How do I combine with pre-existing barriers to make a habitat?

[Richon]

I'm in the second tutorial mission, and on the last part where I have to make a few more exhibits and habitats. Well, attempting to draw inspiration from the centerpiece where three habitats share internal walls, I tried combining some new barriers with existing ones to form a new habitat. Only it didn't work.

I can't find any way to merge the existing barriers with my new ones to complete the perimeter. How on earth do I do this? It is not intuitive at all. :(

[turdsmcpoop]

You just drag the barrier to one of the pylons on the existing barrier. It actually is intuitive but I remember the particular one in that tutorial being a bit wonky. You have to put your cursor in just the right spot.

[grampers62]

Yes, the first three tutorials are a bit scripted and seem to want players to do things almost exactly as instructed following the highlighted areas and things. If I remember correctly, clicking on the objective will take the player to the point of interest. Once all the objectives have been completed the player is free to build as they desire. After those scenarios, "free build" options become more readily available.

[Richon]

Originally posted by turdsmcpoop:

You just drag the barrier to one of the pylons on the existing barrier. It actually is intuitive but I remember the particular one in that tutorial being a bit wonky. You have to put your cursor in just the right spot.

Except it IS connected to the existing barrier physically, but NOT treating it as part of the same barrier.

EDIT: by that I mean, not treating it as part of the same perimeter. It treats it as a gap. And then the part that builds back off the shared barrier isn't treated as anything.

[Richon]

Originally posted by grampers62:

Yes, the first three tutorials are a bit scripted and seem to want players to do things almost exactly as instructed following the highlighted areas and things. If I remember correctly, clicking on the objective will take the player to the point of interest. Once all the objectives have been completed the player is free to build as they desire. After those scenarios, "free build" options become more readily available.

This objective is the last one in the second scenario. It sounds very open-ended and hasn't highlighted anywhere for me to build specifically.

[grampers62]

Yes, i was thinking of the wrong scenario...
So let's go over some basics that you may or may not know. For a barrier to become a habitat there must be a region of terrain that has barriers completing a closed ring around it. That barrier must also have a keeper gate for the completed habitat to report as a habitat,otherwise it is just scenery. The gate should have an arc of open space 6 meters in radius suggesting a minimum habitat size of 12 x 6, of course that is way too small practically. The habitats, as you noted may share barriers. creating joined barriers is often less complicated if you begin build from the existing barriers but can be started separately. If you have not done so yet, you might think about going to game settings and disable the collision options which can help with placing objects.
I hope some of this helps you figure it out but keep trying, the more you do the more you learn.

[Richon]

Originally posted by grampers62:

Yes, i was thinking of the wrong scenario...
So let's go over some basics that you may or may not know. For a barrier to become a habitat there must be a region of terrain that has barriers completing a closed ring around it. That barrier must also have a keeper gate for the completed habitat to report as a habitat,otherwise it is just scenery. The gate should have an arc of open space 6 meters in radius suggesting a minimum habitat size of 12 x 6, of course that is way too small practically. The habitats, as you noted may share barriers. creating joined barriers is often less complicated if you begin build from the existing barriers but can be started separately. If you have not done so yet, you might think about going to game settings and disable the collision options which can help with placing objects.
I hope some of this helps you figure it out but keep trying, the more you do the more you learn.

Thanks. I figured out the problem. I was also trying to combine with some walls being used by a restaurant. That's what broke the whole thing. When I went back and tried again, this time building my barrier just outside the restaurant's walls, I was able to successfully combine with the other habitat and make my new habitat function.

[grampers62]

Yeah, that's easy enough to do. But using the null barrier hidden by scenery walls is still a really good technique to make things appear nicer.

[yodabauer]

It took me forever to realize that I could use construction walls as barriers because I was sure that I had animals escape from them in one of the campaign maps so I thought they didn’t work.

[Richon]

Originally posted by grampers62:

Yeah, that's easy enough to do. But using the null barrier hidden by scenery walls is still a really good technique to make things appear nicer.

I don't think that's an option in the tutorial, but I'll have to check that out once I get out of the tutorials.