Editing Pen marker

{{Stub}}
{{Infobox main|misc
| name = Pen marker
| image = PenMarker.png
| description = A post with a sign designating an animal pen. It must be placed in an area enclosed by fences, barricades, walls, and doors. You can assign each pen marker a set of animals to accept, and handlers will bring animals to an appropriate pen.
| type = Building
| type2 = Misc
| placeable = true
| path cost = 0
| passability = pass through only
| cover = 0.15
| minifiable = true
| size = 1 ˣ 1
| mass base = 8
| flammability = 1
| hp = 100
| sell price multiplier = 0.7
| beauty = 0
| terrain affordance = light
| thingCategories = BuildingsMisc
| work to make = 600
| stuff tags = Metallic, Woody, Stony
| resource 1 = Stuff
| resource 1 amount = 30
}}

'''Pen markers''' designate a zone for pen animals to be held, and one is required if you wish to "rope" a tamed animal and lead them to that pen. Pen markers determine which types of animals will be kept in each pen, and provide other utility as well.  Each different pen that you wish to use needs a pen marker.

== Acquisition ==
{{Acquisition}}

== Summary ==
{{For|a more complete discussion|Pen}}
While all animals are tamable, [[pen animals|some animals]] cannot be trained or set to an [[Allowed area|allowed area]] and instead must be led to a designated pen; if they are not led to a designated pen or have an accessible path to exit the map, pen animals will slowly wander away. Pens can only be defined by a '''pen marker'''.

== Analysis ==
Pen markers are cheap (30 material), and are required if you wish to actively use your pens, to lead recently tamed animals to that pen so they don't wander away. A pen is defined when a pen marker is placed within fences, walls, doors and natural terrain (hills) preventing any exit toward the sides of the map. However, unlike rooms, pens will expand if a gate, door or [[Animal flap|animal flaps]] is "held open", allowing you to easily expand, restrict or open pen areas when needed. (This also means that if you "hold open" a door leading to a pen, those halls and rooms will soon be visited by any pen animals, and their [[filth]].)

In addition to defining a pen, Pen markers provide three tabs (see images at bottom) to help manage domestic/tamed animals. These are: 
* An "'''Animals'''" menu in order to select what animals are allowed in that pen (male / female option included).
* A "'''Food'''" information popup that shows the available "grazing" nutrition value of the pen, the number of different animals currently in the pen, and the total consumption calculation. By default, cows/goats/chickens are show, plus any animals actually present, and you can "force" other animals onto the list if you wish to see their consumption rates.  This can help you plan whether the field size holds enough nutrition for them to graze unassisted, or if you'll need to manually feed them to supplement their grazing.
*  An "'''Auto-cut'''" menu to designate what plants are allowed to grow within the pen and what are not.  (Some are good grazing food, some are not (and these are selected by default), but cutting them does require labor from your colony.)

When managing pens make sure to check the nutrition grown compared to the nutrition consumed, if there nutrition grown is less than the nutrition consumed then animal starvation is inevitable. 

'''Pen Marker Menus'''
<gallery widths="200px" heights="200px">
Pen Animals Tab.PNG|Animal Menu
Pen Food Tab.PNG|Food Menu
Pen Auto-cut Tab.PNG|Auto-cut Menu
</gallery>

{{Building Stats Table}}

== Version history ==
* [[Version/1.3.3066|1.3.3066]] - Added
* [[Version/1.3.3101|1.3.3101]] - Fix: Animal pen marker animal consumption assumes animals are always hungry, halving reported consumption.

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[[Category:Miscellaneous]]