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[Dorf3000]

So I read about using spare cats to explore the caves without risking dwarven lives, and I thought it was such a good idea that I actually bought some cats from the traders.  I finally found the top of my caverns at z-30, and quickly put in a hatch to stop anything flying up and into my fort.

I marked a pit, put an animal stockpile down just for cats, and had one assigned to the new pit.  Urist McAnimalLover comes down and pulls the kitty out of the cage and down the hatch.



And down..




And down...




60z levels later, the cat hits a pool of 7/7 water and explodes.  Didn't know caves could be so.. tall.

How do I get my remaining kitties down there to explore without digging the whole way down?

[Ethereal.Frog]

One obvious solutions is to just not, and use it as a kitty disposal pit.

Or you could construct a staircase down from the hatch. Maybe build a big ol' stalactite full of kitties. And then when you tire of hurling kitties into the dangerous caverns, you can just cut the whole thing and crush them all in one fell crunch.

[shadowform]

Find a nice column, dig through it, and periodically smooth/carve fortifications from sections to allow your dwarves to peer out and map the surroundings.  It's a great, low risk way of mapping caverns, I've found.

[twwolfe]

Find a nice column, dig through it, and periodically smooth/carve fortifications from sections to allow your dwarves to peer out and map the surroundings.  It's a great, low risk way of mapping caverns, I've found.

except for:

"the Forgotten Beast Scre Wsyo Uover has arrived! she is a cloud of mist with two skeletal wings. beware her poisonous breath!"

[Lmaoboat]

60z level cave? I call shenanigans.

[twwolfe]

60z level cave? I call shenanigans.

actually, i think they were 30 z-levels, if he put the cat drop at the surface. or he could have started on a mountain 30z up from 0z, and dug down 60z to find the caverns at 30z below 0z.

[Corona688]

I've had caves that crossed plenty of z-levels, particularly inside mountains.  They seem to stretch the cave systems vertically.  Some of them seem like a thin crust over nearly all cave and stalactite.

[HmH]

You could use a water-filled drop pod for deploying cats. It should have no roof.

[Dorf3000]

60z level cave? I call shenanigans.

actually, i think they were 30 z-levels, if he put the cat drop at the surface. or he could have started on a mountain 30z up from 0z, and dug down 60z to find the caverns at 30z below 0z.

*hand on heart*

60z levels of empty cave space, I swear.  It goes from -30 down to -91.  This is under a human town, so no mountains.  I'll see if I can put a video of it on dfma.

Edit: DFMA doesn't like me.  Their verification code shenanigans doesn't work for me, on any browser.

[UberNube]

I can confirm I have had over 60 z-levels (closer to 90 I think) in a single cave before. Mine was somewhat mountainous though.