Over the last decade of successful science operations with the VLT at Paranal, the instrument pipelines have played a critical role in ensuring the quality control of the instruments. During the last few years, instrument pipelines have gradually evolved into a tool suite capable of providing science grade data products for all major modes available for each instrument. In this paper we present the major enhancements that have been recently brought into the body of the FORS pipeline. The algorithms applied for wavelength and photometric calibrations have been deeply revised and improved by implementing innovative ideas, and the FORS instrument is now almost fully supported in all of its modes: spectroscopy, imaging and spectro-polarimetry. Furthermore, the satisfactory results obtained with the FORS pipeline have prompted synergies with other instrument pipelines. EFOSC2 at the NTT of the La Silla Observatory already shares with the FORS pipeline the imaging and spectroscopic data reduction code, and the spectroscopic part of the VIMOS pipeline is being reengineered along the same lines.