Thoughts on Necramechs in Normal Missions

Orphix Venom was two things. Firstly, it was the first Operation we’ve had in a long time, a continuation of Scarlet Spear. Secondly, it was a test bed for Necramechs in normal missions. And, in all honesty? It actually succeeded.

Mostly.

I mean, there’s some kinks that need working out.

Bashing your head on doorways is fun.

All things considered, I’m actually surprised how well Necramechs work in indoor missions. The test runs in Orphix Venom were on three tile sets: Gas City, Corpus Ship and Grineer Galleon. The surprising thing is that Necramechs actually fit quite well. Sure, the Necramechs are visibly too big. Everyone’s head will clip through the door frames. But it’s more of a visual issue than anything else. So what if there’s clipping, the whole giant-robot thing works fine. Whenever one did get stuck, you could always just re-summon your mech in a new spot.

Funnily enough, by far the easiest to navigate was the Grineer Galleon. Grineer Galleon tile sets are insanely old, designed for back when we bullet-jumped far less. There’s plenty of room on the Corpus tile sets, but there’s also a lot more scenery to get caught on. And because all the rooms are bigger overall, you just feel so much slower.

For most other tile sets? I don’t think Necramechs will have any difficulties. Only the Infested Corpus Ships might prove tricky, because they are inherently tight. That being said, Corpus Outposts (Venus, Pluto) and Scrapyards (Europa) have narrow vents you have to travel through, and those will almost certainly be problematic. Grineer Earth tiles should be fine, and as long as you remove any underwater sections, Uranus should be fine too.

Necramechs felt more powerful in closed spaces.

Sounds weird, but it’s kinda true. In all these closed spaces, you can seemingly squeeze in way more enemies. Meanwhile, fighting in open world locations feels rather empty. You never get a feeling that you’re being overwhelmed, even on the Cambion Drift. Most enemies will just plink away slowly at your health from a distance. Corpus and Grineer at least make sense doing this, but Infested are just as guilty – a large number of enemies just refuse to get too close.

In an enclosed space though, enemies have to push past each other to shoot you. The number of enemies is probably the same. Heck, there might even be less. But because the enemies are physically blocking your path and in the same cramped space you are, the danger and awesomeness just feels… better.

There are no objectives for the Necramechs.

The problem now is that there’s no real reason to use a Necramech. Both indoors and outdoors. Whatever Necramechs can do, Warframes can kinda do as well, while also having better energy gains. And being able to use health orbs. For reasons unknown, Necramechs can’t regain health from health orbs, despite picking them up. This means you slowly get whittled down, no matter your current objective.

But there are no objectives. Even Orphix Venom kinda failed at that. The Necramechs only really shot at stationary targets. Everything else was done by speed-running. You’d leap out as your Space Kid to blow up the little nodules, then use a Warframe to rush over to the next spawn location. Necramechs lack anything to really fight against.

The only exception right now, funnily enough, is Profit Taker, since it’s quicker to summon a Necramech than an Archgun. Ironically, the Gravimag we spent so long stealing turned out to be far less useful than the giant, slow mech. But, again, Necramechs are just used to shoot a mostly stationary target, and only briefly! But this is still really the only big boss fight where using a Necramech feels like it belongs.

Until we get some giant boss fight, or something more than just “oh no the sentients scrambled our frames”, Necramechs indoors work without issue. But there’s no reason for them to even be there. And that’s a real shame.