Do you have to use a weapon for it to get affinity?

Information that will give relevance to answers and the question being asked: I am referencing Warframe, and my rank is just below rank 5 at the point I am posting this question. I have a few maxed out weapons in each category: main, secondary, melee. I also have a couple max rank frames as well. I haven't played in a long time, and have recently picked the game back up, so I am barely at/past Earth. I also play solo only, due to family, don't have the ability to commit to a game/mission.

So I have a lot of really weak weapons that I want to max out and sell, but I really don't want to spend hours grinding low level missions to do so. If I carry a maxed out weapon and use that, would the low rank weapon still get affinity? Or do I have to actually use the weapon for it to get affinity?


Solution 1:

Affinity will be granted to anything equipped [not necessarily in use] for

  • Challenge tasks
  • Terminal hacks
  • Mission objectives
  • Collecting affinity orbs
  • Performing codex Scans
  • Being in proximity to kills by allies in multiplayer

Objective based missions and challenge tasks will probably be your main source of affinity without actually using the weapons.