Rollercoaster Tycoon 3: Wild! Expansion Animal Care Guide Version: 1.0 Author: Volitionist E-mail: chairface@gmail.com Created on: 1/7/05 Last updated: 1/7/05 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Guide: This guide is meant to help those already familiar with Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 to become familiar with the Zoo aspect introduced by the Wild! Expansion Pack. If something in here is confusing, feel free to e-mail me directly, but if your question is fairly basic, you may find it best to consult your instruction booklet or the community RCT3 forums at http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?forumid=315. I welcome criticism, corrections, suggestions, questions, or desperate pleas for scenario help at the above-mentioned e-mail address. As far as use of this guide is concerned, just give credit where credit is due if you plan to use all or part of this guide. I took a lot of silly trouble to figure out the specifics of the animal care here, and would shed a single tear if proper credit were not applied. Don't be a jerk, and I'll try not to be a jerk too. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents I. The Basics A. How to make enclosures and get animals B. Features and common problems II. Specific Animal Requirements/Setups A. Camels B. Chimps C. Elephants D. Gazelles E. Giraffes F. Gorillas G. Grizzly Bears H. Hippos I. Horses J. Kangaroos K. Leopards L. Lions M. Mandrills N. Orangutans O. Ostriches P. Pandas Q. Panthers R. Polar Bears S. Rhinos T. Tigers U. Zebras III. Wild! Scenario General Advice and Frequently Asked Questions A. Scenario Goals and Advice B. Mixing Species C. What Happens When...? D. Does It Matter If I...? E. Roads and Buildings in Enclosures ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- I. The Basics A. How to... If you're already familiar with Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 as far as game play and how things work, the "zoo" aspect will snuggle in very nicely as a feature of the game without great difficulty. Everything concerning animals is found under the "rides" icon (which is morally vexing, at least for me, but let us not dally). The actual animals can be purchased in the second to last icon, and the enclosures, viewing galleries, animal houses, and enrichment items are under the last icon. The greatest feature of all of this is its relative simplicity. In order to setup an enclosure, simply pick an animal; the purchase window will tell you what fence is needed. When you discover this, place the fence first. Let's use horses as an example. After you have laid the wooden fence (8x8 squares or greater is a good starting size), place the correct type of house. In this case, it is the small herbivore house, though if you're not sure, you can mouse over each house's icon and figure it out. After the fence and house are down, you can feel free to purchase animals. I would recommend starting with two to six as a general rule to make sure you know what you're doing before you go crazy. After that, place viewing galleries as you like. These come in three sizes and can be placed all along the fence to any enclosure. They automatically conform to the type of fence you are assigning it to, so don't worry about that. The price and frequency of inspection for any given enclosure is automatically made uniform for every viewing gallery. Prices range from a dollar to perhaps five or six if you have a very popular enclosure, but generally two to three dollars seems fair. In some scenarios, the animals in the purchase window are "rescued": this simply means they will arrive at your park in poor health and need attention to make sure they are well fed and cared for. There is nothing particularly special about them, and they will behave and breed like any non-rescued animal. In any case, babies always cost more than adults, but bring the "cute" factor to the enclosure and can rake in serious cash in both gallery tickets and adoption fees. Essentially, adoption fees are small amounts of cash that come in from patrons who wish to help care for a given animal. The number of adopters for a given animal only matters if you are trying to decide which animal to get rid of and are looking to maximize your profit. Animals in poor health will lose adopters if you're not careful. B. Features and Problems Animal enclosures, with a few notable exceptions, are far simpler to deal with than many other aspects of your park. They are relatively self- sustaining if you set them up properly, with enough room, housing, and trainer care for your animals. However, animals do breed and interact, which means you must pay attention to the health and safety of every animal (and guest) in your park. Below are many issues you may expect to experience in playing: -Johnny P is stuck in an enclosure! - one problem I come across often is someone getting stuck in enclosures for no particular reason. My frustration with these apparently very dumb park goers has led me to leave them in carnivore enclosures for extended periods of time; alas, they do not get mauled. They simply act frightened until you pick them up and put them back on the road. I am not sure if it's a game glitch or something I'm doing wrong, but the only problem is causes has to do with user sanity. -A fence is broken! - shame on you! This means a certain enclosure isn't inspected often enough and now you've wrecked it for everyone. But do not despair. While it is now possible for the animals of a given enclosure to escape, they may or may not. If they do before you get the fence fixed (by calling a mechanic to any of the galleries of that enclosure), you can click on the flashing dart icon on the upper right of the blue menu bar at the top of the screen. This will take you into a helicopter hunt mode in which you have to tranquilize your animals in order to get them back home. Find an animal in the large view and then right click to zoom in. The shooting is a little wacky, but not very difficult and I do not suspect it will cause you much trouble. I have never had an animal escape, so I can't tell you if peeps will get hurt, but I'd rather not know. -They're going to take Connie the Chimp away! - when the Man threatens to confiscate your animals due to poor health, you know you've taken a wrong turn. Usually, one type of animal is adversely affected by one specific thing and it's relatively easy to fix. However, if an animal is starving but just keeps playing with other animals instead of eating, there's not much you can do besides make sure the house is stocked with food and hope the animal smartens up. Getting an animal taken away is not a big deal in the long run, but you lose the value of the animal and it doesn't look good for your park. Repeated offenses get you seriously bad publicity and probably go hand in hand with the Most Neglected Animals fine. -Low Health - this score is the overall wellbeing of your animal. It is affected by all of the other information in the chart screen for that animal and can influence the money made indirectly and directly by that animal. Also, if you plan to release animals into the wild for good publicity or for a scenario goal, you must have the animal's health to 95%, so it's good to keep them happy. If you are experiencing problems with this score, look for problems in the other areas of the chart, as I will now list. -Low Habitat - this is usually easy to fix. The enclosure is not big enough for the species you've put in, and adding a few more rows of fence will usually fix that right up, no problem. If the enclosure is already entrenched in a full park, consider swapping animals from one enclosure to the other to make everyone happy or getting rid of that species altogether if you can't care for it properly. -Hunger and Thirst - if your animal houses are stocked and not overrun with too many animals, there is not much you can do about these scores other than wait for the animal to snap out of its daze and go eat/drink. If you constantly get messages that animals are very hungry or can't feed because their houses are full, you can increase the frequency of feeding and/or add another house to the enclosure. -Social - this is easily the most complicated and frustrating aspect of animal welfare, and will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis later in this guide. Essentially, you must "guess and check" to see what makes your animal happy. Apes love dozens of friends, and pandas get mad when there are three of them, so knowing each animal's needs and being vigilant will help here. Scroll down for each animal's ideal enclosure numbers and gender ratios. -Cleanliness - there's probably crap everywhere. If you set your texture detail low in your game settings, you may have to zoom in a bit to see it, but it's there. Some animals poop a whole lot more than others, and if such is the case, hire more animal trainers, preferably assigning one or more of them to poo-only duties (the same way you assign mechanics to fix-only duties). -Insufficient breeding - check the general consensus of the animals: are they happy? healthy? socially all set? If the animals are annoyed, they won't want to copulate, just like humans. Use the above fixes to try and solve this and pay attention to gender ratios when doing so. Some animals will get very upset if there are too many males, and you will get no babies. It also helps to make sure you have at least one male and one non-pregnant female. -Too much breeding - this is particularly a problem with apes, ostriches, and horses (as well as some others). They just keep...doing it. If you're looking to maintain a population rather than expand it, there isn't much you can do other than getting rid of all of one gender or selling the new offspring once they are born. I tend to keep track of what animals are pregnant, and before they give birth I sell them and buy a non-pregnant replacement. Sure, she will likely get pregnant, but there are no new kids, and that's what counts. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- II. Specific Animal Info This section will (hopefully) help you solve any problems with one particular species or get an idea of what animals make for a successful park. The ideal population numbers and ratios come from my game play research and nothing official. The total population numbers represent the minimums and maximums of FULL social bars, not just sufficiently filled bars. Animals will often tolerate fewer or more animals just fine, but these numbers represent the ideals. Also, animals are individuals and some will express displeasure when others do not. Hence, there is room for leeway on all these numbers; however, they should be fairly accurate and can help figuring out why certain animals are consistently miserable. A. Camels Ideal Population: 3-9 animals with a 2:1 female:male ratio. Widely flexible. Enclosure: large herbivore house with wooden fences. 100 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 13 months with 1 baby on average. Approx. 53 months to maturity. Cost: $300 for adults and $400 for babies; moderately rare. Notes: these guys poop a lot, but generally make good residents. They are popular and have cute babies, which always helps. They require very little work, just an extra trainer for the doodie work. B. Chimps Ideal Population: 8-64 animals with a 3:1 female:male ratio. Widely flexible. Enclosure: ape house with chain fences. 60 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 8 months with 1 baby on average. Approx. 90 months to maturity. Cost: $420 for adults and $560 for babies; rare. Notes: an excellent choice for an enclosure as they are popular and adorable. They breed constantly so keep an eye on numbers. While they will accept ridiculous numbers of animals in one enclosure, no more than 20 or so is recommended just for sanity's sake. Use your judgment. C. Elephants Ideal Population: 6-35 animals with a 1:1 female:male ratio. Ratio should be fairly static, but population size can vary greatly. Enclosure: elephant house with electric fences. 110 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 21 months with 1 baby on average. Approx. 96 months to maturity. Cost: $480 for adults and $640 for babies; endangered. Notes: Pretty poop-y, but also popular. Long gestation and maturation periods make them easy to maintain without great care, but they need at least one additional trainer for poo issues. D. Gazelles Ideal Population: 4-20 animals with a 2:1 female:male ratio. Somewhat flexible. Enclosure: small herbivore house with chain fences. 100 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 6 months with 1 baby on average. Approx. 9 months to maturity. Cost: $240 for adults and $320 for babies; common. Notes: I find these guys boring, but they bring in a good amount of revenue for the price. I wouldn't use them as a centerpiece for a park, but they make a good addition to one and are fairly easy to maintain. E. Giraffes Ideal Population: 5-22 animals with a 2:1 female:male ratio. Fairly flexible. Enclosure: giraffe house with chain fences. 100 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 14 months with 1 baby on average. Approx. 25 months to maturity. Cost: $330 for adults and $440 for babies; moderately rare. Notes: Very popular with guests and fun to stare at, these animals are a great choice for any park. They do require extra pooper-scooping, but it's a small price to pay for such a cool-looking species. F. Gorillas Ideal Population: 9-60 animals with a 2:1 female:male ratio. Widely flexible. Enclosure: ape house with electric fences. 80 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 9 months with 1 baby on average. Approx. 74 months to maturity. Cost: $510 for adults and $680 for babies; endangered. Notes: As with all apes, these guys aren't very picky about their cage- mates, but can get upset when breeding goes unchecked and the enclosure fills up past capacity with children and/or poop. Otherwise, they're cool. G. Grizzly Bears Ideal Population: 4-6 animals with a 1:1 female:male ratio. Not very flexible. Enclosure: carnivore house with electric fences. 100 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 18 months with 2 babies on average. Approx. 30 months to maturity. Cost: $330 for adults and $440 for babies; moderately rare. Notes: I find these guys to be too picky and socially sensitive to be worth my trouble, but the kids seem to like them. They're not a bad addition to a park, but certainly not a must-have as far as I'm concerned. H. Hippos Ideal Population: 6-30 animals with a 1:1 female:male ratio. Somewhat flexible. Enclosure: large herbivore house with electric fences. 100 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 8 months with 1 baby on average. Approx. 52 months to maturity. Cost: $360 for adults and $480 for babies; moderately rare. Notes: Somewhat socially sensitive where ratios are concerned, but cool to have and popular with peeps. A bit poop-y. I. Horses Ideal Population: 4-12 animals with a 1:1 female:male ratio. Fairly flexible. Enclosure: small herbivore house with wooden fences. 60 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 11 months with 1 baby on average. Approx. 11 months to maturity. Cost: $90 for adults and $120 for babies; common. Notes: The easiest and cheapest animals, and great for starters. They are not the most popular, but provide entertainment enough for your peeps and, when cared for well, and actually bring a tidy profit when resold. A bit socially sensitive, but nothing too hard to keep track of. J. Kangaroos Ideal Population: 4-8 animals with a 1:1 female:male ratio. Not very flexible. Enclosure: small herbivore house with chain fences. 100 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 8 months with 1 baby on average. Approx. 12 months to maturity. Cost: $360 for adults and $480 for babies; moderately rare. Notes: Very popular and fairly easy to maintain, these guys are probably the least social of the smaller animals, but flourish in small groups. Watch for excessive breeding, as short gestation and maturation periods mean lots of extra 'roos and bad social meters if you're not careful. K. Leopards Ideal Population: 2-4 animals with preferably one male only. Not very flexible. Enclosure: carnivore house with chain fences. 120 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 3 months with 3 babies on average. Approx. 18 months to maturity. Cost: $360 for adults and $480 for babies; moderately rare. Notes: Socially sensitive but generally popular, these cats require a balancing act with gender ratios but can prove worth it for your profits and park rating. L. Lions Ideal Population: 2-7 animals with preferably one male only. Not very flexible. Enclosure: carnivore house with chain fences. 90 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 4 months with 4 babies on average. Approx. 24 months to maturity. Cost: $420 for adults and $560 for babies; rare. Notes: Breeding machines, these guys can be a very popular and profitable attraction. Watch for too many maturing males with the passage of time and you should be fine. M. Mandrills Ideal Population: 9-64 animals with a 2:1 female:male ratio. Widely flexible. Enclosure: ape house with chain fences. 60 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 6 months with 1 baby on average. Approx. 35 months to maturity. Cost: $390 for adults and $520 for babies; rare. Notes: My favorite ape, these are social and hard to displease, but do multiply quickly and need to be housed and fed properly in keeping up with their ever-increasing population. They also have arguably the cutest babies in the entire game, adding to their park-rating and aesthetic value. N. Orangutans Ideal Population: 9-64 animals with a 2:1 female:male ratio. Widely flexible. Enclosure: ape house with wooden fences. 70 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 9 months with 1 baby on average. Approx. 84 months to maturity. Cost: $480 for adults and $640 for babies; endangered. Notes: The same as all the other apes, these guys love being social and making children. Just pay attention to them and you'll do just great. O. Ostriches Ideal Population: 3-18 animals with basically a "whatever" female:male ratio. Widely flexible. Enclosure: small herbivore house with wooden fences. 70 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 1 month with 2 babies on average. Approx. 12 months to maturity. Cost: $150 for adults and $200 for babies; common. Notes: Though they are poop machines, they are also baby machines, and can make you ridiculous amounts of cash if you can afford to clean up after their prolific bowels. With adorable babies, loose social requirements, and a cheap asking price, these guys are ideal for any park. P. Pandas Ideal Population: basically 1 animal. A pair does alright, but the social bar is only full with either a lone panda or a parent and child(ren) together. Enclosure: large herbivore house with chain fences. 130 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 36 months with 2 babies on average. Approx. 14 months to maturity. Cost: $600 for adults and $800 for babies; endangered. Notes: Because they prefer to be so solitary, most guests will find your panda enclosure boring. However, a baby or two can spice up the joint and moderately compromising the panda's social happiness can bring greater profit. I only recommend them when necessary, in sandbox levels, or if you really want one. Q. Panthers Ideal Population: 2 animals with a 1:1 female:male ratio plus any children, preferably female. Essentially one family does great. Enclosure: carnivore house with chain fences. 120 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 3 months with 3 babies on average. Approx. 28 months to maturity. Cost: $360 for adults and $480 for babies; moderately rare. Notes: Not the most popular or flexible cats, panthers are not a bad investment but can be a bit annoying as they keep breeding themselves into social discomfort. Great as profit machines if you intend to keep selling the babies, though I always find this tactic a bit mean. R. Polar Bears Ideal Population: 4-12 animals with a 1:1 female:male ratio. Not very flexible. Enclosure: carnivore house with electric fences. 110 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 7 months with 2 babies on average. Approx. 48 months to maturity. Cost: $360 for adults and $480 for babies; moderately rare. Notes: exotic and popular, these bears bring an arctic element to your park that seems to call out to peeps, which is fine with me. They breed fairly often and need looking after in that respect, but are otherwise great residents. S. Rhinos Ideal Population: 2-4 animals with preferably one male only. Not very flexible. Enclosure: large herbivore house with electric fences. 100 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 16 months with 1 baby on average. Approx. 40 months to maturity. Cost: $510 for adults and $680 for babies; endangered. Notes: Though expensive and socially uptight, these animals are often very popular and profitable, and usually worth the trouble. T. Tigers Ideal Population: 2 animals with a 1:1 female:male ratio plus any children, preferably female. Essentially one family does great. Enclosure: carnivore house with chain fences. 100 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 4 months with 3 babies on average. Approx. 30 months to maturity. Cost: $540 for adults and $720 for babies; endangered. Notes: Socially picky and breed-happy, these animals require a great deal of attention to keep them happy but can often bring in a crapload of money. They, like the other big cats, have their ups and downs but are popular so it's up to you if you feel like dealing with it. U. Zebras Ideal Population: 4-22 animals with basically a "whatever" female:male ratio. Widely flexible. Enclosure: small herbivore house with wooden fences. 100 tiles required. Breeding: gestation period of 30 months with 1 baby on average. Approx. 30 months to maturity. Cost: $210 for adults and $280 for babies; common. Notes: Similar to horses in many aspects, but are less socially picky and more popular with the peeps. They have babies less often than horses as well, not that the social balance is that delicate in any case. I recommend them as a relatively inexpensive but popular and profitable species. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- III. Wild! Advice and FAQs A. Scenario Stuff There are three basic tasks you are asked to perform with animals in the Wild! scenarios. You will have to have a certain number of animals of a certain breed in your park, release a certain number of a certain breed, or make a specific profit off of a certain breed. The first is the easiest, as you can always buy more animals and just let them make a bunch of babies; this task often requires patience when money is tight and the only way to get more animals is to let nature take its course, but I wouldn't say that this task is difficult by any means. Releasing animals into the wild can be difficult because of the many factors at play. As the annoying popup will undoubtedly tell you, only 95%+ healthy adults can be released, so babies and less-than-awesome animals will have to wait this one out. Because of this, using breeding to get your numbers high enough for the release quota can be a painstakingly slow process, unless they mature in a couple of months, which is rarely the case. Scenarios in which you are expected to perform this task make you purchase "rescued" animals, which means your work is cut out for you. I would not say that this task is too hard, but if you don't follow each animal's requirements (see each species' write-up above) and don't take pay attention to the health of the animals, you'll never get through this task. Patience and knowledge are required for this task. Making a profit from a certain species is possibly the most annoying task, because you often start with no animals and are forced to dip into the negative just to create a stock of animals from which you can make a profit later. Animals who are well cared for will increase in value tremendously over a short period of time, but often the profit you're required to get increases with each level of difficulty in the scenario, so you have to make sure you don't sell all your animals and come shy of the final profit required, forcing you to start over. It's always a good idea to look ahead to the tasks you'll be asked to perform throughout a scenario in any case, and this is no different. While you can sell animals of any age or health, as opposed to the rules for releasing them, your profits will be much greater for the healthiest animals. As proportional to their purchase prices, babies always get more on the market but will often get you more viewing gallery revenue, so sell with care. General Advice: many of the conditions you must meet with your animals can be satisfied "at any time", which means you can make your highest required profit off of horses in the first month of your park, sell them all, and disregard horses for the rest of the scenario. Once you move on to the later difficulty levels, those conditions will have already been met because of your business savvy in the first part of the scenario. Because not all animals or situations are profitable in a park, be sure to take care with how much you incorporate the "zoo" aspect into your park. If you need to have a high number of guests to viewing galleries, you may not want to have a bunch of very popular rollercoasters with long queues, as your peeps will all be held up in line rather than adding to your gallery totals. It is important to know how to go about completing a task and then meet those conditions without screwing yourself over for other scenario requirements. If you need to pay back a loan later, don't max yourself out just to get the "number of gorillas in park" problem taken care of. Exercise patience and care, and everything will work out just dandy. B. Mixing Species You can mix different types of animals in the same enclosure as long as they are inside the right fence and have enough housing of the appropriate type for all species. Some animals are fine with other species sharing with them (apes tend to do well with this, not surprisingly) and others get very upset in any mixing situation. Each species' preferences in this area are not currently listed in this FAQ because that requires a lot of work, but I may add them later. At this point, use your judgment and watch the social stats of all animals in any mixed environment, and you'll be fine. C. What Happens When...? As I stated above, when peeps get caught in enclosures, nothing will happen. However, if you stick a zebra in the lion enclosure, chaos ensues. Any prey animal will be hunted within a few seconds and reduced to a pile of meat to be eaten by the animals involved in the kill. It costs money (the value of the animal) and is fairly mean, but it does increase peep interest in the carnivore enclosure. I wouldn't recommend doing this for any real reason, but if you just want to see what happens, you won't get yelled at by the game for doing it, you'll just be short one animal. You are not allowed to release wild animals into the park without an enclosure, however, which makes me a bit sad. If you try to delete the fence of an enclosure that has animals in it, you will be thwarted by the game. I suppose it is a good thing that the amount of chaos you can cause with these animals is minimal. D. Does It Matter If I...? Each species' data includes its home habitat and the environment it comes from. However, this seems to be for our knowledge rather than any practical use. The animals don't care what ground or scenery you use in their enclosures. You could put polar bears in a desert and they'd be just fine. The only scenery items that matter are trees. Animals will sometimes look for something against which to scratch, and if there are no trees for this purpose, they will scratch against the fence, which will break it down faster. Any tree seems to fit the bill here, including cacti (ow!). You are free to add other scenery in the enclosure, but remember that any scenery objects, water, or steep grades in hills will create less space for yours animals to walk around in their own enclosures. While I like using some scenery and even putting water for animals that would normally spend some time in water (hippos, anyone?), it's important to remember that everything you put in must be considered for space for the animals. If scenery seems to dominate the enclosure, it's probably way too much and you need to delete some of it or make the enclosure much bigger. E. Roads and Attractions in Enclosures While you can't build walking paths through enclosures, you can make certain transport rides go through them. This presents a great opportunity for "safari" type rides, though one must be careful not to make them too lengthy, else peeps will become frustrated and wish to exit the ride. I do not know if there are any safety issues concerning the more attack-prone animals, but I suspect that such problems would become apparent immediately, so if you plan to have a ride go through a tiger pen, just watch the first round of cars and if no one dies, then you're fine. If you feel like cheating the system a little bit, MaxximvS on the RCT3 forums posted a great tutorial for placing rides and paths essentially within your enclosures. Using the shovel tool and some clever organization, you can make your entire park surrounded by various animals. This method is essentially for aesthetic purposes only and has no real bearing on game play, but it looks cool, and that's what counts. You can find the tutorial here: http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=509054. Keeping within the standard game rules, however, enclosures and everything else are meant to be separate, which is not such a bad thing. Scenery and MaxximvS' tricks can jazz up a park visually, but generally do not affect how the game is played. The most important aspects are those that affect the health and safety of the beings in your park, both human and animal. If there's anything not answered or answered incorrectly in here, please e- mail me at chairface@gmail.com and I'll be sure to include or correct anything that needs it. Happy tycooning.