mechanics that surprised you?

[bonobo]

are there any game mechanics that surprised you, easter eggs you only discovered recently, etc?
after 17 years of playing i've only just discovered that a slight pit will hold in even the strongest dinosaurs, even with standard zoo tycoon fences they no longer break out. i also only just learned the true values of animal attractiveness, and how ridiculously high it is for so many of the marine mania animals, with standard sea life beating out unicorns and the majority of dinosaurs! 

[(Designer)Khaydar]

I discovered a while ago that you can put a lot of marine species in same tank, so far my record is 7 species.

[Wolverale12]

Pretty much the biggest thing that surprised me a while back, is that I can actually have a 1366x768 screen in ZT1 by editing the zoo.ini file.

 

Stuff ingame hasn't really surprised me though since I've been playing this game ever since it came out and it's been one of my most played games.

[bonobo]

oh that's cool khaydar! what have you got together? i know you can have a tank with most of the sharks in but that's usually as far as i go for mixed marine tanks.
that's cool too wolverale, i've never messed with the ini file much but i know there's a lot of interesting stuff you can do with them.

[MetaKnight]

The most shocking thing I ever learned about this game is that the Lion's Mane Jelly is a secret show animal. I didn't know about that one for years and no one ever talks about it. I wonder if it was used to test Shows since it's "tricks" are really simple, and the devs just left it in as a joke, or they forgot it was in at all.

[bonobo]

it what!!! hahaha what, are you serious! i've never seen that talked about anywhere, not in a single guide or list of cheat codes in all my years playing. i can't even find any videos of it! that's hilarious!

[(Designer)Khaydar]

@bonoboI've got beluga, narwhal, manta ray, swordfish, green sea turtle, bottlenose dolphin and harbour porpoise in the same exhibit.

[bonobo]

oh what! heh, that's an odd assortment. i wouldn't have thought to put the arctic ones together with the tropical ones, i guess without terrain requirements there's a lot more flexibility. and they don't mind that then?

[Fern]

You might find some user made animals will do the shows but they will not use the "toys" like the benchs and balls. But some will wave, etc. Just depends on whether the designer knew what lines to edit out.

[(Designer)Vondell]

... the lion's mane jelly secret show animal revelation is blowing my mind right now.