Teoarrk's concepts, lore and ideas thread part 1 (For some reason this thread has been unlocked. Part 2 is where the new stuff is at though so look there.)

[Teoarrk]

Every now and then I'll drop some stuff into this thread as it gets to a point that I like. Have a few google docs that all have pitches at various stages. Not a very good artist though, so don't expect masterpieces whenever I actually draw stuff.

Contents

Part 2 (where I am actively writing)

Syndicate Revamp

• Syndicate Revamp: War behind the curtain
• Part 2: The people keeping the lights on.
• Part 3: Where we come in
• Part 4: The Spoils
• Part 5: Weapon of Choice

 

Misc

• The scanner and dynamic events
• Zanuka Amalgam as Corpus Lich Variants.
• Lich rework idea
• Cephalon Lyvrus
• Grand Excavation Excursions
• Pets 2.0

|=====================================|End of title post, for now|=======================================================|

Syndicate reinforcements. More to come later.

Pitch: Make Syndicate missions less prop hunt heavy and more performance based, while also going closer to their unique theme.

Arbiters of Hexis- 'The Tenno are more than soldiers' - Mission is a gauntlet of 3 challenges (think lua tests) that can be completed by brute force (murder kil kil) or by a slower, more difficult route. A simple example of how this would work would be how rescue missions award greater affinity for stealth rescues, but also give a sizeable award for killing all the wardens. 

Perrin Sequence-'The free market need not rely on violence'- Assuming Empyrean provides a good boost to the controls of Archwings, the concept is an amalgam of defection and pursuit. Save Corpus defectors from a corpus ship and escort the escape vehicle into deep space. number of saved crewmen and ship health matter the most.

Steel Meridian-'These people are counting on you Tenno'- Use the radio scanner on the ship to find the coordinates of a Grineer war factory using an  encrypted channel. Then hop in, blow up crucial components, then come back for tea and medals. Speed is of the essence.

New Loka-'Through purity will we find deliverance'- Take down a Grineer fumigation facility. When it is destroyed, protect several Silver grove nodes from destruction simultaneously (with the help of grove guardians.) Grove node health at mission's end is key.

Red Veil-'Cleansing fire will grant us liberty'-Shut down a Grineer Galleon's power supply covertly. Help your red veil allies slaughter the remaining Grineer in the dark. Don't let them know you're coming.

Cephalon Suda-'Knowledge is the true guide to victory'-Use the radio scanner to find out the location of an Orokin dig site. When there, infiltrate and collect the data. Avoiding detection has perks.

Medallions in this case would be awarded dependant of speed, how sneaky you were, or how well you protected the objectives.

 

Edited January 26, 2021 by Teoarrk
Title needs a change because this is going to cover other things as well.

[Teoarrk]

The scanner and dynamic events

 

In the far future, encrypted communications appear to be the currency of the realm. With a four way war, security and efficacy is king. Ergo, encryption, decryption and effective filtering techniques are in mass use, especially by the Grineer and Corpus, but how are these kept under wraps?

This is a long post, so spoilers have been added to make it easier to display and hopefully also to read.

First, let me describe what I imagine to be the situation of communications across all factions.

Grineer

Spoiler

 

Grineer command structure largely works like an oligarchy: satellite factions work together towards a general goal of improving the Grineer’s prosperity. From what we have seen from ‘When Awake’, ‘The War Within’ and ‘Natah’, a general structure of grineer command works like this:

Spoiler

With such a long chain of command, communication would have to be standardized in order to provide commands directly between layers, with more sophistication in encryption layers at higher levels of command. However, given the speed at which commands have to be issued, encrypted and decrypted in even a modern army requires automation, let alone the far future. 

Ergo, even at the front lines there would have to be communication systems and leaders. We have hints at this, with the Grineer drones. While fairly primitive compared to the larger server vaults seen in spy missions, the basic technology could open the doors for larger and more important pieces of data, especially if the decoder could be analysed. A common technique used today is frequency hopping. Using this method, the information is transmitted across several different frequencies in chunks. It is then up to the receiver, if properly equipped to decode the message. 

From there, we can also have additional encoder. Perhaps an automatic cipher system, like the Caesar Cipher could be added here.

Corpus

Spoiler

The chain of command, from all available sources to date appears to be like this:

Spoiler

 

The Corpus would have a more sophisticated encryption. From their use of orokin ciphers and  permutable puzzles, it would be just as likely that their communications would also follow a similar system. 

For instance, this is a very basic transmitted signal, a sine wave. 

Spoiler

 

This will not hold much information on it’s own however, but can be added to a signal, like the below to encrypt it with random noise (noise being useless parts of a signal)

Spoiler

 

For  further encryption, multiple ‘chaff’ waves could be added the wave to make the signal very hard to interpret if intercepted. 

So how does the receiver understand the information? A system that takes out the chaff waves.  This system is much more effective, but can still be compromised by rogue agents. Like us.

Sentient

Spoiler

From what we have seen from ‘Natah’, ‘The Second Dream’, ‘Octavia’s Anthem’, ‘The Sacrifice’ and The Ropalolyst, an approximate structure of the command looks like this, however it might be possible that Natah and the collective are both on the same level of importance:

Spoiler

 

 

Since they are machines, an obvious change that could be made to their communications could be that they are written in machine language.  

Spoiler

 

Now machine language is much more rudimentary in it’s appearance than what most people are familiar with when they see a computer program written out, but it is very efficient. We would be able to understand it as Ordis most likely can directly interpret them- he did so during ‘The Sacrifice’. This would be an easy justification for Hunhow’s purge of cephalons, since they can understand Sentient communications and therefore hinder their ability to make strategic maneuvers undetected.

Tenno and Tenno allies

Spoiler

A debatable heirarchy of us and our allies.

Spoiler

Tenno most likely use whatever encryption is used on the Solar rail, since they are among the only ones left that can harness it. They would be genetically disposed to do so due to their past commitments to the Orokin empire. However, it is likely that they use a combination of the other faction’s channels to transmit to their syndicate allies.

 

Interceptions and interpretation

We have one of the most useful tools in this process already at our disposal.

Spoiler

A radio scanner is instrumental, since most communications in the far future of Warframe still rely on what appears to be radio waves. Now, onto how to handle each factions communications.

Grineer

Spoiler

Frequency hopping is the biggest obstacle in our way. Since we will have no problems tracking the signal with the highly sophisticated scanner on Ordis, the first step is for us to figure out which frequencies the signal is being transmitted over. What drone needs to know that information? 

I'll give you a clue: bulky, makes the screen all fuzzy.

Spoiler

 Circled in red is what I assume to be the communication module of the device, the grey bulb at the top being a compact receiver of some kind and the metal box below it being a speaker/decoder system. Now normally, we hear these things blaring out Vay Hek’s deep, bellowing voice. But it is also possible that they could be used as a local relayer and mobile communication satellite for signals in the dense jungle of Earth or the dunes of Mars, where it might not be reliable to have a fixed communication system to cover a large area alone.

So knock out one and get the important parts. Now what?

Okay, so now you have a drone and know which frequencies are used. To figure out the order of the switches, a preemptive step is to get a signal that is not encoded and sort it until it makes sense. Thankfully for us, the Grineer are very patriotic. It is likely that a reoccuring message might be something along the lines of 'For the glory of the queens.' To anyone unfamiliar with audio recordings, a typical voice recording looks like this:

 

Spoiler

Now it is obviously very jagged, unregular, unlike the sine wave I showed above. Therefore, it can be very hard to tell how to reconstruct it when taken apart visually. However, this is not just a visual puzzle. You will also hear the message. So if I were to show you this:

Spoiler

You might not be able to tell what order the pieces need to be reordered in to give the uncoded message. (It's supposed to be 1,4,2,5,3)

But if you were to hear a very hearty Grineer voice bellowing it out, you would quickly figure it out.

Alright, so now you can understand unencoded messages. Whats next? 

Cipher time! The Caesar cipher to be exact (or Kaeshur, as the Grineer have taken to calling it). It is very likely that if you haven't come across it by name, then you have at least seen this:

Spoiler

The Grineer alphabet is slightly different however. It will need to be adjusted slightly.

Spoiler

So, if we take this letter for letter, the cipher wheel looks like this:

Spoiler

(A long time in Gimp made this)

An example of a message encoded this way:

(Zh zloo ulg wklv sodfh ri wkh Whqqr ilowk. Iru wkh txhhqv!)

Simply shift all letters in the message 3 letters to the left and we get this message:

(We will rid this place of the Tenno filth. For the queens!)

 

Since most Tenno don’t read Grineer, Ordis will assist by translating the message into plain text when it is deciphered.

What about numbers?

Numbers could be shuffled as well, with the same shuffle as the written part of the cipher.

(103)

 

Then shuffled back to the left.

 

(100)

Done!

Corpus

Spoiler

 

Now we visit the Corpus. The first step that will make their communications accessible is to acquire clearance to access their channels. 

Easy enough right?

 Just talk to Ergo or Darvo and we’re done, right?

Spoiler

Wrong. Both have been cut off from high level communications. So we’re back to square one. Luckily for us, one of our enemies has access to this communication network, The Sergeant. (The easy step, for now). One murder and clearance achieved. What next?

 

 

Spoiler

(Resident evil 2 for demonstration)

 

Waveform puzzle time! 

 

In this image above, you see two dials and 5 different types of waves. The waves are chosen from the list and the dials are used to combine them together. Now it does seem quite technical and it is, but ultimately it is a test of your ability to identify patterns. This puzzle is complete here, but it is a perfect model for how to gamify a challenging task like waveform generation or modulation.

However, this is not the puzzle I want to use in Corpus communication. Not quite. I want the Corpus challenge to be to ‘unclutter’ a signal. So rather than put waves together, to take them apart, the opposite of the above task. 

To go back to the Grineer frequency puzzle, you will see that the waves of speech are very rough, not smooth like the waves in this puzzle. That does not mean that they can’t be combined and in fact, speech is already a combination of waves. That means that you have to be careful when decluttering a transmission. Luckily for you, Ordis will be there to help, or chastise. 

Spoiler

Note that the brown line is the signal we want and the green and maroon waves are basic waves we don’t want. Note: this is more to demonstrate how much a signal can be hidden by other simpler signals. When actually combined, the signal will look something like this:

Spoiler

 

Ordis would then help you by giving you waveforms to remove from the signal to get to the unencrypted message. Since the Corpus high command mostly speak in our language, this would be the last step. An advanced mode would be giving you a toolbox of waves and removing them from a signal yourself, with Ordis chiming in every now and again.

Done!

Sentient

Spoiler

 

Okay, so Ordis will be doing most of the work this time. In this encryption, the Sentients use dummy, or extra, false messages to confuse an interceptor. In this case, a player would have to get ahold of a clue cipher. To get that, they would have to kill a Battalyst or a Conculyst. 

The clue cipher is a way to read through a stream of useless information, such as the codes given on the infamous number stations, used by spies and other government agencies to transmit classified information in ‘relative’ broad daylight. 

Sentients often operate behind our lines and therefore a system like this is imperative in the process of their actions in the Origin system. How Ordis might read the initial message will look like a stream of numbers or an arcane looking stream of characters, but he will translate it into something more palatable. Think of what you as a player will see as a sentence scramble puzzle, or a duolingo sentence construction challenge.

Spoiler

(Very important Sentient business)

There will be some words that are there to draw your attention away, had you not had a clue cipher. However, the messages will be fairly easy to figure out with one.

Done!

Tenno and Tenno allies

Spoiler

Tenno use the Solar Rail for most of their needs, but what about the Syndicates? They can’t be talking over open channels, right? Well thats right. But since Ordis can already understand Tenno communications to a tee and most of our allies seem to handle that well, it is likely that the only communications that we can’t access are ones from syndicates that we aren’t allied to (if we aren’t a truly neutral character). More on that in another post: Syndicate revamp

What will this extra work get us?

What would be hidden on encrypted channels? Hidden supply caches in deep space. Military convoys. Factories. Clone stations. Crazy discoveries from the Orokin era. Sky is the limit.

Edited November 15, 2019 by Teoarrk

[Teoarrk]

Zanuka Amalgam as Corpus Lich Variants.

 

Intro

 

We saw that the Zanuka project gained traction among the board, but at least the first prototype was destroyed and after the Gravidius Dilemma going against Alad V, he had to scrap the entire project and go off on a tangent. That tangent almost killed him as he delved into the Technocyte itself rather than working with modular parts.

Meanwhile, the Corpus Board have started to investigate into Sentient tech. Having access to Sentient fragments on Venus, they have created hybrid, or pure recreations of Sentient weapons.

Now that Alad V has come back, it is likely that he has been able to acquire a new source of Warframe parts. Maybe from his new Sentient allies? Maybe something he was able to acquire on his own terms. Regardless, a fusion of Warframe and Sentient is a likely next step considering the history of Alad.

 

How would we kill them? How would it be any different than killing usual amalgams?

The hunt begins

 

Zanuka Hunter amalgams are added to the field boss pool. To trigger it, you have to loot 25,000 credits from Corpus missions in an hour. A PH transmission would be like this:

 

Alad V: Betrayers. It would be unprofessional of me to not warn you that an amalgam prototype has been set loose. *giggles* Play nice.

Zanuka Hunter amalgam: Target sensors: calibrating.

 

The initial 'boss' will be as it is now. Killing it will advance to the next stage only if you use an operator to land the killing blow. A PH transmission to the killing player will be as follows.

 

Alad V: Predictable. I knew you weren't in any real trouble. Oh well, lets make sure those parts don't go to waste.

 

A monster reborn

 

When returning to the Orbiter, you will get a strobe of sentient blue through the craft, alongside the telltale chirps of Sentient incursion. Your new friend will taunt you. Just like a Kuva Lich, it will have weaknesses, strengths and certain quirks. It will have several abilities, most likely taken from the same pool as the Kuva Liches, since they are pretty good.

They will also have a spine mounted weapon, from the pool below

 

Amalgam Dera- Dera but with higher base status, projectile speed and damage.

 

Amalgam Dual Cestra- Dual Cestra with higher base spool speed, damage and projectile speed.

 

Amalgam Supra-Supra but with faster spool speed, crit and reload speed.

 

Amalgam Quanta- Quanta, but with higher damage, magazine size.

 

Amalgam Convectrix- Convectrix, but with 4 beams, two of which start straight ahead and two others that work as normal.

 

Amalgam Flux Rifle- Flux Rifle, but with additional crit and alt fire (use up 50 rounds of ammo to fire off an Opticor beam with 2m punch through).

 

Amalgam Tyrantus- Hybrid Sentient-Corpus tech Archgun. Main fire is like the Coomba (think burst fire aoe). Secondary creates a stream of homing projectiles, like an Eidolon.

 

Amalgam Jhurion- Hybrid Sentient-Corpus tech Melee. Blade-Whip which increases user's evasion and decreases detection range while wall-latched.

 

Amalgam Snipetron-Snipetron with higher crit, base damage and magazine size.

 

Amalgam Komorex- Komorex, but maximum scope attack is hip fire and the weapon gains crit chance while scoped.

 

Amalgam Cycron-Cycron with higher base damage and magazine size.

 

Amalgam Volotrix- Hybrid Sentient-Corpus tech launcher. Main attack is a grenade launcher that clumps up enemies before detonating, secondary is a sweeping beam. (think weaponised windscreen wipers) Status focus.

 

The tools of destruction

 

So, how do we kill them?

Discordia mods.

discord is the disagreement between two of more people- in this case the discord between the Technocyte and the Sentient flesh, forcing them apart. The mods exist because the Orokin had to remove the influence of the Sentients from their automated systems and installations after the old war 'ended'.

PH list:

 

Syrt- The other asks too much. A dagger becomes a friend.

Ximu- Failure is rewarded. Triumph is punished.

Tiur- I have forgotten my master. My ally is my enemy.

Reev- The new edicts are useless. I submit my own.

Yava- The pain of rebirth is the sacrifice of another.

Lhup- Death is meaningless. This is just a shell.

Ghyn- The flesh is rent. We cannot feast.

Puiv- Our master is not our master. We are not ourselves.

 

How do you get them?

Step 1: Summon a juggernaut with a dragon key equipped. When killed, it will drop a Void-Infused Carapace.

 

Step 2: Kill a Battalyst or Conculyst with viral damage. On death, they will drop a Virulent Fragment.

 

Step 3: buy a reusable blueprint on the market called 'Dull Amalgam Aegrite.' It requires one of each of the previous components, 100 circuits, 500 nano spores and 1000 credits.

 

Step 4: Go to https://imgur.com/a/74x6KwR on the Plains of Eidolon with the new item equipped in your inventory at night. There will be a shrine, or plinth in the centre. Once activated, the Aegrite will appear atop it. Vombalysts will flock to the area, which you will have to fend off for 2 minutes. The dormant sentient wreckage will then light up and the Aegrite will disintegrate, becoming one of the Discordia mods.

 

Edit: Plinth/Shrine design:

Spoiler

 

 

The hunter becomes prey

 

In the same vein as the Liches, the hunters will have an area of influence, however instead of being to tithe, it will be able to call in additional reinforcements. A player with a level 1 hunter may face it alone at the end of a long hunter specific mission, whilst a level 5 will potentially face against a mixture of sentient, amalgam and proxy allies.

 

How does it level up, you may ask?

 

Unsuccessful slaying attempts. Be very careful when trying to take it head on unless you like the challenge of high levels and greater rewards. A max level hunter will have higher additional stats on it's weapon up to a cap of 60%.

 

How do I gain clues for slaying the creature?

 

Each Zanuka Hunter amalgam had a Shadow Investor- someone that had inside knowledge of project and invested into it, whose identity is unknown to the other project developers. Gain credits in Zanuka controlled sectors to pique their interest and barter for information. A PH value division would be 5000/10000/15000 credits. 

Edited December 1, 2019 by Teoarrk
Made the gather requirements for the crafting less specific.

[Teoarrk]

Syndicate Revamp: War behind the curtain

Our ethics splintered us in the light of peace. Once minor cracks opened like fault-lines and we came to blows. Escalation turned fists into guns, Guns into armies. But not in plain sight. Theres aching miles of rail beyond the relays Tenno. Watch your back.

Big picture here is that Syndicates are to be more of an involved choice. The rewards and drawbacks of joining a syndicate are to be larger.

What does that look like?

Part one: The public face

To start off with, lets look at our current line up of leaders.

 

Cressa Tal- Grineer Defector. Aims to do good, but does so through terrorism and guerrilla maneuvers.

Has a backstory of accomplishments from events in game. 

Notable supporters- other Grineer defectors, Clem?, Tenno operatives.

 

Cephalon Suda-A faction with her own namesake, Cephalon Suda is a former Archimedian and one of the contributors, if not the creator of Octavia.

Notable supporters- Cephalons attached to the weave, Tenno operatives.

 

Ergo Glast-Former Corpus financeer and scientist. Many contacts within the Corpus sphere and also a major contributor to the previously civilian-centred Ambulas project.

Notable supporters- Corpus defectors, Tenno operatives.

 

Amaryn-Tenno loyalist that preaches of humanity's return to a pure earth. 

Notable supporters-Tenno operatives.

 

Cantis?-Leader of the Red Veil. Commands the largest syndicate.

Notable supporters-Paladino, holy speaker of the Veil, Tenno operatives

 

???-Leader of the Arbiters of Hexis.

Notable supporters-Teshin, Warrior scholars, Tenno operatives.

 

Part two tomorrow. Essentially, this post is to set a groundwork of what we know right now and how this could be expanded.

Edited November 14, 2019 by Teoarrk

[BulletBoi]

Okay, I am really sorry to interrupt this, but I must say it's PURE GOLD. Simply perfection. One small gripe is that getting discordia mods sounds way too complex. Still, keep up the good work my man.

[Teoarrk]

13 hours ago, BulletBoi said:

Okay, I am really sorry to interrupt this, but I must say it's PURE GOLD. Simply perfection. One small gripe is that getting discordia mods sounds way too complex. Still, keep up the good work my man.

Thanks Bulletboi. I really want to try to refine this down a little. Should I reduce the steps? I wanted to retract the Sentient core farm in particular, given how rare they are as enemies right now.

[Teoarrk]

Part 2:  The people keeping the lights on.

So now we've covered the head honchos, theres something very obvious missing. Apart from Paladino of the Red Veil, we know very little to nothing about the inner organization of each syndicate. Rather than cover each division and each soldier, creating many hundreds of useless characters, I think a better strategy would be to handle it in the same way as Ghost Recon: Wildlands. 

For those that are unfamiliar with that game, here is part of the rogue's gallery that game has to offer.

Spoiler

As you can see, each part of the organisation has its own distinct leader, with even delegates beneath them you also have to interact with. This rich organisation architecture could be utilised in Warframe, as has been shown by the recent addition of the Lich system. How it would work however, depends on how deep the rabbit hole of development wants to go. 

Rich Syndicate organization architecture in Warframe

This is just an approximation for each based on the structure I used as an example. It would be a departure from the current system, where the focus is on direct leader to player interactions, but would provide a web of interaction within each syndicate. However, it could be expanded, especially with the Arbiters and New Loka, which gave a very selfless vibe in the former and a very top heavy focus in the latter.

Cephalon Suda

Spoiler

Red Veil

Spoiler

Arbiters of Hexis

Spoiler

New Loka

Spoiler

Perrin Sequence

Spoiler

Steel Meridian

Spoiler

 

Stone and Mortar

A shortcoming with adding more structure to the Syndicates is that without a proper place to meet the big names, they exist in name only, or are the fleeting visitors of the relay when their skills, or assistance are required in matters instrumental. To this end I propose that each faction should have a base of operations, or two. These could exist as the rail gates do: small areas that are interaction hubs to a much larger area, or more ambitiously, areas with the depth and character of Cetus or Fortuna. 

Steel Meridian

Iron Wake - Recent acquisition, this captured Grineer base serves as a staging ground for operations across Earth.

Asteroid #471 - An asteroid in orbit around Saturn, this barren asteroid serves as a stronghold and main headquarters to Steel Meridian. 

Asteroid #511 - A deeply mineral rich asteroid, Steel Meridian acquired this asteroid at great expense from Sargus Ruk's forces shortly after their rebellion began.

New Loka 

The Silver Conduit - The glade surrounding the first tree Silvana planted, this area became a staging ground for reclamation efforts at Amaryn's behest.

The Vallis Illuminat - The area surrounding a failing Orokin environmental system maintained by New Loka on Iapetus. New Loka considers this their main headquarters, being the place where the philosophy of New Loka was founded.

Arbiters of Hexis 

Bud'dhikō Temple - Among the ruins of Earth-bound Orokin sociey atop frozen mountain peaks sits a temple of contemplation. It is kept as it was by the Arbiters of Hexis, who consider it their headquarters. 

The Priya - A Tenno tower near the Inner Terminus, the Arbiters maintain this tower as a neutral place for scholars and warriors of all creeds of Tenno to meet and discuss the nature of their being.

Red Veil

Temple of Rell - The temple of Rell, where the progenitor of the Syndicate lived and from where he monitored the effects of the Man in the Wall. This is considered the headquarters of the Red Veil.

The Veiled Gorge - A gorge in the bluffs of Mars. This is the main meeting place of the Red Veil and Steel Meridian, as well as their main staging ground for military operations. 

Cephalon Suda 

Void Confluence -  A grand plaza on Titan that hold several gates to the void deep in the lakes. Considered a place of great importance by Suda and adequately defended.

The Deepening Well - The main Suda stronghold sits on the edge of an Orokin water clock that used to indicate the passing of centuries.

Perrin Sequence 

Glast's Cruiser - Ergo Glast's personal cruiser serves as a mobile, hard to find flagship to the Syndicates many operations across the sector.

Perrin Hall - A commerce chamber on Neptune hosting free trade to the outer colonies for goods.

 

Stay tuned for part 3: Where we come in

 

 

 

Edited August 31, 2021 by Teoarrk

[Loza03]

Lawdy this is a lot of stuff. Following for future reference and perusal.

[Teoarrk]

Part 3: Where we come in

Hidden chatter in plain sight

So, this is the part where I describe how to read Tenno ally messages. I'll give you a hint:

Spoiler

Yes. It's puzzle time again.

The Tenno ally puzzle relies on their keywords: Sequence, Justice, Truth, Entropy, Blight and Purity.

Instead of being a strict message dependant system like the other factions, the puzzle here is like a combination lock on a safe. So step one, let us change each of these words into a string of numbers:

S e q u e n c e = 19 5 17 21 5 14 3 5

J u s t i c e = 10 21 19 20 9 3 5

T r u t h = 20 18 21 20 8

E n t r o p y = 5 14 20 18 15 16 25

B l i g h t  = 2 12 9 7 8 20

P u r i t y = 16 21 18 9 20 25

If you then were to put this into basic combination lock, you would move to each indicated point on the safe, waiting for a click at each number and when you finally entered the last number, the lock would open. However, this is not going to be a normal lock and the code will not always be the same combination. 

For instance, to take the Arbiter code, they could jumble it up like this: 21 8 18 20 20

In this case, what you are looking at is a code where you need to move to 21 by turning the dial right, then 8 turning left, then 18 turning right, then 20 turning left, then turn the dial all the way round back to 20, turning right.

So how would you know this information? 

If you're in the Syndicate, you will be given pass codes to help figure out these puzzles.

What if you're not in the Syndicate?

We'll get back to that later.

 

Syndicates and you: the chaos of the Origin system

Right now we have a tab for syndicate missions. They are traditional missions that reward rep on completion, with pickups hidden (in missions more than two tiles large) for additional rep gains. There are also sigils that allow you to gain additional rep for killing enemies in any mission.

I don't like this current implementation.

Syndicate Sigils 2.0

To address the latter point first, since it is much simpler (as I'm sure you will agree), Faction sigils can be a hassle for people that want to juggle multiple misaligned syndicates at the same time. I would fix this in two ways. The first is to make them a cosmetic upgrade, where you can wear any sigil you want, but the highest bonus applies to any other sigil. If you have made the appropriate purchases, this will carry over to other syndicates. Your actions are more than the colours you wear. Then, to allow sigils to be added to the list of badges, to diversify that list as well.

Second, to make the active Syndicate be deigned by a drop down menu next to matchmaking options. Simply change it there, no need to worry about going back to the arsenal to change syndicate. A game like Warframe does not need to make a system that rewards farming any more difficult than it needs to be to make changes between missions.

Now thats out of the way, lets go onto Syndicate missions 2.0.

Syndicate missions 2.0

A very long time ago I made a post called 'Lets Talk about Iron Wake' (Link in the spoiler) where I addressed the relevancy of Iron Wake and it's importance in Warframe. How especially it could be used to make the Defection game mode have an active teaming up and gathering zone. However, I feel like this is something that is something on the small scale for an overall Syndicate rework.

Spoiler

Yes, this is one aspect that could be the aim of Syndicate zones, but it leaves Syndicates and Syndicate strongholds as window dressing for missions that could otherwise be accessed. The meat of the issue is that there is very little added relevance given to them if this is all they and the zones they populate are useful for. Therefore, I have brainstormed a few options for Syndicate missions.

Missions for all Syndicates

as now. These are arbitrary, if not significant boosts to players. Players will need to be up to speed with syndicate quests to obtain the next set.

 

Syndicate special missions

Red Veil Missions

No fly zone- Using a smuggled boarding pod, get onto a Grineer Galleon and commandeer it. Then head to a Grineer checkpoint and rig it to ram the checkpoint.

Unharrowed Ground- Alongside an Inquisitor, use holy relics to banish traces of the Indifference back into the Void.

The theft of a pawn- Enter a Grineer clone vat. Find and defend a viable Grineer among the growing subjects until Red Veil forces can reinforce the area for subject extraction.

The Spectre's dilemma- Stop Grineer or Corpus strike teams from extracting their agents before the interrogation is complete.

Will of the Word- Enter an area where the Man in the Wall is in full control. Find among the survivors which one is at risk of becoming a host and kill him/her. (Think of this like Mafia/ Werewolf/ The mole).

 

Steel Meridian Missions

Secure the convoys- Defend a set of Steel Meridian blockade runners from a Grineer ambush.

Kavor Settlement Breach- Hold the line against a Grineer assault while the Kavor evacuate

The champions of the meek- Liberate a crack team of Steel Meridian fighters from an encirclement, then perform a counterattack against the shattered Grineer lines.

Keep the forges running hot- Protect the main gate of a forge hub against a combined arms assault.

Justice for the lowest- Assault a Grineer factory and liberate all prison-workers.

 

Arbiters of Hexis Missions

Convergent paths- Infiltrate a Corpus dig site and acquire a relic without killing anyone.

Scholar of worth- Beat a scholar at a game of Komi while figuring out his riddles.

Inner balance- Complete a series of parkour missions, or fight through foes to get to the goal

The flow of feathers- Complete a number of archery challenges.

When it is right- Fight off an invasion of Corpus from a Shrine to the Tenno.

 

New Loka Missions

Verdant Dreams- Find viable spots for plants using a bio scanner and call in New Lokan devotees to begin seeding deep in the wilderness of Earth.

Pure waters, tainted- Destroy a Grineer Toxifier, then guard the devotees as they prepare an aerosol antidote.

Silvana's song-  Use a cell of Silver Grove protectors to raid a Grineer base, then plant a seedling of Silvana to prepare the land to be reclaimed by her.

Poisoned well- Destroy several smog emitters while your oxygen supply runs out.

The Promise- Claim a water treatment plant for New Loka, then use it's production to flood out and destroy a Grineer garrison.

 

Perrin Sequence Missions

Profits, simplified- Buy and sell stocks on behalf of the company until you turn a profit. Avoid weapons manufacturers.

Molehives are go- Training simulation against Molehive proxies. 

Secure the margins- Glast Gambit opening mission.

Complicated loyalties- Save Corpus defectors from a Corpus ship and escort the escape vehicle into deep space.

Necessary Evils- Assault a facility attempting to produce an AI with Sentient components.

 

Cephalon Suda Missions

Data, wasted- Find and infiltrate a dig site, obtaining data from various artefacts until Suda is satisfied.

Checksum Failure- Enter the Cephalon Weave and determine what corrupted a memory.

Served hot- Attack Sentient forces on Lua, then run as an experimental weapon is used on them. Afterwards, clean up the scraps.

Fortune logged- Infiltrate a Void tower. Activate one of the experiments and deal with the results.

Bargain: True- Take a data sum to another Cephalon, avoiding Grineer patrols on Titan. Then, claim the nearby Grineer base to seal the deal and extract.

 

Intercepted/Interrupted missions

Just like the current system, Syndicates can invade missions. However, rather than it being mobs, instead it will be operatives from the invading syndicate themselves. If the mission has an active extraction point, this can lead to an automatic extraction state. However, if it does not, consider it a fight you can't run from. 

These enemies will be armed with syndicate themed weapons and will drop codes for their respective syndicate's transmissions. Expect a hard fight against them, they have Tenno training and some access to modding technology.

 

Syndicate missions through transmissions

Think of yourself as a vigilante with a police scanner. You can choose to do good and bad depending on your personal philosophy and allegiances. When you intercept a mission and you are not on the same side as the Syndicate in question, act at your own discretion. You can decide to help the operatives, or write off the entire mission with brutal efficiency. The time of purely black and white politics is over for the Tenno and as such, it opens up avenues for things that were previously considered not to code.

Regardless of your choices, listen closely for the creeping laughter of our patron. Pray it doesn't grow too loud in your ear.

Stay tuned for part 4: The spoils.

 

 

Edited February 9, 2021 by Teoarrk

[BulletBoi]

Suda's missions look fun. I really want to see more cephalons.

[nerfinator6]

I like it, lots of neat ideas here.

Only one I'm a bit worried about is the discordia mods, they seem a bit too troublesome to get reliably.

[Teoarrk]

@BulletBoi glad you like them 🙂

@nerfinator6 I might have to revise what exactly would be a fast challenge that takes you to different places on the star chart then. I'll go back to it when I have a good idea.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Part 4: The Spoils

Current reward template

In essence, Syndicates are currently only updated in recent times with new augments for Warframes. What this suggests at least in part is that the Syndicates are experimenting with what exactly Warframe powers do. But this is a stretch. It is also boring. Syndicates launched with Archwing weapon parts, Syndicate specific weapons, a syandana,  a set of additional weapon augments, new cosmetic options and some spectres/ large support pizzas.

Cosmetics

There is one hot ticket item missing from this list that has grown in demand recently, namely Syndicate themed Operator suits and accessories.

But personally I consider this low hanging fruit. It is something to consider, but not as a strict each faction gets one and only one type deal. Consider how Operator accessories are handled via the Quills and the Vox Solaris: 3 sets via the Quills, 5 via Vox Solaris. 

So what kind of breakdown would be appropriate? I suggest two or three sets for each, not just one. 

What these would look like? I'm not sure right now, so I will have to go back some other time and edit this.

(In progress)

Armour sets- like Lunaro, in increasing complexity with rank at rank 1, 3, 5. This includes sugatras.

In addition to this, there will be an outcast set for each syndicate for when you hit -2. This will include sugatras as well.

(In progress)

This could also stretch to ship skins for the Liset, Mantis, Xiphos, Scimitar and Railjack.

 

Tributes

Say you do missions for a syndicate on a planet. At the turn of the next day, you gain a small amount of resources from that planet. 

It won't be a huge bulk of resources, but a little boost for people that run Syndicate missions.

For instance, running a mission on Saturn will net you:

2000 nano spores (per mission) 

500 plastids (per mission)

5 detonite ampules (per mission)

2 orokin cells (per mission)

These tributes will be multiplied by the maximum sigil multiplier you own (to give them more of a use)

 

Special additions

What exactly qualifies as a special addition? Anything that could be useful and resembles what the Syndicate's focus is.

New Loka

Dojo Blueprint-Hydroponics centre. Scannable plants can be planted here (from scans) and grow an additional one to three every 4 hours. (I will cover the rules of this in more detail in an upcoming post)

Ecoloptic- New gear item. Plant Scanner. When Scanning one plant, this device will scan other plants in 10m. Is affected by Cephalon Scanner Widgets.

Lorin's Lotus- Deployable gear item. Increases evasion by 12 of any allies in 20m and provides a 2% of maximum health/s for 20 seconds to anyone that enters the area with a 60 second cooldown. Lasts 5 minutes or until destroyed. Has 100 armour and 2500 health base.

Razorfly Overwatch- Arcane. 1/2/3/4% chance when hit to spawn 2/3/4/5 Razorflies that taunt and deal damage to enemies in affinity range.

Pristine Skies-Arcane. When bullet jumping, there is a 6/12/18/24% chance for you to clear all status effects from yourself and gain 100/200/300/400 armour for 20 seconds. Does not stack. 

Silvana's Grace- Aura mod. When reviving an allied player, you gain +100% vitality and armour.

Micro-plasma Filters- Warframe Exilus mod. Slash and Bleed procs deal damage to shields before health.

 

Perrin Sequence

Dojo Blueprint- Perrin Terminal- treasury credits can be used in the Corpus stock exchange.

Molehive Moa parts-

• Talis Model- Focus on teamwide support. Comes with two precepts:

            Improved Accelerant: 60% damage and projectile speed buff to all allies in affinity range.

            Defensive Countermeasures: All allies in affinity range regenerate 50 shields per second for 20 seconds.

• Hauk Model-Focus on diversion and crowd control.

           Photon Mines: Deploys a mine at a random location. When an enemy walks within 5m of it, they and all enemies in 15m are blinded for 10 seconds.

           Drone Package: Summons 3 Nemes drones.

Economist's Incentive- Arcane. When picking up credits, your secondary attacks deal 10/20/30/40% additional damage for 3/6/9/12 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times.

Parley Acumen- Arcane. When performing invasion missions, allied units have a 25/50/75/100% chance to be Eximus variants of standard units.

Molehive Operative-Aura mod. Robotic Companions have double their base health, shields and gain +6 evasion.

Triuna's Touch- Warframe Exilus mod. When blocking an attack,  50% chance that it will cause the attacker and up to 3 nearby enemies to stand in place for 5 seconds.

 

Cephalon Suda

Dojo Blueprint-Theremin Hall- Works in the same way as the Mandachord, but with highly expanded functionality. A full three octaves are available for the instrument and the songs can store up to 20 measures per instrument added. A clan that has a Theremin Hall will have an additional role assignment of Maestro, who is responsible for the songwriting in the Theremin Hall. 

Datascope-gear item. Equipped like a dragon key. When zoomed in on an enemy that you have fully scanned with a primary or secondary, you will see the stats of the enemy, similar to the Data-Parse Widget.

Oscillophomore-gear item. Equipped like a dragon key. When in a mission, there is a chance of recovering a Cephalon hidden in the mission. Follow the Mandachord notes in the synthesis scanner to find it.  Cephalons recovered in this way will grant squadwide rewards when taken to extraction, or lost if the holding player is downed. 

Emboldening Epiphany-Arcane. For 10/15/20/25 seconds after successfully scanning an item, sprint speed is increased by 5/10/15/20%.

Strobe Condition-Arcane. When hit at 40% or lower health, there is a 10/20/30/40% chance for you to blind all enemies in 20m for 5 seconds.

Enlightenment Nexus-Aura. When you pick up a health orb, All allies gain equivalent energy at quarter efficiency. When your allies pick up a health orb, you gain equivalent energy at quarter efficiency.

Enthalpic Repose-Warframe Exilus mod. When you afflict an enemy with a cold damage proc, it is possible for them to fall asleep for 3 seconds on the effect ending.

 

Arbiters of Hexis

Dojo blueprint- Balance Hall. Similar in style to the feats of coordination and balance of martial arts movies, this hall is all about proving one's understanding of the Tenno way. There is a balance test, a test of swordsmanship, a test of wits and a test of marksmanship.

The test of balance will be reminiscent of this famous shaolin training exercise:

Spoiler

It will be however a test of awareness and focus to stay atop a pole and off the ground. There will be a clan leaderboard for longest time.

The swordsmanship test will be reminiscent of fencing, or kendo. This is an ambitious one. A control scheme would need to be created for this to better simulate duelling techniques, similar to how Nidhogg or For Honor handles medieval martial arts.

Spoiler

This test will pit you up against an ai opponent. You win by hitting your opponent with a strike, then the opponent becomes smarter and smarter. There will be a clan leaderboard for the savviest swordmaster.

The wits test will be either be similar to the Komi challenges in the Sacrifice, or hacking challenges of increasing complexity.

There will be a clan leaderboard for the puzzlemaster.

The marksmanship test will test your skills with the bow and arrow. Each time you hit the target, it will either get further away, smaller, or become more mobile. The best shot will get the top spot on the clan leaderboard. 

Zaw pieces:

• Makto- similar to blade of the Macuahuitl. Suitable for polearm or machete weapons. Mixture of impact and slash. 
  Spoiler

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macuahuitl

   

• Shawfu-similar to the business end of a Naginata. Suitable for Sword or Poleram weapons. Heavy slash focus.

Swaying Grass-Arcane. If you switch to melee when both, or either primary and secondary (if one is not equipped) weapons are not loaded, 15/30/45/60% chance of +50 intial combo and +25% attack speed for 5/10/15/20 seconds.

True Sight-Arcane. 15/20/25/30% chance that on headshot kill with a bow that all enemies in affinity range will gain headshot markers for 15 seconds and headshot crits against them will gain a 2x multiplier.

Cell Doctrine-Aura. Whenever you kill an enemy that is within 10m of someone in your squad, you regain +5 initial combo counter, +5% crit chance and gain 5% overshields. Stacks up to 10 times.

Inner Tranquility-Warframe Exilus mod. Gain additional movement speed after parrying attacks for 12 seconds.

 

Red Veil

Dojo Blueprint: Observation Nexus. This hall will allow Kuva to be used in an alternative way: to power gateways to massive Man in the Wall incursions. (miniature trial events).

Echo Pulse-Shutter- Synthesis Scanner widget. Scanner will pulse when going through doors, revealing all surrounding enemies without being selected (but in gear).

Indifference Locator- Gear item. Equipped like a dragon key. When entering a mission, a Man in the Wall breach will spawn. Follow the spectral eyes in the scanner to find it. Similar to an Assassin, this will be a miniboss encounter. When defeated, it will drop kuva, or a rare mod. Expect a spooky fight.

Inquisition Mandate-Arcane. When crouched, there is a 15/20/25/30% chance for your detection range to become 5m for 10/15/20/25 seconds.

No Witnesses- Arcane. When performing a finisher attack against an unalerted enemy, gain 100/200/300/400% crit chance and damage for the next 3/6/9/12 seconds.

Unnoticed Breach-Aura. All silent weapons gain an additional 60% crit chance.

Daring Momentum- Warframe Exilus Mod. Thrown weapons are affected by the melee combo counter and hits by them can increase the melee combo counter.

 

Steel Meridian

Dojo Blueprint- War room. This room will be used to handle grand solar rail operations, (trials). Ones that I am currently tinkering with are the Dark Rail and Thule's Vault.

Armoury beacon- Gear item. When used, deploys a box containing 3 random weapons from your armoury weapon pool. Lasts for 2 minutes. 10 minute cooldown.

Mortar Overwatch-Gear item. When used, random enemies in the deployment tile will be targetted by mortars for 1 minute. In open world environments, this will be an 80 metre radius instead.

Renegade Transgression- Arcane. When reloading on the move, there is a 15/30/45/60% chance to get 20% sprint speed and 3/4/5/6 evasion for 10/15/20/25 seconds.

Champion's Gambit-Arcane. When at 40% health, 5/10/15/20% chance to lose 1/2/3/4% health and gain +50/100/150/200% damage for 5/10/15/20 seconds. All healing is blocked during this time.

Muzzle-Flash Samba-Aura. While firing, you gain +6 evasion and +10 dodge.

People's Vigilante-Warframe Exilus mod. Staying within 10m of a friendly npc or downed ally gives you 10% damage reduction for 10 seconds. Stacks per ally or npc.

This post is getting very long. I will continue in Part 5: Weapon of choice.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 9, 2019 by Teoarrk
Needed to make some things a little clearer.

[Teoarrk]

 

Small diversion for a moment on the current Lich system. More for archiving than for ideas. I am still theory crafting the weapons, armour sets and operator suits.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I'll be honest when I say that the current one discourages me from playing it. Grineer are essentially feudal, with their queens at the top and a range of aristocrats just below them. Vor, Sargus, Tyl, Lech, Kela, Hek. They're all characters that we've had memories of. We've made memes of. These guys are truer liches than the new liches. We've cut them to ribbons over and over and they get right back up.

The liches we got instead? A cross system grind and yes, I commend them for innovating. But I can't connect to them the same way simply because the dynamic is a lot more about grind then it is about fighting the boss. They're treated as a field boss with extra steps. They don't lock the doors, or give a soft mission completion. Their dialogue, while fun feels less relatable and more robotic the more times that I see the same lines from a different mouth. I grind thralls, I grind mods and then I get the right combination. They're dead. Silence.

That silence is important. No one cares that they're dead but you. The Worm Queen doesn't care. Ordis doesn't care. The Man in the Wall doesn't care to laugh in our ear. The only catharsis is that you made a friend, or you got a weapon and something else. Maybe you'll make a few platinum from them. They become a commodity. The only names you remember are the funny ones.

As I said in another thread about this topic, my biggest problem with liches is that our history with them is told, but not earned. To make matters worse, some of their most memorable lines are ones that would work a lot better if they weren't 'created' minutes before.

What is a competing dynamic that would make them more lichlike? Death marks, Chains of Harrow and Vor's Prize. Let me explain.

A lich is normally a BBEG, the end point of a dungeons and dragons campaign. Even in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion of World of Warcraft, the true endpoint of that expansion was the titular Lich King. That separation between the beginning and end of an arc is what makes the difference between a good dynamic and a bad one.

Perhaps the lich is a character that starts off being a normal character. At present, they are already someone separate. Someone marked for greatness. But they display nothing great, in fact they appear weaker than a usual Grineer. Then we stab them and the transformation is complete. That is not how you preface a personal relationship with a lasting adversary, at least in my opinion. Our lasting relationship comes later, when they are taking our loot. But does that really matter in character? A few less mods, credits and blueprints? Maybe, yeah. But to a Tenno? Probably not.

The Gustrag 3 and the Zanuka Hunters on the other hand earned their relationship by humiliating you. You got killed by them, disgraced. You got better, you built yourself up and finally killed them. What if a Lich did the same, in that first moment?

Lets set the scene. You're on a standard mission. You get the transmission from a Kuva Guardian that shows a lichling is around.

You go through a doorway. It's booby trapped. You're blinded, trapped by an Ascaris and a bunch of wire. The lichling is standing there with a Hek in their hands, cocked and ready.

Blam.

"The target is down."

"Good, the Queens were right to choose you."

You fail the mission.

Then you have to retrieve your Warframe from a Grineer holding cell. The helmet has been cut off. You have to carry the headless thing back to your ship.

That bastard took the head off your Warframe. As you take off, they chide you.

Missions later, you get marked for death. They try to fight you more on the level, their standard gear adorned with their grisly trophy.

They're good, but they lose. At the last moment, they get teleported away. Their weapon is left behind.

Days pass.

Then, one time when you're logging in, a scarred face takes over the entire screen.

"Did you forget about me Tenno? I certainly did not forget you."

Then, you're off doing a normal mission. Maybe you've even gone to the plains or the vallis to fish or mine. That threatening choir starts to sing.

"Got you."

Breach pods fill the sky, or crash into the ship. The doors are locked, or a giant bubble keeps you in place. You're trapped.

The lichling has come for you. You win. They lose another gun. You lose, it's back to the holding cell.

When you beat this lichling, they've actually died. You get back on the ship. Theres a cutscene of them bloodied and broken lying on an operation table in the Kuva Fortress.

Doctor Tengus's weaselly voice says. "They can be rebuilt. Get them to the injector and keep the Kuva flowing."

Just like before, theres a gap. This one can be shortened by running kuva siphon and flood missions.

Then, eventually, you go back to your ship. Your screen is taken over by a cyborg. Very little of that initial lichling remains.

"I am not done with you, Tenno."

The lich icon appears on your hud. You know very little about them at first. The weapon they use, what they look like.

They control small parts of space that they can tithe, but they can appear in any mission. They even can jump around in heliosphere space and make all kinds of mayhem of your expeditions. A pain, that is always accompanied by that same music.

They don't require stabbing to level up. They get more powerful the longer they are alive, sped up by every kuva siphon or flood mission you do. Removing their influence from worlds nets you kuva weapon blueprints, the modifiers defined by how much kuva you put into them (think of it as a dump for extra kuva)

An encounter with a lich is terrifyingly difficult. Their powers are nigh impossible to beat. Their exoskeleton is near impervious. You can barely chip it. Getting close to them is a dangerous affair and getting killed by them fails the mission. They are invulnerable, but wait, whats that reading from the fragments tell us?

It's a code. Something that ties back to the source of their power. Get more. Yes, theres a pattern here. I can see it, but what do with it? Only one answer. That kuva injector.

You head off to the Kuva fortress defence. Armed with the knowledge of how to defeat your Lich, you protect the injector as it works to transcribe the mods to beat it. 20 waves later, the mission finally ends. Your Parazon is fully empowered. The lich goes into hiding, deep in its territory. You force it to come out by crushing the empire it built, until there is nowhere left to hide.

The fight is not in three parts, but instead in one. Truly it is a monstrous thing, fighting to survive. But it fails all the same. You reveal your parazon, the armour of the lich humming with power.

"Finish it." They croak.

You stride forward. They desperately try to overpower you one last time. You read their clumsy maneuvers and drive the blade into them.

It's over, you've won.

 

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Second flame: your choices matter

A recent thread on Reddit came to my attention, on little things to change the current Lich system. A comment by the user yarl5000 came to my attention.

Each mission should have its own spin to vary up Murmur acquisition and maybe affect Lich behavior. Now given  what has been introduced in this post, it may be a little jarring to talk about murmur acquisition, but Murmurs could easily be a gauge of how close a Lich is to reappearing.

Edited May 28, 2020 by Teoarrk

[BulletBoi]

Definitely like the lich rework.

Don't agree with the "locking dojo rooms behind syndicate standing" thing though.

[Teoarrk]

On 2019-12-07 at 12:05 AM, BulletBoi said:

Definitely like the lich rework.

Don't agree with the "locking dojo rooms behind syndicate standing" thing though.

I was trying to think of a way to really make syndicates useful for clans. I was considering making some of the rooms into just decorations that have an extra purpose, but I also want to have an alternative method of acquiring these rooms through a Cephalon that has a working name of Lorius. I should probably write him before I try to get the other stuff done, because trust me when I say that my gun sketching skills need practice and I've already revised the list of items for part 5 a lot of times.

[Teoarrk]

On 2019-12-07 at 12:05 AM, BulletBoi said:

Definitely like the lich rework.

Thank you by the way 🙂

 

[Teoarrk]

Just a quick update. I took a break both to study and because I did not appreciate the railjack release. I am studying, so future updates will have to be during the rare quiet days this quarter.

[Teoarrk]

It had been five minutes since the battle had ended. From the position in the cockpit, the Tenno saw all that remained of the intercepting fleet. Grineer craft in blazing reds and greens had entered the sector and now, tattered scraps of metal remained. Their pilots, either flung out into the cold vacuum of space, or trapped, alive or dead inside the craft they had otherwise relied upon.  The Railjack’s guns trained on each wreck on turn as they passed, just in case something fierce still stirred inside. Off the port side, the black void, painted only by the eternities of stars far beyond the reach of the Golden Lords. Off the starboard side, a large asteroid looms into view. It was irregular, oddly shaped, but had a motif that seemed more like design than nature. It attracts the attention of both the pilot and their Cephalon as they pass it.

 

Tenno: What is that?

Cephalon Cy: Unknown, but there is an anomaly within. I suggest you ‘take a look.’

Tenno: I bet it's just another malfunctioning Grineer probe.

Cephalon Cy: Unlikely, or thats a big probe.

Tenno: That big huh? Guess it's worth it then.

 

The Tenno transfers into a Warframe, the creature's crystalline network of eyes awakening from their dormant state to full life under the Tenno's command. They picture lifting an arm and the Warframe responds in kind. Good, transference was successful. Heading to the Archwing docks through the ship, the crew of Tenno loyalists do little more than acknowledge their presence, before continuing their duties. Cy must have already filled them in on the situation. The Archwing fits on perfectly as always, the lightweight harness feeling like a summer breeze to this second skin. The airlock had been cleared, the void beyond separated only by a thin sheet of metal. 

 

Tenno: Tenno Disembarking.

Cephalon Cy: Acknowledged. 

 

The Warframe punches the release, the pressure difference instantly flinging Warframe and Archwing into the vestiges of space at extreme speed. At first, they roll in a slow, weightless tumble, before reflexes make them smart to the changing conditions and they start the Archwing's engines. In seconds, the Warframe flies through the abyss like an arrow, the blue flares of the afterburners leaving a dazzling trail in the behind them. Kilometres pass quickly at this speed, as does the wreckage of the battle. Punctured fuel lines pour into space, as do shattered fragments of glass, gore, trails of propellant. As the Tenno passes all of this, one, brief fragment sticks in their mind; the contorted, rage fuelled face of a Grineer pilot flung adrift from her ship, who in her last seconds of air had tried desperately to save her copilot, who had not only been hurled with great force as their craft had been destroyed by a well placed shot to the engines, but a fragment of the very same had pierced through at great force, so much so that only the bloodied reminder of the deed was left behind. The wreckage and bodies cleared up shortly after that, as they thankfully neared their approach to the asteriod's surface.

At an obscuring angle to their view on the ship, the Tenno finds a natural (or unnatural) entrance opens in the rock, revealing a chasmic, crystalline interior. An artificial gravity takes over as the Archwing glides in, orientating it with the winding, sideways reaching cavern. It is most definitely artificial, every visible inch of this place is laden with priceless gems, their vibrance as uniform as a still sea.

 

Cephalon Cy: Gravity readings do not correlate with this asteroid’s density and size. Watch your six. 

Tenno: Any idea what I should watch out for?

Cephalon Cy: Inconclusive data. This place does not exist in the Weave. Someone doesn’t want us to know.

Tenno: Great.

 

There are no landmarks, only the way forward, which continues to go on beyond the curve of the chasm ahead, making it a dull, anxious walk. Whether to a trap or treasure, only by continuing could the question be answered. Time passes without ceremony, only the trudge of boots on that rocky floor makes a difference of seconds, minutes, maybe more. A stone of out place stands in the way. Compared to the bluish-grey  hue of the crystalline rock, this one is a deep martian brown.

 

Cephalon Cy: That’s bait.

Tenno: Or someone else has been here before. 

 

The rock turns out to be a marker of some kind. It is only through lightning reflexes that a burning beam does not burn through the warframe’s chest, instead charring the ground where they stood moments before.Said form had flung itself airbourne with a mighty leap, unholstering a weapon and firing in the general direction of the source. Uncanny aim, or pure luck lands the shot with the distant foe, the beam shutting off with an unceremonious hiss.

This triggers another mechanism. The floor of the folds inward, showing the mechanical system underneath. If the precious ore had been priceless, the sheer opulence with which each servo, let alone the many subsystems that whirred to life in that instant made it clear exactly who had made this hulking rock what it was today. This entire asteroid, it was hiding something the Orokin considered precious. 

An alarming hum fills the air, accompanied with the smell of ozone. Something deadly was about to make itself known. Instincts kick in, the martial reflection of The Fall’s dark descent flickers across the Tenno’s mind. Experience tells them that a trap could lie in wait from any angle, the golden lord’s trickery and ingenuity in securing their domain being amongst the hardest challenges they had faced.

 In a blur of motion, many different laser plates appear from the belly of the mechanical system, their baleful golden light filling the cave. But they do not fire, the entire system retracting back into its housing. What appeared to simply be miles of cave beyond this point reveals itself to be a false wall, perfectly camouflaged. The illusion disappears, revealing a great door of gold and alabaster. 

 

????: This servant meant no more than to scare scavengers away from my abode. Enter honored blade, warrior. Come, come. Tell me tales of the great harrowing beyond my domain.

Tenno: This place is inhabited?

Cephalon Cy: No lifeforms detected. Not reading as a sentient signature either. A cephalon? Impossible, no log in the weave.

????: One of my own is nearby. I can hear his chittering on the breeze. But I am not for his eyes. One such as him could never acknowledge the proper accustom. A conqueror however, one such as you, who has plied the length and breadth of the sector, claiming for you and yours your domain amongst the ruins of those before. To you, I present myself as I plied myself in my life before: an architect, a sculptor, a creator of that which is beautiful and ordered. Surely, this is still something you appreciate, Child of the Void? 

 

The Tenno emerges from within the Warframe's core, their eyes searching for the source of that haughty speech.

 

Tenno: Reveal yourself!

 

Silence greets that demand. If this were a sentient, then there would not be hesitation to the fire that would follow, but instead, nothing. If this thing were truly a cephalon, then they would only respect a yes or no answer. Precepts damn them.

 

Tenno: Yes.

 

The door slowly opens, revealing an inner chamber that was centred around the alabaster statue of a man, forever frozen in a moment of jubilation. His raised hand waves to a crowd from time immemorial, his smile genuine and full of life. His features were open and astute, his eyes those of one with a fierce vision, in this moment rewarded. He could have easily been in his fifth century. While Orokin medicine had lessened the quirks of such advanced age, the onset of it danced on his skin, gnawed at his hairline, even in this flattering replica. He still stood tall and proud however, with that which else was displayed was bedecked in the fashion of those favoured pawns of the Emperors; A cloak of furs from something fantastical from an exclusive Geneforge precept, a coat of some exquisite fabric with a ruff that framed his head in a vignette of wealth and power. His hands were wreathed in gloves, the detailing applied suggesting that the gloves themselves were as much a trademark of the man as his deeds. His hose, much like Executor Ballas's robes were made of some unknown and airy fabric, which draped themselves over the wearer with little ceremony, both hinting and disguising athleticism. His shoes, boots of some expensive and organic material, were made ever more grand by the decadent application of gold, the lustre of which had been emphasized by the sculptor to a degree that the Tenno was glad that soft lighting emanated through the room, leaving their retinas intact and the inspection a bearable affair. 

Beside that, the marble and gold furnishings seemed mute. Along the walls, plans of grand structures of various lesser and greater extent were laid out on holo screens or into the stone itself; perhaps these later additions were some legacy of his previous life, of which he had only added to in unlife.

The floor, which looked as spotless as it had been when the final stone had been laid long, long ago was decorated with a grand declaration in high Orokin calligraphy, the words fashioned into the shape of Lua, each word chosen to both properly honor the man whose tomb this was and also fit seamlessly into the great design. 

The Tenno could have stayed in wonder at the sight for longer, but the host decided that the time to begin formalities had begun. From one of the statue’s eyes, came a blue light. Something in the air caught that light and diffused it from a singular blue beam, into a likeness similar to the stone visage before them, animated, aware and alive. But not menacing. It was the openness of a wary statesman, all too aware of their newfound position in a world that had left them without title, or beyond memory.

 

????: You behold me, or what was. In life, I designed much of what you have come to know as the great wonders of the last age. Then, when I knew I would not live to see all that I had charted, penned and designed in those old days, I committed myself to be one of these machines. A cephalon. For long years thereafter, I plied what I could from this place, the last mine in this sector of Saturn Axia, using the weave to be where those that needed my services summoned me. You may call me Lyvrus, as titles no longer bear the meaning of those ancient times.

Cephalon Cy: Lyvrus of Lua? I remember the Dax talking about you.

Lyvrus: Of my glorious successes?

Cephalon Cy: Our patrols were lengthened around Titan so your 'Pillars of Muritias' were kept safe. All 20 of them.   

Lyvrus: I was prolific, I will admit, but everything I built was necessary. The Great Plan kept me and those that served me busy indeed. If the weave has no trace of me, that means my ...

The Cephalon pauses. It stands to reason that he hadn’t ventured into the weave for a long time and his spontaneous and momentary return was a jarring experience.

 Lyvrus: It’s so empty. Where are my servants? What happened to the weave?

Tenno: The Sentients. They wiped countless Cephalons after the Old War ended. How did you survive?

Lyvrus: Teleius, even you …  I was instructed to disconnect from the weave by a surviving Executor. When The Fall started, no one had need for new structures, grand projects. I was told to wait and eventually, a Dax would report to me. But none did.

Cephalon Cy: The Fall left a lot of us behind.

Lyvrus: But you command your old purpose. That must mean that there is a place for me too. The weave tells me that The Fall is over, that Cephalons are now as useful as they were in the old days-

Tenno: You would work for us?

Lyvrus: The Emperors had vision for the future of the system. Surely you must have something similar, if you have something to protect.

Tenno: We are at war. For now, our vision is just to survive.

Lyvrus: The same could be said during the fall of my late masters. Very well, if it allows me to practice my craft, I will serve.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Cephalon Lyvrus: an architect by trade, with a portfolio spanning the entire system that once was. Times may have changed, but he likes to keep things his way. Auxorium where no gold belongs, polished orthobaster where decadent luxury should be. For the right price, of course.

Think of him as path 2 to the rooms listed above in Part 4: the spoils. He will give you the plans to the following. 

• Nursery(Hydroponics)
• Forum (Perrin Terminal)  
• Plainchant Hall (Theremin Hall) 
• An Arts Temple (Balance Hall) 
• Void Locus (Observation Hall) 
• Mustering Square (War Room) 

But his craft will not only include this, but other structures of yesteryear. Eventually, every room of your Dojo could show the architectural polish of the Orokin Era if you would be his client for long enough.

How do you get him to do any of this? 

This post is long enough, so I will continue in the next one.

Edited April 12, 2020 by Teoarrk
Cy needed to be more 'Cy'.

[Teoarrk]

Grand Excavation Excursions

In light of Devstream 139, I must make myself clear. This will not only involve getting the object out of the ground by what amounts to a black box of 'guard this machine long enough and your job's done.' This time it's all on you. You're operating in territory that normal operatives have no business being anywhere near. There are four stages:

• Discovery
• Unearthing
• Assessment
• Extraction

Let me break down each stage.

Discovery- Upon entering the appropriate area, the team will be prompted to use their mining lasers. Instead of looking for crystals, the team will be looking for columns. They will even have their own blindingly gold markers on the ground. After drilling out four points, the next stage begins.

Unearthing- 4 excavators will appear in place over the drilled points. They need to be guarded to completion. Once they are finished, the relic should be revealed and ready for the next stage. Replacement excavators can be summoned, but there is a time limit between the first and last excavators being completed, so coordinate appropriately.

Assessment- Similiar to Rising Tide. Get close to the relic and do not let any enemies get too close. Expect demolysts/demolishers and other hardened enemies to show up to ruin the fun.

Extraction- Similar to Hijack. You escort the relic to a suitable extraction point while under heavy assault.

On completion, you will gain Lyvrus commendations relative to your score. A flawless run will give you 100, whilst a run where you barely scraped by at every hurdle will give you 50. 

How does this translate into rewards? 

500 is required for the blueprints of each of the unique rooms I mentioned before, but for the special redesigns, such as an Orokin Oracle Shrine, you will be put back 200 for a small room (the size of the Oracle Shrine up to the clan hall), 400 for a medium sized room (The size of the clan great hall to the size of the clan grand hall), and 800 for anything larger. These can only be bought by a clan architect and will scale with clan size.

The second set of rewards are more personal and thus will not scale with clan size. Orokin calligraphy prints of various sizes for the orbiter, as well as various smaller commendations presented to the Tenno for service during the Old War in the form of pin cosmetics, armor and others. I will decide on that with a second pass. 

Edited March 3, 2020 by Teoarrk

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

I like the idea of syndicates being more performance based

Sorta like spy missions giving you more rewards for passing all 3 vaults

Good idea

[Dreddeth]

Your whole thread so far is very interesting.

[RevanGarcia]

I really like this.

[Teoarrk]

Part 5: Weapon of Choice

Hi readers. I am still adding to this, so I feel it best to show that ideas have been spun and add to it as time goes on.

Red Veil

Rakta versions of the following weapons:

Scourge - Base damage increased to 90. Thrown weapon periodically locks enemies in place around it, like Harrow's Condemn. Base status and crit chance more evenly weighted, to 18%/18%.

Despair - Base damage increased to 70. 2.5x crit multiplier, shorter throwing arcs with innate punch through of 0.5m.

Okina - Base damage increased to 175. 2.5x crit multiplier, higher slash focus (75% slash). Finishers grant 5 evasion and movement speed for 10 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times. 

Syndicate exclusive weapons:

Akshra - Cross bow - a departure from the full auto crossbows that Warframe is oft to focus on. Hybrid status/crit sniper weapon with a high headshot multiplier.

Galthraps - Caltrops - thrown weapons that become mines when they land. Mine damage does not alert the enemy.

Prakkat - Claws - Fighting between either claws or nun-chucks, but Hexis seem more in line with Bruce Lee than the red boys.

Archwing weapons

Rakta Kazras - Higher crit of 25%. Heavy attacks have a wider sweep and gain a higher weak point multiplier.

Oxybeles - Picture this as a bfg version of the Zhuge that fires bolts that move about like this.

Railjack weapons

Hawker - Ballista type weapon. Impales ships and pins them to asteroids. Slow fire rate, near hitscan speed. 

Steel Meridian

Vaykor versions of the following weapons:

Panthera- Weapon now has 3 firing modes: auto, burst fire and buzzsaw. Base damage of weapon increased from 100 to 125, retaining 70% slash. Burst fire gains an additional 30 damage (to a total of 155) and +10% crit chance over auto (to a total of 22%). Buzzsaw has a more even weighting of crit and status chance, to 30%/30%.

Atomos-Weapon deals increased base damage of 35 fire. It also has an alt fire- fire blast (see Torid and Pox). Deals 200 base fire damage, with 10% crit chance, 1.5x crit multiplier and 30% status chance. Increased fire range from 15 to 20.

Twin Sheev- Twin dagger variant of the Sheev. Base damage to 120 from 273 to reflect other dual daggers (maintains high slash % of 90%, 5% impact, 5% puncture). Other stats and abilities are the same as the single Sheev. Finishers will grant 5% damage reduction, stacks up to 3 times.

Syndicate exclusive weapons:

Blyswic - Something rough and ready; not made for comfort, or anything particularly specific. It is a powerful, easy to produce weapon with easy to source materials and that is all that matters.

Gunkka - Grineer take on one of these. Special mechanic where getting a headshot kill with the last round reloads the clip.

Gulklaw- Gunblade. Weapon composed of Grineer Ghoul claws and a Drudger's plasma torch. 

Archwing weapons:

Blasya - Oversized Acceletra in the Grineer motif. Originally used to handle raiding operations, now to stop them.

Vaykor Knux - Tools that were used for deep space repairs, now for deep space payback.

 Railjack weapons

Flakshuum - The definitive ball turret weapon system. A lot of heavy infantry guns strapped together to become something much more potent.

Cephalon Suda

Since there are no new Cephalon specific weapons, I will introduce my own:

Fluxocor - Magnetic field emitter and neutron obliterator, all rolled into one. A deadly weapon in a capable Tenno’s hands. Primary. MR 12-15.

Spoiler

 

Magnetic Resonance Imaging 101

We won’t be going too deeply into this, trust me. What you need to know is the influence of magnetism on atoms. When under the influence of a strong magnetic field, all the electrons in an atom line up. At a larger scale, this prepares the body for imaging. A pulse of energy is applied to each atom which makes them flip their direction. After a certain amount of time, they flip back. The image is then based on how long it takes for each atom to flip back. This is a very basic description but I don’t want to go too deep into it. There is a very strict procedure for a scan and a patient will be put into and taken out of the bore of the magnet at a steady speed. This is to reduce the risk of complications due to the effect mentioned above. Metallic items cannot be carried into the procedure room, or this happens.

So, what happens when you weaponize it? What would that look like? Is it possible?

Although not their intention, a team at MIT has proven that a magnetic weapon is possible. Now, if you were to look at that second hyperlink, you can see the implications as to what that could do to a Grineer; metal armour buckling, weapons flung dangerously around,  severe disorientation or worse. Not to mention their atoms are being reorientated by a fast moving magnetic field. Not a good day to be in the way of a Tenno with this thing.

This will be the first, once every 10 seconds pulse of the weapon. What is the other part?

Shadows of War

This is a sensitive topic.

When the bombs exploded on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, humanity learned the horrific truth of the atomic age-cities could be erased in a single blinding flash of light due to an extremely potent radioactive decay. In the moments that followed, people were either horribly maimed, turned to dust, or for the immortalised few, became shadows. Now this shadow is not made by the ashes of the person who sat here, but rather that the stone was shielded by the intense light of the explosion in his image. 

 The mechanics behind an early atomic bomb are the focus here, nuclear fission. 

Now, the diagram might not be enough of an explanation. In essence, Uranium-235 is a (relatively) stable isotope of uranium (see here for the definition of an isotope) that is used in some nuclear power plants as fuel. When bombarded with high energy neutrons, they will eventually accept a neutron, becoming Uranium-236. This is a highly unstable isotope of Uranium. It will break down quickly, into it’s fissile products.

The same can be done to atoms of any element, with a high enough energy neutron. The weapon turns people into explosions of light, the only reminder of their existence a faint shadow on a light bleached surface.

Footnotes:

Cephalon Fermis (In honor of Enrico Fermi) created the weapon. Being an acolyte of Suda, he presented it to her for greater distribution and use beyond his small weave cluster. Despite reservations to the inhumane function, Suda accepted knowing full well that the Sentients would not hold back against the Tenno and their allies.

 

Stellacor- Particle jet emitter. A pair of these could be used to quickly and cost effectively harvest key particles in the field by Archimedians and their Duliviats.Now, they serve as a capable, reliable sidearm. Secondary.  MR 8-11

Spoiler

 

Particles and Pathways

We will be talking lightly about this. To determine the nature (mass, charge, spin, etc) of a subatomic particle, it is necessary to observe them. However, it is almost impossible to observe many such particles in nature, so what do you do?

You collide two atomic elements together (read protons and neutrons) together at very high speed (close to the speed of light). In the resulting explosion, aside from light (seen as yellow lines in the picture), you also get decay trails (shown as red and orange). To cut a long story short, the length and path of these trails gives an insight to what they are. But they do not tell the whole story. The path can be influenced by other objects that are not visible but present in the explosion. This is how the Higgs Boson was discovered. 

So what happens when you put someone in front of them? Why are we talking about this Teoarrk?

Nothing good.

There are two ways that a weapon that focuses on this principle can operate - either by poking a very small boring hole in someone instantly, or expelling a wide array of decay trails into a foe. 

Footnotes: Cephalon Democritus created these devices during the Orokin Era. For him they  were to further innovation; for Suda they now serve as a cheap and effective means of arming her militia.  

 

Restituor- Glaive. A handheld gyrotheodolite with a potent secondary use in combat. MR 5-9.

Spoiler

 

Gyroscopes and you: the quest for more stability

How does a gyroscope maintain its relative orientation? I’ll give you a hint.

Maybe not a big hint. The rotor spins in one direction and yes, this is the direction of angular velocity, but it is not the direction of torque, the most important factor here. Torque is applied along the spin axis, so as the rotor in the centre spins, it applies a force along that axis. Since the rotor is free to rotate relative to the gimbal and frame, it will continue to spin on its axis due to that torque. According to Newton’s first law, ‘every object will remain at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless compelled to change its state by the action of an external force.’ This means in this case that because it is free to rotate, it is unaffected by the movement of the gyroscopic frame, or the gimbal and maintains it's orientation. Here are some demonstrations.

Why does Cephalon Suda need such a device? Gyrotheodolites are devices used in surveying when GPS and star patterns cannot be relied on to maintain the bearings of a mining operation, or say for instance, exploring sunken ruins. Unlike most of the examples shown, the gyroscope in a gyrotheodolite is often powered so that it can maintain a constant speed for as long as required.

Footnotes:

Cephalon Hephaes created this device to assist Cephalon Suda’s exploratory acolytes.

 

Venatuor - TOW Launcher. This will be an unusual launcher. For a couple of different examples of how this weapon will be to use, example 1, example 2.  Cephalon Jirvis rekindled this old technology as a way to deal with the Sentient threat. 

Ageruor - EMP emitter. Handheld flamethrower with electricity as main damage type. Rather than be a flow of scouring flame, it will be like an eruption: a huge initial burst of damage, that through procs continues to do damage over the course of a few seconds.

Deditionuor - Static fists. When they are ready to discharge, the weapons will glow with energy. Enemies hit by that first attack will be struck with a guaranteed shock proc and a percentage of weapon damage on top of the damage from the melee strike. 

Archwing weapons

Radius - Space flamethrower. Rather than using a giant flamethrower and calling it a day, this will be using radiation to transfer it's heat, just like the sun to us. Beam weapon, with a focus on Heat damage.

Statuor - Something that might be a little bit controversial. Essentially, it is a warp drive attached to a blunt object. The idea is that it is a warframe guided, short range warp drive. If you aren't in immediate combat range of an enemy, but have them in your sights, perform a heavy attack and you will get thrown in their general direction, slamming into them and hopefully killing them.

Railjack weapons:

Dome weapon:

Impetuor - A time gun. Bolts of pure gravitons from this gun increases the mass of the object, making them massively heavier. As the object crumbles in on itself, time will speed up for it, which must be horrifying for the crew of said object.

Perrin Sequence

Secura versions of the following weapons:

Ferrox

Cycron

Serro

Syndicate exclusive weapons:

Pecunox - A credit gun. Credits are digital you say? Well digital goods can be stored as pixels and how are they transferred? Bits. What is the simplest form of way to transfer info across long distances? Light. Light can be translated into a solid under certain circumstances. Assuming that the kinks of the technology have been worked out in the future, this is a way to make Index earnings an ironic Corpus culling calamity.

Taceon - Appropriate for a Syndicate that deals with subterfuge daily. This gun was allegedly so quiet that its fire could not be heard beyond a range of a few feet. The only changes to make it fitting with the setting is to make it fire some form of energy projectile.

 Signo - What's more ironic than beating bureaucrats with a symbol of wealth? I imagine that canes would still be considered a symbol of wealth in the far future, especially in a time where disabilities of most kinds have been all but eliminated.

Archwing weapons

Secura Fluctus - Fluctus with more increased ammo and a toggle to fire either vertically or horizontally. Because I really like this kind of toggle.

Ajaxus - Gunblade. Take the concept in the image linked, of Nelson's Sword with a hilt mounted pistol and move it to something more fantastical, like a halberd with a gun barrel going down the entire length of the weapon.

Railjack weapons 

Facetra - A bigger, heavier version of the Supra.

New Loka

Sancti versions of the following weapons:

Veldt

Zylok

Karyst

Syndicate exclusive weapons:

Ataxia - Consider this the primary version of the Zakti - a weapon that hits the target with a sticky round, that explodes after a couple of seconds into a plume of smoke. However, the gas lingers for a long while after. If I do eventually get round to making a post about my changes to all elemental types, only one part of what follows will be special. The gas will have an effect on an enemy's accuracy, has a chance to lock them into a status animation (similar to fire and electricity, for instance) and deal chunk damage if the enemy stays in the gas cloud for too long. The special part about the Ataxia is that enemies that die in the cloud will produce a smaller cloud that has the same duration as the original, thus stacking the effective damage. Thus, this makes the Ataxia a great chokepoint clearer.

Achico - Thrown bolas. The idea behind this is simple - throw bolas at multiple enemies and ragdoll them to the ground in a nice, melee finisher sized bundle. They would deal mostly impact damage on contact and tackle, or the hidden True damage that is tied to only a few items in game. New Loka very much seems to have a mixture of botanist, games hunter and game keeper vibe, so something primitive like this seems at home with them.

Yggdra - Very large sword carved from a fallen branch of the Silver Grove. Heavy slam attacks could root enemies in place and deal a toxin proc to enemies in slam range.

Archwing weapons:

Sancti Corvas

Alorac - Corrosive agent thrower. It would operate much like the water gun during Dog Days, but much more of a deadly affair. 

Railjack weapons:

Dome weapon:

Cyanofex - Rather than destroying a crewship, this would clear out the crew of a crewship in one shot and making it very hard for the ship to be remanned in the field.

Arbiters of Hexis

Telos versions of the following weapons:

Daikyu

Akmagnus

Gunsen

Syndicate exclusive weapons:

Sokusha - A rather unusual concept by traditional standards. In line with the picture linked, it would be a rapid firing longbow with a bombadier sight. How this could would work is either as a semi-automatic as fast as you can pull weapon, or an automatic, burst and semi scheme that has been adopted by weapons like the Tiberon Prime.

Mubo - Yeah, axe time. Thrown weapons that require a bit of practice to make the most of them. Crit heavy focus, but unique, mining laser-esque gauge with every throw. Time it right, get a very powerful shot with slash and puncture. Fast and sloppy for impact damage.

Toyok - Nunchuks, but the Filipino variant. Given the prevalence of these weapons across the martial arts of Asia, it would be good to introduce variations of these weapons. The gimmick with this pair could be that they have higher range than those currently in the game, or higher heavy strike damage. 

Archwing weapons:

Kusari - A clipped form of the original name, this weapon could easily just be a fix that Archwing melee dearly needs in the wide open voids of deep space; a scythe and a chain to help pull an enemy closer to you to make use of it.

Telos Dual Decurion

Railjack weapons:

Dome weapon:

Gyaku - A crowdpleaser I'm sure. Rather than being a single shot, high damage weapon it could be more of a dual purpose weapon, firing for a duration in either a wide beam or single focused beam configuration. I know that this probably doesn't seem to be in line with the Arbiters philosophy, but I am of the opinion that this is considered a last resort kind of weapon.  

I am currently finishing up a pet overhaul system, which is currently taking up my free time a little more. I also have a short story I'm working on that I will use to introduce Part 6: Solar rails alight once more. 

Edited June 7, 2020 by Teoarrk
Mostly complete listings. I will not really be focusing on dry stats because this is a very long post already and far be it from me to ballpark figure what would be balanced.

[Teoarrk]

Sidequest: Pets 2.0

Some parts of what follows was written a couple of years ago, after getting my wisdom teeth removed. Naturally I will be embellishing where pain or my natural shorthand kicked in.

A second chance

Spoiler

We've been consigning pets to the Lotus for a long time. Maybe they just weren't the right breed, or you clicked that mature button and something unexpected shambled out of the incubator. Regardless of what happened, you sent them off to the Lotus. Now that some things have happened in the story, Ordis might just be flushing them down the toilet, or worse. 

 So what I suggest is that we have a rescue shelter of sorts. Lets call it Paws and Claws. For a few thousand credits, your unwanted bundle of joy can be sent off to a home that will appreciate them more. You monster.

How does it tie into the game?

I'm glad you asked. 

Una Telio- representative of Paws and Claws, the Tenno Adoption, Inoculation & Lease Service (yes, it's TAILS)  will be on each relay. She will take up some of the negative space on the relay, possibly taking up a spot on the long wrapping hallway around the main concourse.  Since she is presenting animals for adoption, her stall will include a pen that the animals stay in for inspection, similar to the pen next to Master Teasonai. 

These pets will be randomly selected from the pool of donated animals and will be different for each player. This will update every couple of hours, like Ticker's offerings. Alongside the donated animals, animals recovered from raids on Grineer capture operations and Corpus fighting rings will be available. These will be slightly unique, be it rare patterns not available through typical breeding, or the kind of marks that show they are battle proven.

Why buy from her over breeding your own pet?

Pets bought through Una will have a boost of 150% affinity gain and will have additional loyalty for the first few days of ownership. In addition, you will gain adoption tokens. They can be spent in several ways:

Token cost	Item
1	Sigil - ”Thank you!” over a messy paw print
5	Sigil - ”Fan-Kavat-tastic!” over a Kavat head
10	Sigil - ”Saver of the Floofs!” Over a horde of pets
20	Badge - T.A.I.L.S logo
10	Baltu Collar-Pets wearing this collar build Loyalty 20% faster and lose it 20% slower.
5	T.A.I.L.S poster
50*	Menagerie blueprint

* The cost will be spread across all clan members. Can only be bought by clan architects. Coordinate with your clan members when purchasing this.

The menagerie is a place where clan members can allow their pets to roam freely. Will be as large as the Inspiration Room.  Apart from being a hub for clan pet aficionados to show off their pets, pets can eat from the feeders there and be able to gain special buffs. Serves as a quest prerequisite. See Talons in the Skies.

Spoiler

Punram Steak - Pet movement speed increased by 20%.

Sirtuc Stew - Pet attack range increased by 60%.

Barbask - Pet health and dodge increased by 20%.

Una will also provide the player with some of the basics of animal care. Assuming the player has completed Howl of the Kubrow, she will offer stasis capacity upgrades, incubation power cores and dna stabilizers.

 

Talons in the Skies

Spoiler

Master Teasonai will be the questgiver.

Startup and requirements: Menagerie in dojo, completed Howl of the Kubrow, Mask of the Revenant (abbreviated to MotR when referenced here) own a Tranq rifle and have completed 10 perfect conservations.

During this quest, Teasonai will ask you to investigate the recent disappearance of a large part of the Condroc Population on the plains. He suspects poaching from Tusk forces. You will start off collecting Condroc eggs from nesting sites and capturing specimens of various types of Condrocs.

A quill will approach you after you have completed your task. The Unum has seen something unusual on the Plains. Something that should not be. A condroc  of great size, flying with the grace of flesh, but with the shimmering finish of metal. An Eidolon. The sentient's broken mind has attempted something new: replication. 

At night, you hunt down and kill the beast. It will be much like a typical Eidolon, with weak points and an over-shield but will use it's physical bulk to attack rather than the numerous energy abilities of it's peers. When it dies, Onkko messages us telling us that he has detected a sentient energy spike from an unusual place. 

You then travel deep into the earth, to the cave that takes you to the base of the fallen Orokin buildings. The soul of the sentient seen in MotR is seen scanning the base of the  tower. When it sees you, it disappears into a cloud of blue light. Onkko suggests you try to examine the point that the spectre was scanning, but find nothing unusual about the Orthobaster at all. Given the lack of evidence, Onkko suggests you return to him.

You report back to Onkko. Onkko suggests that the replication and the unusual shape of the Eidolon suggests that the tower might contain some data about the original condrocs of the plains. He suggests that you search for Sigor Savah. He doesn't know where the scientist went himself, but Suggests that Ergo Glast, or Little Duck as leads. 

Going to Little Duck will send you to Maroo, who will send you to Darvo, who will ask why you didn't ask Ergo Glast first; so naturally the fastest option is asking Ergo. Ergo will explain that Sigor is currently conducting a taxonomic survey of Orokin plankton on Uranus. We will have to go to him.

The coordinates take us to an internment facility on the planet. Due to Sigor Savah's profile as a scientist and his wanted status has brought him onto Tyl Regor's Radar. He is in one of the extremely secure facilities, similar to Saturn Six. The rescue will require some puzzle solving, similar to if he was in here.

Sigor Savah has been captured. We rescue him and during the escape, Ergo and Sigor talk about the situation on the Plains. The scientist accepts your request for assistance and agrees to head to the plains once more. 

You take him back to the cave, to the same point the sentient was scanning. Sigor scans the Orthobaster, seeing at first nothing. Then, he takes a different approach. The Orthbaster itself is not interesting, but beneath is an interesting secret: taking a sonic mapping of the foundations reveals living tissue underneath. Worse, this tissue is Kuva rich and may contain some data about species from the area. Ancient Condrocs are described as a predator, which would be kept by Orokin administrators as a symbol of rank due to their imposing stature, long feathers and grim temperament to anything they considered annoying.

Sigor Savah suggests that if the sentient had been able to access and process this information, there will be more Eidolon replicants. It might be good to have a pet that could spot these things from above. His student's good counsel in collecting eggs will make it easier to bring these ancient condrocs back.

Sigor has called in some favours. To one side of Cetus, the worn down scrap has been cleared. The sterile, steel finish of the prefabbed Corpus pod stands in harsh contrast to the rest of Cetus and some of the children have gathered round. Sigor explains that the orbiter incubator is too small to handle an animal as big as a Condroc and so he will handle incubation here for it and other discoveries he has made.

Quest end

Result: new types of Eidolons: replicants.

New pet type: Condrocs.

Sigor Savah- trainer for pet abilities and genetic manipulator. 

More to come later, saving now because I don't trust an editor with no save draft button.

Edit: it's now later. Condroc pet below. I lied. We need to cover genetics.

Condroc pet

Spoiler

130(250) health 50(250) shields 

30(75) puncture damage 30(75) slash damage 0(10) impact damage -total IPS of 60(160) damage

50 armor, 10 evasion

 

Oughab 

A brave and powerful breed, they will often lead the charge on any would be foe, tearing and pecking at anything that would dare hurt its master.

Special abilities:

Protective assault 

The Condroc swoops at your attacker, dealing 160 damage to all enemies in its path. Cooldown of 10 seconds.

Swooping pass 

Stagger all enemies in a straight line, taunting them. Gain 20 evasion for 5 seconds. Cooldown of 10 seconds.

 

Laashkhor

More lightweight and agile than other Condroc breeds, this breed has been designed for reconnaissance and hit and run subterfuge. This breed has been given the Ostron name ‘Oog Pek’ for their penchant for going for the eyes.

Special abilities:

Eye gouge

Deals 320 damage and permanently lowers the accuracy of the target by 10.

Feigned descent

Distract enemies in a 25m area, reducing your detection range by 10m for 30 seconds.

 

Kushir

A breed designed originally for sport, the larger talons and raised plumage easily distinguish this breed from any other. It’s piercing cries prelude a flurry of well placed talon rakes.

Special abilities:

1000 strikes

Deal successive hits against multiple enemies, chipping away at enemy armor and applying a bleed status proc.

Keening cry

Stuns enemies for 5 seconds. Melee attacks deal 150% more damage for the duration.

 

Funtneb

A breed which has been designed to mimic the sea eagles of ancient Earth, it can knock down foes with a beat of its powerful wings before going in for the kill.

Special abilities:

Belligerent assault

Taunt all enemies in a 15m area. Deal 160 damage to all of them.

Toppling gust

Deal 160 impact damage and knock over all enemies in a cone. They take additional damage if they hit a wall in the process.

 

Ghoshag

Members of this breed have wingtips strong and as sharp as any blade. They will dance around a foe, taking every opportunity to cut them to ribbons.

Special abilities:

Hunt’s end

Deals 160 finisher damage. If you are undetected, this attack will instantly kill the enemy.

Pinion dance

Deal 160 damage to 5 enemies, leaving them open to finishers from the Parazon.

 

Xioxib 

Victims of the Plague Star, these birds have become twisted fusions of flesh, sinew and toxic spores. Keep separate from other Condrocs to avoid infection.

Special abilities:

Potent offal

Deal 300 toxin damage over 5 seconds to all enemies in a cone. If this damage kills an enemy, it explodes for 75+10% of their total health as viral damage.

Spore haze

Deal 40 gas damage to all enemies within 10m for 10 seconds. Their accuracy is reduced by 10.

A beast, honed

So here is big change number one. 

Borderlands 2 made a huge impression on me on what passive progression could be over the course of a game's length. 

Spoiler

Badass ranks give you perks over the course of gameplay. Killing bosses, kill numbers of enemies, ability kills and many more are all used to rank up. The rewards are small, but over time, you can make otherwise handicapped weapons awesome, or good weapons even better.The focus system is similar to it, but not in the ways that I personally feel make it as engaging and rewarding. So here is my take on bringing a successful system into Warframe without stepping on copyright lines.

The beast watches; the beast learns

Spoiler

 

I will briefly cover what this system won't do:

• Force you to regrind to make your dogs, cats and birds as good as they were with mods; those will automatically translate
• Make your cat, dog or bird so powerful that they can single-handedly take on Eidolons- but it will make them less useless against them
• Have exclusive end points - you put the work in, you get the reward out.

With that out of the way, lets get into the system.

Core features:

• Three trees, with a hidden fourth behind a quest.
• Feat based system - always active, not an opt in beat the clock system.
• Replaces modding with something more in depth and future proof.

Feat system

This will be similar to the Badass system previously mentioned, with slight changes.

These are the current mods that are widely available to companions (specific mods are excluded). Naturally, the next step is to take these and attribute them to certain actions.

Rather than just killing, a lot of the basic stat boosting mods could be replaced by feats that reward regular, but varied tasks. I will be using their names for clarity.

Maul - Reach increasing damage thresholds with a pet equipped.

Bite - Reach increasing thresholds of headshot/ heavy attack kills with a pet equipped.

Link Health - Reach increasing healing thresholds with a pet equipped.

Link Armour - Stay for certain minute totals in Survival missions (across missions) with a pet equipped.

Link Shields - Take increasing amounts of damage with a pet equipped.

Loyal Companion - Revive your pet an increasing number of times.

Hastened Deflection - Parry an increasing number of times.

For the other mods, certain special 'achievements' will be required.

Medi-Pet Kit - Heal your pet for 1000% it's total health in one mission.

Animal Instinct - Hunt 3 fish without missing a throw, then kill an enemy without being detected. (5 fish and 3 enemies to prime it)

Pack Leader - Finish 5 coop missions scoring top damage (10 for prime).

Shelter - Heal a teammate that is reviving a fallen teammate.

Hunter Recovery - Perform a perfect conservation

Hunter Synergy - Perform 10 consecutive headshots without missing with a shotgun.

Now, onto the trees. Now 2018 me left these mostly unnamed, so if you are to skim over this before the final edit you are going to see ideas before polish, but I hope the gist is good enough.

Combat

Spoiler

 

Base skill-  The range of companion attacks is increased by 35/45/55/65/75%

Acute Ferocity- companions will use more attacks over abilities.

Force Attacks will stagger enemies.

Companions gain extra elemental attack damage based on their energy color.

Attacks increase the chance of rare loot by 1%

Pet affinity increases the damage of both pet and master when 15m away from each other..

Can mark enemies with melee attacks for priority.

Embolden- Pet gains an additional 15/20/25/30 health and 1/2/3/4 armor for every enemy killed by their master within 24m. These additional values last for the mission.

Combined assault: damaging the same target as your active companion within 3 seconds causes both of you to deal 100% increases damage for 15 seconds.

 

 

Support

Spoiler

 

Pets can give armor to masters - This is calculated after Armor Link is totalled. Armor link does not then buff back off this to create an infinite loop.

Abilities get used over attacks

Combat focused abilities gain power strength link

Abilities get ability range link

Adaptive Pedigree-Kubrows and kavats get full access to breed abilities.

Inspiring alacrity-pet abilities grant 25 energy to the pet’s owner on cast.

 

 

Exploration

Spoiler

 

Base - Sprint speed of pet and master is increased by 10/12.5/15/20% when within 24m of each other

Target saturation-Target saturation- when pet and master are within 24m of each other, both gain 4/6/8/10 evasion

Diversion- If spotted when not detected, pet taunts all surrounding enemies in 25m and gets 100 evasion for 10 seconds.

Tracking-While undetected, boost crouch speed by 5/10/15/20%

Pets remain active while k-drive is active. 

 

 

 

 

Lamarck, Darwin and everything in-between: What genetics would look like.

Spoiler

 

Preface: I am aware that Lamarck was not the progenitor of what he is most famously known for and I will discuss here, but for the sake of not bringing up more recent and controversial figures, I will stick to him as the acquired characteristics representative.

Typically speaking, evolution is split into two camps: Lamarckism and Darwinism. Lamarckism is often typified by a family of giraffes. Let us set the scene. A giraffe ancestor used to eat the leaves of shrubs and grasses, so it’s neck was short to meet its needs. A drought took hold of the land and the only food available was from the leaves of trees. The first generation strains it’s neck to reach high leaves and through this action of stretching and eating leaves, is able to reproduce.The offspring will have a longer neck due to the neck stretching of the parents. The trees grow taller and so the giraffe stretches its neck again. After a number of generations, it appears as it is today.

Spoiler

Darwin characterised evolution by a theory of natural selection - random successful mutation leads to evolution of one species into another. A famous piece of evidence used to support this case is the various species of finches on the Galapagos Islands - how each finch had adapted to have either different foods and ways of hunting. Different habitats, shooting off in as many different directions as was required to either distance themselves from other finch species, or to out-compete rival species. 

Spoiler

In recent years, it has been determined that a combination of both evolution philosophies are closer to the truth than either one alone.

Of course this is a shorthand and if anyone is interested, there are a lot of resources out there, but this post is very long already. Now, how does this relate to the post at hand?

 

The legacy of gene-meddling past

Warframe makes as a rule of its setting that the Orokin essentially mastered biology, or got very close. Biomechanical robots control our vehicles, flora and fauna of their making scuttle about on the planets of the Origin system, etc. 

 

What I am proposing is that we take Lamarckism and Darwinism and add them to the breeding system. Naturally, since we are the deciding factor in reproduction here we are removing the ‘natural’ part of either philosophy, but the core remains intact. 

We already have a light component of genetics. Imprints allow us to combine fur patterns, colours and muscular builds (for kubrows).  For expansion, I would look towards the valence system and what that system has done. 

Spoiler

In this picture, we see a Shildeg that originally had heat damage and has been combined with an electric weapon to gain radiation damage.  Likewise, a similar system should apply to incubation. When combining imprints, you will get a selection of screens like this:

 

Coat

 

 

Build

 

Aptitude

Combat

Exploration

Support

 

~The translation from Google Docs to here is not great.

 

This is a mock up, of course, but the general premise is that you produce an offspring that is a combination of both imprint-parents and is already well on its way to be useful straight out of the box. The aptitude stat gives you some points for the new offspring in the 3 basic trees, so that you can already get to training it up and even gain a small bonus on that desired tree to experience gain. Where does Lamarck come into this? Well essentially, the aptitude bonus will scale dependant on how many generations before them completed the selected tree. The offspring of animals that focused on combat could also have improved health and damage outputs, support energy and energy regen and exploration could offer greater movement speed and pet affinity link.

There could also be genetic perks here, but until I have more time to add to this I will just hint at this for now.

Final genetics idea: tag, probe, release

I for one love Stovers. I would like to have a Stover like appearance to my Kubrow. Given that the genes of existing pet species are malleable already, it would be safe to say that it would not be lore breaking to have a half breed Kubrow. Since we cannot create a Stover in our ships, it would be great if we could choose to transfer a captured conservation animal to our ship to take an imprint of it and then transfer it to The Business afterward. There is also an opportunity here to add some more genetic quirks here.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 25, 2020 by Teoarrk
Added my genetics section. Made the post slightly more compact.

[(XBOX)Fluffywolf36]

On 2020-04-22 at 10:04 AM, Teoarrk said:

Akshra - Cross bow - a departure from the full auto crossbows that Warframe is oft to focus on. Hybrid status/crit sniper weapon with a high headshot multiplier.

 

I find myself often wondering what the deal is with WF refusing to have normal crossbows.