Fort Trident: What is the purpose?

[Techwright]

I've been in Homecoming since May, and I'm still discovering things probably added to the original game after I left.  One of these appears to be Fort Trident.  A casual comment made in Atlas Park today alerted me to Fort Trident, and I went exploring.  While I was greatly surprised, and tickled by the whole "secret sub base" idea, after exploring, I'm left wondering why it is there?  Every interactive seems to be a duplicate of some other interactive elsewhere in the City.    At first I thought this was good, moving all the Phalanx TF's to a single location, and providing a second Atlas Park training location, but then, it's obvious that I was the only player in the fort.  Everyone still starts their TF's at the original far-flung locations, and everyone apparently goes to the original trainer in Atlas Park.

 

So why does this exist?  And why does it seem everyone wants to start the TF's in the original locations, no matter how distant?

 

My personal feeling is that, since this appears to be abandoned by the player population, this would be a great location to establish a whole new, second set of TF's from the Phalanx crew, if that's even possible down the road.

[Lines]

If I remember right, it used to be the only place you could spend alignment merits.

 

But I only ever stepped foot in those places once.

[Extor Prime]

It's the place where you can abuse Penelope Yin.

[Li_Sensei]

I've got a vague memory that it came in as sort of part of the 'Who WIll Die' Signature story arcs, played some part in it, but was then more or less abandoned as focus shifted to the Praetorian storyline.

 

But I could be completely misremembering, as it's been a long time.

[Hedgefund]

It was indeed the zone to spend Hero merits.  Similarly, The Crucible in Cap au Diable was where you went to spend Villain merits.  I have to say I haven't gone to visit The Crucible since the game returned.  I have to assume it's still there.  If so it's also worth a visit.

[Shadowsleuth]

If the enter base from passcode command disappears I hope we get a teleport to Fort Trident/Crucible. (And both those locations should get either a base portal or a Tunnel Portal as well) 

[Knuck]

22 hours ago, Techwright said:

... At first I thought this was good, moving all the Phalanx TF's to a single location, and providing a second Atlas Park training location, but then, it's obvious that I was the only player in the fort.  Everyone still starts their TF's at the original far-flung locations, and everyone apparently goes to the original trainer in Atlas Park. ...

 

By the way, there is yet another trainer in Atlas Park: Back Alley Brawler was moved there from Galaxy City when GC was destroyed. Paragon Wiki says he was moved to the AP police station, but on Homecoming he's outside, in the southwestern corner of the zone.

 

If you finish Sondra Costel's arc and exit her last mission near Aaron Thiery, Back Alley Brawler is just around the block to the east. I always level there after Sondra's arc, but I've never seen anyone else using BAB.

[RikOz]

4 hours ago, Knuck said:

By the way, there is yet another trainer in Atlas Park: Back Alley Brawler was moved there from Galaxy City when GC was destroyed. Paragon Wiki says he was moved to the AP police station, but on Homecoming he's outside, in the southwestern corner of the zone.

 

If you finish Sondra Costel's arc and exit her last mission near Aaron Thiery, Back Alley Brawler is just around the block to the east. I always level there after Sondra's arc, but I've never seen anyone else using BAB.

I've used him a number of times, in the same situation. With the XP boosts, I usually hit level 8 by the time I come out near Thiery, and I like to take my travel power at 8, and getting from Thiery to Miss Liberty when you don't have a travel power yet is rather inconvenient. So I go get it from BAB,

 

On a related note, I thought it was rather hilarious the first time I got that alignment mission to break up the drug convention, and it sent me to a door right smack across the street from BAB. You know, the hero most known for his anti-drug crusades doesn't notice the humongous drug deal going on across the street. Or equally hilarious, the big bad drug guys deciding to hold their convention right in front of BAB...

Edited December 2, 2019 by RikOz

[Hyperstrike]

Fort Trident was supposed to be where you could use Hero Merits.
It was also supposed to be a transport hub to other areas of the game.

[Apparition]

On 12/1/2019 at 10:57 AM, Techwright said:

I've been in Homecoming since May, and I'm still discovering things probably added to the original game after I left.  One of these appears to be Fort Trident.  A casual comment made in Atlas Park today alerted me to Fort Trident, and I went exploring.  While I was greatly surprised, and tickled by the whole "secret sub base" idea, after exploring, I'm left wondering why it is there?  Every interactive seems to be a duplicate of some other interactive elsewhere in the City.    At first I thought this was good, moving all the Phalanx TF's to a single location, and providing a second Atlas Park training location, but then, it's obvious that I was the only player in the fort.  Everyone still starts their TF's at the original far-flung locations, and everyone apparently goes to the original trainer in Atlas Park.

 

So why does this exist?  And why does it seem everyone wants to start the TF's in the original locations, no matter how distant?

 

My personal feeling is that, since this appears to be abandoned by the player population, this would be a great location to establish a whole new, second set of TF's from the Phalanx crew, if that's even possible down the road.

 

People start the TFs in the original locations instead of Fort Trident because Fort Trident is only accessible by those in the Hero alignment.  You would be effectively locking out anyone in the Vigilante and Rogue alignments from joining.

[EmmySky]

Ok where is this place?  I guess I left the game before it was made or else my memory is shoddier than I thought because I am drawing a blank.

[TraumaTrain]

2 minutes ago, EmmySky said:

Ok where is this place?  I guess I left the game before it was made or else my memory is shoddier than I thought because I am drawing a blank.

Trident is in Atlas Park. Look for it on the minimap.

[srmalloy]

It’s a cave entrance along the SE corner of the lake W of City Hall.

 

[Chance Jackson]

21 hours ago, Hedgefund said:

It was indeed the zone to spend Hero merits.  Similarly, The Crucible in Cap au Diable was where you went to spend Villain merits.  I have to say I haven't gone to visit The Crucible since the game returned.  I have to assume it's still there.  If so it's also worth a visit.

This, back when alignment missions were the only way to get alignment merits which were only good for transferring into 50 reward merits 

[RikOz]

Are Hero Merits even still a thing? I know I've never gotten one...

 

[Apparition]

2 minutes ago, RikOz said:

Are Hero Merits even still a thing? I know I've never gotten one...

 

 

Negative, Ghost Rider.  The only use Hero and Villain Merits now have is to transfer 50 reward merits at a time to an alt.

[RikOz]

So they still exist, but aren't useful?

[Sir Myshkin]

13 minutes ago, RikOz said:

So they still exist, but aren't useful?

Less on their worth, more on the fact that their purpose has changed. The Merit System on Homecoming was given a QoL alteration in its costs, so where the Hero Merits used to be worth a considerable exchange, they're not so much anymore in regards to time/merit balance. They exist simply because they must (they're baked in at this point).

[Techwright]

On 12/2/2019 at 4:54 PM, Apparition said:

 

People start the TFs in the original locations instead of Fort Trident because Fort Trident is only accessible by those in the Hero alignment.  You would be effectively locking out anyone in the Vigilante and Rogue alignments from joining.

Good info!  Since its original purpose seems to have gone the wayside, I have to wonder what would happen if the Homecoming team changed the alignment requirements.   Would everyone start using the base, and ignoring the zones?

[Hedgefund]

I just used a hero aligned character to see what happens in Ft. Trident.

 

You don't start a tf there, there's a portal that takes you directly to the tf contact.  So there's no benefit whatsoever to gathering at Trident instead of the contact, especially with lfg queue performing exactly the same function, just without having to zone 1-2 times (Atlas to Ft. Trident)

Edited December 5, 2019 by Hedgefund

[Clave Dark 5]

On 12/1/2019 at 10:33 AM, Hedgefund said:

It was indeed the zone to spend Hero merits.  Similarly, The Crucible in Cap au Diable was where you went to spend Villain merits.  I have to say I haven't gone to visit The Crucible since the game returned.  I have to assume it's still there.  If so it's also worth a visit.

I accidently wandered into the red-side one early on and was all like "oh yeah, this..."  I poked around a little and then left.

 

Such things could be easily repurposed to useful things by the HC team, it'd be fun to imagine.

Edited December 5, 2019 by Clave Dark 5

[Erydanus]

On ‎12‎/‎2‎/‎2019 at 2:04 PM, RikOz said:

On a related note, I thought it was rather hilarious the first time I got that alignment mission to break up the drug convention, and it sent me to a door right smack across the street from BAB. You know, the hero most known for his anti-drug crusades doesn't notice the humongous drug deal going on across the street. Or equally hilarious, the big bad drug guys deciding to hold their convention right in front of BAB...

Well remember that time someone got ganked by an ambush while walking up to Valkyrie and he got on the official forums and complained that Positron just stood there not helping and the developer replied "that shit cons gray to me." (It is after all the basis for the name Ukon Gra'i). Of course, now those contacts will help with your ambush or other hostiles. But BAB?

 

BAB is across the street my man. And that shit cons gray to him, so you go in and if you come out screaming and running with Skulls chasing you … maybe he'll help.

 

On a more serious note it is really nice he's there, I like to go train at him to get away from the lagginess of the big crowds around Ms. Liberty.

[Shadowsleuth]

5 minutes ago, Erydanus said:

Well remember that time someone got ganked by an ambush while walking up to Valkyrie and he got on the official forums and complained that Positron just stood there not helping

 

That thread was comedy gold, only UniqueDragon's Jerk Hacking thread topped it.