Zookeeper's Lounge

Staff Expansion

Robot Maintenace Workers
Zoomba (roomba)
Zoofriends (increases guest happiness by assisting guests)
Exhibit Bots (stationary bot that explains the exhibit/animal)
Roaming Vendor
Zoo Inspector (fence refresher)(adds time to fencelife)



Anyone else have an idea?

I believe true staff expansion could only be done by Blue Fang because staff programming is in the Zoo Tycoon program instead of in ztd files. But things like the "Exhibit bots" could be done as scenery.

Think BlueFang would acknowledge an e-mail on the subject

Since they probably get tons of email, it is extremely unlikely that they would acknowledge any. One can hope that they look at forums like this every once in a while to see the preferences of Zoo Tycooners.

the robot maintenance workers might work. at ZA, they somehow managed to make tour guides look different, so perhaps they can do that with maintenance workers.

Yes, the images used for a staff member can be changed. And you can probably even have robot maintenance workers in the same zoo with the current type of maintenance workers. (That might even be an interesting idea to pursue.) But you can't change their behavior. Either one would do the same type of work. If a Zoo Inspector was made based on the maintenance worker, the zoo inspector would also take care of trash and sweep like the current maintenance worker. It could not be made to just fix fences. Similarly, a Roaming Vendor could be based on a Tour Guide. And people would follow the vendor like they would a tour guide. But they would not buy something from the Roaming Vendor because, to them, it is a tour guide.

Hi again Jay,
In MM the maintenance worker is specialized. You can assign them to "Only" fix fences or pick up trash etc...
Now don't get me wrong I know very little about this stuff but
...The program or script or whatever determines the specializing duties box is new to ZT. Can that box be cleared of data and new data for ,say...Tour Guides be written in?

I'm not even sure if I correctly described what I'm thinking. Does the maintenance worker duties box have to be "only" for the maintenance workers? Could one be created for scientists, marine specialists and tour guides?

MM doesn't work in my environment. So I can only talk about the original ZT and general things.

One can change the words in the duties box, but that does not change the behaviors.

When a creator makes a staff member, they create an "ai" file for the staff member. There are two things that determine what the staff member can do. In the case of the original ZT, there is a ZooRoutine behavior section. In this section there is either: fKeeperRoutine, fMaintRoutine, or fGuideRoutine. The various expansions use a different technique. There is a Type setting. This must be one that ZT understands: keeper, maint, tour, helicopter, scient, trainer. These are what determine what behavior the staff can do. If fMaintRoutine or maint is used, the staff member has to handle the following behaviors: Sweep, Bag, Fix, Empty, WalkRandomly, Walk, Run, RunFromPredator, and (for the expansion packs) BagDino. No changes in these behaviors are allowed. If an inspector is based on the maint worker, it has to handle all of these behaviors in case a Zoo Tycooner sets assigments differently.

If a fence breaks, ZT is going to find a staff member set to "Maint" (the staff member can look like anything: maint worker, scientist, robot, snake, rock, whatever; ZT doesn't care) that is available (this includes assignments but includes much more) and causes the staff member to start its Walk behavior. (The Walk animation [and even sound] can be anything: walking, sliding, slithering, cartwheels, whatever; ZT doesn't care.) When the staff member gets to the fence, ZT starts the Fix behavior. (The Fix animation [and sound] can be anything: fixing a fence, doing jumping jacks, whatever; ZT doesn't care.) But no matter what the looks and words are, ZT then replaces the broken fence with a good fence. All of the behaviors work this way. So the animations should match in some way what ZT expected do be done. Otherwise it will not look right.

that kind of gives me an idea having workers be able to look like anything maybe since people want free-ranging peacocks maybe someone could make a tour guide look like a peacock(and could the salary be turned off or set down lower to be like a feed cost instead of pay for work) and it would just walk around the zoo(and of course people would still follow it around but maybe some people just really like peacocks )

not a bad idea
but who would like to do it

LOL, that would be great Okapi! And how about roaming geese that repair fences and eat trash?
Seriously, though, I'd rather have roaming peacocks than tour guides myself!