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[☼Obsidian Short Sword☼]

I feel like it would be cool and realistic, If Dwarves could examine exotic weapons, And then learn how to forge/craft them, after They have enough knowledge from examining and trial/error. The weapon knowledge could be transferred to your civilization. Kinda like Animal Training Knowledge ->https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Animal_trainer#Animal_knowledge

[A_Curious_Cat]

I don’t think it should be that easy.  They could try, but there should be a strong possibility of failure (or of producing a substandard item) if they’ve never seen such an item before.

On the other hand, I feel that you should be able to order the creation of items from other civilizations if you have at least one citizen in your fort who came from the civilization in question and has the requisite experience.  Also, knowledge from other civilizations should have a possibility to be spread via guildhall demonstrations.

[DwarfStar]

I think this is a great idea!

The way I understood the analogy with animal training knowledge, there's be a new screen like, "Weapon Construction Knowledge" that would have different levels of familiarity for each type of weapon, starting with Some Familiarity and ending probably with something like Mastered rather than Domesticated. Maybe there would be a new Weaponsmith reaction to study a captured weapon, which would give a bit of a boost to your civilization knowledge with that weapon type. Re-studying the same weapon would not be available...maybe there would have to be new item flag "studied" and only weapons without the flag would be available for the reaction, which would then place the new flag on the weapon. Weapon types with no familiarity would not be listed on the new page and would not be possible to construct. Until you had the weapon type Mastered, your smiths would have a penalty to skill rolls (weapon quality). And perhaps, like it is impossible to Domesticate some animals, it would be impossible for some civilizations to ever Master some types of weapons.

Here's another idea to add to that: each civilization could have one or two weapon types that had a civilization knowledge better than Mastered, let's call it Innate. This civilization would always get a bonus to skill rolls making that type of weapon, making better quality weapons more likely at a particular weaponsmith skill level.

[brewer bob]

This could be maybe combined with the guild system:

Instead of some "study weapon" reactions, a dwarf would have to be sent to be an apprentice under a master from a civ that has access to the weapon (or a master from such a civ joins the fort). When the dwarf finishes their apprenticeship becoming a journeyman (or if there won't be journeymen, then just after the apprenticeship) they return to the fort bringing with them the knowledge. At first, they'd be the only one able to craft said weapon OR they'd have to supervise the forging of the weapon by another smith. This could add to the training knowledge mentioned above until at some point (maybe "general familiarity"?) any dwarf in the fort would be able to forge it, and once the knowledge reaches "domesticated" level the whole civ will know it (the spreading of the knowledge outside the fort could be just abstracted the same way as with animal domestication), allowing future forts of the same civ to have the knowledge upon embark.

Maybe this could also work in worldgen in some way, giving a different set of starting weapons to each civ?

[Quietust]

I don’t think it should be that easy.  They could try, but there should be a strong possibility of failure (or of producing a substandard item) if they’ve never seen such an item before.

That could probably be done by producing items that are heavily Damaged (i.e. XXiron whipXX), which should also make them significantly less effective in combat (and likely to break after a few uses).

[Schmaven]

Another way to keep it from being too easy than just examining some whips or other item would be to restrict foreign weapon crafting to only those dwarves with legendary or better skill.  Or even require some level of both weaponsmithing and metalcrafting.

[Ziusudra]

Another way to keep it from being too easy than just examining some whips or other item would be to restrict foreign weapon crafting to only those dwarves with legendary or better skill.  Or even require some level of both weaponsmithing and metalcrafting.

And the weapon skill itself so they know what makes a good one.

[GumNut]

I think this could tie into the scholar system. A scholar with the right skill set could take over a workshop, similar to a fey mood, and write his findings in a book upon which the exotic weapon would be unlocked. This would hopefully help make scholars and the book industry more worthwhile.

[Deno]

I would say that you should have the option the maybe send out your craftsmen to learn exotic skills, assuming that future updates will introduce mechanics for specific skills and knowledge. A dwarf with certain ambitions might want to go on a journey to perfect his metal working skill and come back with not just increased skills, but also unique knowledge of exotic weapons for example. The same could be applied to any skill. I think Toady mentioned specific combat styles and moves. Alternatively you could send out your own merchants or adventurers in fort mode to get exotic goods that you want.

[Starver]

/ponders...

...A cultural ability (0=unfamiliar .. 1=native) and a weaponsmithing ability (0=unskilled .. 1=legendary) dictate the relative capability of reproducing (e.g. culture*weaponsmithing; always 0 if 0 culture or weaponsmith values are zero, only 1 if both are 1) and/or maximum normalised product quality level.

Perhaps (c^m*wⁿ) for some extra balancing constants {m>1,n>1} that drastically drive down any decent production until awareness of both aspects is somewhat significant.

[FantasticDorf]

Perhaps this could be compounded into a eventual movement into more fleshed out weapon parts, like the handles to stone swords being seperate to the blade.

A dwarf with a "Weapons Maintenance" skill attached to the weaponsmith job as alternate xp, could better understand the construction of foriegn, improvised and dwarf made weapons to fix & build/disassemble them better. Assuming some day, doing something like a scimitar could be possible by studying to make your own/salvaging and replicating the blade, then putting it on a dwarven short sword base for a hybridized weapon (still a dwarven short sword) until you could build the full weapon out of a mass of junk attempts and disassembled bits.

Obviously with its own implications for piecemealing armor maintenance, buffing out dents, ripping out joined chainmail coifs/attaching feathers to hats and armor just to be fancy etc.

Perhaps (c^m*wⁿ) for some extra balancing constants {m>1,n>1} that drastically drive down any decent production until awareness of both aspects is somewhat significant.

Im just going to nod and smile  Sounds good.

[☼Obsidian Short Sword☼]

Too bad having an elf blacksmith/craftself would be useless. Unless you want -Grown Wooden Sword- XD