Prehistoric Kingdom - Update 12 (1.9.35)

A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

Welcome, Park Managers!

Update 12 is now available! This releases introduces 3 new species, brand new basic tutorials, a new map, building theme, staff training, new official prefabs and more.

Please send feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's[discord.com] appropriate channel.



Update 12 Content
New Species Unlock the bumpy and grumpy Ankylosaurus alongside two new sauropods, Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus.




Tutorials Learn the ropes with a set of basic tutorials available at anytime from Challenge or Sandbox mode:

• Basic Controls
  
• Basic Building
  
• Basic Staff
  
• Creating Animals
  
• Preparing the Park

Park Prices From the newly updated Finances menu, players can now set custom park-wide pricing. Available for entry ticket fees and shop brands such as Giganto Gifts or Tea-Rex, additional options will be added as new modules or attractions are added to the game.


Staff Training & Wages Unlocked via research, staff can undergo training at the Staff Center during downtime. This allows staff to acquire new role-specific perks, increasing their efficiency and wages.


As a result, players can now control the minimum and maximum range that staff are paid.


Redwood Valley Map & Expanded Foliage Explore the stunning Redwood Valley, set within California's sunny coastline. This space features terraced terrain, a large shoreline and an abundance of redwood trees.



This map coincides with a revamp to the Coastal biome which includes overhauled plants and new additions such as the sequoias and rhododenron.



As per community request, we've also added the mighty King Fern to the Tropical biome. This plant is best known for its massive size and prehistoric look!


Rustic Theme Inspired by US National Parks (or "parkitecture"), the Rustic theme offers iconic imagery with its assortment of wood-based materials, stone foundations and stunning woodwork. This is a highly versatile set, featuring over 60 new pieces, 2 paths and 9 styles between the walls and roofs.




Two new fence sets, Rustic Logs and Rustic Stained Metal, have also been added.


New Basic Fences & Staff Gates To help round out some of the fencing options available to players, new wood and metal fences have been added to the Basic theme. These are the Wooden Chainlink and Cabled fences!



We've also snuck in two new staff gate designs, wooden and metal chainlink.


New Official Prefabs The game's official prefabs have been redesigned and expanded to encompass ALL the available building themes. We hope this change makes the building experience more intuitive for players of all skill levels!


Update 12 Changes
Economy Rescale The scale of the economy has been shrunk, reducing previously realistic, but hard to quantify costs, into something that matches real-world revenue prices. This means that while guests pay a realistic amount of money for food, souvenirs, and entry tickets, the cost of animals, buildings and monthly staff wages have been scaled down to compensate.

We’ve also revised loans to be less predatory, offering more forgiving interest and unlocking proportionally to the park rating.

Excavations Excavations can now yield DNA for up to 3 animals upon completing a cycle, reducing some of the slog felt when excavating large dig sites. The funding bonus is also now active, allowing players to adjust their spending per-dig site! Raising or lowering the funding amount will affect the potential yield of a dig site.

Staff Efficiency Staff are now able to deliver logistics resources to as many as ten destinations in a single trip, limited by their carry capacity. We will continue to monitor staff with player feedback.

Starting Maps Starting a new game now includes a Staff Center and Loading Bay by default. The entrance is also dynamically picked depending on which building theme has been selected.

Known Issues & Additional Notes

• Gameplay
  • The navmesh can sporadically fail to regenerate, leading to guests potentially getting teleported and stuck. We are already researching a solution to this problem and will be uploading a hotfix ASAP!
    
  • Fences will sometimes have the replacement mode turned on, even if the UI says it isn’t. This can be fixed by turning replacement mode on and off
• UX
  • Notifications have been temporarily disabled due to a last minute issue. They’ll be patched back in ASAP!
• Tutorials
  • Exiting objective conditions too early will sometimes cause them to be uncompleted
    
  • Creating Animals: building an enclosure that’s attached to an existing paddock and staff gate will prevent the player from progressing
    
  • Creating Animals: the objective “[Animal] selected in Nursery” will be unchecked if the player leaves after incubating an animal
• Visual
  • The sun position will snap into the correct rotation during the early morning
    
  • Outline colors for selected objects aren’t reliable at the moment, and may appear red instead of white or vice versa

Full Patch Notes
Features

• NEW ANIMAL: Ankylosaurus magniventris
  
• NEW ANIMAL: Apatosaurus ajax
  
• NEW ANIMAL: Brontosaurus excelsus
  
• NEW MAP: Redwood Valley
  
• NEW THEME: Rustic
  
• NEW MECHANIC: Staff Training
  As long as the relevant skill level has been researched, staff will travel to the Staff Center during downtime and undergo training, acquiring a new skill level that comes with its own role-specific perk
  
• NEW MECHANIC: Park Pricing
  Park-wide pricing can now be custom set in the Finance menu, allowing players to alter entry ticket fees, attractions, and shop pricing
  
• NEW FEATURE: Tutorials
  Follow along with 5 new tutorials: Basic Controls, Basic Building, Basic Staff, Creating Animals and Preparing the Park
  
• NEW FEATURE: Improved Starting Levels
  New prefabs are placed in new parks by default, to aid with initial set up. Prefab theming is based on the selected starting theme!
  
• NEW SANDBOX OPTION: Unlock All Animals
  Enabling this will unlock all animals in a sandbox game (previously only available from the main menu!)
  
• NEW SANDBOX OPTION: Unlock All Research
  Enabling this will unlock all research in a sandbox game (previously only available from the main menu!)

Additions

• Gameplay
  • Added ability to sell shipping trucks from any Loading Bay
    
  • Staff salary options have been added. Players can now control the minimum and maximum range with which staff can be paid
    
  • New research - Staff Skill Lvl. 1 (unlocked by default)
    
  • New research - Staff Skill Lvl. 2
    
  • New research - Staff Skill Lvl. 3
    
  • New research - Staff Skill Lvl. 4
    
  • New research - Staff Skill Lvl. 5
    
  • New research - Rustic Theme
• Buildings & Scenery
  • Added the following prefabs for the Basic, Modern, Tropical, Stone Age, Arid and Rustic themes:
    • Food Kiosk Small
      
    • Food Kiosk Large
      
    • Restaurant
      
    • Souvenir Kiosk Small
      
    • Souvenir Kiosk Large
      
    • Gift Shop
      
    • Toilet Small
      
    • Toilet Medium
      
    • Toilet Large
      
    • Park Entrance
  • Added the Rustic theme containing several new wall & roof materials:
    • Large Stone Wall
      
    • Flagstone Wall
      
    • Board & Batten Wall
      
    • Cedar Siding Wall
      
    • Wood Panel Wall
      
    • Log Cabin Wall
      
    • Cedar Shakes Roof
      
    • Asphalt Shingles Roof
      
    • Fishscale Shingles Roof
  • Added new materials to current themes:
    • ‘Carved Ceramic Planks’ to the Basic theme
      
    • ‘Raw Wooden Planks’ to the Basic theme
      
    • ‘Fine Terrazzo Concrete’ to the Modern theme
      
    • ‘Wood Tiles Thick’ to the Modern theme
  • Added woodchip style to gardening mulch pieces
    
  • Added 6 new wood carved Statues to the Rustic Theme:
    • Archaeopteryx
      
    • Edmontosaurus
      
    • Spinosaurus
      
    • Microraptor
      
    • Cave Bear
      
    • Protoceratops vs Velociraptor
  • Added Log Tunnel Full & Half pieces to the Rustic Theme
    
  • Added 3 Ground Lamps to the Rustic Theme
    
  • Added 1 Wall Lamp to the Rustic Theme
    
  • Added 1 Ceiling Lamp to the Rustic Theme
    
  • Added 3 Tables to the Rustic Theme
    
  • Added 4 Benches to the Rustic Theme
    
  • Added 3 Bins to the Rustic Theme
    
  • Added Silhouette Signs for Ankylosaurus & Apatosaurus
    
  • Added over 30+ new Beams, Planks & Logs to the Rustic theme
    
  • Added 6 hanging Trim pieces to the Rustic theme
    
  • Added 3 Rustic Log Fences
    
  • Added 3 Rustic Stained Metal Fences
    
  • Added 6 Rustic Windows
    
  • Added 4 Rustic Doors:
    • Moved 3 Doors previously in Basic into Rustic, making a total of 7 Doors in the Rustic Theme
  • Added 2 Paths to the Rustic Theme
    • Split Stone Path
      
    • Cut Log Path
  • Added new Cabled Fences to the Basic Theme (1m, 2.5m & 4m)
    
  • Added new Wooden Chainlink Fences to the Basic Theme (1m, 2.5m & 4m)
    
  • Added 2 new Staff Gate styles to all heights:
    • Wooden Chainlink Gate
      
    • Metal Chainlink Gate
• Foliage
  • Added or updated the following Coastal plants:
    • Bracken 1
      
    • Bracken 2
      
    • Bracken 3
      
    • Redwood 1
      
    • Redwood 2
      
    • Redwood 3
      
    • Redwood 4
      
    • Rhododendron 1
      
    • Rhododendron 2
      
    • Rhododendron 3
      
    • Rhododendron 4
      
    • Rhododendron 5
      
    • Sequoia 1
      
    • Sequoia 2
      
    • Sequoia 2
      
    • Sword Fern 1
      
    • Sword Fern 2
      
    • Sword Fern 3
      
    • Tree Fern 1
      
    • Tree Fern 2
      
    • Tree Fern 3
      
    • Tree Fern 4
      
    • Tree Fern 5
      
    • Tree Fern 6
  • Added the following Tropical plants:
    • King Fern 1
      
    • King Fern 2
• UI/UX
  • Re-introduced a height gizmo visual for when modular groups and pieces are being moved off of their height reference plane
    
  • Added a Park Issues menu, accessible from the left-side overviews tab
    
  • Added a Camera menu, where orbit mode, camera light and interface hiding can be set manually. This can be found in the bottom right of the main HUD
    
  • Added helpful messaging popups that alert the player of on-going situations within the park
    
  • Added a pricing and loan section to the finances management menu
    
  • Added a staff salary and skill training section to the staff management menu
    
  • Added a staff skills section to the staff selection menu
    
  • The weather report and forecast in the weather menu is now fully functional
• Audio
  • Added sounds to various popups and GUI elements such as the Excavation Menu and Loading Bay widget
    
  • Added unique open sounds to the quick access buttons
    
  • Added missing sounds to Scelidosaurus additives
• Voice
  • Added Nigel dialogue to Plateosaurus

Changes

• Balance
  • Economy - huge changes have been made to the economy across the board in order to improve game feel and progression: we have chosen to scale down the economy into a smaller version of its former self, reducing previously realistic, but hard to quantify costs, to match real-world revenue prices
    • Reduced starting funds for challenge mode
      
    • Reduced animal and structure costs by 95%
      
    • Reduced staff salaries by 90%
      
    • Reduced research and excavation costs by 88%
      
    • Loan payouts and interests have been revised to be less aggressive, but their loaned amount is proportionally lower
      
    • Available loans now unlock proportionally to the park rating
  • Excavations
    • Expeditions can now yield new DNA for up to 3 separate animals at any given time
      
    • The funding bonus is now enabled, allowing players to increase or decrease per-digsite funding, affecting fossil yields
• Animals
  • Decreased max scale for Lambeosaurus
    
  • Added Coastal to the biome preferences to the following animals
    • Panthera atrox and spelaea
      
    • Smilodon populator and fatalis
      
    • Ugrunaaluk
• Staff
  • Staff are now able to deliver logistics resources to as many as ten destinations in a single trip, limited by their carry capacity
• Guests
  • Guests should now be able to visit distant enclosures even when all their needs are met in a given area
    
  • Guests will now spend less time in bathrooms, to reduce wait times and queue line lengths
• Buildings & Scenery
  • Retired most guest amenity and entrance prefabs as the new ones make them obsolete
    
  • Animal and human placement now ignores vegetation pieces
    
  • Updated Modern Wood Tiles Wall for increased visual fidelity
    
  • Updated Modern Vertical Wood Tiles Wall for increased visual fidelity
    
  • Updated Modern Clean Tiles Wall for increased visual fidelity
    
  • Updated Concrete Wall for increased visual fidelity and greater coloration control
    
  • Updated Tropical Wood Slats Roof for increased visual fidelity
    
  • Moved & renamed several bins and benches from the Modern theme to the Basic theme for easier progression
    
  • Moved & renamed Modern Awning 3 into the Basic theme
    
  • Adjusted the reflectivity of several metal materials across the board
    
  • Adjusted Color Mask of Glass Walls and Roofs to enable the metal on them to be almost fully recolorable across the whole spectrum
    
  • Adjusted the pebble path to be brighter and smaller in scale
    Added corresponding Trims to arch, window and doorway pieces for all Tropical Wall materials
    
  • Light schedule settings on prefab now properly persist across save/load and prefabs
    
  • Updated textures of Door Rustic 1, 2 & 3 (previously in Basic theme, although always intended for Rustic) so they match better against the new rustic additions & migrated them into the new Rustic theme
• Environment
  • Updated biome textures:
    • Coastal sand changed to pine needles
      
    • Coastal dirt changed to substrate
      
    • Scrubland rock overhauled to better fit our original vision
  • Updated the terrain grass to use textured cards rather than individual strands, providing a more realistic look that better matches the Grassland grass pieces
    
  • Decreased chances of the same weather type getting randomly picked over and over
    
  • Clamped sun rotation during dawn, dusk and night time
    
  • Distant shorelines on the grassland, scrubland, tropical and temperate maps now appear wet
    
  • Rainy weather now has a smoother selection gradient between drizzle and storms
• Foliage
  • Updated Coastal and Tropical biome presets to include some of the new foliage
    
  • Warmed Scots pine colors to better match new Coastal foliage, though it will receive an overhaul at a later date
    
  • Reduced saturation and brightness for Alpine Currant, Labrador Tea and Finnish Scots Pine
• UI/UX
  • Camera:
    • Improved camera feel by clamping the max orbit when not hitting any viable orbiting surface - this should massively reduce instances of the camera accidentally being flung hundreds of meters in the distance
      
    • Improved movement and zoom behavior when canceling tracking mode while the camera is transitioning to the new tracking positions
      
    • Scenery focusing no longer takes into account foliage pieces
      
    • Camera should be far less janky when tabbing back in the game
      
    • Improved camera input to check for LeftControl input, in order to not overlap certain action keybinds
      
    • Decreased the minimum height the camera can get to, relative to the ground
  • Updated various camera controls:
    • Re-enabled LMB+RMB camera panning, previously being mistakenly disabled
      
    • The camera raise/lower controls (Q and E by default), can now also rotate the camera around the vertical axis. This can be switched on/off through the newly added control ‘Switch Camera Modes’, mapped to Y by default
  • Modular building:
    • Modular scale resetting now works for grid pieces also
      
    • Improved feel and responsiveness for modular placement when above the camera view
      
    • Improved quick modular selection behavior (achievable by double-clicking a group) to give swifter visual feedback
      
    • The modular grid now properly refreshes its visuals as the transform gizmo is being acted on
      Modular height editing is disabled when moving the camera fast with Left Shift
  • Mouse drag box visuals are now completely switched off when irrelevant (usually outside of modular group editing mode)
    
  • Screenshot mode: saved time of day and light orientation settings for screenshots don’t reset when exiting screenshot mode
    
  • The nursery holder now closes itself after placing an animal, if there are no more incubated individuals
• Rendering
  • Animals:
    • Animals no longer appear wet under water
      
    • Improved how the fur shader handles light to make fluffy animals more realistic and pleasing
  • Atmospherics & Weather
    • Standardized weather modes across all maps
      
    • Standardized post processing across all maps, driving variations through lighting instead
      
    • Improved atmospheric scattering during heavily clouded weather
  • Changed the camera light to cast a more potent beam of light upon further objects, making it more useful during storms or night time
    
  • Underwater rendering now takes into account time of day exposure
• Audio
  • Added ocean/beach sounds to the Scrubland and new Coastal map

Bug Fixes

• Crashes
  • Fixed numerous uncommon crashes
    
  • Fixed a bug that could stop loading on certain saves
• Critical
  • Potentially patched a saving issue that would result in the “Saving” dialog getting stuck on screen, with a silent save fail
    
  • Patched a save system exception that could potentially result in a save file getting completely deleted
• Gameplay
  • Fixed an issue causing prefabs with logistic structures to not receive the correct stock in sandbox games
• Animals
  • Fixed incorrect feather mask assignment on a Velociraptor skin, though this probably isn’t noticeable to most players
    
  • Fixed Torvosaurus IKs impacting rest animations, though this remains unresolved for one shots like rolling and sitting upright
• Staff
  • Setting to auto-hire cashiers will now persist through save/load
    
  • Fixed a math error that prevented Keepers from ever being available from the hiring menu with more than one star skill level
• Buildings & Scenery
  • Fixed a texture mip-map issue that caused certain fonts to disappear on lower texture quality settings
    
  • Fixed ‘Bollard 2’ having the wrong name
• Research
  • Prefabs that contain locked structures (such as Restaurant prefabs) properly display themselves as locked now, enforcing research flow rules
• Construction
  • Fixed modular construction edge cases where moving multiple items would shift their grid positioning
    
  • Clamped the min and max height a modular piece can be moved to through the quick height shifting tool
    
  • Resolved a modular material and coloring undo/redo issue that would cause undo operations to mix up pieces styles
    
  • Fixed a modular bug that caused duplicated and moved pieces to shift their height to the ground at the beginning of movement actions. Now, moving existing pieces or duplicating them will keep their height to where it was
    
  • Fixed a modular issue that caused group grids to not properly update their visuals when changing grid sizing settings
    
  • Fixed another edge case that could lead to resizing objects that shouldn’t be scaleable
    
  • Fixed a critical building issue related to editing groups with binocular overlay cones, potentially causing game-breaking behavior
• UI/UX
  • Fixed the GUI Scale option not previously working, and improved its behavior by making it a stepped function
    
  • Fixed the modular styling menu being disabled for gates when selecting single gate groups
    
  • Fixed excavation tooltips getting cut off by the screen size
    
  • Fixed a staff menu discrepancy that would cause hired staff to display a different skill level than the hiring menu
    
  • Research item completion lines now always show on top of all other lines, making the research tree easier to read
    
  • Fixed the source of action mouse jitteriness when moving the camera
    
  • Fixed the camera being shaky on time pause
    
  • Fixed edge case causing the dropdown items in some dropdowns to not properly update their graphics if time was paused
    
  • Fixed excavation pin map positions for Elrhaz Formation and Kem Kem Formation
• Rendering
  • Fixed noisy close shadows
• Audio
  • Fixed Brachiosaurus not playing loop sounds while in the Nursery

Performance

• Significant rendering performance improvement for glass objects
  
• Noticeable loading time improvements, especially on larger saves
  
• Massive efficiency and loading improvements for the ‘Canadian Rockies’ and ‘Ngorongoro Crater’ levels. Loading into these maps should be less prone to crashing on lower end systems
  
• Rendering optimization during placement and terraforming actions
  
• Drastically optimized moving a large amount of foliage in and around exhibits
  
• Optimized audio system CPU and memory consumption
  
• Various CPU optimizations
  
• Plugged various memory leaks