Bay 12 Games Forum

The current materials system doesn't account for things that are actually very important to realistic combat simulation, such as work hardening, displacement/microfracture density, surface energy, the fact that the stated stresses aren't uniform even within the same work. Yield point, elastic modulus, ect are quite sufficient for evaluating static loads, but not for what Toady wants to use them for, which is for dynamic loads and failure mechanics.

This why I strongly advise professional help here. Materials science is a very complex subject, and using the engineering references without knowing how to use them can only end in disaster.

As such, a simplified system can improve realism (or the sense of it) in this case, since you can just tweak the relevant properties to suit your needs, rather than feeling you have to hold to some external set of values "reality" imposes on you.

To be honest, all you need is a new zone type "Fields" or "animal farm" which will function as a meeting area, but for animals (and changing the regular meating area to exclude animals).  Would clean alot of things up.

UPDATE:
Tested Neon's cave tortoises, and they do indeed butcher into shells.  Try generating a new world, if you haven't, I'm not sure if you're allowed to add new materials to an existing creature is made out of, or add body parts without either genning a new world, or waiting for more of those creatures to be born/arrive on your map.

If you're desperate for shells for a mood dwarf, just add the [SHELL] token to the MATERIAL_TEMPLATE_HOOF in material_templates_default.txt, and butcher a cow (existing hooves in your stockpile won't be shells, but new freshly butchered hooves will be).

You left out a [ on the CREMATE_REMAINS definition.