Alerts

Alerts are temporary missions that appear randomly next to any other mission that players have previously unlocked (though not necessarily completed), this means that the more missions the players have unlocked, the higher the chance that he will be able to do the next alert. They can be of any mission type (noted in top of description window) and often have vague references to the mission type explained under "description." If the type selected is an assassination, the boss will have a chance to drop a blueprint, and the boss is a well known entity. (For example - Jackal when it comes to Corpus assassination alert missions). The level of the boss will often be different than the standard.

Alerts are temporary, they spawn linked to one of your available missions, and stay open until a given amount of time passes, or until the player completes the alert. The time is generally between 20 and 50 minutes. Occasionally a long alert is released with a rare blueprint for up to 15 hours. There is almost always an alert going on. As many as 3 alerts have been known to be available at once.

Alerts also give rewards, usually in the shape of more or less credits than usual (usually more), but sometimes they award special blueprints that the players can't obtain anywhere else. This can be recognized by having a "?" in the reward bar. Rewards are often Blueprints and Artifacts. The credits reward at the end of alert missions is increased by 10% for each additional squad member. The difficulty of enemies has little relation to the standard difficulty of the attached standard mission.

Alert Rewards

 * Cosmetic Weapon-Skin Blueprints
 * Alternate Helmet Blueprints
 * Ceramic Dagger Blueprint
 * Dark Dagger Blueprint
 * Heat Dagger Blueprint
 * Dark Sword Blueprint
 * Heat Sword Blueprint
 * Jaw Sword Blueprint
 * Pangolin Sword Blueprint
 * Plasma Sword Blueprint
 * Glaive Blueprint
 * Orokin Catalyst Blueprint
 * Orokin Reactor Blueprint
 * Artifacts
 * Vauban Components Blueprints
 * Forma Blueprint

See the special award missions on twitter.

Bugs

 * There is a bug where a total of 5 players end up connected to an alert mission.