Orb Vallis

 The Orb Vallis is an open-world region on Venus. This land of duality, where cold tundras made by Orokin terraformation devices mix with the original harsh Venusian atmosphere, is home to multiple Corpus outposts and colonies, among them the debt-internment colony of Fortuna. It was introduced in on November 8, 2018 on PC.



General
The Orb Vallis is a massive expansive area featuring various fields, hills, caves, and bodies of water in a snowy climate. Unlike other mission nodes, Orb Vallis is not procedurally generated using Tiles, but is instead a massive static map with unique features.

Orb Vallis is accessible through two different mission nodes on the Star Chart on Venus. The first is the central hub of the Vallis – Fortuna – where the player will spawn in a plaza located within the underground city. The second mission node will spawn the player directly in front of the elevator that connects Fortuna to the Vallis.

Each server instance of Fortuna can hold up to 50 players within the town, however players can only exit onto the Vallis in the standard 2-4 man squads or Solo. Each map is considered its own separate mission instance, and will not be shared between squads.

Entering into the Vallis from either Fortuna or directly from the Star Chart will create a new mission instance of the Vallis, with procedural generation applying to objects like resource spawn locations and mineral veins, as well as assigning a random Challenge.

Progress on the Vallis is saved under the following conditions:
 * Upon returning to Fortuna through the elevator at any point, with the mission concluding and all progress saved.
 * On returning to the player's Orbiter via the escape menu.
 * All progress is automatically saved on completing Bounties or Incursions.
 * Fishing, Mining, or using consumables results in a specific save of that content (fish caught, minerals extracted, consumables used).

Fortuna
Fortuna is an underground settlement that is home to the Solaris, a population of mechanically-augmented people who work as debt-slaves for the Corpus under Nef Anyo to bring the ancient Orokin terraformation devices on Venus back online. This town serves as the central hub for Orb Vallis, where players can interact with various NPC's to purchase items from shops, or accept quests to be accomplished out in the Vallis.

Upon arriving on Fortuna, players are deposited on a plaza by the center of the settlement near a large artificial river of coolant. From there, players can exit Fortuna onto the greater Vallis via a large door on the town's edge, leading to an elevator that will bring players up to the Vallis outside. The elevator acts as a loading screen, and players will be unable to exit out the other end until the loading is complete.

Archwing
Mobility in Orb Vallis is granted through the use of Archwings, which the Tenno can use to fly around and reach locales and objectives faster, as well as engage in combat against enemies both on the ground and in the air. Players are able to use all of their Archwing abilities in combat, however they will use their normal ground weapons instead of Arch-gun and Arch-melee weapons. Players can exit their Archwings by performing melee attacks (default ), or returning to Orb Vallis' gates. Additionally, players can be knocked out of Archwing by sufficiently powerful concussive attacks, such as from Corpus surface-to-air heat seeking missiles.

Unlike in specialized Archwing tilesets, players use their Archwings by calling them down using an Archwing Launcher item in their Gear menu.

To craft Archwing Launchers players must have an Archwing Launcher Segment installed on the Foundry. The Archwing Launcher Segment can either be researched in the Tenno Lab of a Clan Dojo, or purchased off the Market for.

K-Drive
On land, K-Drives act as highly mobile skateboards, and can also perform advanced maneuvers called tricks such as grinding on surfaces or air flips. While the player cannot use their weapons on a K-Drive, certain mods allow the K-Drive to damage enemies. Players can exit their K-Drives by performing melee attacks (default ), pressing the 'use'-key (default ), or returning to Orb Vallis' gates. Additionally, players can be knocked out of K-Drive by ramming into a solid surface. If the latter occurs, the players' body will ragdoll about, keeping the momentum from the K-Drive.

Players use their K-Drives by calling them down using an K-Drive Launcher item in their Gear menu, obtained from compeleting the Vox Solaris quest.

Scattered around Orb Vallis are Ventkids K-Drive races which, along with performing tricks, rewards standing with them.

Cold & Warm Cycle
Orb Vallis features a real-time cycle which sees the map seamlessly transition between cold and warm temperatures in Orb Vallis. The weather cycle consists of a period of Cold weather, followed by Freezing, followed by another tranitionary period of Cold, and finally one period of Warm weather before starting anew. Each of these four peroids lasts 6 minutes and 40 seconds. All players will experience the same weather at any particular time in Orb Vallis.

The weather determines the type of fish and wildlife that players can encounter on the fields.

Spear Fishing
Orb Vallis feature flowing coolant, acting as bodies of water, which house a wide variety of robotic lifeforms. Players can engage in spearfishing to catch various servofish, which can then be used as resources to craft various Solaris United items or gifted to The Business to increase standing with the Solaris United faction. Though, mechanic for spearfishing servofish is a little bit different from typical spearfishing in Plains of Eidolon.

Conservation
Wildlife on Orb Vallis are endangered and The Business wishes to preserve them. Players can track creatures, use Echo-Lures to draw them out, and Tranq Rifles to subdue them, rewarding Solaris United standing.

Mining
Another means of getting resources in the plains is through mining; players can find mineral veins, visible as bright glowing marks, scattered throughout the landscape, which can then be mined with a dedicated cutting tool. Ores and Gems are used in a variety of crafting recipes, and uncut gems can also be traded in to Smokefinger to increase standing with the Solaris United faction.

Bounties
Bounties are randomly generated quests in which the player completes a series of short objectives from Eudico. Upon completion of a set of missions, the player will be randomly receive a reward from the reward pool.

Solaris United Agents appear outside of Fortuna and provides bounties, allowing players to embark without needing to return to Fortuna. In addition, players can capture Corpus bases to spawn an agent there.

Bases
The corpus have many bases scattered around Orb Vallis. Many of the smaller bases can be captured by the tenno and subsequently serve as a launching point for future missions.

The following bases have an orange beam above them as well as the Corpus Systems required for the capturing process: In order to capture a base, kill enemies in the area of one such capturable base. These enemies have a chance to drop a datamass which can be inserted into the Corpus Systems to begin the capture process. The Corpus Systems must then be defended for two and a half minutes. After that, several corpus enemies must be killed. At this point, the base is surrounded by a blue objective marker, the beam will become blue in color and a Solaris United Agent will appear.
 * Transit Depot
 * The Pearl
 * Grow Site
 * Temple Fabrication
 * Reflector Control
 * Central Maintenance
 * Orokin Dig Site

If the player is unsuccessful in defending the Corpus Systems, they will be destroyed and a message reading Abandoned Objective will appear. Any subsequent attempts to capture that base will result in the Abandoned Objective message appearing immediately after inserting the datamass. If the players leave the area while the base capture is in progress, they will receive an Abandoning Mission warning and accompanying countdown. Once the countdown is finished the Solaris United will no longer be able to claim the base. However, the Corpus Systems can still be damaged. If the Corpus Systems are destroyed, inserting a fresh datamass will once again cause an immediate failure.

The Solaris United Agent has three bounties to choose from these are unique and static for each base in the Orb Vallis. These bounties match the level of the bounty selected from Eudico when initially entering Orb Vallis. If no bounty was selected then the bounties found in bases are all of tier 1. Each bounty at the base has its own set of bounty sub-missions which are randomly selected when the bounties refresh. Capturing the same base again before the bounty reset will give the same set of bounties as previously. The rewards and refresh timers from these bounties are identical to those given to us by Eudico. When the players complete one of these bounties the host will be unable to select that bounty again, however other players can select bounties freely. If, however, the players fail a bounty, it will still be available.

If the players wish to capture a new base, they can collect a new datamass and insert it into the Corpus Systems of the desired base. A successful capture will leave the new base in the hands of Solaris United but the previous base will be returned to Corpus control. If the capture attempt is unsuccessful the old base will remain with Solaris United.

When Eudico's bounties refresh, if Solaris United owns a base in Orb Vallis, a datamass will appear and the tenno will be prompted to either capture the current base or capture a new base. Doing so will refresh the bounty rewards to match Eudico's current rewards.

Caves
Orb Vallis has several caves which players can enter, which can contain items of interest such as minerals or bodies of water for fishing. Many of these caves are small spaces that can have multiple openings that players can go through to access the cave.

Aside drop chance from enemies spawned in certain bases, various Toroids can also be found hidden as pickable loots, similar to Ayatan Sculpture, in many caves throughout Orb Vallis.

Unlike Plains of Eidolon bounties, objective caches for Cache Recovery missions in Orb Vallis bounties always appear in the caves.

Caves that have been discovered by players will be permanently marked on the minimap by a white jagged triangular symbol.

Terraforming Towers
There are several Orokin-made towers scattering throughout Orb Vallis. Some of them, e.g. the one near center of the map close to Fortuna's entrance, have coolant flowing down from the top.

The towers serve no other purpose than aesthetic and lore. However, players need to use them as starting platforms to do the challenge, Stay Frosty, which requires players to ride on the K-Drive and fall into the coolant from 275 meters of height.

There is, at least, one tower in complete broken state, showing hollow cavity with some kind of organic growth inside. This organic growth looks similar to what can be seen inside the bridge near Orokin Tower of the Unum in Cetus. This somewhat grotesque organic matter hidding inside perfectly elegant Orokin architecture seems to signify the concept of deception many characters percieve when they first personally encounter the Orokin.

Corpus
The Corpus, comprised of Terra units, are the primary enemy faction in Orb Vallis, and can be found in either small patrol groups roaming the snowy peaks, or stationed at one of several outposts and firebases they have set up in the area. They are armed with powerful weaponry, such as the Arca Plasmor and the Opticor. In addition, the Jackal, Raptor, and Hyena, Corpus proxies that served as bosses on various planets, are all present in their numbers.

The Corpus units can spawn at Orb Vallis in different ways, either via Condor Dropships, Coildrives, or descending onto the surface from a beam of light. Both the air and land vehicles used by the Corpus on Orb Vallis are vulnerable to attack and can be destroyed before they deploy the units they transport. If a sufficiently large patrol is engaged in combat, the Corpus units will deploy Reinforcement Beacons that will signal for reinforcements, which then will proceed to spawn via the aforementioned options. Up to four beacons can be planted at a time, with each beacon raising the player's Alert Level which raises the intensity of spawned enemies. The beacon will maintain Alert Level and continue to call in additional enemies until they are destroyed or the player disengages from combat.

The bases owned by the Corpus can be captured. An enemy in a base may drop a datamass, which can be inserted into a terminal. This begins a process where the player must defend the terminal from waves of Corpus. When the defense is complete, the base will be liberated and a Solaris United Agent will appear to offer Bounties without the need to return to Fortuna.

Raknoid/Orbs
These spider-like proxies roam Orb Vallis. They come in various sizes, with those of monstrous size referred to as Orbs.

There is currently no way to combat the Orbs.

Trivia

 * According to Steve Sinclair, the creative director of WARFRAME, the visible change between the day-night cycle of Orb Vallis is caused by an orbiting terraforming reflector.

Bugs

 * Numbers of PC players have problem with Vallis Spelunker challenge. The number of caves explored would stuck at below 30, even if the players have unlocked all 30 of them in the map. This makes the challenge and its Steam achievement unobtainable.
 * Animal footprints appearing during Conservation Hunt and ore veins are occasionally obscured by other textures. This makes it difficult to track animals or, sometimes, render the ores unmineable.

Patch History
Los valles del Orbe