One robot ninja's noble journey to see how far they can travel across this great cosmos of ours without spending any money or exerting too much effort.

Part 5: Insane in the Warframe

Expanding this feature from a weekly check-in to a monthly one has afforded me a certain amount of leeway in how and when I choose to consume Warframe, though I fear it's also made me a little more lackadaisical in how often I frequent it. The preferred method, I've learned after what feels like some 40 hours with the game now, is to sign in for the daily reward, play one or several missions depending on how busy you are that day, maybe hit a few of the more attainable timed syndicate goals (Nightwave is what I'm focusing on, but there's others including that one I joined that is now demanding valuables from me to level it up), and then bounce and wait to see what tomorrow might bring.

Instead, I go weeks forgetting Warframe exists. It's not that I dislike the game - it's one of the best TPSes available right now, free or otherwise, and scratches that Vanquish itch like nothing else can (well, besides Vanquish itself) with its amazing sense of mobility - it's just that the abstract and often narrative-free grind can often be less attractive than playing something new and/or focusing on the games featured in this month's "May Millennial" CRPG blog series. Rest assured, I still intend to make enough progress to fill up each of these monthly summaries for the foreseeable future, but I imagine it'll take a very long time before I'm running around with a dozen warframes and a fully built guild hall to relax in between missions. There's no real finish line in sight, but I'm happy with where I'm at for the time being.

New Developments!

Mars, God of Warframe

Last update, I completed the last of my objectives to open the Earth-to-Mars relay junction (waypoint stations guarded by "phantoms" of other Tenno warframes) and took my first few steps on the red planet. Unfortunately, while Mars did offer a new level aesthetic - mostly deserts, which suits what we know about our second nearest cousin - it also brought back the Grineer once again. The Grineer were all over the previous planet I unlocked (Mercury) so I was getting a little tired of fighting them. Still, with every new planet and level range increase, you're also likely to see plenty of new enemy types join the fray. Some of these foes are significant enough to completely change the dynamic of a fight, like the AoE "Powerfists", the mob-spawning "Hyekka Masters", or the quick aerial "Hellions".

Mars is also the biggest planet after Earth in node population terms, with two main branches heading off towards the Phobos relay junction and the Ceres relay junction, respectively. One of the Ceres' junction goals is to defeat a boss on Phobos, making it clear which of these two junctions I'm supposed to move towards first.

I wish I had more to say about Mars that isn't a "what I did on my holiday" checklist rundown, but it's kind of dull and nondescript. Having all the Grineer in desert camo meant I could scan them all again, which provides more affinity (i.e. XP) in addition to the amount earned by killing them, but it didn't take long to fill all those codex entries for them also. As of writing, Mars is still only half-complete: the paths to the two relays are open, but there's at least one more boss here as well as a number of optional dead-ends. The only reason I've found to complete all a world's nodes is that you can leave an automated extractor on a fully conquered planet to gather resources while you're AFK, but besides the rare resource of Gallium there's nothing I can get on Mars that I can't get elsewhere. For now, I'm intent to make a beeline to Phobos and see what's awaiting for me there (hopefully not any cacodemons).

My New Archnemesis

Of the few Mars-based missions, the most significant is the Archwing. Created as, I suspect, an alternative to all the usual running around killing people, Archwing missions involve strapping a giant glider-like doohickey to your warframe's back and taking to the skies (or space, usually) to complete objectives. These are styled like dogfighter sims with less momentum involved; your Archwing can stop on a dime if you need to plant yourself and take down bogies around you, which is especially valuable in Defense/Mobile Defense where you have to stay put to guard something. Others have you flying around as quickly as possible to reach a mission critical objective before time runs out, dodging both enemies and level geometry alike as you trigger the afterburner as frequently as you get can away with.

Unfortunately, in many cases, Archwing missions feel like the worst things ever created by a human. Especially the "Rush" mission on Phobos. It's like the developers wanted to toss in some fun Star Fox shooter sequences to go with the on-foot business and completely missed what made those games palatable, instead making every Archwing mission a vertiginously fast, visually incomprehensible mess where you can barely see anything you're meant to shoot at and just spend the whole time flying very hard into solid objects or getting blasted by a capital ship several kilometers away when you forget to find cover.

What sucks is that I wouldn't mind if these nodes were out of the way, which many of them are, but the Phobos one in particular is parked directly in front of a couple of other nodes that are completely blocked until the Rush mission is complete. The idea, I think, is to level up and mod your Archwing or build a better one to have a decent shot at the stage (which I did eventually beat), but this part of the game isn't so developed that you have regular opportunities to progress with the Archwing stuff. You have to go out of your way to get better Archwing gear and mods, including replaying the small handful of tolerable levels several dozen times apiece to get anywhere. At least, that's the situation where I'm at; not for the first time, it feels like a relatively new addition is intended more for those who have the entire solar system at their disposal and not for some entry-level scrub like myself who doesn't have the resources to take on this particular facet of the game yet.

All that said, I am starting to get a handle on the Archwing, and going back to play a few of the Earth/Venus/Mercury missions is getting me the affinity and mods I'll need to weather the tougher instances ahead. I'm still not entirely sold on the Archwing as a concept, but then there's certain on-foot mission types that I don't care for either (Survival and Defense being my two biggest bugbears) and Warframe's often about taking the good with the bad. As a very occasional thing, I can just about tolerate them.

Phobosphobia

Phobos, the first moon of Mars (Deimos is conspicuously absent on the system map - maybe because it got teleported into Hell?), is a relatively serene affair compared to Mars. Another Corpus world, which I overall appreciate more than the Grineer worlds barring this weird glitch that makes Corpus grenades the most powerful thing in the universe. Something about the cold, sterile, cyberpunk style of the mechanical Corpus sits better with me than the dark, grimy, military aesthetic of the lumpy Grineer.

Phobos itself is a round trip: the nodes form a circle around the planet, with both a quick and a scenic route around to the only other exit node: the Void, which doesn't require unlocking a relay junction to access. Beyond that, Phobos exists as a dead-end like Mercury to give players a little more game to explore and to make a few more resources accessible: chiefly, the very handy Plastids. Plastids are used in a number of blueprints, but none more pressing to me than the various components of Rhino. They were, in fact, the last type of resource I needed to finally build my second warframe.

Stolen Dreams!

Before I have enough Plastids to finally realize a long-time dream of playing another warframe in this video game named Warframe, there's another quest - also about dreams - to complete. Oddly, Stolen Dreams starts when you reach Phobos but there's only one part of the quest set there. Instead, you're visiting a lot of the previous planets to complete a National Treasure-type scavenger hunt to find all the "arcane codices": another relic of the ancient and enigmatic "Orokin", from whom most of the game's high-end technology originated, not least of which are the interplanetary relay junctions. Very Mass Effect "Precursors", in so many words, including what I presume will be a game-wide mystery to determine why they disappeared and where they went.

Stolen Dreams also introduces the Maroo that the Maroo's Bazaar player trading post is named after. An opportunistic Corpus thief, Maroo is fun cocky adventurer NPC that you rarely encounter in the staid and serious universe of Warframe. She sasses the Tenno ("tin suits"), our boss Lotus, and both the Grineer and Corpus, neither of which seem to appreciate her antics. After rescuing her from a Grineer task force, she gives us the directions we need to take back all the known arcane codices, and with them plunder an Orokin tomb in the Void. Not to spoil too much, because there's not a whole lot to spoil, but this quest leaves us with more questions than answers - I suspect this is simply the first link in a much longer chain. Still, I always appreciate it when a game deigns to introduce an overarching narrative some two whole days of run-time in.

I Don't Know Warframe, But Rhino What I Like

After building all three components to the Rhino warframe (one day each, though you can construct them all the same time) and then the Rhino warframe itself (three days) I'm now the proud papa of a second goshdarned warframe. I have slots for two more and no idea what to fill them with, but for now I'm ecstatic that I finally get to try out another one of these.

Couple of observations right off the bat, after trying a level 10-15 Corpus node on Phobos as soon as I equipped Rhino: I was a little concerned that equipping a baby warframe meant I'd quickly get bodied by anything stronger than the foes back on Earth, which is where I cut my teeth with ol' Excalibur those many moons ago. Fortunately, the game has something of a "Ship of Theseus" aspect to how weapons, companions, and warframes all level up independently and asynchronously. Even with a level 1 warframe, I still had a high-level primary weapon (the Braton, which I also mastered before this update), the mid-level Taxon robot companion, and a new pair of powerful Dex Furis SMGs to replace the old-and-busted MK1-Kunai (though once I have the Nano Spores to build them, I'll be getting the real Kunai for their stealthy qualities). That, plus a few of my better warframe mods when I had the capacity to equip them, meant that my new warframe wasn't entirely powerless right out of the gate.

The other observation is that it's a lot easier to survive as the Rhino because it's a tank class. The Rhino is the biggest and heaviest warframe - not that this scuppers the game's alacrity much, but his run speed was a mite slower than Excalibur's - and the second ability it gets is something called Iron Skin, which effectively adds a level of armor that works as a third life bar in addition to the usual regenerating shields and health. Rhino also has a power buff (a roar) and a charging attack which I'm finding hard to aim, but the Iron Skin alone is ensuring that I'm surviving most battles so far. Now that I've pushed him up to level 15, I've equipped a few more mods to make him invincible, chiefly Redirection (shield boost) and Steel Fiber (armor boost). I also recently acquired the Thief's Wit mod which kindly highlights not only all the resource nodes and breakable chests on the mini-map, but scannable items like Cephalons - something I'd frequently pass by without realizing, but because they've already been a requirement for a relay junction once I'm loath to miss any more.

While I end this session with a level 15 Rhino, already halfway to max without a third warframe to replace it, I'm satisfied that the game does indeed feel very different with a new character. The Rhino's far less melee-proficient and far more hardy, so I'm finding that I can handle battles with whatever weaponry I have on hand rather than relying on blitzing everything with melee and the Exalted Blade ability. It's given my primary and secondary weapons more of a workout, and I've finally maxed my first weapons in both categories. It's enough motivation I need to keep this feature running for another month at least.

Introducing... the Warframe Progress-o-meter!

For the sake of any interested parties, as well as my own validation that I'm making any sort of progress in this game, I'm going to start tracking all the warframes and weapons I've either mastered, currently have equipped, or have waiting in the wings. I'm aware that I should pursue the Hek shotgun next, but if you all have any other attainable recommendations suitable for someone at Mastery Rank 4 let me have 'em.

(Italics indicate a weapon/warframe that I've mastered, or a planet I've fully explored. I'll probably sell anything I've mastered first if I need to make space.)

On the next episode of Seeking Warframe & Fortune: A brief staring contest with the Void. I'm certain it'll break first.

Great read as always mento. Yeah the archwing Pursuit missions are by far the worst when it comes to Archwing. With the archwings you eventually want to get an archwing launcher segment that will allow you use the archwing in the open world (Plains of Eidolon and Orb Vallis).

know you are a ways aways from Jupiter.

A note on announced planet changes forthcoming (at the time of writing). Coming next week to PC and "soon" to consoles is a new update called the Jovian Concard. IIncluded in the update is a "Remaster" for Jupiter. Along with graphical changes to Jupiter they will be adding new mission types and new enemies to Jupiter.

Great read this post deserves more traction. As far as Phobos go's I liked the redesign they did 3 a 4 years back they implemented the Hybrid land air design cause people where at the time ignoring the archwing all together, with people just straight up skipping the resource heavy quest at the time, before they did map/world 2.0 a few years backs they waren't giant relays blocking your pad so you could speed to the last world by completing every node in it's pad. As for the third Warframe i would recommend Draco (he's my favorite) it's a dragon that get's stronger the more you hit him although he's mod heavy you need a lot off rare mods for him to be good. So i think ember might be a better pick World on Fire a skill witch turns every enemy into a flaming pillar is great for farming early stuff for resources. Also Nekro would be a nice 3 option a other farming warframe he has a skill that makes dead enemy's drop loot again.