Railjack

Railjack

Welcome, Tenno, to the vast and perilous expanse of the Veil Proxima and beyond! Railjack missions offer a unique blend of space combat, boarding actions, and objective-based gameplay. Mastering your Railjack is crucial for acquiring powerful new gear, advancing through the New War questline, and accessing deeper regions of the Origin System. This guide will walk you through the essentials of building, upgrading, and effectively piloting your very own Railjack.

Acquiring Your Railjack

Your journey into Railjack begins with the "Rising Tide" quest. This quest becomes available after completing the "Second Dream" quest and reaching Mastery Rank 8. Follow these steps to construct your Railjack:

1. Initiate "Rising Tide": Access the quest from your Codex. Ordis will guide you to the Dry Dock, a new segment for your Orbiter.
2. Gather Resources: The quest requires a significant amount of resources to repair the derelict Railjack. You'll need to farm specific components from various planets. Key resources include:
   • Pustrels: Found on Earth Proxima, Venus Proxima, and Saturn Proxima.
   • Carbides: Found on Earth Proxima, Venus Proxima, and Saturn Proxima.
   • Copernics: Found on Earth Proxima, Venus Proxima, and Saturn Proxima.
   • Titan Bunkers: Found on Saturn Proxima.
   • Nullstones: Found on Neptune Proxima.
   • Asterite: Found on Neptune Proxima.

   Tip: Focus on Exterminate or Skirmish missions in the early Proxima regions to efficiently gather these materials.

3. Repair and Construct: Return to the Dry Dock after each resource gathering phase to contribute the materials and advance the repair process. This involves several stages, each with a build time.
4. Claim Your Railjack: Once all repairs are complete, your Railjack will be ready for launch!

Understanding Your Railjack Components

Your Railjack is a complex vessel with several customizable components that directly impact its performance. These can be crafted in the Dry Dock or acquired as drops from Railjack missions.

• Weapons:
  • Turrets (Dorsal/Ventral): Your primary offensive weapons. Examples include the Apoc (high fire rate, low damage), Pulsar (balanced), and Cryophon (slow fire rate, high damage, AoE).
  • Ordnance (Forward Artillery): Powerful, high-damage weapons with limited ammunition, ideal for taking down capital ship engines or crewships. The Tycho Seeker and Particle Ram are common early options.
• Components: These enhance your Railjack's core stats.
  • Shield Array: Determines your Railjack's shield capacity and regeneration. Look for Lavan (balanced), Vidar (high capacity), or Zekti (fast regeneration) variants.
  • Engine: Affects speed and maneuverability. Lavan (balanced), Vidar (high speed), or Zekti (high acceleration) are the main types.
  • Reactor: Increases your Railjack's energy capacity and Flux Energy regeneration. Lavan, Vidar, and Zekti variants offer different stat distributions.
  • Plating: Boosts your Railjack's armor and health. Again, Lavan, Vidar, and Zekti offer distinct advantages.
• Avionics: These are your Railjack's "mods," providing passive buffs and active abilities.
  • Integrated Avionics: Passive buffs to stats like weapon damage, shield capacity, and speed.
  • Tactical Avionics: Active abilities used from the Tactical Map, such as Void Hole (pulls enemies in) or Shatter Burst (AoE damage).
  • Battle Avionics: Active abilities used by the pilot, like Seeker Volley (homing missiles) or Particle Ram (ramming attack).

Upgrading Your Railjack

Upgrading your Railjack involves several systems:

1. Intrinsics: This is a separate progression system for your Tenno, granting permanent buffs and abilities for Railjack gameplay. Focus on these trees:
   • Piloting: Improves Railjack speed, maneuverability, and unlocks advanced maneuvers.
   • Gunnery: Increases turret damage, critical chance, and unlocks the ability to use the Archwing Slingshot.
   • Tactical: Enhances the Tactical Map, allows for faster teleportation to crewmates, and improves Tactical Avionic efficiency.
   • Engineering: Boosts repair speed, forge efficiency, and unlocks advanced repair options.
   • Command: Unlocks the ability to recruit AI crewmates and improves their effectiveness.

   Strategy: Prioritize Piloting, Gunnery, and Tactical early on to improve your personal performance. Engineering becomes more vital in longer missions or when playing solo. Command is essential for solo players.

2. Avionics Grid: Similar to Warframe modding, Avionics are slotted into a grid. You'll need to increase your Railjack's Avionic Capacity by leveling it up through missions.
   • Flux Energy: This resource powers your Battle and Tactical Avionics. Upgrade your Reactor to increase Flux capacity and regeneration.
   • Dirac: This resource is used to upgrade Avionics, similar to Endo for Warframe mods. Farm Dirac by dismantling unwanted Avionics or completing Railjack missions.
3. Armaments & Components: Craft superior versions of your weapons and components in the Dry Dock using salvaged parts and resources found in Railjack missions. Look for higher "Mk" (Mark) levels (e.g., Mk III Apoc) for significant stat boosts.

Railjack Mission Strategies

Railjack missions come in various types, each requiring different approaches:

• Skirmish: The most common mission type. Destroy enemy fighters, then board and destroy crewships. Finally, eliminate the objective inside the capital ship or complete a specific task.
  • Strategy: Prioritize destroying enemy fighters to reduce incoming damage. Use your Forward Artillery to quickly eliminate crewship engines, then board them with your Archwing or the Archwing Slingshot.
• Exterminate: Similar to Skirmish, but the primary objective is to eliminate a set number of enemies.
• Volatile: Involves boarding a capital ship and disabling its reactor before it self-destructs.
  • Strategy: Speed is key. Have one player focus on piloting and clearing external threats while others board the capital ship to disable the reactor.
• Defense: Protect a static objective from waves of incoming enemies.
  • Strategy: Position your Railjack strategically to cover the objective. use Battle Avionics like Seeker Volley for crowd control.
• Orphix Venom (Scarlet Spear Event): A unique mission type where you deploy Necramechs to destroy Orphix Sentients.
  • Strategy: Requires a Necramech. Focus on destroying the Orphix and protecting your Resonators.

Crewmates (Command Intrinsic)

Once you've invested in the Command Intrinsic tree, you can recruit AI crewmates from Fortuna or Cetus. These crewmates can fill various roles:

• Pilot: Takes control of the Railjack, allowing you to focus on gunnery or boarding.
• Gunner: Manages the dorsal and ventral turrets, providing consistent damage.
• Engineer: Automatically repairs hull breaches and extinguishes fires, freeing you from constant maintenance.

Strategy: For solo play, a Pilot, Gunner, and Engineer setup is highly effective. As your Intrinsics grow, you can customize their roles and equip them with better weapons and abilities.

Essential Tips for Success

• Resource Management: Always keep an eye on your Dome Charge (Forward Artillery ammo) and Revolite (repair material). Forge these in the Railjack's forge as needed.
• Teamwork: In public matches, communicate with your team. Designate roles (pilot, gunner, boarder, engineer) for maximum efficiency.
• Archwing Slingshot: Master this ability (unlocked via Gunnery Intrinsics) for rapid boarding of crewships and capital ships.
• Tactical Map: use the Tactical Map (L key by default) to quickly teleport to different sections of your Railjack or to crewmates.
• Dismantle Unwanted Avionics: Convert duplicate or low-tier Avionics into Dirac to upgrade your essential ones.
• Focus on Specific Proximas: Each Proxima region (Earth, Venus, Saturn, Neptune, Pluto, Veil) drops specific resources and higher-tier components. Progress through them systematically.

With this comprehensive guide, you're well-equipped to navigate the challenges of Railjack and emerge victorious. Good luck, Tenno!