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A long range rifle capable of firing in space,the Imperator's versatility makes it an ideal weapon for space combat.

The Imperator is a heavy Archgun fully automatic rifle boasting high critical chance, fire rate, and magazine size.

Characteristics[]

  • This weapon deals primarily DmgImpactSmall64 Impact damage.
  • Innate Madurai Pol polarity.

Advantages over other Archgun (Atmosphere) weapons (excluding modular weapons):

  • Good ammo efficiency, generating relatively small cooldown for the Archgun Deployer for every second fired.
  • Short reload delay of 0.25 seconds in Archwing mode.
  • Normal Attack (wiki attack index 1)
    • High fire rate (16.700 attacks/sec)
    • High ammo max (800)
    • High magazine (200)

Disadvantages over other Archgun (Atmosphere) weapons (excluding modular weapons):

  • Tied with ImperatorVandal Imperator Vandal for the lowest base damage of all Archguns.
  • Archwing:
    • Has linear damage falloff from 100% to ?% from 100m to 350m target distance (distances are affected by Projectile Speed).
    • Slow ammo regeneration rate relative to magazine size.
  • Normal Attack (wiki attack index 1)
    • Below average crit chance (24.00%)
    • Very low status chance (12.00%)

Comparisons:

Acquisition[]

A built Imperator is automatically acquired upon claiming the Odonata Archwing from the Foundry during The Archwing quest.

Additional blueprints can be bought from Cephalon Simaris for ReputationLarge 100,000.


Manufacturing Requirements
📝 Edit blueprint requirements
Credits
25,000
Morphics
2
Ferrite
1,500
PolymerBundle
150
Circuits
300
Time: 1 Day(s)
N/A
MarketIcon Market Price: PlatinumLarge N/A Blueprint2 Blueprints Price:N/A

Notes[]

  • Unlike most primary weapons in the game, Archwing Guns do not have a reserve ammo pool, nor do they need to reload. The Imperator will automatically replenish its magazine's ammo at a fast rate when the weapon is not fired, making it the first weapon in the game that does not require ammo pickups.
  • Despite its shots being shown as slow and even having bullet drift, the Imperator is a hit-scan weapon, and will immediately hit the enemy within its reticle regardless of distance or the appearance of the bullets it fires. As a side-effect, the Imperator can be used to snipe targets at distances of 2,000 meters or more. However, take note that the Imperator's damage falloff weakens it when attempting to engage enemies from beyond 2,000 meters to the point of dealing no damage per shot.
  • The Imperator blueprint can be traded between players.

Media[]

Imperator Skins

Edit

Patch History[]

Update 35.0 (2023-12-13)

ARCHGUN DEPLOYER: HEAVY WEAPON CHANGES

With the various buffs and adjustments we’ve made to Warframe weapons over the years, a common question we see in response is “but what about Archguns?”. These Heavy Weapons are meant to be heavy-hitters, but arguably have been overshadowed by the Primary and Secondary guns in your Arsenal. To address this feedback, we have made the following changes:

ON-DEPLOY OVERGUARD BUFF
Upon using an Archgun Deployer, players will now gain 2000 Overguard.

  • Effect has a 60s cooldown.
  • The Overguard gain is capped at 2000, so re-deploying your Archgun after the cooldown resets will refresh your Overguard up to the 2000 cap.

HEAVY WEAPON BUFFS
Overall, most Heavy Weapons (a.k.a. Archguns when used via the Archgun Deployer) have had their damage doubled. Some of the Archguns have also received buffs to their Archwing version, which we will indicate below.

Archgun Damage Resistance

Before we get into the stats, we have added a 50% Archgun Damage Resistance to the Profit Taker. Since these weapons have had their damage buffed, this resistance keeps these fights to the same difficulty as before.

  • The Orowyrm also received a 50% Damage Reduction against the Imperator to balance against its buffs.

Heavy Weapon Stat Changes
Note: these apply only to Archgun Deployer versions of these weapons unless otherwise specified.

IMPERATOR

  • Total Damage increased from 50 to 100
    • Impact Damage increased from 20 to 40
    • Puncture Damage increased from 17.5 to 35
    • Slash Damage increased from 12.5 to 25
  • Punch Through increased from 0.0m to 1.2m
  • Increased Bullet Hit Radius

Update 32.3 (2023-02-15)

  • (Undocumented) Added new "BATTERY" CompatibilityTag.

Update 27.4 (2020-05-01)

  • Archwing Gun stats normalized - space combat now uses ground “Heavy Weapon” stats.

Hotfix 27.0.9 (2020-01-09)

  • Optimized Imperator projectiles to improve performance.
  • Fixed Imperator GPU particles moving towards the camera.

Hotfix 27.0.7 (2019-12-20)

  • Fixed Imperator not recharging correctly.

Hotfix 25.0.3 (2019-05-24)

  • The following items have been added to Simaris’ Offerings:
    • Imperator Blueprint

Hotfix 24.2.6 (2018-12-20)

  • Shared Affinity gain now applies to Atmosphere Arch-Guns but only while equipped in the main hand.
  • Fixed not having a Arch-Gun equipped by default (if they own an Archwing primary weapon with the Gravimag installed) when changing Loadouts.
  • Fixed an issue where players with Arch-Guns in their loadout couldn't Wall Latch.
  • Fixed Chroma not playing Arch-Gun equip/charged fire animations.
  • Fixed the Imperator and Imperator Vandal reload sounds playing non-positional.

Hotfix 24.2.5 (2018-12-20)

  • Changed the Arch-Gun Deployer cooldown timer to scale based on remaining Atmosphere Arch-Guns Ammo pool upon unequipping.
  • Removed unintentional ability to summon Arch-Gun in Melee Only Sorties.

Hotfix 24.2.4 (2018-12-19)

  • Arch-Gun Ammo pool increased by 2x for all Arch-Guns in Atmosphere mode.
  • Arch-Gun Deployer cooldown has been reduced to 5 minutes instead of 10.
  • Fixed Clients not hearing the Atmosphere Arch-Gun equip sound.

Hotfix 24.2.1 (2018-12-18)

  • Removed the dissolve FX when equipping your Atmosphere Arch-Gun.

Update 24.2 (2018-12-18)
‘ATMOSPHERE’ ARCH-GUN WEAPONS
It’s time we equipped some serious floor firepower! All Arch-Guns can be used on the ground - or as we like to call it ‘Atmosphere’ - with the use of a ‘Gravimag’. Gravimag is obtained from Clan Research, or as a one-time reward from the Orb Heist Phase 3 Bounty, and can be installed on any Arch-Gun (with an Orokin Catalyst installed) via the Upgrade Arsenal - similar to installing a Catalyst.

Comparable to the Archwing and K-Drive Launchers, a respective Gear item known as the Archweapon Deployer is required to activate your Atmosphere Arch-Gun. The Archweapon Deployer can be obtained by completing the Orb Heist Phase 3 Bounty.

Atmosphere Arch-Gun General Changes:

  • Atmosphere Arch-Guns consume Ammo as opposed to unlimited Ammo/Battery in Archwing. Specifically new Heavy Ammo Drops which can be found from Corpus enemies in Orb Heist missions. Heavy Ammo Drops also reset the 10 minute cool-down when picked up, or replenish Ammo if needed.
  • Atmosphere Arch-Gun can be summoned in normal missions with the Archweapon Deployer, but once Ammo has been depleted there is a 10 minute cool-down until you can summon again. The intent here is to allow you moments of beefy damage output, and not become just another Primary/Secondary weapon. 

All stat changes are for Atmosphere Arch-Gun mode, Mastery Rank changes are global:

  • Damage increased from 40 to 50.
  • Critical Chance increased from 10% to 24%.
  • Status Chance increased from 5% to 12%.
  • Magazine size decreased from 250 to 200.
  • Ammo Capacity set at 400.
  • Reload speed set at 2 seconds.

Update 15.0 (2014-10-24)

  • Introduced.

See Also[]

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