[PLANT:Iron_Root]
[NAME:iron root][NAME_PLURAL:iron roots][ADJ:iron root]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:STRUCTURAL:STRUCTURAL_PLANT_TEMPLATE]
[MATERIAL_VALUE:50]
[BASIC_MAT:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:STRUCTURAL]
[GROWDUR:4032000][VALUE:50]
Not quite. The ID of the plant should be in all caps with underscores ( [PLANT:IRON_ROOT] ). If you're unsure about whether something needs to be in caps or regular text, go for the caps. Also, a growdur of 4032 means that a plant takes a year to grow.
Then for turning the extract into a bar, I would need the reagent to look like:
[REAGENT:extract:1:LIQUID_MISC:NONE:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:Iron_Root:iron extract]
[REAGENT:container:1:NONE:NONE:NONE:NONE]
[CONTAINS:extract]
The 'given name' of a material is not what the game displays it as, but the ID it's given when the material template is called. [USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:EXTRACT:PLANT_EXTRACT_TEMPLATE] translates roughly into [call material template:for the material ID'd here:and use this particular template]. And then the ID you give in that line is what you use when manipulating that material (you can have numerous materials using the same template in a creature/caste/subcaste or plant, they just have to have different IDs within the creature or whatever). You've got the general idea, you just need to communicate it to the game.
How would the smelter reactions look like?
[REACTION:CASTE_IRON_EXTRACT]
[NAME:Caste Iron Extract]<This is the name that comes up in the workshop menu or in the job manager. Usually it's phrased as a command.
[BUILDING:SMELTER:NONE]
[REAGENT:extract:1:LIQUID_MISC:NONE:PLANT_MAT:IRON_ROOT:EXTRACT]
[REAGENT:container:1:NONE:NONE:NONE:NONE]
[CONTAINS:extract]
[PRODUCT:100:1:BAR:NO_SUBTYPE:METAL:IRON][PRODUCT_DIMENSION:150]
[FUEL]
[SKILL:SMELT]
The CONTAINS line is probably a workaround for the old issue of reactions not seeing things in containers. If you ask for "extract" and forget to ask for an "extract"-containing container as well, dwarves won't treat extract and container as a single item (as a human would), and they'll get hung up on not being able to transport just the liquid.
CONTAINS must refer back to the reagent that the container contains. In many vanilla reactions reagents are labelled as A, B, C, etc. as the game doesn't display the reagent names. If you're writing your own reactions, always assume that the game will display whatever label you apply to a particular reagent.
LOCAL_PLANT_MAT is used for, I dunno, referencing a plant material that's been brought up once already. Since this isn't the case here, 'PLANT_MAT:specific stuff' is used instead.
So, it's placed in a different order and consolidated with sub-castes?
Pretty much, though not necessarily with the subcastes (the original I posted was all main castes). You decide it's worth trying to write this particular tag or whatever once and once only, and rearrange the entry to make it happen. Subcastes are for where you can split your creature into two or more 'piles' and have very little crossover between them after that point. Kind of hard to explain... maybe a diagram?
Female Male Litter Hair
Light mare o o
Light stallion o o
Medium mare o o
Medium stallion o o
Heavy mare o o
Heavy stallion o o
Fly Fire Npain Prlz. Nsick Carn Int Lisp Light Lock Nerves
R o o o o o o o o
T1 o o o o o o o
T2 o o o o o o o o
Z o o o
L o o o o
O o o o o o
D o o o o o
F o o
Realised when I was making up this table that I'd forgotten to add intelligence to one caste, heh.
I can see how it reduces the size of the entries, but on the other hand, it's a little more complicated for me to read, because I'm visual based and spacing things out into simpler (and longer, granted) categories helps me visualize graphs and pie charts in my head.
I dunno, I'm visual-based but use it more as a trigger for recollection. If I see the tags there in one place with the caste selections shot through them, I know how it fits together in the same way that I can look at a sentence and know how it fits together. If I could hold which tag belonged to which caste in my short-term memory, I wouldn't need to cram it together. Or maybe I don't exercise my STM because cramming works so well for me. Who knows?