Wooden Hatchframe

A ceiling with a way through

The ARK Wiki calls the Wooden Hatchframe the most basic hatchframe available; Stone and Metal Hatchframes are its upgraded versions. It is in both ARK: Survival Evolved and ARK: Survival Ascended, and the game describes it as: "This wooden ceiling has a hole in it for trapdoors." Like a ceiling, it gives shelter from the elements and bonuses to hypothermic and hyperthermic insulation, and the hole lets survivors get in and out.

Placing it and adding a trapdoor

A hatchframe can go on a Wall, a Foundation or Fence Foundation, another hatchframe, or a Ceiling, though a Thatch Roof does not count. A Trapdoor fits the hole and can be locked, which limits access while you and your tribemates still have a way through.

It needs support from a nearby foundation or pillar. Measured from a wall, or from a ceiling standing over a connected foundation or pillar, it can extend up to 2 ceilings along the x or y axis and 1 on the diagonal. Hatchframes at the outer ends of such a layout cannot hold walls.

Insulation, collapse and damage

• Hatchframes do not change a house's insulation, whether the trapdoor is open, shut or missing.
• When a hatchframe is destroyed, anything resting on it for support goes too, and demolishing it refunds nothing for those extra pieces.
• As a wooden structure it cannot be hurt by hands, stone weapons or ranged attacks that are not explosive. Aggressive creatures such as the Direwolf, Raptor, Sabertooth, Kaprosuchus and Thylacoleo cannot damage it either.

Crafting and storage

The engram unlocks at level 13 for 9 engram points, and the hatchframe is crafted in the inventory from 50 Wood (Fungal Wood also works), 12 Thatch and 8 Fiber. In ASA a craft takes 5 seconds. Each weighs 4 and they stack to 100, so a full stack weighs 400. Our records count 50 crate types that can contain it, for example Fjordur Green and Genesis Orange.