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[fortressdwarf]

Hello! I'm wondering if anyone can share their ideas on how to create devices to implement pet control measures on the more drastic side of things. These same methods can also be applied to unproductive dwarves. I've been thinking about building flood rooms, but it would be a hassle to get the water in and out. Does anyone have any good trap room measures that they use to control the fortress population?

[Mephansteras]

Well, I don't use any methods for that. But I imagine a room filled with spikes linked up to a lever set to repeat would do the trick. Just dump the pets in and station useless dwarves there as recruits.

[woose1]

"Step right in there, sir."
*CHA-CHINK*
"But, the spikes... they-"
*CHA-CHINK*
"I said step in there."
*CHA-CHINK*
"Alright, but I-"
*STAB*
"OH GOD MY LEGS MY LE-"
*STAB*
"...."
"Alright, who's next?"

[fortressdwarf]

It won't let me use the dump command on pets, how would I get them into doom-room with a method other than sealing the doors as they pass through for some other purpose?

[Mephansteras]

Hmmm. I think the only thing you can do is station their owner in a safe square and let them crowd around. Then flip the kill switch. Of course, that's only if you want the owner to survive (and probably be miserable).

If you do a forum search you may find something on this. I remember a long thread at one point about death rooms. Lots of good advice from people who've actually tried it.

[Cogsmith]

Okay THIS method works to both kill off pets and de-populate fortresses

1)build a (few) 1x~6 long hallways, accessible only from one side.
2)at the far end of the hall place a lever, then a door. you should have ~4 tiles now, then a door, then a lever.
3)in the ~4 tiles place spike traps. linked to the lever.
4)Set the door to be Tightly Shut
5)Assign the lever to be pulled on repeat. if you want this done surgically set the lever to only be usable by one dwarf, and o>F>c to forbid your dead pets. Reset allowable dwarves as necessary. If not, just leave it a general lever to be pulled.

The general idea is the animals should path to their owners (puller) through the Tightly Shut door, and get exploded by the spikes.

The DOWNSIDE is that corpse cleanup and item retrieval can kill off dwarfs you didn't want to lose.Which admittedly can un-pet pets.

I had a similar problem and tried the non-surgical variant of this. Whatever else I must say it was effective. Record (and better explanation) here :
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=30275

[Pilsu]

Pets that follow their owners get stuck on pet impassable doors as you've no doubt seen. Put a spike trap there and activate it with the owner pulling a lever on repeat. The passageway should be 1 tile wide so they don't muck about. Even cats present their catch to the master on occasion. Very elegent and efficient design


Build some temporary shelter outside and bury the kitties. Once they're just bones, dump them on the ground. Minimizes bad thoughts. Alternatively, toss them in magma or a chasm. That might work too since it doesn't technically rot. Smashing it probably doesn't work since I think I've seen dwarves whine about decayed friends because of it

[DennyTom]

The DOWNSIDE is that corpse cleanup and item retrieval can kill off dwarfs you didn't want to lose.Which admittedly can un-pet pets.

Can be easily avoided by placing door on the other side of hallway and locking them after Urist McTooMuchPets walks through them.

[ArkDelgato]

Or alternatively, put a bridge over a magma pit, with doors to the bridge, station every dwarf on the bridge, let the pets catch up, make doors not pet passable, let them stand on the bridge, and dump them in the magma.

Also peasants.

[fortressdwarf]

A method I gave a try earlier today involved channeling one square pits in well used one lane hallways and putting doors on either side.

I placed a floor grate over the open space and connected it to a lever. Once a horse stepped inside, I forbade passage on both doors and had the lever pulled leaving it to fall from my z level -2 to -6. It was injured on impact but survived. The poor thing is still down there at the bottom of the pit, though I will eventually finish it off when I flood the pit. My earlier methods weren't exactly efficient or effective plus they do not allow for corpse removal... so I appreciate all of your ideas and suggestions.

[Hyndis]

Using locked doors is probably the most fool-proof method. Build a lever in a room that isn't connected to anything. Assign a repeating task to whichever dwarf has the annoying pets. The lever is merely to lure the dwarf into the room, and the pet will follow.

Have the door be at the default settings at first. Once the pet enters, seal the door tightly so that pets cannot use the door. Allow the dwarf to leave the room. The pets will remain behind.

At this point you can use a second lever outside the room to fill the room with lethal spikes, release goblins, flood the room with magma or water, cause a cave-in, or simply drop the floor away for a 10 Z level freefall.

[Hyndis]

Alternatively, you could simply edit the raws. Drastically decrease the maximum age for, say, cats. They won't live long enough to spam your fort with kittens.

Non-cat pets generally aren't a problem since they're few in number, only arriving with immigrants and then only relatively rarely, and their offspring don't steal a dwarf for a pet. On the contrary, their offspring provides an outstanding and limitless source of meat, skin, and bones.

[Katt]

Pets tend to gather in sculpture gardens, so if you have a water source, you could rig up a series of floodgates and canals to flood a room full of kittens, then have another switch control a hatch leading down into a drain.

Of course, dwarves tend to gather in there too, so, be careful...

[Noble Digger]

Edit the raws (creature_domestic.txt) and add [IGNITE_POINT:1] to the CAT raws.

Next time you close DF and reload your fortress, all the cats will catch fire and doom your fortress.

If you don't want this drastic a measure, try changing [HOMEOTHERM:10074] to a really low number like 10000, the cats will all die of exposure with no mess. Beware tantrum spirals, though. If I ever consider doing this again, I plan to lock all the dwarves in their bedrooms with a couple extra doors until their tantrums end

[Phazer]

When you were writing about those cats i remembered that i once was dismantling an temple and when a block chrased through the sealing right beside the cat he got so scared that he fell into the water and with him a human fell in too, the cat became unconcius and the human almost immidietly drowned but i was hoping for the cat to drow too but he was just lying there underwater unconcious and then it just swam like no problem to land and ran away. this made me angry but i still couldnt be more then amazed when it managed to not drown while being underwater for such along time.