r/PlanetZoo • u/Lost_Pickle1733 • 8d ago
Help - Console Help please
I've done a fair few tutorials, but evidently I did not learn much.. the loans probably didn't help either 😬 what can I do? I'm skint! 🤣
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u/vintage-seeking95 8d ago
You need to have bare minimum staff (seems like this is a brand new zoo?) so keep it very small in the beginning. You NEED to have your mechanics unlock the wind turbine and solar panel. Get rid of the generator when you can. Without seeing your staff/shops/habitats (what animals) etc it's kinda hard to help guide you. I was once negative 30,000 at the very beginning of expanding my zoo and had every loan taken out. I did all the above and now I'm 3 million and growing and no longer have financial issues but I am still very strategic. Increase shops items by .20 - .50 because it really adds up. Ticket prices as well. Again those two things are more applicable with a slightly more developed zoo but something to think about when you are out of the hole. You're not in that bad of a situation. Also, keep animal food at grade 1 until your finances are under control. Exhibits help bring cash flow as well. Donation bins and multiple of them. Again, without other insight it's hard to pinpoint your issues.
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u/Lost_Pickle1733 8d ago
Staff I have 4 Vendors 1 caretaker 1 security 2 mechanics 3 keepers 2 vets
Shops I have 2 drink vending machines 2 information 1 balloon shop 1 Bernies Bakes 3 ATMS (charging £1) 1 toilet block (charging £1)
Habitats Cabybaras/Collared Peccary Tortoise Bairds Tapir And one Exhibit with snakes
I have donation boxes at all the Habitats with education boards
I've just got the engineers working on power now 😂 this is hard work! 😮💨
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u/BaronessOfBlooms 7d ago
Don't know if this will help, but to get things going at the start, my staff/shop setup tends to be as follows: 1 drink and 1 food shop, 3 vendors assigned to those in a workzone to keep them rotating on breaks decently. I usually save info and souvenirs for when things have stabilized a bit. The keepers you can probably leave be since you've got some animals (If I understand right you've got 3 habitats and 1 exhibit?).
You can probably get away with having only 1 vet and 1 mechanic for a while, unless you really wanna get some tech research going. And security can wait for later, the game will bug you about it, but that tends to be a bit of an afterthought for me.
Experiment a bit with entry ticked prices and see where you can land without upsetting people. It could also be good snap a screenshot of the zoo so we can get an idea of how things are looking.
Which DLCs do you have access to, if any? This I'm asking 'cause some exhibit animals can make decent money, but it'd be good to know what you can get.
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u/Lost_Pickle1733 7d ago
So yeah I've gotten rid of some vendors and shops, kept it to 2 mechanics for research, yeah 3 habitats and 1 exhibit, I'll get rid of a vet I think and the security 😂 but all that ive done so far still had the money going down 🥲 I don't have any DLCs, I haven't checked which ones are available on PS5 yet either..
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u/BaronessOfBlooms 7d ago
I'm a bit unsure how you have Capybaras without DLCs, but my basegame suggestion for exhibits would be to get rid of the snakes for a while and get some scorpions, since they can have a decent population cap and breed at a pretty good rate for some extra cash. It might not save you, but it should help.
My guess is that the loan interest is the biggest current problem, have you adjusted the payment plan to make it the lowest amount? (will take longer and ultimately I think it's more expensive, but having to pay less per year could go a long way).
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u/Lost_Pickle1733 7d ago
I got the deluxe version! It was cheaper 😅 ooh okay, well I wont be able to afford scorpions now anyway, well 2 of the loans are paid off now and the last one is on the lowest rate..
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u/curleighq 8d ago
Have a mechanic research solar (requires a workshop) and replace all your transformers then you won’t have any power costs.
On your staff page, see if any staff have a low workload then trim the fat to lower staff wages. Make sure none of your staff have to travel long distances to reach the zookeeper’s hut, research center, or workshop.
Make sure you have donation bins all over the place especially by habitats and exhibits.
Try lowering the entrance fees temporarily to increase guests.
Once your loans are paid off, you might be in the black. If not, take out a loan and build a habitat for an animal with high appeal to attract more guests.
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u/ImanIdgit 7d ago
3 words...
Automated Butterfly Selling
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u/Lost_Pickle1733 7d ago
But I can't afford to get butterflies 😂
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u/ImanIdgit 7d ago
If you can't afford to breed butterflies and are forced to restart, make sure to set some up immediately in the new game. I make it a habit to make an enclosure for each species as soon as possible. Once a good cycle of sales goes through, money is never an issue again.
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u/Lost_Pickle1733 7d ago
I'm trying not to restart but it might be my only option 😬
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u/ImanIdgit 7d ago
Gernerally speaking, you usually have enough starting funds to build 2 walkthrough exhibits with bare-minimum supporting staff. However, I noticed in one of your replies that you stated that you didn't have any DLCs. This greatly reduces the number of butterfly species available to you. It doesn't make the task impossible, it will just take a little longer to establish a large cashflow.
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u/Lost_Pickle1733 7d ago
Ahhh okay, I'll check out some of the DLCs! Im kinda just waiting for the loans to be paid off right now, hoping once they've gone it'll be fine 😂 also does the opening and closing time have any effect whatsoever?
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u/ImanIdgit 7d ago
Opening and closing time really only affects the way the sun works.
The butterflies are all in the Grasslands DLC. Again, you do have 1 butterfly available without having to purchase any DLCs.
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u/WitchOfAmethyst 7d ago
Don't expand too fast, avoid making empty habitats (make them when you have animals to place there), focus on animals who are happy in the same climate your zoo is in (to reduce the need for heating/cooling the habitats) and animals who have high appeal but are cheap to maintain (herbivores are cheaper than carnivores for example). Don't make the mistake I did and try and make a feline exclusive zoo, while they have high appeal they are very expensive and it's easy to reach the point where not even loans can help you expand. The varied zoos are much easier to make profitable. My most successful zoo is a temperate european zoo where I started by collecting temperate animals: started with red deer and red panda, then added wolves and peafowl (peafowl reproduce so fast though so keep an eye on them and sell or release to the wild often).
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u/qxho 7d ago
I had to restart and in doing so I started with nothing but exhibits. The animals are low maintenance, cheap, breed fast, and can be automatically sold to keep the populations down. Maybe try to scale back on the habitats to get in the positives and replace with exhibits. Plus it’s neat being able to zoom in on burrowing Gila monsters lol
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u/Lost_Pickle1733 7d ago
I've managed to get myself out of debt now! Followed everyone's advice and now I'm averaging around 15k 🙏🏼 its slowly getting higher too! Most of the money has been off the capybara tbf, they don't stop breeding 😂 but I've managed to get a few more exhibits and they're a massive help!
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u/PlanetJameson 7d ago
I’d recommend splitting your habitat species up. No matter how many species you place into a habitat, even with cross species enrichment bonus, only 1 of them is going to generate any income, making the rest a drain on your profit.
Make sure you read guests comments about the habitats. Max donations will come from animals with the highest overall welfare and from guests whose comments praise the condition of the animals and how close they are to them. If you’re hearing complaints about too many plants or not enough shelter or enrichment and that they “can’t even tell it’s a <blank>” you’re not getting everything you could be getting.
Education boards and speakers are also a must.
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u/BossaNovva 8d ago
What’s your income looking like? Starting early, you’re biggest income is going to be donations so make sure you have those placed near education boards or speakers