Tell Me What's Obstructing the Water Tool
- Thread starter thekay72
- Start date
The OP didn't just state a problem, he/she also added that it would be nice IF Frontier were to somehow add in a way for the game to literally pinpoint what's causing water to be obstructed. I know that it's currently not in the game, but that's the whole point: it should be, because as it stands it's at times a lot of work to pin down the problem. It's not a matter of 'oh, it can only be one of these three things', it's a matter of 'oh my god, it has to be one of these three things and I've tried everything and it still won't let me place water'. Again, it's nice that you see it as a minor issue - or so I gather from your kind of light-hearted way of pointing at possible solutions - but others (like me) have really been wrestling with the damned 'obstructed' notification.
+1 ! We've seen from our discussion that sometimes there are other issues, and it shouldn't be a pain to try to guess what might be the issue
One of the master pieces to understand how the water 'system' in PZ works is this video.
Beware, it's more a nerdy thing, nothing about beautiful enclosures or this kind of things.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XwHuXYj0oM
Beware, it's more a nerdy thing, nothing about beautiful enclosures or this kind of things.
I think screenshots are more useful in these situations.
I agree.
I was thinking yesterday that this would be super helpful. I was extending the path around the sides of my flamingo habitat (which has a ring of water around the edge, closest to the fence, with an island of land in the center) and had to remove the water to place the path. After placing the path, I tried to put the water back in, and it said it was obstructed. I moved all the flamingoes away from the water area, I tried pushing the ground out next to the path I had just placed, I tried removing the path entirely, I tried moving the donation bins and education stands. I even tried deleting the trees near the water, in case for some reason that was the issue. It took me at least 10-15 minutes before I finally spotted the one flamingo hiding inside a patch of reeds that I hadn't seen, and, after moving him, the water finally placed again. While yes, that was my bad for not spotting the flamingo in the first place, it should really highlight any obstructions there are. It would save so much time.
While I agree that a highlight showing the obstruction cause would be highly useful, there are some rather obvious (after I point them out at least) fixes that you can do to prevent it from happening in first place.
1) Any time you are going to make any water changes in a habitat which includes animals, first click on the habitat itself, click on the habitat's "Box all animals" button. This one tip will save most people (like WolfTrek with his Flamingo!) hours of headaches. Unboxed animals obstruct water, boxed animals do not. When done making your terrain edits be sure to click the "Unbox all animals" button to return your habitat to its normal mode.
2) That Rudi video covers this perfectly but only after several minutes and it might get overlooked so here is your TLDR tip (or TLDW in this case) in bold text. Water fills at increments of 1m each not at fractions. So no matter where you are clicking above the prior water level it will instead attempt to fill it at the next highest 1m height, and unless you secured with terrain that full height then attempting to place water is causing the entire map to be flooded and being obstructed as a result. Do as Rudi suggested and use objects that are precut to exactly 1m and place them on the floor of your water bottom and stack them on top of each other in order to find how high you need to landscape for any higher water than previously was contained in the water feature.
3) Also I may just be deluding myself but I believe the list of things that can prevent water placement includes some placeable objects such as heaters and coolers. Since this might be a self delusion myth rather than a fact I will not bold text this one. Just in case I am right however and you have already completed steps 1 and 2 and still find an obstruction then you may want to check that these placeable objects are not in the water area by opening your various HUD maps. If there are any objects in the effected areas, move them out just in case. At worst case scenario you wasted a few seconds checking your HUD maps then moving something out and then back in afterwards. Far better than both stressing yourself out and wasting a long time trying to figure out what small thing is obstructing.
1) Any time you are going to make any water changes in a habitat which includes animals, first click on the habitat itself, click on the habitat's "Box all animals" button. This one tip will save most people (like WolfTrek with his Flamingo!) hours of headaches. Unboxed animals obstruct water, boxed animals do not. When done making your terrain edits be sure to click the "Unbox all animals" button to return your habitat to its normal mode.
2) That Rudi video covers this perfectly but only after several minutes and it might get overlooked so here is your TLDR tip (or TLDW in this case) in bold text. Water fills at increments of 1m each not at fractions. So no matter where you are clicking above the prior water level it will instead attempt to fill it at the next highest 1m height, and unless you secured with terrain that full height then attempting to place water is causing the entire map to be flooded and being obstructed as a result. Do as Rudi suggested and use objects that are precut to exactly 1m and place them on the floor of your water bottom and stack them on top of each other in order to find how high you need to landscape for any higher water than previously was contained in the water feature.
3) Also I may just be deluding myself but I believe the list of things that can prevent water placement includes some placeable objects such as heaters and coolers. Since this might be a self delusion myth rather than a fact I will not bold text this one. Just in case I am right however and you have already completed steps 1 and 2 and still find an obstruction then you may want to check that these placeable objects are not in the water area by opening your various HUD maps. If there are any objects in the effected areas, move them out just in case. At worst case scenario you wasted a few seconds checking your HUD maps then moving something out and then back in afterwards. Far better than both stressing yourself out and wasting a long time trying to figure out what small thing is obstructing.
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