More Fortress Functionality! Give Us Ideas!

[notacorporal]

I really just meant a chance to see where you were heading, although if you didn't like it I guess you could pay for a reset. [All other interpretations welcome.]

What's Path of Exile? Any good?

If you get the cat, you could do the Caldera cat & mouse quest in reverse

[The Revanchist]

Speaking of Pumpkin... (That's the cat's name, right?)

Perhaps an option to "experiment" on it? Although it dying would be tough to avoid, I suppose, assuming it became combat-capable.

Taken to a darker place, if we allowed "upgrading" Pumpkin, what's stopping our clearly homicidal "hero" from get some minions from Dirth, or any other village? Or finally having a use for random adventurer parties? I think I just ruined my own idea. Drat!

[Hogulus]

A few ideas:

Sidequests

• Sher'tul Clone: After recovering data from a ruined fortress, you can spend energy to repair a pod, creating an amnesiac Sher'tul based on said data. If you're nice, you can drop him off at the mages' city for study and care; if you're not, you can sell him to the slavers as an exotic combatant. (Could be a way to unlock a playable Sher'tul, if the devs ever feel like doing that)
• Prison: A variant on the Arena other people have suggested. With some energy, you can fabricate a modified Rod of Recall which can be used on enemies at very low HP (Pokeball style), whisking them off to a cell on the Sher'tul fortress. You have a limited number of cells for generic enemies, and a reserved cell for each boss. Bosses have dialogue lines when their cells are interacted with. An upgrade from cooperating with the slavers would add an arena, where you can let two AI-controlled mobs of your choice duke it out, or take direct control of one and all its abilities. (Or just go down there yourself; you won't get any loot or XP, but you also won't die if you're defeated.) Once you've captured a given mob 3 times across playthroughs, its data is added to the aforementioned cloning device in all future runs, and once you've captured it 10 times, you gain the ability to give it player-class abilities of your choice (boss not hard enough for you? make it a Doomed!) when fighting it in the arena. Achievement for capturing all non-final bosses (aside from the Weirdling, for obvious reasons; the cloning device would already come pre-loaded with Weirdling data) in one run, and maybe this would give the arena a "Boss Rush" mode? (Inevitable achievement: Gotta Catch 'Em All, for imprisoning every mob in the game at least once.)
• Biological Weapons: As an alternative to the removed Orc Breeding Pits, you could have the fortress develop a poison or sterility plague to unleash on the orcs, then sneak it into their water supply. Just as genocidal and morally questionable as the original, but with less squick for those offended by it.

Features (some with balance implications, but probably less than the Farportal; I'm fairly new to the game, so it's possible that these would have huge impacts that I'm not aware of)

• Targeted Repulsion: Sher'Tul energy fields will decrease the spawn rate of a chosen monster type, or rares with a chosen player class. Would not be 100% reliable (the blocked type/class can still spawn, albeit more rarely); only works on one monster type OR player class at a time.
• Cosmetic Polymorph: Change your character's gender and other customization options. Maybe options to change the appearance of minions / golems / etc. too?
• Rune Scan: Pay a significant amount of energy to remove a rune or infusion without destroying it.
• Sound System: Play any in-game music in the fortress; spend extra energy to fabricate a music player which will let you listen to it anywhere in the game.
• Handicaps: Toggle infinite-duration debuffs on and off. If you've ever wanted to fight the last boss blind or confused, here's how!
• Redecorate: Change the Fortress's tile-set into those of a dungeon, or a Yeek village, or the Fearscape, or pretty much anything else.
• Holodeck: Replay any quest / area you've already beaten, optionally scaled to your new level. A further upgrade could unlock "reverse mode," letting you control every elite-or-boss mob on the map (treated as party members, letting you swap control between them) to take down a clone of your character.
• Hall of Records: Lists fun statistics like the most damage you've done with a single attack, the most damage you've taken in a single turn and lived through, how many golems/minions you've gotten killed, and so on - both for your current playthrough, and across all playthroughs.

Probably Way Too Much But I Thought It Was A Cool Idea Anyway

• Lance of the Godslayers: Adds an airstrike cannon to the fortress's exterior, granting you a talent to order the cannon to target a specific spot. By default, it'd target a small-medium AOE, have a long cooldown, go off 4-6 rounds after the talent is used, and deal moderate damage (when unlocked) that doesn't scale with any of your stats. Upgrades can be bought with energy; some would predictably increase its stats (more damage, less cooldown, etc), and some would alter the cannon's firing mode, turning it into things like an inaccurate-but-destructive Barrage attack, or a beam that stays fixed on a single square for 10 rounds, melting anything dumb enough to stay under it. Not sure if the cannon should drain energy with each shot. By default, it'd lose effectiveness the deeper one goes underground; a "Phasing Shots" upgrade mitigates this. Maybe firing modes would be unlocked through sidequests, or by imprisoning certain bosses / fighting them with specific handicaps active?
• Golem Upgrades: Since alchemists tend to end up with a ton of excess energy/cash on account of all the gems they make, it might be neat to give them an outlet for it. New talents, more carrying capacity, maybe even fixed artifact equipment that can only be used by golems.

[Fortescue]

Lance of the Godslayers: Adds an airstrike cannon to the fortress's exterior, granting you a talent to order the cannon to target a specific spot.

Hell yeah. GLASS THE PRIDES.

[The Revanchist]

Lance of the Godslayers: Adds an airstrike cannon to the fortress's exterior, granting you a talent to order the cannon to target a specific spot.

Hell yeah. GLASS THE PRIDES.

Didn't even think about that. But yes please!

The Holodeck sounds really cool too. It'd pretty much sum up most of my ideas, though.

[RedBucket]

What if afflicted classes could, after beating the game, use the fortress to (partially) cure themselves of the affliction, removing the Cursed Form tree, refunding the invested generics, and replacing hate decay with hate regen?

Maybe ghouls and skeletons could also reverse their undead condition.

[Jurriaan]

I would love (after winning the game) to try different levels/quests at another difficulty (so I could try the Vor Pride @ Insane, for example).

[The Revanchist]

I would love (after winning the game) to try different levels/quests at another difficulty (so I could try the Vor Pride @ Insane, for example).

Holodeck. I see no reason this couldn't be done with one.

Say, loading "Vor Pride", setting difficulty up to "Insane", and setting (or leaving) enemies at "Standard" (for spawn diversity).

Although knowing some of us (me), fighting an army of Boss rats would be the first goal... Then maybe a suicide fight against some dozens of horrors.

What if afflicted classes could, after beating the game, use the fortress to (partially) cure themselves of the affliction, removing the Cursed Form tree, refunding the invested generics, and replacing hate decay with hate regen?

Maybe ghouls and skeletons could also reverse their undead condition.

That would be interesting. I don't know how final "embracing their curse" is, but I don't think the option should work for Afflicted who embrace their curse. If they reject it, sure.