The Nerd runs to the back of his Orbiter.
"There's a couple more things I wanna show you before we head out and do some more missions. First off is the Relic Station, where you upgrade Relics. Relics are these round things that look kinda like walnuts, and you use them by running Void Fissures. Void Fissures are a special variant of standard mission types, requiring you to equip a Relic to take full advantage of. In addition to the standard objectives, you're also tasked with acquiring Reactant from fallen enemies in order to 'crack' the Relic and receive a reward at the end. This is a mode you're always gonna want a full team for, as the reward pool consists of a random draw from each player that successfully cracked their Relic, so if you don't like what you got, you could always take the reward someone else got. To avoid confusion, this doesn't take from the other player, you're merely choosing an alternative reward, and that's pretty cool. I wish more games did that.
"When you crack a Relic, you get a seemingly random amount of a resource called Void Traces. These are used to upgrade Relics, slanting the reward pool of the relic in question more in favor of the rarer rewards. You can obtain Relics from basically everywhere, almost to an annoying degree. The game shits them out at you, but they also cockblock you from many rewards in certain pools, same thing with Endo. There are times when you'll be farming parts for a Warframe or weapon just to get constantly rewarded with Endo or Relics. They're fucking everywhere! People in this game like to refer to the hard aspect of RNG as 'RNGesus', but that sounds almost blasphemous, as RNGesus is an asshole, flipping me off with Relics every chance he gets! RNGesus must be related to Super Mecha Death Christ!"
His black cat Boo jumps onto the couch next to him and he starts petting him, remembering that there are also companions.
"Oh yeah, I mentioned earlier that you can have pets or companions as they're called. There are a bunch of different ones and they're all obtained in different ways. The first companion you'll get is a Kubrow, obtained through the Howl of the Kubrow questline. A Kubrow is a sort of dog-like creature mixed with aspects of a bat. You can obtain a Kubrow by killing feral Kubrows on Earth and destroying their dens. Isn't that fucked up, going and killing some wild dogs and taking their children from them so that you can raise them as your own? One thing I think is really weird is that when you get a Kubrow, have to first hatch an egg. Why do Kubrows come in eggs? Dogs are mammals. Bats are mammals. Kubrows are mammal creatures, as far as I know. They're covered with all this fur and they breathe air, so for lack of better understanding, one could only assume they're mammals.
"There are 5 standard types of Kubrows that can be obtained through these eggs, and the breed obtained from the egg is entirely random unless you have genetic templates, which can be obtained from other players after they copied the DNA of their own dog. So you can, essentially, obtain genetic templates and remove the randomness factor behind the incubation right off the bat, no pun intended. In addition to that, there's one called the Helminth Charger, which is a Kubrow-like companion that can be created by taking a cyst you get on your neck from the Infested, and introducing it to a Kubrow egg, fucking gross. But that's not the ONLY Infested Kubrow you can get. You can also obtain one of these 3 different dog-like creatures called 'Predacytes' from one of the open worlds.
"All of these different breeds do different things, but you more or less want to build them the same way: throw an Orokin Reactor on, dump health mods on them, their power mods, damage mods, and a mod called Animal Instinct, which is a godsend because it allows you to see enemies and resources on the map. A couple of Forma and you'll have the pet set up. One mod you're really gonna want on these pets is a mod called Pack Leader, which allows you to keep your pet's health up by hitting enemies with melee weapons. It works, very well in fact, but it's a major pain in the ass to have to constantly melee on higher levels to keep my companions alive, because their AI, well, let's just say, their elevator doesn't go to the top floor.
"In addition to Kubrows, you also have these strange cats called Kavats that function largely the same way as Kubrows, yet, I find that these companions have infinitely more useful powers. That's right, all the different breeds have powers, and do you know what the main two Kavats do? Adarza Kavats have the ability to grant you additional critical chance and reflect enemy fire, so, that means a ton more damage, and the Smeeta Kavat, whose one power, Charm, has the ability to also gives ability chance, but rotates between other things, like being a literal resource booster on two legs. Think about it, a resource booster on legs, in a game where all you do is collect a massive amount of hundreds of different resources to build things, and I ask, why in the world would I EVER use anything else when I have the Smeeta?
"All of the other powers of these pets seem to vary greatly, from being pretty much useless to being pretty much mandatory. Why is so much favoritism towards Kavat powers? Why did they get all the good stuff? Okay, so in order to get a Kavat, you want to use what is called a 'Synthesis Scanner'. To get a Synthesis Scanner, you wanna go to any relay, and head to the top floor to see this mass of giant floating shapes called Cephalon Simaris, and purchase one, and also some scans. To use the Synthesis Scanner, you equip it to the gear wheel in the Arsenal. Then you go to the planet Deimos and look for a mission where feral Kavats would appear. I usually use the exterminate node, Phlegyas, to get this done. Access the gear wheel, and use the Synthesis Scanner on the Kavats to get Kavat Genetic Codes, you need 10 of them, then you can incubate a Kavat, but only after crafting the Kavat Incubator Upgrade Segment and installing it into the Incubation Station.
"One thing that's pretty shitty is that in order to make the Kavat Incubator Upgrade Segment, you need to get Genetic Codes and then use them to build it, and then farm even more! What a bunch of goatfuck nonsense! Why would you make me farm shit to build shit that I need that resource to build with? That would be like if you needed the ingredient of shit in order to build a toilet. Imagine, a toilet made of shit. I don't think you'd want to! There are other ones you can get. Similar to the Predacytes, you can also get Vulpaphylas, which also have better powers than the Predacytes almost across the board. There's also this one vampire Kavat called a Vasca, that you can get on Earth, but only at night. You gotta have an already existing Kavat get bit by the vampire Kavat, then take a sample of your infected Kavat to incubate a new Vasca. They're alright, but not as useful as the others.
"That's enough about pets though, at least the organic ones. You can also get robotic companions as well. There are these little floating drone things you can get called Sentinels that float very close by at all times and can fire various weapons of various effectiveness. Most of their powers are either defensive, such as Shade's ability to make you invisible for a short period of time, or Wyrm's ability to stun enemies, or offensive, such as Dethcube's more offensive tactics or Diriga's electrical attacks, or support, such as Helios scanning things for you or Nautilus acting as a sort of 'Omni'."
"Now, you'll get many other different companions, such as your own craftable, customizable MOAs that you can get from the Venus open-world hub, Fortuna, and Hounds, not to be confused with Kubrows, which are like robot dogs, that you can get from killing Parvos Granum's 'Sisters'. No, they're not related to them, and no, they're not sexy nuns, sadly. For the sake of brevity, allow me to say that a lot of the companions you can get in the game serve one of 3 purposes: to make the enemy die, to make YOU NOT die, or to get you more stuff. They all have mods, all use Forma for optimization, and all can be fitted with Orokin Reactors for better starting mod capacity. Sentinels, MOAs, and Hounds all come pre-packed with their own laser type weapon, and they use Orokin Catalysts, can be Formaed, and are fully interchangeable between companions."
The Nerd lays back on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. He's never been so outta breath from talking so much about a game.
"Is that enough for you? I'm not done yet. In addition to Warframes and companions, there are also several modes of transportation, yeah, we have vehicles in this game. No, there are no cars... yet, but as of right now, we have Archwings, K-Drives, and Necramechs. All 3, just like Warframes, weapons, and companions, are fully moddable, able to be Formaed and granted an Orokin Reactor. Archwings are the first 'vehicles' introduced to the game, a pair of mechanical wings that seem to implant themselves onto a Warframe's spine, allowing them to fly all through the air at great speeds. Archwings have their own missions on various planets, but can also be used in Railjack and in open worlds.
"A lot of people hate Archwing missions, but I don't think they're so bad. Some of the levels are clearly not designed too well around them, as you'll be smacking and bumping into walls constantly, but they're not really that hard if you put as much effort into modding them correctly as everything else, and there are very few of them. Archwings have their own sets of weapons called Archguns and Archmelees, which serve as heavy weapons. Archguns can be deployed out on the battlefield to be wielded by Warframes on foot or even equipped to Necramechs. Archmelees seem to have gotten the shaft, as they're not usable outside of their respective planetary missions at all, which is a shame."
The camera looks at The Nerd again, who's finished his Rolling Rock and has placed it on the table.
"I think it's a shame, really, Archguns have gotten a resurgence of use due to being used against the Profit Taker and even by Necramechs, but Archmelees really got the shitty end of the deal. Archmelees are so neglected that they don't even have RIVEN MODS, and every other weapon in the game has Riven mods. There's still one Orb Mother out on Orb Vallis, Venus' open world that still isn't fightable. Maybe the devs can find a way to make Archmelees relevant again with that boss fight. Maybe Necramechs could be given Archmelees to use in combat.
"So what the fuck is a Necramech anyway? It's a CORNPOD MECH-SUIT MOTHERFUCKING SKELETON, THAT'S WHAT! Necramechs are awesome! They're super strong, they can't be stumbled, and they just lumber around, murdering everything in sight. You can really only use them on open worlds and in Railjack, but they're really useful. You can even take them onto the Plains of Eidolon, Earth's open world, and use them to fight these giant bosses called Eidolons. It's so fucking cool. There are currently only two different Necramechs, the Voidrig, and the Bonewidow. They're both obtainable from The Necraloid Syndicate on Deimos.
"The Necramech has the distinction of not only capping at level 40 but of being the only moddable thing that has a whopping 12 whole mod slots! You can stuff a full build on these beasts, but it's gonna take a lot of Forma, time leveling, and Endo, but man is it worth it. Necramechs can become ludicrously, game-shatteringly overpowered, especially the Voidrig, but in the best way, the fun, power fantasy way. Because of that, fighting AI-controlled one is quite a daunting feat if you're not doing something really 'corny' to undermine them."
The Nerd holds up his copy of Back to the Future on VHS, remembering the iconic hoverboard scene. He shakes his head as he has to remember the piece of shit Back to the Future game on the NES.
"Last, but most certainly the least impressive is the K-Drive, which is kinda like a hoverboard. These things are admittedly fun, but also impractical. They're not as fast or efficient as traveling around in Archwing, and you can only use them in open worlds. It can be a bit fucky trying to do tricks with them, but they're hardly anything more than a diversion, like everything else, they're moddable and use Forma and Orokin Reactors. Trying to do tricks with them can be kinda fun, even if the mechanics are a bit limited, to say the least, but it is pretty funny wiping out on them, and watching your Warframe ragdoll like a dumbass."
Cut to a montage of wiping out on K-Drives set to skate punk music.
"You can get K-Drive parts from these little brats called the Ventkids. As the name implies, they're kids that live in the ventilation system of Fortuna, annoying the other residents, with their horrible metallic, 'skeg' music. The main one, Roky, speaks in all this strange lingo that doesn't make any sense like she's trying way too hard to be cool. She just sounds like a weirdo. I feel like Steve Buscemi in 30 Rock interacting with them."
Cut to the meme.
