Warframe is a game with a huge variety of missions and game modes in it. It's a really useful mechanism to prevent players from getting bored quickly. Don’t feel like playing one specific mission? No worries, here are a couple dozen more choices! 

One of these many game modes is called “Excavation”. Here are the objectives you need to fulfill to complete these missions:

Step 1: A marker will be placed somewhere on the map, this is the location of where a device called an “Excavator” is going to land, head for it. The Excavator will arrive as soon as a player arrives at the marker.

Step 2: Once the Excavator lands, a 100-second timer begins before it accomplishes its task. Protect it at all costs.

Step 3: The Excavator needs to be charged by bringing it Power Cells which drop from special Power Carrier enemies. Each Power Cell provides 20% (or 20 seconds) worth of power. Keep in mind that each Excavator starts out with 20% power so you need to provide 80% or 4 Power Cells to fully charge it.

• The type of Power Carrier enemy depends on what faction you’re fighting in that specific mission. For example, Grineer Power Carriers look like white/blue camo Lancers with the Power Cells strapped behind them (there are different variants of that Power Carrier too).

Step 4: Once the Excavator is done digging, you will be rewarded 100 Cryotic plus a random reward. It’s not completely random though, they are picked from the Excavation mission rewards pool. Each Tier has a different pool of rewards.

Step 5: A marker indicating the next Excavation site will appear. You can either extract or head for it and continue playing. Excavation missions are endless unless it’s an Alert mission, in which case you will only need to defend a specific amount of Excavators before needing to leave. 

• For the rewards pool, a system called Rotations is used for picking rewards. How they work is that each Rotation will have a different set of rewards to pick from. 

Excavation Rotations follow the pattern AABC.

Meaning, that for the first successfully defended Excavator, you will get a reward from Rotation A. The next will give you another Rotation A reward, and then Rotation B, and then Rotation C, and then the pattern repeats.

Here are details on each of the Excavation mission Tiers:

Tier 1

Baby’s first excavation

The first and easiest Tier, this Tier is what you’ll be encountering in the earlier stages of the game. Don’t let your guard down though. Remember, Excavation missions are endless, the longer you play, the tougher and stronger the enemies get. Don’t bite more than you can chew, you can extract when things start getting unbearable.

What Tier 1 offers:

• Ammo Mutation Mods

These are rare-type mods that convert other ammo types into the ammo type of the weapon it’s used on. For example, the mod called “Arrow Mutation” can change shotgun ammo (which you won’t need anyway because you have a bow equipped) into arrows for your bow.

These mods are useful for weapons that run out of ammo quickly and need a crutch for their ammo efficiency.

They drop from Rotation C of this TIer.

• Lith Relics

Various unvaulted Lith Relics are obtainable in Rotations B and C of this Tier.

• Other mods, credits, and Endo

There are other mods, as well as credits and Endo available as rewards in Rotations A and B of this Tier.

All Tier 1 Nodes:

• Everest, Earth
• Tikal, Earth
• Kiliken, Venus
• Augustus, Mars

Tier 2

A tougher tier. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.

The second Tier of Excavations, for some reason, can only be found in one node throughout the Origin System, in Europa.

Having only one tileset makes it easier to get used to this specific Tier. It also means that people who are farming for the rewards in this Tier will only have one node to go to, so chances are, you’ll be able to find a squad to join you there pretty easily.

What Tier 2 offers:

• Ammo Mutation Mods

These are rare-type mods that convert other ammo types into the ammo type of the weapon it’s used on. For example, the mod called “Arrow Mutation” can change shotgun ammo (which you won’t need anyway because you have a bow equipped) into arrows for your bow.

These mods are useful for weapons that run out of ammo quickly and need a crutch for their ammo efficiency.

They drop from Rotation C of this Tier.

• Meso and Neo Relics

Various unvaulted Meso and Neo Relics are obtainable in Rotations B and C of this Tier.

• Other mods, credits, and Endo

There are other mods, as well as credits and Endo available as rewards in Rotations A and B of this Tier.

All Tier 2 Nodes:

• Valenform Europa

Tier 3

The Chad excavation

The highest Tier of Excavations essentially functions the same as the other two tiers. The only difference is that enemies will be harder to kill, and they’ll find that killing you will be a lot easier.

I should mention that there are other Excavation missions out there aside from the regular ones. There are Sorties, Alerts, Nightmare, and Steel Path Excavation missions too. But the rewards you get from this will usually also be drawn depending on which node they’re on and what Tier normal Excavations on the node are (if any).  

What Tier 3 offers:

• Ammo Mutation Mods

These are rare-type mods that convert other ammo types into the ammo type of the weapon it’s used on. For example, the mod called “Arrow Mutation” can change shotgun ammo (which you won’t need anyway because you have a bow equipped) into arrows for your bow.

These mods are useful for weapons that run out of ammo quickly and need a crutch for their ammo efficiency.

They drop from Rotation C of this TIer.

• Neo and Axi Relics

Various unvaulted Neo and Axi Relics are obtainable in Rotations B and C of this Tier.

• Other mods, credits, and Endo

There are other mods, as well as credits and Endo available as rewards in Rotations A and B of this Tier.

All Tier 3 Nodes:

• Cholistan, Europa
• Despina, Neptune
• Hieracon, Pluto

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