Syndicates

Syndicates are groups of interest operating throughout the Origin System separate from the Corpus, Grineer, and the Tenno. These factions have their own ideologies and goals regarding the fate of the system, with some inevitably in disagreement with another syndicate. The Syndicate console on the Landing Craft is unlocked once a player has reached Mastery Rank 3. Syndicates can be accessed earlier from a Relay through the Syndicate representatives there.

Players can choose to perform various quests, missions and alerts for a particular syndicate, raising the player's affinity with that group and earning access to unique offerings. Raising familiarity with one group, however can raise the anger of another group, and even lead them to launch hits against a player, so choosing which syndicate to gain standing with is important.

There are currently 8 known Syndicates, each having their own unique themes and goals. Every syndicate has a particular relationship with other syndicates, favorable or otherwise. Earning reputation with a particular group also earns reputation to a group they have favorable relationships with, but decreases reputation with another group that they oppose.

Ranking
To advance through Syndicate rankings, players require Standing earned by wearing the syndicates' respective Sigils can be used to rank up, which requires obtaining the maximum possible standing at the current rank, and a sacrifice requested by a syndicate such as credits and resources. All of the Standing earned will be spent in the rank up. For every promotion players can pick a gift from the Syndicate. Promotion to rank 4 requires blueprint. Promotion to rank 5 requires complete item.

Demotion can occur when standing goes below the minimum value for the current rank. This can be caused by aiding an opposed or enemy syndicate. Since Update 16, Syndicates no longer require multiple sacrifices if players drop from a higher tier to a lower one. Players will only need to make one sacrifice when moving between tiers.

Standing with a syndicate can be negative, which occurs if a player has been performing favors for an opposing or enemy syndicate. There is a lower limit on how much negative standing a player can have with a syndicate, currently capped at -44,000 standing. A player can achieve two negative rankings within a Syndicate, should players wish to regain favor with a particular Syndicate: they must earn Standings for them, then provide sacrifices in order to escape from any negative ranks they have attained.

Death Squads
When a Tenno has negative favor with a Syndicate, they are considered hated by that group, and the Syndicate in question will begin to send Death Squads consisting of a group of elite Eximus troops to hunt down said Tenno. Similar to Assassins like the Stalker, Death Squads can randomly appear in a mission, and will announce their presence via flickering lights, and a declaration from the Syndicate leader, though Death Squads will arrive immediately after a single transmission. Death Squad arrivals can be differentiated from normal Assassin arrivals by the entire squad being covered in a red light. Unlike regular Assassins, Death Squads do not have Death Marks and players do not receive messages from the opposing Syndicate as a warning, so players have no way of identifying whether they are currently eligible to be attacked by a Death Squad besides negative syndicate reputation.

Notably, killing off a Death Squad does nothing to discourage the syndicate that sent them, and has no impact upon your standing either way - even if you are allied with the faction that sent the Death Squad, you can freely assist teammates who have teams sent after them without risking your own syndicate standing.

At Rank 1 of disfavor, Syndicates will send Eximus Squads, which consist of 8 Eximus units. If a player reaches Rank 2, Eximus Platoons will be sent in instead, consisting of a much larger number of units. These Eximus units have significantly more health compared to those found in normal missions, and some may have immunity to certain crowd control effects like Chaos.

Upon death, each Eximus unit has a small chance to drop a specter blueprint of their respective type.

Syndicate Alerts
Syndicate Alerts are special Alert missions unlocked by attaining Rank 1 in a particular syndicate. Similar to regular Alerts, they act as an alternative mission on a node. In contrast, however, missions offered by Syndicates have a fixed expiration time of 24 hours, synchronized with the daily reset. The reward for completing this variation of the Alert is a large amount of standing in the Syndicate providing the mission (as well as the normal Standing changes in related Syndicates). This standing is affected by the Sigil worn; it also is independent of the daily limit, not contributing to nor being hindered by it. The Standing gained through Affinity during the mission is independent of the declared end reward. As Tenno are promoted in a Syndicate, the Alerts advertised increase in Standing rewards - but in difficulty as well.

Syndicate Alerts can be identified by their mission icons being represented by the Syndicate's emblem. Like with Quests and Alerts, Syndicate Alerts have their own tab in the World State panel in the Navigation Console of the Liset, which can be used to check for active alerts.

Three Alerts per Syndicate will be available each day. If the node an Alert is on has not been unlocked, it will be unavailable for the player until otherwise. Note that Tenno can receive Syndicate Alerts from multiple Syndicates simultaneously, with the normal requirement of Rank 1 in each said Syndicate.

Unlike regular Alerts, Syndicate Alerts can have Operatives, which are combat-capable NPC's representing the Syndicates that accompany the Tenno during the mission. Scaled to the level of their enemies, they have substantial health and shields, and wield the signature weapon of their Syndicate in higher level Alerts.

As a final note, Syndicate missions can and will ignore regular enemy spawn listings for the tileset. This can lead to encountering Hellions in the Grineer Asteroid set, and Anti MOAs outside of the Corpus Gas City. In addition Assassins will not spawn in Syndicate missions.

Syndicate Medallions
Syndicate Alerts will spawn up to 8 Syndicate Medallions (sometimes fewer due to level layout) throughout the map, which can be gathered and redeemed in the Syndicate's Relay enclave for Standing. Like the alert rewards themselves, they do not count towards the daily Standing limit.

To be able to find the medallions, players must have favorable standing with the syndicate that offered the Alert.

Offerings
Syndicates offer various items to players who achieve a certain rank. Each rank of offerings consists of Sigils and the items below. These items can be acquired through spending Standing points. Upon achieving the next rank, Syndicates will reward players an item of their choice of that new rank. However, Syndicate exclusive weapons cannot be chosen as the free offering, and re-obtaining the rank after demotion will not allow you to choose another reward.

Rank 1
At Rank 1 in a Syndicate, Tenno can purchase Eximus Specters. 1) Will provide significant increases in shield recharge time and recharge rates, along with a bonus 200 shield when connected. Allies will also receive immediate shield bonuses during each pulse by the Eximus regardless of the state of their shields. It is also armed with a laser rifle similar to the one on a Scavenger Drone. 2) Eximus of this type have no benefits other than generally being meat shields. 3) Although being an Ancient Healer, it does not have the normal damage reduction aura of normal Eximus Healers of this type.

Rank 2
At Rank 2, Syndicates can offer a Syndicate Void Key Pack consisting of 3 random Void Keys for 25,000 Standing. Two of the keys will be random Tower I or Tower II keys, with the 3rd key guaranteed to be either a random Tower III or Tower IV key.

Rank 3
At Rank 3, Tenno can purchase Large Team Bonus Consumables, which are reusable 10-pack blueprints.

Rank 4
At Rank 4, Tenno can purchase Weapon Augment Mods, which are mods that are exclusive to an individual weapon. These mods usually have greater effects than mods of similar function, and may sometimes add unique functionality to a weapon. Equipping a Weapon Augment mod will also make the weapon earn Syndicate Points converted from any affinity that weapon earns, which fills up a gauge that shows up beside the weapon's ammo counter. When enough Syndicate Points are collected, the gauge will reset and the weapon will immediately release a special effect in battle, combining a radial elemental damage attack, a temporary stat buff, and a stat restore effect.

Rank 5
At Rank 5, each Syndicate sells a selection of Warframe Augment Mods, which are mods exclusive to individual Warframes that modify a particular Warframe ability in unique ways. Each Warframe is favored by two different Syndicates.

Special Syndicate Weapons also become available at this rank, which are modified versions of existing weapons with altered stats and innate Syndicate effects identical to those provided by Weapon Augment Mods. Syndicate weapons can be traded between players, but only when the weapons are previously unused, unranked and unmodified with Forma or Orokin Catalysts.

Finally, unique decorative Syndicate Syandanas can be purchased at this rank. Syndicate Syandanas have energy colors that glow brighter each time a particular Syandana achieves an in-mission condition specific to that Syandana.

Tips

 * Red Veil, New Loka, and The Perrin Sequence are non-hostile towards each other. Steel Meridian, Arbiters of Hexis, and Cephalon Suda also share this relationship, which means you can boost relations with either of those sets of 3 freely without worrying about losing relations drastically.
 * It should be possible to have rank 5 standing with a maximum of 4 syndicates by supporting 2 complementary syndicates, for example: Using Cephalon Suda Sigil until it and Arbiters of Hexis are both Rank 5, then using Steel Meridian Sigil until both it and Red Veil are both Rank 5. Supporting any other faction will reduce standing with at least one of the 4 you have chosen, therefore it is much harder to have Rank 5 with more than 4 syndicates as it would require tedious micromanagement (as shown in the table below).
 * New Loka and Red Veil are another example.


 * Supporting a combination of various Syndicates can raise your reputation with four or five groups. There will be some amount of conflict, reducing the efficiency.


 * The more affinity you get (from kills, assists and abilities), the more standing you will receive for your Syndicate while wearing the appropriate Sigil. Thus enemy level is also an important factor. You will receive less standing from 20 waves on a T1 Defense than 20 waves on a T4 Defense.
 * The best way of farming Standing Points seems to be from doing Interception missions since they seem to spawn a very high amount of Eximus (which give about ten times the affinity of a normal enemy on the same mission). The faster they get killed, the faster more spawn allowing you to obtain even more Standing Points. For instance, the Cerberus sector in Pluto can give you anywhere between 5,000 and 40,000 standing in four rounds (depending on the composition and loadout of a given Cell, along with the Standing Cap), and half of that amount for your allied Syndicate.

Bugs

 * There is a bug during Death Squad announcements where the Syndicate leader will appear on player screen, but without saying anything, and even if the player manages to defeat the Death Squad, the image of the Syndicate leader will still remain on player screen.
 * Also happens at the start of syndicate missions.
 * Sometimes the transmission portrait for the syndicate mission will show a background without the character there.
 * Syndicate death squads may sometimes not spawn or have a long delay when inside the spy terminal room. They will appear normally as soon as you leave the room however.

Media
Syndikate Syndicats