Hello i am new to modding dwarf fortress and am wondering about a few things and looking for suggestions on how to go about them?
1.How i would go about creating things such as fiber glass thread for clothes or glass weapons?
Glass is simply a material, and threads and weapons are simply item types, so to create glass threads or weapons you'd just have to make a reaction to make the appropriate item out of the material. For example, for green glass thread, you'd use the following product line:
[PRODUCT:100:1:THREAD:NO_SUBTYPE:GLASS_GREEN:NONE]
For weapons, THREAD would be WEAPON and NO_SUBTYPE on the item type would be replaced with the appropriate weapon subtype from item_weapon.txt, for instance ITEM_WEAPON_BATTLE_AXE.
Trouble is, raw materials, such as threads, probably wouldn't work too well; glass thread wouldn't be considered plant fiber or silk, and probably wouldn't be considered metal, so the loom, clothier's shop, and craftsdwarf's shop likely wouldn't recognize it. You'd probably need more reactions to turn it into the various finished goods.
2.How much do i need to make my self does making a new type of cloth need for all things from it be remade such as bags or can i just say it is a type of silk?
It depends on what the new type of cloth is. For cloth made from animals, plants, or metals, the hardcoded workshops would probably work. For glass cloth, though, I don't think they would, as mentioned above.
3.Also is it possible to add new reactions to already existing workshops or am i going to need to make some of my own for this?
sorry first time posting here on the forums
For the most part, the preexisting workshops can't be modded. There are exceptions: the soap maker and screw press are both technically custom workshops that just happen to exist in the vanilla game, and the kitchen, kiln, tanner's workshop, and smelter can have custom reactions assigned to them. If you don't want your reactions done in one of those, however, you're going to need a new custom shop.