Void Traces are the quiet backbone of the entire Prime economy in Warframe. You cannot buy them, you cannot trade them, and nothing in the open worlds hands them to you — the only way to get Void Traces is to run Void Fissure missions and crack relics. They matter because refining a relic to Radiant jumps your odds of pulling its rare reward from a dismal 2% up to 10%, which is the difference between farming a rare Prime part for twenty runs or for two. Yet most players either hoard Traces until they overcap and waste them, or burn fissure runs on slow mission types that bleed Traces per hour. This guide covers exactly how Void Traces drop, the fastest way to farm them, your personal cap, and the smartest way to spend them — verified against the official Warframe Wiki and Digital Extremes' published mechanics as of Update 44: Iceblade of Narin (October 2026).
Quick answer: You get Void Traces by collecting 10 Reactant in any Void Fissure mission — Reactant drops from the Corrupted enemies the fissure spawns, and cracking your relic at extraction awards a random 6–30 Void Traces. Your personal cap is 100 + (Mastery Rank × 50), maxing at 1,600 Traces at MR30. The fastest farm is short Capture fissures — Hepit (Void) for Lith and Ukko (Void) for Meso/Neo — in a full four-player squad, because every player's cracked relic gives you a reward choice and the missions finish in under a minute. Spend Traces at the Void Relic refinement panel: 25 for Exceptional, 50 for Flawless, 100 for Radiant per relic. Always refine before you queue, and spend down below your cap first so you never overflow.
What are Void Traces and why do they matter?
Void Traces are a non-tradeable currency used for one primary job: refining Void Relics. A relic you pick up is "Intact," and an Intact relic gives its rarest reward only about 2% of the time. Spend Traces to refine it and those odds climb at every tier, topping out at ~10% for a Radiant relic. Over a long Prime-part grind that 5x swing is enormous.
Because you can only refine with Traces, and you can only earn Traces by cracking relics, the loop is self-contained — which is also why it is the single most important "soft currency" to keep topped up before any targeted Prime farm. If you want the full relic-to-part loop, our Prime parts farming guide walks the whole chain; this article is specifically about the Traces that power the refinement step.
A second, smaller use: Void Traces are a crafting ingredient for Dragon Keys (the Orokin Derelict vault keys), and the Necraloid syndicate asks for Trace sacrifices at its ranks (150, 250 and 350 Traces for the first three rank-ups). Keep that in mind before you dump your whole balance into refining.
How do you get Void Traces in Warframe?
Every single Void Trace comes from the same place: a Void Fissure mission. Here is the exact sequence.
- Equip a Void Relic. Open the Void Relics menu in your Orbiter (via the Navigation/arsenal) and slot a Lith, Meso, Neo, Axi or Requiem relic into the loadout. You cannot earn Traces without a relic equipped — the fissure simply won't let you crack anything.
- Queue a Void Fissure mission. Fissures appear on the star chart with a swirling Void icon and are tied to a specific relic tier (a Lith Fissure only accepts Lith relics, and so on). The active fissures rotate constantly.
- Collect 10 Reactant. Once the mission starts, the fissure corrupts regular enemies into Corrupted units. Killing them drops Reactant — glowing motes you walk over. You need 10 Reactant to crack your equipped relic.
- Crack the relic and extract. The moment you hit 10 Reactant, your relic opens and you choose a reward. At extraction, the game awards you a random 6–30 Void Traces for that crack.
That 6–30 figure is per cracked relic, not per mission — so in an endless mission where you crack multiple relics across rotations, the Traces stack up fast. Reactant also persists between rounds in endless modes, so you rarely lose progress on a wave transition.
The squad multiplier is the key insight. In a four-player squad, all four relics crack at once and you get to pick from all four reward pools — but your Trace reward is still rolled from your own crack. Grouping does not multiply your Traces directly; it multiplies your reward choices and lets you run the fastest nodes without risk, which is why coordinated farming teams always group.
What is the best Void Fissure to farm Void Traces fast?
Because every successful relic crack pays 6–30 Traces regardless of mission length, Traces-per-hour is really runs-per-hour — so you want the shortest possible fissure that still lets you grab 10 Reactant. That points to Capture fissures almost every time.
| Node | Planet | Relic tier | Why it's the pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hepit | Void | Lith | Capture mission, finishable in under a minute with a speed frame; near-guaranteed Lith relic drop too |
| Ukko | Void | Meso / Neo | The classic fast Capture node for mid-tier relics |
| Any rotating Capture fissure | Various | Matches the active fissure | Use whatever Capture fissure is live for your relic tier |
A few practical notes for maximum throughput:
- Bring a speed frame. Volt, Gauss, Wukong or Titania clear a Capture fissure in seconds. The faster you reach extraction, the more cracks per hour.
- Run a four-player squad. You crack together, everyone picks from the shared reward pool, and the Corrupted spawn rate climbs with more players — so you hit 10 Reactant faster.
- Avoid slow modes when you only want Traces. Survival, Defense and Interception are great for targeted reward farming, but if raw Traces are the goal, their longer run times make Capture strictly better per hour.
⚠️ A note on numbers: you will see "1,000 Void Traces per hour" claims in old videos. DE does not publish Trace-per-hour rates, and your real number depends on your frame, squad and the live fissure rotation. Treat any per-hour figure as a ballpark, not a guarantee — the method above is what's durable.
What is the Void Traces cap?
Your Void Traces have a hard storage ceiling that scales with your Mastery Rank:
Void Traces cap = 100 + (Mastery Rank × 50)
That means an MR10 player caps at 600, an MR20 player at 1,100, and an MR30 player at the maximum 1,600 Traces. Once you hit the cap, every additional crack still rolls 6–30 Traces, but anything over your ceiling is wasted — the game silently discards the overflow.
The practical rule that follows: spend down below your cap before a Trace-farming session. If you are sitting at 1,580/1,600 and go run ten fissures, you will throw away hundreds of Traces. Refine a stack of relics first, drop under the cap, then farm.
How do you spend Void Traces to refine relics?
Refining is done from the Void Relic refinement interface (reachable from the Void Relics menu in your Orbiter, and from the relic-selection screen before a fissure). Select an Intact relic and you can upgrade it one tier at a time:
| Refinement tier | Void Traces cost | Rare reward chance |
|---|---|---|
| Intact | Free (starting state) | ~2% |
| Exceptional | 25 | higher than Intact |
| Flawless | 50 | higher still |
| Radiant | 100 | ~10% |
Each tier is a per-relic cost, and refinement is permanent for that specific relic — refine it, then crack it. The jump that matters most is Radiant: spending 100 Traces to roughly 5x your rare-reward odds is almost always worth it when you're hunting a specific rare Prime part.
Radiant Share runs are where the community squeezes the most value: four players each bring the same Radiant relic to a fissure, so the shared reward pool is four rolls at ~10% each — the most efficient way to target one rare part. It costs 100 Traces per player per relic, so you want a healthy Trace bank before organizing one.
If you're not chasing a rare drop — say you just want the common or uncommon reward for Ducats — leave the relic Intact and save your Traces. Over-refining relics you're only cracking for Ducats is the most common way newer players bleed their Trace bank for no reason.
Can you buy or trade Void Traces?
No. Void Traces cannot be traded, gifted or bought — not with Platinum, not player-to-player, not anywhere. They are a purely earned currency, which is exactly why the farm method above is the whole game. Anyone advertising "Void Traces for sale" is running a scam or an account-service that violates Digital Extremes' EULA; DE's own support explicitly calls third-party sellers not legitimate, and trading outside the in-game systems is a Terms-of-Service violation. The legitimate "shortcut" is simply running the fastest fissure nodes in a squad, not spending money.
What is tradeable is the Prime parts you pull from refined relics — those go through the in-game Trading system for Platinum. Traces are the fuel; the parts are the payout.
FAQ
How do you get Void Traces in Warframe? Run any Void Fissure mission with a relic equipped, kill the Corrupted enemies the fissure spawns to collect 10 Reactant, and crack your relic. Cracking awards a random 6–30 Void Traces at extraction. There is no other source — Traces cannot be bought or traded.
What is the fastest way to farm Void Traces? Short Capture fissures in a full four-player squad. Hepit (Void) for Lith relics and Ukko (Void) for Meso/Neo are the go-to nodes because they finish in under a minute with a speed frame like Volt or Gauss, and more cracks per hour means more Traces per hour.
What is the maximum Void Traces you can hold? The cap is 100 + (Mastery Rank × 50), so it rises with your MR and maxes at 1,600 Traces at Mastery Rank 30. Any Traces earned over your cap are wasted, so spend down before a farming session.
How many Void Traces does it cost to make a relic Radiant? 100 Void Traces per relic. The lower tiers are 25 for Exceptional and 50 for Flawless. A Radiant relic has roughly a 10% rare-reward chance versus about 2% when Intact.
Should I always refine my relics to Radiant? Only when you're hunting the relic's rare reward. If you just want the common or uncommon drop (for example, cracking for Ducat fodder), leave the relic Intact and keep your Traces — over-refining everything is the fastest way to drain your bank for nothing.
Can you trade Void Traces to another player? No. Void Traces are untradeable and cannot be bought. Only the Prime parts you earn from cracking relics can be traded for Platinum through the in-game Trading Post.
The bottom line
Void Traces are simple once you stop fighting the loop: crack relics in fast Capture fissures, keep your bank under the 100 + (MR × 50) cap, and spend 100 Traces on Radiant only when a rare part is the target. Do that in a four-player squad on Hepit or Ukko and you'll keep a Trace surplus large enough to Radiant-share any Prime farm you decide to chase next.
Want more Warframe farming and economy guides? Browse the full Warframe guide library for relic routes, frame farms and trading breakdowns.
