Well, I am a newbie...have been at this now for about 40 days..and the food costs are getting out of control. Should I be deleting all my Genesis/starter cats? Or is there a good reason to keep trying to breed out their hidden traits? I have not gotten any "new" traits, and precious little other than Genesis except when I go buy a 9T breeder to mix with the starters, and even then, its unusual to get much beyond Genesis. What do other people do? Menagerie my starters and just go buy breeders? I guess I am reluctant to waste the newer kitties (like the Advent kitty), but they seem to be so costly in food. Any thoughts on this are most gratefully welcome!
Hi Oselkhandro. Welcome to KittyCats.
The first thing you have to decide about your cats is why you want them and why you want to breed them. I notice from another post you made in another thread that you are interested in games and game design. One of the things that makes KittyCats so successful is that the cats themselves are darling but also there are a variety of approaches that you can take towards them.
•Some people will buy one cat and just keep the charming thing around their SL house. They turn breed off. They do nothing else.
•Some people love shopping at the markets in much the same way that they would shop SL yardsales for gacha items. In other words, this approach is about the shopping, not the breeding.
•What you appear to have started is the game that might be called "Discover the hiddens". Headquarters releases the LE collectibles several times a year, as I'm sure you know by now. All of them are the starters with the hiddens and people learn the methods to tease the hiddens out. As you have found, people end up with a lot of Gen cats and cats that do not have new and exciting traits. Some people will find the new and exciting. What may not be clear to the new KittyKatzer is that these Gen cats are not saleable. In fact, a large proportion of the kitten boxes never sell, and yes people send those cats to the menagerie. DO NOT MENAGERIE your advent kitties and collectibles. Just put them in your inventory when you don't want to feed them anymore.
•Sales is another game. Some people work to maximize their sales, which dictates a particular approach to the cats and how aggressively one pursues the new traits and the most recessive traits.
•Dream cat. Some people ignore the recessives race and figure out what their dream cat would be and pursue a breeding program that would produce it.
Most people in KittyCats probably do a combination of the above. They do it for the cats, they do it for the social life. They go to auctions or hang out at the kitty markets.
The question really is, what is it that you Want to do? (Yes the price of catfood makes it prohibitive to just breed willy-nilly and keep the cats on forever.)
A large part of your question has to do with breeding mechanics and when do you use a 9T cat and how do you know when you've got something good hidden. That's a very large topic, covered by various FAQ documents, and many breeders are willing to give specific help with that (including me). But first you need to focus on the what and the why for your own self.
Thank you for the answer! I have been playing the "find the hidden" game, and really, I am trying to find out how many breeedings are reasonable before I give up on a Genesis starter or collectible for breeding. I figured that most Kitties are not salable, simply given the glut on the market, hehe. But I do enjoy the game itself! I am also looking to breed my "dream kitty", but not sure yet which ones I like best, so I am trying to collect reasonable examples of the major types (I am an inveterate collector). You are spot on that I should not Menagerie Collectibles
Also if you want to keep a kitty like the Advent kitty and not feed them, you can buy a potion to "permapet" them. Then they don't need food any more but they cannot breed either.
If you don't have the cash currently, you can keep them in your inventory. They can't eat in inventory and will get "sick" but if you permapet them, the "sick" automatically is one.
Or if you don't want to permpet them, you can also turn breeding off and then they only eat half as much.