Event: Operation Buried Debts

Operation: Buried Debts is a new, supposedly recurring Orb Vallis event, revolving around the Exploiter Orb and the new Warframe, Hildryn. While this event is running, all credits and resources are doubled when earned in the Vallis.

One objective of the event is to find "data-hashes", scattered around the Vallis. These take the form of Corpus datapads in set locations, waiting to be scanned. Scanning them will increase the global progress towards decoding them.

These data-hashes lead to a particular underground door that is currently unhackable. This door can be found in a cave north-east of Harindi Crater.

The second, more active and rewarding objective, involves "Thermia fractures", which appear around the Vallis. To stabilise them, you must first kill a Coolant Raknoid, which can be found in groups lurking around the Exploiter Orb - who in turn lurks around the Temple of Profit. Upon killing one such (rather weak) enemy, they will drop a Coolant Canister.

The Canister must be taken to a Thermia Fracture and placed there, whereupon it will become a defence objective for around 3 minutes. Enemies will spawn and attack in, attempting to destroy it. On top of standard enemies, the Fracture will also attract enemies of base level around 45, with the alert level being pushed up to 3 automatically. Successfully defending the Canister will award you one point, closing the Fracture. The same Coolant Canister can then be used in a further three Thermia Fractures. Essentially, it is a four-stage Mobile Defence, except far easier to fail because Orb Vallis enemies are absurdly powerful for their level, love their AoE attacks, and have a tendency to ignore Warframe abilities. If you have it, Vazarin Focus is great help for keeping Canisters alive. Each successfully defended Fracture awards a point, with completion of the fourth fully depleting the Canister, awarding a bonus 3 points, for a total of 7 Thermia Fracture points.

The completion of the fourth Fracture also awards a little Diluted Thermia. I don't know what it is currently used in, but its flavour text indicates that it will most likely be used in the Exploiter Orb Heist/Fight.


Overall, this Operation doesn't feel very interesting or fun, at least to me. The hide-and-seek with the data-hashes is something that does not appeal to me at all, though only need to be done once per player, which is much more tolerable. The Thermia Fracture side of things is more up my alley, but also feels tedious, boring and at times frustrating. Having to complete at least 58 x 3 minute defences gets pretty boring and repetitive, and the ease at which higher level Vallis enemies can obliterate the Canister is very frustrating (on top of the other things that can ruin your day, like the Dropships with their massive turret AoE, and Coildrives with their AoE, both of which seem to bypass defensive Warframe abilities like Snowglobe and Cataclysm...).

The apparent lack of effective defensive Warframe abilities (Snowglobe and Cataclysm can be bypassed by AoE, which is prevalent in the Vallis, neither Splinter Storm nor Safeguard Warding Halo work) detracts from the event as well, turning it into a more generic kill-em-all exterminate if you want to keep the Canister alive. Not to mention how horribly the Fractures ruin visibility, making it difficult to tell if there is an enemy attacking the Canister unless you're watching its health bar. I've resorted to running Vazarin to make sure I can keep the Canisters alive - pretty much the only defensive ability that I know actually works on them.

There are five rewards for the Thermia Fracture. The Emblem is awarded at 5 points, the Sigil at 75. It also rewards the new Amalgam mods, mods that offer a slightly smaller benefit than their base mod and have higher drain, but with an added effect, akin to a Nightmare mod. Notably however, the Amalgam mod cannot be equipped alongside the standard version of the mod (e.g. you cannot equip both Serration and Amalgam Serration).

Amalgam Serration and Shotgun Spazz are awarded at 25 points.

Amalgam Serration gives 10% less Damage than regular Serration, but adds +25% Sprint Speed. Given how small +10% Damage is, and how useful 25% Sprint Speed is, I can see this mod getting a lot of use.

Amalgam Shotgun Spazz gives 5% less Fire Rate, in exchange for +45% Revive Speed. Revive Speed can be useful in group missions if you expected people to be getting downed, say Sorties, Eidolon Hunts and Orb Fights. The bigger problem here is the number of weapons that are likely to have Shotgun Spazz equipped - of the shotguns I currently have in my inventory, only Arca Plasmor and Kohm come to mind that might use Shotgun Spazz. Overall I don't think Amalgam Shotgun Spazz will see a lot of use, primarily because Shotgun Spazz doesn't get a lot of use.

Amalgam Barrel Diffusion and Organ Shatter are awarded at 50 points.

Amalgam Barrel Diffusion gives 10% less Multishot, for +60% Dodge (Roll) Speed. Again, +10% Multishot is a pretty small amount. Rolling offers 75% Damage Reduction, but is a rather long animation and prevents you from doing any other actions (e.g. shooting). Often times you only want the roll to be shorter, to mitigate an incoming attack, but allow you to quickly counter-attack. That said, too short a roll can be detrimental if it does not last long enough to block the attack. Something else to note is that Amalgam Barrel Diffusion has a higher drain increase compared to its base mod, than the other Amalgams (+4 instead of +2). I think Amalgam Barrel Diffusion will see a decent amount of use, perhaps not as much as Amalgam Serration though. Amalgam BD is notably really, really powerful for Limbo, since it speeds up his transition from real space to the Rift, and vice-versa.

Lastly we have Amalgam Organ Shatter, which gives 5% less Crit Damage, but gives +60% Charge Attack speed. With Melee in its current form (Melee 2.99), charge attacks are not very good outside of the few weapons that have special effects (e.g. Zenistar, Sancti Magistar, Twin Basolk with Augment). As such, the popularity of this mod rests on how good charge attacks will be in Melee 3.0. If charge attacks are really powerful, Amalgam Organ Shatter will probably get a lot of use. If not, it probably won't see much use at all.

In the first three cases, there is a solid chance I will simply replace the base mod with the Amalgam where possible. Amalgam Serration is fantastic and is by far my favourite of the four. Pending further testing, I think Amalgam Barrel Diffusion could be quite good too, though the much higher drain makes builds harder. Amalgam Shotgun Spazz has a small enough difference with the base mod that I feel comfortable substituting it. +Revive Speed can be rather useful for keeping allies in the fight, especially in Sortie Defence/Rescue. Amalgam Organ Shatter is the one I am least interested in and excited about - primarily because I don't care for the weapons for which it is currently best suited to. This of course is subject to change when Melee 3.0 is released, as if that makes charge attacks good, Amalgam Organ Shatter will be another auto-swap.

The final reward is the Opticor Vandal at 100 points, meaning that to acquire all rewards, you must complete at least 14 full Coolant Canister cycles, then close at least two more Fractures. Compared to the regular Opticor, it has a larger magazine, faster reload, higher Status Chance and most importantly much faster Charge Time, higher Crit Chance and Crit Damage, but loses out majorly in base Damage. Overall, it has 30% of the charge time, with 40% of the damage, with higher crit, for an overall DPS increase. However, this reduces its chance of one-shotting any given enemy. For me personally, I despised the Opticor's incredibly long charge time, so the Vandal is better for me, but I don't really enjoy charge weapons in the first place.