Tips and Tricks for Exploring Tempest

A collection of tips gathered from dozens of hours of gameplay, mostly focusing on the obscure or the less-than-obvious. Any changes or additions to the guide will be listed.

Foreword

A couple of the things to keep in mind with Tempest is that, firstly, it was designed for phones first, then ported to PC. As a result, the interface has a cartoony, stretched out kind of look, not to mention the presence of screen touch controls. It would also probably explain why the boarding combat looks like it does. This doesn't make it a bad game though - as others have said before, it manages to scratch an itch few other pirate games do.



Secondly, the game is buggy in some places. A couple of the bugs I can think of off the top of my head is the refogging you get if you alt-tab, the dismissal of quests if you right click outside of the prompt it gives you for quests progressing, and stuff like your cursor disappearing if you loot a chest right as the enemy ship is captured. There are a few workarounds to these bugs, and it pays to know them in advance before they have a chance to bite you.

The Alt-Tab/Fog of War Bug (Patched)

If you run the game at fullscreen, as most are likely to do, a nasty little bug manages to creep in if you use the alt-tab functionality at all to use other programs or apps while playing Tempest. Unless you have the discipline to hit Escape before you tab out, it'll wipe whatever progress you've made on unfogging the map, and forces you to do it over again. Hell, even using Escape before you tab out doesn't always work. So what does?

If you run the game in windowed mode, with a maximized window. Granted, it's not quite as immersive as having it full screen, but it avoids a lot of irritation from the fog of war returning. It allows you to access the programs you have running, like a chat client, without being held down by the bug.

The Quest Dismissal/Right Click Bug

If I'm being honest, I don't remember the bug ever popping up when doing a left click - to tab back into the game usually I right click. Left clicking usually is equivalent to hitting the OK button on the quest prompt. But if you right click? It dismisses the quest, gives you a message that "Quests can only be obtained in ports," and forces you to reboot the game or go pick the quest back up again. Another nasty little bug.

Unfortunately, quests aren't put into the form of notifications, giving you the leisure to view them as you see fit. They force themselves on the screen when the requirements have been met (usually just time passing), and if you don't click inside the prompt, it'll mess with the quest. Usually killing Tempest with Alt+F4 then going back in undoes the damage, though perhaps not ideal - choking the game out until it's unconscious is hardly a solution. The only other thing is to pick the quest back up, which can be done immediately, and fortunately, it does seem to retain progress up to a certain point. Sometimes it'll require completing a task or two, but in the cases i've tried it, it would go through the various prompts until it's back at the point it was.

The bug can also be used to your advantage, but it only works well with a few quests - most of them are set up in a way where the bug is more annoying than helpful.

A Tactic for Avoiding Combat Traps

Anyone who's played for more than a handful of hours understands that going to other seas is downright necessary to see all the game has to offer, with the Ghostly Seas and the Eastern Waters being the other two maps (the one you start in being called Calm Waters). Unfortunately, the teleporters only function in ship mode, you can't change seas solely through the map. This leads to the eventual encounter of enemies spawning nearby when you try to sail to the other sea, either resulting in a narrow escape or combat. The teleporter can't be used while you're in combat (and the same goes for most hot spots that you use to progress quests), so it leaves you between a rock and a hard place, having to deal with trash before you can continue your quests. Or does it?

If you spawn into the location where the teleporter is, just go back to the ship's map and back into ship mode. It would be the equivalent of hitting the button in the bottom left corner 3 times instead of just one. What does this do? It despawns any enemies that would otherwise spawn on you for the sake of an encounter, or at least it does most of the time. It allows you to change seas without the hassle of combat, and you can do it when you just don't have the time or patience for the encounter.

Same thing works for quests too. If there's a location it sends you to, just hit the map/sail button three times consecutively to despawn any would-be campers so you can progress the quest more fluidly. It has minor benefit in combat locations too, the ones where it sends you to fight ships in a battle - it ensures that the only enemies or allies in the fight are from the quest. You don't always have to do this - it is funny to see ships flying the same flag fighting eachother, and it means more loot at the end, but if you have a dinky ship you have to be more cautious. No offense to you or your dinky ship :P

If you want a cheeky alternative, using the Stone of Winds would be helpful, either to escape initiated combat or to outrun potential combat.

General Tips

1. Don't sell any equipment that you obtain, be it via combat, quests, or the like. It usually sells for a pittance anyway, and trying to reobtain the items for a quest can be a pain in the rear.
   
   
2. As an extension of the previous tip, If it's stuff like gems, artifacts, modifiers or extra bits for your ship, just stow it at a port you want to use as your 'home base.' I chose the capital of the Dominion as mine, but it's whatever faction you aren't likely to make angry, and offers the most selection to you as far as goods go. Don't be afraid to stow things that are weighing you down, like cargo or pistols. Just be careful not to sell it by accident.
   
   
3. Focus the XP you get on skill points first. The early game isn't reliant on a perfect crew, just a good one, so level 3-4 crew will work just fine. If you need XP, and combat isn't doing it for you, progressing the Dominion, the Black Flame, the Order, or the Seekers will eventually lead to either skill points, XP, other goodies, or a combination thereof as rewards. Kingdom, Trade Coalition, Pirates, and Protectorate don't really have any quests that will give you stories to write about in your Sea Dog's Chronicle.
   
   
4. Do your best not to make factions angry if you can help it, unless you know what the faction offers and don't really care. Their quests are interwoven with eachother, so there can be unintended consequences to being worse than a Renegade with them. Furthermore, it's harder to build a soiled reputation back up than it is to make healthy to begin with. Aside from quests, or doing autos and flying their marquee, there's only one other method to repair faction reputation (at the cost of another's).
   
   
5. Until you get the Cheap Spyglass and Accurate Pistols (which should be your number one priority), don't bother boarding. Move your boarding crew to the sails or the hull, since trying to board without the pistols is just an exercise in frustration and needless casualties. When you do have the pistols, reserve your highest level crew to board with, preferably Level 4 or higher.
   
   
6. Skills are important, and have a big effect on your overall sustainability inside and outside of combat. I prioritized ship repair limit, chance of death, and speed first - crew armor, artifact power, and accuracy came last. You don't have to follow this build, but the idea is to figure out early on what you want to focus on, or what shortcoming you want to mitigate. I would do a lot of autos, so having a higher ship repair limit was important. I didn't want to lose valuable crew, and eventually I got a Battleship II that was slower than a fridge treading water.
   
   
7. Don't be afraid to check out other seas to see what the various factions can offer you at their ports. Learn not only what their faction specials are, but also their wares - you'll need to upgrade eventually, and knowing what you're gonna buy is crucial to make sure every Piastre ('pastry') matters. A quest, or combat may give you something to use, but wasting money on a +1 cannon only to find a +2 cannon five minutes later, on a different sea is not exactly fun. Take notes of who's selling what, and where.
   
   
8. If you need artifacts early on, you want to save money, and have a decently sized ship to house a large crew, you can head to the Ghostly Seas. If you offload your good crew at a Black Flame port (the tavern), bring on green hands, and then use their faction special to make them into sailors, you can head to a Returner port to try your luck. The more crew you have, the more chances you get before you have to head back and stock up on more poor souls to feed to the grinder. It's really dark if you think about it, so don't think about it. :P

Closing Statements

Hopefully these tips and tactics prove useful to you. If they have, liking, favoriting, and/or rating the guide will help its visibility and let others see them too.

[Kataru]

the Fog of War bug has been patched

[Calza]

It might've been, apparently the developer originally intended to put it onto mobile first but it didn't really work out that way. https://steamcommunity.com/app/418180/discussions/0/492379439668414995/#c492379439671223995

[The Tear Collector]

wasn't it released on PC first?

[Raffy Kadaffi🎮]

nice guide dude, the alt f4 on the quest bug is really nice to know, bothered me some time now...

[Blood Meridian]

A good briefing to the game! I hope it helps others.