Mission

Mission

Missions are the primary playable content in WARFRAME. Up to four players can participate in the same mission as a Squad, and upon completing the objective(s) extract themselves from the site with their Landing Craft. Missions are primarily accessed through the Star Chart, and are PvE (Player vs Environment) only. PvP (Player vs Player) content may be found in Teshin's Conclave, accessible from the Orbiter or from Tenno Relays.

There are 20 types of missions in Warframe. Each mission has a specific pre-assigned objective, although secondary objectives or a change of objective may occur during the mission (except in missions that assign Assassination, Defense, Mobile Defense and Interception).

Each mission node is occupied by at least one opposing Faction, but two or more may appear and engage in an invasion or a crossfire.

The mission area in which pseudo-randomly pre-designed rooms and halls commonly referred to as "tiles". Some tiles (most noticeably Reactor Sabotage and Hive missions) will include environmental hazards.

When attempting to join an online mission, the matchmaking system will take into account a player's total equipment rank (Weapons, Warframes, Companions etc.). Players with similar equipment ranking (hidden) will be more likely matched into the same squad; this way it is ensured that within the same node, the system tries its best to reduce chances of an experienced player joining a squad full of new players. Note that for players with new or recently polarized equipment, they will be considered a slightly lower overall rank and may be placed similarly lower-ranked players, therefore possibly increasing difficulty.

Starchart Navigation

Hovering the cursor over a node will give a mission description, including:

• Tileset - The theme of environment to be expected, displayed as a picture. Different tile sets on different planets may have varying conditions.
• Mission type - The type of mission objective that will be given.
• Faction - The NPC faction currently occupying this node. Multiple NPC factions trying to occupy the same node will result in a crossfire.
• Level - Starting range of the level of enemies in this node. Survival, Defense, Excavation, Defection, and Assassinations are missions where the enemies will scale with time and/or player equipment ranking.

Each planet will have 12 to 26 missions displayed as nodes. Completing a mission will mark the node completed as white and will unlock connected uncompleted missions as blue nodes, and unavailable missions as gray locks.

Mission Types

There are 21 selectable mission types:

• Arena
• Assassination
• Assault
• Capture
• Defection
• Defense
• Disruption
• Empyrean
• Excavation
• Exterminate
• Free Roam/Bounty (Plains of Eidolon & Orb Vallis)
• Hijack
• Infested Salvage
• Interception
• Junction
• Mobile Defense
• Pursuit (Exclusive to Archwing)
• Rescue
• Rush (Exclusive to Archwing)
• Sabotage
• Sanctuary Onslaught
• Spy
• Survival

Situational Occurences

Situational occurrences happen within the mission. As such, they are not displayed until either the Tenno has entered the mission, or certain conditions are met throughout the mission.

• If all three Data Vaults during a Spy mission have had their alarms triggered and data successfully retrieved, the objective will change into an Exterminate mission, where all remaining enemies must be killed before extraction. This change will not occur if only two or less vaults had their alarms triggered, or if two or fewer data consoles have been successfully hacked.
• Veiled Riven challenges will also appear if the player has one or more veiled Riven mods equipped. Completing the objectives will reveal the weapon assignment and attributes of the Riven mod.
• Players are assigned to hunt down Rare Resource Caches. This objective always available on regular Reactor Sabotage missions and the Exterminate mission in the Kuva Fortress.
• In the event the player is captured by the Zanuka Hunter, the mission will transition into Recovery.
• In the event the player is defeated by the Grustrag Three a Grustrag Bolt will be attached to that Warframe, lowering their damage against units of the Grineer Faction by 50%. A Bolt Release blueprint will be provided along with the mission failure screen; crafting it will disengage the Bolt from the Warframe.
• Sometimes, a second mission type and/or special Secondary Objectives will randomly be included, but will not be known or made available until the first mission is completed.

Special Missions

Special missions will only be playable if the player has the node available, but exceptional nodes can be seen in the notification pane even when the node is inaccessible such as Invasions, Nightmare Mode or Sortie missions.

• Nightmare Mode missions will only be available if the player has successfully completed every mission node on the same planet. Nodes are bordered red with a nightmare (maelstrom) icon and award Nightmare Mode Mods. Dark sectors need not be completed for Nightmare Mode nodes to appear. These missions do not disappear for the player once completed and their mission availability is timed.

• Invasions are missions which multiple factions compete for nodes on an assigned planet. Faction indicators on the notification pane will show Grineer as red, Corpus as blue and Infestation Outbreaks as green. Infestation outbreaks cannot occur Mercury and Earth. Nodes are indicated with a fist and usually award Wraith/Vandal weapon parts, rare resources or rare blueprints. Invasion missions will disappear once either faction has complete dominance.

• Void Fissures are missions where players are able to open any relics carried into the mission and upon extraction, select the Prime artifact contained within the relic as a reward. Nodes are indicated with a Void Trace and also drops them as a mission completion reward. These missions do not disappear for the player once completed and their mission availability is timed.

• Syndicate missions will be shown in the notification pane when the Tenno is in positive standing with at least one syndicate. Nodes are indicated by the insignia carried by each Syndicate, and reward additional Syndicate standing apart from the daily standing cap. Syndicate missions require a minimum of MR3 and refreshes daily. These missions disappear for the player once completed and the additional standing can only be obtained once per Syndicate mission, even if the player has joined another squad. However, Syndicate Medallions may continue to appear for the player in another player's squad even if they have already completed their daily Syndicate missions.

• Sorties are series of three difficult endgame missions which must all be completed in order to receive a random reward from a specified reward pool, and the rewards are often much than regular missions. Sorties are indicated by a ribbon-badge and may feature unique environmental/enemy conditions not found elsewhere. Sorties require the completion of The War Within (MR5) and refreshes daily. These missions are replayable, although one-time completion credit rewards and the rewards from the specified pool may only be obtained once a day.

• Kuva missions award Kuva, a resource used in randomization of a Riven mod's attributes. Kuva missions only appear on planets near the Kuva fortress, their nodes indicated by the resource icon of Kuva. Kuva floods are much higher-leveled missions that award twice the regular amount of Kuva as normal Kuva missions. Kuva missions require the completion of The War Within (MR5). These missions disappear for the player once completed, however additional Kuva can be obtained on the same mission if the player has joined another squad.

• Arbitrations are a special version of endless nightmare mode missions unlocked after all nodes on the star chart have been completed (less the Mutalist Alad V and Jordas Golem assassinations). All Arbitrations spawn with the following modifications:
  • Revives Disabled
  • The standard mission droptable is replaced by the Arbitration droptable
  • Rotations clear half as often
  • Droptables lock on table C after the initial AB tables are cleared
  • Droptable loot is guaranteed upon mission failure
  • Players additionally receive 1 Vitus Essence for each rotation clear
  • One Warframe and Weapon per player have their strength/damage buffed by 300% for each node that spawns.
  • Special drones are added to the enemy spawn table, granting complete and total damage immunity to all nearby enemies.
  • Primary objective is made harder per the mission type

End of Mission Summary

The Mission Summary appears after a successful mission and displays the following:

• Affinity earned for each Warframe, Weapon, and Companion
• Focus earned for each item installed with a Focus Lens
• Collected / rewarded amount of Credits, Resources, Mods, and/or Blueprints
• Team statistics for the mission:
  • Percentage of total damage dealt
  • Percentage of total damage taken
  • Total number of kills
  • Total number of kills by headshots
  • Total number of melee kills
  • Total number of deaths
  • Total number of upgrades received
  • Total number of abilities used
  • Percentage of bullets that hit (Fire Accuracy)
  • Total number of pickups
  • Total number of revives (assisting in reviving fallen allies & companions)
• A separate screen that shows increases in Standing for ally Syndicates and decreases in standing for opposing Syndicates. Enemy standing will not be shown if the player has hit -44,000 (maximum negative standing available) for an opposing Syndicate.

An alternate Mission Summary will be shown if the objective has been failed. It will only show:

• Affinity earned for each Warframe, Weapon, and Companion
• Focus earned for each item installed with a Focus Lens
• Team statistics for the mission

The amount of loot, affinity and standing for other players are not shown. Each player can only see their own Mission Summary Screen, though every member in the squad is shown the same list for Team Statistics.

Trivia

• The missions are all named after real physical locations and objects that exist in the solar system as recognized by the International Astronomical Union.
• When multiple factions appear on the map, they are always hostile to one another.
• Raid has been removed and replaced by Survival as of update 10, due to player disinterest.
• Deception was removed in Update 19.
• Although most missions allow for up to 4 players to play, Conclave modes such as Annihilation and Cephalon Capture allow for up to 8 players to join.
  • Lunaro, however, can only allow up to 6 players to join.
• Some quest missions list the mission type as Salvage.
• Previously, hoving the mouse over Starchart nodes will also reveal the usernames of a solar landmark to honor "Grand Master" founders, shown in the bottom of the planet infobox.

Bugs

• If the squad starts another mission before the player finishes loading from the previous mission, the player's weapons and Warframe will be unmodded.

Patch History

Update 25.0 (2019-05-22)

• Non-Endless Survival/Excavation/etc missions (i.e. Alerts, Sorties, Syndicate dailies, etc) now disable individual extraction as it leads to unnecessary Host migrations.

Hotfix 24.5.3 (2019-03-19)

• The World Cycles displayed in the Navigation Window now display time until next Cycle/Temperature. The Plains of Eidolon time phases for Dawn, Sunrise, Morning, Day, Dusk, and Sunset are now all described as Day for clarity. We’ve also removed Freezing state in Orb Vallis, now it's just one long period of Cold.

Hotfix 22.16.5 (2018-03-21)

• Arcanes will now be listed according to Rarity at the End of Mission screen.

Update 22.16 (2018-03-15)

• (Undocumented) End of mission summary now displays player loadout upon hovering cursor over a player's profile picture

Hotfix 19.5.7.1 (2017-01-06)

• Players who are dead during extraction are no longer denied their mission rewards.

Update 18.5 (2016-03-04)

• Acquiring a Mod that is not yet in your collection will flag the Mod as ‘New’ in the End of Mission screen details.
• Players will now keep parts of their inventory when reconnecting to a Mission after having crashed or disconnected:
  • Clients can only recover their previous rewards as long as the Host is still in the Mission.
  • The Mission must still be in-progress and not completed for a Client to receive their rewards.

Hotfix 18.4.4 (2016-01-28)

• Added better exposure to Rare Mods on the End of Mission results screen so that Rare and Identified Mods always come first in the list.

Update 15.0 (2014-10-24)

• Added more information to the End-of-mission screen! Learn about your Syndicate Standing and more!

Hotfix 14.10.2 (2014-10-10)

• Affinity bonuses will no longer be awarded on failed mission.

Update 14.0 (2014-07-18)

Diegetic UI

• Pressing the ESC button/Start on Controller in mission will now allow you to see “Current Mission Progress”, which shows all pickups and details of the current mission.
• New Mission Results screen! This new screen shows all the details of your previous run! Its minimalistic appearance will be expanded on as feedback and experiences with Liset form.

Update 9.0 (2013-07-13)

• Prevent players from entering missions once a build update has been detected.

Update 7.9 (2013-04-26)

• Moved Objectives to later part of missions so the route to extraction is shorter after objective is complete.

Update 7.8 (2013-04-19)

• Mission completion credit rewards now scale up based on the AI level
• Aborting missions now forfeits any obtained credits, mods, resources or blueprints, earned XP is still rewarded