As a new player to warframe it might not be easy to know “what to do next” when the questline missions end. That is when you probably have become somewhat familiar with the Nav console and know how to look for various missions. One type of missions that can be found within the Nav console, are the Alert missions, although in my experience, only a few are really worth doing.

Lets take a few examples, game knowledge – that we provide on this website will allow you to not need to do most of the alerts being broadcasted in the Nav console. Why might this be a good thing then? Well, if you don’t spend you time playing doing alerts whose rewards you can more efficiently and easier get another way, this opens up time to do other more useful stuff – to be effective in your gaming experience and progress through Warframe.

Different types of alerts based on different kinds of rewards

Warframe have the following reward-alerts:

• Cosmetic alerts (skins and helmets)
• Useful action item alerts (Orokin catalyst (upgrade weapon to double mod capacity), orokin reactor (upgrade warframe to double mod capacity) and Forma (manipulate item polarities))
• Mod alerts (aura mods (increase warframe capacity and give team/warframe buff), nightmare mods (nightmare alerts usually make mission harder by for example removing all players shields completely, or reducing health to half, or the like))
• Relic alerts
• Vauban component blueprint alerts (vauban component blueprints can only be found via alerts! so for the vauban 6k worth mastery rank points, do these alerts until you have all parts!)
• Resource (& credit) alerts
• Special resource alerts (kubrow egg, kavat genetic code, synthula, endo, void traces)
• Unique weapon blueprints (also only obtainable via the alerts)
• And sometimes there are “Event alerts” which are pretty massive
• (We also have invasion alerts but they are not the focus of this article and are quite different than the “regular” alerts in comparison in numerous ways)

So from having this overview of all the possible rewards you can get from Warframe alerts, we can instantly draw the conclusion that some are more important than others, in fact, some are more or less completely and utterly useless (depending on circumstances of course) in my opinion that is, and this is based on the time it takes to do the alerts together with what reward that time will give you for doing the alert.

Credit alerts in Warframe

Credit alerts are Rarely EVER worth doing. Why you may wonder? Because as I’ve previously stated in Resources & farming credits section, you can easily get 15k+ credits for 5 minutes in most Dark Sector Survival mission (check out our Dark Sector mission list linked in sidebar to go to this section of Warframe.wiki for more info) – together with a bunch of nice loot as well. The most credit I’ve personally ever seen in a “regular alert” has been around 13k, and unless these missions are capture (super fast to do – especially if you have a strength and duration modded volt), they probably are a waste of time.

Resource alerts in Warframe

Resource alerts are also often waste of time in my opinion, since the amount of resources you get, you can so much easier get with a proper farm setup and 5-10 minutes in a survival on a planet that drops that particular resource – get a nekros, a pilfering swarm hydroid and possibly a speed nova together, and you get +154% additional drops, which usually helps get you what you need super fast!

Update 2 sept 2018: Exception being Oxium alerts which give 200-300 oxium – since Hotfix 23.4.2 Galatea on Neptune no longer can give 3’000 oxium in 20-30 minutes sadly :( Therefore Oxium alerts may be worth doing to faster get the oxium you need! Read more about the hotfix and oxium farming in Oxium Farming, Resources & Farming.

Crafting blueprint alerts (weapons and vauban components) in Warframe

Obviously unique weapon alerts as well as the vauban component alerts (and Nitain extract alerts) are very worth doing – this is because neither the weapons nor the vauban component blueprints can be obtained any other way – so this is the only way to gain the unique mastery rank points these items carry with them. Nitain extract alerts are basically the ONLY way of obtaining these extremely rare resources as well (there is like a <1% chance of having it drop from mission caches I believe it was, but never happened to me, so I don’t know what to think about that) and Nitain extract will eventually be needed for crafting stuff, so better bulk up on it so you don’t have to restlessly wait for the alerts to pop up later-on in the game.

Relic alerts in Warframe

Relic alerts is also another alert that I personally feel very “meh” to, but the thing is – if the relic reward of the alert is a relic with rewards you really need/want, then it might be worth it, since relic drops otherwise are pretty random – but for relics in general, you might want to consider trying out Hieracon on Pluto instead (excavation, bring a Frost and some friends to help out make it go faster) or similar relic-dropping missions.

Endo and Void Traces alerts in Warframe

Endo and void traces as rewards are also very “meh” since the amount of endo given usually isn’t very impressive in my own opinion, I can easily get more from a survival while EXP farming or Resource farming usually :) Also the weekly mission for Ayatan sculptures gives quite a nice amount of Endo if you need Endo badly – you can do the mission (check out our article on the different Ayatan sculpture mission types and how to do them successfully) and then hand in the sculpture (preferably equipped with Ayatan stars fully – done in Mod segment in your ship) to Maroo at Maroo’s Bazaar. If you are part of a clan that hasn’t quite reached “Max clan rank” yet, you can also participate in “rank-up ceremonies” which will give tons of Endo to the participants.

Void Traces is passively earned by farming prime parts, so personally I don’t think these alerts are worth doing either. 20 Void Traces which the alerts give, can be gotten quite quickly by just farming some prime parts in a few quick capture missions or the like :P

Mod alerts (Aura mods, nightmare mods) in Warframe

When it comes to the Mod alerts, I personally no longer do the Nightmare mod alerts – mostly because I already have all the nightmare mods that I need and want, but also because it’s usually a hassle to do these missions – especially if you go to do them public and end up with a lot of new players who haven’t yet figured out how to make their weapons stronger or their warframes survive better. I usually end up buying mods rather than farming them specifically or getting them via nightmare alerts (nightmare alerts are not very common so might be long waits inbetween).

Aura mod alerts however(!) I tend to do Every time there is either Corrosive Projection or other useful and valuable aura mod (if you check out warframe.market you can see these mods have quite the hefty platinum value) that you pretty easily can sell if you don’t personally need one, or you can do the alerts when you see them to grab for a friend that haven’t gotten it yet. Corrosive Projection aura mod is especially useful if you want to do EXP farming since it helps out the entire team in a very good way.

Useful Action item alerts (orokin reactor, orokin catalyst, forma) in Warframe

I always do the alerts for Useful action items such as Orokin catalyst and Orokin reactor as well as Forma since these are VERY rare and often a hassle to get your hands on in the quantities you usually want and need. So do these for sure whenever you see them!

Cosmetic alerts (helmets and skins) in Warframe

Cosmetic alerts is also quite “meh” in a matter of game-impact, but obviously you should do a cosmetic alert (such as helmet alert) if you like how the helmet makes your warframe look, otherwise just ignore these and focus on more productive missions/tasks in my opinion :)

Pet/companion material alerts in Warframe

Kubrow egg and kavat genetic code alerts can also be quite good to do, since these will help you grow more companions/pets and both eggs and genetic codes are not easy to get except for maybe with spending platinum on it, which might not be very optimal compared to an alert :) So do these if you want some pets and get the 6k mastery rank points each pet can give you!

To Summarize

I would Focus on doing the Weapon & Vauban component blueprint alerts for the unique mastery rank points it will give you, as well as helmet alerts if you think it looks good on your warframe, and the Useful Action item alerts (orokin reactor, orokin catalyst and forma), and Aura mod alerts, Relic alerts if the relic reward is one relic with rewards that you really need/want, Same for nightmare mod alerts – if you really want/need the mod reward for the nightmare alert, and do the Pet material alerts as well just to have whenever you wanna grow some companions :)!

How to Keep track of Warframe alerts when AFK or Offline

There is a alert tracker website we link to in our sidebar on this website you can use to keep track of alerts in Warframe when you are offline/AFK, and there is also a Warframe smartphone application that allows you to keep track of alerts and get notifications on your smartphone when new ones pop up, as well as possibility to do more Warframe-related tasks (not chat though I believe).

Link to alert tracker website: https://deathsnacks.com/wf/

Link to Warframe app (android): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.digitalextremes.warframenexus

Link to Warframe app (iPhone): https://itunes.apple.com/se/app/warframe/id698910075?mt=8