Warframe Absolute Beginner's Tips

Answering the questions you might have when you're just starting out with the game.
Some answers are really hard to find even in a thourough search of the net, because no one seems to consider the rookie questions relevant enough, or because the information isn't up to date anymore thanks to some major updates and changes in the game.
I'm trying to answer the questions I had as a beginner without going into overwhelming detail - just a few pointers to help with the very first few steps in Warframe.

CREATING YOUR FIRST CHARACTER... SORRY... WARFRAME!

Unlike in an MMO where you can create multiple characters and switch between them, in Warframe you have (you guessed correctly) - a warframe. The warframe is basically an armour with special powers; and each warframe has different abilities.

So instead of creating a new character or different class, you equip a different warframe that has the desired abilities.

Can I have several characters or classes from something like a character creation menu? - No.
Can I eventually play the equivalent to a different class? - Yes, by using a different warframe.

Initially, you get to choose from three different warframes, and it really doesn't matter which one you pick. Just choose the one that appeals to you the most. You can get the others and many more later in the game (but it will take a while to get you there).

This isn't a RPG, you won't have different chars. It's you, with your one and only gamer-tag, using different warframes to play with, all of which will have your initial gamer-tag.

You can create a new warframe on your ship, in your Foundry.
However, the creation of a new warframe involves getting the blueprint, the blueprints for its components, farming the components and then waiting... and waiting some more for the crafting process to finish. For a new player that means you'll be stuck with your initial warframe for a while.

While you can't have different chars, you can play the equivalent of different classes by choosing a different warframe. Each warframe will have different abilities.

If you're willing to spend real money, you can speed up the process considerably by buying the warframes and/or a currency called "Platinum" in the Market, but you don't have to do that. You can still get other warframes without investing real money, it just means it will take a lot longer.

WHERE TO START - WHAT TO DO FIRST?

Like in many complex games, getting started can be a bit overwhelming. Many things to learn and to figure out, and it might take a while to get your bearings.

Maybe you're asking: "Is there some quest or anything that I need to do first? Am I going to miss something if I don't do this or that quest first? Can I go wrong with any of my initial choices?"

And the answer is: no, in the beginning you can't go wrong with your choices. It will be a long while before you reach a point where your choices have any impact.

In the beginning literally anything you do will advance you. At the very least you will get valuable materials you'll need for crafting, mods you can use to upgrade your gear and level up your weapons and warframe.

Don't stress out about what to do first, but somewhere in between hopping around and exploring get these things done:

• Follow the main storyquests, because - without spoilering anything for you - that will unlock all sorts of things and abilities that you want to have.
  
• Do the missions on planets that you haven't done before (the ones that pulse blue on your Navigation map) and unlock junctions to new planets.

You can access your quests via the main menu > quests, via an icon in the top right at the Navigation console or via the Codex console in your Orbiter (ship). The latter will also tell you which prerequisites a quest has and which of those you've fulfilled already.

You will also get an info pop-up ingame whenever a new quest becomes available for you (and sometimes quest related ingame mail).

PRECIOUS PLATINUM

Platinum is a currency in the game that you can only obtain by spending real money in the Market, or by trading items to other players.

As you can imagine, the items other players would be willing to spend Platinum on have to be of a certain quality, so it will be a while before you can acquire them in the game as a beginner.

You get a complimentary 50 Platinum when you start the game - spend them wisely!

If you're willing to spend a lot of real money in the game you can completely ignore the following. Then you can just go to the Market, buy Platinum for real money and invest it in whatever your heart desires.

If you don't want to spend real money:

Use your initial 50 Platinum to buy 2 new Warframe slots.

In order to progress in the game, you will eventually have many different warframes, and while you can build as many as you like, you can't pick them up unless you have free slots.

You can see how many slots you have left if you go to your inventory and select the warframes-tab.

You can buy a new slot in your inventory by clicking on the add-warframe-slot, or by going to the Market (via the console in your Orbiter or via the main menu).

Eventually, you will acquire items you can sell to other players. Without going into much detail here, those are mainly prime parts, Ayatan treasures and Mods.

THE VERY FIRST MODS

Mods will eventually improve your warframes, weapons and pets. We're not going into all the intricacies here, again: just a few pointers for new players.

Mods will drop all over the place. Your first impression might be that there are waaay too many of them and you don't know what to do with them.

Keep your mods, even the useless ones - you can use them to improve the really good ones later.

The base versions of mods aren't all that impressive, but you can upgrade them. To upgrade your mods, you need Endo. Endo drops from some mobs, can be a mission reward and you can exchange your unwanted mods for Endo.
So there's the reason to keep your useless mods that you already have 398 copies of: to exchange them for Endo and upgrade the mods you really want.

As a beginner, when funds are tight and Endo scarce, don't waste it on just any mod. When you're starting out, specialized mods aren't that important yet. There's a function in the Arsenal to autoequip mods that is good enough in the very beginning.

Vitality is a good first choice for your first upgrades, because you'll always want a bit of extra health and it's one of the mods that will drop for you early in the game.

If a mod says "FLAWED", don't bother upgrading it. That means that a better version of the same mod is out there somewhere.

There are different qualities of mods out there, but some of them (like Vitality) only come in the "common" variety and are still a great choice.
Until you've figured out what the best mods for your playstyle are, just hoard the mods that drop, so you can eventually convert them into Endo - or sell the rare ones you don't want to other players.

THE FIRST COMPANIONS

If you follow the main questline, you'll quickly get to a point where you're expected to breed your first Kubrow companion.

Just following the questline will get you everything you need for breeding your first Kubrow, which is your Incubator on the Orbiter (your ship), a Kubrow egg (drops during the quest mission) and an Incubator Power Core (you'll get the first one as a quest reward).

When activating the Incubator, you will have to go for a "random breeding", because you don't have any "Imprints" yet.

(Imprints are mostly cosmetic options that allow you to use colouring and physical attributes from other Kubrow. You can copy colouring, coat pattern and build from other Kubrow once you already have others. You can also choose your Kubrow's breed with imprints, which will determine their abilities; that might be of interest later, but for your first few pets don't fret about it.
You also need items that have to be bought from the Market or built in your Foundry to store genetic information in.)

Once the breeding is finished and you can pick up your Kubrow, it has to be "matured for combat" for you to use it. Otherwise it just stays in your Orbiter.

You don't have to feed your companions!

Don't worry, your companions are not going to die on you. Feeding used to be a thing, but that was removed from the game. Your companions will be happy and healthy now without requiring any care.

If your companion dies during a mission, you can revive them like you would revive another player if you can get to them before they bleed out.
If you don't revive them before they bleed out, they will be revived with you if you die yourself and revive.
If you survive and complete the mission without your companion, they will be back after you finish the mission.

Don't worry, you're not going to lose your companion. They'll be back.

Once you have more than one companion, you can "equip" them like you would a weapon in your Arsenal, in the companions tab.

If you don't want to use one of your Kubrow companions any more, you can "revert" their maturing and let them roam the Orbiter as a (more or less) cute puppy, or you can "consign it to the Lotus" for 25,000 Credits, which is basically giving it into foster care. Careful, if you choose to consign your Kubrow to the Lotus, you can't get it back anymore. This is the option to choose to free a companion slot so you can get other companions, because you can't sell a Kubrow like you would sell a weapon.

If you want to breed more Kubrow, you'll need a Kubrow egg, which has a chance of dropping whenever you destroy a Kubrow den on Earth, and you'll need an Incubator Power Core.

The blueprint for the Incubator Power Core can be bought in the Market for Credits, and the Power Core then has to be crafted in your Foundry.

While you're incubating a new Kubrow, you can't use a Kubrow companion for your missions.

However, there are other, mechanical companions you can use even while incubating a new pet.

You can buy their blueprints for Credits in the Market and craft them in your Foundry, and you get one early in the game for free - you just have to "equip" it in the Arsenal in the companions tab.

If you're using a mechanical companion, make sure to also equip their weapon in the Arsenal.

When you're levelling your companion, you will get mastery points, but just like with a weapon or warframe you'll get mastery points only for those you haven't mastered already. For Kubrow that means that you can get mastery points for each type of Kubrow (there are 4 different types), and if you get another one of the same type that you've already mastered there won't be any more mastery points for levelling it.

FONT SIZE AND CAMERA DISTANCE

While still a great game, Warframe has been around for a while and wasn't initially made for your 4k screen. Which means the text on your screen might be so tiny that you can't read it without a looking glass.

That's easily fixed in the settings.

If you want to adjust the chatsize, you can do that under Options > Social > Chat Appearance. There you can adjust Chat Scale (how big will your chatwindow be) and Chat Text Size.

If you can't read a thing on your screen, because everything written is so tiny, you can adjust the Hud Scale under Options > Interface > Hud > Hud Scale. That will affect all the text on your screen (from damage numbers to quest info).

Another thing in the settings that you might want to set from the start is the viewing distance to your warframe. You can do this under Options > Video > Display > Field Of View.