Illness & Quarantine

Animals in your zoo can contract illnesses that drain health and spread to other animals. This guide covers how the system works and how to keep your zoo healthy.

🦠 Illness Types

There are 5 illnesses in Zoo RPG. Each has unique characteristics:

How Illness Works

• Health Drain: Sick animals lose health every game tick (1 tick = 1 minute). If health reaches 0, they die.
• Auto-Cure: After the cure duration passes, animals automatically recover.
• Spread Chance: Every tick, sick animals have a % chance to infect enclosure-mates and a smaller % chance to infect any animal in the zoo.
• Weather Multipliers: Base spread rates are multiplied by weather conditions (e.g., fungal infections spread 1.8× faster in rain).

🏥 Quarantine

Quarantine is your main tool to prevent illness from spreading.

How to Quarantine

1. When an animal gets sick, you'll see a toast notification in the bottom-right corner.
2. Go to the Animals tab or open the enclosure drawer.
3. Click the 🏥 Quarantine button on the sick animal.
4. The animal is immediately isolated and cannot spread illness.

Quarantine Costs

• $10 per hour per animal in quarantine (deducted every game tick).
• Example: 3 animals in quarantine for 2 hours = 3 × 2 × $10 = $60.

Releasing from Quarantine

• Once the animal recovers (illness disappears), click the Release button.
• Animals can stay in quarantine as long as you want, but you'll keep paying the hourly fee.

Quarantine Section

• In the Animals tab, there's a dedicated Quarantine section that shows all quarantined animals.
• You can also filter by "Quarantined" to see only isolated animals.

💉 Immunity

After recovering from an illness, animals gain 5 days of immunity to that specific illness.

• Immunity is illness-specific (recovering from Mange doesn't prevent Fever).
• After 5 days, animals can catch the same illness again.
• Immunity timer is not shown in the UI (yet), but it's tracked in the backend.

🚨 Outbreaks

If more than 30% of your zoo's animals have the same illness, an outbreak is triggered.

Outbreak Effects

• Zoo-wide spread rate increases.
• Popularity drops.
• Visitors leave negative comments on the feed.
• Daily report score is penalized.

How to Prevent Outbreaks

1. Quarantine the first sick animal immediately — don't wait.
2. Keep enclosures clean (>70%) — dirty enclosures increase spread rates.
3. Hire vets for every enclosure — they heal animals to prevent death, though they can't cure illness.
4. Watch the weather — quarantine proactively before storms or heat waves.
5. Avoid overcrowding — full enclosures spread illness faster.

🧹 Prevention Tips

Best Practices

• Monitor health regularly — sick animals appear with illness badges (🦠, 🫁, etc.) on their cards.
• Quarantine early — one sick animal can infect an entire enclosure in 10–20 ticks.
• Keep enclosures at <80% capacity — overcrowding increases spread rates.
• Clean regularly — cleanliness below 50 dramatically increases spread risk.
• Hire workers — vets keep health up, janitors keep enclosures clean.

Weather-Based Strategy

🎮 Gameplay Integration

Worker Automation

• Vets will auto-heal sick animals to keep them alive, but they cannot cure illness. Illness duration is fixed.
• Keepers and Janitors work normally even during outbreaks.
• Max-bot (the auto-management bot) will automatically quarantine sick animals if enabled.

Medicine Items

• Heal items (like Veterinary Kit) restore health but do not cure illness.
• Use heal items to keep sick animals alive long enough to auto-cure.

Death

• If a sick animal's health reaches 0 before the cure time elapses, they die.
• Death reason will be logged as the illness name (e.g., "Died from Respiratory Infection").

📊 UI Features

• Illness badges on animal cards (e.g., 🦠 Mange, 🫁 Respiratory Infection)
• Quarantine button appears on sick animals in Animals tab and enclosure drawers
• Quarantine section in Animals tab (collapsible, shows all quarantined animals)
• Toast notifications when an animal gets sick (bottom-right corner)
• Status filter in Animals tab ("Sick only", "Healthy only", "Quarantined")

🔍 FAQ

Q: Can I cure illness with medicine?
A: No. Medicine (heal items) restore health but do not cure illness. Animals auto-cure after the illness duration.

Q: How do I know if an animal is immune?
A: Immunity is not currently shown in the UI, but it's tracked in the backend. Animals are immune to the same illness for 5 days after recovery.

Q: Can animals die from illness?
A: Yes. If health reaches 0 before the illness cures, they die. Hire vets and use heal items to prevent this.

Q: Does quarantine speed up recovery?
A: No. Quarantine only prevents spread. Animals cure at the same rate whether quarantined or not.

Q: What happens if I can't afford quarantine costs?
A: Quarantine fees are deducted every tick. If you run out of money, quarantine costs are still charged (your balance can go negative), but you may face other penalties.

Q: Can baby animals get sick?
A: Yes. Babies can contract illness just like adults. Keep them isolated and well-cared-for during the baby care period.

Keep your zoo clean, hire vets, and quarantine fast. Disease spreads faster than you think. 🦉