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Warframe has a wide range of game types that range from capturing targets to controlling massive spaceships. Railjack is one of Warframe's most unique game types, allowing players to take control of their own battleship to clear out an alternate version of the star chart.
Just like ground combat, Railjacks have certain weapons, components, and mods that are considered the best. Getting through Railjack's star chart will require the best parts and builds possible. This guide will go over the best Railjack weapons and parts you can use, and we'll give a rundown of the best mod and crew configurations for your ship.
Updated October 13th, 2022, by Charles Burgar: To help you create the ultimate Railjack, we've updated this guide with more information on Railjack parts, Intrinsics, and builds. We've condensed our Railjack parts section to make it easier to follow, and we've added a section explaining which Intrinsics are worth grabbing first. We've also added a proper builds section to the article, showcasing Railjack configurations tuned for fighting the Grineer and Corpus, respectively.
The Best Railjack Weapons
Weapons are separated into three categories for Railjacks: pilot weapons, gunner weapons, and ordnance. We'll be going over each section separately since AI Gunners prefer different weapons than a typical player would. Regardless of the slot, Zekti is the best House for weapons. Their weapons feature substantially better stats than the other two Houses but drain ammo faster—something you can completely bypass with the R9 Gunner Intrinsic. No matter which weapons you decide to use, be sure they're Zekti variants.
Best Pilot Weapons
There are three weapons you should consider using as a pilot:
- Zekti Photor: Currently the only Railjack weapon that can pierce through Corpus projection shields. This makes Corpus missions infinitely easier to complete.
- Zekti Talyns: Effectively a Soma Prime strapped onto your Railjack, the Zekti Talyns make short work of fighters and crewship engines.
- Zekti Laith: This weapon is a short-range shotgun with the highest DPS out of all Railjack weapons.
The weapon you pick will depend on the mission and enemies you're facing. For Corpus, you can't top the Photor. If you don't mind getting up close and personal, the Laith is impossible to top. And if you just want to have a solid weapon that's good at everything, the Talyns are your best bet.
Best Gunner Weapons
If you have actual players using your gunner seats, use the pilot recommendations we gave earlier. If you're using AI Gunners like most of the Warframe community, you want hitscan weapons in your gunner slot. AI Gunners can flick to enemy fighters and crew ships immediately, but they're lackluster for actually leading projectiles. If you give your Gunners some hitscan weapons, they can single-handedly clear every fighter in a mission on their own.
So which hitscan weapons are the best? You have two options:
- Zekti Talyns: Fires quickly and deals great damage per shot.
- Zekti Pulsar: Very similar to the Talyns, albeit marginally worse.
The Zekti Photor is also an option if you want your Gunners to take care of Corpus ships, yet that weapon's DPS is rather lacking when compared to the Talyns and Pulsar. Both of these weapons fire quickly, deal solid damage per shot, and are hitscan—allowing your Gunners to attack with near-perfect accuracy.
Best Ordnance Weapon
It's the Tycho Seeker Mk III, no question. This ordnance weapon has good critical stats, excellent base damage, and the MK III variant carries quite a bit of ammo. So long as your missiles critically hit, no ordnance weapon comes close to outputting as much damage as the Tycho Seekers. You can obtain this weapon from your Clan Dojo; no Railjack farming is required.
The Best Railjack Parts
All Railjack ships consist of the following parts:
- Shield Array: Determines your Railjack's shield capacity.
- Engine: Determines your Railjack's strafe and boost speeds.
- Plating: Determines your Railjack's HP and armor rating.
- Reactor: Determines the ability stats on your Railjack.
In general, the only two parts that matter are your plating and reactor. The former has a drastic effect on your Railjack's EHP, while the latter determines how strong your Battle Mods are. We'll be covering the best house and passive effect for each part below. Builds seldom stray away from these picks.
Best Shield Array
- House: Lavan
- Trait: 1,000% of Energy consumed using Battle Mods is converted to Shields.
- Drops: Pluto and Veil Proxima
The Lavan Shield Array MK III is the best shield you can get on your Railjack. This shield gives you the largest shield capacity of the bunch with a marginally slower cooldown. Shields don't matter much at all for Railjacks, so don't worry if you don't have this exact model. Use whichever array gives you the most shields.
For traits, converting Energy spent into shields is the best option. Any abilities you use on the Railjack will restore a portion of your shields and even give overshields. The other options are either too situational or give a boon you'll never notice.
Best Engine
- House: Lavan
- Trait: Any
- Drops: Pluto and Veil Proxima
Lavan Engines MK III is the best engine for your Railjack. While its strafe speeds are slower than its competition, its boost speeds offer the highest value out of every engine in Warframe. An optimal Lavan engine gives a 1.8x speed multiplier while boosting, giving your Railjack a burst in momentum that no other engine can match.
For the trait, it doesn't matter; none of them are any good. Lavan engines can get either "+20% Top Speed while shields are depleted" or "Tenno gain 500 overshields after being launched from the Slingshot." Both are fairly niche and don't offer a major benefit. Top speed will likely serve you better, but gaining overshields from the Slingshot isn't a bad option.
Best Plating
- House: Lavan
- Trait: Pluto and Veil Proxima
Lavan Plating MK III is objectively the best armor plating for your Railjack. This variant offers the most HP out of any House for a slight reduction in total armor. Considering how armor gives diminishing returns and HP doesn't, Lavan is the best House for Railjack armor. Railjack plating doesn't give any traits at MK3, so you only need to focus on obtaining the part itself.
Best Reactor
- House: Zekti
- Trait: 50% chance that a Fire Hazard will repair automatically after 5s.
- Drops: Veil Proxima
The Zekti Reactor MK III is the best reactor for your Railjack, granting 60% Ability Strength and Range when fully leveled. While the MK II variants offer more Strength, they forgo Range entirely—a stat that most Battle Mods require. A MK III Zekti Reactor will make abilities like Seeker Volley and Shatter Burst much more effective.
As for the trait, a chance to automatically repair Fire Hazards is recommended since those are the most common (and the only common hazard for Grineer missions). If you're playing solo, any trait will do since you'll most likely have an Engineer AI repairing hazards for you.
The Best Railjack Mods And Crew
Railjack builds consist of your Railjack's components, weapons, and Plexus mods. Surprisingly, your mod configuration is much less important on a Railjack than Warframes or weapons. With that said, we'll be covering our favorite mod configurations and crew members for each category below. Pair these loadouts with the weapons and components we mentioned above.
Integrated Mods
- Forma: 1 (Aura)
This is a general mod setup for your Plexus that only requires a single Forma. Unlike Warframes, most of your power comes from your Railjack's parts instead of their mods. The only three mandatory mods are Hyperstrike, Predator, and Section Density. This will increase your turret damage, critical chance, and critical multiplier. For your Aura, run Ironclad Matrix if you don't have MK III Lavan Plating installed. If you do, run Onslaught Matrix to increase your Railjack's combat effectiveness.
The other slots are up to you, although we highly recommend Conic Nozzle and Ion Burn to increase your Railjack's speed. Cruising Speed and Artillery Cheap Shot are fully optional but great QoL mods. Worm's Torment can also be replaced with another anti-faction mod. If you need even more damage, consider replacing Cruising Speed for Crimson Fugue. And if you don't use your Ordnance much, replace Quickload with Artillery Cheap Shot to reduce the number of times you need to craft ammo for your Forward Artillery cannon.
Battle Mods
To get more use out of your Battle Mods, play as Lavos. His Railjack abilities use short cooldowns instead of Energy. For other Warframes, subsume Protea's Dispensary ability to give yourself Energy.
Most players use the setup above as their ability configuration on their Railjack. Blackout Pulse trivializes crew ship encounters, Shatter Burst is a cheap yet effective add-clear ability, and Seeker Volley can wipe out over 20 fighters in a single cast. The other Battle Mods available are too weak to warrant using over what we just listed.
Tactical Mods
Tactical Mods are seldom used in Railjack due to their lengthy cooldowns, but there are a few good ones worth installing. Form Up is useful in public groups where your teammates refuse to enter your Railjack when a mission ends. Death Blossom is the best Tactical Mod in the game, removing Heat Accretion on all of your weapons for a short duration. Finally, Void Cloak allows you to disengage if your ship is on the verge of exploding.
Crew Members
For solo players, you'll want an Engineer and two Gunners. Crew members are replaced right to left when other players join, so be sure your Engineer is in your left-most slot in the crew menu. Engineers want all of their points put into the Repair and Endurance talents. If you have more points, invest them in Combat. Be sure your Engineer has a good weapon so they can fend off boarding parties.
We don't recommend Defenders or dedicated Pilots for solo players. Defenders are made obsolete by Engineers with good stats, and your Gunners can take the role of a Pilot when needed.
Your two Gunners only need their Gunnery talent maxed out; Combat doesn't affect a Gunner's damage with turrets. If you want to make solo missions smoother, we also recommend that one of your Gunners has a few ranks in Piloting. When you play a mission where you need to split up from your Railjack, change that Gunner's role to Pilot. They'll complete external Railjack objectives for you, making most Grinner Railjack missions much less tedious.
If you can afford to recruit elite crew members, look for the following traits
- Engineer: Heal all teammates for 1,000 Health when this crew member drops below 30% Health.
- Gunner: +50% damage for Zekti turrets.
Railjack Intrinsic Priority
Before we dive into Railjack builds, we want to quickly go over which Railjack Intrinsics are worth taking. While all Railjack Intrinsics are worth grabbing (except arguably the R10 Gunnery upgrade), we recommend you focus on the following upgrades to maximize your build as soon as possible:
- Command R6: Allows you to have three crew members with maximum competency points. This is mandatory if you play solo.
- Engineering R4: Allows you to make ammo for the Forward Artillery Cannon, something you'll need to destroy larger ships in your Railjack.
- Piloting R5: Makes it much easier to collect loot by tripling your pick-up radius while boosting.
- Tactical R6: Allows you to use Battle Mods more often.
- Gunnery R9: Allows you to reload your guns, making Zekti weapons the best in the game.
For additional information on Railjack Intrinsics and how they work, check out our Railjack Intrinsics guide.
The Best Railjack Builds
Railjack builds are mostly static across all game types, seeing as how the core of Railjack is focused on destroying ships and moving between objectives. We'll be showcasing two builds in this section, each tailored for a specific faction.
The parts for every build are what we recommend in our "The Best Railjack Parts" section. If you're missing any of these parts, use the best alternatives you have access to. As for crew, always bring an Engineer and two Gunners. If needed, you can assign a Gunner to take the Piloting role through the Tactical menu, allowing you to use your Archwing or complete grounded objectives.
Grineer Railjack Build
|
Weapons |
||
|---|---|---|
|
Laith |
Talyn |
Tycho Seeker |
|
Battle Mods |
||
|
Munitions Vortex |
Shatter Burst |
Void Hole |
If you're just starting out in Railjack and don't have T3 parts, use Ironclad Matrix as your aura instead. This mod drastically improves your Railjack's EHP, especially when solo since crewmates duplicate your aura mod. A full squad will nearly double your Railjack's armor and HP.
As we mentioned earlier, our core Railjack build isn't going to change much between factions. We use Plexus mods that enhance the damage and critical stats of our turret, and we equip a few mods to enhance our Railjack's overall speed. The only unique mod in this build is Worm's Torment, a bane mod for your Railjack weapons. This will provide more damage than Crimson Fugue or another base damage mod.
For weapons, we're rocking Laith for the absurdly high base damage and Talyn for our crew members. Your gunners will shred any fighters that dare approach, and the Laith will chew through Grineer Galleons with ease. Tycho Seeker is the best ordnance weapon, no surprises there.
Battle Mods are mostly down to preference. We recommend Void Hole as your ultimate, creating a miniature black hole in front of your Railjack that sucks targets in. You can then spawn a Munitions Vortex inside that black hole to deal a substantial amount of damage with your weapons. Alternatively, fire a Shatter Burst rocket into the black hole to destroy everything. Nothing survives if you use all three together, although this is only practical if you're piloting as Lavos, Harrow with Thurible active, or any Warframe with ample energy.
Corpus Railjack Build
|
Weapons |
||
|---|---|---|
|
Photor |
Photor | Talyn |
Tycho Seeker |
|
Battle Mods |
||
|
Blackout Pulse |
Shatter Burst |
Seeker Volley |
The core Railjack build is mostly the same. We swap Worm's Torment for Granum's Nemesis, increasing our Railjack's damage output against Corpus ships. The rest of the mods are the same.
It's worth swapping weapons against the Corpus. The Photor should be your main weapon, as this is the only Railjack weapon that can bypass Corpus frontal shields. If any fighters are rushing your Railjack with an active shield, the Photor will pierce right through it. Your gunners should either use the Talyn for its hitscan projectiles or the Photor to also deal with shields. For ordnance, use the Tycho Seeker missiles.
To showcase another good Battle Mod configuration, we're going to change our setup to Blackout Pulse, Shatter Burst, and Seeker Volley. Blackout Pulse stops all nearby ships in their tracks, making it far easier to flank the enemy. This is especially useful if you aren't running the Photor. Shatter Burst is the best secondary ability for your Railjack, bar none. It fires a rocket that can easily break ship engines. Finally, we use Seeker Volley to cleanup any fighters our crew mates missed.