The On Call Crew Command Could be Better

After much grinding, I have finally unlocked Rank 9 Command. This unlocks the On Call ability, allowing me to summon one of my Railjack crew to help me in normal missions. It’s a nice idea to tie in Railjack and normal missions a little bit further. But, honestly, after playing around with it, I find it lacking.

First off though, I’m an idiot.

Smarter people than I managed to unlock all 9 ranks of the Command Intrinsic almost instantly. On the other hand, I had to grind my way back up from zero. You see, we actually got ALL our Intrinsics reset and refunded. Everyone else decided to read through the new Intrinsics and skip out on Gunnery 10. In doing so, they’d have enough Intrinsics left over to completely fund all the way up to Command 9.

I didn’t do that. I just put everything back into the other four Intrinsics, taking them back to level 10. And not realising that I’d screwed myself, because Gunnery 10 is genuinely bad. The lock-on effect is not worth the faster heating up of guns. And, honestly, it’s not even that good, and actually gets in my way sometimes.

Anyway, time for the On Call guy.

So, the On Call crew mate has to be one of your three guys already on your crew. You can’t call someone if they’re not in your active crew. That’s a shame, because Serv Nob would be great for On Call, but there’s no room in my crew for him right now. Instead, I have a Steel Meridian chick ready to go, with 5 in combat and engineering, and 3 in endurance. I like my crew to be multi-talented.

Anyway, she does the job. She shoots shit with the Kuva Nukor I gave her. I kinda feel bad calling her though because, well, she’s Steel Meridian, she’s seen enough. I’m just waiting until I can find a Red Veil guy with similar stats to take her place.

Warframe specters are kinda just as good?

Okay, sure, they don’t use OUR modded weapons. But they do last a LOT longer than the On Call guys. On Call guys last three minutes, then disappear after being summoned. This is about a minute longer than the semi-random appearance of converted Liches that can spawn. The idea is that they “have to get back to their duties on the Railjack”. But it’s my Railjack, I’m giving them the time off. So why can’t they stay for longer?

Warframe specters on the other hand last until they die or until the end of the mission, whichever happens first. The downside of Warframe specters is that they spawn based on the mission’s level. This makes them pretty useless in missions below level 30, but they are hugely powerful and tanky threats at high levels.

However, Warframe specters are also stupidly cheap. You get them as rewards for completing Rescue missions. You can have 5 different types of them (although Cosmic Specters ARE pretty expensive). But they do the same job as an On Call guy, without buggering off and also having the ability to buff you. I can have 100 basic Warframe specters that last way longer than one On Call guy, and they have way more utility as well.

I guess, really, you’re trading utility and buffs for pure firepower.

There’s a bigger problem though.

WHY CAN’T I USE MY LICH ON CALL?

This is my biggest pet peeve. We have converted Liches all kinda just sitting around doing their own thing. But ALL they can do for us is defend our Railjacks. Why the hell can’t we call on our Liches for 3 measly minutes of action? They’re part of our crews, they’re already only defenders, so why can’t they come and help us? Sure, a Lich has a chance of spawning in normal missions, but they’re absurdly rare! You have to use a revive to have a chance to spawn a converted Lich, and that’s an uncommon event in any squad ground mission.

You need to grind quite a bit to get Rank 9 in any intrinsics. So why can’t these skills be a little bit bigger? I really don’t get it.

A Lich wouldn’t even be that big an upgrade either. So why can’t I call one to help me out occasionally?