Empyrean

Earth Proxima

Venus Proxima

Saturn Proxima

Neptune Proxima

Pluto Proxima

Veil Proxima

Empyrean is a unique game mode introduced in Update 27.0 (2019-12-13). These missions take place in the vast expanse of space, utilizing Railjack and Archwings to combat enemy spacecraft.

To host a game in Empyrean, players must go to the navigation console on their Railjack, which can be accessed within their Clan Dojo's Dry Dock, in the middle of their Orbiter, or from the menu by pressing Esc  → Board Railjack. Players must complete the Rising Tide quest in order to pilot their own Railjack. However, any player who has completed The Archwing can join in Empyrean missions by selecting an Empyrean node in their Star Chart. The host's Railjack is used during the mission. Upon mission completion the host can use the Navigation screen to either begin a new mission or go back to the Dry Dock to collect all the mission rewards earned up until that point.

Mechanics[]

Empyrean missions involve the Tenno fighting either Grineer or Corpus in the various proxima regions within the Empyrean star chart. Players utilize their Railjack and Archwing to do a variety of tasks that vary based on faction type and region. Players encounter many different types of enemies including Fighters and Crewships, and players may also have side objectives, such as points of interest or abandoned derelicts, which can grant extra rewards if the mission is completed.

Enemy crewships can be boarded using the Archwing (including being launched from Archwing Slingshot facility within the Railjack). The crewships can be destroyed by either using Forward Artillery from within the Railjack, or by boarding and then destroying its reactor from within. They can alternatively be disabled and/or commandeered by boarding and killing its crew and pilot from within. If destroyed, any Tenno within will automatically be launched back into space on their Archwing. A commandeered crewship will become an active target for enemy gunships.

Both crewships and points of interest will occasionally launch Ramsleds which, if not shot down, will ram into the Railjack and deploy boarding parties of ground troops. These troops will not only threaten the Tenno aboard the Railjack but also periodically spawn hazards such as fires and hull breaches that if not repaired in time may cause the mission to fail.

Completing the mission will not offer an extraction point that players familiar with ground missions may expect. Instead, once Bonus Rewards above are shown on the screen - the mission is considered complete at that point, and any player in the squad can simply abort the mission (ESC  > Abort Mission), which will display a warning that only progress will be saved, but not any items or resources earned during the mission. However, contrary to the warning, all items and resources will also in fact be added to the player's account. Any one of the remaining players may select another Railjack mission from the Navigation console located in the Railjack's bridge, which includes docking the Railjack back in the hosting player's Dry Dock.

Damage System[]

Empyrean gamemode and Railjacks use a slightly altered system of the currently existing damage system. Archguns and Archmelees deal 90.91% (10/11) reduced damage to space enemies (or 9.09% of its arsenal damage) while Railjack Armaments and Tactical mods deal their full listed damage to them before accounting for hit point resistances and vulnerabilities.

Primary physical and elemental damage types have different status effects against space enemies outlined in the chart below. Secondary elemental damage types ( Blast,  Corrosive,  Gas,  Magnetic,  Radiation, and  Viral) do not have altered status effects and cannot proc against space enemies, but Archguns and Archmelees modded for secondary elementals will still increase total damage.

This system does not apply to on-foot enemies, such as Ramsled boarding parties, and Crewship and Points of Interest personnel, who will take damage and status as per normal.

Damage Type	Empyrean-only Status Effects
Impact	Concuss Crew within a gunship have reduced aim and damage for 6 seconds. Additional procs refresh duration.
Puncture	Decompress Temporarily reduces target ship's shields by ?% and current armor by 10% for 20 seconds. Additional procs stack multiplicatively.
Slash	Tear Target ship receives 7.5% increased damage for 20 seconds. Additional procs stack multiplicatively with itself.
Cold	Immobilize Target ship's weapons are disabled and it slows down to a complete stop. Lasts for 6 seconds. Additional procs refresh duration.
Electricity	Scramble Target ship spirals erratically for 6 seconds, being unable to attack while moving in a straight line. Additional procs refresh duration.
Heat	Sear Target ship receives damage over time for 6 seconds. Additional procs increase damage dealt over time.
Toxin	Intoxicate Target ship attacks any closest enemy and will be attacked in return for 12 seconds. Additional procs refresh duration.

Grineer Missions[]

All Grineer missions are Skirmish missions; an Exterminate-like mission where players must kill enemy fighters and Gokstad Crewships.

Sometimes, Skirmishes will have additional objectives in the form of eliminating outposts, called "Points of Interest", that often threaten the Railjack with armaments or buffing enemy fighters. The crew must send an "Away Team" to board the outpost, sometimes coordinating with the Railjack crew, to remove the outpost from play. Additionally, Grineer Points of Interest may reward components for  Oberon.

Corpus Missions[]

Missions involving the Corpus are a combination of Railjack gameplay and normal grounded missions in a Corpus Ship, which consists of Exterminate, Defense, Volatile, Orphix, Spy, or Survival.

After completing initial Railjack objectives, such as clearing Points of Interests or destroying a small number of enemy crewships, all players must dock within the Corpus Ship via Archwing. Once half the squad enters, a 30-second countdown will begin, after which all players will be forcibly teleported into the ship to transition into grounded objectives, which behaves identically to normal missions. During these Corpus Ship segments, the Railjack is invulnerable and all space enemies will despawn, but players cannot return to space gameplay or Omni teleport back to the Railjack until the grounded objectives are complete and have reached the extraction point from within the ship.

Points of Interest[]

Grineer[]

Grineer missions have a chance to assign additional objectives in the form of Points of Interests. All objectives are comprised of hacking two consoles and destroying components both inside and on the outpost's surface. Grineer Points of Interests are:

• Grineer Galleon - Contains a Grineer captain (Blite Captain or Pyr Captain) which must be killed to clear the Points of Interest. The interior of the galleon uses the Grineer Galleon tileset.
• Asteroid Base - Contains a Grineer commander (Glacik Commander or Lektro Commander) which must be killed to clear the Points of Interest. The interior of the base uses the Grineer Asteroid tileset.
• Pulse Turbine - An outpost which increases the damage of enemy fighters.
• Asteroid Hangar - Contains an unmanned Gokstad Crewship.
• Shipkiller Platform - An outpost with a giant laser capable of causing hull breaches.
• Missile Platform - An outpost capable of shooting a barrage of seeking missiles and Ramsleds when in range.

Corpus[]

Corpus missions have Secondary Objectives ("Disable Priority Targets" in HUD) that must be completed before boarding a Corpus capital ship (either an Obelisk, Pillar or Stanchion). They can be found in space stations near the main capital ship target. The entrance to these objectives are revealed by a yellow waypoint when players are within a 1500-meter range. Their spawn mechanism depends on the region:

• Venus Proxima spawns one objective. Multi-Point objectives (Crewships and Security Nodes) spawn in two.
• Neptune Proxima spawns two objectives. Multi-Point objectives (Crewships and Security Nodes) spawn in two or three.
• Pluto Proxima spawns three objectives. Multi-Point objectives (Crewships and Security Nodes) spawn in three.
• Veil Proxima spawns four objectives. Multi-Point objectives (Crewships and Security Nodes) spawn in three.

Completing a Point of Interest will reward a hidden cache (rotation A), that is revealed and awarded at the completion of the main mission. Examples of Corpus Points of Interest are:

• Icedriver - Will fire Comet Shards that deal  Cold damage, which can freeze the Railjack, preventing movement.
• Autofactory - Sends out Corpus Ramsleds with Aurax troops to board the Railjack.
• Tether Power Plant - Overcharges all Corpus fighter shields over a large area. The player must interact with consoles to separate each segment of the Plant, while avoiding the electricity hazards.
• Anchor Station - Will launch Aurax Crewships when approched.
• Carrier Platform - Will launch Aurax fighter units.
• Cyclops Array - Fires bursts of missiles at the Railjack.
• Freightlinker - Will launch Aurax Ramsleds to board the Railjack.

These all have the same function: If entered, the player will get an objective to hack two terminals. The hack takes x seconds at 100% hacking rate; drone enemies which spawn multiply the existing rate by 0.4 (i.e. two drones reduces the hacking rate to 16%), while electrical pulses that target the player will set the hacking rate to 0% for 6 seconds (the pause duration is as long as the  Electricity status effect lasts).

• Freightlinker - Several transport carts are linked together. The player must hack and dislodge them, and kill the Optio commander at the end.
  • There are two carts total, each with a 30-second objective to defend a hacked terminal. After defending, there is a 15-second period before the cart is decoupled and lost to space (players will enter Archwing mode if they do not reach the next cart in time, but they can still enter the next cart).
• Security Nodes - Fire lasers at the Railjack, may be attached to Corpus capital ships or to Crewships (only attached to Crewship Objectives).
  • Security Nodes attached to Crewships do NOT count towards total objective spawns.
• Crewships - Players must destroy a certain number of crewships.

Abandoned Derelict Caches[]

Some missions have abandoned derelict-like structures floating adrift in space. Boarding these structures and then hacking a marked terminal will produce a "Cache" (rotation B for Corpus Proxima nodes) reward at the end of the mission. Intrinsics Piloting Rank 5 will reveal the derelict's location via a white Waypoint.

Each Corpus Proxima region contains different variants:

• Orokin Shield Derelicts are present on Venus Proxima
• Ice Mines are present on Neptune Proxima
• Derelict Freightlinkers are present on Pluto Proxima and Corpus Veil Proxima nodes

For Grineer missions, only Veil Proxima nodes have a chance of spawning a derelict and it will not spawn in a mission with a Sentient Anomaly present.

Abandoned Derelicts can reward exclusive items, such as blueprints and/or parts for the  Athodai,  Carmine Penta,  Nautilus,  Ignis Wraith, and  Spectra Vandal along with Void Relics containing  Nyx Prime,  Hikou Prime,  Scindo Prime,  Valkyr Prime,  Cernos Prime, and  Venka Prime, and exclusive mods:  Votive Onslaught,  Internal Bleeding, and  Hemorrhage.

If the reward is collected before the mission is marked as complete, the reward will appear as the final Bonus Reward. If, however, the reward is collected after the mission is marked as complete, the reward will be shown on the rewards screen after transitioning from the mission to a dry dock or another mission.

Void Storm[]

Void Storms are unique Void Fissure missions that feature randomly appearing hazards called Void Sinks that deal radial damage, but attacking them before they explode will cause them to disappear. Only foot enemies, including Crewship personnel and Ramsled boarders, can become Corrupted and drop Reactant.

Completing Void Storms, even without bringing in or opening a relic, reward Corrupted Holokeys,  Sevagoth and  Epitaph parts, or Radiant Void Relics.

Mission Regions[]

As of Update 29.10 (2021-03-19), players gained access to six mission regions: Earth, Saturn, Venus, Neptune, Pluto and Veil Proxima. Earth and Venus proxima is unlocked by default. However, Saturn and Neptune Proxima require rank 3 Intrinsic, while Pluto and Veil proxima requires rank 5 and rank 7 Intrinsic in any category respectively to unlock. Each region has its own set of nodes that will be revealed as the player progresses through the region. These nodes progress in a linear fashion and access to regions is not controlled by Junctions.

Note that these nodes do not count towards the progress of unlocking Arbitrations and The Steel Path.

Rewards[]

All drops within space and inside points of interest are distributed to the entire squad.

As Railjack missions can have multiple separate objectives, the end-of-mission rewards also come in multiple parts. Completing the mission's main objective (or one rotation of it, in case of endless missions) grants a major reward (typically a Component Wreckage, Void Relic, or Endo). Reaching mission completion grants two resource bundles as well. Completing Priority Targets and Points of Interest also give rewards from their own separate reward "Cache" pools. Main objective rewards are node-specific, while other loot tables are identical in a given region (except for the Veil Proxima, where Grineer and Corpus nodes have different tables).

Upon completing all of the mission objectives, players will immediately receive the mission rewards. They can then either search the area for additional resources, use the navigation console to begin a new mission or return to the Dry Dock, or simply exit the mission session to return to their Orbiter.

Notes[]

• Specters of any kind deployed will persist throughout missions, and even remain upon entering the Dry Dock. However, their level will be limited to the enemy level of the mission they were spawned with, and can only assist in repelling boarders. They can be told to wait in specific locations to fortify areas as well.
• All containers and lockers contain Railjack resources as well as 15 endo. Rare crates contain small amounts of rare railjack resources and bonus endo (around 160).
• Enemies within Corpus Railjack missions will drop Region Resources, rather than Railjack ones.

Bugs[]

• Targeting markers for fighters and Crewships are misaligned by a small amount, requiring players to get a visual on the target to actually hit, since blind-firing at the target marker will miss.
• When traveling to the Dry Dock after completing a mission, the player may become stuck in an infinite loading screen, where only the tactical menu is functional. The only option is to manually close the game.
• Weapon skins may become disabled after returning to a Railjack from free flight with the Archwing.
• A specific destroyable loot spawn will bug if the explosive in the center is destroyed, causing all nearby loot to it to not be siphoned and must be physically touched to pick up (see media). Be sure to get within range and pick up surrounding loot before shooting the explosive.
• If the mission includes having to disable a ship destroyer asteroid base, the giant laser may continue to fire even after the base is destroyed, and this causes considerable constant damage to nearby Railjacks and at an extended range.
• Rarely, Gokstad Crewships may be destroyed with normal Railjack weaponry, vanishing without the normal explosion associated with a reactor meltdown.
• Player Archguns and Archmelees may become permanently bugged and show up even when the player is on a ship or Railjack, visually blending in with their character and/or normal weapons. The only fix is to return to drydock or leave the mission though this is only visual.
• Specters created with the  Synoid Heliocor can be forced to stay alive permanently by being in a different loading 'zone' than where the Specter was created, specifically loading zone bases that you must infiltrate and the Railjack itself. As long as you are not in the same zone when the timer runs out, they will not die and instead roam around until killed or you create another specter.
  • If you create a Specter out of a Grineer boarding party then leave the ship into another loading zone area (such as a Crewship or base) there is a chance that they will still be alive on your ship as a permanent companion. (see images)
• Charging Vauban's Tesla Nervos as the player is loading the Dry Dock (from a returning mission) will cause a hard crash to desktop.
• On the objective to disable a Pulse Turbine, the door to the final console to hack to finish the objective may become bugged and unable to be opened, with debris around the door as if you already exploded the systems by hacking the console. If this happens the entire mission is not completable and you must abort and lose progress.
  • Host migrations may fix the door and allow you to enter, though the objective may still be marked anyways as uncompleted as well as other strange bugs such as giant objective markers or containers marked with huge symbols on the map.
  • Another tactic requires having Loki teleporting at the other side of the door using a specter or an enemy trapped behind. With a specter, the player must stick to the door and launch the "pokeball" so it ends up behind it.
    • Mind that Loki's teleportation can only work if its target can be locked. Meaning it has to stick to the door as well.
    • That makes the Ancient Eximus Specters the best kind of specters to choose as they tend to bend through the door every so often.
• Occasionally, if a fire starts in the Railjack and is still burning when an Empyrean Mission ends, the fire will remain present, which makes it possible for a player to die in the Clan Dojo. If the player dies in the Clan Dojo, they will be unable to revive or do anything. The only way to fix this is to return to the Orbiter or restart the game.
• Ice Mine objectives in Corpus Railjack missions will continue to fire homing ice shards at the player's railjack even if it is destroyed.

Media[]

How Empyrean missions are rendered, according to [DE]Steve^[1]

Warframe THE EMPYREAN EXPERIENCE! THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE GORGEOUS!

If the yellow explosive is shot, loot around itself will not be siphoned

A Synoid Heliocor Specter bugged to have an infinite timer

References[]