MST_Extra_Mod VS nocts_cata_mod

More Survival Tools has a successor in the form of MST Extra.

Slightly related, there is an updated version of more survival tools here: https://github.com/chaosvolt/MST_Extra_Mod

Prison start is still very much a meme to be honest, more shenanigans we inherited from DDA. You may also notice that it can be hard to get anywhere with enough light needed to craft anything basic, and all the basic firestarting tools require light to make (unless you're using MST Extra mod, which adds dark-craftable fire ploughs).

For preserving organ meats, More Survival Tools Extra (same dev as Arcana & Magic Items) adds Jerked Offal.

I don't know how you could make the early game longer without making it more tedious. Making it easier to stay early game without being forced to raid a city is doable, part of what mods like MST Extra seek to do, and every so often I port ideas from it over to BN. But forcing the player to draw out early game isn't really feasible without the kinda stunts DDA pulls.

MST Extra. This is the successor to my old More Survival Tools mod that's long since been obsoleted. Adds more items and recipes, few other rebalances/tweaks, to make wilderness survival gameplay more interesting.

No idea. Keep in mind, last I checked that's not even in vanilla at all, but in MST Extra: https://github.com/chaosvolt/MST_Extra_Mod/blob/master/MST_Extra/recipes/recipe_medsandchemicals.json#L21

The most recent version (master branch) is updated to work with experimental, there should be a release from the 24th of march that's for Stable. It works for me. https://github.com/Noctifer-de-Mortem/nocts_cata_mod/releases

Heres the githuub if you need it: https://github.com/Noctifer-de-Mortem/nocts_cata_mod

I use Arcana Cata++

As for third-party mods, in general you need to look for a mod that has both DDA and BN versions, because for most content the JSON drifts too much for them to be compatible. All of my mods for example have BN and DDA versions where required, as do Noctifer's Cataclysm++ mod and DN's Mining Mod.

There really aren't many unofficial mods, because the game is open source and so people tend to just add to the game directly. The two big mods I recommend that live outside the default repo are Arcana (magic that fits the vanilla tone a bit better than Magiclysm) and Noct's Cata Mod aka Cata++ (super soldiers and a special boss monster that gives me Resident Evil vibes).

Cata++ has a similar scenario. The "Slave Fighter Freedom" scenario starts you in an arena will several other NPC augmented gladiators. The Red Team starts hostile and the Blue Team will join your faction without a skill check, giving you a guaranteed NPC army. Unless you get them all killed, I guess.

Cata++ = https://github.com/Noctifer-de-Mortem/nocts_cata_mod

cata++