How do you make a custom hard shelter?

[Eccentric Gentleman]

I tried building a custom hard shelter but when I open the hard shelter menu I see the pre-made ones but no pieces for them.

I wanted to make one that looked like a cave so I too the basic bedding and put one of the rock pieces above it. Shelter satisfaction went up so I kept going. But when I looked again it was at 0.

What are the mechanics for building a custom shelter and how do I do it?

[BonPadre]

Probably one of the headscratching one for me at first too.

You probably put some rocks that actually prevent animals from going inside.
To check this, simply manually move an animal inside your hard shelter and see if he's able to get out. If yes, you are probably fine. If not, just try to remove some of the entrance rocks.

Now take all this with a grain of salt, I'm pretty new to the game, and I'm in the learning curve, and far far away from beeing good at the game yet.

[grampers62]

You might try using the habitat heatmaps. Open them by clicking the radar at the bottom left and selecting the second icon from the left on the bar that opens at the top of the screen. In the panel that opens you will find a drop down list to switch to the different heatmaps. For traversable area one must select an animal to see where that animal can move to.

[Varick]

Eccentric Gentleman- making your own can be fun and can give a more realistic shelter (given the varying size of the animals) than the premade ones. The heat map for transversable will show if you have the necessary shelter setup for both the adults and the juveniles of an animal species.

Here are some basic tips to keep in mind which I hope will help with construction:

Animal transversable for an entrance depends on height (e.g.,elephant versus lemur), width (animals can not go backward so the entrance/tunnel must be wide enough for them to turn around
(again, depends on the animal), and terrain (smooth enough to travel on). Height- a little taller than the animal, width- double the animal's length, terrain -smooth enough to travel but also depends on the animal as elephants can traverse less smooth than an aardvark. same for the adults versus the juveniles due to longer/shorter legs. The tranversable line you see may look much smaller than the animal's width- the game only cares if there is "air space" for the animal to turn around.

Bedding is not required but can look good in a shelter. The problem (which people see with exploding underground shelters) is that the bedding has a reserved (generic) space around it to fit all animals and will thus push out your terrain. I skip the bedding for small animals if I do not want a tall shelter made of terrain. This does not apply to scenery or construction pieces. If you want a low ceiling with bedding just use rocks, etc.

There are a multitude of natural and construction pieces you can use for shelter - walls are not even needed as long as the overhead coverage is correct.

If you are having trouble with inclined entrances for underground, you can use this trick. Use a path to get your smoothness and width, then delete the path. You can then adjust the width. For the flat sleep area you could sink a floor tile and then carve the terrain.

Not on shelter topic but just an fyi - width and height also make a difference for underwater arches. Many people build the terrain around a 4 meter cube. Also makes a difference if the underwater feeder will work.

Anyway, hopes this helps. :)

[Anthracite]

Always build it bigger than it would realistically need to be, PZ hitboxes are ridiculously huge.

[Jendowoz]

Great tips, thank you, Varick.

[Cmdo.Delta]

In construction tab.

I made my very first attempt for a shelter yesterday and it worked! I'm suprised and happy! I used walls and roof from construction tab then covered with rocks to hide the unatural looks of human buildings! Results not too bad but since it's in a campain zoo and that we cannot use the land modification tools..

[Platonov]

the cheapest hard shelter is a tall climbable wood pillar + biggest square above it.

[Eccentric Gentleman]

Originally posted by Cmdo.Delta:

In construction tab.

I made my very first attempt for a shelter yesterday and it worked! I'm suprised and happy! I used walls and roof from construction tab then covered with rocks to hide the unatural looks of human buildings! Results not too bad but since it's in a campain zoo and that we cannot use the land modification tools..

So you don't need a designated shelter piece? Just the wall, roof and floor pieces you use for regular buildings?

[grampers62]

Even an elevated path can count as shelter provided it is high enough.

[BonPadre]

Originally posted by Eccentric Gentleman:

So you don't need a designated shelter piece? Just the wall, roof and floor pieces you use for regular buildings?

Yesterday I simply dropped a big rock with some flat rocks that made a cover on the outer perimeter of the big rock, and it counted as a hard shelter. You don't even need a "cave looking" hard shelter. Some vegetation and it makes it quite natural and works. Now that was for some very small animals so it was easy to make it look natural I admit.

[Anthracite]

If it stops rain or snow it counts as shelter.

[NanoGrrl]

+1 what @anthracite said, so you can use anything! The habitat heatmap will tell you if it's big enough, and yes, you have to make them far larger than you'd think because of the animal hitboxes.

Use regular building pieces to make a themed animal barn or house, or arrange some rocks for a cave-ish shelter. Be aware that if you can make a one-way window into the shelter from the path (use the one-way glass barrier or one-way glass windows in a barrier) guests get a kick out of peeking in at sleeping animals.