Hello, thought I'd share some thoughts on my Warframe and what my current weapons and loadouts are. So far the game has been enjoyable and hasn't necessarily required for me to spend real money to get some of the better equipment in the game. If you are playing the game would really like to here your thoughts on what equipment and mods you are rolling with.

Long Gun: I upgraded my Braton (auto) to the Latron (semi-auto) and am not really enjoying it which is a bummer considering I had to sell alot of my old stuff and mods to get enough in-game credits to purchase the gun, believe it was about 50,000 in-game credits. The gun is still at level 4 so I don't have too many of my older mods on it, so I'll keep on leveling it up to a point where I'll hopefully get a better feel for it but my main issue so far is I can't dump on enemies due to the limited ammo clip so I kinda have to be picky and efficient with my shots so far.

Pistol: I still own the starter pistol which hasn't been my main priority in upgrading probably cause I feel the main mods I have for it are sufficient enough to hold me through at where I'm at think I have a 10%+ damage and 15%+ lightning damage for it.

Melee: I was able to get the Cronus sword blueprint and build it in about 4-6 hours of playing, had to give up a bunch of rare fusion cores in order to decrease the build process time but since I was still in the beginning levels and the sword was pretty powerful I'd say it was worth it it. I also got a 30% fire damage mod on it which makes it my most powerful weapon in the game. Before the Cronus I did use the Furax fist melee weapons, and didn't like them due to how up close you had to be to the enemies.

Warframe: I'm using the Excalibur warframe which is one of the three free ones to choose from in the beginning. Seems decent enough but was thinking of possibly building towards and saving up some of the in-game credits towards a Trinity warframe since I haven't seen too many healer/support class in missions I've played so far but know players can go along way when in a squad with one. The Rhino was pretty sweet but I think its one of the few warframes in this game where you have to spend real money to get, so that will probably be out of the question unless I get fully invested in this game. So far its been great and one of the first few free-to-play games I've played in a while that I might spend some money in order to help support the developers.

I have played way too much of this game the last 2 weeks or so, I absolutely love it.

My favorites (so far) are:

Long gun: I really, really like the Strun. It's a shotgun that does insane damage. Shotguns are a bit overpowered at the moment as they even work pretty well on long range, weird huh? Apparently the Hek is the best gun in the game right now, but you need rank 4 for that one. I am getting closer to that. I also really like the Boltor, a rifle that shoots bolts and impales enemies. Very satisfying to use.

Pistol: I don't use pistols a lot but people say there are really good. You might want to get the akimbo version of those starter pistols, they are pretty cheap and a nice improvement on just one. I use the Lex sometimes, which is a high powered long range pistol.

Melee: Chronus is nice indeed, I use the Gram right now which is a 2 handed cool looking sword Cool thing about those is that they hit more enemies at once, but it is slower.

Warframe: I started with the Volt which is still my favorite. I have the Excalibur Prime which is nice too, and I just got a Nyx but it's too early to tell.

Here a screenshot of my Excal Prime.

Wanted to respond to this as well. Trinity's role is a little weird right now, with how the game is being played. Her support abilities are cast on enemies which means they are only really useful on bosses at the moment, because those are the only ones that live long enough to get some use out of it. This does make her a bit of a one trick pony at the moment, might be your cup of tea but I was also hoping for a more traditional support/healer role an right now she is not really that.

You can get the Rhino without paying, it is actually one of the easier ones because his blueprints drop off the Jackal which is one of the lowest level bosses.

After 20 to 25ish hours I also felt I needed to support them, and I bought one of the founders packages. This game is fun right now and has tons of potential to be expanded on, and in these two weeks I've seen a surprising amount of updates already. Saying this, I can also understand people that think the game lacks variety, challenge and depth, it just hits a sweet spot for me. The combat and movement feels satisfying, I really like the look of the game and the co op just works in a non stressful way that I find really satisfying.

I played a lot of warframe in the earlier betas and racked up over 500k credits/money. Once I saw that the game had a major overhaul in the mod systems in update 7, I decided to play again and realized with that much money, I was able to buy just about every new blueprint for all the weapons and a few warframes. Only new weapon I was using though, was the GRAM melee sword.

Warframe: I have a level 30 Frost that is actually really tanky. Can withstand just about any wave of enemies that come at me. Also have a Loki at level 10 since I started playing again.

Long Gun: I have a maxed out HEK with some very powerful mods on it. Can one shot any enemy that isn't a boss or a shielded enemy on waves 21+ in DEFENSE missions.

Pistol: Just using AKLATOs here. Grinding weapon levels to their max becomes really tedious so I just got these and stuck with them. They're not bad, though probably not the best.

Melee: I believe its a new weapon introduced in update7. The charge attack on it is VERY powerful and normal attacks aren't that bad, just a bit slower than other melee weapons. Also, the glow of the sword can be changed to whatever color you like. Yellow is SUPER bright.

I need to start playing more and level up my Loki. His hologram skill is great for defense missions, as it keeps the waves from attacking what you're defending.

@roninenix: @jozzy: Wow those look really cool. I played some more last night and purchased the Bolto pistol blueprint and am working towards getting that. Seems like it does the job of the Boltor rifle but with a smaller clip. The Gram definitely looks awesome with the 40 base damage but I'll stick with the Cronus for the time being since its one of the first blueprints drops I got and am kinda proud I was able to get it made.Wow Roninenix, 500,000 during the closed beta? Was the currency earned much larger then it is right now? That must be a huge amount of play time for you. One last thing I noticed since the last update is they started doing achievement goals in game such as "30 kills with assault rifles". Was wondering if completing set in game goal generated something for you? Kinda noticed the notifier disappearing once you completed them.

I spent 50k on the Snipetron (I like sniping) and I must say the reload time is BRUTAL and it only holds four rounds. Leveling it up as quickly as possible so I can mod my way around that.

Yeah one reason I went with the Latron over the sniper rifle / shotgun was due to how limited the clip was when you started off. Now going back I'd probably have gone with the shotgun since I play kinda tankish most of the time.

I think that if you want to snipe a Paris (the bow) might be better. It has no reload and does a lot of damage. You do have to charge your shot a bit and it has a bit of an arch on longer distances but it is very satisfying to use. It's also not that hard to craft if you buy the 20k credits BP, at least I had all the materials ready to go.

One of the shotguns, the Strun is pretty cheap so you can always buy that at some point. It does have a small clip and the standard reload is pretty slow but you will one shot most of the enemies, especially if you add some damage and multishot to it.

So: anybody got any hot tips for someone just starting out? I played a few hours last night (enough to clear Mercury and then fail the first mission of both Venus and Saturn once each) and the game is really fun so far, but I'm having a hard time finding information about how a lot of the systems work (the wiki isn't very good).

1) It doesn't cost anything to slot/reslot mods, right? I could potentially pull them out of one thing and put them in another?
2) Is the only difference in warframes the active skills that they have?
3) Any protips about fitting out mods on a warframe? I went with Mag, which seems like it might not be the greatest. Any tips on the mod system in general? Seems like it recently got an overhaul, but I'm not really clear at all how it works.
4) How does using skills work? Mag, for example, has a skill that either recharges or drains shield depending on if the target is a friend or an enemy. Do I just aim at a dude and hit use? Targeting seems to be a bit finicky (like sometimes it'll work and sometimes it won't). Also, can I use it on myself?
5) Is there a way to tell when teammates are low on shield/health? Why do people sometimes glow red?
6) Do the levels get harder with more people, or is there literally no reason to play with less than four?
7) Drops seem to be shared, right? I don't need to be fighting with people over them?

Any gameplay tips in general? Like I said, after Mercury I tried the first level of both Venus and Saturn, but got absolutely crushed both times (well, on one of them I think we ran out of time somehow, but still). How exactly should I prepare myself so that I can start beating levels again? Is there some in-game system I missed that I'm just ignorant of? Do I need to replay Mercury a bunch to grind out mods and levels (Also, does leveling up equipment only mean that it gets more mod slots, or does it do more damage as well?)?

@ajamafalous:

1. Correct, it doesn't cost you anything to reslot.
2. Warframes have different base stats as well. Mag has base health of 75, Power 100, and 100 Shields...while a frame like Loki is 75 Health, 150 Power, and 75 Shields.
3. Mag is good for damage and crowd control, so it would be your best bet to equip mods that focus on buffing her powers, like power duration, power range and power efficiency, etc. It's also generally cheaper to fuse duplicate mods than it is to use fusion cores.
4. Shield Polarize is a buff for your squadmates, if your cast misses, there's usually a prompt on the UI saying "target invalid" or something like that.
5. You can see your squadmates' health/shields by targeting them. They glow red as an indicator that they're carrying an artifact in raid missions.
6. Missions don't scale to player count. Ideally, you'd be rolling with a full squad.
7. Drops are shared, but you still have to pick them up.

Leveling up your equipment = more mod slots. From personal experience when update 7 rolled out, I grinded defense missions on Helene (Saturn, Grineer) and Callisto (Jupiter, Infestation) till I could get some good mods into my possession. According to the wiki, each faction has a higher chance to drop certain mods. Same goes for the different types of missions.

@i_stay_puft: 500,000 credits sounds like a lot then but it really wasn't much. During the earlier betas, there was no module fusing, that just left a lot of excess unwanted mods that could be sold. And with not that many weapons to craft or buy, money just seemed to stack up then. It's cause of the new fusion system in update 7 that makes money hard to keep. You don't sell any mods 'cause you use them to fuse them into higher level mods and it also takes money to fuse. Since update7 was released, I've barely broken 20k because I keep fusing.

As for the achievement thing, I always remembered that being in there. Though, I don't remember it giving any type of reward. It probably gives some extra credits but I don't recall seeing it.

Most important thing is survivability. Get yourself more shields and health and you can solo a lot of the content, although it is always easier in a full squad.

The name of the shield mod is Redirection, the name of the health mod is Vitality. You can fuse them for great bonuses.

@ajamafalous: Probably some advice I got is always make sure you're running close to a full crew. If you have to, join other peoples random games and if you're still on the lower levels don't be suprised if you'll be playing the same missions over and over just to level up your gear. Don't necessarily worry about changing your current stuff and upgrading them right away just make sure to build currency and gain mods. I think once you reach those defense missions (horde mode) in the second planet is where you can probably start thinking about farming for mod drops. I've probably made most of my in-game currency early on from replaying these missions over and over and selling off any duplicate mods I've obtained. The horde modes especially if you're still beginning are pretty tough so don't be afraid to quit after the first five waves considering you'll get more xp if you quit rather than fail the mission. From there you can go several routes with what you wanna do whether it be actually upgrading your weapons to fusing your mods with cores and upgrading them. With your mods make sure they are in the correct slot too, some mods get reduction of space if they're put in their correct slot. They are usually annotated with a shape on the top right I believe. I just found this out a few days ago which has been a great way to fit more mods on my warframe. Good luck to you dude and have fun.

Put that warframe back in your pants!

I dunno I don't find myself playing any more online shooters man, they lost their edge.

a pink shotgun, a pair of space flintlock and a flaming bacon sword
exactly what you need while busting out some space ninja teleportations

@sate2801: Hey, that's the new Mire sword right? What do you think of it?

@jozzy: that toxin thingie's damage seems pretty low, maybe works well with saryn's contagion skill I think.
also it doesn't have polarity slot and like all 1hswords you can't multihit
but hay, you can color it like a bacon!! that's huge plus >:D