Enclosure Measurements & Fence dimensions

[DSak]

I've seen a few threads mention that a single long fence segment is 10 meters, and there's the guide below from Duranis over on reddit. But does anyone know if this is still true? I made an 18x18 fence panel enclosure, which should measure out to 180m x 180m or 32,400m^2 (more than large enough for a Brachio). It ended up being too small for even Diplodocus which needs 13,778m^2.

Quick guide to measure out habitat space/Building suitable enclosures.

- by Duranis
Enclosures space, layout and Dinosaur needs in this game are pretty important but AFAIK there is no easy way to measure out an area while setting up a new habitat. As too large of an enclosure can also cause problems I wanted to have a quick way to measure space.

Reference image:

I did a bit of testing using a Dilo as their requirements for Grassland is just under 10,000M Squared. Once I had a grassland only enclosure built that just covered it's requirement I knew I had around 10,000m squared of space.

First using the electric fences or standard fencing (not testing higher tier yet):

When extending the fence to max build length it is 9 "large panels" long.

Each of these large panels turns out to be around 10M long.

Therefore a square enclosure that is 10X10 "large panels" long is around 10,000m square.

Note: The fence "panels" change size depending on how far you pull the fence out. To get a single full length fence panel you need to pull the fence out until it pops to two panels then slightly move it back till it turns back to 1. This is a "large panel".

As this is a nice round number to work with I had a quick look for things that are around the same size and can be accessed early in the game.

The narrow path at max build length is 10 full fence panels long so can be used quite well to plan out enclosure areas without spending money on fencing. Make a square out of max length narrow paths and you have a 10,000m2 area. Add as many extra boxes as you need to reach your size requirements and then build your fence on the outside of that in whatever way you want. use the grid you made as a guide to place the correct amount of forest then delete the paths.

The expedition centre is around 9X11 fence panels long so still has almost the same surface area and is handy for quickly measuring out larger areas. (aroujnd 9900m square)

The small brush tool is around 2500m Square

The large brush tool is around 8500m Square

The emergency shelter is around 2200m Square

Edit: Added some extra things to use for comparing sizes. Using this info to rebuild my first island I have managed to make enclosures that are perfectly sized for what I want in them. If I get chance over the weekend I will put together a little guide for how to plan an enclosure.

[Phoenixflieger]

I would say you just disproved that yourself.
If you calculate with 5m per segment you should get better results.

I put a Nasuceratops which has a combined environmental requirement of about 8.100 m² in a 18x18 (8.000m²) segment enclosure (and tried to not 'staple' forest) and it fit just in.
So maybe 5,1m per segment, but seeing that many enclosures are not a square shape anyways I don't investigate any further

[huhk]

I know it's been a while. But I did the math myself. And it's true that you can get pretty close with 5 meters. The whole length of a fence would be about 45.5 meters.

I also found out some figures for trees. The individual trees, not "forest", work, I think, like this: Only the base of the trunk takes the area away from the grassland. Which is not very much. But the tree crown covers a much higher 'forest' area, which is important for the needs. For example a normal tree covers about 280m^2, a redwood 190m^2 and the big tree (I think the first one with the huge crown) about 1700m^2, while they take very little away from the actual grassland. If you use the Forest Tool, a much larger area per tree is taken away from the grassland.

Hope this is right. Correct me if I'm wrong. I always calculate how many maximum fence lengths I need for a given grassland. For this I have put together the formula:
n = number of required maximum fence lengths
A = desired area

n = (sqrt(A) * 4) / 45.5

This will give me an approximate number for the grassland. If I need a lot of forest, I simply increase the value for A.

[BlazeD]

The, uh, measurements don't matter. As long as the critters are happy with the area it is fine.

In fact, long bits of fence are just bigger holes for dinos to run out when they break them and cost more than short bits of fence to replace.

[huhk]

I had the problem that I couldn't estimate how big I should make the enclosures in order to use the space optimally. That's why I did the math. Just to get a feeling how big for example 10000m^2 are. I always had the problem that I made the enclosures too big and wasted a lot of space. On big islands this is no problem, but on small ones with little space the calculation was quite useful.

The cost factor for repairing the fences was never a problem either :P