How to Get Void Traces in Warframe — Relic Refinement & Best Farm

Relic Refinement Tiers & Costs

What Are Void Traces and Why Do They Matter?

Void Traces are a special resource earned exclusively through Void Fissure missions. They represent corrupted energy collected from the Void and are used in the Void Relic Refinement process — upgrading your Relics to higher tiers that provide better chances at rare Prime drops. Without Void Traces, you are limited to running Intact Relics with only a 2% chance at the gold-tier rare reward.

The economics of Void Traces are straightforward but important: a Radiant Relic (100 traces invested) gives a 5× improvement in rare drop probability over an Intact Relic. In a squad of 4 players all running Radiant Relics for the same item, you will see the rare drop appear in the reward selection roughly 34% of the time — far better than the near-zero odds of four Intact Relics.

Void Traces are also used to trade Relics you no longer need through the Void Relic Pack rewards. Managing your trace supply carefully — spending only on Relics containing items you actively want — maximizes the return on each farming session.

How to Farm Void Traces in Fissure Missions

Void Traces are collected by killing Corrupted enemies (marked with a glowing fissure symbol) that appear during any active Void Fissure mission. Each corrupted enemy drops 1–3 Reactant. After collecting 10 Reactant during the mission, your Relic cracks and at the end of the mission you earn Void Traces — typically 6–15 per run depending on excess Reactant collected beyond the initial 10.

Fissure missions rotate every few hours and are available across all mission types: Capture, Survival, Defense, Extermination, Excavation, and more. Capture Fissures are the fastest per run (under 2 minutes) but yield fewer total traces per hour due to the low Reactant density. Survival Fissures run longer but generate more total Void Traces because you have extended time to collect Reactant and crack multiple Relics.

For pure Void Trace farming, run Capture Fissures back-to-back. For combined Relic cracking efficiency (getting Prime rewards and building traces simultaneously), run Survival Fissures in squads of 4, each bringing Radiant Relics for the same target item.

Steel Path Fissures double the Void Trace gain compared to normal Fissures — at the cost of significantly harder enemies. For mid-game and beyond, Steel Path Capture is the highest trace-per-minute farm in the game, especially with a Resource Booster active. Always check the Steel Path Fissure rotation before starting a session; if a Capture is up, drop everything and farm it.

Void Trace Cap and Mastery Rank Bonuses

• Base Void Trace cap: 100 traces. This is the maximum for MR 0 players.
• Each Mastery Rank adds 50 additional capacity: MR 1 = 150, MR 5 = 350, MR 10 = 600.
• MR 30 maximum cap: 1,600 Void Traces — enough to Radiant-refine 16 Relics without farming.
• When at cap, any additional Void Traces earned are lost — spend them before running more Fissures.
• Best practice: refine a batch of Relics before each Fissure session to avoid hitting the cap mid-run.
• Traces do not decay, but new traces earned after hitting the cap are simply discarded with no warning.
• Resource Boosters do NOT affect Void Trace gain — they only multiply normal resource drops. The bonus comes from picking up extra Reactant past the initial 10 and from Steel Path Fissures.
• Smeeta Kavat's Charm proc also does not affect Void Traces. There is no companion buff in the game that increases trace yield.

Radiant Relic Strategy for Rare Primes

The most efficient way to farm a specific rare Prime item is coordinating in a squad where all 4 players bring Radiant versions of the same Relic. With 4 Radiant Relics in the squad, each player's drop pool has a 10% rare chance — and at the end of the mission, all four reward selections are visible to each player. This means you get 4 chances to see the rare reward, roughly a 34% mission-level chance of the rare appearing in your choices.

Recruit for Radiant Relic runs in the in-game Recruiting chat or through the Warframe subreddit's weekly trading thread. List the specific Relic and refinement tier. Well-organized Radiant Relic squads can target specific vaulted Prime parts and collect them within 5–15 runs rather than the 50+ it would take with Intact Relics.

For items that are not vaulted and are in active rotation, Flawless Relics (50 traces) offer a more economical balance. Save your full 100-trace Radiant investment for vaulted or high-demand items where every rare proc is worth significantly more Platinum.

Refinement Tier ROI — When to Pick Each Tier

Verdict: Flawless is the mathematical sweet spot for traces-per-rare-attempt. Radiant only beats Flawless on per-attempt rare odds — over many runs, Flawless gets more attempts per trace and frequently wins on total drops. Reserve Radiant for vaulted parts where each attempt has high platinum value.

Recommended Fissure Mission by Goal

Best Capture Nodes for Trace Farming

Steel Path Fissures — Difficulty, Trace Math, and Setup

Steel Path Fissures are the single biggest trace multiplier in the game. Enemies have +250% HP and +250% damage (with armor scaling), but the trace yield from completing a Steel Path Fissure roughly doubles the equivalent normal Fissure — sometimes more if you push the run with affinity boosters and a Smeeta Kavat. For a player who can comfortably survive Steel Path solo, the optimization is obvious: only Steel Path Captures, only the fastest map, only Lens-equipped frames.

Steel Path also adds the Acolyte enemy spawn — periodic minibosses who drop high-tier mods (Galvanized series, Amalgam set) on death. These are valuable in their own right and stack onto the trace farm session. Plan an Acolyte awareness route: hear the spawn alarm, finish the current mission, then drop the Acolyte on the next mission's first room.

Setup matters more in Steel Path than in normal Fissures. Bring a frame that can survive the increased damage scaling — Inaros, Wukong, Revenant, or a Quick Thinking + Primed Flow tanky Equinox. Bring a weapon with Galvanized mods (which only proc in Steel Path-style content via Acolyte drops or vendor purchases). Survival missions on Steel Path are extended endurance runs; Captures avoid that scaling problem and remain the cleanest trace farm.

The trade-off is run consistency. A failed Steel Path mission wastes the equipped Relic. New Steel Path players should run two or three normal Fissures first to confirm the Relic stockpile, then switch to Steel Path once survival is reliable. Do not push Steel Path with a single critical Vaulted Relic at stake.

Void Storms — Railjack Fissures and Their Trade-offs

Void Storms are the Railjack-equivalent of Void Fissures. Running a Railjack mission with an equipped Relic and an active Void Storm cracks the Relic and earns Void Traces the same way. The yield is slightly higher than equivalent normal Fissures (~12–16 traces per run) but each mission takes 4–8 minutes due to the Railjack space phase and ground phase, making per-hour throughput lower than pure ground Captures.

The advantage of Void Storms is the Sevagoth and Epitaph blueprint drops in their reward pool — these specific items only drop from Void Storms. If you are simultaneously farming Sevagoth or the Epitaph weapon, Void Storms become the optimal trace farm because you progress two goals at once. Otherwise, ground-based Captures win on traces-per-hour.

Void Storms also have a Steel Path variant, which doubles the trace yield same as ground Fissures. A Steel Path Volatile Void Storm takes ~6 minutes and yields ~20–30 traces — competitive with two consecutive Steel Path Captures while also progressing Intrinsics for Railjack ranking.

How to Plan a Fissure Session for Maximum Traces

An efficient Fissure session begins outside the mission. Open the Void Relic Refinement station and spend all current traces down to at least 200 below your cap. Refining batches of low-cost Exceptional or Flawless Relics is the most efficient spend if you do not have a specific Radiant target — every Relic refined frees up cap room for the upcoming farm.

Pick the Fissure tier that matches the Relics you have stocked. Running an Axi Capture with no Axi Relics in your inventory means you cracked nothing for Prime rewards — a wasted run except for traces. The reverse is equally bad: running Lith Captures while sitting on a vault of Axi Relics burns time on low-tier loot that you cannot trade for as much platinum.

Enter the mission with a Lens-equipped frame and weapon to bank the affinity overflow. Use a Smeeta Kavat companion if available — its Charm proc does not directly boost Void Traces, but the affinity boost it provides feeds your Lens overflow indirectly. Run with allies if possible: each squadmate's kills generate shared affinity from which your Lens skims, even if you did not get the killing blow.

Plan to chain 4–6 Captures back-to-back per session. The fastest squads complete a Capture in under 90 seconds. With trace yields of 10–14 per run (or 16–24 on Steel Path), a focused 30-minute session can net 250–500 traces — enough to Radiant-refine 2–5 priority Relics.

Baro Ki'Teer and Duplicate Relic Economy

Baro Ki'Teer is the bi-weekly trader who arrives at one of the four Relays for a 48-hour window with a rotating inventory of rare cosmetics, mods, and gear. Players spend Ducats and Credits at his store. Ducats are earned exclusively by selling Prime parts after Relic cracks — which is where Void Traces and Fissure runs feed back into the long-term economy.

Every Prime part has a Ducat value: common drops are worth 15 Ducats each, uncommons 25, and rares 45–100. Selling a single 100-Ducat rare Prime part is worth the same as selling six common parts. Knowing which Prime parts are high-Ducat (Prime sets like Akbolto, Akbronco, Hikou Prime parts are notably valuable) lets you target Radiant-refining specifically for Ducat ROI rather than collector ROI.

Duplicate Relics are not waste — they are Ducat fodder. Crack the duplicates with the cheapest refinement tier (Intact for low-value items, Exceptional for moderate value), then sell the resulting Prime parts for Ducats. This is the lowest-effort sustainable Ducat farm in the game and the reason long-running accounts have 10,000+ Ducats sitting in the bank ready for Baro visits.

Plat economy intersect: rare Prime parts can also be traded to other players for platinum (the in-game premium currency). Sites like warframe.market show current prices. A vaulted Prime part can sell for 50–300 plat each. Always check market value before Ducat-converting a part — sometimes the plat value massively exceeds the Ducat value, and the part is better sold to another player.

Vaulted vs Active Primes — When to Use Radiant

Warframe rotates Prime gear in and out of an 'active' vs 'vaulted' state. Active Primes have their Relics dropping in standard mission rotations; vaulted Primes have their Relics removed from current drop tables and are only available from existing stockpiles, trades, or limited-time vault unlock events.

For active Primes, the trace investment math favors Flawless or Exceptional. The Relics are easy to re-farm if a run misses, so spending 100 traces per Radiant is overinvestment. Use Exceptional or Flawless and run many attempts cheaply. The total expected drops across 20 Flawless attempts (1,000 traces total) exceeds the drops from 10 Radiant attempts (1,000 traces total) because the per-attempt rare odds difference is much smaller than the attempt count difference.

For vaulted Primes, the calculation flips. Vaulted Relics are scarce and trading for them costs platinum. Every cracked Vaulted Relic is essentially irreplaceable, so maximizing the per-Relic rare odds is correct. Always use Radiant on Vaulted Relics, and always coordinate a 4-player Radiant squad if you can — the 34% mission-level rare chance for the most expensive vaulted Prime parts is the difference between 5 hours of farming and 30 hours.

Prime Resurgence is the recurring rotation event that brings vaulted Primes back temporarily, usually for a few weeks at a time with platinum-buyable Aya conversion. Watch the Warframe community announcements — investing your trace pool right before a Resurgence rotation means having a stockpile of refined Relics ready the moment the gear becomes accessible.

Trace Investment Strategy by Player Goal

Common Void-Trace Mistakes Players Make

1. Hitting the cap mid-mission — traces above cap vanish silently. Spend down to at least 200 below cap before starting any Fissure session.
2. Forgetting to collect all 10 Reactant — if your Relic does not crack, you earn neither Prime rewards nor Void Traces from that run. The reward screen will be empty for you.
3. Radiant-refining junk Relics — 100 traces wasted on a Relic full of common Prime parts will never pay back the trace cost. Only Radiant the Relics for items you actually want.
4. Solo-Radiant farming — a single Radiant Relic in a solo mission averages ~10% rare chance, far worse than a 4-player Radiant squad. Either group up or accept lower tiers when farming alone.
5. Mixing Intact and Radiant in the same squad — the chance the rare appears among picks drops sharply when one player brings Intact. Coordinate refinement tier with the squad before starting.
6. Ignoring Steel Path Fissures because of difficulty — even one Steel Path Capture per session doubles your traces from that run. If you can survive Steel Path on any frame, the trace boost is significant.
7. Throwing away duplicate Relics — duplicate Relics can be sold to Baro Ki'Teer or simply held, but they also crack just as well as a fresh Relic. Hoard until you decide which Prime parts you want to chase.
8. Forgetting the Sisterly Featherweight bug fix — players sometimes complete Fissures without seeing trace gain due to client desync; if you finish a mission and traces did not tick up, restart the client before the next run.