No Grass, Please!

[P.Rex]

Download Version 1.5 (7.12.2015)

 

 

 

One of the things that bothered me about Dinosaur Digs right from the beginning was the dinosaurs' strange habitat stats. E.g. some of the dinosaurs will tolerate only one species of plant in their exhibits (Allosaurus comes to mind), dinosaurs "wanting" grass in their exhibits, dinosaurs living in biomes that didn't even exist until the Eocene (savannah, grassland), dinosaurs from the same formation that want completely different biomes, etc. I realized that a lot of it was due to short-sightedness and lack of research on the developers' part, and I wanted to correct that. I wanted to modify some of the dinosaurs stats to bring the game up to speed with all the progress paleontologists have made since its release.

 

And so, I made this mod.

 

"No Grass, Please!" is an ambitious attempt to rectify some of the mistakes made by Blue Fang and adapt Dinosaur Digs as much as possible to present-day science.
It changes many of the dinosaur stats and behaviors, including biome stats, to make your dinosaur zoo appear more plausible and, hopefully, more true to life.

 

Download Link: (coming soon, still waiting for Cricket to approve it)

 

Screenshots:

 

 

The first animal to be modded was Meiolania, the giant tortoise. Originally, Blue Fang made this animal semiaquatic and living in frozen, barren tundras. Now, it is fully terrestrial and living in rainforests. The exhibit contains both jungle plants and modern Australian plants, similar to how its habitat may have looked like during the early- to mid-Holocene.

 

 

Dinosaur Digs was released with four dinosaurs known to have lived in the Morrison Formation: Apatosaurus, Camptosaurus, Stegosaurus and Allosaurus. Since they all lived in the same place, I've given them all identical biome stats so that the three herbivores can be put together in the same exhibit. (Allosaurus should be put in a different exhibit, for obvious reasons)

Instead of having each of them in a completely different biome, as Blue Fang originally did, their environment is now a lightly-forested Mossy Plain, with ferns, monkey-puzzle trees and a lot of open space for herds of giant herbivores to wander through.

The only disadvantage: when keeping a lot of big plant-eaters together, expect a lot of giant poop!

 

 

When Blue Fang designed the Allosaurus, the biome they assigned to it was a modern-looking Rainforest with grass, of all things- despite the fact no grass was known to exist in the Jurassic period. Now it lives in a grass-free Mossy Plain similar to the giant herbivores with whom it shared the land.

 

 

Kentrosaurus' natural habitat in the Tendaguru Beds, Tanzania, is believed to have been similar to the Morrison Formation but with a greater abundance of waterways and swamps. Hence, I've given this Kentrosaurus a swampy biome.

 

 

The Triassic period was the time of great deserts. Most of the world was barren with only a few oases and jungle enclaves dotting the globe. Instead of the lush rainforest it was assigned by Blue Fang, this Coelophysis basks in the heat of his new desert home, similar to how his ancestors may have lived in Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, around 200 million years ago.

 

 

This Herrerasaurus lives in a hybrid biome- half rainforest, half desert, it represents the treacherous climate believed to have been in late Triassic Argentina, with brief rainy seasons and long, scorching dry seasons.

 

 

The Plateosaurus' biome is similar to that of the Coelophysis despite them living in almost opposite corners of Pangaea -the former in Europe, the latter in America. This is because most of the world was believed to have been barren at the time.
Originally, the developers assigned this animal a deciduous forest biome, an environment that was most likely nonexistent during the Triassic.

 

 

Triceratops and Ankylosaurus sharing an exhibit in this coniferous forest habitat. Originally, Blue Fang had them both living in a savannah, despite grass not being common enough to warrant its own biome until the Eocene. They even gave them Australian savannah plants such as the Grass Tree, despite the fact these dinosaurs lived in North America.

 

 

Instead of the Jurassic Park-esque open grassland he was originally assigned, this Tyrannosaurus inhabits a coniferous forest identical to the biome of his prey, Triceratops and Ankylosaurus.

 

 

The two Mongolian dinosaurs in the game are enjoying themselves in the late cretaceous Gobi Desert, as sandy and barren back then as it is today. Originally, their biomes in the game were deciduous forest (Gallimimus)and coniferous forest (Velociraptor). In addition, Gallimimus is no longer ridiculously aggressive and Velociraptor can live in much larger groups.

 

 

Lambeosaurus and Styracosaurus sharing a half coniferous, half deciduous forest habitat. Originally, Styracosaurus were extremely aggressive and would attack any other herbivore placed in their exhibits- this is no longer the case.

 

 

Caudipteryx is known from the early Cretaceous period of the Yixian Formation, China, which is believed to have had a climate similar to that of modern boreal forests, with four seasons and even snow at winter. The game originally had this dinosaur live in a rainforest and claimed it lived during the Jurassic, not Cretaceous, period.

 

 

The game originally had Iguanodon live in deciduous forests, which were likely not as common when it lived, from the late Jurassic to early Cretaceous periods. I gave it a biome similar to the Jurassic biomes, with slight alterations such as some deciduous trees and flowering plants being acceptable, reflecting the gradual appearance of these plant groups during the Cretaceous.

 

 

This one is still a work-in-progress.

In late 2014, new findings in Morocco seemed to indicate that Spinosaurus lived a semi-aquatic lifestyle, spending much of its time in the surf. I've tried to reflect that as much as possible by having a lot of salt water and some sand in its habitat, instead of the original coniferous forest. It also no longer needs a Dino Cave and does not require two or more animals in the same exhibit.
However, try as I might, I was not able to make the Spinosaurus actually able to swim. The developers never made swimming animations for this animal, so for the moment it will be confined to dry land.

 

That's it for now, hopefully there will be more updates soon.

[Kreek]

Wow, you've done a great deal of work. Can't wait for the download link!

[(Designer)Vondell]

Oh, thank heavens! Absolutely lovely work. I'm a paleo buff and I can't remember the last time I wanted to use any of the ingame DD animals. Blue fang really dropped the ball on them. I don't know what data they were looking at when they made some of these decisions, I have a feeling they barely consulted any data at all. I've always wondered how on earth they ended up putting Meiolania in an arctic tundra biome.

 

Very excited about this project!

 

Will this mod replace the ingame animals or just produce variant copies?

[P.Rex]

Thanks Vondell! This mod completely replaces the existing animals made by Blue Fang. I have rewritten all of their biome preferences from scratch and also changed some behaviors, mainly cranking down the aggression levels on all the herbivores. BF made them behave more like movie monsters than real animals.

 

I remember reading somewhere not long ago that BF were on a tight deadline developing Dinosaur Digs, which in retrospect might explain how they did such a sloppy work. Clearly they made tons of research for the original Zoo Tycoon, hopefully now Dinosaur Digs will finally get the same treatment.

 

One area that still needs work is flora, the game only offers a small selection of extinct plantlife and I'd be most interested in a proper replacement to the Lepidodendron for Jurassic and Cretaceous exhibits.

 

I also haven't finished updating all of the animals. So far I did the turtle and all the dinosaurs, but everything else still needs work. Particularly I haven't decided yet what biome to give the Smilodon. Other than that I have plans for new animals to add in, including a Yutyrannus in-progress.

 

If you have any suggestions or insights, let me know.

[bonobo]

Brilliant! I absolutely cannot wait to use your changes. So looking forward to having huge mixed herbivore exhibits. What on earth was up with that arctic turtle! I never questioned it when I played as a kid but it seems so ridiculous now. Did they just make a dartboard with all the biomes on it, then throw darts blindfolded? And the more aquatic spinosaurus, sweet, nice to see the latest discoveries included. I'd also love to see more prehistoric plant life, let me know if you want some custom sprites!

[(Professor Emeritus)Professor Paul]

There's a lot of research & knowledge that has gone into this! Alas, I am now extinct myself

[P.Rex]

Hey gang, just letting you know that work on No Grass Please is going on, and hopefully it will end up being more than just a Dinosaur Digs fix. My long-term goal is to add a lot more scientifically-accurate prehistoric content.

I've got alternate sounds for most of the animals now (courtesy of a friend at another forum) which will hopefully be available next release, and I'm still waiting for that new version of APE to be released so I can get cracking on some custom dinosaurs.

 

In the meantime, I've taken a slightly deeper dive into the realm of paleobotany. Seeing as Blue Fang didn't make too many prehistoric plants to work with, I'd like to add a few more to add more variety to dinosaur exhibits and prehistoric zoo decoration in general.

 

Here's a list of plants I'd like to see in the mod:

 

*Holly (Ilex aquifolium)

*Cherry Laurel (Prunus laurocerasus)

*Bushman's River Cycad (Encephalartos trispinosus)

*Soft Treefern/Man Fern (Dicksonia antarctica)

*Scaly Treefern (Cyathea medullaris)

*Cardboard Sago (Zamia furfuracea)

*King Sago (Cycas revoluta)

 

I've got a couple of ideas for other scenery objects too, to make the zoo prettier and guests happy:

 

*Statues based on 19th-Century restorations of dinosaurs: Iguanodon, Megalosaurus, similar to the ones seen in Crystal Palace, London. While inaccurate by today's standards, they're an important part of the history of paleontology and I'd like to pay my respects to them.

*(optional) some more fossil walls.

 

If anyone here wants to model any of these or has any other suggestions, let me know.

[(Designer)Vondell]

Oooohhhh, I love those ideas!

[(Admin)Savannahjan]

This is an amazing undertaking, I am so impressed with you young men and you knowledge on this subject. And I had no idea that holly and cherry laurel were around back then; I have some ancient plants right outside my window! It's so exciting to see this project develop.

 

Paul Radbourne, you are no fossil!

[P.Rex]

The degrassening continues at full force, and a lot of progress has been made in the area of foliage.

 

 

All Dinosaur Digs foliage have had their stats changed to represent their correct time periods. In addition, a few of the core Zoo Tycoon plants have been reassigned to the Cretaceous period. All plants that evolved after the Cretaceous will no longer count as prehistoric plants and will not appear in the Dinosaur Digs category. This should make it easier to plan out animal exhibits by the time period they lived in. All dinosaurs will be reassigned the correct plants, thus their exhibits may look a little different from what previous screenshots show.

 

The correct arrangement of plants by time period is as follows:

 

Silurian: 1 (Club Moss Shrub)
Devonian: 2 (Club Moss Shrub, Fern Bush)
Carboniferous: 5 (Club Moss Shrub, Fern Bush, Walchian Conifer Tree, Lepidodendron Tree, Sigillaria Tree)
Permian: 7 (Club Moss Shrub, Fern Bush, Walchian Conifer Tree, Thouarsus Cycad Tree, Gingko Tree, Glossopteris Tree, Sigillaria Tree)
Triassic: 5 (Club Moss Shrub, Fern Bush, Thouarsus Cycad Tree, Gingko Tree, Leptocycas Tree)
Jurassic: 8 (Club Moss Shrub, Fern Bush, Thouarsus Cycad Tree, Gingko Tree, Horsetail, Monkey Puzzle Tree, Norfolk Island Pine Tree, Williamsonia Tree)
Cretaceous: 18 (Club Moss Shrub, Fern Bush, Thouarsus Cycad Tree, Bald Cypress Tree, Dawn Redwood Tree, Gingko Tree, Horsetail, Magnolia Tree, Monkey Puzzle Tree, Norfolk Island Pine Tree, Williamsonia Tree, Pacific Dogwood Tree, Palm Tree, Hard Quandong Tree, Birch Tree, Water Lily, Paper Birch Tree, Himalayan Birch Tree)

 

 

In addition to the corrected Blue Fang plants, we're also getting some new plants! Vondell has joined the No Grass Team and made these awesome prehistoric plants. From left to right, these are: Giant Horsetail Grove, Giant Horsetail Sprouts, Sago Palm, Sago Palm Cluster, Soft Tree Fern, Black Tree Fern. These plants are still incomplete (and there are a few more in the works!) but hopefully they will be ready for the next release.

 

Fun fact: Blue Fang originally intended to make a Black Tree Fern at some point, APE even has a reference to it, but it was cut out for unknown reasons.

 

 

A view of some of the new plants for No Grass Please in a more natural habitat, courtesy of Vondell. This screenshot also shows a few other plants and assets unrelated to this mod, feel free to ignore these.