[Warframe Fan Concept] Cascara- The Cephalon Warframe (with artwork)

[cruskin]

Hello fellow Tenno !

I am Cruskin and along with Nostrofo , we decided to create a concept for a Warframe&Chephalon , an two in one combination. 

I took care of the concept art and Nostrofo took care of skills& stats and story overall  so it can be a lot easier to handle issues than can occur when doing something like a Warframe. By going back and forth with each other, we managed to keep it all tied together (well, as much as we could for a first time collaboration). 

However , these are not the final drafts for this warframe. The primary reason for posting it  is we would love to get some feedback on art and the abilities& and stats from other players to see what can get improved and changed. 

 

CONCEPT ART PRESENTATION : 

When i first thought on how it should look , I immediately had this exo-skeleton in mind that would represent the cephalon aiding the warframe in battle. I wanted a very fluid design with a lot of curved lines but still keeping the cephalon part distinguishable from the warframe. You have these flowing/ detachable parts that help you with the skills in battle. 

In the first initial drafts , the cephalon was visible  in front of the helmet as a hologram (think Cephlon Simaris) . Then , as I was cleaning out the design and roughly piecing it together , I realized that the hologram might take attention from the helmet. However, the hologram is still an idea that i would love to come back to when I finalize the design. (after I get some feedback of course)

 

The final design is alot more polished but maybe not that engaging or dynamic.  I feel like I had to give up on certain things in order to get some others? I really can't describe it otherwise 😅

However, I am not worried at all since this will get modified as well. 

 

And a  v e r y  rough colour scheme  : 

 

GAME MECHANICS - ABILITIES & STATS  

As previously mentioned , Nostrofo took care of stats and abilites. While I usually play warframe due to  the amazing power fantasy and the glorious aesthetics , Nostrofo is really into stats& and abilities. He is really excited to read what you guys have to say so please don't hesitate to ask questions, mention mistakes etc.  

Cascara

 

STATS:

 

Health: 90 (270 at rank 30)

Shield: 120 (360 at rank 30)

Armor: 110

Energy: 100 (150 at rank 30)

Sprint Speed: 1.0

Polarities: Naramon/Madurai

Exilus Polarity: None

Aura Polarity: Naramon

 

 

ABILITIES :

 

Passive - Support Extension

 

Cephalon Daos has a sentinel extension named Heron that allows you to equip 4 sentinel mods. Heron has 90 Health, 120 shield, no armour and no weapons. When it dies it will respawn within 90 seconds. You can have an additional Sentinel equipped or a companion alongside it.

 

Assist

Cost 25 energy

 

“The cephalon will remotely manage a weapon of the player's choice (primary, secondary, melee) to attack anything that it can target in an area.  The weapon can be toggled in a wheel, holding down the ability key will send out or recover the weapon.

The damage and effects from mods will be applicable and it has a chance to hit weak spots. Over time the damage ramps up. Ammo is consumed but all excess ammo types picked up will be converted by Cephalon Daos.”

Spoiler

 

Daos’s equipment will be deployed in an area up to 30 meters away from the player along with the weapon of choice for 6 / 9 / 12 / 15 seconds. The cephalon will attack anything it detects in a 10 / 13 / 16 / 20 meter radius, focusing on the enemies with the least health. However weapons will not get more range and the cephalon cannot attack further than the weapon reaches. This only applies to primary and secondary weapons. Melee weapons will attack anything within the abilities range.

The cephalon has a 5% / 8% / 11% / 15% chance to target weak spots with the primary and secondary weapons when possible (does not scale with mods).

The weapon of choice can be toggled in a wheel, unlocked in the following order: 

Secondary (level 0), primary (level 1), melee (level 2).

Hold down the ability button to retrieve deployed weapons.

very 2 seconds the weapon is active it will gain 5% extra damage, up to 30% increased damage. All mods, buffs and effects at the moment the weapon is deployed will be in effect. Buffs can not be applied retroactively from other sources once it is deployed. 

Ammo is consumed but Cephalon Daos will convert excess ammunition picked up (ammo types that do not apply to your remaining weapon as well as relevant ammunition if it is stocked fully. Reload is lowered by 60% / 70% / 80% / 90% of the current speed based on level. 

The damage scales after a formula where the weapons will do reduced damage to a certain enemy level (reaching max damage with enemies at level 60 or higher). The weapon will at minimum damage still do at least 40% of its total damage)

Total Damage = (“Weapon damage with mods”/100 x (40 + “enemy level”)) x (1 + Damage buff) x (1 + ability strength)

If a Strun modded with Point Blank is summoned with Assist and the player has Intensify equipped they would get the following damage against a level 48 enemy.

((300 x 1.90)/100 x (40+48 (equals 88% damage)) x (1+0.3) x (1+0.3) = 653.38 damage 

When the ability reaches maximum damage from the buff the Strun will deal 653.38 damage per shot.

Melee weapons lose combo stacks when they are active but at a decreased rate. Combo duration has an additional 5 seconds and as long as there are enemies to target the combo meter will decrease by 10 / 8 / 6 / 3 per duration tick. Melee weapons do benefit from the combo stack and all mods affected by them as well. Melee weapons do not gain increased range but will attack everything in the area.

Assist does not have a casting animation and can be cast during other skills and animations.

Augment Idea: Assist Mode - Surplus Coil

Cost of Assist is increased by 25 energy.

Removes the need to reload a weapon during Assist but impacts the abilities duration. Every time a weapon usually has to reload the duration of the ability is shortened by 40% / 35% / 30% / 20% of it’s max duration. Ammo efficiency is also increased, every third shot will be fired without depleting ammo. The ability can be refreshed by casting it again however the duration will not increase 

No Ammo efficiency is granted if Power Extension is active during Deconstruction. If Power Extension and the augment are both in effect the ability is shortened by an additional 10% every time the weapon normally reloads.

Has no effect on melee weapons.

 

 

Analyze / Disrupt

Cost: Analyze 50 energy - Disrupt 25 energy

 

“The cephalon will analyze enemies around Cascara by releasing and attaching small mechanical drones that burrow into the enemies and interlink them, increasing the proficiency of all attacks. Enemies affected will be marked and stunned, having an additional chance to be stunned again by basic attacks, and spread status effects to others affected by Analyze.

Holding down the ability after the initial cast will allow you to command the drones to Disrupt analyzed enemies, increasing damage to stunned enemies.”

Spoiler

 

Cephalon Daos will send out flying drones that instantly connect to enemies in a 8 / 11 / 14 / 18 meter range around Cascara for 7 / 8 / 9 / 12 seconds. Marked enemies will be stunned for 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 seconds and have a 10% / 13% / 16% / 20% chance to be stunned again by attacks (primary, secondary and melee) by both you and your allies for the same duration. Assist can also stun affected enemies. The chance to apply the stun again scales with power duration, the stun duration is static regardless of positive or negative values.

Every time Cascara manages to proc a status effect on an enemy the drone will analyze it and communicate with drones in its vicinity, The drone will have a 10% / 15% / 20% / 25% chance (affected by power strength) to spread to the 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 closest enemies around the enemy that are affected by analyze. They in turn have the same chance to spread to enemies around them that haven’t been affected by the original proc. Additional enemies it spreads to are affected by ability range (an additional enemy for every 25%).

Holding down the button will allow you to command the drones to Disrupt affected enemies. Disrupt has the following effects: 

Enemies are stunned again for 4 seconds. This duration is not affected by ability duration.

When enemies affected by Disrupt are stunned they will take 45% / 54% / 62% / 70% increased damage from all sources (scales with power strength but is capped at 120%).

Disrupt cannot be cast if no enemies are affected by Analyze. 

High priority targets (Grineer Bombards, Corpus tech, etc) will be prioritized by Assist when you activate Disrupt. This will affect Assist in two ways. Assist will have a 20% / 26% / 32% / 40% chance of stunning high priority targets and gain 10% / 13% / 16% / 20% increased damage towards stunned targets.

 

 

Contain

Cost: 75 Energy / 10 energy for every enemy that enters

 

“Cephalon Daos will send out a small device that generates a sphere with a gravitational pull. The sphere will pull in enemies and tamper with their equipment at the same time. Enemies that enter have their weapons jammed while inside the sphere.

The range continues to expand for every enemy sucked in. Enemies that exit the brim of the sphere are slowed.”

Spoiler

 

Cephalon Daos will plant a device that generates a sphere that pulls enemies towards it; the device will need 1.2 seconds of wind-up before it can create the sphere. The device is active for 6 / 8 / 10 / 12 seconds before returning to Cascara. 

The sphere and gravitational pull has a range of 4 / 5 / 6 / 8 meters, however the pull will expand with 10% for every enemy that enters during the duration. The expansion does not scale exponentially but will add a static 10% to the value Contain had at activation. Enemies pulled in by the turbine will stop being affected once they reach the center of the ability.

The field will jam an enemy's weapons for as long as they are inside of it, if an enemy unit is not within range to melee attack a player or companion they will try to leave the sphere.

Once they leave the sphere their weapons will become fully functional but they will suffer 300 / 350 / 400 / 500 magnetic damage and a 20% / 25% / 30% / 40% slow (does not scale) for 5 seconds. Hold the ability key to detonate the sphere dealing 300 / 350 / 400 / 500 magnetic damage, plus 10% damage for every enemy that has entered within it.

Enemies inside of the field take 20% / 25% / 35% / 45% increased damage by Assist. If enemies are affected by Analyze when they break through the sphere of Contain they will be stunned instead of slowed. If the sphere is detonated while enemies are affected by Analyze they will be stunned.

 

Augment Idea: Exhaust

Costs an additional: 25 energy

When the player captures an enemy unit inside Contain the ability button can be pressed again to deploy a parasitic drone. The enemy with the highest amount of health points will be targeted by the skill.

The parasitic drone will drain the enemy for 1% / 2% / 3% / 4% / 5% true damage per second and restore 1% / 2% / 3% / 4% / 5% health (then shield points) per second. Heron and companions will also be healed for half the amount. If Exhaust kills an enemy and Heron is destroyed it will lower the respawn cooldown by 20 seconds.

The damage does not scale with power strength but the heal and restore does.

 

 

Deconstruct

Cost: 100 Energy

“Cephalon Daos will assess Cascara’s equipment and start channeling energy to restore her to full power for a brief time. Cascara will gain increased stats depending on what mods are equipped as well as change all projectiles it has into energized hit-scan shots with no fall-off.  Beam weapons get increased range and width.

Melee weapons will gain ghost hits that follow up after a short delay and deal additional damage. These effects apply to Assist as well.”

It takes Cephalon Daos 2 seconds to channel enough energy to overcharge Cascara. During this time Cascara can do any action.

Cascara will receive a power up, brimming with energy for 8 / 10 / 14 / 20 seconds. 

 

Spoiler

 

Passive Effects

The Kascara will gain increased stats from Aspects and Extensions (Defense and Power) depending on how and what mods are equipped.

 

Defense Aspect

Defense Aspect is affected by mods that give health (Vitality, etc), shield (Redirection, etc) or armor (steel fiber, etc). Vitality will activate the Health Aspect. No Defense Aspect will be in effect without mods.

 

Health Aspect - Cascara will gain 150% / 200% / 275% / 350% extra health (before bonuses).The surplus health will be added instantly. When Cascara’s health goes below 50% she heals for 20 / 25 / 35 / 45 health per second.

 

Shield Aspect - Your shields will be restored. Half of your shield values will turn into overshield, you can also reach an additional 1000 overshield afterwards. Your shields will constantly be charged for 30 / 40 / 50 / 70 shield points per second (not taking normal shield recharge into account). Shield gating is increased by an additional 0.7 seconds.

 

Armour Aspect - Having an armour mod first will give you additional 175% / 225% / 275% / 350% armour (before bonuses) and enemies affected by Analyze will have a 12% / 15% / 17% / 20% chance to be stunned for 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 seconds when they attack you (The chance to stun an enemy is twice as high if they are melee).

 

Extensions:

Extensions will be affected by mods that affect Ability Duration, Ability Strength, Ability Efficiency and Ability Range positively. These stat bonuses are all static, even when Deconstruction ends all abilities in effect will keep the bonus. If no mods would presumably be in effect the Energy Extension will apply as a default.

 

Time Extension - Gained from Power Duration. Will add a slow bonus to Disrupt, enemies affected will be slowed for 2% / 3% / 4% / 5% increasing for every second that passes (capped at 80%) when cast during Deconstruction. Increased Ability Duration will allow it to reach max stack faster (an additional 1% per second for every 5 Ability Duration).

 

Power Extension - Gained from Power Strength. Power Extension will ramp up fire rate (20% / 25% / 30% / 35%) and increase the magazine size (15% / 25% / 35% / 50%) for primary and secondary weapons but increase the reload by 50% during Assist.

The fire rate increases over time, reaching a full bonus after having fired half of its magazine. Weapons with a magazine size of 5 or lower do not suffer from the increased reload times.

Increased magazine and fire rate scales with power strength.

 

Energy Extension - Gained from Power Efficiency. Will add additional 10% / 15% / 20% / 25% ability efficiency and increase casting speed by 30% / 36% / 42% / 50%. Power Efficiency still caps out at 175%.

 

Grasp Extension - Gained from Ability Range. Will add an additional 20% / 35% / 45% / 60% meters of range to Contain and increase the duration weapons are jammed with 1 / 2 / 3 / 5 seconds when cast during Deconstruction. It scales with Ability Range.

 

What decides what power-up you will receive is the order of the mods equipped. It will read the mod slots from upper left to right, then lower left to right. Mods equipped in the Exilus slot are not taken into account. Only one buff from Defense and Power can be in effect.

Example of the upper row of modsÖ

[Redirection] - [Intensify] - [Vitality] - [Stretch]

 

From this mod setup I would gain the Shield Aspect from Redirection as well as the Power Extension from Intensify regardless of what mods are equipped afterwards. If I would swap places with Redirection and Vitality I would gain the Health Aspect instead. Switching places with Intensify and Stretch would give me the Grasp Extension instead.

 

Active Effects:

 

All primary and secondary weapons will be affected after being energized from the transformation. Fire rate and reload speed are increased by 10% / 15% / 20% / 25%. Scales with Power Strength.

All weapons with projectiles will be charged with pure energy, shots will instantly hit enemies (giving them hit scan properties) and lose their fall-off (bows lose their arc). Projectiles will travel 20% / 30% / 40% / 50% further than normal. Explosive weapons are accounted for as projectile weapons, damage fall-off from explosion radius is decreased by half. Accuracy penalties will still apply.

Beam weapons will function as before but gain an additional static beam thickness of 0.40 / 0.50 / 0.60 / 0.75 meters wide and gain 50% / 65% / 80% / 100% more range. Wind-up damage is removed for beam weapons. 

Beam weapons that travel in a straight line (Flux Rifle, Spectra, etc) will gain infinite punch through but only deal 10% / 14% / 18% / 25% to subsequent targets beyond the first (does not apply to Ignis, Kuva Nukor or any other beam weapon that have unique beam interactions). Status effects are also only 10% / 14% / 18% / 25% as effective on additional targets. Punch through mods will add normal punch-through to the weapon then apply the infinite punch through.

Melee attacks will gain specter mirages created from pure energy. After a 0.25 delay your melee attacks will be repeated and deal additional hits for 15% / 21% / 27% / 35% of the mimicked move. The chance to inflict status is also lowered by the same amount. Damage scales with Power Strength, status chance scales with duration. It does not add extra stacks to the combo counter.

Heavy attacks have higher damage and status chance in their hits dealing 20% / 28% / 38% / 50% per attack instead.

 

 

 

Final Words :

What both of us love about the warframe community is the kindness and the love people have for the game . So rest assured that we will monitor this post and read every single feedback we get! Even tho it's just a personal project, it can be more than that if people will be interested in it :D 

Also ,please excuse any grammar mistake i did through out the post , english is not my primary language. We will do a follow up post after some time passes and after we decide on what changes to do. 

Best regards 

Cruskin&Nostrofo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[keikogi]

The Visuals look good but it feels more like a sentient desing than a Cephalon desing. The desings we have for cephalon related stuff is floating rounded shapes or floating hexagons and arguably glass your desing has a bony looking desing that feels more akin to the sentient nonsense. 

As far as the kit is concerned , first off if you are going to make a long as kit make sure it's properly formated and that people can understand what's going on on the first 3 sentences of the first paragraph off the skill description. All the precise stuff and interactions should be relegated to Spoiler tabs. 

For example a simpler version of the first skill.

Davis launches her equipped weapon up to 30 meters away. After impact the Cephalon takes over it and uses it to target the lowest health enemy within its line off fire.

Spoiler tab here 

All scaling nonsense here.

Spoiler tab ends here.

 

The second skill just give simetrical cost for both halves, it's a incessant degree off complexity that does not really help balance in a meaningful way. Also find a way to make sure bounced procs can't bounce again or stuff will get silly on the 100% chance the damage off any damaging proc will be infinity.

The third skill I have nothing to contribute. 

 

The 4th skill is overconvoluted even by my standards ( if you look to the insane stuff I came up with you would agree ). If you want to have a unique modding interation I think it would be wiser to go on a similar vein to what I did eons ago for a vauban rework. Let's the sentinel ( in this case Cephalon) combine with the warframe as an armor set an the warframe also benefits from the mods on the sentinel in a similar way to what I did here.

 

 

 

[(PSN)OmegAmorbis]

Yeah, I agree the design of the frame looks more Sentient than anything else. As for the kit, there is a lot to take in (especially with the ult), but I must say I quite like. It seems to have been fairly well thought out and has some good synergy.

[cruskin]

Spoiler

 

Hello Keikogi! 

Thank you so much on the feedback!  We decided to do a complete overhaul of everything , including the skills and artwork. We realised that even tho everything had alot of passion in it, there was this disconnect in certain areas.

We want to see what works and what does not  work with our idea. Basically going back to square 1.  

Regarding the concept art , Sentient aesthetic is one of my favorites through out the game and i haven't realised how much it was present in the original idea. Down below there's a rough updated design with the direction i'm taking regarding shapes and forms.  As you mentioned , cephalons are more angular and more cybernetic so I am trying to add that to the warframe.  

While the skills are still work-in-progress, we hope they will be done soon. 

[keikogi]

7 hours ago, cruskin said:

Hello Keikogi! 

Hi, I'm glad to know I was helpfull. Another tip. Either quote people or write their name like this @cruskin so they receive a notification.

7 hours ago, cruskin said:

Thank you so much on the feedback!  We decided to do a complete overhaul of everything , including the skills and artwork. We realised that even tho everything had alot of passion in it, there was this disconnect in certain areas.

I've noticed there was a lot off passion on it. It lacked a bit off distance. What I mean by this ?

Well just make it them review it next day. Most off the stuff that was seemingly fanless or made perfect sense will show its problems because you will be detached from the initial overflow off ideas. Works for writing , datashheet and presentation. It's just a generally good tip for reviewing your own work.

As far as inspiration for kit ideas or skills you can have look at my concept archive 

 

 

There a giant plant frames , frames that allow you to craft potions to use on skills , frame that works as armor for the operator,  dryders and so on. You can probably salvage something from that. I've designed them with the help off an artist friend as well.

As far as cephalon frame is concerned. I did had a similar idea but never went finished. It was somewhat similar but with a key massive difference . The sentinel cephalon was actually a miniature raijack. The player could board it by digitalinzing themselves. I think I still have the rough draft somewhere in my computer if I can find it I will send it as a PM.

As far as the art direction goes 

The desing for cephalons tools

Rounded shapes , floating parts a d energy things.

ON the quest that takes place on the internet ( the one hunhow is taking over Suda) the cephalons appears as their " logos " ( the image the apear on transmission). So the desing for the Cephalon " sentinel " is on point. Maybe give the body floating as parts like mag pneuma arms to reference cephalon weapons.

Edit: a tip for desing we ( me and my artist friend ) would usually keep to rough sketches until we had a solid vision for the kit so the art can reflect the abilities off the frame and vice versa.

Edit: if you want help with it feel free to pm me.