Are there plans for a Zoo Tycoon 2? If so, I'd be most happy. I've exhibit volunteered at a public aquarium and am going back to college for a Vet Tech certification with the hopes that I can get a job at a zoo in the future. Obviously, I find much of interest in this game.
I'd like the ability to design one's own buildings. Instead of getting something generic like a 'tropical fish world', I'd like to build the building myself, placing small tanks and education booths and pumps, etc., inside where I want to. I'm not suggesting that we pick out tiny individual fish per se, but we can have choices of tanks that we can make small or increase in size.
For example, if I was building an Amazonian building, I can build a small tank (one square in size) for piranha, a larger (four squares in size) for the pacu, a huge one (2x6 squares in size) to simulate a river habitat with turtles, catfish and arawana maybe throw a sloth enclosure in there, and a touch pool. Essentially, you'd be building exhibits the same as normal, but they would be indoors.
To flesh this idea out some more, because I just thought of it off the top of my head and it sounds better and better the more I think about it, you can have the following building options:
Exhibits: (I'm in aquarium mode here, forgive the lack of more terrestrial animals and enclosures)
Fresh/salt water small wall tank (10-25gal tank equivalent)
Fresh/salt water tropical wall tank
Fresh/salt water medium wall tank (25-100 gal tank equiv.)
Fresh/salt water tropical medium wall tank
Fresh/salt water large wall tank (100-500 gallons)
Fresh/salt water tropical large wall tank
Fresh/salt water full wall tank (part of a very big tank, essentially an indoor version of the outdoor water enclosures)
Arboreal Enclosure (tree-like for monkeys, birds, sloths, etc.)
Small Enclosure (viewing tank for small frogs, turtles etc.)
Medium Enclosure (for small snakes, larger turtles)
Large Enclosure (for medium/large snakes, monitors, etc.)
Full Wall Enclosure (for viewing complete habitats or very large animals such as anacondas, can be connected to a fresh/salt water full wall tank, can be expanded in depth, length and height so you can string a section of these together to form a two-story high, 300 foot long, 10 foot deep rainforest habitat if you want to)
Animals: Just ideas off the top of my head, I'm thinking major exhibit animals and not things like clownfish or box turtles that are kind of interesting, but not really worthy of individual mention - they could be included in generic exhibit tanks like 'Coral Reef' and 'Midwestern Pond'.
American Alligator
Freshwater Croc
Black Caiman
Dwarf Caiman
Caiman Lizard
Galapagos Tortoise
Red Tortoise
Mata Mata Turtle
Amazonain Giant River Turtle
Poison Dart Frogs
Anaconda
Burmese Python
Reticulated Boa constricter
Emerald Tree Boa
Pacu
Red Belly Piranha
Black Piranha
Arawana
Arapima
Pacu
Armored Catfish
Giant Catfish
Fresh water rays
Amazon River Dolphin (endangered)
Yellow River Dolphin (endangered)
Two-Toed Sloth
Three-Toed Sloth
Golden Lion Tamarind
Pygmy Marmoset
Vampire Bat
Fruit Bat
Tanagers
Parrots
Macaws
Kingfishers/Kookaburras
Guam Kingfishers (endangered)
Coral Reef (generic, would include typical pet store tropical fish like clownfish and anemones)
Mangrove Swamp (generic, would include things like small gars or misc. turtles and fish)
Midwestern Pond (generic, would include bluegill, snails and box turtles, etc.)
Thats enough for now. You get the idea.
Equipment/MiscSmall filter system (for small tanks, reptile enclosures, etc.)
Medium filter system (2-4 times capacity of small)
Large filter system (2-4 times capacity of medium)
Tidal Surge Generator
Salt Water Processing System
Feed Room
Education Booth
Touch Pool
Activity Center ("Be A Bird", "What Animal Is This" etc.)
Vending Machines
Bench
Table and Chairs
Snack Stand
Gift Shop
"Meet The Keeper" area
Wow... that was probably overkill, wasn't it? All those examples I gave would work for something like a reptile house or specific aquarium building, but I think you can see how easily it can be expanded to cover the gamut - an aviary, a petting zoo, a full-blown huge aquarium (think whale sharks or sperm whales indoors), or something like Tropic World that we have here in Chicago where it's a huge building three or four stories high that takes you on a tour of the tropics in Asia, Africa and South America. With a building editor, we could do all that in the game and I think it would be a blast.
I'd like to see weather be a factor as well, but I think this can get more complicated. What if your zoo is in Sweden? Or Brazil? It rarely gets very hot in Sweden (I think) and it never snows in Brazil, so how would you differentiate? And what about your animals? Elephants don't go outside in snow, so we'd have to have some kind of provision for housing them indoors beyond simply giving them a shelter, methinks.
I'd also like to see support buildings included, like vet offices, public conservation centers, staff offices, feed storage, quarantine, etc. These facilities are vitally important to any zoo operation. Newly acquired animals must be quarantined (in game terms, this could limit the number of animals you buy at any one time), the more vet offices you have, the less chances you have for animals to get sick, the more staff offices you have, the more staff you can hire and the more productive they become, etc.
I'd like to see staff gain experience over time, so that they become more efficient and harder to fire if you should ever need to.
I think that's enough for now.
, but I think I'll stop right here. I might add more later.
