WARFRAME Wiki:Glossary

Glossary for meta wiki.

Wiki Terminology

These terms are applicable to almost any MediaWiki-based wiki, especially on the Fandom site, and are not exclusively used in context of the WARFRAME Wiki.

Terms	Explanation
API	Refers to MediaWiki's Action API (https://warframe.fandom.com/api.php) or third-party ones such as those maintained by Warframe Community Developers (https://github.com/WFCD)
Arg	Shorthand for argument, as in the value that gets passed to template parameters or module function variables.
AWB	AutoWikiBrowser, a tool for making semi/fully automatic edits on the wiki
Backend	In the context of wiki editors, refers to pages/Lua scripts in the Module namespace.
Cargo	Refers to Extension:Cargo which adds support for structured data on wikis, allowing database queries on wiki pages through parser functions. This is not available to be requested on Fandom wikis as of 18:28, 21 October 2021 (UTC) and is only enabled on some Gamepedia wikis like w:c:Terraria.
Codex	Refers to the Codex toolkit for building UI based on Wikimedia Design System. Built on Vue.js.
CSS	Refers to the wiki's styling spreadsheet on MediaWiki:Common.css or any other stylesheets
Expand (a template)	Refers to the recursive practice of turning a template call into its raw wikitext or HTML equilvalent through Special:ExpandTemplates
Database	An informal term that refers to any /data subpage of module pages, containing Lua tables that act as NoSQL databases of WARFRAME's contents. Any data in /data subpages will be rebuilt every time a page is loaded as these are not "true" databases and are executable Lua programs instead. As such, there is no support for features like transactions or data caching.
Docbunto	Module:Docbunto, the auto-documentation generator for Lua modules; this wiki's fork of the module can be found here
DPL	Extension:DynamicPageList, a parser function used for querying pages in certain categories or namespaces
Frame	Frame object
Frontend	In the context of wiki editors, refers to pages/JavaScript scripts/CSS stylesheets in the MediaWiki namespace.
Infobox	A fixed-format table that is at the top-right corner of an article containing a basic summary and/or stats of the article topic. Usually contains the article name, an accompanied image for SEO, an item description, and basic general information. See Help:Infobox for more details.
Invoke (a module)	Calling a module's function through this syntax: {{#invoke:<module_name>|<function_name>|<param_1>|<param_2>|...}}
Lede or Lead	The introductory paragraph(s) of an article. These are not under a section header and are typically to the left of the article's infobox.
Luafication/Luafying	Informal term to describe the porting of a template page to a module to build wikitext. Instead of transcluding a template, there will be an invoke call to a module's function.
M:<module_name>	Shorthand for Module:<module_name>
Mbox	Shorthand for message boxes that are typically located on the top of articles or right after a section header to alert readers on something about the article.
Memory	The memory allocated server-side for running back-end Lua scripts on Module pages (default 50MB)
Module	Refers to a module page or the Lua package on the wiki that is in the module page; module, package, and library may be used interchangably
mw	MediaWiki, the wiki engine that this wiki is built on, written in PHP. May also refer to the MediaWiki namespace if stylized as "MW".
Namespace	The name of a collection of articles to differentiate their purpose on the wiki. Most articles reside in the "Main" namespace which is not explicitly shown in article names. Other namespaces include "Module" for Lua scripts and "MediaWiki" for JS scripts. See Help:Namespaces.
NewPP	Preprocessor report on wikitext preprocessing/rendering performance
Null edit	Publishing an edit that makes no changes to the page to forcefully refresh the page so it can show all properly linked articles: Wikipedia:Purge#Null_edit. Commonly used to force pages to show up on the appropriate category page.
OOUI	MediaWiki library that is used to create responsive UI elements in JavaScript. See mw:OOUI for more details.
Parser function	A function that can be called on pages typically used in the syntax of {{#functionname:arg1|arg2|...}}. They are backed by a PHP callback function that works closely with the wikitext parser for generating robust content on the wiki, extending the wikitext markup language. See Manual:Parser_functions for more details.
Parsoid	A (soon-to-be) core MediaWiki library that provides runtime bidirectional parsing of wikitext into HTML and vice versa. See Parsoid for more details.
PortableInfobox	Fandom's implementation of an infobox that can display on both desktop and mobile platforms. See Portable_Infoboxes for more details.
Redlink	A hyperlink that links to a non-existent page on the wiki. For example, this is a broken link.
RegEx	Regular expressions; in the context of Lua, they can also refer to patterns which are similar to RegEx, but have syntactic differences. See Extension:Scribunto/Lua_reference_manual#Patterns for more details.
Sandbox	A test page for experimenting with wikitext and modules; e.g. User:Cephalon Scientia/Sandbox
Scribunto	The MediaWiki extension that allows Lua scripting on the wiki; Extension:Scribunto
Skin	The customizable user interface of the wiki. As of 2021-06-25, Fandom offers Oasis (soon to be sunsetted/unsupported) and FandomDesktop skins by default. See Manual:Skins for more details.
Submodule	A module page that is a subpage of another module, sometimes called the "main" module. An example is Module:Weapons/infobox being a submodule of Module:Weapons.
Substitution	The act of converting transcluded content on pages to their wikitext equilvalent when the page is saved. Can be thought of as "template substitution" to make page content independent from the template(s) used. See Help:Substitution for more details.
T:<template_name>	Shorthand for Template:<template_name>
Tabber	<tabber> tags that allows for tabbed content. See Extension:Tabber for more details.
Table	Can refer to Module:Table, Lua tables (see https://www.tutorialspoint.com/lua/lua_tables.htm), HTML tables (see https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/HTML/Tables/Basics), or wikitables (see wikipedia:Help:Table)
Tag	On articles, it may refer to HTML tags or unique wiki-markup tags that add additional functions. See Manual:Tag_extensions. Regarding edits, it may refer to labels that are tagged onto edits for maintenance reasons. See Manual:Tags.
TOC	Table of contents
Transclusion	The action of including content from other pages by reference. See Transclusion for more details.
Purge	Purging a page's cache on the server through ?action=purge: Wikipedia:Purge#Purge request to server. When talking about client-side (JavaScript) scripts, it may also refer to purging the local browser's cache: Wikipedia:Purge#Purge_local_browser_cache
PWB	Pywikibot, Python library for automating edits
Unpacking	Refers to the extraction of arguments in a table/array/dictionary to be passed into a function using unpack()
VE	Shorthand for VisualEditor, a rich-text editor for MediaWiki
WVUI	Abbreviation of Wikimedia Vue UI, Wikimedia Foundation's Vue.js UI components. Superseded by Codex since September 2021.
Wikilink	A hyperlink that links to other pages on the wiki. They can be added by using the square brackets when editing pages: [[Page name]]. See Help:Links for more details.

Fandom Terminology

Terms	Explanation
Discussions API	Fandom's API for accessing warframe.fandom.com/f See https://warframe.fandom.com/wikia.php?controller=DiscussionPost&method=help&format=json for documentation. For example, to get discussion posts: https://warframe.fandom.com/wikia.php?controller=DiscussionPost&method=getPosts Source code
Fandom (stylized as FANDOM sometimes)	The company that hosts this wiki, develops the platform the wiki is built on, provides community support, and hosts development tools through https://dev.fandom.com/wiki/Fandom_Developers_Wiki
Fandom Design System	Framework of Fandom's visual language for consistent user experience and interface throughout the Fandom branding. See https://fandomdesignsystem.com/?path=/story/introduction--page for more details.
FandomDesktop	The desktop wiki skin that is being used on UCP since June 2021 (previously used Oasis skin, and before that, Hydra), featuring light/dark themes, expanded articles, table of contents button, and other features. See community:Help:FandomDesktop.
FandomMobile	The mobile wiki skin that is being used on UCP since Feburary 2021, featuring light/dark themes, better galleries, table of contents button, and other features. See community:Help:FandomMobile.
Gamepedia	Wiki hosting service for video games owned by Curse LCC before being acquired by Fandom in December 2018.
Global Navigation	On desktop view, the leftmost vertical bar that contain links to wiki verticals and and the user profile. See community:Help:Customization policy.
Modal	Refers to the Modal JS library which helps in creating overlay elements on Fandom wikis to display to the user (modal boxes/windows)
Nirvana	Fandom's application framework. Endpoints include /wikia.php or /api/v1 on every Fandom wiki. See https://dev.fandom.com/wiki/Nirvana for more details.
Phalanx	Fandom's global blocking and spam control system. See community:Help:Spam.
Site Navigation	On desktop view, the topmost horizontal bar that contain intrawiki links. See community:Help:Navigation.
SOAP	Stands for Spam Obliteration and Prevention, a group of volunteers that have privileges for cleaning vandalism on wikis. See community:SOAP.
Theme Designer	Admin tool that allows easy customization of the wiki's color theme, header color, background image, and logo. See community:Help:Theme Designer.
UCP	Unified Community Platform, the official name of the platform that Fandom and Gamepedia wikis are running on. See Help:Unified Community Platform for more details.
Wikia	The name of Fandom wikis and the company before their rebranding in October 2016.
Wiki vertical	Name of one of the major categories that a Fandom wiki belongs to: "Games", "Anime", "Movies", "TV", and "Video". Other categories include "books", "music", and "lifestyle".

Warframe Terminology

Main article: Glossary

Community acronyms, slang, and (technical) terms surrounding the WARFRAME game and supporting software.

Terms	Explanation
DE	Digital Extremes, the creators of WARFRAME
Drop Tables	Loot tables in which a reward is randomly pulled from based on the rarity weighting assigned to items and biases applied to make some items more/less likely to be picked (canonically in the form of JSON files)
Evolution Engine	The proprietary game engine that WARFRAME is built on.
Game Object	Represents a discrete playable item within the game. These have properties and functionality attached to them to determine its behavior and interactions with players.
Mobile Export	Depreciated name of Public Export when it was only used for the mobile Warframe Companion app.
PBR	Physically based rendering. A graphics rendering technique that takes into account surface material when modelling reflections and lighting.
Public Export	WARFRAME's public export API used by Warframe Companion and other game services.
TennoGen	WARFRAME's program for community artists and modellers to create custom skins and models for WARFRAME's assets for a chance of them being sold in-game. It is hosted on the Steam Workshop.
WFCD	Warframe Community Developers GitHub group at https://github.com/WFCD for tools accessing WARFRAME's APIs
World State	WARFRAME's API for accessing the state of the Star Chart

Internal Warframe Development Terminology

Internal terms used by developers of Warframe when describing certain game objects or systems. Some of these may be depreciated or not universally used internally. Usage of these terms can be see in World State, Public Export, and EE.log. For specific internal names used by certain items or game objects, see Module:InternalNames.

Terms	Explanation
AdultOperator	Drifter
Artifact	Mod (name in reference to when first implemented as Artifact)
Bark	Refers to NPC vocalizations (e.g. "enemy barks")
CosmeticEnhancer	Arcane Enhancement
CrewShip	May refer to playable Railjack, Gokstad Crewships, and Crewships
Cue	Refers to audio cues or musical stings
Crp	Abbreviation of Corpus
EidolonPlains	Plains of Eidolon
Foley	See Foley
Grn	Abbreviation of Grineer
Inf	Abbreviation of Infested
Job	Bounty
LisetAlchemyLab	Helminth room
LongGun	Primary weapon
Lotus	WARFRAME
MegaPrimeVault	Prime Resurgence
MeleeTree	Stance combos
MissionDeck	Mission Drop Tables
NechroMech or Nechramech	Necramech
Povia	Varzia
Pistol	Secondary weapon
Powersuit	Describes in-game avatars. Includes Warframes, Archwings, Necramechs, and Companions. Non-player avatars may be known as NpcPowersuits.
Projection	Void Relic
Recipe	Blueprints
RJCephalon	Cephalon Cy
Sent or Snt	Abbreviation of Sentient
SentientDevourer	Murex
Sharkwing	Underwater Archwing on Uranus' Grineer Sealab tileset
TennoBall	Lunaro
Tno	Abbreviation of Tenno
Upgrade	Encompasses Upgrade and most stat modifiers
VoidTrader	Baro Ki'Teer

Metagame Terminology

Player-defined terms that are used to describe metagame concepts about WARFRAME. These are often shared with common game lingo within the gaming community. This only covers terms relevant to the wiki and wiki editing.

Terms	Explanation
Ammo efficiency	Describes how efficient a weapon is in using its ammo to kill enemies. High ammo efficient weapons are able to use less ammo to kill the same amount of enemies compared to a low ammo efficient weapon. Another measurement of ammo efficiency is how long a weapon is able to sustain its usage when killing enemies. Since enemies have a chance to drop different types of ammo pickups (each giving different amounts of ammo), an ammo efficient weapon should be able to be used for a long time since there is a net gain in ammo while killing enemies. Ammo inefficient weapons will typically experience a net loss in ammo when killing enemies since they don't do enough damage per shot. Not to be confused with the "Ammo Efficiency" stat provided by some mods like  Zazvat-Kar or Arcanes like  Void Fuel.
BiS	Best in slot. Describes an item that is the best performant item in a particular mod slot or loadout slot. Very rarely used in context of WARFRAME with how flexible and varied the modding/loadout system is. See opportunity cost for a related term.
Burst DPS	Burst damage per second. Theoretical damage output that is dealt over a short period of time (called a "burst" or an "explosion of damage"). If there is a graph that plots total damage vs. time elapsed, burst DPS will be the equivalent to the slope of the tangent to the curve.
CC	Crowd control effects that affect movement: slows (like  Cold procs), stuns, freeze (like  Avalanche),  Lifted, Blinds, Knockbacks affect ability/weapon usage:  Silence, Disarms, interrupts force an action: taunts (i.e. increase Threat Level),  Mind Control, fear (like  Terrify), charm (like  Lantern)
Content island	Describes a gameplay environment or design where player progression and gameplay replayability is centered around certain regions in the game instead of encompassing more regions and/or mechanics that is more universally relevant in the context of the game. This term is more relevant to Landscape environments and Empyrean/Railjack gamemode.
Derived stat	A player-made stat that is calculated from fundamental stats. These are typically used to standardize how stats are compared between two different objects when direct comparisons of fundamental stats omit context and situational variables.
Diminishing returns	Similar to real-world usage of the term, refers to effects that produce marginal benefit the longer it is in effect or the more instances it is in effect. For example, most Bosses in WARFRAME have a crowd control (CC) resistance mechanic where the more times a specific CC ability is used on them, the weaker the CC effect (strength-wise like from knockdowns to stuns or duration-wise).
DPS	Damage per second. A standard way of measuring theoretical damage output within a set period of time. There are many ways of calculating DPS depending on the period of time (burst DPS for instantaneous point in time or sustained DPS for over an extended period of time). May also refer to a player role that is primarily the damage outputer of a squad. Examples include  Mesa and  Saryn.
DR	Commonly refers to sources of Damage Reduction, but may be rarely used to refer to crowd control diminishing return effects from Bosses or mini-bosses.
Drop rate	Refers to a player's experience of a particular item drop occurring. This is dependent on factors such as the item's individual drop chance, the chance that the drop table in which the item is in is chosen to pull rewards from, enemy spawn rate, enemy kill rate, mission objective completion time, etc. As such, not every player will experience the same drop rate. In general, the game is balanced in giving a mission reward every 5 minutes of mission playtime. For item drops from enemies, reward balance may vary depending on the toughness of enemies and their spawn rate.
EHP	Effective health points. A standard way of measuring theoretical health hit points which is the number of health points that an avatar can absorb before going into a death state. This usually takes into account Armor and other sources of Damage Reduction which will increase EHP even though the actual health value doesn't change. Other EHP calculations may also include damage types absorbed which have different Damage Type Modifiers.
Forced Procs	Status effects that are guaranteed to occur when a particular attack hits an enemy regardless of the attack's damage distribution or status chance. This characteristic of a weapon's attack isn't shown to players in-game but is internally implemented as an array of status effects.
Fundamental stat	Describes the most basic, raw, low-level stat that a gameplay element can be represented as. For example, if DPS is a derived stat, then we say the fundamental stats that make up DPS are damage and fire rate. Can also be thought as a SI base unit in video game terminology.
Gameplay loop	A series of cyclical gameplay events that a player will encounter throughout playing a game. Usually this consists of a push-and-pull system of rewards and gameplay to incentivize players to invest their time into the game. For example, say a player wants some new weapon, so they need play missions to obtain the blueprints and resources necessary to create that weapon. Then they need to level up their weapon so it can be more powerful. Once the player faces content that is difficult to the point said new weapon is not sufficient, they will need to find a new weapon to invest in.
HCET	The precedence of primary elemental damage types which are applied to create secondary elemental damage types when dealing with Kuva/Tenet weapons:  Heat,  Cold,  Electricity,  Toxin.
KPM	Kills per minute. A standard metric of measuring how efficient a player's loadout is at killing enemies. Arguably a better metric than theoretical DPS in measuring how well a loadout performs in real-game scenarios.
Malus	A stat penalty, the opposite of a bonus. This term is rarely used amongst English-native players who instead say "negative" or "negative bonus" as a substitute. See wikipedia:malus for its etymology.
Opportunity cost	The relative cost (or loss) from installing a mod/Arcane over another mod/Arcane that improves the same stat. Since there is a limited number of mods/Arcanes that can installed on a particular item, players have to choose which mods/Arcanes to use when building their loadout in a balance of stat gains and sacrifices. The opportunity cost can be calculated by the difference of the provided stat bonus/malus. Opportunity cost can be extended to equipping weapons in certain slots. For example, there is an opportunity cost in equipping a weaker primary weapon like the  Braton over a powerful one like the  Kuva Bramma.
Power creep	Describes a gradual process where newer content/items supersede older content/items in terms of gameplay performance because of the philosophy of "newer is better". Used in negative light because older content is "forgotten" and "forces" players to get newer items to complete newer content or make older content more time efficient.
Proc	Programmed random occurrence. Refers to events that happen based on RNG such as Status Effects and Critical Hits. Most of the time players use the term to refer to status effects since they are significant in changing gameplay decisions and playstyle mid-game.
Raw DPS	Raw damage per second. A DPS calculation that does not rely on random events such as critical hits that will periodically increase damage dealt.
RNG	Random number generator. Refers to any randomized event that occurs due to machine generated random numbers (pseudorandom number generator or PRNG). All random events in WARFRAME are deterministic because of this, but this is only relevant to events that occur repeatedly over a long-period of time or repeated an enormous number of times. We can assume numbers generated by the game's RNG will be uniformly distributed, thus we can model the occurrence of an event using a geometric distribution.
Support	A player role that is primarily the healer, crowd controller, and/or buffer/debuffer. Examples include  Trinity and  Wisp.
Sustained DPS	Sustained damage per second. Theoretical damage output that is consistent over a long period of time. Usually takes into account reload time after emptying a magazine and thus will be typically lower than burst DPS values.
Tank(ing)	WARFRAME doesn't have the traditional MMO tank role so it is used to refer to characters or enemies that have relatively high amounts of effective health (e.g.  Inaros) or is able to absorb lots of damage without dying (e.g.  Rhino's  Iron Skin).
TTK	Time-to-kill. The amount of time required to defeat a particular enemy. High TTK means that it will take a relatively longer time to kill a particular enemy and vice versa. Low TTK against high-level enemies is usually a good metric in measuring a weapon's performance as it means that: The weapon defeats an enemy in as few shots as possible (high damage per shot and ammo efficient) Or is able to deal lots of damage in the shortest amount of time (high DPS).

User-Defined Terminology

Other terms on this wiki that do not fit in the above sections:

Terms	Explanation
Faux Frame	Refers to a Lua table that mimics a Frame object by storing an args table containing arguments. For example, local faux = { args = { "Argument 1", "Argument 2", namedArg = "Named Argument 1" } }. Ideally these should not be used and you should pass arguments directly to the function instead.
(Infobox) Override	Refers to template arguments that are set by editors to override default arguments. Usually used in reference to infoboxes.
Sister Wiki	WARFRAME Wikis that are in localized in other languages. For example, the French WARFRAME Wiki on https://warframe.fandom.com/fr/wiki/
Subject Matter Expert	In context of WARFRAME, refers to individuals who are extremely knowledgeable about the game, its mechanics, and the community it has. Usually these are veteran members of the WARFRAME community.

Regarding /data module subpages

On this wiki	MongoDB Equivalent	SQL Equivalent
(Database/Table) Entry	(BSON) Document	(Database) Record or row
(Lua) Table	Collection	Table
"Database" or /data subpage or data store	Database	Database
Index
Column/Key	Field	Column
Indexed key	Primary key
N/A	Embedded documents	Table joins
N/A	Aggregation pipeline	Aggregation