We cant make dens?

So I built this really cute little den for my pangolins by digging a trench then overlaying with rocks. It took a little fiddling with but I got it to count as shelter. However every time they go down into it the game says the escaped. I even moved it smack in the middle of the habitat thinking too close to the wall. Nope. I ended up digging a very shallow trench and building it up with the rocks before covering it and so far this works. I'm sad because I wanted to dig down not just put a cave on top of the ground. Anyone know how to prevent this?
 
Are your fences on flat ground?

If so, go into the menu and find the setting under gameplay that allows terrain editing tools to ignore fences/barriers.

Dig deep down under the fences and then change the height of the bottom of the fence and drag it down so it's lower than your cave system.

Once done put the ground back under the fences to where it used to be.


I'm not saying this will work or anything but it should since the game should recognise where the lowest point of the habitat is via the fence.
 
you might have to do a above ground den example some animals build there den on the side of hills going into the hill instead of underground so you could try making a hill with terrain tools and working from there but hope you figure it out as i wanted to do similar for some animals if you figure it out please say on here. but when thinking about it i swear someone did it on the beta and it worked fine though i did not see as there was no video of it or pics.
 
If it's the same as in Beta, I'ts possible.
I made a den for my African Wild Dogs.

I made a small hill and then tunnelled into the side with a small radius terrain Push tool, set to about 30% intensity for better control.
Then use Flatten To Foundation terrain tool to flatten the inside of the den.
Then use the Smooth terrain tool, again, small diameter and low intensity to make a small slope to link the inside back to ground level so the little critters can get in and out.
Next, put some bedding straw inside. Be careful with placement as it has a hit box that can carve chunks of terrain out.
Finally, use the terrain Push and Pull tools to tweak the terrain to cover the den and make the entrance the right kind of size. Again, have the brush size and intensity really low for finer control.
Decorate your hill with plants, roots, rocks to look natural.

I hope this helps. Maybe a terrain cave that is enclosed registers differently to an below ground level trench covered in scenery rocks.
If it doesn't help, ignore everything I said ;)
 
I was definitely able to build an underground den for wolves last night. Now it was in the middle of the pen so I know no parts of it went outside the barrier. But the wolves were able to go in and out of it without any issues. So it's possible. Just need to figure out what was going on with yours that the game didn't like :(
 
Hmmm well I will have to keep trying then. I know I was disappointed and more poor pangolins were probably very confused. Just minding their own business, going to take a nap and they get tranqed by the vet. I got it to function by not digging as deep. Well we will see thanks for the info everyone!
 

Chante Goodman

Community Manager
Frontier
Please send us a screenshot of your den and the heatmap showing the traversable area for your animals. It may be that your den is too small or that your animal is being obstructed.
 
Please send us a screenshot of your den and the heatmap showing the traversable area for your animals. It may be that your den is too small or that it is being obstructed.

To add. In Beta I had an issue with rock cover where the hitbox of the rock was too large, so animals couldn't move under it while there was visually enough space. But the heatmap said otherwise.
 

Chante Goodman

Community Manager
Frontier
Yes correct!

Ah yes, while it may look like visibly there is enough room, all of the animals in the game have a radius around them that informs them whether they can enter an area or not. This is not visible to the player, which is why we suggest using the heatmap so you're always aware if the area is traversable or not! However, it's always better to overbuild space rather than underbuild!
 
Mine that I dug down into the ground is traversable. It even counts as hard shelter. The issue is when my creatures go in and lay down it alerts that they escape even though it's no where near the wall
 
Make sure you have not accidentally burrowed underneath the fence. If they go under the fence they are still considered escaped.

Another thing that happened to me, I had a tree that was taller than the fence. A chimp climbed all the way to the top and was considered escaped. xD He couldn't jump out though so all was well. He climbed back down and the escaped notification went away.

(Funny anecdote: I accidentally left one of my walls without the anti climb barrier. A chimp climbed out, stepped outside, decided it was boring out there, then climbed back in to the enclosure on its own.)
 
I also had one of my lemurs climb to the top of the tree count as escaped and then got immediatly boxed up for no reason even though actual escape was impossible as i built a sorta moat all around the outside of the exibit and trees and climbing platforms/rocks in the middle but the top of the tree counts as outside of the exhibit... really annoying.
 
I was able to make dens before I gave up playing due to how bummed I was about the animals. It can be tricky to ensure the ground is transversible and the map would show the den as being very easily accessed and then a minute later suddenly the terrain was not transversible. I think there is a delay in modifying the terrain and the heat map processing and showing transversibility. What I did was build a little, wait a sec, check heat map, repeat until the den was done.
 
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