Would the low road way not be doing something like,
[REACTION:FREE_WOOD]
[NAME:Harvest Unground Tree]
[SMELTER]
[REAGENT]
[PRODUCT:100:1:WOOD:NO_SUBTYPE:WOOD:OAK]
That?
Well, if by "low" you mean "cheating", then the [REAGENT] token should be removed entirely. (I think it'll error and get removed anyway, though.) However, what I meant by "low" was "cheap and crappy". When I just need places for people to sleep, I make stump-iron beds; when I want beds they'll like, I make ironwood beds. I GM tabletop RPGs, I like balance :J
If you use [PRODUCT:100:1:BED:NO_SUBTYPE:METAL:NO_MATGLOSS], you'll get "metallic beds" made of no particular metal. However, IIRC they have a value of zero points.
Have you tried this? I thought all values defaulted to 0 for no matgloss metals, causing them to boil.
Yes, I've tried exactly that; it was entirely by accident, in making the stump-iron bed recipe I made a copy/paste error that resulted in that [PRODUCT] token. The point value was determined by viewing the item stats. The "metallic" beds survived long enough I think they were there to stay; they were the first ones made, and that fortress hit the sheriff message and then a bit before I deleted it for a new mod ver, and they were still around then.
Guessing from my observations, "default to zero" is when no material is applied, but each material has default values which are usually overridden by the matgloss. I've also created wood and cloth with no matgloss by similar accidents(specifying NO_MATGLOSS on a reagent means "any"), and they were also unremarkable for their material type.