Warframe Tips for Free-to-Play Space Ninjas

At first glance, Warframe can seem rather pay-to-win. However, if you dig past that even a little, you can easily climb ranks and grab new gear and weapons. All it takes is a bit of time and patience. But, while you wait, here are some tips and advice on how to make the most of an F2P experience.

Starter Platinum

When you first start playing Warframe, you actually start off with 50 Platinum. This Platinum can’t be traded, but it is enough for a handful of purchases. Before you get too excited though, it’s worth looking at what you can spend it on. The best way to spent that plat is to buy a Warframe slot (20 platinum) and two sets of Weapon slots (2 x 12 platinum). Alternatively, you can buy four sets of 2 weapon slots for 48 Platinum.

No matter what though, don’t spend the platinum on any actual Warframes or weapons. The platinum cost for them is much higher than you’d think. Buy the blueprints for credits and work your way from there.

Nightwave rewards

Nightwave is always useful to get into. Sure, occasionally, you won’t be able to do some of the elite tasks, but that doesn’t really matter. Nightwave has multiple decent freebies, from forma to the odd warframe or weapon slot. Nightwaves also happen to pass by really slowly, so you can easily complete them in your own time. And even if you do completely miss an episode, most of the rewards come back in intermissions anyway. So you can take your time with these.

Check out Twitch streams and events

For promotional reasons, there’s always some sort of Twitch event going on. Whether you watch the monthly Dev Stream or follow community streams, there’s always a chance of some loot to be found. Most Devstreams have both a useful free drop and an in-game mission. Whenever there’s a big event coming up (generally for new updates), there are also regular drops on Twitch.

Do make sure that your Warframe account is connected to your Twitch account though. You can sort this out via your profile on Warframe.com and it’s easy to do. But it’s best to double-check occasionally.

Always be opening relics

Relics are amazing. They’re like loot boxes except they cost nothing to open aside from your time. While you’re not going to get amazing stuff all the time, you can make some good progress for yourself. Most gold parts are worth a little Platinum, and you can sell bronze stuff in bulk. Or you can just save up for Baro Ki’Teer and his bi-weekly shop.

Other easy methods of obtaining platinum are by selling Syndicate items (weapons AND armour) or doing Orokin Vault missions on the Orokin Derelict. Augments and Corrupted mods are always in short supply, so it’s worth spending some time doing those too.

Check the market occasionally

Not all free items are announced. So it’s worth checking the market occasionally. Most of the time, there will be nothing on sale. But occasionally we can get free colour palettes. The market is also where you can buy the blueprints for a large amount of weapons. Don’t ever buy weapons for Platinum though, it’s not worth it.

You can also enter promo codes to get free items. You generally only normally get glyphs, but you can also sometimes use promo codes that give cosmetics and even the odd weapon. However, your best bet for finding codes is probably on the /warframe subreddit.

Be patient!

This is probably the biggest thing a F2Per should do. Pretty much everything in Warframe can be obtained without spending money. It’s not a race to the top, and, honestly, Mastery is pointless after MR17. So take your time and farm as you please. You’ll enjoy the game much more if you don’t burn yourself out.