Possible bug with destroyed forge?

[Mimsy]

If you disable a Forge, you lose the upgrades, but re-enabling it will give them back. When a forge is destroyed and you rebuild it, however, all of the upgrades are lost and the costs are reset as if you were building it for the first time. I don't know if this is intentional but it really breaks maps that rely on aether packs and it's harsh even on others. The forge is suddenly by far the most important building to protect from spores and there's no way to make a backup system.

So, bug or not? Either way it ruins the fun.

[Grauniad]

I'm pretty sure if you pause to think for a minute, you'll be able to figure out the rationale.

If a library is locked, the books are still in there, but you just an't read them. Unlock the library and you have access to all the books again. Burn the library down and .. well, not so much. You have to rebuild the library and then reacquire the books.

[4xC]

Also, imagine an armory.

Lock up the armory and the weapons cannot be used. Unlock it, and you can use them again.

Lose it to the enemy and you need new weapons.

[Mimsy]

Okay, the rational makes sense, but it should still be changed somehow. Let us build more than one forge for redundancy. Even before I noticed this I wondered why the limit is one; if people want to waste resources building multiple, let them. It's not like beams are disabled on sporeless maps.

[JF-T]

I would have to agree. I never really knew this would ever happen, but i think a sensical way might be to allow a second forge which would only just allow a sort of backup of all gained upgrades.

Either than or change it to not do that and use the excuse that the upgrades are way more complex than we are led on to believe.

I dunno, but a second forge would be a good way to atleast avoid losing max all upgrades or something ridiculous like that :)

[Oarc]

Yeah I was surprised when this happened too.

The reasoning given above does make sense, but then it would be nice to be able to build a second one if you know that the first one is in a risky spot.

That would allow some of the random/custom maps to have more flexibility. Especially one some maps don't have totems and only have the aether crystals.

[Grauniad]

There ever only was one Library of Alexandria. Treat your Forge as such.

[4xC]

Not to mention only one Library of Congress.

Just adding support to the above rational statement.

[Mimsy]

If I wanted to spend the resources doing it, I could make a complete copy of the Library of Congress without having to destroy the original. Isn't the forge supposed to be technology research? If there's only one copy of it then yes, it makes some sense to be lost forever... but there's no reason to limit it to just one copy.

[kwinse]

But there is- how does the game determine which copy to send Aether to? How does the game handle switching the 'primary' forge? Those aren't just trivial problems.

Besides that, the same argument could be made for retaining the forge upgrades between missions, which is definitely a game balance decision.

[4xC]

Upgrades are done by forge. More than one forge means buying the same upgrade as many times as there are forges.

Also, the collected aether spread about multiple forges acts against the Singer (singularity weapon). The more aether there is in one forge, the longer it will (it must be long to work right) take the artificial black hole to reach the crescendo of its calling-all-creeper chorus.

[NFITC1]

But there is- how does the game determine which copy to send Aether to? How does the game handle switching the 'primary' forge? Those aren't just trivial problems.

Either the closest one or cycling between all of them. Maybe an option to set that per totem.

For a while I thought only the units connected to the network that the Forge was on would have that upgrade applied. I'm glad that's not the case, but it would make an interesting mechanic.

[MizInIA]

for the sake of argument I say allow more than one forge but make the second cost so much it would take 8 hours to build.

I am not sure why people are building a forge where it is in jeopardy of being destroyed much less wanting to build more than one. they are expensive and have no offensive or defensive capability. not to mention the totems are the limiting factor not the forge.

[Mimsy]

Regardless of how you argue the story rational, from a gameplay perspective is there any reason to limit the number of forges? As far as I can tell, no, unless this behavior is SPECIFICALLY intended. In which case, can someone give a good explanation for how it makes the game more fun? That's the only reason to specifically design a feature...

[Grabarz19]

I don't see why would you put a Forge in a dangerous place in the first place. If it's easily the most important structure on the map, you should treat it as such and defend appropriately. I don't recall my forges ever being destroyed, mainly because I only build them when I have a strong presence on the map which means I can actually afford it.

It depends how you understand Aether... it could work both ways:
- teach us how to create upgrades - therefore copying them and storing would be possible
- create upgrades - which means second Forge - twice as much Aether needed for a copy

And it's more the latter, because we don't spend energy on actually getting the upgrades, only Aether (unless you treat sending occasional ammo packets as spending energy on upgrades, not to actually upkeep the structure).

I don't see how the current mechanics of the Forge make the game less fun. If anything the Forge is one of the most uninspired and routine structures in the game, which is really just the same thing as in CW2, except it's an actual structure, and not just a menu.