Announcements

We are pleased to announce the very first release of OpenZT 0.1.0. If you just want to jump straight in you can download OpenZT here, to install simply drop it in your Zoo Tycoon install folder, most likely at C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Zoo Tycoon, however please be mindful of the following: Expect bugs! This is a first release and is yet to be widely tested. We recommend a new clean install of Zoo Tycoon and for all mods to be put in a ‘mods’ subfolder rather than ‘dlupdate’, ‘dupdate etc. We also recommend not editing the path field in zoo.ini and instead let OpenZT handle mod loading. Finally because OpenZT modifies the UI slightly the ‘Allow Purchasing Young Hack’ hack does not currently work.

Changes for users

Configuring OpenZT

When you first run OpenZT it will create a new config file openzt.toml with some defaults, many of the features to follow are configured by editing this file.

User customizable menu filters

You can now create custom filters for the purchase menu in Zoo Tycoon. Under the [expansions] section in openzt.toml you can add an entry like this: "Filter Name" = ["elephant", "zebra", "my mod.ztd"] This will add a new filter called “Filter Name” that will only display the elephant, zebra and any animals, scenery or buildings in the ‘my mod.ztd’ file.

Configurable mod ordering and disabling

When you start Zoo Tycoon with mods installed in the mods subdirectory, each mod will be added to the order list under the [mod_loading] section in openzt.toml. These can then be reordered as needed. You can also add any of these mods to the disabled list and they will not get loaded.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a crash when a maintenance worker repairs a fence one tile away from the edge of the map
• Fixed a crash when deleting a zoowall one tile away from the edge of the map
• Fixed an issue where special characters like ä in the filename of .ztds would prevent the mod from being loaded if the Windows language was set to English

Changes for modders

• A new meta.toml file for adding metadata such as a mod_id, author name and dependencies docs
• Custom Habitats and Locations are now easier to make docs
• You can now patch individual values or sections in other zoo tycoon resources docs
• New ‘Roof’ tag can be applied to scenery items, allowing them to be hidden with a Ctrl-R shortcut docs

Acknowledgement

This is by no means an exhaustive list but I would like to thank the following people for their assistance with the OpenZT project

• wowjinxy for an immense amount of reverse engineering
• Goosifer for reverse engineering, coding and this website!
• Gymnasiast for help reverse engineering the save game format
• Jay and Fern for sharing their ridiculous levels of knowledge about zoo tycoon modding and various file formats
• Vondell for the logo
• Many modders from the zoo tycoon community for their knowledge, ideas and enthusiasm