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[Rocky]

A bit of a question dump since I'm new to modding, but don't want to make a dozen new posts for these simple (?) questions.

1: Is it possible to modify the properties of the bones, leather, etc of a specific creature?
For instance, make dragon leather stronger than rabbit leather? Or dragon bone stronger than fish bones?

2: Can I modify the value of one component of a creature to be higher than another?
For example, make unicorn horn higher in value than it's bones, or make tiger leather (which striped) more valuable than lion leather (which is plain) without making tiger bones more valuable?

3: Drinks have a drink value. Is this purely the price value, or does this also affect how much dwarves like it?
Sunshine has 5 value, while swamp whiskey has 1 (if memory serves me right). Will dwarves drinking sunshine be made happier than those that drink swamp whiskey?
I am talking about on average; assuming dwarves involved have no specified drink preference.

4: Concerning the ascii graphics, what graphics cannot be interchanged? I know creatures, plants, minerals, etc. can be changed. But what about things like weapons/armor, barrels, building tiles, walls and other things?
I was considering doing a tile set, and was wondering if I could use just one character to represent each wall (instead of different characters for up/down walls, up/left walls, T sections, etc). I know most people like the walls the way they are, but for this specific project, I'd like to save on tiles so I can use them for other things.

5: If I add new wildlife, will it increase the overall number of animals showing up, or when they spawn, will it be instead of other animals?
Basically, will the animal spawn ratio stay about the same, or will more be added to the old ones (whose appearance rate will remain unchanged)?

6: Same as 5, but for megabeasts-- If I add new megabeasts, will there be more megabeasts overall, or will it simply choose from an extended list of possible choices? I am assuming that they are handled differently than animals are.

7: Is it possible to mod or add types of glass? So far, I have not found the raw file with glass specs. They can't be modded, can they? I'm planning a fort with a strong glass industry, and wanted to add a few kinds of glass.

8: On the topic of glass... Right now, (according to the wiki) crystal glass doesn't work. Can this be fixed via modding?

Sorry if any of these questions are kind of newbish to all you veteran modders, but I'm just not very experienced at this, but have some ideas I want to try.
Any help is appreciated.

[billybobfred]

1. I just saw this in the modding workshop, the answer is yes, for leather at least.
2. [MATERIAL_VALUE:X]
3. I believe higher-valued drinks are considered slightly more delicious, yes.
4. If it has a raw, you can change the graphics. I'm pretty sure walls don't have raws, though.
5, 6. No clue.
7. Definitely possible with custom reactions, though you'd have to define them yourself since the vanilla glasses have no raws. Best way, I think, would be to remove the glass workshop from the dwarven entity and build your own custom glass shop. Though I don't know about that "gather sand" job...
8. If you replace it entirely with your own custom glass, yes.

[Kweri]

Check out these two recent threads for some information on someone playing with glass:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=79755.15

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=80803.msg2123696#msg2123696

[Wirevix]

You can make custom bone materials for different creatures, for example a specific DRAGON_BONE material, and then specify just that one creature to use that type of bone.  For an example you can download the Monster Hunter Universe mod, which has a bunch of different bone types for different creatures.  This also works for skin, scales, and other things.  I'm not sure about leather since it's a produced good.

Don't know of any way to make one part of a creature more valuable without affecting its other parts, sadly.

Drinks with a higher value do indeed make Dwarves happier, but they can still get bored if they're stuck with only one drink for a long time, so just always going for the highest value isn't always best if you're considering maximum dwarf happiness.

All creature graphics can be changed.  Anything else requires making a custom font set, so you can only work within the font structure that Dwarf Fortress uses.  Lots of examples of custom tile set fonts on the wiki.

And the rest of them I am unfortunately not sure about.

[Kweri]

You can make custom bone materials for different creatures, for example a specific DRAGON_BONE material, and then specify just that one creature to use that type of bone.  For an example you can download the Monster Hunter Universe mod, which has a bunch of different bone types for different creatures.  This also works for skin, scales, and other things.  I'm not sure about leather since it's a produced good.

You don't have to make a new material; you can edit the standard bone material in each creature like the post in billy's response shows. If you're just changing one creature's bones, altering the properties in that creature is probably a better idea (less files/file alterations) than creating an entirely new material. If you plan on using an altered bone for a bunch of creatures, making a new material would be worth it in my opinion.

Leather may be a produced good, but it still calls the creature's raws to use the creature's leather material (the tanning reaction is actually in reaction_other.txt so we can see this one!), so you can define different properties for the leather in the creature file itself.