Leaderboard

Last Post So as a lot has happened since the first post I made on this, I’ve spun this into its own thread since it’s so wildly different now To start off, I have some old WIP screenshots I did the same day as the last post. Should have shared them there before, but as I’m making a new thread for this bigger thing I thought I’d add them here 🙃 First off, I made a restaurant area with a fake “mini” exhibit. Its only purpose is to be scenic, and as such there’s an object on every tile. It’s a mix of desert, Savannah, and jungle features, along with some arctic bush to give it that dry look 🦣 You may have also spotted the second of my new viewing areas. A full series of pics below: Moving on to the actual meat of this post, here’s the new, second Savannah diorama right before the animals were added. Unfortunately, most of this design had to be changed in order to fit their needs, but it gives a good sense of what I was going for: And here it is with its first animals! The left shoulder exhibit houses hyena (who got so unhappy so fast that all their grass trees had to go), with African Wild Dogs on the right shoulder, and a joint Sable Antelope & Ostrich enclosure in the middle: A zoomout of one of those closer pics: Now, you may have noticed that there aren’t any crocs in these images. This is because I was busy getting them to eat the last of their meat in the old moat, for that surprise I mentioned in the title Once I did move them into the new moat, I put all but one baby one on the left island (in order to do the whole infinite meat exploit XP). This is what pretty much every croc from that smaller moat looks like when placed next to each other: But forget the overcrowding for a sec, while I turn your attention to the reason I moved them… I converted the whole old moat into a tank-moat, up to the exact same waterline (don’t ask me how I got the ladder to appear at that exact point, it took ages 🫠) Of course, I had a good reason for doing this. I added something very different to crocodiles… :0 HIPPOS! Yep! I have not only added Hyenas, Sable Antelope, Ostriches and Wild Dogs, but also the one savannah animal that can actually swim ^^ The long distance between islands of course is slightly more of an issue for hippos than crocs (at least in my mind). But that’s why I turned it into a tank, so that rather than them simply passing by- They can stop off for a visit ^-^ Sorry for being so slow and dramatic with this reveal, I’m just so glad that it worked! I introduced a pair to either island, so that slowly they would swim across to meet each other. Here’s the other one: The only real downside here is that they are less visible than the crocs would have been in the moat, given they blend pretty well into the tank walls: But it’s worth it to see them going on a journey to see their neighbours! Habitat suitability is of course all over the place for them, but the tank ticks off their need for fresh water (alongside that already in the other enclosures), and overall they seem happy even when in an enclosure that isn’t tailored too much to them specifically: I have lots more hippo images, but don’t wanna clog this one post up too much. Might post them in a comment below at some point though if people wanna see, have plenty of everything since I’m forever taking screenshots 😅 But the last hippo one I’ll share is of one of my hippos deciding to tuck in to the elephant’s lunch. All the enclosures, bar the Buffalo, have their food already stocked, and any keepers present will do so automatically in their presence: This new setup has actually really benefited my side enclosures. Raising the hippo (formerly croc) islands up means the keepers can now exit those side exhibits, meaning I can now force one keeper to look after the hippos, buffalo and rhino Btw, has anyone else done a hippo enclosure with this kinda setup? I know land-tank hybrid exhibits for hippos have been done over and over, but I’m curious to see any earlier examples of people using this to create exhibit-hopping hippos 🏝🦛 Either way, this post is already getting way too long. So to finish off, I’ll just drop some more of the new expansion pics I have, including the changing foliage and stuff when the Sables also got unhappy

Yellowrose's daughter shut it down. Before Yellowrose passed, she asked that her files be hosted here at Tek. We are in the process of making this happen.

Aww that means so much to hear, thank you! I’ve actually taken the liberty of getting a few more of the hippo pics uploaded, so you can really see them in action 🦛 Here’s another view of the last pic I showed of them: And here’s the bits I should have really added in the post, the two of them finally meeting up They do this entirely of their own accord, and I swear sometimes they even follow each other in and out of the different exhibits (although that’s almost certainly just coincidence, I don’t think that behaviour is actually coded 😅) But yeah this is probably the best thing I have ever done in anything! I actually assumed it probably wouldn’t work, but their general hardiness and the extent to which a tank will connect with a land exhibit means it all just falls into place The only thing that isn’t clear is whether they’ll still be able to breed like this, since they’re technically in and out of different enclosures all the time. But even if they can’t, it’s still just awesome having them around