Introduction
Syndicates in Warframe are groups of interest that you can ally with. The purpose of syndicates is to gain standing with these groups to purchase specific items from their offerings. These items include things like weapon augment mods, warframe augment mods, consumables, and more. There are 3 different types of syndicates in the game that include Factions syndicates, Neutral syndicates, and Event syndicates. This guide will explain the differences in the syndicate types, why you would want to gain standing, and how syndicates work in Warframe.
How to Unlock the Syndicate System
In order to access the Syndicate system in Warframe, you will need to reach Mastery Rank 3. Once you do, you will unlock the syndicate console in your Orbiter. The syndicate console is located to the left of your navigation console in your Orbiter.
Interacting with the console will allow you to see information about the syndicates. Here you can select one of the primary syndicates, or Faction syndicates, to pledge to (more on pledging below). You can also select one of the Faction syndicates from the “Primary” tab and view their offerings and rank up from this menu.
Selecting one of the other Syndicates types (Neutral or Event) from the other tabs will give you the option to quickly travel to that syndicate representative. From there you can view their offerings and rank up. It should also be noted that prior to hitting Mastery Rank 3 it is possible to join the Conclave and Ostron syndicates if you choose. You can do this by visiting the faction representative at any Relay.
You can also view your standing progress with each syndicate by viewing your profile. Once in your profile simply select the syndicate tab at the top. This will display your syndicate standing with each syndicate and your daily cap (more on daily cap below).
How Syndicates Work in Warframe
When you first hit Mastery Rank 3 and visit the syndicate console for the first time it can be a little bit overwhelming. However, it’s not as complicated as it seems. Essentially you can choose to join a primary Faction syndicate, gain standing, rank up, and purchase rewards.
It’s recommended that prior to pledging to a syndicate you click on one of them, view their offerings, and see if any of the items interest you. Once you find a syndicate that looks interesting to you, simply click the pledge button. Don’t worry, you can change your syndicate pledge at any time. Pledging to a syndicate will allow you to passively gain standing with that syndicate as you play the game. You will earn 15% of your affinity as standing with whichever primary faction you choose.
The remaining syndicates are considered neutral syndicates and you can not pledge to them. All of the neutral syndicates have their own varied methods of obtaining standing (more on this below).
Faction Syndicates & Pledging
There are 6 Primary Faction syndicates in the game. Every Faction syndicate has a particular relationship with the the other Factions. That relationship can be favorable, neutral, negative, or hostile. This means when you pledge to a particular faction you can also earn reputation with the factions that are favorable with the one you chose. However, you will also lose faction standing with the syndicates that they oppose.
For example, if you choose to pledge to the Steel Meridian every time you gain faction standing with them you will also gain 50% of your standing with the Red Veil. However, you will lose 50% of that standing with New Loka, and 100% of that standing with The Perrin Sequence.
You can always change your syndicate pledge at anytime and regain any standing that you have lost. Therefore, you can eventually purchase all rewards from every syndicate.
The 6 primary Factions and their relationship with the other primary Factions are as follows:
| Faction | Icon | Allied +50% Rep | Opposed -50% Rep | Enemy -100% Rep |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steel Meridian |  | Red Veil | New Loka | The Perrin Sequence |
| Arbiters of Hexis |  | Cephalon Suda | The Perrin Sequence | Red Veil |
| Cephalon Suda |  | Arbiters of Hexis | Red Veil | New Loka |
| The Perrin Sequence |  | New Loka | Arbiters of Hexis | Steel Meridian |
| Red Veil |  | Steel Meridian | Cephalon Suda | Arbiters of Hexis |
| New Loka |  | The Perrin Sequence | Steel Meridian | Cephalon Suda |
Death Squads
Whenever you reach negative standing with a particular syndicate, you will be considered hated by that group. They will then send death squads into your missions to try to take you out. These death squads will consist of a group of elite Eximus enemies. Similar to other assassins like the Stalker, the death squads can randomly appear in a mission. When they do they will announce their presence with flickering lights, and the a statement from the syndicate leader.
The death squads can be differentiated from a normal assassin arrival by the red light that covers the squad. However, unlike regular assassins they won’t have death marks. Therefore, the only way of knowing if someone is eligible to be attacked by a death squad is by their negative syndicate reputation.
If the death squad succeeds in taking out their target they will disappear. If you take out the death squad it doesn’t have any impact on your standing with that syndicate. Also, other players can help take out a death squad without any penalty to their standing with that syndicate. Each Eximus that’s killed from the squad has a chance to drop a specter blueprint of their type.
Each death squad will always have one type of enemy with one of specific Eximus type as follows:
| Faction | Icon | Enemy | Eximus Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steel Meridian |  | Roller | Energy Leech |
| Arbiters of Hexis |  | Corrupted Lancer | Arson |
| Cephalon Suda |  | Shield Osprey | Shock |
| The Perrin Sequence |  | MOA | Arctic |
| Red Veil |  | Charger | Venomous |
| New Loka |  | Ancient Healer | Volatile |
Neutral & Event Syndicates
The Neutral and Event syndicates differ from the Faction syndicates in few ways. You can not pledge to the neutral and event syndicates to increase your standing within that syndicate. All neutral and event syndicates have their own varied methods of obtaining standing.
These methods can consist of bounties, trading tokens for standing, events, and more. In order to see how to increase your standing with a particular neutral syndicate you can visit that syndicate representative. An easy way of doing this is by visiting your syndicate console within your orbiter and selecting the syndicate you wish to visit.
Most of the neutral syndicates require you to complete a quest in order to unlock access to that syndicate.
However, just like the Faction syndicates, you will need to increase your standing with the neutral syndicates to raise your rank. This will then unlock additional items you can purchase from their offerings.
If a pre-requisite is listed, it must be completed before you can access that syndicate. All of the Neutral and Event syndicates in Warframe are as follows:
| Syndicate | Icon | Type | Pre-Requsite | Representative | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conclave |  | Neutral | N/A | Teshin Dax | Conclave Hall – Relay |
| Cephalon Simaris |  | Neutral | N/A | Cephalon Simaris | Sanctuary Enclave – Relay |
| Ostron |  | Neutral | N/A | Konzu | Cetus |
| The Quills |  | Neutral | Quests: – Saya’s Vigil – The War Within | Quill Onkko | Cetus |
| Solaris United |  | Neutral | Quest: – Vox Solaris | Eudico | Fortuna |
| Vox Solaris |  | Neutral | Quests: – Vox Solaris – The War Within | Little Duck | Fortuna |
| Ventkids |  | Neutral | Quest: – Vox Solaris | Roky | Fortuna |
| Entrati |  | Neutral | Quest: – Heart of Deimos | Mother | Necralisk |
| Necraloid |  | Neutral | Quests: – Heart of Deimos – The War Within | Loid | Necralisk |
| The Holdfasts |  | Neutral | Quest: – Angels of the Zariman | Archimedean Yonta | Chrysalith |
| Cavia |  | Neutral | Quest: – Whispers in the Walls | Fibonacci | Sanctum Anatomica |
| Kahl’s Garrison |  | Neutral | Quest: – Veilbreaker | Kahl-175 | Drifter’s Camp |
| Operation Supply |  | Event | Event Specific: Operation Plague Star | Nakak | Operation: Plague Star |
| Nightwave |  | Event | N/A – Season Pass | Nora Nightwave | Nightwave Menu |
Ranking Up
In order to purchase certain items from a syndicate’s offerings you will need to rank up your standing with that particular syndicate. In order to advance through the ranks you can pledge to a Faction syndicate, or go run bounties and events for any neutral syndicate.
Once you earn enough standing you can rank up with that particular syndicate. Ranking up will cost materials and standing. Each time you rank up you will unlock additional items within the syndicate’s offerings that can be purchased. Once you reach maximum rank with a particular syndicate you will have access to all of their offerings. Bear in mind that purchasing items typically costs standing, and you can only earn so much standing per day.
If you reach enough standing to rank up, any additional standing earned will not carry over to the next rank. Therefore, if you don’t have the materials to rank up a particular standing you will want to farm them and rank up prior to grinding any additional standing with that syndicate.
Daily Standing Cap
Unfortunately you can not continuously grind syndicate standing and reach cap within a day. There is a daily standing cap for each syndicate. Starting at Mastery Rank 0, the daily standing cap for all syndicates starts at 16,000. This cap is increased by 500 per Mastery Rank.
The cap is reset every day at 0:00 UTC. Some of the syndicates have a shared cap, and some do not. For example, your daily standing cap is applied to all 6 Faction syndicates. This means you can not individually hit cap for each Faction syndicate each day.
However, for most of the neutral syndicates their cap is not shared. This means you can grind reputation for each of those everyday. You can view the groupings in the syndicate section of your profile to see which syndicates share the daily cap and which do not.
You can exceed your daily limit by completing syndicate alerts (see below).
Syndicate Alerts
You can also gain a good large amount of syndicate standing each day by completing syndicate alerts. These are special alert missions that are unlocked when you reach rank 1 in a particular syndicate. You can see these in your navigation console.
These work similar to a regular alert. They act as an alternative mission on a node. However, syndicate missions have a 24 hour expiration.
It’s important to point out that the standing gained from alerts is independent of your daily limit.
The standing that you gain through Affinity during the mission is independent of the declared end reward. As you gain promotions within a particular syndicate, the alerts that you receive will increase in rewards. However, they will also increase in difficulty.
You will have three alerts per syndicate available each day. You must have unlocked the star chart node before you can accept the alert. Syndicate missions can also ignore the regular enemy spawn listings for a particular tileset. This means that you could encounter Corpus enemies outside of the corpus tileset. Assassinations can also not occur in a syndicate mission.
Medallions
While you’re in a syndicate mission make sure you keep an eye out for syndicate medallions. The medallions will spawn throughout the map. You can gather them and then exhcange them for additional standing at the syndicate’s relay. The medallions also do not count towards your daily syndicate cap.
The syndicate alerts will always spawn 8 medallions on each mission type. However, defense and interception missions will spawn 0-2 medallions depending on the tileset. In order to find the medallions you must have favorable standing with the syndicate that has offered the alert.
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