User:Rastanari/Early Gear & Syndicates

There are a few key pieces of Gear beginning players should acquire and equip as soon as possible. In addition, a Syndicate should be joined as soon as possible as well.

Ciphers
A Cipher gives players the ability to instantly solve puzzles such as those found in Rescue and Spy missions. Ciphers are an extremely valuable aid later in the game as puzzles become increasingly difficult to solve.

Cipher Blueprints are very cheap to buy on the Market and since the blueprint is reusable only one needs to be bought. However, while the cipher blueprint is cheap to buy, ciphers are relatively expensive to make, at least in bulk.

As soon as the resources are available, beginning players are strongly advised to buy a cipher blueprint, make at least 5 of them in the Foundry and equip them on their Gear wheel. Later in the game players should plan to have at least 10 equipped at all times, with 15 or 20 being optimal.

Codex Scanner
A Codex Scanner is a device that allows players to scan various entities and objects in the game in order to add that information to their Codex.

Codex scanners are relatively cheap and be bought directly from the Market in lots of 25. There is no blueprint for them. After purchase, players should equip them on their gear wheel.

Beginning players are advised to keep at least 50 codex scanners on them at all times, buying more as needed. A maximum of 100 can be equipped at any given time.

Vapor Specter
A Specter is a temporary companion players can invoke to help them through particularly difficult missions in the game.

Specters are most valuable when, for example, a player is finding it very difficult to solo a particular mission for planet progression and other players do not seem to be available to group with for a Squad. Under those conditions, a Specter can help players complete that mission in solo mode and move forward with game and planet progression.

Specter Blueprints are not available on the Market but are dropped by enemies in the game. They are not common drops but as beginning players progress through the game they should build up a serviceable number of Specter blueprints in their Inventory.

While a single Specter Blueprint will build multiple Specters, these blueprints are moderately expensive to build in the Foundry. Players are advised to use Specters rarely, only in relatively extreme conditions for a particularly difficult mission.

Note unless they are killed by taking too much damage from enemies, Specters will last for the entirety of a mission, even if the player dies and must revive during the mission.

The first Specter Blueprint that will drop for players is one that builds 10 Vapor Specters. Players are strongly recommended to build this blueprint as soon as they have the resources required and equip the Vapor Specters on their Gear wheel.

When building a Specter blueprint, players are prompted to assign a warframe and primary, secondary and melee weapons to the Specter. Players are advised to assign their highest damage-dealing warframe and weapons to these slots to make the Specter most effective. The Specter will use each and every ability of the warframe assigned when in combat.

Also note that the ranks of the warframe and weapons assigned to a Specter do not matter, nor do any mods attached to those items. A Specter's abilities, levels and capabilities will scale to match the level of the mission in which it is summoned.

A Sniper Rifle is particularly effective when assigned to a Specter, as the Specter never misses.

Syndicates
Once beginning players have reached Mastery Rank 3 they are given access to the Syndicate panel on their Orbiter which can be found to the left of the Navigation panel in the front of the ship.

The Warframe Wiki provides a very good introduction to each Syndicate and players are strongly advised to familiarize themselves with these organizations and join a Faction Syndicate as soon as possible.

Note, however, that earning positive reputation with one Faction Syndicate also earns negative reputation with two other Faction Syndicates, so players should only join a Faction Syndicate they like or one that provides a particular benefit they want.

After joining a Faction Syndicate players must then apply one of the Sigils for that Syndicate to their warframe and, indeed, should apply that Sigil to all their warframes. Applying a Faction Sigil to each of their warframes will allow players to automatically earn reputation with that Faction as they complete missions when progressing through the game.