I'm rather new to Dwarf Fortress in general, but I've decided I wanted to start to get into modding. I thought I'd start off small and try to implement ideas from other mods that I liked, in particular peat/goethite that I saw in Deon's Genesis Mod and fossils from Zaerosz's Flavour Mod.
I have the different types of peat/bog soil, goethite ore, and a compressed peat (to be used as fuel) modded in fine. However I ran into a slight problem with turning compressed peat into charcoal. Is it not possible to add a reaction to the Wood Furnace? I tried various building names for the reaction, and the reaction name shows under the manager work orders, but it won't show up at the furnace. Does it have to be at the smelter or a custom building?
Also, I feel that in any game that allows mods, the Rifts® Universe is always vastly underutilized. It has a huge setting with a rich history that can be used by virtually any system. I can't believe a game hasn't been made for it yet... Anyways, once eggs are in the game, I wanted to start a Rifts® mod with the Xiticix as a playable civilization. Unfortunately I had to sell off my collection of books years ago, but I'm currently borrowing World Book 23: Xiticix Invasion and have started to try and work out how this race of humanoid hive-minded insects can be implemented into Dwarf Fortress. If anyone else is a fan of Rifts® (or not a fan), I'm more than happy to hear opinions or suggestions on other things to add. So far the only other race I've considered is adding a Gargoyle civilization. I'll probably stay away from the heavy sci-fi aspect of it (even though I love the Coalition), but who knows, maybe things will change.
One last thing I've been pondering, if I wanted to be able to capture a member of a hostile civ in a cage and turn him into slave labor (as in giving him hauling skills, etc), is that only possible with something like DFusion? I haven't had the chance to try it out yet personally. I have doubts on the feasibility of the whole idea, but if slaves were possible then it'd be the perfect reason for adding the Splugorth.