Thanks for the input, all. I've come to the conclusion (for now) that it's more trouble than it's worth to try to simplify clothing. I still have very little in the way of actual data about object counts versus fps, and this would cause some significant compatibility issues, not to mention stepping on the toes of some people who genuinely enjoy the clothing diversity (I had a feeling you guys were out there, thanks for speaking up) and distracting from more exciting developments. I will likely revisit this concept later, but it will likely be a separate, compatible modification that will be an optional component for LFR.
I'm disappointed that the shrines do nothing. The temple district took me 5 solid minutes of planning and designating, and almost a year to carve out, fill the water areas with water, magma area with magma, and place all the captured goblin cages. Still, it looks pretty nice...
Alright, point taken. You want to know more about those useless buildings that you can spend resources to construct now, right? Here's a little more about the ritual tech tree's upcoming developments.
If you've been conducting rituals, you may have gotten a slight glimpse at the "materials of the old gods," which are all unique to the ritual tech tree. A sacrifice to power might produce "bloodforged bolts," while a ritual of wealth may produce a "dull crystalline shamshir." These materials are tied to the old gods, and are referred to in the raws as "MINOR_METAL_OF_(name)" - the only difference being that they cannot be melted down. Most of the tier one materials are approximately identical to iron in terms of strength, though they vary a bit in terms of weight. As you might expect, higher tiers of the ritual tech tree will be able to create more interesting and more powerful materials that will compliment (or rival) the advances in the mechanical tech tree.
Objectives for the future ritual tree advances include...-Weapons, armor, and other objects created out of these new materials.
-New methods of acquiring flux stone.
-New methods of acquiring soap.
-New methods of acquiring potash (undecided if this will be ritual or mechanical in nature).
-Miraculous healing. The new version of DF does not mention this as a possibility, but I have a number of ideas for using unorthodox uses of tokens where it *might* be workable.
-Enchanted, syndrome-bearing ammunition (that, hopefully, will actually work).
-Creature material weaknesses.
-A number of "hidden" rewards and risks.
-Unique beverages
-Production of bone furniture.
Planned for the mechanical tech tree:-Production of larger ammunition stacks.
-Production of stone bins.
-Production of backpacks and quivers from unorthodox materials.
-Production of beds from unorthodox materials.
-A new "distillery process" for an extremely valuable and potent alcohol.
Planned for "crossover" advances:
-A method for growing limited quantities of plants without appropriate soil conditions.
-Living constructs.