What's the point of Railjack?

[Volinus7]

22 hours ago, nslay said:

practical question

That's why DE need to add Archwing fuel meter.

[Neuroszima]

2 hours ago, Volinus7 said:

That's why DE need to add Archwing fuel meter.

Stamina flashbacks...

[SilentMobius]

On 2019-07-14 at 8:12 AM, nslay said:

Don't get me wrong! I found the demo absolutely stunning! It looks like loads of fun to play and I am very excited... This is more of a practical question about the purpose and advantage of Railjacks.

The Railjack is like a capital ship, right? And I saw that we can use it to fight capital ships. But Tenno can just jump out of Railjack and Archwing over and hijack a capital ship and blow the reactors... So why go through the trouble of manning a complicated Railjack ship to fight capital ships when you could just instead jump out of your Orbiter and hijack one? Crew of Railjack: Numerous and coordinated. Crew of Orbiter: Ordis.

Maybe the Orbiter can't reach those parts of space Railjacks go? I don't know. It seems very elaborate when we saw a single Tenno hijack a capital ship and blow its reactors.

Firstly the Railjack is not a capital ship, just look at the size comparisons.

We have no indication that the orbiter is armed, the railjack has cannons that can destroy a capital ship with tenno help for targeting

It has been demonstrated that the Railjack will be able to get to areas of the Origin system that the Orbiter cannot

 

[RealJustBoo]

So it's an attempt at Eve Online with Ninjas?

Edited July 15, 2019 by RealJustBoo

[(XBOX)AMONGTHEWEAK]

I hope this does not end up being like arch-wing. At least for me, arch-wing I only touch when I need to traverse the plains or vallis. Other than that, I do not touch or invest any time in it. Some people love arch-wing. Some people are mixed. Some do not care for it (referring to arch-wings). I hope rail jack does not end up being another arch-wing. We will wait and see. I hope it gives a new fresh input into this game. 

[Colyeses]

On ‎2019‎-‎07‎-‎14 at 9:12 AM, nslay said:

The Railjack is like a capital ship, right? And I saw that we can use it to fight capital ships. But Tenno can just jump out of Railjack and Archwing over and hijack a capital ship and blow the reactors... So why go through the trouble of manning a complicated Railjack ship to fight capital ships when you could just instead jump out of your Orbiter and hijack one? Crew of Railjack: Numerous and coordinated. Crew of Orbiter: Ordis.

Actually, the demo reel seemed to indicate that taking down a capital ship is a pretty complicated process that requires the Railjack's weapon capacities to carry out. Advanced security systems require a stronger computer to counteract. 

Also, deep-space mining and refining is probably more efficient with the Railjack than with the distillers.

[Horaciozhao]

Also, Landing craft can´t even withstand Vor´s laser, so I´m guess it would be destroyed fairly easy by a capital ship on sight.

And you know, the spoiler mode is physically on landing craft, I´d think it´s not ideal to get them blown up while warframes are fighting

Edited July 15, 2019 by Horaciozhao

[rockscl]

I came with this question too after the tennolive and seems like enemy ships need to be able to totally negate a single archwing invasion unless attacked by a railjack, in the demo (unless i missed some detail) we saw the archwing tenno landing into the enemy capital ship without breaking any safety system whatsoever

[DariusMcSwag]

On 2019-07-14 at 2:36 AM, Firetempest said:

And the Railjack does not have the advantage of cloaking as the Orbiter or unarmed lander has. (make up some story reasons) So its a gunship and home base in these uncharted regions.

When Reb is fighting the Kuva Lich, the Railjack was put into Shadow Field mode so the entire party could board the Lich's ship, effectively cloaking it. However this ability takes up a lot of energy to use, so things like turrets need to be disabled.

Persoanlly I think this is a great way to balance the Railjack.

 

[Loza03]

2 minutes ago, DariusMcSwag said:

When Reb is fighting the Kuva Lich, the Railjack was put into Shadow Field mode so the entire party could board the Lich's ship, effectively cloaking it. However this ability takes up a lot of energy to use, so things like turrets need to be disabled.

Persoanlly I think this is a great way to balance the Railjack.

 

That was an upgrade, one they got with the previous mission, so it's not a core feature.

 

This has led to one thought though - if and when we do reach the Tau system (probably not in the New War, but let's face it, that's where we're going), will we be re-igniting the Tau system Rail? If so, will we wind up bringing the Orbiter to the Tau system.

[DrakeWurrum]

3 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

That was an upgrade, one they got with the previous mission, so it's not a core feature.

A core feature of the ship is that you research and collect all these various tech options to equip onto the ship.

So, yes, shadow field is a core feature.

Shadow Field clearly works different than the Void Cloak of the Orbiter and landing craft, however.

[(PSN)vinster]

What bugs me about Empyrean was what Steve said at TennoCon about it. Before working up to the demo, he said that the open worlds and other content thus far were 'islands' where you'd go there and do your stuff that's only there, and Empyrean was supposed to be all about connecting. I still don't see where or what this 'connection' is supposed to be about!  Am I missing something?!

Railjack seems to me to be just another 'open world' in space (albeit a 32km x 32km one). Instead of spamming random invites, you can now spam them to your clan/alliance. How is that connecting? By summoning another squad (either fishing or in mission), I feel it is more 'disconnecting' them than otherwise.

[DrakeWurrum]

1 minute ago, (PS4)vinster said:

What bugs me about Empyrean was what Steve said at TennoCon about it. Before working up to the demo, he said that the open worlds and other content thus far were 'islands' where you'd go there and do your stuff that's only there, and Empyrean was supposed to be all about connecting. I still don't see where or what this 'connection' is supposed to be about!  Am I missing something?!

Railjack seems to me to be just another 'open world' in space (albeit a 32km x 32km one). Instead of spamming random invites, you can now spam them to your clan/alliance. How is that connecting? By summoning another squad (either fishing or in mission), I feel it is more 'disconnecting' them than otherwise.

Maybe it's more long-term thinking? Bigger picture kinda talk?

Remember that Empyrean is essentially what Steve dreamed Warframe would be 14 years ago. It's part of why he's so damn nervous about it. He's finally achieving that vision.

We'll have to hold off judgement of Squad Link until we see how well they implement it, and how well it can connect squads between missions.

Edited July 15, 2019 by DrakeWurrum

[Loza03]

7 minutes ago, (PS4)vinster said:

What bugs me about Empyrean was what Steve said at TennoCon about it. Before working up to the demo, he said that the open worlds and other content thus far were 'islands' where you'd go there and do your stuff that's only there, and Empyrean was supposed to be all about connecting. I still don't see where or what this 'connection' is supposed to be about!  Am I missing something?!

Railjack seems to me to be just another 'open world' in space (albeit a 32km x 32km one). Instead of spamming random invites, you can now spam them to your clan/alliance. How is that connecting? By summoning another squad (either fishing or in mission), I feel it is more 'disconnecting' them than otherwise.

Well, if the original reveal is anything to go by, we can launch from and presumably land on open worlds. Of course, the original reveal was made of smoke and mirrors glued together by prayer, so there's no telling if it's changed since that time. That said, being able to do that connects the islands of content in the open world to other gameplay, since you can effectively jump from one to another.

There's also the fact that it seems to involve connecting Archwing and Tileset gameplay, along with the seamless transition from mission to down time to mission and even the Dojo. Theoretically speaking, once you leave your Orbiter, you need never come back on board unless you want to.

We furthermore have to take into account that this is pretty much the goal of Warframe, the point they wanted to reach since before day 1, so if everything goes even remotely smoothly, future content will most likely use Railjack, connecting them together in the same way. Effectively, yes, it is a 'space open world', but the idea is to make Warframe a 'space open world' game, at least as far as I can tell.

[Colyeses]

15 minutes ago, (PS4)vinster said:

What bugs me about Empyrean was what Steve said at TennoCon about it. Before working up to the demo, he said that the open worlds and other content thus far were 'islands' where you'd go there and do your stuff that's only there, and Empyrean was supposed to be all about connecting. I still don't see where or what this 'connection' is supposed to be about!  Am I missing something?!

Railjack seems to me to be just another 'open world' in space (albeit a 32km x 32km one). Instead of spamming random invites, you can now spam them to your clan/alliance. How is that connecting? By summoning another squad (either fishing or in mission), I feel it is more 'disconnecting' them than otherwise.

I think it's mostly referring to squad link, since that creates a gameplay bridge between the space above the Plains/Vallis and the grounds. By making actions in space affect the Plains/Vallis and vice versa, they become connected. 

[(PSN)JustJoshinEnt]

On 2019-07-15 at 9:44 AM, RealJustBoo said:

So it's an attempt at Eve Online with Ninjas?

Seems like how EVE and Dust used to interact, Macro interacting with Micro battles, space and ground troops playing out separately but affecting the other.  Always thought that was an awesome concept that could've been bigger... . Now Warframe might take it farther still, and I'm very much looking forward to it!

On 2019-07-15 at 5:13 PM, Colyeses said:

I think it's mostly referring to squad link, since that creates a gameplay bridge between the space above the Plains/Vallis and the grounds. By making actions in space affect the Plains/Vallis and vice versa, they become connected. 

I think what he meant was "connection" in a broader sense... basically, these "islands" of content are isolated releases that, once you've farmed everything from them, you never revisit... and he knows that's an issue.  He didn't want to provide yet another such expansion, and so instead of doing that, Railjack focuses on how to make the inbetween, essentially the LOAD screen, more interactive in such a way that there IS no "down time" during gameplay. In this way, WHATEVER they add going forward, the gameplay going TO it will always be as engaging as when we GET there.

 

[Marvelous_A]

Orbiter at this specific point of time is not part of our gameplay. Yet. It exists only in the lore and also as a static background between mission.

The new railjack very possibly will be replacing our practically never existed Orbiter.

And that's why I don't understand why DE would require a dojo from us to access the ship. Just replace our small landing crafts and sh1t with the new railjack.

Edited July 17, 2019 by Marvelous_A

[BETAOPTICS]

Orbiters were always short range ships that had the useful ability to stay cloaked to get the Tenno easily into missions but their problem is they lack space drive, due to their size can not host a huge fuel capacity, are unarmed recon/stealth ships and are primarily intended for transportation. Railjack is a craft designed for interstellar travel, combat capabilities, mining operations and more. It only has a temporary stealth cloak but it has a lot of possible firepower, far more armor, the ability to space jump long distances and other functionality. In the original design the Orbiter would attach to the mothership in downtime and be launched from it when they reach relevant distance mission area. I am not sure if Railjack still is designed that in mind since it now has its own dedicated launching platform in dojo's but I guess time will tell.

[Kaotyke]

On 2019-07-15 at 5:57 PM, DrakeWurrum said:

Maybe it's more long-term thinking? Bigger picture kinda talk?

Remember that Empyrean is essentially what Steve dreamed Warframe would be 14 years ago. It's part of why he's so damn nervous about it. He's finally achieving that vision.

We'll have to hold off judgement of Squad Link until we see how well they implement it, and how well it can connect squads between missions.

@(PS4)vinster, Steve mentioned in a tweet: Squad link will owrk on ANY mission.  So if you are doing a basic Survival and put the squad link, an extra objective will appear for your team to help.

So its not an exclusive thing to Fortuna or the Plains.

 

[Kaotyke]

6 hours ago, Marvelous_A said:

Orbiter at this specific point of time is not part of our gameplay. Yet. It exists only in the lore and also as a static background between mission.

The new railjack very possibly will be replacing our practically never existed Orbiter.

And that's why I don't understand why DE would require a dojo from us to access the ship. Just replace our small landing crafts and sh1t with the new railjack.

I think you are very wrong in this kind of thinking considering they are re-doing the Orbiter's looks.

And the Railjack didnt seem to have access to every part of the system, having its own navigation. But it might be incomplete at the time of the demo.

[iLightning13]

Fun. Like the rest of the game.

[Loza03]

10 minutes ago, Kaotyke said:

And the Railjack didnt seem to have access to every part of the system, having its own navigation. But it might be incomplete at the time of the demo.

This much we know, since there are several nodes in the menu itself missing their graphics.

Though on another note, this does mean it's probably an actual build they have going, so we may be seeing Railjack pretty soon!

[Kaotyke]

Just now, Loza03 said:

This much we know, since there are several nodes in the menu itself missing their graphics.

Though on another note, this does mean it's probably an actual build they have going, so we may be seeing Railjack pretty soon!

Wouldnt get my hopes up for at least 1 more month.

The team seem pretty anxyous about showing the gameplay and that was a build tested at 11pm of the previous day.

[Loza03]

7 minutes ago, Kaotyke said:

Wouldnt get my hopes up for at least 1 more month.

The team seem pretty anxyous about showing the gameplay and that was a build tested at 11pm of the previous day.

Of course, but that's still sooner than Fortuna was at its relative reveal.

A lot of people are thinking sometime in August, considering the existence of a build that, whilst evidently incomplete, does seem at least stable-ish. There's also the marketing point of being able to get some stuff out before September, which heralds the release of Borderlands 3 and Destiny 2's new expansion and model switch into pseudo-free to play, two big potential competitors for Warframe. That's the timeframe I'm hopeful for.

[(PSN)vinster]

5 hours ago, Kaotyke said:

@(PS4)vinster, Steve mentioned in a tweet: Squad link will owrk on ANY mission.  So if you are doing a basic Survival and put the squad link, an extra objective will appear for your team to help.

So its not an exclusive thing to Fortuna or the Plains.

Yes, I was expecting that the squad link can be summoned from any other mission.

But how this is 'connecting' all the different islands of gameplay is tenuous at best. By summoning/inviting the other squad, that squad is now leaving their island and joining your railjack island to do a mission that will probably not drop stuff or help the progress that he needs on that other island.

Will completing the railjack mission help your progression or quest objectives in the other 'islands'? I doubt so.  My idea of 'connecting' is maybe something like I'm doing a long survival and I can summon a railjack squad who happens to be in the planet's vicinity. They'll then land on my tileset, help me out for say 5 mins and deploy extra oxygen towers or turrets, or use their railjack guns to mow down enemies, etc, then leave.

As someone else replied above, maybe there is a bigger picture that is not shared or realized yet.