Underwater pens

[Chudz66]

I've only built two water pens, both were small and fully enclosed with walls. Now, I am looking to build a large one to hold the big fellows of the sea along with multiple smaller creatures. In a couple of videos I've watched, the people have used pillars. My question for those of you who have done the same, is do I have to worry about mantas, jellies, and piranhas slipping between them?  If so, do you have some Basilos or sharks on Nuetral to counter the threat, and how effective are they?

[AdligerAdler]

Once I asked someone on my server who built such a pillar underwater pen if jellyfish etc. can slip through the pillars. He said he never had problems with this. But he had the pillars as close as possible together. A player couldn't swim through. 

Mantas etc. could spawn in your pen though. Since a manta spawned in the water part of my base and killed my megalodon, I set a basilo on neutral and placed a couple x plants. Basilos are effective especially against jellyfish that stun most water tames. Basilos are immune to that.

 

[Chudz66]

Thanks, I didn't think about using turrets for water threats. I'm probably going to add some to target Ichthyornis anyway ("Thou shalt not suffer an Ichthyornis to live!"), so I'll look into adding jellies, etc., to the target list.

[d1nk]

2 hours ago, Chudz66 said:

Thanks, I didn't think about using turrets for water threats. I'm probably going to add some to target Ichthyornis anyway ("Thou shalt not suffer an Ichthyornis to live!"), so I'll look into adding jellies, etc., to the target list.

Foundation off the area around your pen, at least this will stop anything new from spawning

 

Im interested to see this pen once complete, im thinking of building a taming pen or two when I get to that point on my run and would love to see it

[Deathkittyn]

Wait I didn't know you can make underwater pens? Just been using gates close to the beach... making a little pond...

[Chudz66]

15 minutes ago, Deathkittyn said:

Wait I didn't know you can make underwater pens? Just been using gates close to the beach... making a little pond...

Maybe a misleading choice of words on my part. What I meant is what you're talking about, but on a much larger scale. Having said that, though, I've seen a couple enclosed pens under water in videos. They look pretty cool.

[d1nk]

4 hours ago, Deathkittyn said:

Wait I didn't know you can make underwater pens? Just been using gates close to the beach... making a little pond...

They also added more buildable ocean spots on the Island awhile ago. You can build on most of those big underwater rocks now

 

Edit: Its just a normal pen with a roof...underwater! I would imagine just a behe gate, pillars and or foundation box (see how creative i am lol)

[yekrucifixion187]

I keep my angler on passive and have the basil's set to neutral and following it. One space in between each column of pillars will keep manta's and bigger dino's out. Try to not build in a piranha spawn. Manta's may still spawn in. But since you can place behemoth's on ceilings you can build it up that way. Also can place pillars with ceiling tiles to try and stop some of the spawns and they can serve a dual purpose (depending on your pen size) and you can place troughs on top of them. 

That was how my first pen was done and it did well.

[Kaprosuchus]

I've always just built boxes from walls it has never been an issue. if it's a taming pen i use doorframes and hatch frames.  I've never had an issue producing stone building pieces.  If you are on pvp metal works well of course, i don't think jamming pillars close enough to create no gap would be cheaper resource wise.

[Cowgirl]

Turrets (at least the x plants) don't hit jellies though, that is something important to know.

[ThzNutz]

after alot of wasted resources and time we gave up on water pens for the larger tames (squids and mosa) and instead place a box on top of pillars in deeper water, inside the box is a health turtle on passive, trough also. the tames are all on neutral and all follow a turtle. ours have been this way for over a year and we have no issues, just make sure follow distances and targeting distances are set correctly, and they will take care of themselves. most even feed themselves

save yourself the resources and the server the strain of all those added structures -- this is ofc on a PVE server. 

[RawOrange]

I've always just build ceiling tiles out over the water to my desired length, and pillard all the way down. Rinse repeat till I've boxed in a pen.  I'll then wall top to bottom. Any open spaces on the bottom I'll fill with a foundstion or pillar, where I can't place a wall to enclose the bottom completely. I'll place random foundations on the inside to block spawns and I just leave few tames on neutral encase something spawns inside. Never had an issue. 

[Daethanil]

I will second ThzNutz. 

I play as aquaman, and I have since I got the game when it released on Early Access. In my experience, and I have done both, building a whole enclosure is useless (ASSUMING YOU ARE PvE!!). I don't even take the precautions that ThzNutz does anymore. I take a turtle, or a shark, or a frog, or a newt. Really anything that won't drowned (sarco's work well too). Ride it, hit J, and then exit and put it on passive. Everything else set to neutral. 

Anything that does start a fight gets wrecked (even a lv.85 Alpha shark), but it's a good idea to include two or three baryonyx in your cloud of followers. They'll keep it stunned and let the big hitters kill it off. If you do it this way, watch out for server re-starts. Sometimes the follow orders will get dropped. 

[Brayn]

Depends what map you are on.  If you're on The Island, go down to one of the dozen or so mini pearl caves.  They have oxygen in them and the entrances can sometimes be big enough to fit a plesi.  Outside the entrance, build 3 beh gates in a U shape protecting the entrance, with two beh gates jutting out from either side of the entrance and the third used to connect the far edges of those gates.  Inside the gates, build foundations/pillars all over the sea floor.  Then build at least 1 pillar or wall up to the top of your gates.  Now build a ceiling over your gates and try to seal the sealing to the gates with walls.  You can now run a genny inside the pearl cave and run wires out to your beh gates/roof.  You can put outlets off that wire and place underwater turrets all over your pen.  If it's sealed properly, jellys won't be able to get inside.

[Chudz66]

Lots of good information. Thanks all. I started on the pen before reading some of the latter comments, so I'm working on an open air one. I am on the Island, PVE. It's my own dedicated, which sees little traffic, so I'm not too worried about lags. I did decide to go with walls instead of pillars, though. The pillars under the behemoth gate in the picture will be blocked off with S+ glass. I also have two sarcos that are freeloading at my main base, so I like the idea of using them here as the anchors for the defense force. It's just gonna take a lot of stone, so I'm doing a little at a time.