Warframe's anticipated space combat and PVE ship combat expansion dropped on PC Thursday night as part of the announcement at the game awards.

To Begin Empyrean

In order to access Empyrean content you must own an Archwing. This done by completing the Archwing Story Quest.

There are two ways to get in on Empyrean:

Construct your own Railjack:

To get the most out of the Empyrean update you need to construct your sigma series Railjack. The crew ship that you and 3 other players will be manning in Empyrean's new space missions. However, in order to construct your own railjack it will require you to be part of Clan (might I suggest the Giant Bomb Clan?) with a constructed Dry Dock area and the "Railjack Cephalon" Blueprint researched. Once the Railjack Cephalon is crafted, you will be introduced to "Cephalon Cy" who will guide you through the Rising Tide quest and steps to obtain your own Railjack.

Note to members of the Giant Bomb Warframe PC Clan:

The Railjack Dry Docks can be found by heading the Giant Bomb Heavy INC dojo. Once in the dojo use fast travel option "Dry Docks" or our custom fast travel point "The Lucadeer Lodge" named by our very own moderator @marino. You will be teleported to the Dry Dock where you will be able to find terminals that allow to start the Railjack Cephalon Research or configure your railjack once you have completed its construction.

Note: that resources and materials required to build the 6 parts needed to construct the Railjack will require quite an investment in resources. Newer players should seek the second alternative discussed below:

Join a player hosting their Railjack:

When playing in squad, the Railjack of the player who is hosting the session is used. This allows players without their own Railjack to still participate in Railjack. Players that are part a squad will still earn experience, talent points (Intrinsics) and loot (Resources and "Avonics" upgrades) that they can then put towards to their personal railjack and even if they do not presently own their own railjack. However, players will only be able to upgrade or spend and upgrade their player "Intrinsics" the if they have their own Railjack.

Railjack Mechnaics:

If players owns their own Railjack many customization upgrade options will be open to them that utilize the skill points and resources acquired through the railjack missions.

Players will unlock "Avonics" that improve your Railjack. There are 4 categories of Avonics:

STATISTICS: Shows the accumulated stats for the Railjack after all the Avionics, Components, and Armaments are installed.

BATTLE: Onboard systems, unique to the Railjack. These work like Warframe Abilities, but are Railjack specific.

INTEGRATED: Passive stat increased for the Railjacks weapons, shields, and more.

TACTICAL: Real time utility Avionics for heated battle decisions.

Gallery

As player perform tasks on the railjack and complete missions they will earn skill points called "Intrinsic Points". These can be spent at the Clan Dry Dock Railjack Terminal (Railjack configuration screen) to unlock Intrinsics. These are basically individual player Railjack Talents or Perks that grant the player abilities whether you are on your own railjack or someone else's ship.

Each Intrinsic rank gained rewards the player with 1,500 Mastery points Ranking all four classes to rank 10 costs a total of 4092 Intrinsics and awards 60,000 Mastery Rank experience.

There are currently 3 "Houses" essentially Railjack Manufactors that Railjack equipment belong to that players will encounter when they find loot. Houses of Railjack COMPONENTS, ARMAMENTS, and AVIONICS (Lavan, Vidar, and Zetki) that offer different strengths and weaknesses, that are meant to allow you customize the Railjack even more.

The Railjack itself, is armed with 3 weapon placements: Guns in the pilot position accessible a the player piloting. Two side mounted guns: 2 players can each take control of. The third weapon is a heavy artillery weapon located just below the main bridge of ship. Firing the artillery gun requires Dome energy.

The RESEARCH console in your Dry Dock allows access to different ARMAMENTS and COMPONENTS towards your Railjack in your Clan. The Fabrication requirements are per player, Research requirements are per Clan.

For more information about the Railjack check out the official patch notes: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1151428-empyrean-update-27/

Once you embark on a Railjack mission currently the mission consist of procedurally generated levels with Grineer enemy fighters and crew ships you and your crew must work together to take down. Your crew will need to split into roles.

Generally:

Pilot: 1 Player Steers and maneuvers the Railjack they want to try to dodge and avoid direct fire from enemies especially from Crew Ships that can tear up a Railjack.

Archwing - Away Crew : 1 or 2 players out in space with their Archwing they are responsible for taking down fighters, and boarding and destroying on coming enemy crew ships. Some missions will require that the away team infiltrate grineer gallons and stations (bases) to sabotage their reactors or steal enemy intel.

Ship Crew: As the health and shields of the railjack depletes from taking fire, this will cause ruptures and fire to form on the ship. Revolite ("Repair Juice") a resource needed to perform repairs will need to be periodically replenished by players by using the Railjack's on board Forge.

Some of the scenarios that the engineering will need to deal with include:

• Catastrophic Hull Breach: Failure to repair in 1 min fails the mission. Expect to see this a lot. Costs 30 Revolite to repair (3x from normal)

• Bomb: Rarely planted by boarding parties when left alone. Results in instant mission failure. Just a hacking minigame, no Revolite needed.

• Boarding Crew: Technically not a hazard - but will cause high damage along with Electricity, Fire, and Bomb hazards.

• Fire: Mild damage over time. Significant heat damage to nearby Tenno.

• Hull Breach: Lowers max health. Leave untreated if short on Revolite.

• Electricity: Slightly reduces Railjack shield capacity. Significant electric damage to nearby Tenno. Leave untreated if short on Revolite.

• Ice: Prevents certain doors from opening. Isn't much of a problem, can easily be left untreated.

(See reddit thread for tips)

These roles are not strictly defined. Avoid being too protective of crew positions. Everyone can help!

Here's a gameplay video of the @tbk@noizy@rapid from the Giant Bomb Warframe PC Clan doing an skirmish mission in the early levels of Railjack.

Note that this is only the initial release of Empyrean, The developers of Warframe have already expressed that they plans to continue to expand the features and mechanics of Empyrean in the near future in 2020. Features shown at TennoCon like Squad Link allowing your Railjack crew to work with a ground team with other players, and NPC Crew Members are coming.

Also, Warframe Empyrean released really hot on PC, there are various bugs atm. I fell out of exploding ship without Archwing equipped. Falling through space, STRANDED. But my squad with @dannyhibiki@thouddin did a Kerbel style rescue to get me! Record the whole experience below: