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[ShadowLop]

I've been thinking. Dwarves are supposed to be master crafters, with unparrallelled skill at making stuff.

But even after seeing a billion whips, they still can't make one?

I propose a workshop where a dwarf can take a weapon of piece of equipment and destroy it with a chance of adding the item to the civ's crafting list.
Could even have it create a blueprint that is required for a secondary (or the same) workshop to create the item (which has a list of all items that can be created).

For example:
Dwarves collect the 29576213986th whip from a goblin, take it to the workshop and dismantle it, recieving a whip blueprint.
They then use the blueprint (which is not consumed) to start producing their own whips for their military/trade.
They could collect peices of advanced armors from fallen enemies, re-engineer them into dwarven designs and have even more powerful soldiers.

This way, even a young fortress could get advanced equipment, without having to gen hundreds of years and hope your dwarves gain access to it during that time.
It would also open up different types of ranged warfare, as dwarves could gain access to bows, bowguns, etc and would not be effectively limited to crossbows.

It would also be balanced, since you would have to not only have civs that have said equipment, but you would need to get your hands on their equipment to reverse engineer it, meaning you would potentially need to overcome them first.

[Naryar]

Get rid of the unnecessarily complicated blueprints and add a system of general item familiarity, like creature taming. Each item deconstruction gives back a part of the material used and adds to the civ's familiarity with the item.

Artifacts would probably add as well. So a fort that makes five artifact bows (hooray for useless bowyers) may start to produce normal bows.

[ShadowLop]

Get rid of the unnecessarily complicated blueprints and add a system of general item familiarity, like creature taming. Each item deconstruction gives back a part of the material used and adds to the civ's familiarity with the item.

Artifacts would probably add as well. So a fort that makes five artifact bows (hooray for useless bowyers) may start to produce normal bows.

Whatever is easy and works. Just as long as a fort isn't stuck with the same equipment forever...I actually kind of like the familiarity idea, since it would also potentially mean other forts in the same world would know how to make that equipment and would no require endless supplies of blueprints.

[helmacon]

As item familiarity increases you could be able to make that object better.

For example: after looking at a few whips, your dawrves would make a really crummy whip. After making a few dozen whips they could make some better ones, and eventually, once you have produced and traded a ton of whips they become common knowledge, and you can make masterful whips.

So the item knowledge screen would be
A few Facts = base quality only (possibly already damaged?)     
General familiarity = all qualitys excluding masterful
Common Knowledge = all qualitys

Artifacts of course could be exempt from quality restrictions.

[Tharwen]

Oh, and the civ could collect the knowledge as well

WHIPS FOR EVERYONE!

[10ebbor10]

I quite like the familiarity idea. It would mostly be useful for modders, as there don't seem to be much exotic weapons in fortress mode, but it would be fun.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Maybe something like:

A few facts--Makes only base quality weapons, or maybe well-crafted for master or legendary crafters.
General Familiarity--Makes at qualities associated with, say, third to half skill. No exceptionals or masterworks.
Common Knowledge--Makes at qualities associated with, say, two-thirds to three-quarters skill. No masterworks.
Native (weaponry equivilant of Common Domestic in animal training; all weapons your civ has access to by default are at this level, probably)--As what passes for normal.

By simply finding and extensively studying several, say, whips, or chausses, or whatever you're trying to study, you'll eventually get to the "a few facts" level (say, after studying 15-20 of them, destroying 40-75% but those not destroyed can't be re-studied?). At this point, if the weapon is a projectile weapon, you have a chance (50-75%?) to gain the "a few facts" level of comprehension with a random projectile that can be used with that weapon (comprehension of projectiles and weapons is otherwise kept spearate). After creating a couple dozen or so, studying about 50-100 more, or a combination of the two, you get to the "General Familiarity" level of comprehension, at which point merely studying more of them won't help. However, using them will. After a while longer (~80-120 more forgings, or a year and change? of having a 10-dwarf squad use the item), you reach the "Common Knowledge" level. Reaching the "Native" level of comprehension requires a heckofalot of effort, or something other than practice.
Artifacts increase comprehension massively--one launches the comprehension level up past "a few facts" and halfway to "General Familiarity," assuming no former experience with the gear, and an artifact can be studied with no risk of breakage. You can buy gear from traders; this automatically increases your comprehension a bit less than studying the weapon (and then you can do that, too). You can also hire someone from a civ to teach you, which massively increases your comprehension (perhaps to a few facts within a few months, general familiarity within a year, common knowledge in a few more, and native-level by the end of the decade, assuming no other sources of learning?) but also ties up your smiths or craftsdwarves for a while (a total of around 20 days per month with some dwarf with the appropriate skill, to get full benifets), and you need to feed and protect the foreigner.

[10ebbor10]

Maybe just add a few tags, so that players can mess around with them

[Learn rate from usage] (per dwarf/ per month)
[Learn rate from crafting] (per item)
[Learn rate from disassembly]
[Learn rate from artefacts]

That way modders can make items that can only be reverse engineered, or only be used after years of usage or only be gotten by a lucky artefact.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Also a good idea. Note that study need not imply dissassembly--just looking at the shape of a scimitar gives some hints as to how to make one.

Also, the tags should probably be something like [COMPREHENSION_GAIN:METHOD:W:X:Y:Z], where METHOD is STUDY, TRADE, CRAFT, USE, ARTIFACT, etc, W is the rate without any comprehension, X is the rate at "a few facts" level, Y is the rate at "General Familiarity" level, and Z is the rate at "Common Knowledge" level.

[Mckee]

Whilst talking of weapons, it might be worth noting that even knowing how to make a particular type of weapon, doesnt guarantee an understanding of how best to fight with it. Whilst this should probably be primarily covered by the training of the individual user, some kind of general bonus, or perhaps an upper cap on the skill level attainable if the person conducting training or the fort at large dont really understand how to use the weapon. Perhaps the observer skill or something else could be used to gather information from combat with an enemy using said weapon.