Like there are bows and arrows. but you can't use steel to make shivs. like if you are intent on them never considering using mundane materials, then you should really remove the ability to make bows and arrows out of them too :/
I'm unable to prevent being able to make bows and arrows out of wood. I would do so if I could, but being able to make non-metal ranged weapons at a bowyer's shop is hardcoded, and I'm ultimately forced to work within the limitations of the game itself (as far as I am aware, I may be wrong and will be looking into it presently, but no promises). My apologies for the confusion.
read my other post too
Ah, I missed that one. Regardless, all the weapons and armor that is currently being out of things besides nanotechne simply shouldn't be. Nanotechne itself is common enough, as are handheld furnaces and 3D printers, that even peasants can make use of it. It's not rare or hard to work with or anything like that, and is ubiquitous across the planet. I was originally keeping conventional metals around to function as rare jewelry or relics of the past, but if I am going to do anything about it it would be deleting all normal metals from the game wholesale instead.
If im not mistaken, an earlier discussion in this thread about the 3d printer and synthesizer stuff established that they do nothing in fortress mode. As such, no, my Corvids don't have access to anything but fucking steel.
You should still be able to synthesize nanotechne by harvesting it from corroded metal, and convert that into a military grade type of nanotechne. If you can't, then I'll have some workaround for the next update to make it easier. If you want to modify things to your personal taste so that steel can be used for weapons, then you're welcome to do so. If you don't know how, then go to Dwarf Fortress- The Long Night\data\save\region1\raw\objects\inorganic_metal.txt and add [ITEMS_WEAPON][ITEMS_WEAPON_RANGED] to the metals of your choice. I can't guarantee it would work, but it ought to. Some things behave nicely when modified in a saved game and others just refuse to work.
how do i get nanotechne from corroded metal? I've been smelting alot of it for a few years (the whole reason i have steel), but i tried to go to the smelter and look at the craft C-grade but it says i have none. so how am i supposed to get nanotechne from corroded metal?
Ah, I think I see what might be happening. The reaction is a bit complex, but I didn't think it'd cause this much trouble. Essentially, since its a living thing, it needs to be cultured in a manner similar to, for example, slime mold. When you smelt grade-C nanotechne, you insert a single bar of it along with the corroded metal, and get more of it later. So the reaction process is 1 Grade-C Nanotechne bar+2 corroded metal boulders= 2 nanotechne bars. You need to either buy a grade-c bar, or melt down an item made of grade-c nanotechne to get the seed material, but after that you should be rolling in the stuff unless I messed up the reaction data, since if that doesn't work something is seriously messed up.