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. Syndicates are unlocked once a player reached Mastery Rank 3.

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

Standing
Standing is a special resource central to the Syndicates mechanic, which indicates a Tenno's favor with a particular syndicate. Players can begin earning Standing once they reach Mastery Rank 3.

Earning Standing with a syndicate is largely a matter of wearing that syndicate's Sigils, a cosmetic item received from Syndicates. To equip a Sigil, the player must go to the Regalia section of the Appearance tab in the Arsenal, select the location of the Sigil (Front or Back of the Warframe), and then select the desired Sigil. When wearing a syndicate's sigil, a portion of any affinity earned will be converted to Standing with that syndicate. Wearing higher tiered sigils do not grant additional standing over starting/lower tiered sigils. Additional Standing can also earned by performing special syndicate-exclusive missions.

Syndicates offerings can be purchased by spending Standing with that syndicate, essentially trading on "favors" that the Tenno has performed for that syndicate. Syndicate offerings are gated by rank within the syndicate, and syndicate rank is gained by achieving certain amounts of Standing. In essence, a Tenno can choose to spend earned Standing on lower-tier offerings, or save up Standing to gain access to higher-tier offerings. Unlocking ranks also requires sacrificing specific items requested by a syndicate in order to unlock the next rank.

Standing with a syndicate can be negative, which occurs if a Tenno has been performing favors for a rival syndicate said group dislikes. However, there is a lower limit on how much negative Standing a Tenno can have with a syndicate. Tenno can achieve two hated rankings within a Syndicate, denoting how much in disfavor said player is. Maximum negative Standing is -44.000 at the moment.

Death Squads
Syndicates with whom a Tenno has negative favor with is considered hated by that group, which will make them send Death Squads consisting of a large number of their elite Eximus troops to hunt down said Tenno. Similar to Assassins like 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 player being covered in a red light.

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. Apart from their sheer numbers, these Eximus units are identical to those found in normal missions.

Syndicate Alerts
Syndicate Alerts are special Alert missions unlocked by attaining Rank 1 in a particular syndicate. Like normal alerts these missions temporarily replace the mission for a particular node, however Syndicate missions have a regular schedule and duration, being 24-hour alerts that are given daily every 12:00 midnight (00:00hrs), Greenwich Mean Time. The primary reward for performing these alert missions is a large set amount of bonus Standing for the Syndicate that posted them, making them ideal for earning further Standing with that group. Also, the higher a player's rank within a particular syndicate, the larger the Standing rewards become. Finally, like normal Standing gain half of the bonus Standing rewards is also shared towards an allied syndicate, though negative Standing with opposing syndicates is increased as well. Note that the fixed Standing rewards for a particular alert is always tied to the syndicate that offered them regardless of the Sigil currently worn - ex. performing a Steel Meridian alert that rewards 230 Standing while wearing an Arbiters of Hexis Sigil will still give 230 Standing in favor of Steel Meridian.

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.

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.

Rank 1
At Rank 1 in a Syndicate, Tenno can purchase Eximus Specters.

Rank 2
At Rank 2, Tenno can purchase a set of five Tower IV Void Keys of one type of missions. Mission type depends on the Syndicate:
 * Tower IV Defense (Steel Meridian)
 * Tower IV Survival (Arbiters of Hexis)
 * Tower IV Mobile Defense (Cephalon Suda)
 * Tower IV Capture (The Perrin Sequence)
 * Tower IV Exterminate (Red Veil)
 * Tower IV Interception (New Loka)

Rank 3
At Rank 3, Tenno can purchase Large Team Bonus Consumables.

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. Syndicate points have their own individual names relating to the mod's affiliated faction, which includes:


 * Steel Meridian: Justice - Radial  damage and 25% Health Restore.
 * Arbiters of Hexis: Truth  - Radial damage and 25% Health Restore.
 * Cephalon Suda: Entropy  - Radial damage and 25% Energy Restore.
 * The Perrin Sequence: Sequence - Radial damage and 25% Shield Restore.
 * Red Veil: Blight - Radial damage and 25% Energy Restore.
 * New Loka: Purity - Radial damage and 25% Health Restore.

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.

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 Arbitors 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).


 * 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.


 * Ranking up in Syndicates to Rank One (5,000 standing) equates to about 6 games of any defence to at least wave 20. The longer you play the more standing you will receive for your Syndicate while wearing the appropriate Sigil. Enemy level also appears to be a contributing factor. If one plays a T1 defence to wave 20 then leaves then one will receive less Standing than if one plays a T4 defence and also gets to wave 20 then leaves.
 * The best way of farming Standing Points seems to be from doing Interception missions. The higher the rank of the enemies, the more Standing Points you will get. So Cerberus, Pluto can give you over 2600 Standing in one hour, in addition to 1300 for your allied Syndicate.
 * Recovering from negative ranks with a syndicate also requires sacrifices to be paid for each negative rank, said sacrifices are in the same order of price as positive ranks sacrifices, often including a Forma or even an Orokin Reactor alongside significant amounts of credits. Be very wary when you choose which syndicates you want to rank up but also which ones you want to have negative standings with. DE firmly said that choosing a syndicate is meant to have a deep impact on the game and therefore shouldn't be taken lightly.

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.