Confused by reagent separation:
If I want an item to be able to be made from different reagents, say iron or copper, do I simply put the standard regent reaction down like:
[REACTION:CRAFT_MEATHOOK]
[NAME:Craft Meathook]
[BUILDING:SMELTER:NONE]
[REAGENT:A:150:BAR:NONE:METAL:IRON]
[REAGENT:B:150:BAR:NONE:METAL:COPPER]
[PRODUCT:100:1:WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_MEATHOOK:GET_MATERIAL_FROM_REAGENT:A:NONE]
[SKILL:FORGE_WEAPON]
Or is that telling the game that I need both Iron AND copper?
The latter. You want to use a reaction class instead.
Give both your iron and copper in inorganic_metal.txt the tag [REACTION_CLASS:hot damn meathooks]. Then, you use this as your reagent:
[REAGENT:A:150:BAR:NONE:NONE:NONE][REACTION_CLASS:hot damn meathooks]
Then it will look for a bar made from anything at all that has that specific reaction class attached to its material. In this case, nothing except iron or copper.
As an aside, you don't need to make a new reaction to get your weapon in. Just make sure the weapon itself works (it will appear in the Arena spawning list) and give your civilization the permission to have them in entity_default.txt. It will appear among all the rest in the weapon forging menu.
I have a fairly simple question; you see, along with making dwarves admire cars for their speed, I gave them the ability to use Great Axes and Pikes. Unfortunately, I embarked with a Great Axe, which can't cut down trees. I've checked the Battleaxe's RAWs, but I can't find what makes it able to chop wood.
It's just [SKILL:AXE] that does it. Your midgets are probably too tiny to lift the damn thing. Reduce the great axe's MINIMUM_SIZE stat to something below 60 thousand.