Many of the content and information seen on the WARFRAME wiki comes from contributors and readers like you! This article attempts to detail how and where all the information that currently exist on the wiki was sourced from and methods for data and facts reproducibility (i.e. the scientific method). In addition, it will detail some mechanics or types of in-game research players can and had performed to contribute their data onto the wiki. See WARFRAME Wiki:Projects for current research projects for the wiki and Category:Mechanics Research for detailed WARFRAME research blogs on the wiki as well as Category:User Research (Archived) for archived research.
As a disclaimer, the wiki does not dispute edits that were contributed using datamined content as per the wiki's Data Mining Policy, but it is preferred to keep research within in-game limits as much as possible to avoid violating WARFRAME's EULA. Game breaking bugs and exploitable mechanics should be reported to the official forums as soon as they are discovered. The wiki is also not responsible for guaranteeing the accuracy of information on the site; it is up to the community and contributors to correct and update the wiki with the most up-to-date and relevant information as much as possible.
If you have any questions or feedback you add ask them on WARFRAME Wiki talk:Research or on the wiki's Discord channel: https://discord.gg/saPUWAXKMW
- Last updated: Mon, 03 Jun 2024 01:46:20 +0000 (UTC) by User:Cephalon Scientia
Information Authority[]
In order of priority, the level of trust we should put into information presented by available sources:
- Community-led research
- Sometimes in-game mechanics do not match first-party information, maybe due to bugs, localization error, or some interaction unknown to players (intended or not)
- First-party information such as:
- First-party data (e.g. data directly from the game files, Public Export, World State, or official Drop Tables repository)
- Information presented in-game (e.g. through menus, Codex)
- First-party press releases (e.g. official patch notes, newsletters, or forum posts)
- Any information presented directly from developers (e.g. informal posts, social media, interviews, panels, conference talks)
- Third-party information such as:
- Content creators
- News outlets
- Anedoctal evidence from players (personal observation without using scientific method)
- Least reliable information since it is harder to reproduce results
It is always good to cross-reference information from multiple sources to validate the truth.
Object/Entity Inheritance[]
Like in object-oriented programming, there will be inheritance of certain traits, properties, and/or behavior amongst discrete WARFRAME items or entities for modularity and code reusability. As a WARFRAME researcher, it may be helpful to know these relationships to test out common behavior or to narrow down unique features exclusive to some items/entities. Names used to describe these entities do not reflect on actual internal implementation.
Powersuit
- All Warframes and player avatars (e.g. Operator) are based on "powersuits". NPC avatars with abilities can also be considered as a "powersuit". They may share the same animations and skeletons.
Powersuits/PowersuitAbilities
- All Abilities castable by player avatars are based on this.
Powersuits/NpcPowersuits
- NPC avatars
Upgrades
- All equippable stat upgrades are based on this. This includes Mods, Arcane Enhancement, Focus nodes, most innate weapon bonuses, and most Warframe/weapon passives.
Upgrades/Mods
- ModsUpgrades/CosmeticEnhancers
- Arcanes[1]Upgrades/Focus
- FocusUpgrades/Evolutions
- Incarnon weapons- Bonuses from Intrinsics
- Helminth Invigorations
Weapons
- Ground companions share similar behavior and animation: Kubrows, Kavats, Vulpaphyla, Predasites, MOAs, and Hounds.
- Enemy/allied NPCs can be organized into multiple archetypes:
- Melee - primarily melee units like Butcher and Prod Crewman
- Sniper - primarily long-distance units like Sniper Crewman and Ballista
- "Infantry" - main infantry units like Lancer and Crewman who can also deploy cover like Blunts or Vector Shields
- Heavy - heavy units that are tanky and taller than most units like Corpus Tech and Heavy Gunner; these can be mercied with the Parazon
- "Rusher" - small and weak units deployed by other units that rush at the player like Rollers and Ratels
- "MOA" - bipedal robot units like Railgun MOA and Shockwave MOA
- "Osprey" - enemies that float in the air like Shield Osprey and Oxium Osprey
- Eximus - mini-boss units with abilities and Overguard health
- Boss
- "Regular Boss" - set encounters during Assassination missions
- "Field Boss" - random, dynamic encounters such as Assassins
- Animal - Conservation animals and wildlife
- "Specter" - units that share similar behavior as player avatars like Specter or Railjack crews
- All locations on the Star Chart can be considered as mission nodes, even Sanctuary Onslaught and player hubs like Relays.
- Bounty and Syndicate system is similar across Landscape areas and Zariman Ten Zero
Type Inheritance[]
These relationships may be relevant for modding, gameplay rules (e.g. Sortie conditions), skin compatibility, and animations.
Weapon Slot | Primary | Secondary (Pistol) | Melee | Archgun | Archmelee | Robotic | Exalted Weapon | Parazon | ||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Weapon Class | Rifle | Shotgun | Single Pistol | Akimbo | Akimbo Other | Thrown | Assault Saw | Blade and Whip | See Melee for full list | Depends on weapon | Depends on weapon | |||||||||||||||
Assault Rifle | Bow | Sniper | Shotgun | Standard Shotgun | Single Pistol Beam | Single Pistol Gun | Single Pistol Other | |||||||||||||||||||
Assault Rifle | Standard Assault Rifle | Launcher (Unique Rifle) | Crossbow | Long Bow | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Launcher | Speargun | Single Pistol Gun | Single Pistol Shotgun | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Weapon Family | e.g. Glaxion | e.g. Braton | e.g. Ogris | e.g. Ferrox | e.g. Zhuge | e.g. Paris | e.g. Vectis | e.g. Bubonico | e.g. Strun | e.g. Cycron | e.g. Lato | e.g. Brakk | e.g. Angstrum | e.g. Aklato | e.g. Staticor | e.g. Kunai | e.g. Ghoulsaw | e.g. Lacera | e.g. Imperator | e.g. Veritux | e.g. Sweeper | e.g. Exalted Blade | ||||
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Outliers:
- Exalted Weapons
Artemis Bow and
Artemis Bow Prime inherit
ExaltedBowBase
which inheritsLotusBow
(Bow)Balefire Charger inherits
LotusPistol
(Pistol)Dex Pixia and
Dex Pixia Prime inherit
BaseFlightPistols
which inheritsLotusPistol
(Pistol)Diwata and
Diwata Prime inherit
BaseFlightSword
which inheritsPlayerMeleeWeapon
(Melee)Garuda Talons and
Garuda Prime Talons inherit
GarudaBaseClaws
which inheritsPlayerMeleeWeapon
(Melee)Regulators and
Regulators Prime inherit
SlingerPistolsBase
which inheritsLotusCustomAimWeapon
- May affect how certain Pistol upgrades apply to this weapon.
- All Exalted melees inherit
PlayerMeleeWeapon
(Melee). If they are a variant, they will also inherit their base Exalted melee type (e.g.Exalted Umbra Blade inherits
DoomSword
which inheritsPlayerMeleeWeapon
).
- "Arm Cannons"
Notable Items To Test[]
WARFRAME as large as it is and over 9 years into development will ultimately implement unique content whose interactions deviate from existing ones or are unique to its class of content. For example:
Garuda Talons and
Garuda Prime Talons - pseudo-Exalted Weapons that are not summoned by abilities
- Pseudo-Exalted abilities like
Whipclaw and
Shattered Lash
Sevagoth - two separate Warframes in one,
Sevagoth's Shadow is summoned by an ability and has an Exalted melee
Shadow Claws
Hildryn - consumes Shields to cast abilities
Lavos - all abilities use no Energy and relies on cooldowns
Inaros (
Prime) and
Nidus (
Prime) - shieldless Warframes
Roar - damage buff that acts as a Faction Damage Bonus, unique to its type of buffing ability
- Operator/Drifter, Archwings, Necramechs, Railjack - non-Warframe player-controllable avatars
- Some primary-element weapons from Lich System like
Tenet Envoy - it is possible to have two innate primary elements with the Progenitor bonus; has some interesting behavior when modding for secondary elements (HCET priority)
- Spearguns - primary weapons with a thrown alt-fire component
- Gunblades - melee weapons with a gun-like charged attack like
Redeemer
- Glaives - melee weapons with a thrown charged attack component
Wolf Sledge - non-glaive melee that can also be thrown
Ambassador and
Tenet Flux Rifle - weapons with over 100 Accuracy
Lanka has 0 fire rate internally.
Mutalist Quanta's alt-fire acting like
Electric Shield, providing bonus
Electricity damage and crit chance/damage bonus when shot through
Veldt has uniform spread along the horizontal (not randomly distributed)
Epitaph draws ammo directly from the full ammo pool similar to bows, but does not "reload" between shots like them
Xoris - infinite combo duration
- Melees with stance overrides like
Vitrica,
Sigma & Octantis,
Nepheri,
Korumm, and
Verdilac
Dark Split-Sword (Heavy Blade) - only weapon that can change between two stances of different melee class by swapping stance mods
- Any weapon with unique Passives or are Signature Weapons.
Electricity and
Gas procs - considered as AoE attacks unlike other DoT procs
Pherliac Pods - a gear item that is used for crafting, Potent Pherliac Pod
On Call Crew - summons Railjack crew that inherits weapon mods unlike other player-made Specters
Exodia Contagion interactions with melee mods and buffs
Testing in the Simulacrum[]
- Main article: Sanctuary (Cephalon Simaris)
Disclaimer that not all behavior tested within the Simulacrum reflects on actual behavior during missions.
The Simulacrum is the most accessible location for testing anything relating to damage. It can be accessed from any Relay after purchasing a key from Cephalon Simaris for 50,000. Within the simulated room, players can switch between their loadouts and spawn up to 20 enemies up to a level based on their 5x their Mastery Rank plus 30 (for example, if you are Mastery Rank 29, you can spawn up to level 175 enemies).
Enemies to Spawn[]
- As of Update 29.2 (2020-09-29), the Gokstad Officer has the highest base health and armor of all possible spawnable enemies in the game, at 1,000 Cloned Flesh health and 1,000 Ferrite Armor. They can be unlocked after scanning 3 of them during Empyrean missions.
- Nullifier Crewman bubbles are a great source for testing pure weapon damage without the presence of Critical Hits or Status Effects since they have the Object health class. They are neither resistant nor vulnerable to any single damage type.
- Eidolon Lures have a unique mechanic where the maximum amount of damage dealt is capped by its health/armor and shields. Damage dealt to lures' shields always be capped at its maximum shield hit points while damage to its health is capped at its maximum health hit points minus one.
- Ballistas can be used to measure how much damage is reduced from sources of Damage Reduction and test how these sources stack. The slow fire rate of their high-damage
Vulkars makes it easy to account for health/shield changes upon being hit.
Weapons to Use[]
Any weapon that can deal a single damage type are great for testing damage since you only have to account for one damage type in the damage calculation. Example of these weapons are:
Tonkor or
Penta variants (
Impact on direct hit)
Kuva Tonkor (
Puncture on direct hit)
Glaxion (
Vandal) (
Cold, can be modded to deal pure
Viral,
Blast, or
Magnetic)
Lanka (
Electricity, can be modded to deal pure
Corrosive,
Radiation, or
Magnetic)
Javlok (
Heat, keep in mind about armor-stripping procs and AoE damage falloff)
Acrid (
Toxin, can be modded to deal pure
Corrosive,
Viral, or
Gas)
Scourge (
Corrosive, keep in mind about armor-stripping procs and AoE damage falloff)
Arca Plasmor (
Radiation, keep in mind about damage falloff)
Phage (
Viral, keep in mind about increasing damage to health procs)
- Any Amp (
Void, true neutral for most health types)
Add Riven Mods with over negative 100% status chance to guarantee that pure damage is dealt without additional effects and damage over time numbers that may clutter the HUD.
Confirmation Tests[]
Confirming Health and Shield Values[]
Certain Warframe abilities deal a percentage of the enemy's health, making them useful in confirming enemy health/shield values. Note that one must take into account damage type modifiers from different enemy health classes.
Equinox's
Mend & Maim (Day form) - 75% of damage dealt to health and shields stored
Oberon's
Smite - 35% of main target's maximum health and shields as damage with 50/50 distribution of
Radiation and
Impact
Revenant's
Reave - 8% of maximum health and shields drained from enemy, unaffected by armor
Trinity's
Energy Vampire - 6.25% of target's remaining health or quarter of its health (whichever is greater at the time) is dealt as
True damage, bypassing shields and armor.
- See Category:Percentage Based Damage for more sources.
Enemy health and shield values can be calculated simply as:
- Total enemy health/shields = Damage dealt ÷ Percent damage conversion
Confirming Enemy Damage Types Dealt[]
Equip Adaptation and let your Warframe get shot at to determine the primary damage type that an enemy deals. Alternatively, some enemy weapons have a high chance to proc status effects which can also be used to determine the primary damage type dealt.
Confirming Health Classes[]
Equip a Synthesis Scanner with the Data-Parse Widget upgrade, purchased from Cephalon Simaris for 25,000, to view ally and enemy health classes as well as damage type modifiers.
Confirming Head Locations[]
Zenith's and
Scourge's alternative fire reveals the location of enemies' heads.
Harrow's
Thurible can also be used to confirm headshot hitboxes.
- Incarnon weapons
Laetum and
Phenmor increase their Transmutation gauge on headshots.
Dealing and Recieving Damage[]
Armor Stripping[]
- Main article: Category:Armor Reduction
Methods of removing enemy armor for damage testing purposes include:
Ash's
Seeking Shuriken @ 143% Ability Strength
Hildryn's
Pillage @ 400% Ability Strength
- Takes 4 casts to fully strip if unmodded, takes 2 casts at 200% Ability Strength
Nyx's
Psychic Bolts @ 125% Ability Strength (also removes shields)
- 2 casts if unmodded
Trinity's
Abating Link @ 168% Ability Strength
- 2 casts if unmodded
Shattering Impact (works when enemy is invulnerable)
Note that armor stripping from abilities and Corrosive Projection strips a percentage from total armor values as of Update 32.0 (2022-09-07) changes.
Scaling Damage Reduction[]
- Main article: Damage Reduction#Unique Enemies
Certain enemies have a unique damage reduction mechanic that is separate from armor or damage type modifiers, stacking multiplicatively with them. If an enemy has their armor stripped and the enemy receives less damage than what is listed from your Operator's Amp ( Void damage will deal fully listed damage to all enemy health classes), that means that enemy has this unique damage resistance.
More often than not, this damage resistance scales with weapon damage per second (DPS), calculated as:
- DPS = Total damage × Total critical multiplier if damage instance crits × Total fire rate × Total multishot × Body part multipliers
Where damage, critical multiplier, fire rate, and multishot is calculated after mods and buffs are applied.
You can test this with any weapon against Noxes. You will notice that you deal less damage per hit if you are under the effects of fire rate/attack speed buffs like Valkyr's
Warcry or
Gauss'
Redline or using weapons that have a spool-up time like the
Kohm or
Gorgon.
Testing Unknown Damage Stats[]
For sources of damage that do not have their stats listed in the arsenal (like Exodia Epidemic or
Exodia Contagion), players can test for the following using their associated methods:
- Damage distribution - using weapons against enemies with different health classes
- Critical chance - attack with the weapon for an extended period of time to see what percentage of damage instances crit and use different critical chance mods to see at which threshold does the weapon start to orange/red crit
- Critical damage multiplier - calculating the damage multiplier on a critical hit for a bodyshot
- Status chance - attack with the weapon for an extended period of time to see what percentage of damage instances apply a status effect
- Damage falloff values - shooting the weapon at varying distances to determine the minimum distance before falloff and the max damage reduction
These same methods can also be used to confirm numbers shown in the arsenal.
- Example of things to test:
- Melee stances also have unlisted damage multipliers on their attacks, making them deal more (rarely less) damage than their listed damage in the arsenal.
- The area of effect component of melee slam attacks do not always share the same damage distribution as its normal attacks like in the case of
Pupacyst.
- Arcane Enhancements that have some sort of damaging effect under certain conditions like
Pax Seeker.
- Additional effects from weapons not shown in the arsenal like
Tatsu's seeking projectiles on slide attack or
Basmu's healing pulses.
- Damage dealt by certain sources provided by mods like
Rumbled.
Damage Formulas and Interactions[]
Some sources of damage have unique damage calculations and/or have unique/inconsistent interactions with mods and buffs. Go to Damage#Final Calculations for a list of formulas on normal damage calculations.
- Examples include:
- Any Exalted Weapon (like Peacemaker/
Regulators)
Enemy Base Health/Shields/Armor[]
Enemy base health, shields, and armor values and classes can be viewed in the Codex after completing their scans. Players can perform confirmation tests to see if the listed values and types match in-game behavior.
Equipping Shattering Impact and counting the number of hits before an enemy's health bar turns from yellow to red can yield a good approximation on base armor values.
Enemy Base Damage[]
There are many methods of finding out base damage dealt by an enemy.
The most easiest way of calculating enemy base damage is to equip Silva & Aegis or
Silva & Aegis Prime with a max ranked
Avenging Truth. Blocking incoming damage will store 50% of that damage to be applied as bonus damage on the next heavy attack; this value is shown as a buff in the HUD.
- Base Enemy Damage = Stored damage / 0.5
Enemy base damage can be calculated by measuring how much damage is dealt to the player's shields or health by an enemy at their base level. Base armor values for Warframes vary, shields will give more consistent damage values across all Warframes since they provide a set 50% damage reduction (technically Damage Type Modifier) on incoming damage:
- Base Enemy Damage = (Maximum Shields - Current Shield Value After Being Shot) / 0.75
Since shields recharge relatively quickly, it will be helpful to have a video capture tool to review shield numbers before and after being shot.
Alternatively, sources of Damage Reflection, like Revenant's
Mesmer Skin, can be used to calculate enemy base damage. Since we know enemies' base armor values from the Codex, we can calculate the damage reduction provided by their armor:
- Base Enemy Damage = Damage Dealt By Reflection / (1 - [ Base Armor / (Base Armor + 300) ] )
If the enemy has no armor or the damage is dealt to shields only then damage dealt by reflection equals base enemy damage.
AI[]
As in Artificial intelligence in video games.
Testing Enemy Behavior[]
- Main article: Enemy Behavior
Enemies usually exhibit different behavior depending on the distance between them and the player. At closer ranges, they may attempt to run away and after a certain distance resume attacking the player based on the weapon they are holding. For example, enemies with sniper rifles will start shooting from a farther distance. Here are some examples of behavioral triggers:
- Upon getting hit
- At low health
- At X distance away from players
- Upon being aimed at (like when Shield Ospreys and Leapers attempt to dodge)
- Presense of an Artic Eximus
Testing Specter/Allied AI Behavior[]
Specters may interact with weapons or abilities differently. Tenno Specters have specifically tuned AI that determines when they cast their abilities. Similar to enemies, they also have different distances before engaging targets depending on the weapon they are holding.
Additional specter-like allies may be spawned from:
Atlas'
Rumblers
Equinox's
Duality
Excalibur Umbra when you are Operator form
Inaros' sand shadows from
Desiccation's Curse or "Devour" wasn't found in Module:Ability/data
Nekros'
Shadows of the Dead
Nyx's
Mind Control
Revenant's
Enthrall
Wukong's
Celestial Twin
Testing Companion AI[]
Companions are nortorius for having bad pathing issues and behavior. They do exhibit contextual behavior like in the case when you are aiming at an enemy behind your ground companion, causing them to crouch.
Drop Tables and Chances[]
Drops in WARFRAME are either determined server or client-side. Mission rewards are determined by the server while in-game drops like mods and resources are determined by the client.[citation needed] One could look at the logs generated by the game's engine to determine what communication occurs between the server and client during sessions. Almost all drop chance data is sourced from the official drop table repository which is supposedly generated by internal data: https://www.warframe.com/droptables
Calculating Number of Expected Runs[]
User:FINNER has a great write-up on how the wiki displays the number of expected runs as well as the number of runs needed to achieve a 99%, 99.9%, and 99.99% probability (not chance) to get at least one drop of a particular item.
Looting Abilities[]
Most normal enemies can be affected by the following looting abilities, triggering another roll at their Drop Tables:
- Rolling drop tables on Living Enemies
- Rolling drop tables on Petrified Enemies
- Extra drop table rolls upon Enemy Kill
Hydroid's
Pilfering Swarm
Khora's
Pilfering Strangledome
Wukong's passive (Monkey Luck buff)
- Rerolling drop tables on Enemy Corpses
Looting abilities can stack with others under different categories, but cannot stack with others of the same category. For example, Desecrate and
Retrieve cannot both act on the same enemy corpse to yield triple the drops.
Bosses are not affected by these in any way. Some enemies are immune to these abilities. For example, Necramechs cannot be under the effects of Petrify but they can still be
Desecrated.
Integers vs. Floating-Point Values[]
Sometimes the in-game UI rounds floating-point values to the nearest integer or omits the decimal portion of floats. Mods usually round up values.
- Examples of rounding issues
- DE Maths. 19.9 is actually closer to 19 than it is to 20. by u/Sighnos
Brain Storm
Reach and
Primed Reach
- Examples of floating-point values
- Stat changes due to mod order - Rounding bug? by u/MCJennings
- different rounding when swapping mod positions by u/aurror
- What the heck is this? Why does my health go up based on where the mod is placed? I’m sorry if this is supposed to be common knowledge but can someone explain this to me? by u/har1ey503
- Thank you for the detailed percentage by u/TheTaintTacos
Measuring Distance[]
Everything in WARFRAME uses meters as its base unit for length. The Codex Scanner or Synthesis Scanner are the best ways to measure distance between the player's head and the location pointed by the reticle accurate to the tenths place. Waypoints are slightly inaccurate because they measure distance between the player's avatar and the torso of the targeted NPC's avatar, rounded to the nearest whole number, but does not require line-of-sight unlike scanners.
In Archwing missions, distance numbers are 4x the normal mission values and on Landscapes. In Empyrean missions, they are 5x.
Other Hidden Stats/Behavior[]
- Stacking behavior of buffs from mods, abilities, or external sources; they may either stack additively or multiplicatively with similar effects. Rarely do buffs stack with itself exponentially like in the case of pre-Update 26.0 (2019-10-31)
Condition Overload.
- Finisher multipliers by different melee weapon classes.
- Weapon passives like extra headshot damage with
Kuva Chakkhurr.
- Special attacks like
Vitrica's glass explosion or
Quassus' heavy attack projectiles.
- Forced procs on certain attacks by weapons like melee radial slams or from Stance combos.
- Mods with complicated effects not detailed in the mod description like
Sly Devolution or
Charm.
- Cooldown timers for certain abilities/effects.
- Enemy Level Scaling. Players can figure out health/shield/armor/damage values of certain enemies at different levels to test out the base level they spawn in.
- Player interaction with the environment like Prime Warframes getting energy from laser traps in the Orokin Void or
Nidus opening up the Helminth Infirmary.
- These are rarely seen in the game and most of them are added to the wiki.
- Spool-up rate/time for weapons like
Gorgon and
Tenora.
- These can be approximated by "[Shooting] a target that has DPS dependent DR with a known reduction formula (Demolisher Boiler is a good target, formulas are on the Demolisher page). You can then match each shot with a particular fire rate, as that is the only variable that changes." - User:ArbitraryMary on https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Tenora?commentId=4400000000003393193
Character Dialogue and Quest Transcripts[]
Most of the dialogue under /Quotes
and /Transcript
subpages were transcribed by ear or copy typed based on in-game subtitles. Though there are also resources online that can help with extracting text from in-game screenshots of subtitles or text if you want to automate the process.
For audio files from the game, see https://kasumata.ee/
Typically, for characters in Player Hubs, they have a set amount of dialogue that they cycle through every time the player activates their event trigger. For example, for a shop vendor like The Business (quotes), they have a set of dialogue that they can speak depending on the context (i.e. what menu they player is in or the actions that they take within those menus):
- Player nearby but no interaction (The Business/Quotes#Idle)
- Upon interacting with vendor (The Business/Quotes#Greetings)
- Leaving the vendor (The Business/Quotes#Farewells)
- Looking into offerings menu (The Business/Quotes#Browsing conservation gear)
- Buying a specific offering (The Business/Quotes#Purchasing a Servofish Trophy blueprint)
- Leaving menu without buying anything (The Business/Quotes#Leaving the wares menu)
- Leaving menu after buying something (The Business/Quotes#Leaving after purchasing an item)
- Looking into fish menu
- Selecting a fish (The Business/Quotes#Selecting Servofish)
- Selecting a common fish
- Selecting a uncommon fish
- Selecting a rare fish
- Selecting a fish (The Business/Quotes#Selecting Servofish)
- Etc.
Note that all vendor type characters have similar dialogue trigger patterns.
Dialogue Unique to WARFRAME Languages[]
Many Grineer and Corpus enemies speak in the Grineer Language and Corpus Language respectively. These can be translated to English using ciphers present on the languages' pages.
Trivia and Namesakes[]
Many WARFRAME content and names are inspired by the real-world through mythologies, history, pop culture, literature, sciences, and much more. Often times these references are detailed in the Trivia sections of many pages. Even though many of these documented references are based on speculation, we do not consider coinsidences (things that share the same name) and obsecure references as valid trivia. If we cannot find a source with a simple web search, then it is should not be in a Trivia section unless you have first-hand experience of the culture that inspired a reference. Avoid making references to other video games or media that share the same design/inspiration as content in WARFRAME unless it is explicitly clear that it is a reference. What is allowed in Trivia sections will be determined on a per-page basis.
See Real-World References for some of these references.
Procedural Generation[]
Most of WARFRAME's gameplay environments use procedural generation to randomize the player's gameplay space after each distinct play session. See Tile Sets and TacNav for more details.
In terms of sound, WARFRAME's engine dynamically mixes certain music to match gameplay contexts (gunfights and combat vs. exploring levels and ambience).
In terms of reward systems, RNG is used to determine drops from defeating certain enemies, completing reward rotations, completing missions, etc.
Other Official Sources of Information[]
For more information about the game, players can explore these are publicly available resources for anyone to view or access.
In-Game[]
- Codex - The Codex is first-party information which the wiki derives from. If anything, the Codex should be more accurate than the wiki when content first releases. Ideally, the wiki should serve as supplement to in-game information but not everything in-game is provided to players nor are players willing to spend the effort to test and research themselves.
- Player Profile - available weapons, Mastery Rank XP, player statistics, etc.
- Market - Warframe and weapon preview stats, basic drop locations, blueprint cost, Platinum cost, etc.
Tools and Internal Data[]
- Official Drop Tables repository
- World State API
- Public Export, public manifest
- Configuration file (
EE.cfg
) - Debugging logs (
EE.log
) generated by the game's engine - Warframe Arsenal Twitch Extension
- Warframe Companion, a companion app for WARFRAME, available on iOS and Android
- Official TennoGen handbook (for producing skins and models for TennoGen)
- Riven Mods trade data API
- 2020 Warframe and Weapon usage stats
- 2021 Warframe and Weapon usage stats
- 2022 Warframe and Weapon usage stats
- Event leaderboards
Official Media[]
- Official site
- Official forums
- Official fansite assets (for some images and audio from the game)
- WARFRAME support page
- Development livestreams held monthly ("DevStreams")
- [DE]constructing podcast on:
- Official social media accounts
Seminars[]
- TennoCon, a yearly WARFRAME convention hosted by Digital Extremes
- TennoCon/2016 - The War Within reveal (Update 19.0 (2016-11-11))
- TennoCon/2017 - Plains of Eidolon reveal (Update 22.0 (2017-10-12)), The Sacrifice teaser
- TennoCon/2018 - Fortuna/Orb Vallis reveal (Update 24.0 (2018-11-08)), Railjack and The New War teasers, Nintendo Switch port
- TennoCon/2019 - Empyrean/Railjack reveal (Update 27.0 (2019-12-13)), The Duviri Paradox and The New War teasers
- TennoCon/2020 - Heart of Deimos/Cambion Drift reveal (Update 29.0 (2020-08-25))
- TennoCon/2021 - The New War reveal (Update 31.0 (2021-12-15)), cross-play/cross-save and mobile port announced to be in development
- TennoCon/2022 - The Duviri Paradox/Duviri announced, next update Veilbreaker announced, cross-play community testing announced, new IP SoulFrame announced
- DE prior talks from the GDC Vault
- Brewer, Daniel; Cheng, Alex; Dumas, Richard; Laidacker, Aleissia (2013). AI Postmortems: Assassin's Creed III, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and Warframe. GDC. Accessed 2022-04-12. Archived from the original on 2022-04-12.
- Brewer, Daniel (2014). Creating Frankenstein's Monster: Case Studies of Building a New NPC. GDC. Accessed 2022-04-12. Archived from the original on 2022-04-12.
- Brewer, Daniel (2015). Getting off the NavMesh: Navigating in Fully 3D Environments. GDC. Accessed 2022-04-11. Archived from the original on 2022-04-11. For presentation slides see https://gdcvault.com/play/1022017/Getting-off-the-NavMesh-Navigating.
- Siniło, Maciej [Digital Dragons] (2016, June 3). DD2016 - Maciej Siniło: Debugging Multiplayer Games - Lessons from Warframe. Digital Dragons. YouTube. Accessed 2022-04-06. Archived from the original on 2022-03-08.
- Siniło, Maciej [Digital Dragons] (2017, June 13). Maciej Siniło: Networking Architecture of Warframe. Digital Dragons. YouTube. Accessed 2022-04-06. Archived from the original on 2022-03-08.
- Stewart, Dorian; Ford, Rebecca (2017, October 31). Game UX Summit ’17 | Dorian Stewart & Rebecca Ford Digital Extremes | Community-driven UX. Ubisoft Toronto. YouTube. Accessed 2022-05-09. Archived from the original on 2022-05-09.
- Brewer, Daniel (2016). Crafting AI for Epic Boss Battles in 'Warframe'. GDC. Accessed 2022-04-12. Archived from the original on 2022-04-12.
- Brewer, Daniel; Graham, Rez (2020, July 20). Knowledge is Power: An Overview of Knowledge Representation in Game AI. GDC. Accessed 2022-04-13. Archived from the original on 2021-10-16. Filmed during GDC 2018.
- Ford, Rebecca (2018). Whose Game Is It, Anyway? How Community Relationships Shape Games: Lessons from 5 Years on the Front Lines of 'Warframe'. GDC. Accessed 2022-04-12. Archived from the original on 2022-04-12.
- Ford, Rebecca [GDC] (2021, February 25). Whose Game Is It, Anyway? How Community Relationships Shape Games: Lessons from Warframe. GDC. YouTube. Accessed 2022-04-13. Archived from the original on 2022-04-13. Filmed during GDC 2018.
- Brewer, Daniel (2024, March 18). AI Summit: The Evolution of AI in 'Warframe'. GDC. Accessed 2024-06-03. Archived from the original on 2024-06-03. Unsure if there is a VoD; session description: "'Warframe' has grown and improved since launching over ten years ago. The session will cover the numerous AI systems we have developed over the years and offers lessons learned for building, updating and supporting AI systems in a living game.".
- Barr, Jackson; Graham, Rez; Brewer, Daniel; Orkin, Jeff (2024, March 19). AI Summit: The Simplest AI Trick in the Book. GDC. Accessed 2024-06-03. Archived from the original on 2024-06-03. Unsure if there is a VoD; session description: "Attendees will learn extremely practical AI tricks that can be immediately applied.".
Papers[]
- Brewer, Daniel (2013). Tactical Pathfinding on a NavMesh. Game AI Pro. Accessed 2022-04-13. Archived from the original on 2021-12-28.
- Brewer, Daniel (2017). 3D Flight Navigation Using Sparse Voxel Octrees. Game AI Pro. Accessed 2022-04-13. Archived from the original on 2021-12-28.
- Brewer, Daniel; Sturtevant, Nathan (2018, July 2). Benchmarks for Pathfinding in 3D Voxel Space. AAAI Publications. Accessed 2022-04-12. Archived from the original on 2022-04-12. For the Eleventh Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Search.
- Brewer, Daniel; Sturtevant, Nathan (2018). Benchmarks for Pathfinding in 3D Voxel Space. University of Denver. Accessed 2022-04-12. Archived from the original on 2022-04-12. Presentation slides.
- Brewer, Daniel (2021). Managing Pacing in Procedural Levels in Warframe. Game AI Pro. Accessed 2022-04-12. Archived from the original on 2021-12-29.
- Brewer, Daniel (2021). Knowledge is Power, an Overview of AI Knowledge Representation in Games. Game AI Pro. Accessed 2022-04-12. Archived from the original on 2021-12-28.
Interviews[]
News Outlets[]
- Ek, Robin (2017, July 4). Interview with Digital Extremes Rebecca Ford – Warframe, Tennocon and Digital Extremes history. The Gaming Ground. Accessed 2022-07-29. Archived from the original on 2022-07-29.
Update 22[]
Update 22.0 (2017-10-12)
Update 23[]
Update 23.0 (2018-06-15)
Update 24[]
Update 24.0 (2018-11-08)
Update 25[]
Update 25.0 (2019-05-22)
- Palumbo, Alessio (2019, June 28). Digital Extremes: Empyrean Is One of the Most Difficult Updates We’ve Ever Made for Warframe, It’s Big Picture. WCCF Tech. Accessed 2022-11-08. Archived from the original on 2022-11-08. Interview with Rebecca Ford.
- Tarason, Dominic (2019, May 9). Watch the first video of Warframe's Gas City remaster. Rock Paper Shotgun. Accessed 2022-11-08. Archived from the original on 2022-11-08. Chat with Ron Davey, Art Director.
Update 26[]
Update 26.0 (2019-10-31)
Update 27[]
Update 27.0 (2019-12-13)
- Palumbo, Alessio (2019, December 11). Warframe Empyrean Interview – Devs Chime In on Cross-Save, PvE Raids, PvP & More. WCCF Tech. Accessed 2022-11-08. Archived from the original on 2022-11-08. Private Q&A session of Empyrean gamemode with press and Rebecca Ford.
Update 28[]
Update 28.0 (2020-06-11)
Update 29[]
Update 29.0 (2020-08-25)
Update 30[]
Update 30.0 (2021-04-13)
- Wales, Matt (2021, April 14). Warframe dev talks accessibility, Xbox Series X/S enhancements, and more as new update arrives. Eurogamer. Accessed 2022-11-08. Archived from the original on 2022-11-08. Interview with Sheldon Carter.
Update 31[]
Update 31.0 (2021-12-15)
- Leguiza, Santiago (2021, December 7). Interview: Warframe Sets Its Future in Motion with The New War. Fanbyte. Accessed 2021-12-29. Archived from the original on 2021-12-29.
- Makar, Connor (2021, December 7). Warframe New War Interview - the long, Covid hit road to release. VG247. Accessed 2022-11-08. Archived from the original on 2022-11-08. Interview with Rebecca Ford.
- Marshall, Cass (2021, December 15). Warframe’s The New War is a long-awaited quest to save Space Mom. Polygon. Accessed 2021-12-29. Archived from the original on 2021-12-29. Interview with Rebecca Ford.
Update 32[]
Update 32.0 (2022-09-07)
- Singh Jubbal, Veerender (2022, July 16). Warframe Duviri Paradox is a shining light in a colourless world. PCGamesN. Accessed 2022-07-17. Archived from the original on 2022-07-17.
- Greer, Sam (2022, July 16). Warframe is getting into the time loop business with The Duviri Paradox. PCGamer. Accessed 2022-07-17. Archived from the original on 2022-07-17.
- Nerium (2022, July 26). Warframe: The Duviri Paradox Hits a Roguelike Reset Button. Fanbyte. Accessed 2022-07-27. Archived from the original on 2022-07-27.
Documentaries[]
- Noclip (2018, March 19). The Story of Digital Extremes (Warframe Doc Part 1). YouTube. Accessed 2022-07-29. Archived from the original on 2022-07-24.
- Noclip (2018, March 21). The Rise of Warframe (Warframe Doc Part 2). YouTube. Accessed 2022-07-29. Archived from the original on 2022-05-24.
- Noclip (2018, April 10). Warframe's Rebb Ford on Community Management. YouTube. Accessed 2022-07-29. Archived from the original on 2022-05-24.
- Noclip (2018, April 23). Steve Sinclair on Creating Warframe. YouTube. Accessed 2022-07-29. Archived from the original on 2020-01-12.
Podcasts[]
- Everett, Megan; Kretz, Marcus (2019, January 29). Episode I - Tennogen With Kaz & Skyers. SoundCloud. Accessed 2022-04-12. Archived from the original on 2022-03-25.
- Everett, Megan; Kretz, Marcus (2019, February 28). Episode II - Animation with Tim & Elyse. SoundCloud. Accessed 2022-04-12. Archived from the original on 2022-03-25.
- Everett, Megan; Kretz, Marcus (2019, April 30). Episode III - Audio Design with George & Erich. SoundCloud. Accessed 2022-04-12. Archived from the original on 2022-03-25.
- Everett, Megan; Kretz, Marcus (2019, May 30). Episode IV - Sound Design Part 2 with George & Erich. SoundCloud. Accessed 2022-04-12. Archived from the original on 2022-04-12.
- Everett, Megan; Kretz, Marcus (2019, July 30). Episode V - Game Design With Jon & Shervin. SoundCloud. Accessed 2022-04-12. Archived from the original on 2022-03-25.
- Everett, Megan; Kretz, Marcus (2019, September 3). Episode 6 - Environment Art With Brian & Lionel. SoundCloud. Accessed 2022-04-12. Archived from the original on 2022-03-25.
Magazines[]
- (2019, December 12). PC Gamer UK January issue: Warframe. PC Gamer. Accessed 2023-03-05. Archived from the original on 2023-03-05.
- (2019). Warframe [Magazine] (#339) . PC Gamer UK. January 2020 Issue, Cover Feature.
- (2020). Warframe [Magazine] (#327) . PC Gamer USA. February 2020 Issue, Cover Feature.
- Messner, Steven (2020, January 31). How Warframe’s most ambitious update ever launched a new era of unprecedented conflict. PC Gamer. Accessed 2023-03-05. Archived from the original on 2023-03-05. Article originally posted in PC Gamer UK January Issue #339.
- Jones, Robert (2023, March 2). PC Gamer UK April issue on sale now: Warframe: The Duviri Paradox. PC Gamer. Accessed 2023-03-03. Archived from the original on 2023-03-03.
- Greer, Samantha (2023). The Duviri Paradox [Magazine] (#381) . p. 37-41. PC Gamer UK. April 2023 Issue, Cover Feature.
- Greer, Samantha (2023). Ten years of Warframe [Magazine] (#381) . p. 44-53. PC Gamer UK. April 2023 Issue, Cover Feature.
AMA[]
"Ask Me Anything":
- (2014, October 30). We are members of Digital Extremes, and we develop WARFRAME. Ask us Anything!. Reddit. Accessed 2023-04-20. Archived from the original on 2023-04-20.
- (2015, August 28). We work at Digital Extremes, developers of WARFRAME! Ask us anything!. Reddit. Accessed 2023-04-20. Archived from the original on 2023-04-20. To celebrate r/Warframe reaching 30K subscribers.
- (2017, September 15). WeAre WARFRAME Developers, AMA!. Reddit. Accessed 2023-04-20. Archived from the original on 2023-04-20. Prior to Update 22: Plains of Eidolon.
- (2021, April 14). We are Digital Extremes, Developers of WARFRAME. AMA!. Reddit. Accessed 2023-04-20. Archived from the original on 2023-04-20. Post Update 30: Call of the Tempestarii release.
- (2023, April 20). We are Digital Extremes, Developers of WARFRAME! AMA. Reddit. Accessed 2023-04-20. Archived from the original on 2023-04-20. Prior to Update 33: The Duviri Paradox release.
Other Unofficial Sources of Information And Game Assets[]
These sources are publically available but are sourced from third-parties so the information they provide may be outdated or inaccurate. Be wary when using these for research:
- https://overframe.gg/ - build creating website for Warframes, Archwings, weapons, and companions
- Each item's page contains JSON metadata on the item's properties for the client-side modding interface to work. These will be within a
<script id="__NEXT_DATA__" type="application/json">
tag in the source HTML
- Each item's page contains JSON metadata on the item's properties for the client-side modding interface to work. These will be within a
- https://github.com/WFCD - Warframe Community Developers repos
- https://github.com/WFCD/warframe-items - a npm module for WARFRAME's API
- https://github.com/WFCD/warframe-worldstate-parser - a parser for World State
- https://github.com/WFCD/warframe-worldstate-data - World State data and definitions
- https://github.com/WFCD/warframe-drop-data - formatted Drop Tables
- https://www.orokinarchives.com/ - lore content
- https://kasumata.ee/ - index of WARFRAME's sound files
Examples Of User-Led Research[]
- Main article: Category:Mechanics Research
Ranging from spreadsheets of data and Simulacrum videos to simple questions that provoke further research.
Damage[]
- Some of the Math behind the Condrix's Damage Reduction by u/TheLavalampe
- I subsumed Xata's Whisper onto all Warframes with exalted weapons, here are the results. by u/quicksilver97
- [DE]Glen is wrong about Banes. An enemy getting corrupted in a Void Fissure will stop receiving bonus damage from their original faction Bane, and starts receiving extra damage from Corrupted Banes. by u/boobenprime
- The extremely weird mechanics of operator amp damage against Eidolon shields, uncovered and explained (long post, TL:DR at bottom) by u/GoldPhos
- What is Eidolon Teralyst's actual armor? by u/Hardcloud
- Antitoxin's True Value -- It's Two Third Of The Original Value! by Twilight053
- Best Melee Weapons with Stances and Viral by u/FreezingvBlaze
- Determining Enemy Damage Type Distributions by User:MarioVX
- I wrote a paper on Mesa's Regulators (ft. MATLAB) by u/Eclypse-Prime
- Mesa Vs Mesa Prime by Stavish
Mechanics[]
- 17.5 Duration mods and drain by User:Fegazeus
- Enemy spawns by User:FocusedTub
- A Kind Word On: weapon switching speed in warframe by BBagent 6
- Warframe - Evasion isn't the same thing as Dodge (Xaku) by Somsnosa Mimosa
- How Enemy Accuracy Works! - Warframe by x3lp
- Since the attack speed stat in the arsenal tells you almost nothing, I calculated the true attack speed for every melee combo in the game by u/GoldPhos
- I did a lot of testing on the Vitrica, here's what I found out by u/GoldPhos
- Credit relay blessing double dips to 1.40625x or 1.5625x more credits instead of 1.25x more credits. by Iterniam
- Prisma Dual Decurion Bullet Velocity Test Data by User:Genreless
- New melee stances and their forced procs by u/Screamlord_Seeker
- have a suspicion Corrupted Lancer is using wrong hitbox, explanation in comments. by u/LambertExe (Archived)
- Warframe's Weird Status Effects by CoolKid369
AI[]
Drop Tables[]
- [Kuva Lich Data] Weapon Drop Rates, Elemental Bonus Chance, Birth Places, Names by u/Anal_L1beration
- You should stay at least till Round 4 - Stage 2 in the Endless Cambion drift bounty, if you want the rare rewards. by u/Zrynoth
- Deimos Endless bounty - Bugged loot table? by u/Parvaty
- 200 Larvling Statistics since 27.1.2 (Updated from 150) by Foo_Prime
- 250 Larvling Statistics since 27.1.2 by Foo_Prime
- 3 years of Sortie - Drop Chances by u/ArchSyker
- Another year has passed! - 4 years of Sortie by u/ArchSyker
- I did every Sortie for the month of October. This is what I've got by u/czibi88
Technical[]
- Hallowed Flame fps exploit by ---RV---Maniac
- "Enhanced" Graphics Engine reduces Eclipse damage by 83% by u/Iterniam
- Weapon damage in Awakening quest is tied to frame rate by u/SN_E
- Mesa DPS tied with frames per second by George North
- I think I just made a pretty major discovery: Recharge Delay / Ammo Regen of battery weapons are tied to FPS. by u/----Val----
- Certain operator amps have energy consumption tied to frame rate by u/direct13
- The Worldstate API Values for Sentient Outpost by u/Channel_Dedede
- Optimizing Cache without the Launcher (maybe) [PC] by lemonforest
Miscellaneous[]
- Grineer Language by User:DarkLordJadus
- Unreachable Syndicate Medallions on Corpus Ship Remaster tileset [Investigating] by -Zr-Scroll
- First [DE]Glen AMA for questions on backend stuff that is otherwise unobtainable by in-game testing
- Second [DE]Glen AMA
Further Learning[]
- Armor
- Critical Hit
- Damage
- Damage Reduction
- Drop Tables
- Enemy Body Parts
- Enemy Behavior
- RNG
- Status Effect
- Stealth
- Upgrade
- ↑ "Also fixed an issue where being over capacity on mods was unforgiving, preventing even mods with zero drain from applying (ex. arcanes)." - Hotfix 31.6.4 (2022-07-14) patch notes