VERSION 2.3 UPDATE RELEASE
Download in first post. Please let me know of any issues you have!
I don't anticipate another update until mid January, but I will certainly work on resolving any bugs or issues that pop up post-haste.
R2.3
DELETE the diy_BAC_knitting file if updating from version R2.2 or earlier. (If installing fresh, disregard this instruction)
WOOL CHANGES
HUGE overhaul to wool clothing, after a lot of reading. Knitting is not a thing any more, because it did not exist at the time and location the game simulates.
Recipes were redone (in a more complicated fashion) in order to get around the hard-coded limitation on clothing quality. Now, instead of all woollen clothing being decent quality, it can be anywhere from crude to masterwork, based on your TEXTILECRAFT skill.
Large pieces of wool clothing are made primarily with wool cloth (which was a thing in a previous version of BAC), which I have now restored.
Smaller items, specifically gloves, socks and caps, were made with a process called Naalbinding (google it) which is a precursor to Knitting. The latter is somewhat slower, but does not require a loom, and is "lossless" in terms of material used.
All wool processing and clothing moved back to a single menu, though tools used in common with other textiles (e.g. loom) are still under the Textilecraft menu.
Prices were rebalanced so that each step in the wool clothing process adds value to the finished product. Wool yarn is worth 1 unit (arrow/squirrel fur) per pound. Wool cloth is worth 2 per pound. Wool clothing is worth 2.5-3 per pound (varies per clothing item; vanilla item values were not changed, and the values were built around this). This is in contrast to previous wool clothing crafted by BAC which had MUCH lower prices than the corresponding vanilla items. IT's now possible to make your living as a maker of wool clothing, if you wish.
Unraveling woollen clothing to obtain yarn is now slightly lossy (0.6 pounds of clothing gives you 0.5 pounds of yarn).
You can now "trade" for wool yarn in a village using a recipe that simulates that trade. The required input is one arrow (as the most common trade-item used by players), but this can be fairly
altered in the code for any item of equivalent value (such as a squirrel fur).
Weaving wool cloth increased from 90 minutes to 2h for one pound of cloth. This may still be too little.
Removed 'noquality' from wool yarn creation, so that you can have higher quality wool yarn. Changed length to 100 feet per 0.5 pounds instead of 15 feet (which is silly). 100 feet per 0.5 pounds is still REALLY thick, but it roughly lines up with the thickness of the vanilla linen and nettle yarn (and is in fact slightly thicker than either).
Removed noquality on spindle, but reduced the skill bonus from 30 to 10. Higher quality spindles now possible.
Removed noquality from knitting needles so that you could have good quality ones.
Wool cloth garments need {Fine cordage} now as opposed to specifically yarn to sew the parts together. (Yarn still works, this just makes it broader, AND prevents the annoying bug whereby the entire stack of yarn is used up)
Knitting needles no longer an item; instead, you can craft more generic "textile needles" out of wood or bone. (Using bone offers a 10% skill bonus to the crafting). These are intended to be a set of needles that can be used for any of the textile processes.
Woollen veil and woollen cowl presented an issue: the first weighed 0.3 pounds, the latter 1 pound, but both covered the same area (skull and neck) and provided the same protection. Veil is unbalanced in weight in comparison to other wool clothing. It should probably provide less warmth, because it is a lighter material, but that is not an option in modding. Both items were removed, and replaced with a "woollen heavy veil" that you can craft, which weighs 0.6 pounds, as a compromise item. Both vanilla items are still obtainable through trading with villages.
Woollen longsocks item added, covering feet and calves, because of the large number of woollen garments that cut off above the calves.
Woollen footrags removed as a craftable item. They are mechanically identical to woollen socks, and removed for redundancy since more menu space was desired. Woollen socks and woollen longsocks may be layered if double foot protection is desired.
Woollen hood added as a craftable item, due to lack of face coverings. Covers the same area as the fur hood (skull, face, neck).
"Woollen dress (w sleeves)" added as a craftable item. It is mechanically the same as the woollen undergarment in terms of price, weigh, and area covered. Allows layering, and RP of those who wish to wear a dress without having cold arms.
MENU CHANGES
* Renamed "Wool Processing and Garments" menu now uses the O key. Armors of Iron and Wood changed from O to I key.
* Bark clothing (previously with wool clothing) moved to Earthen/Barkware menu. That menu is now 100% full, which is not ideal for future expansion, but perfectly fine for now.
IRONWORKING CHANGES
* Removed -30% penalty from smelting iron bloom (I don't understand why it was there)
* Halved input and output and time of smelt ore into iron recipe. 4h instead of 8h, one pound instead of 2. Just to break it up.
* Reworking iron and steel recipes, in order to allow you to keep working at a piece of metal to perfect it further (can take MANY MANY tries)
* Removed two "fix errors" cheat recipes under ironworking. Haven't seen any need to use those yet. They are still in the file, just commented out.
COOKING CHANGES
* Nettle Cheese now has a price of 0.25 squirrel hides (or 0.25 arrows), as opposed to having no value.
* Dried berries and mushrooms now has a price of 0.1 squirrel hides (or 0.1 arrows), as opposed to having no value. Unfortunately this will work on poisoned mushrooms, but the value is low enough that it shouldn't be a temptation to cheese.
* Recipe to make berry turnovers from dried berries added
OTHER CHANGES
* FIX: Commented out prepared soil line test.
* FIX: Fur mittens had been altered for a previous test, and never unaltered. Restored to normal values.
* Textile needles added as a requirement for all linen and nettle clothing that use yarn to attach pieces of cloth together.
* Firewood from slender trunk effort increased to match other firewood making. Patchwise option added.
* clay amphora tub renamed to Amphora
* clay large amphora tub renamed to Large Amphora
* Changed loop snares back to using yarn because of quality issue (they were always coming out as poor quality)
* Vanilla leather and fur clothing was using the COMMON skill, while all added recipes were using the HIDEWORKING skill. They now all use HIDEWORKING.
TO DO
Re-balance and analyze linen, leather and nettle clothing as has been done for wool. Consider the process of value added at each step. Change their recipes so that they can have higher/lower qualities. (this is more time consuming that you'd guess)
(The same approach will not work with fur, because it would interfere with the way fur clothing borrows properties from the type of fur used, e.g. bear. At the present time, I don't forsee any way for me to modify fur clothing so that it can have varying quality.)
Determine to what extent it makes sense for leather and fur clothing to use textile needles. Research how such clothing was actually fastened.
Clay playset needs different tile graphic.
Digging clay too easy? Rebalance?
Incorporate manure mod into BAC.
Ensure compatibility of Privateer's bees, mead and coop mods with BAC (Privateer does not wish them to be incorporated directly)
Look into other mods to incorporate.
MAYBE TO DO (WAY IN FUTURE)
Add chainmail as optional craftable menu (ahistoric, but not implausible)