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

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 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

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

UI

• 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.

• 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.