Beginner's Guide to Vault Runs!

A guide for new players to get into doing vault runs to get corrupted mods!

Introduction

NOTE
As of the Starchart 3.0 update, dragon keys are no longer built using Void keys and the blueprints must be researched through a clan dojo. I'm not sure if I will update the guide as I am rather busy and the bulk of the information remains the same.
/NOTE

After walking a considerable amount of new players through the basics of doing vault runs[warframe.wikia.com], I decided to create a guide for it! They aren't difficult to get started with, but they do require a few resources. You will need the following components:

Orokin Derelict Exterminate Key	1500cr	6500cr 5 Nav Coordinates 750 Salvage 2500 Nano Spores 80 Circuit
Bleeding Dragon Key	500cr	500cr 1 Orokin Void Key 250 Ferrite
Decaying Dragon Key	500cr	500cr 1 Orokin Void Key 250 Ferrite
Extinguished Dragon Key	500cr	500cr 1 Orokin Void Key 250 Ferrite
Hobbled Dragon Key	500cr	500cr 1 Orokin Void Key 250 Ferrite

Why should I do this?

The point of doing vault runs is to get corrupted mods[warframe.wikia.com]. If you don't feel like reading the wiki, these are the mods that get dropped:

• Blind Rage
  
• Fleeting Expertise
  
• Narrow Minded
  
• Overextended
  
• Transient Fortitude
  
• Critical Delay
  
• Heavy Caliber
  
• Vile Precision
  
• Tainted Mag
  
• Vile Acceleration
  
• Burdened Magazine
  
• Vicious Spread
  
• Tainted Shell
  
• Frail Momentum
  
• Critical Deceleration
  
• Anemic Agility
  
• Creeping Bullseye
  
• Hollow Point
  
• Magnum Force
  
• Tainted Clip
  
• Spoiled Strike
  
• Corrupt Charge

The ones in bold are some of the most beneficial and sought after mods that will usually go for a pretty good price on the trading market. If you're going to sell them, look up the price on WFTrading [wftrading.net]before you do so!

Where do I get these blueprints?

The blueprints are located in the market, which you can access by going to the front of your Liset or through the main menu by pressing escape.

Finding the Orokin Derelict Exterminate Key Blueprint:

Once you're in the Market, go to the Equipment tab and then open up Keys and Drones.








In the Keys and Drones tab you want to buy the Orokin Derelict Exterminate Key Blueprint. I recommend buying all the other key blueprints as well if you have the credits for them :)








Finding the Dragon Key Blueprints:

While you're still in the market, go back to the Equipment tab and open up the Gear tab.








Once you're in there, buy all four of the Dragon Key blueprints. You will need every one of them!

How do I get the keys?

Now that you have the blueprints, it is time to use them to build keys! Walk over to the foundry in your Liset or access it via the escape menu -> Equipment -> Foundry. Once you're in the foundry, click on the tab on the far right that looks like a key.
If you purchased the Dragon keys, you should see them right up at the top. If you don't see them then you probably didn't purchase them!







Select the key that you want build and this menu will pop up. Building a Dragon Key will require you to consume an Orokin Void key[warframe.wikia.com]. I recommend using Tower 1 Void keys because they are quite plentiful!





Congratulations, you just built your first Dragon Key! Or four! I recommend having at least two keys built at all times. That way you can do runs back-to-back and not have to wait for a key to be built.







Now you only have to build the Orokin Derelict Exterminate Key. The vaults have a chance to spawn in all of the Orokin Derelict mission types, but exterminate has the highest likelihood and is also the easiest.
While you're still in the Keys tab of your Foundry, scroll down until you see the Orokin Derelict Keys. Go ahead and build as many of the Orokin Exterminate keys as you see fit!

What do I do with the keys?

Now that you have the keys built (remember, two of each dragon key!) you may be wondering "What the heck do I do with these?". This step is very important so pay attention closely! Many people forget to equip their keys and the vault has a stupidly high likelihood of being that one key you didn't bring!

Equipping the Dragon Keys
Go to the Arsenal in your Liset and select the Gear menu down in the bottom left corner.








Once you open up the Gear menu you will see the gear wheel. Click an empty slot that you would like to put the key into.







Select the key that you are going to use. I will explain this more in the next section.









Congratulations, you now have your Dragon Key Equipped!

Dragon Keys Explained

I'm going to take a brief moment to explain what each of the Dragon Keys[warframe.wikia.com] do. You can also look this information up on the wiki.

Bleeding Key
This key will reduce your total HP by 75%. I recommend bringing a frame that has a high base shield amount and Redirection + Vigor equipped.

Decaying Key
This key will reduce your total shields by 75%. I recommend bringing a frame that has a high base HP and Vitality + Vigor Equipped.

Extinguished Key
This key will reduce the damage you deal by 75%. I recommend bringing a frame that can deal crowd control (Vauban) or can support the team via buffs/healing (Oberon, Trinity, etc)

Hobbled Key
This key will reduce your movement speed by 50%. I recommend bringing a melee weapon with an attack speed over 1. This is because the movement debuff does not affect coptering [warframe.wikia.com]. The best weapons for this are: the Dual Zoren, Dual Ichor, Bo (Prime variant), or the Tipedo (my recommendation).

When I do vault runs I use Excalibur or Saryn with full power strength and range in order to clear rooms faster. I usually run the Hobbled key, but with coptering I can usually clear rooms before my teammates reach them, leaving them to search for the vault. Many people leave the Hobbled key to search for the vault, so do whatever makes you most comfortable!

When you're getting started running the vaults it is recommended that you take an extinguished, bleeding, or decaying key. These ones are a little easier to run with, just stick close to a teammate. And lastly, you are only able to equip one key at a time so choose wisely which one you want to run with!

What is the Vault and how do I find it?

Now that you have your Dragon and Orokin Derelict keys built, it is time to run the mission! First you want to find some teammates so that you can have a 100% chance of opening up the vault. Head over to the recruiting channel and put out something saying that you're hosting (or looking for) vault runs. Once you're contacted, ask the person which key they have (this ensures that the person actually has the Dragon keys and you're not wasting your time! If they don't have the Dragon keys or don't know where to get them, refer them to this guide!

Once you have an entire squad of four people and you all have a different key equipped. You can see the equipped keys by hovering your cursor over the team member's icon as seen in this picture.






Once all of your team members have their respective keys equipped, go to the Navigation Console and select the Derelict on the Solar map. Choose Orokin Derelict Exterminate and you're ready to go!

Ok seriously, where is the Vault?

Once you're in the mission you will have to search EVERY nook and cranny until you find the vault, or more accurately the smaller doors that connect rooms. The vault will never spawn at one of the larger doors that you may see or the narrower doors that connect the vault to a loot room or an elevator. If you reach the end and still haven't found it that means you missed it, so go back and find it! The Vault will look like this:
When you get close to the lock portion, it will tell you which key it needs to be opened. If it isn't yours, mark the vault and call out which key it does need so they can open up the vault. The blue outline shown also corresponds with the key it needs to be unlocked with!

This is a view of an opened vault from the outside.

DO NOT FORGET TO GRAB THE ARTIFACT. Seriously. You don't get a corrupted mod without it. Anybody can grab the artifact, so don't worry if a teammate grabs it before you do.

The player who picks up the artifact will have a rippling, glowing sheen over them as seen in this picture. The artifact will also give a random effect corresponding with the keys. Double Hobbled effect is the best for doing epic slowmo \o/

The "reward" for my run. It's a random chance for each mod and as far as I've been able to figure out the vault location or key has no effect on which mod is awarded.


Side note:
If you find and open the vault before you eliminate all of the enemies, the remaining ones will spawn as Orokin Void[warframe.wikia.com] enemies.

Soloing Vaults (for more advanced players)

While it is a pain, solo vault runs CAN be done. One of the best strats is the one explained by Complete Takeover, where he has a friend on standby, finds the vault, has his friend equip the proper key, and then finishes the mission after inviting his friend to open the vault. This will work best when playing an Orokin Derelict Exterminate because you can just run through the enemies as Loki and not worry about going past 50% of the kills which would prevent another player from joining.
Edit: This does NOT work. Objective completion is triggered upon finding the vault.

What I typically do when doing solo vault runs is run an Orokin Derelict Capture with Loki and an Extinguished Dragon key. In my experience so far Extinguished has shown up on a few more runs than the others, a few runs of which were not reflected in my data collecting, but you can really take any key and have a decent chance of getting the vault. If you find the vault and you do not have the correct key, then you can just abort and restart the mission. This is pretty much it for my solo tips but I will also include my run results below and I will update them whenever I do get around to doing some!

--OD Captures--

Run #	Key Held	Vault	Reward
1	Hobbled	Extinguished	N/A
2	Extinguished	Extinguished	Overextended
3	Extinguished	Hobbled	N/A
4	Extinguished	Extinguished	Transient Fortitude
5	Extinguished	Bleeding	N/A
6	Extinguished	Bleeding	N/A
7	Extinguished	Bleeding	N/A
8	Extinguished	Hobbled	N/A
9	Extinguished	Hobbled	N/A
10	Extinguished	Decaying	N/A
11	Extinguished	Decaying	N/A
12	Extinguished	Bleeding	N/A
13	Extinguished	Bleeding	N/A
14	Extinguished	Decaying	N/A
15	Extinguished	Decaying	N/A
16	Extinguished	Hobbled	N/A
17	Extinguished	Decaying	N/A
18	Extinguished	Bleeding	N/A
19	Extinguished	Hobbled	N/A

Key	Times Encountered	Chance to spawn*
Bleeding	6	31.6%
Decaying	5	26.3%
Extinguished	3	15.8%
Hobbled	5	26.3%

* - Chance to spawn based only on data gathered in the previous table, numbers may not reflect the actual spawn chance.

Closing Thoughts

So by now you should know all the ins and outs of doing Vault runs! Leave some feedback if you have any questions or if I forgot some information.

Side note:
As I was making this guide, I learned that it is possible to do solo Vault runs. After running about 20 missions with the bleeding key, I switched to using the Extinguished key and got 3 vaults in a row. Upon further research it turns out that the Extinguished vault has a ~60%** chance to spawn, so if you are going to do solo runs this is the one you want to take.

** - This was based on another players data, I am currently collecting my own to come up with a more "accurate" estimate

Good luck and may RNGesus smile upon you!

[neofit]

It must be said that nowadays one can equip all 4 keys if he or she wishes. I routinely run them with 3 keys, but the one that reduces damage.

[gilbert]

I don't think you need OD keys for Vault Runs, I don't have any OD keys and I can still start mission with my friends, who also don't have the OD keys

[It's a me Mario :D]

Update!
Now dragon keys can be aquired from the Clan research lab!

[ratchet]

Hey man, i just came to thank you. This game can be quite new player unfriendly, so it is nice to have a community this nice. Thanks!

[d0ekun]

@Stegosexual TK:

No. As I mentioned before, I didn't have any of the blueprints nor did I accidentally build anything. In fact, I know I didn't because I ALSO didn't equip anything. Kinda weird, right?

[Stegosexual Tyrannorawrus Keks]

@d0ekun - Did you already have the blueprints for the keys? If so you may have accidentally built an ODE key and that would have let you access the Orokin Derelict.

[d0ekun]

This is a great guide - THANK YOU for creating it. :)

I've been around since the early days and took a break from playing. Upon returning, I discovered I lost all my keys I once had and am just starting to understand how the Void and Orokin Derelict missions work.

That said, I have a question...
Has anyone EVER had the Orokin Derelict missions (and the nav/planet) appear WITHOUT crafting a key?

I believe I had this happen the other night. How do I know? I NEVER crafted a key, nor do I possess any blueprints for crafting said keys, yet I was able to play and complete a solo run of an Orokin Derelict Exterminate mission. Now, sadly, I can't figure out how it happened and would like to try and re-create the instance.

Thanks to anyone who can shed some light on this...

[Racktoar]

Tbh, I believe the chances are at 25% on all. Would be stupid not to have it like that. So expect it to be random, I mean 25% is still a quite probable chance so, the chance of it beign the same key twice or trice isn't that rare.

[Stegosexual Tyrannorawrus Keks]

@Sir Zabblepants - It's possible. I haven't done any vault runs in ages, but if I do start them up again I'll be sure to add times to see if I can't narrow that information down further!

[Sir Zabblepants]

Just want to share a theory. On the vault-key chart, notice all the dupes? Bleeding, Bleeding, Hobbled, Hobbled, Hobbled e.c.t. I've got similar results on runs. Wondering if the vault is randomly generated based on the time. If so, getting a Hobbled may indicate that it'll be a hobbled next time, too. Same for any other key.