At the start of most missions in the campaign, and always in skirmish or multiplayer, your command center will be located next to a tempest field full of tempest vines and pods. But it is highly important that you take a look if there is a tempest node or crater inside of that tempest field, because fields without these nodes or craters can not regenerate pods or vines. Nodes are those huge root-like structures sticking out of the ground.

https://youtu.be/z2Ivdls0cFg

Once your harvesters empty the pods, the vines die off and that is it. Vines dying off will happen even on tempest fields with root nodes or craters, especially if you are aggressively harvesting, but they can grow back if left alone for a while. Do note that there are two different sizes of root nodes and craters. You can tell the difference with roots due to their height and number of interwoven roots. The bigger ones are usually also surrounded by larger tempest fields and on most maps concentrated at the middle.

Later GDF faction can upgrade refiners to give it passive income while Tempest Dynasty faction can get passive income for plans turned on at their multiple HQs.

Since in Tempest Rising you have two separate campaigns for each faction, the developers have created separate and specialized Armory upgrades for both factions. These upgrades you buy with points earned from each mission and fulfilling all the main and optional objectives. The more missions you finish the more slots in the armory become available to you and you can use more upgrades in them. These upgrades range from giving units additional health points and letting you produce already veteran units to giving extra damage to specific unit types and even unlocking new capabilities for specific units or attack types.

Now on the Tempest Dynasty side your first Armory upgrade can be Veteran crew which makes every new vehicle you produce already leveled up to its first veteran level called Hardened. This boosts its armor rating and rate of fire. There are more veteran levels and buffs which I will talk about in a follow up video. As for Doctrine upgrades Body Armor is focused on giving infantry units 15% more HP, while Training Regimen makes all units gain new veterancy levels faster. This is a great synergy as your already Hardened vehicles will more quickly reach the second veterancy level in combat gaining a damage-per-shot increase and a sight range increase.

After the next successful campaign mission with the Dynasty faction you can get another bonus, this one as an armory upgrade called improved reliability which will decrease the damage taken by vehicles by 15%. Making it easier for them to stay alive and reach those next veterancy levels. You can later double up on this with the doctrine called Leading the Charge which will give all vehicles extra 20% health. There are more synergies available to the tempest Dynasty faction.

One more topic I want to turn your attention to something you need to learn, especially if you want to defeat the AI in skirmish or other players in the multiplayer. This is the mechanics of weapon type vs armor. First of all, there are six weapon attack types. Rifle, Rocket, Explosive, Cannon, Fire and Sniper.

You can see which weapon type each unit has by hovering your mouse over their gun icon when you select them. The second icon is the armor of each unit or building. This one shows you by percentage numbers which weapon type is the unit or building most resistant to. So for example a Tempest Sphere has an attack type that is explosive based, while a Porcupine MLRS has the rocket type weapon attack.

And if I want to attack a building like a GDF Power plant, whose armor offers no resistance to Explosive and only has low resistance to Rocket weapon attacks these two vehicles will deal a lot of damage to it with each of their attacks. As opposed to this a harvester is weakest against Cannon weapon type.

If we send voltaic tanks against some buildings, and even with tempest dynamos turned on, they will take a while to blow up a building because it has 50% resistance to the cannon weapon attack which is the main weapon type of this voltaic tank.

Since I like the Dynasty faction more I will first talk about how to start and play with them. The first building you que up is the machine shop as that is where you can train the tempest ring which is the Dynasty’s mobile refinery and harvester all rolled into one.

https://youtu.be/MuTOWPutwSc

Another unique aspect of the Dynasty faction are the plans you can enable at their HQ/Construction yard. The Logistics Plan boosts your tempest rig’s movement speed and harvesting speed as well as the speed of building construction but at the cost of 100 power. Which is the same amount you start the game with.

Meaning that when you enable the The Logistics Plan you reduce the time necessary to construct the machine shop but put yourself right at the limit for power consumption. To rotate a building just use your mouse scroll. Constructing the Machine shop now puts you in a low power state meaning recruitment of units will take 50% longer.

The first thing you have to recognize is that the GDF is strong in the early and very late game. The middle game is where you have room to lose to the Tempest Dynasty faction and I will explain and give examples of all three situations.

https://youtu.be/n5OEFqsiHdQ

So let's start with a very typical skirmish match vs a normal Tempest Dynasty AI which is about the most ubiquitous situation most of you will probably find yourself in. And later we will watch several multiplayer pvp situations.

Naturally you have to start with a power plant, followed by a Tempest Refinery. This is actually where two possible openings for the GDF faction diverge. You can choose to go heavy on the economy, the so-called eco opening and build another tempest refinery, followed by a barracks and a vehicle bay to be able to start producing more harvesters. This is dangerous and risky but can pay off big later.

The other opening is a rush style which plays on the GDF advantage in available unit types for the early game. Because you have a cheap and very fast scout and anti infantry vehicle, the Sentinel, as well as the hunter tank, while the Dynasty Faction has to tech up to gain access to a tank like vehicle. This opening requires you to put the pressure on the enemy and keep pushing into their territory and deny them expansions into new tempest fields as well as to prevent them from capturing the neutral buildings on their side of the map.

You do this by first having map knowledge to which buildings you need to send your cheapest infantry to occupy them and deny your opponent access to them. This of course means first learning the maps and their layout which with the keyboard shortcut keys and special game options are the basics you need to know and to build on.

The Unit Counter system in Tempest Rising is the basis for combat between units of GDF and Tempest Dynasty but to learn it you first have to understand the mechanics of weapon types vs armor.

Six types of weapon attacks are Rifle, Rocket, Explosive, Cannon, Fire and Sniper while units and buildings have different armor resistances to each weapon type. Using this knowledge to your advantage you can win no matter if you are experiencing the story in the campaign, practicing against AI bots in Skirmish or testing your skill against other players in multiplayer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEctDEoTAUs

To make this easy to understand, let's start with a simple example. When I sent out my engineer and my dynasty guards in this match towards the enemy base they got intercepted by two Havocs. This is the Tempest Dynasty’s light mobile missile platform and its weapon damage type is rocket based. While its armor is most resistant to rifle, fire and sniper weapon attacks. This makes it a poor counter to my engineer and dynasty guard units because their armor is best against the rocked weapon type which is the one Havoc uses. But on the other hand the Dynasty Guard’s weapon type is rifle, which is what the Havoc’s armor is most resistant to.

But what the Havocs are much better at because of their rocket weapon attack type is destroying Tempest Rigs Wheels, because that unit only has 25% resistance to this weapon attack type. The Tempest rig itself has the same low resistance to the rocket weapon type and so my opponent’s early rush with two Havocs can deal tremendous damage to my economy while I have no answer as I was preparing for a much different plan with my attempt to capture the enemy command center with my engineers. GDF’s harvesters are equally weak to rocket fire, so when facing that faction, you can rush a few Havocs and deal good damage to their harvesters too.