KittyCatS! Community Forum

Would it be possible to restrict the Play ball to the cat's range?

My cats have a small range because they live in a room in my house. If I try to Play with them, more often than not the ball goes out of range when my avatar drops it. When it doesn't, it promptly gets pushed out of range by the cat. This is apparently a license to ignore the cat's range, as then the cat is quite often able to pursue the ball wherever it goes.

Also, there's a typo: In "Sorry, I was a bit wild... I think the ball felt down " it should be "fell" rather than "felt".

Thank you.

The ball is physical. While, technically, it is possible to write a script which can limit it's range of movement, doing so would be non-trivial, the results would be strange (like .. "Where's the invisible wall it just stopped at?" .. "Why does it simply stop?" .. "That bounce was jarringly odd!").

So, the simple answer is: No, it's not possible to limit the ball's range.

Ack, I never thought about how the ball moves. Of course it's physical. *headdesk*

I wonder, then, if some other factor could be built in that would allow playing ball in small areas. Brainstorming: Perhaps the ball not rolling as fast or as far if the cat's range is below certain thresholds? Or the ball rolling back of its own volition if nothing has moved it for some period of time? --That wouldn't help if the ball falls out of the upper floor of a house, but it might be an improvement for someone who keeps their cats in a level area. Or maybe if the cat's range is small use something that doesn't act exactly like a ball but can be batted very short distances by the cat's paws, like a soft toy mouse.

You should be fine making a hollow tube or box for the ball to bounce off. If you're on the ground, simply sink it a bit so there's no gap at the bottom. The ball should bounce off it just find. Most houses and such should work, too. The problem is the CAT. There's been a bug since Day One where cats can walk through solid walls.