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[Noble Digger]

This may be an easter egg or spoiler so i'm tagging it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It seems Giant Cave Spiders don't notice cats or kittens. These three GCS are wild, untamed, 2 males and a female, and all three have killed enough dogs, elk, and horses to have titles. I don't have the Dungeon Master, anyway. Anyway, these three cats have been roaming the pits, cuddling with the spiders, and generally GALLIVANTING since they were thrown in here as kittens. I figured this was a Toady easter egg, that adorable kittens are ignored by the underground's most feared natural beast however, upon growing up, they are still immune to the wrath of my spider guests. Maybe this is intentional so that the Fun and challenge of lurking GCS aren't immediately ruined by cat exploration in every fortress?

In either case, now I have a spider pit filled with spiders and cats, both populations are capable of breeding (modded wild GCS reproduction in) and it would take some doing to get back in and clean them out. :| Those kittens were extras meant to be eaten, HALP!

*Update: Removing the [VERMINHUNTER] tag from the cat's entry in creature_domestic.rar and then reloading my save INSTANTLY caused the GCS to slay the cats. This is likely caused by the [AMBUSHPREDATOR] tag on the GCS as he's the only unit that has it, and this is likely as I said earlier to prevent cats from "triggering" the spider ambushes rather than dwarves.

[CompletelySerious]

These eight-legged beasts are not your ordinary harmless cave spider (those were just treats for your cat). Giant cave spiders are bigger than horses and will make treats of cats. . .

You lie Wiki-sir.

Would be a pretty cool easter egg if it is one, subtle one at that. I'll have to see if I can reproduce it.

Meanwhile...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You could just use DF Companion to kill the cats and save your framerate. Although it wouldn't be a very dwarfy thing to do, and I personally always feel a twinge of regret when I load it up.

[Noble Digger]

Yeah, memory hacking is a line I'd rather not cross because at that point why don't I just fix that non-ice wall that's bugging me in that one room, etc. etc. etc.

I'm not sure if my modding caused this or if it's just an inherent behavior in one of the tags of one or both of these creatures and thus a "hidden" aspect of gameplay, an easter egg Anyone got any ideas or had similar experiences?

[Noble Digger]

I've discovered the likely cause of this, check under the spoiler tag in the first post.

[The Architect]

This is a feature I've encountered before and hate with a passion. In case the reason isn't obvious, it's that cats will drop vermin corpses all over dangerous areas. They are free to come and go as they want, but they leave crap everywhere for your dwarves to get killed picking up.

I may edit cats out of the game when I play from now on, or just remove Verminhunter since it has soooo many undesirable, nearly gamebreaking side effects. Why didn't I do this before? God only knows.

[Armok]

cats will drop vermin corpses all over dangerous areas. They are free to come and go as they want, but they leave crap everywhere for your dwarves to get killed picking up.

Hence why the spiders keep them around: bait.

[yuriatayde]

This is a feature I've encountered before and hate with a passion. In case the reason isn't obvious, it's that cats will drop vermin corpses all over dangerous areas. They are free to come and go as they want, but they leave crap everywhere for your dwarves to get killed picking up.

THAT'S what was killing all of my Peons?!?!

I recommend for your GCS problem how I fixed mine. I'm playing on the Map With Every Resource Ever as located through these forums, and I had a GCS and a hoard of troglodites on the corner of the map, minding their own business except for those suicidal hauling jobs. So I dug tunnels up to their hill, smoothed the stone, and poked a fortification right next to them.

My archer wound up getting near legendary status, and his name changed into this really long phrase, just from cleaning up random monsters... Then he got sniped by a goblin from downtown during a siege, a full on "Vile Force of Darkness" just for one guy, they just shot him from a mile away and left immediately, I've never felt so flipped off by a game before.

In any event... that thermonuclear catsplosion code is going back in. I was enjoying the vermin-free fortress, but until burrows allow me to deny hauling jobs, it's them or me.

[The Architect]

Hah. I had the problem on "Dwarf Heaven" too, but I wanted to capture the GCS

[Noble Digger]

Well, I can easily get the cats out of my GCS pit by modding one of those two tags out for now, otherwise my only option is to open the entire pit up. It's blocked off from access by the following, most of which have levers:

Steel drawbridge (iron mechanisms)
☼Iron Floodgate☼ x2 (iron mechanisms)
Steel drawbridge (iron mechanisms)
☼Iron Door☼ x2 (locked)
Native Aluminum Wall (constructed)
Cage Trap x6 (iron mechanisms, ☼Iron Cages☼)
☼Iron Door☼ x2 (locked)
Cage Trap x6 (iron mechanisms, ☼Iron Cages☼)
Cage Trap x6 (iron mechanisms, ☼Iron Cages☼)
≡Iron Door≡ x2 (locked)
≡Iron Door≡ x2 (locked)
Cage Trap x6 (iron mechanisms, ☼Iron Cages☼)
Steel Drawbridge (iron mechanisms)

I feel a little bad about laying open this minor secret of Dwarf Fortress since it's responsible for so much Fun but hey, we are scholars before we are Armok, right?