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[massey]

I've tried to search for this and had no luck. So forgive me if the answer is already out there...
I have finally started playing around with minecarts and I can see some really interesting possibilities. I have one problem.. Stupid pets.
I have seen many mentions of squished pets, but no suggestions on how to avoid it.

I know I can restrict animals to pastures, but I want dwarves pets and the general cats & dogs wandering around most of the fort. But they really seem to love taking a stroll down my track tunnel. I had 4 cats hit in no time, so I stopped the carts and my cats are currently locked in a pasture.
I have tried an airlock type thing with animal restricted doors but they just love to slip past as dwarves go in and out...

So my question.. is there anyway to stop them?
A sort of anti-pasture would be great, where if they go into an area its a dwarves job to go throw them out.

[anewaname]

If not restrained, pastured, caged, or under a civilian alert, cats cannot be restricted. They will go anywhere that vermin appear.

Other tame animals will travel from meeting area to meeting area, unless pastured. Grazers seek vegetation to eat in those areas.

But, if your track is in a tunnel and the minecarts are pushed into the tunnel, you should be able to place statues on the track to block dwarfs and cats.

Like this... there is a 2x11 track loop, with 6 statues sitting on it so that dwarfs and cats can only step on 2 tiles of the track. In this case, at the west end, dwarfs load the minecart with wood from outside, when it is full they push it and it travels to the east end, dumps the wood, and continues back to the western track stop.

[PatrikLundell]

Anewaname didn't state it explicitly, but statues have the peculiar property of letting mine carts pass through them but not creatures (although they can be toppled by building destroyers and tantrumers).

Also note that pathing restriction costs probably don't affect animals and definitely not diplomats and other visitors, so forget those.

[DrCyano]

I lost some good pets to an outdoor minecart track on a bridge over the ocean (RIP Battle Bear). However, I noticed that animals sometimes dodge the minecart, so you could just let the pets wander and eventually all the ones that remain will be good at dodging minecarts.

[PatrikLundell]

I lost some good pets to an outdoor minecart track on a bridge over the ocean (RIP Battle Bear). However, I noticed that animals sometimes dodge the minecart, so you could just let the pets wander and eventually all the ones that remain will be good at dodging minecarts.

Until they suddenly weren't good enough. Also, the greater danger is that roadkill attracts "scavengers", which tends to increase the body count by adding cleanup dorfs into the score. And if the roadkill was a diplomat, the danger is great, due to the large number of hauling jobs generated by all the junk worn clothing.

[massey]

Awesome. The statue trick was just what I was looking for. I'll give it a go.
I know mishaps are part of the fun put I was getting one mangled cat per minecart trip! It was like they were all suddenly attracted to the one place they shouldn't be...
Thanks for the info

[DwarfComic]

You can cheat with statues :-) Or set-up intricate system of perfectly timed pressure plates and doors. (Sounds like a lot of work just typing that.)

[PatrikLundell]

You can cheat with statues :-) Or set-up intricate system of perfectly timed pressure plates and doors. (Sounds like a lot of work just typing that.)

That works almost all of the time. It's still possible for a cat or visitor to slip through the door while the cart passes through, but I'm not sure that has happened. And it isn't that much work to set up a pressure plate, a door, and a link, and there's not much in the way of fiddly timing either.