How Do You Build a Hard Shelter?

[TootieFruit7]

I'm new to the game and I'm really struggling with trying to create hard shelters for my animals.

I cannot use any of the terrain tools besides paint (they are disabled because of the scenario) so I can't sculpt the land at this moment in time.

I've tried to create my own shelter using rocks and made sure that there were no gaps. I made caves of varying sizes and used different size/type bedding and it wouldn't work. I tried to use the pre-made shelters and no matter what I used, it wouldn't work.

The only animal in my zoo so afar is a Aldabra Giant Tortoise. This is a brand new zoo and the first zoo I've started so I'm unsure if maybe I am doing something wrong here?

[PeachyCrash]

Career mode learned me a lot when I started out, shelters can be caves formed by terrain tools, made from rocks or my favorite just built from walls and roofs. PaulsLey on youtube have some good how to videos and build videos that can give ideas on how.

[TootieFruit7]

Originally posted by Neuna:

Career mode learned me a lot when I started out, shelters can be caves formed by terrain tools, made from rocks or my favorite just built from walls and roofs. PaulsLey on youtube have some good how to videos and build videos that can give ideas on how.

Thanks! I will check them out to see if it can help me figure out what to do! Hopefully I can learn some new things and maybe they will work. Thanks!

[Varick]

All a shelter needs is to have enough roof coverage (with height applicable to the animal) and navigable space under it. Even a path overhang for a lookout into a habit can count as a 100% shelter (my wild dogs do just fine though I did add some walls to make it look more like a shelter)
I am new to the game too and found the biggest errors I was making was not checking the H key for navigable space for the animals. Once I did that, I did not have any problems. I find making natural habitats are fun- just refer often to your H key. just an fyi :)

[Mysteria]

Also:
- turtles need a surprising amount of shelter space for how small they look.

- have you checked with the habitat traversable area map if your shelter is actually accessible for the turtles?

[Marlowe-33]

Originally posted by Neuna:

Career mode learned me a lot when I started out, shelters can be caves formed by terrain tools, made from rocks or my favorite just built from walls and roofs. PaulsLey on youtube have some good how to videos and build videos that can give ideas on how.

+1 for Paul's Ley videos , he is very good to watch and learn from.

[MIGHTYANDYMAN]

Sorry if you already know this (and just want to make your own) if you select habit then shelters and bedding there are several there you can use, or you could use a workshop blueprint

[JJBandit]

^^ thats what i do, then i plop rocks and stuff over the pre-made ones.

I have never had any success with making my own yet. I may well take a look at that video set though.

[Varick]

JJBandit - if you are having problems with free hand caves or just want a quick tip here is something you can try that I have used. Sink a 2meter wall piece into the ground until you just see its top, then take the log flat roof square and sink it to make the floor, add two more 2m pieces so you have three sides and a floor. Carve out the "box" with the terain tool and add bedding. Use terrain tool to bring up ground around the "box" and over the top for a cave.
Delete the walls and floor and use x to lower bedding. Redo walls and top that bedding pushed out. round off outside and roomy cave is done. use H to see if you need to smooth from ground level to bedding area for navigable. hope this might help :)

[TootieFruit7]

Originally posted by Varick:

All a shelter needs is to have enough roof coverage (with height applicable to the animal) and navigable space under it. Even a path overhang for a lookout into a habit can count as a 100% shelter (my wild dogs do just fine though I did add some walls to make it look more like a shelter)
I am new to the game too and found the biggest errors I was making was not checking the H key for navigable space for the animals. Once I did that, I did not have any problems. I find making natural habitats are fun- just refer often to your H key. just an fyi :)

I had no idea that was a thing (the H key thing). I will certainly use that in the future!

Originally posted by Mysteria:

Also:
- turtles need a surprising amount of shelter space for how small they look.

- have you checked with the habitat traversable area map if your shelter is actually accessible for the turtles?

I have not checked that and didn't realize that was a thing. The good news is that after I got back in, suddenly the shelters worked and I did nothing different. But I will certainly use that in the future if I have issues! Thanks!

Originally posted by Green_Goblin:

Sorry if you already know this (and just want to make your own) if you select habit then shelters and bedding there are several there you can use, or you could use a workshop blueprint

Yeah I tried using the pre-made shelters but none of them worked. I left one when I got off and when I got back on it worked so I have NO idea what was wrong. I did literally nothing to it for it to work.

Originally posted by JJBandit:

^^ thats what i do, then i plop rocks and stuff over the pre-made ones.

I have never had any success with making my own yet. I may well take a look at that video set though.

I am now having luck with them. I'm just making sure they are against the barrier just make sure it is 100% shielded from people and the elements. I'm glad it decided to work and I can create my own now because they look so much better!

[TootieFruit7]

Thanks everyone for your help! I don't know what was wrong but it is now working. I had placed a pre-made shelter and got off so when I returned it was still there and it magically worked. Now I'm having zero issues with creating hard shelters. I'm not sure why it was doing that. I didn't do anything different but I will keep that channel and all of your tips in mind if I run into issues again! Thank you all!

[Mysteria]

By the way, you talk about putting them against a wall etc ...

None of that is actually needed for the shelter to count for the terrain stat.

You can just have a roof hanging in the air and it counts as shelter. Same for a path overhead: that also counts as shelter.

Doing proper shelters is useful for avoiding stressed animals though.

But if I’m strapped for cash at the start, I just throw down 4 flat roof pieces and call it a day. By the time stress becomes an issue, I’ll have enough money to do a proper shelter.

[JJBandit]

Originally posted by Varick:

JJBandit - if you are having problems with free hand caves or just want a quick tip here is something you can try that I have used. Sink a 2meter wall piece into the ground until you just see its top, then take the log flat roof square and sink it to make the floor, add two more 2m pieces so you have three sides and a floor. Carve out the "box" with the terain tool and add bedding. Use terrain tool to bring up ground around the "box" and over the top for a cave.
Delete the walls and floor and use x to lower bedding. Redo walls and top that bedding pushed out. round off outside and roomy cave is done. use H to see if you need to smooth from ground level to bedding area for navigable. hope this might help :)

Awesome! Thanks

I'm still in the early campaign stages at the moment, so can;t use terrain tools (for terraforming). But really useful to know. I may try a sandbox game and play around with it.

[jcp011c2]

Me personally I either usually just build it out of construction items of walls and roof, sometimes I will put rocks around those materials to give it a more natural look. I've tried doing just rocks before but it always seems to have holes in it. I've tried using terrain tools but i'm never happy with the outcome.

One thing I did do though with rocks is put them on the barrier (usually glass or another type with glass spaces included), usually the barrier will be curved or have an indentation of some sort, and that leaves the rock "cave" right up front for the guests to see. Be sure if you go that route that you use one way glass on your shy animals.

[👻 HauntingTheNet 👻]

Here is a building tip... you can make your visitor path area be a walkway in the air and have habitat area beneath it. Any area directly below the walkway counts as shelter, and the visitors get a close view of some animals.

However, this being said, for the shyer animals this can lead to problems where the animal retreats to the safe area, recovers, starts to exit only to be met with crowd and instantly become stressed again. If this happens to you, then my suggestion is to add a concrete wall with one way glass attached to the walkway as a non-habitat barrier. This allows the visitors to see the shy animals, and prevents the shy animal from freaking out as they exit the safe zone.

PS: It is amusing as heck to see shops floating in the air above the habitats and animals bedding down underneath since the shops do not add support struts like the walkways do. ;)