Raft building advice

[joefitts63]

I am trying to build a raft that I can go exploring and transport a ptera with me for flying expeditions off the raft (pretty new player, don't have any better flyers). Problem is, external dinos keep attacking my ptera and killing it. First time it was a crocodile. So I built a taller raft. And a spiny dino attacked and killed that ptera despite it being on top of a two level structure.

Any advice on what I need to do to achieve this? I don't want specific raft builds, I want principles. So no video links, just a suggestion of how to attack the problem. The details I can work out for myself. Thanks.

[Liralen]

Set your ptera on follow and passive? Flying, of course. Passive flee pretty much guarantees their safety, but then you'd have to find them.

[🦊 Hermit]

Dinos agro on line-of-sight. So if they see something to attack they will attack it, but if they can't see it they'll ignore. Basically if you wall the ptera in so nothing can spot it (this includes spotting through windows) nothing should try to get at it.

Aside from extremely large creatures like titanos, spinos are the most dangerous for getting over walls, as they can glitch-climb over a four wall high barrier. So make your walls at least 4 high and you shouldn't have any issues with land creatures seeing and attacking anything (titans would be able to see but they don't attack unprovoked).

Then your only other worry would be other flying creatures like the argent, and on most maps there are few areas where argents can spawn next to a body of water, so that's unlikely to be an issue. But if ever it was, you could put up a temporary ceiling over your raft to block sight there too, then demolish it when you want to take the bird out, or if you're using a building mod like S+ or SS they have horizontal hatches you could use as a door to fly out of.

Should be noted that all of the above will not cover incidental damage, splash damage from other nearby attacks. So if a spino is hunting fish alongside your raft and takes a swipe too close, it may still hit your raft and ptera even if it doesn't see the bird, simply because it's swing is so wide. But at least it won't be actively aiming for it.

[joefitts63]

Thanks!