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[Michael]

One thing I noticed a few days ago, in one of my first tries of Fortress Mode.

At one point, I noticed a grey '.' flickering in my farm room.  (I hadn't actually got that deep into the game -- I was using the outside river trick.)

I single stepped until it was showing, and looKed at it.  A rat.  Seems small monsters can spawn anywhere (since the room's only exits were a locked door and via the floodgate).

I think to myself: "Hmm, this could be harmless or very bad, depending on just what Toady has programmed rats to do.  Now what do we do about rats... of course, a cat.  But I don't control the cats."

Then I realize that I've left the door set on "closed tightly".  I make the door pet-passable...

... and immediately after I unpause, a cat goes to the rat by the most direct route.  Shortly thereafter, the grey '.' becomes a superscript 2 (ie: corpse).

Earlier in the same game, a dwarf that I had enabled "Mechanic" preference for, spent many turns in "No Job" despite that there was a lever needing a hookup.  (s)he eventually did it, but for awhile I wondered if there was some other skill needed.  The task was interrupted by one or more of sleep/eat/drink, and there was another delay before (s)he got back to it.

So the cats seem to be more on-task than the dwarves are...

[ August 24, 2006: Message edited by: Michael ]

[Dehydration]

You've obviously never owned a cat. Once implemented, I'm sure that a torrent of neverending meows will come from the speakers whenever a vermin has spawned in an unreachable location, because goddammit, the cat ALWAYS KNOWS.

[JT]

Cats also have the fun tendency to pick a closed door somewhere and just stare.

[Zereth]

quote:Originally posted by JT:
<STRONG>Cats also have the fun tendency to pick a closed door somewhere and just stare.</STRONG>

More accurate cat behavior!

[Captain_Action]

LOL! The cats in my fortress love to kill cave spiders. Cave spiders give webs, so I don't want cats get to them.

I set up a door and make it passable only to dwarves. What do the cats do? Exactly what my dad's siamese does, she waits for someone to open the door. Then she bolts thru the door! The same with the fortress cats, they then murder my precious cave spiders.

[Zereth]

quote:Originally posted by Captain_Action:
<STRONG>LOL! The cats in my fortress love to kill cave spiders. Cave spiders give webs, so I don't want cats get to them.

I set up a door and make it passable only to dwarves. What do the cats do? Exactly what my dad's siamese does, she waits for someone to open the door. Then she bolts thru the door! The same with the fortress cats, they then murder my precious cave spiders.</STRONG>

I wonder if you can catch some cave spiders and train them to set up a silk farm.

[Michael]

quote:Originally posted by Dehydration:
<STRONG>You've obviously never owned a cat. Once implemented, I'm sure that a torrent of neverending meows will come from the speakers whenever a vermin has spawned in an unreachable location, because goddammit, the cat ALWAYS KNOWS.</STRONG>

Actually I do have cats.  But they're not that keen on mousing (or maybe there just isn't any suitable-size vermin here.)

I'd agree it would be reasonable to have the cat park by the door.  However, that's not what I witnessed.  The cat was milling about far from the critical door before I enabled it.