Tips for Twilight Pack career mode?

[Koro]

Has anyone finished the career mode for the twilight pack? I'm really stuck on it and could use some tips. People aren't coming down past the food court to visit my foxes and raccoons and it's driving me mad. Also, there's not a lot of room to build new habitats, am I blind?

[Sariana57]

I am noticing this as well. I finally got the the people to give some donations for the bats at least :(

[Sariana57]

Originally posted by TorqueoZ?:

Has anyone finished the career mode for the twilight pack? I'm really stuck on it and could use some tips. People aren't coming down past the food court to visit my foxes and raccoons and it's driving me mad. Also, there's not a lot of room to build new habitats, am I blind?

It seems that once I got the Raccoons and the Common Wombat exhibits open, the people slowly started to come down. Now If I could just get all of the donations going.... so far only the bat house is working.

[Koro]

Glad it's not just me, but a shame you're going through that too! Hopefully someone will come along and explain what to do with all this

[Jaggid Edje]

The less animals and things to do in a zoo, the less total time visitors will spend in a zoo. If they are turning around before going on to certain habitats, it is because they have either run out of time or because there's nothing particularly appealing to visit in that direction.

Two things can help with this. First, always fill in your zoos working from the entrance outwards and if you have an area where visitors aren't going even if they have not run out of time, add things that attract them.
A food and drink shop and/or souvenir shop right next to a habitat, for example, will make that habitat get visited more. You can also use the TV Screens and projection screens in busier places and have them 'advertise' the habitats that are more out of the way.
Putting your most appealing animals as 'end caps' along routes that are less traveled can also help with this, as those appealing animals will draw visitors past all the less appealing habitats.

I haven't played that scenario yet, but plan to later today, so I'll circle back with more specific thoughts if I have any once I play it.

[Superman'sDejah]

I found that I had to put ATMs all over before donations started to work. I didn't have an issue with people staying in the top until the Gold part of the scenario when 5000-6000 guests were in my zoo at the same time and there was serious bottlenecking issues so I would recommend widening main paths that you can before it gets busy. I also just had to create habitats and food areas off in the woods because there isn't a ton of space. You can put the skunks and racoons together, which saves space, as well as utilizing multi-animal habitats. I put the exhibits in the cave, where it seemed they were meant to go. The research for things takes a very long time and I have yet to figure out when the reporter comes. I'm waiting to complete that one specific task before I can finish with gold and the reporter has yet to come for quite a while so maybe I missed my chance?

[Jaggid Edje]

To speed up research, make sure there is a research center next to or at least near the habitat/exhibits being researched. During the research task the Vets go back and forth between the research center and the habitat/exhibit, multiple times, so if it's a long walk that really slows down research speed.
I always move my research centers whenever I change what is being researched, putting them as close to the habitat gate or exhibit as I can. It makes a very significant difference on research speed.

[Jaggid Edje]

Okay, I've started this scenario and here are my fist thoughts, after immediately pausing the game at the beginning.

1. Fix (replace broken fences) on Fox Habitat
2. Hire Staff. Place vets very near where escaped foxes are (or pay the money to emergency capture). I opted to save the money and just dropped the vets on the path nearest where the foxes were before unpausing the game.
3. Raise prices on the shops, raise the entrance ticket price. Also added condiments to all the shop items.
4. Change Zoo open/close hours so it doesn't get dark while I'm working once I unpause the game.
5. Set animal aging to 5x for the start as I don't want to deal with births/deaths/etc. until I have the groundwork in place for all the habitats. I will change it back to 1x once the Himalayan bears are in place and I have confirmed the zoo is nicely profitable, in order to complete the breeding goals the scenario has.
6. Built a workshop, quarantine and Vet Surgery. I put them inside the building shell that is beside the food court, right near where the existing trade center and staff room are.
7. Moved all of the power transformers because they were too close to visitor paths. Will replace with green energy once researched.
8. Widened all visitor paths (at least those that could be widened) and slightly moved some scenery and flora where needed as a result.
9. Took out the 20,000/5% loan and set the annual payments to the very minimum so that I can put almost my entire plan into place before unpausing the game.

At that point I was ready to start building and adding animals. I left the game paused until I got some habitats ready and some animals to put in them, and I made a plan for habitats for the entire scenario.
The final scenario goal requires 12 total habitat animals, and my plan involves needing only 5 habitats total for all 12 (13 total, is what my plan has). The reason for all of the habitats being combined habitats is because visitors like habitats with 3 or more species in them, a lot, so it gets your happiness up, and thus your donations up, and just makes the scenario goals a lot easier to accomplish.

I immediately scrapped the existing "Racoon" habitat, because it is both too small for more than just raccoons, and too far from the entrance for an animal with such low appeal (imo).

I built the first habitat in the area with the tower right as visitors enter into the zoo. I almost missed this opportunity, but it was just screaming to be a habitat. If I wasn't determined to have mixed species habitats for the scenario, I would have made it a walkthrough habitat; perhaps with racoons and peafowl in it.

I built the second habitat inside the cave. I saw someone comment that the cave is ripe for putting the exhibits there, but I wanted a habitat closer to the zoo entrance and that's the largest space available to build on that is close, after the above mentioned tower area.

I built a third habitat straight across from the cave along the shores of the pond. I expanded the existing Wombat habitat, so I could put other animals with them, and I kept the red fox habitat, for a total of 5. All of them closer to the zoo entrance then the food court.
If I had needed a sixth habitat, I would have built it I on the opposite side of the path as the fruit bats, where it curves around the fruit bat exhibit.

If I were going to continue this zoo long term past the scenario goals, I could continue into that area of the zoo past the food court, but for achievement of the goals, it just makes no sense to build anything so far from the entrance, especially when the gondola isn't researched yet (though it will be, before the end of the scenario).

For the additional exhibits needed, I'm spacing them along the route from the entrance to where habitats are, so that visitors walking down have things to see and stay entertained and happy.

This is the habitat plan I had for the zoo before even beginning:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2878041435

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by chasbar:

It is a really nice zoo and I hope they have finally ditched the timed scenarios and continue with the regular ones.

Agreed x 2 x 200%.

I think it's a good sign. I frequent the forums here and on their official forums, and I haven't really seen anyone 'defend' timed scenarios when those of us who are vocal have made our opinions of how badly they run counter to the whole reason we play the game, so maybe they finally listened.
I think (could be wrong) that they started doing timed scenarios because of a vocal crowd when the game released who complained the scenarios were "too easy"....but I don't think most of that crowd is even playing the game anymore, much less buying DLC. It's just not a game that is going to hold that type of player long term.

[Koro]

Originally posted by chasbar:

Then I put two exhibits in that tower structure near the entrance.

How do you do that? That would save me sooo much time and space!

[Jaggid Edje]

Just following up to say that as of year 6, my plan has worked perfectly. I paid off the 20,000 loan I had taken out at the beginning in full just before the end of the year. My total payments ended up being 20,643, which means I only paid 643 in interest to be able to 'jump start' the zoo.
My Zoo has been making over 20,000 a year (net profits, after all costs) since year 4, and 15,000 a year in years 2 and 3, so I think the loan was totally worth it. I'd have paid it off sooner...but I forgot.

All habitats are in place, and all habitat animals are in place except the lemur/bongo one, which I need to start generating more CC in order to populate. I do have the bongos, but I'm not putting them in the habitat until research is completed on all other animals already in the zoo.
I'm turning animal aging down to 1.0 now, to facilitate the CC generation.

I have all the goals required completed other than the bear breeding, the total number visitors (the final habitat and, if needed, taking out some marketing should seal the deal on that), and building the gondola ride (still doing the research for that).
I am still only in the silver level, but the gold tier goals have also been accomplished except for those mentioned.

[Jaggid Edje]

I'm at year 8 in my game, and populating the final habitat pushed the visitor count up well past the requirements for the scenario.....My visitor count went from 1600 to 4700. Congestion at the entrance is ridiculous, but I'm hoping that clears out as all those new visitors spread out more.
Though, I really wish I could set a visitor limit for the scenario. I only 'need' 1900 for the scenario goals, and 4700 is just way more than the zoo entrance is designed to handle.

I now just need to finish breeding the Himalayan bears and get that dam reporter to visit. Sounds like the reporter is bugged for a lot of people, so might have to wait for a patch fix.

Regardless, the scenario is complete for me, pending those two goals.

[Koro]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

I'm at year 8 in my game, and populating the final habitat pushed the visitor count up well past the requirements for the scenario.....My visitor count went from 1600 to 4700. Congestion at the entrance is ridiculous, but I'm hoping that clears out as all those new visitors spread out more.
Though, I really wish I could set a visitor limit for the scenario. I only 'need' 1900 for the scenario goals, and 4700 is just way more than the zoo entrance is designed to handle.

I now just need to finish breeding the Himalayan bears and get that dam reporter to visit. Sounds like the reporter is bugged for a lot of people, so might have to wait for a patch fix.

Regardless, the scenario is complete for me, pending those two goals.

Nice! Well done!! And thanks for noting what you did! I'm sure I'll find it helpful for reference ^_^

[Jaggid Edje]

I'm just circling back to this thread to put a few more tips that I've come up with after playing through the scenario 2 1/2 times so far.

My first playthrough did not get gold, because the reporter simply never returned when I was working on gold and I had too many crimes in the zoo the first (and only) time that she did visit earlier.

Tip:

• Make sure you keep crimes low in the very early game, even though you don't have that goal yet. If you keep the crimes during her first visit at 8 or below, you will get credit once you do get to gold goals. If you do not, you will be unable to get gold completion (until Frontier patches the issue of the reporter not returning).

I won the 2nd playthrough, but once you get into the gold goals the number of visitors in the zoo goes through the roof. From the 1900 visitor goal, you quickly skyrocket to over 6,000 visitors in the zoo. My whole design from the start was with the expectation of around 2000-2500, seeing as the gold goal itself was only 1,900 and my zoo was NOT built for 6,000 visitors.

Tips:

• The entrance on the Summit quickly becomes a problem with that many visitors. In the very early game redesign that area, particularly the pathing, to future proof it.
  
• Expand in the early game up there into the open area that is to the side past the tower scenery set piece, with very wide paths.
  
• This is also a good place for a transport ride station up there, and if you have a few habitats in place as well right next to where the transportation station goes, you can put education speakers on the ride queue.
  
• If you do end up struggling with the zoo not working well with 6,000+ visitors, just close the zoo and let it empty out before re-opening whenever you feel it is too congested. As long as your zoo is built well, profitability should be able to absorb the losses while it is closed. This is what I did on my 2nd playthrough.

On both by first and second playthrough, I was disappointed by how few people were riding the gondola and were instead just walking down the long mountain path, losing happiness. On the third playthrough I built a monorail instead, and it was VERY popular.

Tips:

• If you want transport to move people down from the Summit entrance quickly....build a monorail. This has the advantage of both moving visitors quickly and also being available right from the start of the scenario. Save the Gondola for the last thing you do to get the gold completion, and don't bother building it for use.....just for the goal.
  
• For visitors which do walk down the mountain path, take measures to protect their happiness on the way down.
  
• Put conservation boards spaced out along the path, because gaining education temporarily freezes happiness decay.
  
• As animals die, put memorials along the path as well, to give a happiness boost to the walkers.
  
• And lastly, build in some rest areas. Use picnic benches rather than regular benches in them, as those restore significantly more energy faster. I even put an elevated restaurant at around the halfway point down the mountain. It was very profitable.

All 3 of my playthroughs were on hard difficulty, though I didn't get gold on the first, it was due to a bug in the scenario, not my zoo. So if anyone has any struggles not covered in the other information here, feel free to ask, or even send me a PM. I will try to offer advice as best as I can.

[theoello]

only thing left to do for me is guest happiness, i thought to be cheeky and closed the zoo cause i only need 2000 happy guests and not 4000 unhappy ones but when i opened it ALL went wrong. the staff forgot to care for my entire zoo. in the middle of fixing it the game crashed

[Jaggid Edje]

Ouch, @theoello. That's some bum luck. I actually closed my zoo multiple times during my 2nd playthrough of the scenario, as a form of controlling the total visitor count. I'd have been pretty distraught if I had the same issues that you did upon closing it though.