Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Antmf]

I was reading that cats kill vermin when roaming free which is a good thing, but I also hear they adopt people and if they die it can cause a dwarf to get sad and maybe go into a tantrum. Which is the best thing to do?

[FrankMcFuzz]

Most single creatures dying won't cause a dwarf to go crazy if he has a room and there's a nice dining room. I typically let them wander around, but if they start breeding too heavily, you may like to create many a delicious cat-biscuit.

Now, if a dwarf has 5 or 6 cats, and something atom smashed them COMPLETELY BY ACCIDENT, then his sanity may be in question.

Point is, you're fine to let them wander around if you've got the framerate to spare, but do try not to let them get caught outside. Just in case.

[Deboche]

I recommend slaughtering every adult cat that hasn't adopted anyone. But let them run around to catch vermin

[Merendel]

Early on I zone them just over the main food stockpile mostly to keep them safe and inside.  After I've had a chance to establish the base and setup population control over the little furballs I let them roam free.  What I do is keep 1 female cat in a sealed off pasture area and 1 yonger spare female in a cage in the same area.  Male cats I alow to roam free, females get butchered as soon as they are born unless I need to replace either of my two females.   This greatly reduces the risk of a catsplosion as there is only 1 female capable of breeding at a time. 

You really dont want a dozen females roaming your fort all getign pregers at once.  Particularly if they've all adopted the same crazy cat lady dwarf.

The one other thing I would suggest about free roaming cats is put several tightly closed doors between the main area and anywhere you dont want them to go (like outside)   They may manage to follow a dwarf through 1 but they will normaly get stuck between doors and eventualy get tired of trying to go outside and follow the next dwarf back into the fort.

[Garath]

the trick is to catch kittens early if you're letting cats roam, so you don't get massive adoptions of one dwarf adoption mommy and her four kittens in addition to the two others he has...

I've gone whole forts without any cat adopting any dwarf and when it did happen I've always managed to prevent it getting out of hand. I have to admit I usually limit the cats to food/seed stockpiles.

I tried replacing them with falcons, but they're just not as good at catching vermin.

[Grim Portent]

I found falcons to be too good rather than less good. So many dead hamsters, so very many.

[smjjames]

Actually I find Falcons to be pretty efficient.

[Tarqiup Inua]

There are only two places in the fortress that *need* to be rid of vermin - the food stockpile and the refuse stockpile that stores the crafting resources (bones, hair, wool, hoof etc.)

I use zones to restrict cats only to those places... and I see no reason why couldn't you do the same with falcons...

[smjjames]

Only thing though with cats and pasturing them is that if a pastured cat gets adopted, they'll get stuck with vermin in their mouth and not drop it until they can get to their owner.

You can also quickly add the vermin hunting tags to other critters that would also hunt vermin like stoats, weasels, kestrels, and owls.

[Tarqiup Inua]

Has anyone tried dedicating a single trapper to catching all the rats? And is there a limit for maximum number of rats on the map? Could you - say, catch them all and then keep them in closed room, so they don't cause damage elsewhere?

[Duuvian]

Vermin teleport around, so you can't really keep them in one spot.