Elaberate zoo entrances in franchise.

[ONE MAN ARMY]

I'm thinking about doing an elaborate entrance in franchise. I see people on you tube do larger entrances before getting into the animal exhibits. I'm wondering how well that works in franchise. I hate to blow the money and piss people off because guests have to walk a bit to the first few exhibits. I tend to dive right into exhibits because its more profitable but I want to make things look more realistic. I just don't want to sacrifice too much on profitablity. I'm thinking about putting a transport ride in front to help get guests around faster even though I'll make them walk a bit to get in the zoo.

Any ideas or success with longer paths at the entrance?

[XrystalBelle]

I don't think you can change the entrance much in Franchise as some items are locked in place.

I have had no issues with the 7 width paths in some of the franchise zoos and I use that as the main path through the zoo with varying paths between 4 and 8 wide to different areas of the zoo.

I usually have a long gap between entrance and the first habitat / east-west path to habitats. There is a limit to how far the guests are willing to walk without something for them to do. So, you can keep them somewhat happy by placing a shop or exhibit early on to keep them in the zoo a bit longer and then have the habitats.

It's trial and error. Try different things in Sandbox and see how the guests react to help give you an idea on how to deal with guests and paths.

[ONE MAN ARMY]

Yeah I'm playing around with ideas in sandbox so I can make a blueprint for my franchise. Wanna do like maybe 50-60m long n like 10m wide path to an entrance building with a couple shops then split left to go to a monorail, right to some habitats and straight ahead will be a walk through. Then as I expand I can add stations to hard to get to spots to make up for the longer walk. Hoping it will help reduce crowding too.

[XrystalBelle]

I have noticed that you will get tons go to use the transport to reach the far end of the zoo and then end up complaining because the queues are too long. So make sure you're stations can handle the influx. Although it is that bit more awkward to adjust after you initially set it up.

[XrystalBelle]

Here are some of my zoos from a birds eye view. Some have transport and some don't. They are the ones I have been profitable with after 20 years. They might not be the best but they have somewhat different layouts.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2015514997

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2015489262

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2015512339

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2015513295

[Moving Target]

Guests simply won't walk very far into your zoo if there is nothing for them to see or do, so some careful testing might be advised to see what the cutoff point is before guests just turn round and go home.

[MrHappy]

My idea to combine a cool entrance and keep animals close by for the profit as you said - would be - to make the entrance plaza with shops at the side and fountains in the centre with a tortoise or some other walkthrough habitat at the far end opposite the zoo entrance, then spread out from all that into themes. Best of both worlds. You would only need the one habitat to start and this could lead off to all of the others.

[ONE MAN ARMY]

I'm planning on having a monorail with several stops around the zoo and then I'm thinking about putting in a gondela that runs from the back to the front so guests don't get stuck in the back of the zoo n get mad. I'm also thinking about doing a picnic area on both sides of the entrance with additional path connecting to the main path to help with crowding. Right now I'm looking at about 50 metters, might extend to 80, to a walk through bird exhibit and from there my zoo will branch out. So I think I'll be ok. I did like a 100 meter path once and guest would make it to the habitat but were kinda mad when they got there n wouldn't spend much n leave so I lost alot of money and couldnt keep the zoo open.

[ONE MAN ARMY]

I had alot of sucess with my Asian temple building with 4 habitats off of it right at the entrance but once I hit 2000 guess there was too much crowding and guests got mad and had a hard tine getting around my zoo and my transport ride was aways from my entrance so the flow in my zoo was really bad. My new concept is based off theme parks and zoos I've been too and alot try to keep 1 transport station near the entrance. Its just trick to get it to fit in nice cuz supports are ugly and they don't have transport rides that paths can cross like in real life alit of train rides have tracks in the middle of the path and people can walk across.

[ONE MAN ARMY]

Originally posted by XrystalBelle:

Here are some of my zoos from a birds eye view. Some have transport and some don't. They are the ones I have been profitable with after 20 years. They might not be the best but they have somewhat different layouts.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2015514997

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2015489262

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2015512339

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2015513295

I'll see what can come up with this week and maybe see if I can figure out a good distance range for 1st exhibit. Maybe I'll post some screenshots once I get it in place and functioning.

[XrystalBelle]

Originally posted by ONE MAN ARMY:

I had alot of sucess with my Asian temple building with 4 habitats off of it right at the entrance but once I hit 2000 guess there was too much crowding and guests got mad and had a hard tine getting around my zoo and my transport ride was aways from my entrance so the flow in my zoo was really bad. My new concept is based off theme parks and zoos I've been too and alot try to keep 1 transport station near the entrance. Its just trick to get it to fit in nice cuz supports are ugly and they don't have transport rides that paths can cross like in real life alit of train rides have tracks in the middle of the path and people can walk across.

What I try to do is reserve the space level with the entrance building for transport stations later on in the zoo's life. So, the first set of cross roads will be at least as far down the road as that space needed for an over path traffic line for at least one vehicle.

Similarly, if the main road from entrance to the far end of the zoo have habitats a distance off of the main path, it allows shuttle stations to be placed to allow people to use them to get further into the zoo ( say to the first major food/rest area or THE animal to see ) without involving rebuilding the whole zoo.

Of course, I say all this but then I fail to do that second part and place habitats right onto the main road rofl. Unlike in the beginning when I had small paths that redrected people to the viewing areas rather than viewing from the main road. I really must go back to doing that again rofl.

[ONE MAN ARMY]

What I find funny is when I put a viewing are adjacent to main roads with their own path guests walk along the main road and stop to view the animals and clog the road anyways lol they rarely go down the path to the window. Then they have the nerve to complain about the view lol

[XrystalBelle]

Originally posted by ONE MAN ARMY:

What I find funny is when I put a viewing are adjacent to main roads with their own path guests walk along the main road and stop to view the animals and clog the road anyways lol they rarely go down the path to the window. Then they have the nerve to complain about the view lol

The trick is to make it far enough from the road for it to not be visible from the main road. Making road for toilets and stations which may block visibility even further depending on how they are done.

[ONE MAN ARMY]

Flow was better in my new design how ever covering costs and keeping visitor count up in franchise seems to be an issue. Just started loosing money every other year again. I'm running extremely slow in like year 40 with 6 enclosures. An orangotang, 2 peacocks, 2 foremost bears, 8 flamingos, birds are walk through and 2 panda enclosures with 4 in each. Most animals have high ratings. Food costs are just starting to become a problem, luckily I saved up 700k so have a little room to figure it out. It seems I can run a franchise zoo for a few days and that's it n it starts loosing more then it takes in and slowly dies. Kinda irritating since I'd like to run the franchise zoo awhile after I complete it so I can take the time to enjoy it. All my ratings are 4 star n up rocking 4.5-4.75 over all. Things are running smooth, mechanics finally doing their job and was able to max out training on all my staff so they help keep things running smoothly. A problem I find is when I try pulling a few animals out to cut back on food costs my guest count dips and I don't save anything. I wish they'd rebalance this game a little bit franchise should not be this difficult to keep going.

[Moving Target]

Franchise actually isn't that difficult as long as you remember it is a Franchise zoo not sandbox, here are some tips:
1 - Grow slowly, it isn't a race
2 - Use undecorated buildings, you might want to upgrade or move them later
3 - Don't train staff except for 1 mechanic for faster research and have him on research ONLY
4 - Multiple habitats of the same animal is pointless - you won't get more donations that way
5 - Research animals quickly by placing a research centre by the habitat gate
6 - Allocate the same vet to a habitat and research centre and make sure they do the research
7 - Save money on research centres by moving them to a new habitat once research is done
8 - 3 untrained keepers can handle 2 habitats easily
9 - 1 untrained vet can manage 2 or even 3 habitats (if not researching)
10 - Advertising can bring in more guests if you have spare cash
11 - Take it slowly
12 - Take it slowly
13 - Take it slowly
All those tips are aimed at minimising your outgoings while you get started and maximising your staff usage, some of the stuff you are doing is for much later, once you have a stable/growing income. The fact that you say you are 'fine for a few days then start losing money' sounds like rising staff costs + rising food bills from offspring. Don't get too many new animals at once, if you limit yourself to 1 vet for 3 habitats (if they are close enough to each other) get 1 animal fully researched before getting the next, then relocate the research centre to the new habitat and get the vet researching that one

[ONE MAN ARMY]

Untrained keepers can barely handle 1 habitat if vendors aren't trained they spend too much time away from shops and profits plumit, mechanics don't do their job unless fully trained, I found you can hire 3 mechanics or hire 1 and train and you will save money on repairs, facility costs and staff cost, vets you only need 1 because if you are going slow you have plenty of time to research animals. I max out research Farley quickly. I'm at the point that I can't keep my guest count up without advertising. Rather spend the 5k then loose 10k. I've taken it vary slow. 40 years to get 6 habitats isn't slow? I've tried multiple speeds things seem to dip at the same point in franchise 6 habitats regardless of how fast. I'm only breeding pandas since the 2 habitats so its easier to shuffle and avoid inbreeding. I've run 4 panda habitats at once before with nothing else in my zoo and made a ♥♥♥♥ tone so multiple habitats of same species don't do it. Seems to be once you hit 6-8 different species in your zoo and expand just to the point that guests stop complaining about the zoo size then things slowly start to wobble. I've saved it before by going back to my main 2 habitats and deleting everything else. Then my zoo runs fine. It seems like the game is designed to build farms and not zoos.

I've tried all the tips and tricks n played the intro stuff. In franchise things fail once you get to the same size everythime. Other people have had the same issue. Sure I could play sandbox but what's the point in playing with unlimited money, all research and perfect animals with no real market? I like some managing but also like more freedom in design. That's what I liked about games like the old rtc series you could create your own maps with your own tech tree and challenges in sandbox and it gave you something with some challenge.

So idk that's my gripe with it. I quit playing for awhile due to the bugs and updates causing me to loose save files I spent time on and alot of bugs are fixed now but planet zoo became planet farm.