Let’s Build a Zoo Visitor Icons + Utilization – Gameplay Guide

Let’s Build a Zoo Visitor Icons + Utilization – Gameplay Guide 1 - steamsplay.com
Let’s Build a Zoo Visitor Icons + Utilization – Gameplay Guide 1 - steamsplay.com

A variety of helpful information to hopefully make your zoo (and your play time!) a bit happier ^.^
 
 

Visitor Icons

(Just to note, whenever I mention ‘we’ in this guide, I’m referring to myself and other Discord users who contribute to figuring stuff out ^.^)
 
 
Mostly speculation, but these are what we think the various icons visitors display over their heads mean. While some of them are self-explanatory, some are best guesses based on the icon image and what the visitor is doing at the time. The queue ones, in particular, are ‘best guesses’.
 
 
Let's Build a Zoo Visitor Icons + Utilization - Gameplay Guide - Visitor Icons - 9EE5F86
 
 
Note that the ‘bad’ effects from things like too much caffeine/sugar/heat in your foods haven’t been implemented yet, so you can crank up that heat level without having to worry about giving your guests heart attacks – for now!
 
 
 

Utilization

This is again largely theorycrafting but it’s how a bunch of us have experienced this working, so it’s a’best guess’.
 
 
Let's Build a Zoo Visitor Icons + Utilization - Gameplay Guide - Utilization - 6795867
 
 
If you see a building or staff member at 100%, it means (we think) that they’re operating at maximum capacity, and you should probably consider hiring more staff or building additional buildings in order to ease their load. Staff at 100% utilization seem to lose work ethic more quickly.
 
 
Let's Build a Zoo Visitor Icons + Utilization - Gameplay Guide - Utilization - FC45135
 
Rosia has about as much work ethic as I’d expect for someone who gets bombarded by people every day
 
 
 

Population Manager

The Population Manager will, once a day at the beginning of every day, visit any of their zoned enclosures that are crowded, and auto-donate excess animals, from oldest to youngest, until that enclosure is back within acceptable space limits. Note that they will only do this at the start of the day, so any enclosures that become crowded on a Tuesday will be dealt with on the following Wednesday morning.
 
 
The Population Manager’s means of operation also conveniently solves the problem of your elderly animals dying in your zoo and your visitors yelling at you for *daring* to ‘let’ the ancient decrepit animal die, you monster.
 
 
Let's Build a Zoo Visitor Icons + Utilization - Gameplay Guide - Population Manager - 369726E
 
 
Your population manager building needs to be enabled, and enclosures need to be zoned. You’ll also need to make sure your enclosure is sized appropriately to the number of animals you want to keep in that enclosure.
 
 
Let's Build a Zoo Visitor Icons + Utilization - Gameplay Guide - Population Manager - F7805B6
 
 
 

Enclosure Space Calculator

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18_uj01QFNKTAFSZx73BNu31_2VF1XqQkJ8lgjAxodTk/edit?usp=sharing – [google.com] 
 
 
This is to accompany the population manager, since that building relies on having accurate enclosure sizes specific to the number of animals you want to keep in that enclosure.
 
 
Let's Build a Zoo Visitor Icons + Utilization - Gameplay Guide - Enclosure Space Calculator - E06839A
 
 
To use it, just change the number in the ‘# of animals’ column, and the ‘Space Required’ number will update to show you how many squares big your enclosure needs to be in order to comfortably house that many animals.
 
 
 

How To Even Sandbox??!?!!

There are two Sandbox modes available; the ‘in-universe’ mode that is in keeping with the narration of the game, and the ‘cheat mode’ version.
 
 
NON-CHEAT SANDBOX:
 
 
Let's Build a Zoo Visitor Icons + Utilization - Gameplay Guide - How To Even Sandbox??!?!! - C1C3F78
 
 
Open your world map, and click the blue Transport icon top-left.
 
 
Let's Build a Zoo Visitor Icons + Utilization - Gameplay Guide - How To Even Sandbox??!?!! - 94E430C
 
 
You’ll see a second zoo available on the map, and at the top, the amount of ‘Investment Funds’ you have. You get $1 of Investment Funds for every $1000 you accrue in your normal zoo (cumulatively – not how much money you have in your account at any one time).
 
 
It costs $2500 Investment Funds to buy the sandbox zoo. After purchasing and selecting to travel there, you’ll play out the rest of your day in your normal mode zoo, and at the end of the day after the game has saved, a super cute little aeroplane will fly you over to your new sandbox zoo.
 
 
This non-cheat sandbox zoo has everything you’ve researched, and all animals from zoo transfers you’ve unlocked, from your main zoo. Anything you have NOT unlocked on your main zoo will NOT be included in your sandbox zoo, but WILL unlock there once you research it in your main zoo.
 
 
Note that you will not be able to research, or unlock new zoo animal transfers from your sandbox mode zoo, so to progress with any unfinished research/animal transfers you’ll have to go back to your normal-mode zoo.
 
 
CHEAT MODE SANDBOX:
 
 
See this video from Springloaded on how to enable cheat-mode sandbox;
 
 

YouTube player

 
 
Cheat-mode sandbox has everything available from the get-go without needing to research anything.
 
 
 

Help, My Janitors Are Allergic To Trash

A few of us have experienced problems with janitor zoning where at some point they’ll start struggling and trash will start to pile up.
 
 
We’ve found that disabling janitor zoning, and letting your janitors run wild and free as nature intended, solves this problem.
 
 
 

Can Has Neat Zoo Layout Pls?

Posting this just as a bonus; occasionally people ask for easy-to-manage grid-based zoo layouts, so here’s how I do mine.
 
 
Each sector of land is completely enclosed – this means that subways are essential, but that in turn means that your visitors will spend less time walking, and thus have more energy to spend in your zoo.
 
 
Let's Build a Zoo Visitor Icons + Utilization - Gameplay Guide - Can Has Neat Zoo Layout Pls? - D4B23D4
 
 
So, each sector has a subway, a toilet, a water pump, a rubbish bin, and a bench, This covers the basics. You can then split your enclosures into four corner enclosures for animals with small space requirements, two half-size enclosures for the bigger animals, and one wrap-around three-quarters enclosure for the biggest animals.
 
 
Let's Build a Zoo Visitor Icons + Utilization - Gameplay Guide - Can Has Neat Zoo Layout Pls? - 5B7ECEA
 
 
It’s MUCH easier to lay the paths down first and then build the enclosures in the empty space around the path. I usually set the tile brush to 3×3 (with the + key) and draw the basic cross;
 
 
Let's Build a Zoo Visitor Icons + Utilization - Gameplay Guide - Can Has Neat Zoo Layout Pls? - 5B285BC
 
 
Then drop back down to a 1×1 brush size and fill in the middle bit;
 
 
Let's Build a Zoo Visitor Icons + Utilization - Gameplay Guide - Can Has Neat Zoo Layout Pls? - 713010A
 
 
Then it’s easy to use the path as a guideline for your enclosure;
 
 
Let's Build a Zoo Visitor Icons + Utilization - Gameplay Guide - Can Has Neat Zoo Layout Pls? - 6C63E63
 
 
As you research more decorations and your decoration bonuses kick in, you’ll have plenty of room to get 100% lighting and decor per zone, including the decorations placed inside your enclosures.
 
 
For 100% lighting, I place two either side of the subway and toilet entrance for four lights, four around the bigger middle bit, and one in the very middle.
 
 
Let's Build a Zoo Visitor Icons + Utilization - Gameplay Guide - Can Has Neat Zoo Layout Pls? - 586A3B3
 
 
Note that some lights give off a higher percentage of illumination, like the glowing winter ice statues, so you may not need as many lights in your sector ^.^
 
 
A bonus of using this design is that it’s *very* easy to move enclosures, since they all follow the same basic construction layout. This makes it easy to start arranging your enclosures by type (like grouping all the arctic enclosures together) when you unlock new species.
 
 

Written by WelshPixie

 
 
Here we come to an end for Let’s Build a Zoo Visitor Icons + Utilization – Gameplay Guide hope you enjoy it. If you think we forget something to include or we should make an update to the post let us know via comment, and we will fix it asap! Thanks and have a great day!
 


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