Description
Years have passed since the loss of The Ultimate Zookeeper, but the wounds have not healed.
It is up to you. You must bring back The Ultimate Zookeeper. And to do that, you will have to become The Penultimate Zookeeper.
Travel the world. Gather its creatures. Learn their secrets. Gain their strength. Save the Zookeeper, save the world.
Spoiler: The Ultimate Zookeeper is
Steve Irwin. Your goal is to resurrect Steve Irwin.
The Short Version
This is a pack oriented around exploration and animal collecting, with a side of automation and gaining upgrades. The world is filled with creatures with many different useful abilities. Your zoo will start as little more than a farm, but you will gain more an more exotic animals until you are even resurrecting dinosaurs. The better your zoo gets, the more the Zoogoers (villagers on vacation) will pay you, thus funding your further research.
There will usually be more than one animal that can help you with a given step in the quest. For example, when travelling the world, you could ride a horse, or an ostrich, or even a chocobo. Milk can be obtained from cows or sheep, wool can be obtained from sheep, llamas, or even rabbits, fur can be obtained from almost any mammal. Magpies will collect ore for you, oretoises will grow it on their back, platypuses will dig it up in exchange for food.
Learning about animals along the way will make you stronger, giving you extra hearts, or special abilities like a minimap. Take the time to purse the Paths of Mastery! Exploration is also necessary to gather all the animals you'll need, and Distant Horizons lets you look far into the distance as you're deciding where to venture.
Core Animal Mods
- Alex's Mobs
- Genetic Animals
- ZAWA: Evolved
- Rats
- Exotic Birds
- Aquaculture 2
- Naturalist
- Unusual Prehistory
- Crazy Chocobos
- The Endergetic Expansion
- Quark
Core Tech Mods
The Long Version
Chapter 1: Animal Farm
Deep integration with Genetic Animals gives you a fresh take on familiar Minecraft animals. Get yourself a farm going, and breed your animals to optimize for wool, leather, milk, meat, etc.
Chapter 2: Rat King
Rats! They're not just pests, they can also be great workers and fighters. Yeah, I reckon with enough rats you could automate just about anything.
As you learn to make use of these little animals, you will also unlock pets that can be kept in your inventory, giving you helpful abilities as long as you carry them around.
Chapter 3: Science!
We're not luddites here, it's time to science the heck out of these animals. As your research advances you will be able to automate the harvesting of animals' drops, make better equipment, and even create life (in the form of spawn eggs).
Chapter 4: Dinosaurs
Your zoo is not satisfied with modern biodiversity! It's time to bring back the dinosaurs! Using the fossils you've gathered on your journeys, extract their DNA and bring them back to life. It's great practice for bringing the Ultimate Zookeeper back to life.
Side Quests
When you start you are fleshy and weak. But as you study animals you will grow in strength and wisdom. Follow the Path of the Owl to gain in wisdom, unlocking quality-of-life mods like Jade, AppleSkin, JourneyMap, and Ore Scanners. Follow the Path of Turtle to gain armor, more inventory space, and alternate ways to live when you're exploring. Follow the Path of the Peacock for valuable accessories. Follow the Path of the Spider for better ways to catch animals for your zoo.
The Zoo
Even if an animal isn't useful in your research, it's worth putting in your zoo. Zoogoers are impressed by the diversity and will pay better for more larger and more varied zoos. Those emeralds are critical for your research!
Tips and Tricks
- Be careful when you're taming that first Mantis Shrimp; they can be feisty!
- Automation is usually not required to advance in the quest, but it can help, and will become more viable and easier as you advance through chapters.
- If you build your base in the spawn chunks, I recommend moving the world spawn far away, or you risk blocking spawns of new animals when you explore.
- Metal-based armors are uncraftable! Explore the different animal-based armors from Alex's Mobs, or consider Tinker's Construct's traveller armor.
- If you still find yourself too squishy, purse the Path of the Turtle. There are many different turtle species, and most of them provide some way to getting those scutes.
- As you mine, you will encounter fossils. Save those for later.
- Use JEI! It will tell you what items are useful for taming and breeding. To find out information on a specific animal, click on its spawn egg in JEI.
- The Travelling Trader often arrives with different Genetic Animals. Steal them!
- Tamed racoons will steal items from merchants, saving you emeralds and helping you get higher level items early.
- Villager trades, especially for the Pet Store, can help you get at spawn eggs that would otherwise involve a lot of travelling.
- You need to advance along the Path of the Spider to get easier ways of capturing animals, so collect spider eyes as soon as you can. However, birds can be caught in cages right from the start. Owls, Peafowl, and Magpies are especially helpful in your quest.