The Orbiter, your headquarters: the complete guide

All of Warframe is steered from your ship: the Orbiter. Every console has a precise role, and neglecting them means missing half the game. Here is the complete guided tour, console by console, with the right habits to build from your very first hours.

The ship's map

🗺️Navigation: the ship's brain

Everything launches from here. Your first goal as a beginner: chain the junctions to open the star chart — that's what unlocks the Archwing, the Railjack ("Rising Tide" quest after Pluto), Duviri (Uranus junction, rush it as soon as it opens) and, eventually, the Steel Path: to open it, complete every mission on every planet at least once (if one is missing, Teshin in a relay tells you which). Along the way, raise your mastery: around rank 16–17, no equipment restriction remains.

• Extractor drones — craft them then drop them on planets: they farm resources (sometimes rare ones) by themselves, in the background.
• Relays & blessings — if you have to go AFK, do it in a relay: rank 30 players cast free blessings there (affinity, credits, resources…).
• Events — do them all: exclusive mods (Thermia fractures, ghoul purge…) and good resources as rewards.
• Weeklies — Clem's mission (free specters) and Maroo's Ayatan hunt (sculpture = endo), every week.
• Nightmare missions — unlocked planet by planet once all its missions are done: an annoying malus, but essential mods to collect.
• Invasions — whenever a reactor, catalyst or forma shows up as a reward, it's non-negotiable: the game gives very few. Reactor = doubles a Warframe's capacity, catalyst = a weapon's.
• Daily sortie — do it every day, even when it's hard. It's what forces you to improve your builds.
• Arbitrations — at the very end of the star chart: one life only, but important mods — our Vitus farming guide.
• Nightwave — do your acts daily: the credit shop is your best Nitain farm early on, with aura mods rotating weekly, exclusive weapons (mastery!), forma and reactors.
• Void fissures — the platinum engine: crack relics in a squad. Aim for volume, not the one "precious" relic — in the Void, Ukko-style captures generate them in chains. Later: Requiem fissures (liches) and Omnia fissures (Zariman, all eras).

⚔️The Arsenal: where you'll spend your life

Warframe, weapon and companion builds: everything is set here. The reactor/catalyst doubles mod points (37 → 74), forma polarise your slots to fit more — and every spare capacity point makes you start the mission with more energy. You can rename your configs, keep several per equipment, and share a build in chat in one click (the small link at the top of the build). You can also try builds outside the game with our Arsenal simulator.

• Starter companion — the Taxon is excellent for your shields: give it the Guardian mod.
• Vehicles — the Archwing comes by itself via junctions; the Archgun deploys on the ground after Little Duck's missions (Fortuna); the Necramech comes from Deimos; the K-Drive can wait — don't exhaust yourself on it early.
• Gear wheel — scanner (upgrade it at Simaris first: infinite scans then ×2), specters, ciphers, beacons, mining/fishing/hunting tools… everything goes here.
• Focus lens — you'll unlock it through the main quests; follow them and everything will make sense.

🔨The Foundry: one forma a day, for life

Everything you collect (market blueprints, Prime parts from fissures…) is built here. Two golden rules:

• Craft one forma every day (23h cycle), without missing a single day, for your whole player life. Blueprints drop in Void fissures.
• Never rush anything with platinum. Yes, a Warframe takes 3 days and 12h — everyone waits, you too.

Also think of specters (craft ×10 of the 1-star versions: a free NPC ally per mission) and consumables (ciphers, energy pads — the ×100 blueprints are in the dojo). On the resources that often block you: argon crystals in the Void (they decay, farm them the same day), Orokin Cells on Saturn.

🧩Mods, endo and Rivens

Mods exist in several variants (normal Intensify, Archon, Umbra, precision…). The normal mod is enough: a build is not "10 times weaker" without the luxury variant — the Umbra one actually costs a lot of capacity for ~14 more strength points. Max your key mods, that's what changes everything.

• Endo — dissolve your duplicate mods (always keep one maxed copy), fill your Ayatan sculptures with stars before selling them to Maroo (325 → 1,425 endo!), and farm the open-world bounties (~20,000 endo/hour). At mastery 10, the "auto-install" button places the stars by itself.
• Auras — the most played ones (Brief Respite, Growing Power) come from the apothics of The Silver Grove quest; others rotate weekly in the Nightwave shop.
• Rivens — not before the end of your progression. It's the cherry on a build that already works: a roll (with Kuva from siphons) can aim at your favourite stats… or lower the weapon's damage. As a beginner: sell them, checking the same Riven's price on warframe.market so you don't get ripped off — our item pages help for everything else.

🛒The ship's Market: your mastery and first platinum

Filter the weapons buyable with credits (tick all three filters): those blueprints must run continuously in your foundry — that's the basis of your mastery climb. At every new rank, come back to see what unlocked. Many Warframe main blueprints are also bought here with credits (and Simaris resells the quest ones you may have deleted).

• Credits — rush Neptune: the Index mission with Rhino nets you millions. Take a 3-day credit booster and purge it.
• Boosters — the ×2 resource booster is the priority, permanently; affinity in 3-day bursts to level your weapons (Helene on Saturn, Hydron on Sedna, Simaris' Sanctuary); resource chance and mod chance: later, once you know why.
• Prime Resurgence (Varzia) — vaulted Primes come back for Aya, with a monthly rotation: the chance to get Prime gear unavailable elsewhere, or even to stock relics that will regain value once vaulted again.
• Umbra Forma — ultra rare: stockpile them and never place one without being 100% sure of your build.

📖The Codex: quests are non-negotiable

Main quests are done as soon as they appear — if the game offers it, you're ready. This is also where you can force-start them. And several "side" quests hide treasures:

The big storyline: The New War then Veilbreaker, which unlock the Archon Shards — don't try to get any before that, it's pointless.

🤝Syndicates: 2-3 months of farming that change everything

The six syndicates work in allied pairs that rank up together (and penalise their enemies): Arbiters of Hexis + Cephalon Suda, Perrin Sequence + New Loka, Red Veil + Steel Meridian. Pick a pair, play normally with their sigil equipped, and empty their shops in this order:

1. Augment mods for the frames you play — many builds revolve around an augment;
2. Syndicate weapons (unique passive effects + mastery);
3. Then continuously: relic packs and Aya.

The medallions picked up in syndicate missions let you exceed the daily standing cap. Later, the "Whispers in the Walls" quest unlocks Vosfor: you'll dissolve duplicate arcanes there to buy targeted packs — in 2026, a few weeks of play are enough to max your arcanes (Zariman, Sanctum…).

Open-world standing bonus (Pandaahh's tip): the Narmer bounties (Cetus and Fortuna) give a special item exchangeable for 2,000 standing at Little Duck/Vox Solaris — up to 3 per mission. Enough to max a normally slow reputation much faster.

🐾The Incubator: every companion is good

The "Howl of the Kubrow" quest gives you your first companion. Then: the 5 kubrow breeds (Raksa, Huras, Sahasa, Sunika, Chesa) are obtained by re-running incubations (eggs in dens on Earth, power core from the infinite blueprint). The kavat segment drops from Hyekka Masters (Saturn), then scan the invisible wild kavats with Simaris' scanner — upgrade it first, and do it in a squad: up to 5 kavats per pack with 4 players, versus 2 solo. Above all remember: every companion has a real use — you'll want them all, if only for mastery.

And deeper in the ship, a "secret" room awaits after Deimos: the Helminth, which swallows one Warframe per day to let you graft certain abilities from one frame onto another. You'll re-farm normal frames to feed it — good luck with Citrine.

💎The Relic segment: refine without wasting

Your relics (Lith, Meso, Neo, Axi eras — plus Requiem for liches) are refined here with the Void Traces earned by cracking relics. Simple rule: only refine when you're aiming at a precise golden reward; as a beginner, your traces are too scarce to waste. Axi relics are a bit more precious (fewer missions grant them), but every era has parts worth a lot — check our item pages.

💬Chats, clan and dojo

Join a clan early: simply post in the recruitment channel ("beginner looking for a clan" is enough — and you can change later). Craft your dojo key, then reach the dojo from navigation: the labs are full of weapons, the Itzal Archwing (its loot vacuum is useful everywhere) and handy blueprints. To buy and sell, prefer warframe.market over the trade channel; the Q&A channel answers your game questions. Finally, your Orbiter can be decorated (Esc → Equipment → Decorate) with items farmable all over — zero gameplay impact, 100% fun.

The source video

This guided tour builds on the complete Orbiter presentation by Pandaahh Warframe Chronicles, made for new players (in French):

▶

Votre Orbiter c'est vraiment votre quartier général

Pandaahh Warframe Chronicles · YouTube

Watch the video ↗

← All guides · Dashboard · Item prices

⚙ Builds mentioned in this guide: Taxon · Rhino · Xoris · Inaros · Titania · Octavia · Mirage · Sevagoth