Kubrow

The Kubrow are a canine-like monotreme species (laying eggs instead of giving live birth) that originally served as companions and pets for the Orokin, and later as attack and guard animals for the Orokin elite. After the downfall of the Orokin, surviving Kubrow on Earth adapted and became feral with only the most aggressive and ferocious surviving. Recent DNA-altering technologies have been unearthed that can allow them to once again be domesticated to become loyal and protective companions to their new owner. However, this process leaves the domesticated animals riddled with degenerative genetic defects that must be constantly repaired. Intelligent and highly social, domesticated Kubrow also require regular interaction by those they have imprinted upon to remain at peak efficiency.

For the Tenno, a Kubrow can be a powerful and loyal ally, however they are limited to melee attacks, and require constant care and maintenance.

Variants

 * -|Huras Kubrow =


 * -|Raksa Kubrow =


 * -|Sahasa Kubrow =


 * -|Sunika Kubrow =

Obtaining a Kubrow
A player's first Kubrow pet can be acquired by doing the Howl of the Kubrow Quest line, which provides the necessary equipment and resources to get a Kubrow, foremost among them being the Incubator segment from where most shipboard interaction with Kubrows take place.

To breed a Kubrow, players must first have a functional Incubator, and acquire a Kubrow Egg and an Incubator Power Core. The former can be found by destroying Kubrow Dens on Earth, while the second has to be crafted in the Foundry; alternatively, both can be bought with at the Market. Additionally, a player must have an empty Stasis Pod before a Kubrow can be bred.

There are two options available when breeding a Kubrow. The first and most common is random breeding, where the Egg is left to incubate by itself, resulting in a Kubrow with a random type, gender and appearance. For better control of a Kubrow's characteristics, a player can choose to use Genetic Code Templates, which contain another Kubrow's genetic code - an "imprint" - that will be cloned unto the resulting Kubrow. Two Imprints are required in order to breed a Kubrow in this manner, and will be consumed upon use.

It takes 48 hours for a Kubrow to be incubated, from being an egg to becoming a conscious Kubrow pup. After this, a Kubrow needs to mature for another two daily log-ins before they can finally be chosen as a companion and taken into missions. While a still-maturing Kubrow cannot participate in missions, they can still be interacted with, and experience genetic degradation.

Attention: Currently only one Kubrow Egg can be in the player's inventory. If an Egg has already been collected the second Egg will be impossible to pick up and must be left behind. To continue collecting Kubrow Eggs, the first egg must be placed into the Kubrow Incubator (Requires an active Kubrow slot).

Maintenance
Kubrow have two parameters that must be maintained in order to ensure that they perform to their best during missions, namely Genetic Stability and Loyalty, both which can be viewed in the Incubator.

Genetic Stability refers to the Kubrow's physical vitality, which affects its maximum health. A newly hatched Kubrow starts out with 100% Genetic Stability, giving it a +100% bonus to its maximum health; a Kubrow with 150 base health will have 300 health at 100% stability. Their Genetic Stability degrades by 10% every 24 hours, which reduces the amount of bonus health and even reduce their maximum health beyond its base if left alone for too long. The Kubrow will eventually die if its Genetic Stability drops to 0%. This degradation can be countered by using DNA Stabilizers available from the Market, which restores lost Genetic Stability by 40% per use.

Loyalty refers to the Kubrow's affection toward the player, which affects its combat performance. Kubrow start out with 100% Loyalty, which provides a +100% bonus to its base attack damage. Loyalty decays by 20% on days the player does not log in, and decays by 40% when the Kubrow dies in combat. Loyalty does not decay if a Kubrow is killed after their owner has been killed as well. Lost Loyalty can be restored by using the Interact function on the Incubator, where the Tenno plays with their Kubrow to restore their bond, giving 20% Loyalty per interaction. While players can interact with their Kubrow as many times as they wish, Loyalty can only be restored up to 3 times every 24 hours.

If a player is expected to be away for long periods from the game, or wants to breed another Kubrow, they can place their currently active Kubrow in Stasis. This clears the Kubrow from the Incubator, and keeps them in a Stasis Pod (which can be bought for 10 each) that prevents genetic degradation and loyalty decay. While Kubrows can be brought in and out of Stasis at will, it takes 3 hours for a Kubrow kept in stasis to become active.

Mods
Currently, all Kubrow Mods are dropped by Feral Kubrows.
 * Bite: Increases Critical chance and Critical damage
 * Fast Deflection: Increases Shield regeneration rate.
 * Link Armor: Shares owner's Armor with his/her Kubrow.
 * Link Health: Shares owner's maximum Health with his/her Kubrow.
 * Link Shields: Shares owner's maximum Shields with his/her Kubrow.
 * Loyal Companion: Increases the duration of the Kubrow's bleedout phase.
 * Maul: Increases the Kubrow's melee damage.
 * Pack Leader: Heals the Kubrow by a percent of damage done by its master's melee strikes.
 * Scavenge: Allows the Kubrow to unlock lockers.

Kubrow Colors and Coats
Information is subject to change upon release of new colors and coats. All Colors and Coats can be mixed  randomly together.

Accessories
Nai-Zhen Collar: A common adornment used to distinguish a Kubrow that is loyal to its master. A Nai-Zhen collar will be given to all of a player's Kubrows after completing the final section of the Howl of the Kubrow quest.

Comparison to Sentinels
The following comparison assumes that the player possesses all available mods for both Sentinels and Kubrow.

Advantages:
 * Much better survivability.
 * Much larger maximum hit points.
 * Much larger maximum shields.
 * High armor rating.
 * Capable of self regeneration.
 * Takes AoE damage almost separately to the owner.
 * Immune to Orokin laser traps.
 * High single-target attack power.
 * Attacks enemies independently, even those the player cannot attack due to intervening obstacles.
 * Can be revived if downed.
 * Variant-specific abilities are used more extensively, such as Raksa Kubrow's Protect over Sentinel's Guardian and Huras Kubrow's Stalk over Shade Sentinel's Ghost.

Disadvantages:
 * Expensive maintenance, requiring daily upkeep to maintain peak performance.
 * Highly dependent on the player's equipped Warframe stats and mods for toughness.
 * Effectiveness restricted by terrain.
 * Short range melee-only attacks prevent it from attacking flying enemies, and reduces its effectiveness against ranged enemies.
 * Difficult to acquire, requiring numerous rare resources to create.
 * Type of Kubrow acquired is random without using Genetic Code Template imprints.
 * If killed after being downed, will not be resurrected if player uses a Revive.
 * Melee only deals damage and cannot be upgraded with elemental mods.
 * Slow at attacking and switching targets, making them less effective against groups of enemies.
 * Slow attack speed makes its DPS lower than that of a fully modded sentinel weapon.
 * Suffers damage from Environmental Hazards such as fire, as they normally touch the floor like players and their ground-borne enemies.

Bugs

 * Apparently, Kubrows that zip-line along with their masters appear to be floating below the cable while being frozen in mid-air.

Trivia

 * It can be assumed that Kubrow pets are hatched from genetically modified feral Kubrow eggs.
 * Though we never see the genetic manipulation of the egg, it would be impossible to simply have a modern feral Kurbow egg hatch into variants of Orokin Kubrows without some sort of genetic template to reverse the evolution.
 * An Orokin Kubrow contained in a stasis cell found in the Clan Dojo's Orokin Lab could explain where the genetic templates were produced from.
 * This could also explain the reasoning behind the DNA degradation.
 * Many of the first batch of Kubrows who matured after Update 14's release were inadvertently killed permanently due to a bug during the quest to obtain their collar. In the notes for the hotfix which fixed the bug, DERebecca posted, "501 of the first cloned Kubrow have been lost, but never forgotten. 20/07/2014." Those who lost a Kubrow from the bug received; the Kubrow Start Kit and a full set of Kubrow Mods, a new Kubrow Egg, a Kubrow Incubator, Kubrow Food, a Kubrow Stasis Slot, a Kubrow blank Trait Print, and 10 x Kubrow Mods.
 * Ordis has a particular distaste for Kubrows, frequently expressing it before correcting himself.