SirHoneyBadger Please, please, please back-up all your work on anything you can keep separate from your main PC!! Computer problems never just 'go away', trust me.
This mod is insane. Can't help though, but good luck with it.
EDIT: And back-up either daily or after each work session.
Don't worry, I back up everything, as far as information goes, and I also make sure to post most everything to the Forum, as a third "backup", just in case.
I'm still working on the weapons, and entities, although it's been going kind of slowly. I want to get both of them down and reasonably polished before I move too much further into the other mod areas, and they aren't ready to show to all of you yet, but I did want to let you know that I'm here, I'm just quietly working away.
arclance: If you'd like to start working on them, I'd like to see a few casques, and how they'd turn out as single-tile (1x1) buildings, and also maybe a single big 4x4 casque, for the giant 'Beardy's Oktoberdwarf Dreamhouse' version.
The standard-size casques, I'm thinking, will require two metal hoops, preferrably of a copper alloy, to hold them together, and maybe a unit of fuel, to scorch the insides of them. I'm thinking they could arguably be made from a single big log, if I wanted their manufacture to be simple, but I'd like there to be more to the process than just that, so possibly 1 log, and 4 units of lumber. Also, a single unit of either beeswax or pine pitch (another resource I'm going to add later) to act as a sealant (although I've heard that real-life "masterwork" barrels are self-sealing)
Since casques are used for aging food items, I'd like casques to be makeable from certain woods only, for now: oak, beech, mulberry, ash, chestnut, cherry, juniper, goblin-cap, highwood, and acacia.
The giant ones, I haven't decided the requirements on, since they will not only be "just bigger barrels". They'll be closer to actual buildings, and will be less "barrel" and more "symbol", and serve your community as a faster way to make and store a lot of alchohol quickly, in a central location, that will still be barrel-brewed, and decent, respectable stuff, but may not always be of the highest quality, in large part due to the volumes of materials involved. Oktoberfest fodder, in other words.
And maybe your Legendary Brewmaster just happens to have his office in front of one or two of these impressive barrels, to show off to thirsty tourists and visiting merchants.
Barrels will eventually be constructed, and large casques partially constructed, at a special Cooper's Workshop, which I haven't designed yet, before put into place, but for now, a Carpenter's Shop will be sufficient.
Also, I'd like there to be several small, hand-held and portable versions of casques, of the ornamental and toy versions, and since a "casque" is just an upscale barrel, maybe some smaller, but still hefty "working-size" portable casques as well, that are basically barrels, but with the additional requirement of the metal hoops.
So maybe barrels and casques will be size-scaled something along the line of the following chart (I'm borrowing the old English naming system for wine casks).
Toy, would hold a single liter of liquid
Ornamental = 2 liters
Gallon = 4 liters,
(basically, up to the 'Gallon'-size, casque and barrel sizes will be more or less superfluous, when it comes to holding drinks, although the Gallon size will still be used often, for other products, and these small sizes will be handy for trading rare and special products, and for selling overpriced liquor to the tourists.)
Rundlet = 16 liters, or one "drink", in other words, enough alchohol to see a single dwarf through a single day's work.
Tierce 64 liters, or 4 "drinks"
Hogshead 256 liters, or 16 "drinks"
Puncheon 512 liters, or 32 "drinks"
Tun 1024 liters, or 64 units of "drink".
The smaller "Standing Casque" would hold six times as much as the Tun casque, enough to serve a single dwarf for a little over a year, while the largest casque, the "King's Casque", would hold 24 Tuns volume--in other words, enough "drink" for a Fortress of 200 dwarfs to drink continuously, for an entire week straight, without hitting the imagined "dregs" of the barrel.
Party size!