40d Talk:Catsplosion

Modding solution without unhappiness

If you remove the [VERMINHUNTER] tag from the raw file of the cat and then load your game, all of the cats who chose their owner (not ones who came with immigrants) will be owner free again and you can butcher them without causing unhappy thoughts. They won't catch vermin anymore, but you can butcher as many as you like and then put the [VERMINHUNTER] tag back if you want to. This has worked for me in the 40d version. Bobokapi 21:39, 12 November 2008 (EST)

Sounds really useful. Add it to the article, but you might want to mention it's a bug (or more likely, because all cats are now re-created as a new type of creature w/o owners, or verminhunter has something to do with the "cats adopt dwarves" thing). – unsigned comment by Milskidasith

It does. Someone put VERMINHUNTER on their dogs and found that they adopted owners. Apparently, you need to be of an appropriately independent mindset to go off and hunt rats. -Fuzzy 08:59, 13 November 2008 (EST)

Cat Farm

Why don't you try making a 'cat farm'? Dig a small pit (1 by 1 to 3 by 3) then dig a tunnel to the side. Build floodgates at the entrance, since the little buggers are able to get past tightly closed doors. The tunnel should lead to a room full of butcher's shops. Then designate the channel as a pit and dump all the cats in. Since its a small pit, the fps wouldn't reduce as much. The cats will breed, and breed, and breed. When you want to 'harvest' the cats get them ready to be slaughtered. Open the gate, then once the ones to be slaughtered are removed, close it. Enjoy the cat farm!--Stinhad Limarezum 05:52, 10 February 2009 (EST)

They'll still pick owners down there. And then you can't slaughter them. --GreyMaria 15:48, 10 February 2009 (EST)

They shouldn't pick owners if they don't see dwarves. Are you sure?--Dorten 23:12, 10 February 2009 (EST)

I'm sure. They still pick owners buried -12 z-levels down and 100 tiles away from the nearest dwarf, pitted in a 1x1x1 hole in the center of a 9x9x9 constructed wall cube. --Rkyeun 04:13, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Is the answer to everything "Mod it"??

I regularly embark with 10 cats, and have gotten to year 30 without a catsplosion... even in the unmodded version of the game... how do I do this? Simple. I embark with 1 stone of whatever sort, build a butcher shop and kill every female cat as soon as I arrive. I then sell any female cats I accedentally buy -without uncaging them- and kill any dwarf who is foolish enough to move to my fortress with a female cat (and take the cat with you!). I have 30 cats and 7 happy cat owners and NO CATSPLOSION. I admit I did have a slight incident where the owner's parents were a bit upset, but really... minor details.

Of course, if there were a mod that would allow me to make a mandate forbidding female cats, I could have the hammerer take care of all of that for me. ... so, yes, the answer to everything is "mod it". --jaz ... on this day, at this time.

I think that "mandate against cats" is more of a Toady update thing than a mod, as I like the idea of cats adopting their owners but the damage to FraPS from Catsplosions ruins it. Kenji 03 13:56, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Catsplosion fixes from Toady?

Does anyone know if Today plans on fixing the catsplosion problem with mandates or any other nifty ideas?Kenji 03 13:57, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't really see the problem with cats at all. Sure, you need to keep an eye on them, but I start with 2 cats if cash allows it (just to defy the advice ;) ), and butcher the kittens, welcome bone and meat source. My current fortress has 4 pet cats (2♂,2♀), 1 or 2 of which I think came with immigrants. Not had a case of adopting the butcher either. And there's always upright menacing spikes for pet problems - a properly supervised dwarf will not even drop from ecstatic from the loss of a pet. --Birthright 15:13, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Possible uses for catsplosions

I have a relatively controlled catsplosion running at my latest fortress. I also get ambushed by goblins 4-5 times per year, which is annoying. Eventually, I had a brainwave. I bought all the ropes off the next caravan, and tethered my surplus cats along the known ambush routes the goblins were using. Sure enough, the two problems solved themselves. The goblins gave away their position by slaughtering the tethered cats (Instead of giving away their position by slaughtering my dwarves), and the tethered cats were dead, reducing the cat population.

I haven't actually used the method all that extensively after that, since I had them up and running for long enough to build a great big wall sealing a huge amount of land in with my fortress, and leaving a cage trap riddled gatehouse in and out of that for the caravans. I still deploy a kitten outside that for warning (Mostly so i can pull the Masons out of the nearby mega-construction before the goblins hit the cages which are, by necessity, within bowshot), and it is very good at scaring off snatchers and kobold thieves. Turnover is still 2-3 cats per year (For the last three years, one of those yearly casualties has been caused by the annual Titan attack). A nearby cat cage in a small constructed building is sufficient for reload purposes. I am actually running low on cats as a result, and may need to start a feline breeding program, especially if i want to commence "operation kitten chaff bombs" (I'll document how that goes when it goes down). --Pickle 10:57, 1 August 2009 (UTC)