For Railroadersbrat

[(Designer)Z.Z.]

Hi :D

 

I moved our ZT discussion out of Jans Crafting thread so as not to hijack it out of turn. :)

 

You said - "You know what - I was just working on it just a little while ago with ZT going and I realized that the natural sounds relaxed me so much that I wondered why I didn't do this years ago.  I was in such an ASMR bubble that I missed two phone calls and my other half telling me it was his turn to cook dinner, LOL.  As bad as this sounds, I can't wait for him to leave this weekend, I'm shutting off the living room completely, sit in my sewing corner, crochet, quilt and have my zoo going in the background."

 

To which I replied - "The Lepospondyl House and the Aviary are my favorite buildings because of the sound they make.

These might help you too: (Ambient Sound Statues)"

 

Then you said - "I actually have those downloaded but I haven't put them in with ZT yet, I goofed last night and crashed my game, so I had to start over again."

 

And my response is:

 

When building a zoo I save at several different points:

1 - Layout, which is the exhibits marked with water terrain and the guest areas marked with gravel terrain.

2 - Exhibits, which is the exhibit fences and paths.

3 - Decor, which is the buildings, scenery items, and flowers/trees.

4 - Suitable, which is all exhibits made suitable by placing an animal in their exhibit, bringing it up to suitability, writing down the requirements, then reloading the game, which starts it before any animals are placed, creating the exhibit with the required items and flowers, save the game, then repeat the process on the next exhibit.

5 - Animals, which is placement of the animals in their exhibits, and placement of zoo staff.

Then I start the game, which allows guests in, and go through all of the exhibits to insure the animals are happy and change anything that needs changing.

If everything is good, I save the game with the name of the zoo.

If the zoo crashes at any point, I can go back to the previous saved version without losing all that work.

 

Common reasons for zoo crashing are:

1 - Placing anything except path on the edge tiles of the map.

2 - Having the Zoo Wall too close to the edge of the map. The Zoo Wall Footprint must be at least one tile away from the edge of the map, it helps to have the footprint on the outside of the Zoo Wall, which locks the Zoo Wall so it does not get accidentally deleted after the Zoo Gate is installed, so the actual Zoo Wall sits on the line between the second and third tile from the edge with the footprint on the second tile.

3 - Placing an Exhibit Fence footprint on the second tile from the edge of the map. Exhibit Fence footprints must be at least three tiles from the map edge.

4 - Putting downloads in folders other than the dlupdate folder.

5 - Having more than 300 files in the dlupdate folder, or having more than 3000 items in the game menus all together.

6 - Having a user created item that is incorrectly coded in your game. To figure out which item it is, take all downloads out of the dlupdate folder, then add them to the game one at a time, run the game, if the game crashes, the item is the issue and can be reported to admin for recoding.

 

These basic rules have worked for me since 2007 when I posted my first zoo, Enchanted Garden:

https://zootekphoenix.com/forums/topic/2496-sylvan-grotto-productions-presents/

 

I hope this info helps. :)

 

[Railroadersbrat]

You're such a doll, I was wondering where I needed to post the problems with the game.

 

Honestly, I overloaded the dlupdates folder.  I had roughly 304-305 files and the game was still working beautifully, but then I forgot that number, downloaded a couple of St. Patty's Day packs that didn't have combined files, yanked the number of files to about 360 and boom, game goes down.

 

I also had an issue with my registry cleaner that I use weekly to keep my laptop running smoothly, it emptied my entire temp file and when I went back to work on the zoo again, it said the file could not be found.  I'll have to be mindful from now on when I run that cleaner to ignore the ZT temp files so I don't have that happen again.

 

With the cleanout of the dlupdates folder and then careful planning, I'm up to 227 files and pretty much holding for right now.  I still have to add some Fall/Halloween and Christmas things, but those can wait for a few months.  I seriously wish there was a hack that allowed us more files in the dl folder, it would solve so many problems.

[Fern]

No but if you learn how to combine files that would allow more in the game.

[Railroadersbrat]

6 hours ago, Fern said:

No but if you learn how to combine files that would allow more in the game.

 

I never would have thought of that!  Already on the search for a good tutorial, thanks Fern!!

[(Designer)Z.Z.]

Combined files are awesome, but you can go overboard on those too, the game can only handle 3000 menu items, including the items that are already in the game:

 

FENCES - 53

PATHS - 17

FOLIAGE - 131

ROCKS - 39

ANIMALS - 119

SHELTERS - 27

TOYS - 13

SHOW ITEMS - 10

BUILDINGS - 71

SCENERY - 107

TOTAL - 587 In game items

 

So you can add 2413 items in combined files, as long as you do not go over 300 combined files in the dlupdates folder.

I would probably limit it to 2400 items just to be safe, and limit the combined files to 100 items each, for 24 combined files, which Ive actually been working on myself, Im sorting through over 4000 downloads deciding what I want to keep and what I can live without.

Right now Im in the process of uncombining files that didnt come with individual ZTDs so I can take what I want from them and leave out the things I dont use.

Then I will make eight permanent combined files, one for each menu, plus four seasonal files, a few holiday files, and some theme files like Native American, Asian, Harvest, Medieval, etc.

That way I can just add whatever is needed for each zoo to the dlupdate folder with my permanent files.

I know, Im kind of OCD ;)

[(Admin)Savannahjan]

Some seasonal items, like Christmas and Halloween, could be combined into a few files.  Then store them somewhere on your hard drive in a ZT folder.  When you want to build with that particular theme, you could move out spring or summer downloads from you dlupdates folder and put in the others.  There are already some themed combined files, like Go West for example. 

 

I tend to use the same files most of the time, and there are a lot I never use for one reason or another.  To each his own.

[HeatherL]

This is the tutorial that worked for me. Have fun.