Masterworking without changing Vanilla files is not possible. But I am thinking about a solution. Something no other mod has done.
The poll shows that some people prefer Simplicity (for gameplay or FPS reasons) and others want more workshops, or invaders, or metals, or whatever... in the end, what the people really want, is something as simple as
Options. Personal Settings. And for that I would like to write a little C++ or VB program, that lets you control the settings. I asked the creator of the Lazy newb pack for his sourcecode, see if I can fashion something out of that.
He changes the init and raws (for aquifier) so I am sure that more changes can be done.
In theory it should offer settings like this:
Trees: Simple /// Trees: Vanilla /// Trees: Advanced
Plants: Simple /// Plants: Vanilla /// Plants: Advanced
Metals: Simple /// Metals: Vanilla /// Metals: Advanced
Warpstone ON///OFF, Aquifier ON///OFF, Migrants ON///OFF, and so on.
Add a short explanation what each one does.
Simple removes every treetype and adds one type called Tree. For people who like FPS and short lists of building materials.
Vanilla restores to default,
Advanced adds 50+ trees. Along the lines of that.
Or: Invaders, followed by a list of civilizations. A list of workshops... You can just select, (ON/OFF) for any kind you want and apply the change. Same goes for castes, religion, alchemy, metals, and so on. Just one click and you can chose yourself, between Low/Vanilla/High amount of stuff. Maybe base all of that around the core idea of reducing clutter and helping FPS.
I will talk to Deon (Genesis), darkflagrance (Fortress Defense Mod) and some other authors if they would like to contribute. I remember a list of 300+ plants and 2000+ new animals somewhere, there are many possibilities. If he accepts I would leave Hugo_the_dwarf to further help here, because he is online more often then me and has a lot more experience. He also helped ans is interested in this mod. We both would do bugfixes and try to add more content, while I work on the Settings.exe, probably with Visual Basics.
@se5a: I might not have removed too much, but the number of items ingame is significantly smaller. No corpses, no bodyparts, no clothes, less weapon/armor clutter, and the list to scroll through when you build/smelt/decorate/cut/carve and whatever is 50% smaller.
@all: Another idea I had was adding a simple explanation to the plant names. Like: Plump helmet (booze/food) so that people now what plant is used for flour/sugar/dye/thread/food/booze. I myself cant remember this most of the time. User friendliness was one of my goals