guests filled with wonder! We're thrilled to announce that Planet Zoo: South America Pack and Update 1.2 have now launched, and are available to play!

Update 1.2 is available free to all players and will be adding a variety of ways to help you enjoy your Planet Zoo experience even more! This update includes new Difficulty Settings, so that you can cater the way you play. You'll also be able to see the genealogy of your animals so you trace their parents, offspring, siblings and mates, making it easier to see how your animals are related! Furthermore, the team have made changes to Guest Happiness and Keeper behaviour, by introducing a variety of changes that will make it easier for you to satisfy your guests and your animals' needs. Also: GLASS PANELS! Read more about these new additions (and more!) here.

Planet Zoo: South America Pack contains five new animals: Red-eyed Tree Frog, Giant Anteater, Capuchin Monkey, Llama and Jaguar! These beautiful additions to the roster will have guests racing to your zoo to catch a glimpse of them. But that's not all, this pack will also add over 250 new building and scenery pieces to your inventory, so you'll be able to build the jungle trek of your dreams, allowing your guests to visit places thought lost to nature centuries ago, or use the bamboo and thatched pieces to create a structure you'd see in many hot, arid locations around the world.

Planet Zoo: South America Pack is available to purchase for £7.99 ($9.99, €9.99) on Steam and the Frontier Store; please note that you will need to have Planet Zoo to play additional content.

UPDATE NOTES

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

Animals

Animal social behaviour now occurs more frequently on all animals.
Increased social interaction frequency for; Formosan Black Bear, Grizzly Bear, Himalayan Brown Bear and Giant Panda; Okapi and Plains Zebra; African Buffalo, American Bison and Common Warthog; Cheetah, Snow Leopard and West African Lion; Bonobos, Western Chimpanzees, Western Lowland Gorillas and Bornean Orangutans.
Juvenile animals now require less food than adults. This is proportional to the difference in size (between 10% and 50%), depending on species.
Fixed some animal weights that were incorrectly localised for US English (e.g. Reindeer).
Made the Pronghorn Antelope more comfortable in snow and lower temperatures, as it covers their natural environment in winter.
Added large ball and large snowball enrichment items to the Western Lowland Gorilla, Bornean Orangutan and Spotted Hyena research.
Fixed confusing social requirements. Cheetahs and Western Lowland Gorillas match the overall population numbers with the numbers of each sex in mixed sex and single sex groups.
Fixed missing enrichment tags for Grizzly Bear, West African Lion, Bongo, Timber Wolf.
Navigable area in animal terrain tab renamed to Space to be consistent with animal welfare.
Adjusted Biome information for exhibit animals to match information boards.
Made Plains Zebra and Thomson's Gazelle compatible Species so they gain social enrichment.
Added a sunbathe behaviour to Ring-tailed Lemurs, which only occurs when the weather is sunny.
Animals will be prevented from dying of starvation if the keeper has placed food into the habitat before they die.
Animals will now eat any food from their habitat that shares the same base food, as if it was level 1 quality food.
Follow Parent and Follow Leader animal behaviours are now more effective whilst climbing.
Only notify the player of hungry/starving animals if the keeper has not placed down food.
Cheetah and both Wolf species now run faster during predation.
Fixed an issue where calculating a purchased adult animals' initial size was very over-generous (but worked fine for player-bred animals).
Animals now use different drinking offsets for water stations compared to lakes.
Male/Female/Juveniles now specify different dung quantities/recurrence, instead of just size.
Animals will no longer footplant on top of poo.
Zoopedia updates:
- Improved continents in Reindeer's Habitat in Zoopedia.
- Fixes to Polar Bear, Reindeer and Dall Sheep Zoopedia text.
- Improved consistency and quality of Barrier Requirement text in Zoopedia for all species.
- Add information about the size of water boundaries for animals that can’t swim, e.g. Bonobos.
- Zoopedia group sizes state that they exclude juveniles to improve clarity.
Fixed a number of issues that caused animals to be randomly boxed.
Fixed a number of issues that caused animals to fall into the floor or sky.
Alpha status is now shown on the Animal List.
Removed Polar Bears from the climbable enrichment tags as they do not climb.
Habitat maps on reindeer education board and Zoopedia have been corrected.
Animals now turn to bones once fully eaten.
Added icon in the timeline window for animals joining a pack.
Animals should only get bored of true 'toys' and not items that are essential to their habitat.
Polar Bear now jumps.
Fixed typo causing Bird Flu to be exceptionally aggressive in Pygmy Hippos and Thomson's Gazelles, bringing into line with other animals.
Fixed Education Boards displaying biome information that is different to the biomes listed in the Zoopedia for animals.
Fixed issue that caused animal to become deformed if entering into a fight while transitioning into an adult.

New Content

New Glass Pieces
- Expanded on the New World Glass Panels set with larger shapes.
- Glass Panes for custom windows and frames.
- Improved the naming of the glass/plastic panels for consistency and usability.
5 New Enrichment's
- Tyre
- Large Tyre
- Bobbin Drum
- Colourful Small Ball
- Natural Termite Mound
New Leaves Bedding type in 4 sizes.
New Nature Pieces.
- Mossy Rock Set - moss all over
- Dynamic Mossy Rock Set - moss always orientates to the surface!
- Strangler Fig Trees and Roots
- Ombu Trees
- Cordyline Plants
New Difficulty Settings added for all game modes.
Easy, Medium (the current game difficulty) and Hard. These will affect:
- Whether animals get bored of enrichment items (Hard Difficulty only).
- How quickly animals get stressed.
- How quickly animals lose welfare from hunger, and how fast they starve to death. The frequency of feeding required for 100% welfare will remain the same for all difficulty modes.
- Whether guests will request refunds (Hard Difficulty only).
- How willing guests are to spend money.
- How much guests learn from education sources.
- The average Guest Happiness required for 5* Guest Happiness Rating.
- How fast your staff get tired.
- How large of a happiness boost staff get from training.
- When starting a new zoo you'll be able to choose the difficulty setting before starting.
- When a zoo is loaded the difficulty can be changed in the settings menu.
Jaguar Hat & Shirt

Management

Reduced negative influence around buildings by using scenery to hide them.
Negative radius can be reduced up to a maximum of 50%, by getting Scenery Rating up to 100%.
Animal Trading list remembers filters when returning to it.
Added notifications for when ATMs are not powered.

Staff

Fixed an issue where mechanics would queue for a workshop when others are free.
Keeper improvements:
- Keepers can now run inside habitats while placing food and filling water, if the job is critical.
- Keepers can now run with buckets of food, if the job is critical.
- Keepers will run to and from Keeper Huts, if the job is critical.
- Keepers now fill feeders stations in a more sensible order, using the closest one after each fill, instead of order by distance from the gate.
- Added new staff thoughts for Keepers about their habitat jobs to make their behaviour more understandable.
- Added staff inspection animations to make keeper reactions to their jobs more intuitive.
- Fixed an issue that caused keepers preparing food for multi-species habitat to take a very long time.
- Fixed Keeper clipping into Hanging Barrel Feeder on refills.
Staff status now describes their active job if they have one, as it is more intuitive.
Improved Staff performance at low frame rates.
Vets no longer walk through the examination table and other equipment after treating animal.
Fixed vendors leaving the shop right after it's been placed and sometimes not returning.
Vet no longer runs on the spot when taking animal for treatment in Vet surgery.
Inspectors & Reporters no longer use a walking animation at a running speed when fleeing dangerous animals.

Guests

Issue Tracker - Fixed missing mobile phones on guest animations.
Guest Happiness Improvements:
Added new guest history tab to Guest Information panel. This shows a guests opinion on their long term stay in the zoo:
- ticket price
- their feelings about the animals
- environment (litter, vandalism, staff facilities, scenery, etc.)
- their feeling of security (pickpocketing)
Updates to the Guest Management screen:
- Clicking on a Guest Happiness stat will now open the relevant heat map.
Added date stamps to guest thoughts.
Added guest arrived and projected leaving dates to Guest Information tab in the Guest Information panel.
Guess Happiness is capped when they have low needs.
Guests can now be renamed.
Create new guest thoughts for too much plant coverage.
Education Improvements:
Separated Guest Education from affecting Guest Happiness, instead it now provides additional desire to spend.
Added Zoo Management Education screen:
A breakdown of the Guest Education Rating, which includes the average guest education level.
Which animal your guests have learnt the most about.
More information on Audio Guides, such as
- How many were sold over the last year.
- Average time of the visit spent using them.
- Average number of species they've been educated about.
This tab will also show more information about Zoopedia Education Research and Vets that are doing Advanced Research.
In a separate tab, there will also be a breakdown of each animal and how well the education is performing. This will help highlight any issues with the layout of zoos and how it affects education.
This will include another tab for conservation boards.
Female voice added to the education speakers.
Education Boards/Speakers - UI now says if they're broken down/damaged.
Education Heat Map - guests will turn red when in overlapping speaker areas of different types.
Child guests are no longer misaligned when using Indian Picnic Bench 02.
Guests on rides happy/point reactions will now point the correct direction.
Guests no longer face the wrong direction on Classical Picnic Bench.
Guests may now also decide to donate after viewing animals from rides or benches.
Issue Tracker - Protesters no longer appear when animal welfare is disabled in Sandbox Mode.

Zoo Construction

Paths Updates:
- Staff buildings now inherit their path type from the type of path they are connecting to, e.g. staff path to staff path and vice versa. Guest facilities always still connect with normal path.
- Double clicking a path piece will now open path editor with that path type and texture selected to continue building with.
- You can click over normal path to replace with staff path just like changing a path texture now, and vice versa.
- Staff path will now be placed at the foot of a Habitat gate by default.
- Added the ability to set step height in half metre increments, making it easier to shape your paths around terrain.
Snow now settles on top of Bromeliad plants.
Fixed an issue with Zoo Entrances where some pieces of path were not able to be deleted when the entrance was deleted.

New Animal Genealogy UI - Now you can navigate through the genealogy, check the genes and filter progeny by mates.
Issue Tracker - Player Settings for Units (Meters VS Feet etc.) You can now specify preferred units of measurement in the Settings Menu → Interface Tab → Units. These values default to the English standard units. Zoopedia Habitat Requirements will update but Zoopedia descriptions will remain unchanged.
Added additional biome types to China on the front end globe. Please note that this is the only change we will be making to the globe.
Added ability to rename zoos that are part of your Franchise from the front end franchise menu.
Added a locate button to the Inspector objective window.
Added a search box to the Zoopedia.
Added audio support for Franchise animal trading UI.
Added tooltips to help explain the symbols that are displayed in compare mates UI.
Newly added Staff Member no longer has a truncated tooltip when attempting to train (price displays over information).
Navigable Area is now displayed in correct measurement system based on player setting.
"Preparing food" locate pin now takes the user to the habitat the food is being prepared for, rather than the building the food is being prepared in.
Moving or boxing an animal whilst in traversable area heatmap mode no longer stops the heatmap updating.
Animal movement UI now displays a list of animals being moved, correct cursors for the type of movement (staff vs automatic) and error messages in case animals fail to be moved.
Updated animal list in habitat information panel.
Long vertical scroll list replaced with a side scrolled list that checks all the info of a species per page.
Easier navigation between species.
Easier visualization of specific information per species.
Selected blueprint filter option will now remember when object browser is closed.
Made contraception easier to administer in UI.
When looking at an animal's information panel, selecting a different animal will open the new animal information panel on the same tab.
Improved readability of some UI elements, like the headers in many panels.
Removed Arctic and Antarctic filters in the habitat info panel's environment tab.
"Research complete" pop up is now translated to all supported languages.
Truncated string no longer occurs in confirmation pop up when leaving a franchise zoo.
Issue Tracker - Fixed an issue where opening up any information panels (information windows that open on the right of the screen) will cause the window to display without any UI. This has been reported for animals, guest/staff and structures.
Fixed an issue where exiting the credits while in the career menu would lead to blank scenario UI panel.
Fixed an issue where pressing ESC while the exhibit window facade UI is open will prevent further interaction with the world.
Fixed an issue where players are not notified when ATMs are unpowered.
Fixed an issue where notifications about Inspector & Reporter visits repeat the word "months".
Fixed an issue where notifications about Inspector & Reporter visits did not appear.
Fixed an issue where the cash amount was cut off by the scrolling bar when setting cash value in Sandbox mode settings.
Fixed an issue where closing the "Server Maintenance" UI on the main menu would not restore the menu's original state, instead showing the topmost UI buttons, the background world and nothing else.
Fixed an issue where the small button for Zoopedia animal window would close all windows, but sometimes would not open the Zoopedia.
Fixed a parse error in the Visiting Players Alerts.

Scenarios

Scenario 1 - Snow Leopard and Ring-tailed Lemur are no longer boxed at top of tree and on top of shelter respectively upon load.
Scenario 4 - Staff no longer get stuck on a path intersection.
Scenario 11 - Navigation to broken down Toilet blocks is fixed.

Sandbox Mode

Issue Tracker - Guests will not explore the entirety of a large zoo.
Added new sandbox toggles to make guests stay in the park for longer, and give them infinite cash.
Added a new Sandbox toggle to disable the Inspector.
Exhibit animals are now affected when disabling animal welfare.

Franchise Mode

Increased Trade Centre storage capacity to 50.
Preventing re-listing of Frontier Zoo animals onto the animal market when bought for
Conservation Credits; this is to fix players relisting Frontier animals at a large markup.
Research shared across all Franchise Zoos:
- In order to make sure you've got all of your research data from across your Franchise you'll need to load into each zoo individually. This is due to the fact that if we were to do this in the background, it could create incredibly long loading times for you, so to make the game more seamless when loading zoos, your Franchise zoos will load research individually once you load into them. Once your Franchise zoos are all up to date, this will create a new baseline of research shared across them, until you upgrade research further.
Updated the in-game animal trading medals to match the online trading.
Fixed issue where some released animals would not count towards Community Challenges despite meeting the requirements.

Audio

Added transport Riverboat ride audio when colliding into other boats.
Added Plains Zebra audio when eating from the Hanging Grazer Feeder.
Added Juvenile Baird's Tapir paddling sounds when swimming.
Added new sonic texture for the Rubbing pad.
Added audio detail to water pipe.

Stability

Further crash and stability fixes.

Localisation

Various localisation fixes.

Mar 26, 2020

Planet Zoo - Free Update 1.2, coming on 7 April, 2020

Planet Zoo - Frontier Developments

Hayo Zookeepers!

We're thrilled to announce free Update 1.2, coming to Planet Zoo on 7 April, 2020.

This free update contains a variety of different features and improvements based on community feedback; this post will give you more information on what we will be implementing in our next update and how it may affect your gameplay.

Genealogy
Building further upon your great feedback, we are ready to reveal the Genealogy UI. Upon selecting an animal, you will be able to see which animals are their parents, siblings, mates and offspring. Each animal is selectable, allowing you to ‘walk’ along animal bloodlines, so you can see close relations easily, and even work out common ancestors – all handy to avoid inbreeding.

We’re also exposing deeper genetic information - for the first time you’ll be able to see the Genetic Identity of genes (a simplified genetic code). While it’s not necessary for all of you to dig into this much detail, (avoiding inbreeding is fine), we still wanted to give you the chance to see these mechanics in action.

New Difficulty Settings
We are introducing new difficulty settings to Planet Zoo. You will now be able to choose between Easy, Medium (the current game difficulty) and Hard. These settings will affect:

Whether animals get bored of enrichment items (Hard Difficulty only).

How quickly animals get stressed.
How difficult it will be to maintain animal welfare.
Whether guests will request refunds (Hard Difficulty only).
How willing guests are to spend money.
How much guests learn from education sources.
What percent of Guest Happiness is require for the 5* rating.
How fast your staff get tired.
How large of a happiness boost staff get from training.

When loading into a Zoo in any mode, you will get the opportunity to choose from the three settings. For more information on these settings, you will be able to select the question mark icon above the settings to learn more about what will change when you play. You are free to change the difficulty at any time via the settings while you’re inside your zoo too, so the difficulty settings will be able to change to suit you at any moment.

Changes to Animal Feeding
Since launch, we have received a lot of feedback regarding the way Keepers feed the animals in your zoos. We thank you all for taking the time to explain to us the changes you would like to see to this system. Here's what's going to happen in the new update:

Keepers will now fill feeding stations in a different, more efficient order by filling up the one that's closest to the Keeper first, before moving on to the next one, and so forth.
Keepers' food prep time has simplified so that it will be the same for all habitats, regardless of the number of animals, and mix of species. Previously, this caused intermittent hunger in some habitats.
New Keeper thoughts have been added, so that you can identify issues in your habitats easier.
Animals in mixed species habitats will now be able to eat any upgraded versions of shared foods. Previously, food theft could cause intermittent hunger in some mixed habitats.
- For example, all animals that eat level 1 Hay will be able to eat any upgraded version of Hay. All animals that eat level 1 of Monkey Chow will be able to eat any upgraded version of Monkey Chow. But, animals that eat Hay still cannot share food with animals that eat Monkey Chow.
Keepers will now sprint to and from the habitat when doing a feeding and water refilling task, when the task is critical.
Keepers will be able to sprint when carrying their buckets.
Juveniles will cost less to feed. The amount is different per species, and is estimated by body mass.

Breakdown of Guest Happiness in Guest Information Panels
The team have made some great changes to the Guest Information Panels to help you learn more about your zoo and how you can improve it.

Guest Education has been split from happiness and now offers a spending bonus multiplier, meaning a well-educated guest will want to spend more money. We’ve also added a new management screen for education, more on this further down the post.
The Guest Information panel will now include a new tab, the History tab. This will show their opinions on their entire stay in the zoo, to indicate what they might have liked or disliked during their visit. The Guest History tab will include ticket price, environment (litter/vandalism/staff facilities), their feelings about the animals, and security, as well as any other issues they had that affected satisfying.
Guest thoughts will now have time stamps on them so you’ll know how long ago a guest had that thought, and whether it’s still relevant or not.
All the opinions that guests have will be classed as happy (green face), neutral (orange face) and unhappy (red face).

Guest History will not be applied retroactively to existing zoos and Guests. For the Guest History to become available, you will need to play in that zoo for a while so that the History can be generated and applied to the tab.

Guests will now also display their arrival date, projected leaving date and the progress of their visit. You can view this in the Guest Information tab.

Guest Education Management tab

We have implemented changes to make Guest Education clearer. The Guest Education tab, which is found in Zoo Management screens, will show:

A breakdown of the Guest Education Rating, which includes the average guest education level.
Which animal your guests have learnt the most about.
More information on Audio Guides, such as
How many were sold over the last year.
Average time of the visit spent using them.
Average number of species they've been educated about.
This tab will also show more information about Zoopedia Education Research and Vets that are doing Advanced Research.
In a separate tab, there will also be a breakdown of each animal and how well the education is performing. This will help highlight any issues with the layout of zoos and how it affects education.
This will include another tab for conservation boards.

Increased Social Interactions
All animals in game, including Deluxe Edition and Arctic Pack animals will now trigger their social interaction animations more frequently.

Reducing the Negative Impact of Staff Buildings
After building a shell around your staff buildings, or placing decorations around them, the negative impact radius will be reduced. The radius can be reduced by up to 50% - to get the full 50%, your scenery rating for the facility must be at 100%.

Search Added to Zoopedia UI
When using the Zoopedia, you will now be able to search for the species by typing, as well as being able to scroll through the UI.

Research Shared Across All Franchise Zoos
Completed research will be shared across your Franchise. If you load into a Franchise Zoo, the research data will be saved so that the highest levels of research will be carried over between all Franchise zoos. It's important to note, that if a Staff Member was researching a research category where the jump in levels is less than 1, then when you load into the zoo, they will no longer be assigned to that research and you will need to re-assign them. In comparison, the research should continue if, for example, they were researching level 1 Chinese Pangolins, and level 1 was completed in another zoo, then when you load back into the zoo they should be researching level 2.

In order to make sure you've got all of your research data from across your Franchise you'll need to load into each zoo individually. This is due to the fact that if we were to do this in the background, it could create incredibly long loading times for you, so to make the game more seamless when loading zoos, your Franchise zoos will load research individually once you load into them. Once your Franchise zoos are all up to date, this will create a new baseline of research shared across them, until you upgrade research further.

Path System Improvements
We have added a variety of improvements to our pathing system. Staff buildings will connect to Staff Paths with a staff path, and standard path will connect up with standard path. Guest facilities will continue to connect with standard paths. You will now be able to click over normal path to replace with a staff path, similar to how you change the texture of a path, and vice versa. Double clicking a path piece will now open the Path Editor with that path type and texture selected to continue building with. We’ve also added the ability to set step height in half metre increments, making it easier to shape your paths around terrain.

Player Settings for Units (Meters VS Feet etc.)
You can now specify preferred units of measurement in the Settings Menu → Interface Tab → Units. These values default to the English standard units. This will not work for Zoopedia descriptions.

Added Creativity!
Of course, we couldn't complete this free update without some new enrichment items, building pieces, and foliage! Among other items, we will be adding in new Tropical and Moss Rocks as well as the much requested Glass Panel pieces! We can't wait to see what you'll build with those!

Update 1.2 will arrive alongside bug fixes and gameplay tweaks that will improve your Planet Zoo experience, and you'll get the full Update Notes when it goes live on 7 April!

Thank you for all of your wonderful support and feedback on Planet Zoo! We are grateful to have such a caring, enlightening community!