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Resources are items that are obtained in any mission around the Star Chart and can have multiple uses depending on the type of Resource; most of them however are used solely for the manufacturing of other items in the Foundry with Blueprints.

Resources are usually shown on the map as unique objects that resemble the actual resources themselves. Players can also find resource caches unique to the resource type around the map.

With very few exceptions such as Ayatan Stars, resources are automatically picked by the player while moving over them. Several Mods can help in detecting resources or storage containers, or make the process of harvesting resources faster by increasing the range at which loots are automatically picked (e.g. Mod TT 20px Vacuum).

Resource Types[]

Resources are classified by the method of collection, quantity obtained in each pickup, and their primary purposes.

Type Description Example(s)
Common Common resources, like the name implies, are very commonly found. They drop from lockers, breakables, normal enemies, and bosses. NanoSpores Nano Spores, AlloyPlate Alloy Plate, Salvage Salvage
Uncommon Uncommon resources, like the name implies, are found uncommonly in quantities usually between 10 and 30. They drop from lockers, breakables, normal enemies, and bosses. Some of the uncommon Resources are found in higher quantities between 50 and 100. Rubedo Rubedo, Plastids Plastids, Circuits Circuits
Rare Rare resources will usually drop one at a time. Some drop in higher quantities, like 2 or 3. They are most often found by defeating bosses or a specific type of enemy, and very rarely from common enemies or storage lockers/containers. OrokinCell Orokin Cell, ArgonCrystal Argon Crystal, ControlModule Control Module
Research Research resources are resources with a distinctive blue color and are dropped uncommonly from common enemies in quantities of 1 to 3. They are crucial materials for Research. DetoniteAmpule Detonite Ampule, FieldronSample Fieldron Sample, MutagenSample Mutagen Sample
Navigators Navigators are orbs that are required to build a variety of keys. Like Research Resources, they can be classified as uncommon or rare depending on different factors such as drop rate or quantity obtained. NavCoordinate Nav Coordinates are dropped uncommonly in storage containers. MutalistAladVNavCoordinate Mutalist Alad V Nav Coordinate, CryptographicALU Cryptographic ALU, OmegaIsotope Omega Isotope
Special These unique resources are usually not dropped by normal enemies, but are obtained as a reward for completing very specific mission types or challenges, or are dropped by specific enemy types (such as Sentient Cores dropped by Sentients). Some of these resources currently have only one use. RivenSliver Riven Sliver, Kuva Kuva, SteelEssence Steel Essence
Minerals (ores/gems) Special ores and rough gems are acquired through mining in Landscapes such as the Plains of Eidolon, the Orb Vallis and the Cambion Drift. They can be refined into alloys or cut gems and are usually used for building equipment purchased in Cetus, Fortuna, and the Necralisk. These include Kitguns, K-Drives, Operator Amps, several weapons and Warframes components, MOA companions, Zaws, and Necramechs. Auron Auron, Hesperon Hesperon, Thaumica Thaumica
Fish Fish are acquired through fishing in the Plains of Eidolon, the Orb Vallis, and the Cambion Drift. Their organs can be extracted and are usually used for building equipment purchased in Cetus, Fortuna, and the Necralisk. They can be used to build the items listed in mining Glappid Glappid, Tromyzon Tromyzon, Glutinox Glutinox
Empyrean Empyrean resources are mostly unique to the Empyrean game mode and have three different rarity types like normal Star Chart resources. They are dropped from enemy fighters, can be found in storage containers inside of Crewships/points of interest, or dropped by destructible items around the space. Carbides, Cubic Diodes, Ticor Plate, and Titanium are also dropped by Eximus units spawning in specific planets. Mainly used for building Railjack components/turrets, but also required for crafting several Warframe parts or weapons. GallosRods Gallos Rods, Nullstones Nullstones, Isos Isos
Quest/Event-exclusive Exclusive to the quest/event they are tied to, these resources serve no purpose outside of them. Most of event resources were removed with the end of their Operations. PyrusEssence Pyrus Essence, ZealotDerelictCode Zealot Derelict Code, CorpusCipher Corpus Cipher

Resource Deposits[]

Main article: Storage Containers#Resource Deposits


Resource Deposits are special containers that hold only a single type of resource. These deposits have a unique name and appearance matching the resource that they contain, and can only be found in the same areas as their associated resource. The rarity of deposits usually corresponds to the rarity of the contained resource; for example, Alloy Drums will be more common than Neural Arrays. Rare resource deposits can drop between 1 to 3 of the associated rare resource.

The various types of Resource Deposits include:

Each deposit has to be scanned five times to complete codex entry (currently, unscanned deposits will not be shown in Codex).


Farming Tips[]

For best results, it is recommended to farm resources either solo or in a dedicated group. This will reduce any tensions that might otherwise come up between players who are trying to farm resources and those who have other goals and do not wish to look for resources.

  • Infested levels tend to spawn more enemies, which means more chances for resources.
    • In addition to always being controlled by the Infested, all Dark Sector missions have an increased resource drop rate that varies by individual mission.
  • The Mod TT 20px Vacuum Robotic mod and Mod TT 20px Fetch Beast mod picks up materials around you in a good radius, removing the need to focus on manually collecting every last resource drop.
    • At rank 0, Vacuum and Fetch still have respectable ranges at 6.5 meters and 8.5 meters respectively, while costing only two mod capacity. Adding it to every companion streamlines resource pickup and should reduce (though not eliminate) the need for dedicated resource farming.
  • Break everything. Look for open containers or crates, and do not be shy to break them open, even if your team decides it's not worth it. Some but not all Area-effect Warframe abilities break containers, which can be combined with Vacuum to vastly speed up the process.
    • If playing a level with a very linear route, explore the entire level, including taking elevators to floors where the objective isn't located to look for more containers.
    • Mod TT 20px Thief's Wit enables the player to spot all breakable crates within range through the mini-map, along with highlighting mods through walls.
    • Mod TT 20px Master Thief grants the player a certain chance to open locked lockers (40% at level max).
    • Mod TT 20px Scavenge allows a Kubrow to have a 90% chance to open locked lockers. However, this only works on lockers the Kubrow can actually reach.
    • Codex Scanner can be used to see all containers in the current room within the range of 50 meters.
    • Weapons such as the Ignis Ignis with large AoE bursts are very useful for breaking multiple containers or Resource formations at once.
      • Weapons like OrthosPrime Orthos Prime or TelosBoltace Telos Boltace, with a large range and decent attack speed, are also very useful at cracking open containers.
    • Keep a lookout for resource deposits that may spawn around the map. These are a good source for uncommon and rare resources when destroyed.
  • Several Warframe abilities or Augments affect resource drops.
    • NekrosIcon272 Nekros' Desecrate130xWhite Desecrate gives a 54% chance for most enemies killed in a wide radius around him to roll their loot tables again, as well as spawning health orbs that help you keep up the fight, especially against the shield-bypassing Toxic damage used by many Infested enemies. Neither Power Strength nor Power Duration affects this ability; mod for range and efficiency. The Mod TT 20px Despoil augment is also a good idea, as it makes desecrate entirely self-sustaining and allows you to freely use your energy on other abilities. In addition, it makes it much less likely that Desecrate will deactivate itself, as Nekros generally has a much larger health pool than energy pool. In combination with Mod TT 20px Rejuvenation, the ability is essentially free with all the health orbs that drop.
      • The fixed 54% chance makes this the least efficient ability on a per-enemy basis, which is balanced out by its extreme ease of use and lack of augment requirement. This, in combination with Nekros being commonly known as "the farming frame," makes Desecrate a popular choice.
    • IvaraIcon272 Ivara's Prowl130xWhite Prowl allows her to passively "pickpocket" nearby enemies, releasing one random item from their drop table per enemy. This is slow, only working on one enemy at a time and taking multiple seconds, but prioritizing specific enemies allows for more focused farming efforts and since it leaves affected enemies completely untouched, it can be easily coordinated with other farming abilities used by teammates.
      • In addition to making the ability itself more efficient, duration mods can reduce pickpocket times significantly. Power Strength mods have no beneficial effect on pickpocket but corrupted mods that reduce Power Strength give the ability a failure chance, requiring the ability to start over and try again.
    • AtlasIcon272 Atlas' Mod TT 20px Ore Gaze augment gives Petrified enemies a base 25% chance to reroll their drop tables. Unlike Desecrate, this is affected by Power Strength (up to a 100% chance at 400% Power Strength) but is harder to use, only working on enemies that are turned to stone at the time of their deaths. It can be used alongside Desecrate.
      • "Thawed" enemies aren't affected by Ore Gaze; increase Power Duration or coordinate with your teammates to ensure that enemies are killed while still petrified.
    • HydroidIcon272 Hydroid's Mod TT 20px Pilfering Swarm doubles the drop chance of all enemies killed while ensnared by TentacleSwarm130xWhite Tentacle Swarm and tentacles formed by Hydroid's passive. Note that the tentacles do not have to kill the enemy for the effect to occur. Drop chance is unaffected by Power Strength but this is still the most powerful single effect, which is counterbalanced by Tentacle Swarm being difficult to use efficiently in the first place. Its ability to synergize with other farming abilities appears to need more testing.
      • All ability-affecting mods have their uses with Pilfering Swarm: Despite not affecting the augment or increasing the number of tentacles, Power Strength scales particularly well with Tentacle Swarm's damage, allowing you to kill enemies and re-target a different horde much more quickly and easily. Likewise, Efficiency allows you to more easily compensate for the difficult targeting and the limited number of tentacles. Power Range can be either increased to give the tentacles more room to target groups of enemies or reduced to limit them to smaller choke points. Duration, of course, gives you and your teammates more time to kill ensnared enemies but may be wasteful if you find yourself targeting new groups of enemies often.
    • KhoraIcon272 Khora's Mod TT 20px Pilfering Strangledome gives a 65% chance for enemies ensnared by Strangledome130xWhite Strangledome to drop additional loot. This chance is not affected by mods, and as with Hydroid's Pilfering Swarm the enemy must be held in the dome to be affected by the additional drop chance but do not need to be killed by it. As the Strangledome only has a set amount of vertices that can hold enemies this limits its effectiveness against hordes, however, this is balanced by the fact that foes are drawn into it from range, take damage over time, take extra damage from attacks and become vulnerable to friendly fire.
      • The same enemy cannot be affected by both Pilfering Swarm and Pilfering Strangledome at the same time. However it does have some synergy with Desecrate as 1/3 of the damage over time effect is Slash based, giving a decent chance for foes to be dismembered.
    • A common squad composition for a dedicated farming mission is a Speed NovaIcon272 Nova — that is, a Nova with less than 70% strength using her MolecularPrime130xWhite Molecular Prime ability, which will speed enemies up instead of slowing them down, a Desecrating Nekros, sometimes with the Mod TT 20px Despoil augment for ease of use, a Mod TT 20px Pilfering Swarm HydroidIcon272 Hydroid and an EnergyVampire130xWhite Energy Vampire TrinityIcon272 Trinity to allow the other frames to recast their abilities. A common tactic is to find an easy room and "camp" for a while, speeding the enemies to the camping location and massacring them.
  • The Spare Parts mod can slightly increase drops, though the increase is largely negligible compared to the effects of Warframe abilities.
  • For passive farming, Extractors can be placed on planets with all of its nodes completed. However, this method is effective for getting common and uncommon resources, even with the Distilling Extractor. Rare resources are hard to come by using Extractors.

Recommended Farming Locations[]

These recommendations are based on player opinions and may not be optimal. See discussion comments and individual resource pages for more details.

Resource Location
AlloyPlate Alloy Plate Gabii (Ceres), Draco (Ceres) or Malva (Venus)
ArgonCrystal Argon Crystal Any Void Survival/Exterminate
Circuits Circuits Draco (Ceres) or Malva (Venus)
ControlModule Control Module Any Void Survival/Defense, Hyena Pack (Psamathe, Neptune) or Raptors (Naamah, Europa)
Cryotic Cryotic Any Excavation mission
Ferrite Ferrite Any Void Survival/Defense, Tikal (Earth) or Apollodorus (Mercury)
Gallium Gallium Assur (Uranus) or Lieutenant Lech Kril (War, Mars)
Hexenon Hexenon Ganymede (Jupiter) or Cameria (Jupiter)
Morphics Morphics Wahiba (Mars), Captain Vor (Tolstoj, Mercury) or Apollodorus (Mercury)
NanoSpores Nano Spores Hyf (Deimos), Terrorem (Deimos), the Cambion Drift (Deimos), Akkad (Eris) or Piscinas (Saturn)
NeuralSensors Neural Sensors Cameria (Jupiter), Alad V (Themisto, Jupiter) or Raptors (Naamah, Europa)
Neurodes Neurodes Tycho (Lua), Hyf or Terrorem (Deimos), Lephantis (Magnacidium, Deimos) or Zealoid Prelate (Exequias, Deimos), Tikal (Earth) or Zabala (Eris)
OrokinCell Orokin Cell Terrorem (Deimos), Draco (Ceres) or Piscinas (Saturn)
Oxium Oxium Io (Jupiter), Galatea (Neptune), Despina (Neptune), or Apollo (Lua)
Plastids Plastids Zeugma (Phobos), Ophelia (Uranus) or Zabala (Eris)
PolymerBundle Polymer Bundle Assur (Uranus), Ophelia (Uranus) or Apollodorus (Mercury)
Rubedo Rubedo Any Void Survival/Defense or Zeugma (Phobos)
Salvage Salvage Cameria (Jupiter) or Wahiba (Mars)
Tellurium Tellurium Ophelia (Uranus), Caelus (Uranus) or Salacia (Neptune)

Resources By Planet[]

Main article: Region Resource

Note, some resources are not tied to specific planets: Tellurium can drop as a rare resource in any Archwing mission and Oxium will drop from Oxium Ospreys in most Corpus missions.

Common

Mercury

Venus

Earth

Lua

Mars

Deimos

Phobos

Ceres

Jupiter

Europa

Saturn

Uranus

Neptune

Pluto

Eris

Sedna

Void

Kuva Fortress

Zariman

AlloyPlate Alloy Plate
Ferrite Ferrite
NanoSpores Nano Spores
Salvage Salvage

Uncommon

Mercury

Venus

Earth

Lua

Mars

Deimos

Phobos

Ceres

Jupiter

Europa

Saturn

Uranus

Neptune

Pluto

Eris

Sedna

Void

Kuva Fortress

Zariman

Circuits Circuits
Cryotic Cryotic
Hexenon Hexenon
Plastids Plastids
PolymerBundle Polymer Bundle
Rubedo Rubedo
VoidgelOrb Voidgel Orb

Rare

Mercury

Venus

Earth

Lua

Mars

Deimos

Phobos

Ceres

Jupiter

Europa

Saturn

Uranus

Neptune

Pluto

Eris

Sedna

Void

Kuva Fortress

Zariman

ArgonCrystal Argon Crystal
ControlModule Control Module
Gallium Gallium
Morphics Morphics
NeuralSensors Neural Sensors
Neurodes Neurodes
OrokinCell Orokin Cell
Tellurium Tellurium
EntratiLanthorn Entrati Lanthorn

Research

Mercury

Venus

Earth

Lua

Mars

Deimos

Phobos

Ceres

Jupiter

Europa

Saturn

Uranus

Neptune

Pluto

Eris

Sedna

Void

Kuva Fortress

Zariman

DetoniteAmpule Detonite Ampule
FieldronSample Fieldron Sample
MutagenSample Mutagen Sample


Raw Data[]

Main article: Module:Resources/data

For a community-contributed list of resources in WARFRAME, see Module:Resources/data.

Notes[]

  • Resource pickups can despawn if not picked up by the player if there are too many individual pickups at once.

Patch History[]

Update 11.7 (2014-01-15)

  • Changes to logic with pickups. Change allows more drops to accumulate by separating the ‘recycle bin’ into to 3 sections:
    • New credits will evict old credits
    • New ammo/health/energy will evict old AHE
    • New resources will evict old resources

Before, new credits could evict the space of old resources, we now have categories.

Update 7.7 (2013-04-03)

  • Changed general resource pickup model
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