ZT2 Tips and Tricks

[(Trustee)genkicoll]

I'm not the most knowledgeable about ZT2, but I do have some tips and tricks to share :elkgrin:

GENERAL TIPS:

 

- To "run" in Zookeeper mode or photo-taking mode, hold down the SHIFT key while you walk

 

- When placing animals, always place the female first. You can then add the male and go into zookeeper mode until they breed, then hit the "Undo" button to get the money for the animal back! This won't work if you buy anything or pick up and move something, but anything you do in zookeeper or photo-taking mode won't count as something you can undo~

 

- You have money problems? Mad that you can't sell your animals? There is a solution! Not a great one, but at least you can get back some of your money! Place a carnivore in a hidden exhibit. When you're ready to get rid of one of your animals, and have done all of the "release to the wild" animals that you need to do (for zoo fame), make sure that your carnivore is really MAD! Change the terrain to something that doesn't suit it, starve it, whatever you like. Put the animal you want to get rid of in there and *poof* carcass that you can sell! (*gasp* Oh, how gory!) It's not much money, but at least it's something!

The reason for the hidden exhibit is that it upsets guests to see one of your animals get killed.

FENCING AND TERRAIN HEIGHT ADJUSTMENTS:

 

- When you adjust the height of the terrain, fences do not move. You can use this to your advantage to make sheer cliffs and lowered exhibits.

 

- To save money on campaigns and challenges, place a low fence, lower the terrain a couple of notches towards the middle, then use the flatten terrain tool right up to the fence to make a lowered exhibit. With most animals, you can now remove the fence (refunnnnd!!! :cheerlie:), as they will not be able to get out without a lucky combination of running/jumping (in which case you can just pick them up and put them back).

 

- If you WANT the fence to move when you adjust the terrain height, hold down the SHIFT key while you make your modifications - the fence will move along with the terrain!

 

Will add more as I think of them~!

[MarineManiac]

- to add more money before starting a campaign, go place your cursor over the amount of money that will be in the campaign. Then on your keyboard press and hold the up arrow until you have enough money to your heart's content. When you start the game, you will have that amount of money.

[Guest ShenTirag]

You can run even faster in first person mode by holding the forwards arrow, left mouse button and Shift down all at the same time! :)

 

Most herbivores from the same biome will be compatible with each other, don't be afraid to make huge mixed exhibits!

[ape]

I discovered this the other day: You know how you take pics of small animals but they always look like the top view because of how close you are; you have to back up to take the pic and zoom in and then you miss the moment. Sometimes you want to take a closeup of a flower but it's not good enough because of ANGLES. I have a solution.

 

When you are in camera or guest mode, press the 'X' key and you will squat to half the 'size' you were before! You can hide in small bushes and take pics of smaller animals at ground level!

[animalz07]

I use that sometimes to take pics of little animals.

[ape]

I noticed in your Black Tailed deer pic where you had squatted into the Pink Lady's slipper to take it and it was so amazing I copied it for wallpaper!

[Guest The Y2J Problem]

If you put a tank wall but don't have it a full tank then put an elevated path overhead it looks like a building. Then if you want too get rid of the collumns open the panel at the left of the screen and make the elevated path invisible. Then using the delete tractor thing you can delete the collumns.

[dinorhino]

If you have an overcrowded exhibit but you want to increase your zoo's rating (and let's face it, who doesn't?) you can kill two birds with one stone with this simple trick. You might even bag a new border fence out of the deal!

 

1) Crate a few animals from the exhibit, probably those which aren't as vital to the herd (i.e. bachelors, parents with grown children, widows/widowers, elderly animals which will soon die).

 

2) Keep crating them until the overcrowded complaints stop.

 

3) Build another exhibit with the terrain the animal likes. Keep it very simple, nothing more than terrain and perhaps a couple of cheap plants. Make sure the exhibit is big enough for one animal though (which shouldn't be very big anyway).

 

4) Pick up one of the crates, and put it into this new exhibit. Uncrate the animal.

 

5) For a few seconds, the animal will be happy enough to be released into the wild. Press [P] to pause the game and release the animal. Your rating goes up a bit :)

 

6) Repeat with the other crated animals, then destroy/reuse the exhibit you created!

 

 

Thus, there's less animals in the crowded exhibit and you've released more animals in the process. Your animal happiness goes up, your fame goes up, your profits increase and you might even get the fancy border fence as a reward for releasing twenty animals if you do it enough!

 

NOTE: You cannot release baby animals into the wild. You'll have to wait until they've grown up :)

[Guest MissyS]

My eight year old showed me this funny thing today. When you are in the main menu and there is that spinning globe. Click on the globe and hold down. Move your mouse around and shake the world. You will here a bunch of screeming. It is so funny.

[Guest Wolverine Girl]

This one is probably quite well known but I've never come across it before, so I hope it helps somebody. It's certainly saved me a lot of fuss and bother. I discovered that when placing an item such as a building, donation box, bench etc., if it's not pointing the way you want it to go, once you've clicked to place it, just keep the mouse button held down and drag the mouse in the direction you want it to face and let go when the arrow is pointing the right way.