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[some person i guess]

i'm chipping away at that neopets mod again and decided based on One (1) singular item description that i wanted to research and rework and overcomplicate an entire industry in this already very complex game

quick context for people who aren't familiar with neopets, there's creatures in the game called petpetpets that are generally like. your roaches, mosquitos, whatever creepy crawly thing you can think of. they're vermin, basically. and there's a specific petpetpet called the scriblet (imagine a blue and red roach with three horns) whose description says

This little creature will scribble anything anywhere, keep it away from your pet.

and so i looked at this and thought

"wouldn't it be cool if you could farm these guys for ink to make books"

but the writing industry in vanilla df doesn't actually require ink at all, so now i have to figure out a way to make this whole thing work. and so that led me down a whole rabbit hole of researching various forms of writing and record keeping and a bunch of other stuff to basically try and build on what the writing industry already has in the game, because this mod is already getting pretty ambitious so i might as well go all in. this includes taking a look at things that don't actually involve ink at all, like clay and wax tablets.

and so what i'm trying to figure out is

1. what are the mechanics around books/scrolls/codices/etc getting destroyed in things like raids? because i know it can happen, but is the destroyed item just completely removed from the world or is there any way to make it so pieces can still be left behind for people to rediscover and use? both for purposes of destroying certain stone slabs and because the bit of research i did led me to learning about ostraca, which i think are just neat

2. speaking of which, can you actually break things made of clay/earthenware pottery during gameplay? like, if someone knocks down a clay statue or drops an earthenware jug off a cliff, can it break or is the item still intact (or deconstructed with things like statues)? because i know gem windows can break into whatever gems were used to make them, but i've never really tested breaking things like this. also there's a random throwaway weapon in neopets that's literally just some broken pottery used as a shiv and i want to include it if i can because i think it's funny.

2. can wax objects be melted down to reform the material into a different object? i've never really messed around with beekeeping, and taking a look at the wiki it seems like wax isn't really used for anything aside from crafts, so i'm really not sure what i'm working with there, but we can already easily melt down preexisting metal objects so it doesn't seem like that much of a stretch

3. is it actually possible to change what the game considers a book or a slab? i can find the data for scrolls in item_tool, so i know messing around with scrolls specifically is potentially possible, but i can't seem to find anything on books, codices, or slabs (though i guess slabs would probably be in buildings, but the vanilla building raws are pretty much barren)

basically i have a whole lot of stuff i need to figure out but hopefully it should eventually mostly work, fingers crossed

[DPh Kraken]

On the wax point, you can make a reaction that turns [NOT_PRESSED] [REACTION_CLASS:WAX] items of any class (back) into the component wax glob, using the wax-pressing reaction as a reference but without extracting any honey.
Here's code to implement that feature via reactions performed at the wood burner, targeting any of the default craft items. You can use workshop linked stockpiles to target specific items.

Code: [Select]

[REACTION:RECLAIM_WAX_ITEM]
[NAME:melt wax crafts]
[BUILDING:WOOD:CUSTOM_H]
[REAGENT:wax item:3:ANY_CRAFT:NONE:NONE:NONE]
[NOT_PRESSED] - cannot be a pressed glob
[REACTION_CLASS:WAX]
[NOT_IMPROVED] - so we don't accidentally destroy something valuable
[PRODUCT:100:1:GLOB:NONE:GET_MATERIAL_FROM_REAGENT:wax item:NONE][PRODUCT_PRESSED] - uses first material among the three reagents, if you have mixed wax mats
[SKILL:WAX_WORKING]

As for writable objects, a slab is a hardcoded item type (SLAB:NONE), while books are a TOOL subtype with the [TOOL_USE:CONTAIN_WRITING] tag. Scrolls and quires are designated as being [NO_DEFAULT_JOB], so the game does not automatically add a crafting recipe to them - but will still generate [SHEET_MAT] instances of these tools offscreen.
You can alter the scroll and quire making reactions to require another reagent - in this case we'd like to use a LIQUID_MISC pointing to a creature extract you've designated as ink (suggesting using [REACTION_CLASS:WRITING_MATERIAL] so that you could also add that tag to cephalopod ink).
I like to have a little versatility, so I'd make a second reaction ("make scroll with solid medium"), using ANY_RAW_MATERIAL and adding the tag to dimple and sliver dyes (powders), along with graphite (boulder).
For the final bit of dwarfy flavor, you can look at the scroll-making reaction and use product tokens to add the ink type as a decoration to the finished good.