How is a "shelter" defined?

[Sotrax]

So what exactly defines a shelter? I build an ugly house for my animals and this did work, but this arragement of stones with a (used!) sleeping place underneath doesn't count as a shelter. Even tho I grouped every asset into one "building". What is wrong with that? Why isn't that possible?

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/771728814653502679/0A531B486911E342DA37961490ECB782B99DA041/

[Iced Tea Blizzard]

It means a roof. Walls are irrelevant in my testing. It just means covered floor space. They probably have an internal tag on items that designate them as roof materials. I've used most of the flat roof styles under the Construction tab as animal shelters without any problem. I was planning on making a stone cave at some point. Glad I didn't know. That would have taken like 30 minutes and if what you say is true, it wouldn't even work.

[Lilo]

I’ve successfully used a terrain ‘cave’, and a rock cave for shelters. No building parts at all aside from the bedding.

[Selena]

A possible workaround to a stone cave not working could be to hide roof pieces inside the rocks.

[Miss Fortune]

I made a cave for my Monitor Lizards and it turned out fine. I didn't use any pre-made shelter, just grabbed some rocks and risked the chance of failure. To my pleasure it fit the copious amounts of lizards that were soon to spawn and didn't ask me to build another. Not sure why that's not working, honestly.

[Stray]

Rocks normally work for this, yes. I think some stuff might be oddly tagged though as I had tried a roof piece and the game didn't register it as shelter, but when I placed a flat rock hovering over the ground, that counted.

I wish I could dig a tunnel and have that count too. I'd love to create ground burrows or something. Couldn't get that to work while testing. Only thing kind of close was I created a giant hole in the ground and covered it in flat rocks but it looks silly. Lol

[Iced Tea Blizzard]

You sure about that? I made caves and grottos in Planet Coaster. I haven't tried Planet Zoo. I mean, let's be honest, there really isn't a lot of room in the enclosures for that. Especially if they put invisible walls under the barrier fences (which would kind of make sense). I'm gonna have to try this now. My curiosity is piqued. I know I saw the tools to do it in the Terrain mode, though.

[Jabroni]

I made a rock cave shelter all out of rocks and put bedding under it and it works . its on the workshop

[Lilo]

I’ve done an only terrain cave, a couple now actually, one I built above ground by piling up terrain, the other I bored into a hill, both are recognized as shelters.

[Stray]

Originally posted by Lilo:

I’ve done an only terrain cave, a couple now actually, one I built above ground by piling up terrain, the other I bored into a hill, both are recognized as shelters.

Will try again tonight. When I was using the terrain tool it wasn't allowing me to dig into the mound I created. I tried all of the options and increased the intensity.

[Sunny]

also your peacocks can escape, as they can climb on the rock :)