All you zookeepers out there, rejoice. Frontier Developments has released the Planet Zoo 1.0.3 update today, November 27, and this is going to turn the elaborate zoo simulator into an even bigger and bolder game. According to the official blurb, update 1.0.3 contains more than 400 fixes and updates. While most of the changes are related to stability and performance issues, the Sandbox Mode received a wealth of new features to create an even more addictive gameplay loop.
Planet Zoo 1.0.3 Update Patch Notes | Highlights
For a zoo simulator to work, some conflicting features must be added to make the game feel alive and faithful to its real-life counterpart. The Sandbox Mode saw the addition of a few of these mechanics, including death by old age. Don’t get too attached to those cute pandas, because they aren’t going to live forever.
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The Sandbox Mode is getting other new options to further enhance its scope, including fence degradation, staff happiness and energy degradation, and animal welfare needs, among other things. If you want your guests to be pleased with the zoo trip, you must do your best to keep the animals happy and healthy, and the wellbeing of the staff is a part of the whole picture as well.
One curious issue that this Planet Zoo 1.0.3 update addresses is an instance where an animal could die of dehydration while swimming. If you take a second to think about it, this is the kind of bug that could put the official “ultimate zoo sim” tagline at risk. Imagine the baffled reactions from players witnessing their animals dying of thirst while they bathed in the precious tasteless, odorless, and colorless liquid.
Speaking of odorless, Frontier decided it was time to tweak the “eeuw” audio reaction to pooping. Now it’s up to you to decide if the new disgusted reaction is an improvement over the old “eeuw.” Details that truly matter.
Planet Zoo 1.0.3 Update | Full Patch Notes
Stability
- Further crash and stability fixes.
- Fixed crash on frontend.
Sandbox
- Added a series of new options to customize your play –
- Power usage
- Water treatment
- Fence degradation
- Predation/fear
- Death by old age
- Staff happiness degradation
- Staff energy degradation
- Animal welfare needs
- Maximize guest happiness
- Freeze guest needs
- Guest limit setting now added to sandbox and challenge mode too.
- Unlocked assets in scenarios when they are loaded in sandbox and challenge mode.
- Fixed issue with assets grouped with guest entrances not being able to be deleted.
Facilities
- Balanced water treatment facilities. They should now clean dirty water more effectively.
Inspector
- Fixed bug with the inspector incorrectly reporting dehydrated and starving animals.
Animals
- Fixed animals being able to be dehydrated whilst swimming.
- Fixed bug when cancelling an animal move from the vet surgery which could cause the animal to become stuck.
- Fixed bug whereby small animals navigating over scenery could end up inside it.
- Fixed issue where animals could become stuck in vet surgery when player cancels moving them whilst they are receiving treatment.
- Balanced exhibit animal defecation rates.
- Various animation fixes and polish.
- Fixed issue when entering and exiting Ansel whilst in orbit camera the camera could relocate to a distant point.
Feeders
- Suspended high grazer occupancy increased from 1 to 4 animals.
Staff
- Fixed bug with small barrel feeder which could cause the keeper to flip upside down when refilling it.
- Added staff thought for staff that can’t reach their workzone.
- Fixed further staff animation issues.
- Fix for vendor becoming stuck when undoing deletion of a shop.
Guests
- Fixed protesters and some guests in queues not fleeing escaped animals.
- Fixed bug causing guests to sometimes pop in to the air whilst walking.
Scenarios
- Updated the layout of scenario 4, adding staff buildings, staff and path layout, and lowered objective requirements.
- Updated workzones in scenario 5 and reduced gold objective requirements.
- Further balancing of scenario 7.
UI
- Fixed further instance that could cause pressing ‘X’ to stop toggling between rotate and movement modes.
- Added notifications for keepers in workzones which don’t contain exhibits or habitats.
- Fixed ‘Release to wild’ option being available on animal info panel for animals that have been bought for cash.
- Fixed bug causing the time/weather UI close ‘X’ button to become unresponsive.
- Fixed issue where ‘Navigable Area’ would not update on an animal’s info panel whilst it was climbing.
- Fixed bug where typing in the loan repayment amount was being reset to the lowest repayments.
- Reduced amount of notifications for exhibit animals mating.
- Added option to hide blueprints in browser categories.
- Updated ‘sort’ setting in various UI to be retained when switching between tabs.
- Fixed bug when selecting certain areas of the globe in the frontend could cause the globe to flip upside-down.
- Fixed missing ‘Call Mechanic’ button on transport station info panel.
- Fixed bug with ‘Send to Storage’ button sometimes being inactive in animal info panel.
- Fixed misreporting of food costs on habitat info panel.
Franchise Mode
- Added fanfare for community challenge rewards.
Editing
- Improved performance when moving train via multiselect button.
- Bins and donation boxes should now be easier to place on undulating terrain.
Avatars
- Fixed missing torso when using avatar costumes on slim female avatars.
Audio
- Various bug fixes and polish, including:
- Added new ambient music tracks.
- Tweaked the “eeuw” reaction behavior to pooping.
- Added a sub mix for headphones / stereo.
- More crowd variations and individual reactions.
- UI mix pass and additional audio.
- Fixed an issue with ambient speakers self-obstructing and muffling the sound.
- More variations to animal sounds
Localization
- Various localization fixes.
