Allow Purchasing Young Hack
(http://www.ztcdd.org/DG/DownloadFiles/DllsUtilities/allowPurchasingYoungHack.jpg)
Author: Jay
Category: Hack
Date Added: February 16, 2013
Updated: October 15, 2026 by Jay to allow geologic periods/eras as long as "Carboniferous" to be shown.
Current ztd date: October 15, 2026
Size: 3 KB
Compatibility: All Game Versions
Overview: Allows purchasing young animals for animals that have young.
Description: When Blue Fang (BF) created Zoo Tycoon (ZT), they created a way for their developers to purchase young animals in the animal purchase menu. That allowed the developers to test the animations for the young without having to wait until one was born. This hack turns that feature on, although in a slightly different way. BF's approach added a "X" on top of the male purchase menu icon, while this hack adds a "Y" (for "Young") to the right of the female purchase menu icon. When that "Y" is clicked, a young animal can be added to an exhibit. ZT randomly chooses whether it is male or female. To see whether the young animal is a male or female, you can click on the animal in the zoo exhibit and look at its Animal General Information tab. That young animal will act like those that are created from the adults giving birth and will eventually become adults. Since ZT did not create purchase menu icons for its young animals, the purchase menu icon will be whatever was chosen as the default for the animal. Usually that icon will be the adult male, but some animals, like the lion, use the adult female as the default. User made animals also usually do not have purchase menu icons for young animals and will also default to using one of the adult purchase menu icons. This hack is not useful for animals that hatch from eggs, since those animals will continue to hatch from eggs. Also, be careful using this hack for user made animals that were designed not to have births, since defaults for the young might not exist. But usually even those animals will default to using adult animations for the young. Being a hack, this hack cannot be used at the same time as any other "buya.lyt" hacks. In order for the "Click to adopt young animals." tooltip to be shown, any version of lang999-override.dll is also needed. In addition to being useful for those players that want young animals sooner, this hack is also useful for map makers and scenario creators that want young animals in their maps, as well as for animal creators to test their young animal animations sooner. But animal creators should still also test that their adult animals give births, if the animals should.
Although this hack will still work without the ZT Override dll File, in order to see the messages associated with this hack, also use the ZT Override dll File:
http://www.ztcdd.org/DG/index.php?topic=5353.0 (http://www.ztcdd.org/DG/index.php?topic=5353.0)
Where To Put The ztd: Extract allowPurchasingYoungHack.ztd from allowPurchasingYoungHack.zip. If your main ZT folder already has a hacks or hacks-unused folder, put allowPurchasingYoungHack.ztd in that folder. Otherwise if your main ZT folder already has a dlupdate folder, put allowPurchasingYoungHack.ztd in that dlupdate folder. Otherwise put allowPurchasingYoungHack.ztd in the Updates folder.
The preferred location for allowPurchasingYoungHack.ztd is a hacks or hacks-unused folder to keep hacks separate from non-hacks. But this approach needs to be set up first in order to use. Here is how to set up for that approach, which only needs to be done 1 time:
1. The zoo.ini file in ZT's main folder needs to be edited. Just to be safe, copy that zoo.ini elsewhere to save as a backup. Depending on how your MS Windows is set up, you might not see the ".ini" part of that file name. If you see 2 files called "zoo", the smaller file is zoo.ini.
2. The zoo.ini file can be edited with any text editor, such as WordPad. The Notepad program can be used instead of WordPad, but WordPad is a little more powerful. To start WordPad in Windows XP, click start->All Programs->Accessories->WordPad. In WordPad, click File->Open. In the "Open" window, go to ZT's main folder. To do this on my computer, I clicked "My Computer", double-clicked "Local Disk (C:)", double-clicked "Program Files", double-clicked "Microsoft Games", double-clicked "Zoo Tycoon". I then changed the "Files of type:" setting to "All Documents (*.*)". I then clicked "zoo.ini" and clicked the Open button.
3. There is a line in zoo.ini that starts with "path=". The line is different, depending on the ZT version and whether you have edited the line before. If the line has not been edited before, it looks like this for CC:
path=./dlupdate;./updates;./xpack2/loc;./xpack2;./dupdate;./zupdate1;./xpack1/loc;./xpack1;./zupdate;./loc;.
No matter how the line looks, we want to add "./hacks;" after the "=". Although not necessary for the Allow Purchasing Young Hack, it would also be useful to have "./mapmaker;" before "./hacks;" in case you ever want to edit maps. And I find it useful to have "./hacks2;" to allow hacks override other hacks and to have "./favorite;" to contain non-hack ztds that I always want available in ZT. In my case, that line now looks like this:
path=./mapmaker;./hacks2;./hacks;./favorite;./dlupdate;./updates;./xpack2/loc;./xpack2;./dupdate;./zupdate1;./xpack1/loc;./xpack1;./zupdate;./loc;.
4. Save the change inside the zoo.ini file. To do this in WordPad, click File->Save. Then close the WordPad window.
5. In ZT's main folder, create a new folder called: hacks
6. Put allowPurchasingYoungHack.ztd in the hacks folder you created in step 5.
Once the above setup is done, if you ever want ZT not to see the files in the hacks folder, rename the hacks folder to hacks-unused. To have ZT see those files again, rename the hacks-unused folder back to hacks.
Example On How To Use: Start ZT. Start a freeform map using the Basic Grass Map (Small). Use an exhibit fence to create an exhibit. Open the animal purchase menu. Click the zebra icon. There should be a "Y" to the right of the female icon. The above screenshot is pointing to that "Y". Click that "Y". Click in the exhibit and it should put a young zebra in the exhibit. Click either the male or female icon, click in the exhibit, and it should put an adult zebra in the exhibit.
Additional Notes: I feel allowPurchasingYoungHack.ztd can always be kept in the hacks (or dlupdate or Updates) folder, since it is unrelated to everything else and since people do not have to click on its icon, although it will be there when they want it.
Click here to download the zip containing this ztd (http://www.ztcdd.org/DG/DownloadFiles/DllsUtilities/allowPurchasingYoungHack.zip)
The Allow Purchasing Young Hack was updated October 15, 2026 by Jay to allow geologic periods/eras as long as "Carboniferous" to be shown.
When DD was created, BF allowed some animals and foliage to be from 1 of 4 geologic periods, which BF called eras although eras actually contain multiple geologic periods. The 4 geologic periods they made available were Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Ice Age. Those are shown in the purchase menu for some animals and foliage. In 2018, Borsato created LANG--ZBorsato.dll to allow more geologic periods in ZT, among other things. One of the intended geologic periods was "Carboniferous". But ZT did not allow enough space in the purchase menu area for that long of a name. So LANG--ZBorsato.dll originally contained "Carbonifer". LANG--ZBorsato.dll has since been updated to contain "Carboniferous". When ZT tries to show that name in the purchase menu area, it will show "Carbonifer..." instead. With the updated Allow Purchasing Young Hack, I slightly lowered where the geologic period is shown and allowed slightly more space. So it now will show the full "Carboniferous" name in the animals purchase menu, although the end of "Carboniferous" will slightly go over the top left corner of the preferred object icon.
Increase Era Space For Objects Hack
Author: Jay
Category: Hack
Date Added: October 20, 2026
Current ztd date: October 15, 2026
Size: 1.5 KB
Compatibility: All Game Versions
Overview: Allows geologic periods/eras as long as "Carboniferous" to be shown in the objects purchase menu, such as for foliage.
Description: When DD was created, BF allowed some animals and foliage to be from 1 of 4 geologic periods, which BF called eras although eras actually contain multiple geologic periods. The 4 geologic periods they made available were Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Ice Age. Those are shown in the purchase menu for some animals and foliage. In 2018, Borsato created LANG--ZBorsato.dll to allow more geologic periods in ZT, among other things. One of the intended geologic periods was "Carboniferous". But ZT did not allow enough space in the purchase menu area for that long of a name. So LANG--ZBorsato.dll originally contained "Carbonifer". LANG--ZBorsato.dll has since been updated to contain "Carboniferous". When ZT tries to show that name in the purchase menu area, it will show "Carbonifer..." instead. With this hack, I slightly lowered where the geologic period is shown and allowed slightly more space. So it now will show the full "Carboniferous" name in the objects purchase menu that includes foliage. Being a hack, this hack cannot be used at the same time as any other "buldhab.lyt" hacks.
Where To Put The ztd: Extract increaseEraSpaceForObjectsHack.ztd from increaseEraSpaceForObjectsHack.zip. If your main ZT folder already has a hacks or hacks-unused folder, put increaseEraSpaceForObjectsHack.ztd in that folder. Otherwise if your main ZT folder already has a dlupdate folder, put increaseEraSpaceForObjectsHack.ztd in that dlupdate folder. Otherwise put increaseEraSpaceForObjectsHack.ztd in the Updates folder.
The preferred location for increaseEraSpaceForObjectsHack.ztd is a hacks or hacks-unused folder to keep hacks separate from non-hacks. But this approach needs to be set up first in order to use. The download post for the Allow Purchasing Young Hack says how to set it up.
Additional Notes: I feel increaseEraSpaceForObjectsHack.ztd can always be kept in the hacks (or dlupdate or Updates) folder, since it is unrelated to everything else.
Click here to download the zip containing this ztd (http://www.ztcdd.org/DG/DownloadFiles/DllsUtilities/increaseEraSpaceForObjectsHack.zip)