Excavation

Excavation is an endless Mission type introduced in for the Operation Cryotic Front event, and formally introduced as a standard mission type in . This game mode tasks players with searching and then extracting various artifacts buried deep within a planet's surface. This mission is the primary source of .
Excavation game modes appear as outdoor Tilesets on Venus, Earth, Mars, Europa, Neptune, and Pluto, including available Dark Sector nodes.
==Mechanics==
Players will first need to travel to dig sites whose positions are located on the minimap by the Lotus every 60 seconds, with a maximum of 4 potential dig sites being available. Dig sites will not spawn near a freshly-excavated area, necessitating constant relocation as the mission progresses. Once players walk within 20 meters of a dig site, an Excavator will drop in on the location and start digging. An Excavator requires 100 seconds to accomplish its task, and must be protected from enemy fire during the duration of its operation in order to receive additional rewards. However, each Excavator only has 20 seconds worth of energy when deployed, thus players will have to locate Power Cells which are carried by designated Power Carriers. Killing a Power Carrier will drop a Power Cell, and each cell adds 20 seconds worth of energy to the Extractor and restores its Shields. Holding a Power Cell will limit the player to their Secondary weapon or Melee weapon, identical to a Mobile Defense datamass, and is automatically consumed once the player walks within 5 meters of the Excavator. Extractors will only accept Power Cells if it lacks the necessary amount of energy to complete the task or if its shields are depleted.
Regardless if the Excavator is successfully defended or not, all players will receive for every second the Excavator was active (thus awarding 100 for a successfully-defended Excavator). Additionally, if the Excavator survives to complete its digging, all players will receive a random reward. Once at least one Excavator is defended, the mission's extraction point will be revealed, allowing players to complete the mission if they choose to. However, Alert Missions (Including Syndicate Alerts and Nightmare Alerts), Invasions, Kuva Lich Controlled Territory Missions and Sorties will only allow extraction after 500 units of have been extracted; Void Fissure and Kuva Siphon/Flood missions unlock extraction after 200 units of have been unearthed; and Mine of Karishh (Grendel Systems Locator) requires 800 units of before extraction is made available.
Similar to Survival missions, the rewards for every successful excavation stack, and players can claim all artifacts that have been recovered upon extraction. Also, up to three Excavators can be active at once if desired, limited only by the squad's ability to defend them. While survival works by a reward every 5 minutes, Excavation is per extractor. With the ability to run multiple extractors simultaneously, and taking far less than 5 minutes each, Excavation missions lead to more frequent, and usually more numerous rewards.
===Arbitration Mechanics===
Arbitration Excavation missions, in addition to using Arbitrations reward tables and rotations, differ from standard Excavation missions as follows:
*Excavators work more slowly, requiring 180 seconds (versus 100 seconds) to complete a dig, but retain the same power requirements (1 Power Cell per 20% progress) and Cryotic reward (1 Cryotic per 1% progress).
*Mission rewards are granted for every 2 completed digs, rather than for every completed dig.
==Locations==
==Rewards==
For Excavation missions that use the tier rewards table (i.e. excluding Arbitrations and other special mission types), players will earn one reward for every completed dig. 
For Void Fissures, relics will be cracked open after every 200 Cryotic excavated. 
Reward tiers are based on the starting level for enemies within the mission:
*Tier 1: Starting level 1 - 10
*Tier 2: Starting level 11 - 20
*Tier 3: Starting level 21+
Excavation missions uses the standard AABC drop rotation for rewards, with the first and second excavations dropping a A-rotation reward, the third excavation dropping a B-rotation reward, and the fourth excavation dropping a C-rotation reward, which then repeats indefinitely. 
*Rotation A: 1st, 2nd; 5th, 6th; 9th, 10th; etc.
*Rotation B: 3rd; 7th; 11th; etc.
*Rotation C: 4th; 8th; 12th; etc.
The rewards for Tier 2 and 3 Excavations are identical to the rewards for Tier 2 and 3 Survival missions. As successful excavations can take as little as 100 seconds, Excavation missions are significantly more efficient. 
Excavation missions also have one of the highest enemy densities of the standard mission types, which lends itself to more quickly acquiring resources, affinity, and mods relative to the planet and type of enemies. 
As an example of a possible reward sequence for successfully defending and powering four excavators on Everest, Earth: 1500 credits, 80 Endo, a Lith Relic, and finally an Arrow Mutation mod, in that order.
===Drop Tables===
==Dark Sector Excavation==
These Excavation missions have a higher level range than the planet they're found on, but yield greater Affinity and Credits due to the inherent bonuses of Dark Sectors.
==Healing Interactions With Excavators==
==Notes==
*On their own Excavators cannot regenerate health but can replenish their shields. An Excavator's shields can also be replenished by delivering a Power Cell to it or using Warframe powers like 's Shield Polarize.
* can use her Splinter Storm to give up to 50% damage reduction to any excavator and is also able to reset the timer of the ability with .
*Lost Excavator health can be restored by using a Warframe equipped with the Aura.
* can directly heal an Excavator by using Venari's Heal posture while having it in the reticle.
*If has the equipped in her loadout, killing a Power Carrier trapped inside the may result in an additional Power Cell dropping.
**' can also double Power Cell drops, but is less reliable than .
*Lost Excavator health can also be restored by using in the Focus tree. Prior to , this previously made the Excavator invulnerable for a short time as well, but now heals flat HP/second.
*Power cells can be more easily picked up by keeping your Use control (default ) held down while running over one (or standing under one as it falls to the ground). As with datamasses, they can be dropped by switching to your primary weapon.
*Excavation is the one of the few missions from which can be reliably acquired.
**While is also a cache reward in Bounty, Hive and Uranus Sabotage missions, gathering this resource in those missions is not nearly as efficient as in Excavation.
*4 Power Cells are enough to complete one excavation.
*During a Void Fissure on an Excavation mission, fissures will appear and spawn enemies even when an excavator is not powered, or has not been placed. Squads with players who are low on Reactant may wish to temporarily halt excavator progress until they have enough to open their relic.
*The upper limit on rate of Cryotic and mission reward gains from a non-Arbitration Excavation mission, based solely on dig site spawn rates and excavator dig times, is 120 Cryotic and 1 mission reward per minute (600 Cryotic and 5 mission rewards per 5 minutes).
**For Arbitration Excavation missions, this upper limit is reduced to 100 Cryotic and 0.5 mission rewards per minute (500 Cryotic and 2.5 mission rewards per 5 minutes).
* Despite being a machine, the Excavator has -type health.
*A one minute failure countdown begins if 15 minutes pass with no active excavator - the only way to end it in mission success is by extracting, as even spawning an excavator does not end the countdown.
==Bugs==
* Sometimes when a host migration occurs, Power Carriers will stop spawning and the ones that were already spawned in the area will not drop a power cell when killed. However, any Power Cells left on the ground before the migration occurs will remain.
* The excavator's hitbox is larger than the size of the excavator itself. This can be seen if the player attempts to shoot an enemy near the excavator as the shots will not hit the enemy because the excavators' hitbox is in front of them.
* Attempting to pick up an energy cell immediately after climbing up will cause a player to fall out of the map.
* After approaching an excavation zone the excavator may not spawn. This can always be fixed by eliminating existing enemies in the map.
* Picking up a Power Cell while equipped with a dual-wield secondary weapon will force single-wield animations, even after dropping the Power Cell. This causes both weapons to clip since single-wield animations have both hands together, among other graphical problems. No effect on gameplay.
* Occasionally the dig site's location will not be marked on the mini-map, causing the dig site to not activate.
* Any players who join after the mission has started (even if an extractor has not been started) will not receive any reward (besides ) for a full extractor.
* Power Carriers may stop spawning making it impossible to proceed. Allowing enemies to destroy one of your Extractors should fix this and trigger Power Carriers to appear again.
==Media==
Scanner.png|Scanner, no longer exists as of Update 16
Excavator.png|Excavator
==Patch History==
==See also==
*Operation Cryotic Front, which introduced this mission type.
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