mining-mod VS MST_Extra_Mod

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.

Mining Mod by DangerNoodle. Adds random mineral veins underground, bog iron in swamps, black sand deposits near rivers, and the like. Also adds some extra items and recipes that make it actually feasible to bootstrap metalsmithing innawoods without having to hope for a car to bash up or a helicopter crash.

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