How Forges and Forge Guns Work

Weapons and Frames

Pulse rifle: Blast Furnace, kinetic slot



Bow: Spiteful fang, kinetic slot



Sniper rifle: Tatara gaze, energy slot, arc



Sword: Stryker's Sure-Hand, power slot, arc



Hand cannon: Kindled Orchid, energy slot, void



Auto rifle: Ringing Nail, energy slot, solar



Machine gun: Hammerhead, power slot, void

You can choose up to two frames per week to farm in this manner. Even if you have more than two ballistics logs, you will only be able to buy two frames per week with them.

Forges

Volundr: Cabal enemies, can drop Anti Paladin sparrow

Gofannon: Fallen enemies, can drop Futurecraft ghost shell

Izanami: Vex enemies, can drop Fusion Matrix ghost shell

Bergusia: Fallen enemies, can drop obsidian radiance used to purchase an item that makes forge guns glow and have 5% bonus damage in forges

Maximum Temper

Ada-1 sells seven gun frames. Each of these frames makes a specific gun, and is the only way to get that gun. All of these guns are good if you already like weapons of that type. All of them besides the machine gun frame require you to use a gun of that type in order to complete the frame, so be sure to have one of those beforehand.The first time youdo one of these frames, it will have a comparable number of steps to the Machine Gun Frame, including getting a weapon core from a saboteur. Any future copy of that frame purchased ever will have just two steps, to get radiant seeds from bosses and minibosses and to get kills with a certain kind of weapon.The first time you buy one of these frames per week, it will cost a ballistics log, has a gold border and is called a legendary frame. These are what two of the exotic forge quests call for. The only other difference is that when you complete a legendary frame, there is a chance of getting the curated version of the gun to drop alongside a random, non-curated copy. For the rest of that week, every subsequent copy of that frame will cost modulus reports, which are infinitely farmable from daily bounties and forge completions.Curated guns have a special shader, Bergusian Night, are fully masterworked, and have a single row of non-randomized perks. Some curated rolls are good, others are very mediocre. The shader is a guaranteed drop when dismantled.Guns from these frames will also drop black armory schematics, used to purchase things on Ada-1's second page. Depending on what forge they were made in, they can come with special forge-specific shaders.Refurbished black armory guns are random drops from completing a forge successfully or defeating a sabotuer. These guns can only be acquired in this manner, never from a frame. I have not been able to verify if certain guns only drop from certain forges or saboteurs. Dismantling these guns is the only way to get the Refurbished Black Armory shader. The shader, being much more common than Bergusian Night, has only a low chance of dropping upon a dismantle.The bottom row of Ada-1's first page is blue Augmented Frames. These make legendary items from whichever loot pool the frame is for. So for example, the Dreaming City augmented frame will make a random Dreaming City gun, and the Crucible augmented frame makes a random Crucible gun. The difference is that these guns have an extra toggle-able perk option, like this Bygones that can switch between rampage and kill clip. There are four different forges on a daily rotation. They are all launched from the same map icon in the EDZ, even the two that are technically on Nessus, and Nessus daily bounties work in the Nessus forges, while EDZ bounties only work in the two set in the EDZ. The order is:Forges have power level based matchmaking, so they will generally be easier if you are at or above power level 900, the point where power level increase slows and players begin to be familiar with game mechanics and invest more in keeping guns they like for longer periods of time. Forges are perfectly feasible with random matchmade players, but you do need to bring adequate boss damage to defeat the wave 3 boss in time, and random gear scooped up in the course of leveling will most likely not cut it. Ideally, you want to bring one gun of each ammo type, but you don't need to worry about farming meta weapons specifically to do forges.Waves of enemies spawn, with some that glow blue. When the blue glowing enemies are killed, it adds time to the timer. Throwing batteries does as well, but most of your time will come from killing the blue glowing enemies. As a team, you must throw 20 batteries at the forge in rounds 1 and 2 in order to succeed. In round 2, batteries will bounce off the vertical support bars, so you must be sure to hit the center of the forge.Upon a successful completion, by default there are 10 seconds before you are placed back in forge matchmaking. If you want to avoid this, make forges "maximum temper," which gives you 30 seconds. To do this, destroy two hidden shield drones that spawn at the start of round 2. They are in the same place every time. This is also necessary to do for the Izanagi's Burden exotic quest, detailed below. Making a forge maximum temper causes a box to materialize near the forge at the end. There is a prompt to hold E to collect loot, but you won't get anything from these except the keys for the Izanagi's Burden quest. A youtube video showing all the drone locations.