High Tide is anchored by Turn the High Tide and gold award Coastal Defence Medal. It also has a confirmed version boundary: PATCH 1.0 (1547) fixed the wrong or duplicate newspaper and record at the mission’s end. Update before interpreting an unexpected result as a secret route.
2950790, Windows public 1.0, checked 2026-08-09. Exact coastal targets, stages, choices, and medal values are spoiler-sensitive live evidence.Confirm the patch before the operation
Restart Steam, install queued content, and check official announcements. At this check PATCH 1.0 (1558) is latest and includes the earlier 1547 fix. Verify files if a pre-patch High Tide save behaves inconsistently.
Record the patch with screenshots of any newspaper/result. Without it, a comparison can mix intended state with the fixed launch issue.
Read coastal geometry carefully
Plot observers, landmarks, friendlies, and target candidates in distinct layers. A shoreline feature is not automatically an objective. Attach each bearing/range to its source and draw from the Nest only after choosing the target.
If tide or movement is described in dispatches, label message order. Do not combine a later bearing with an earlier range unless the mission says they describe the same state.
Match the requested defence effect
Read the target class and shell description. Destruction, penetration, illumination, smoke, chemical, or messaging effects are distinct. Protect friendly/coastal context and do not substitute the largest blast.
Create one card per stage and barrel. Recalculate after any shell, powder, target, or Nest-position change.
Wait for the corrected end state
After each impact, read the next dispatch. At final completion, capture the newspaper and record before dismissing it. On the current patch, a wrong/duplicate result that reproduces is reportable; on the launch build it matches a known fixed issue.
Do not repeatedly refire after the mission has reached its result state. Finish the normal transition and let Cloud save.
Diagnose progress before calling it a bug
Check unread teleprinter output, wrong target candidate, wrong effect, inaccurate impact, barrel mismatch, or a second active phase. Preserve the card and map marks.
If a crash prevents re-entry, PATCH 1.0 (1558) contains the relevant save/mission-entry fix. Update and verify before touching any profile.
Coastal Defence Medal research
Capture all current medal hints. Test accuracy, resource use, time, assistance, effects, and protected-target choices separately. The official gold award does not reveal exact thresholds.
Because the result record itself changed in 1547, label every gold observation by patch. Reproduce current behavior before publishing a route.
Report High Tide evidence
Include patch, dispatch stage, plotted origins, shell, card, actual load, impact, newspaper, record, medals, and crash history. Mark narrative choices and coordinates as spoilers.
Use Endings for campaign-wide outcome claims; one corrected High Tide newspaper alone may not prove full narrative causation.
Separate intended branch from patched record
When comparing two High Tide outcomes, first confirm both runs use the same current patch. Then record prior campaign choices, High Tide dispatch decisions, impacts, and the exact final newspaper. A pre-1547 screenshot cannot establish the intended result because the official note confirms that the newspaper/record could be wrong or duplicated.
On current content, a different newspaper may still be a legitimate branch. Repeat the same sequence or compare a complete contemporary run before reporting a regression. If the displayed newspaper and Steam achievement disagree, capture both and let the in-game result, platform award, and choice log remain separate evidence. This disciplined comparison avoids turning a known fixed presentation bug into a false ending guide.
If the operation is replayed for medals, capture the current end record even when it looks identical. Gold research needs proof that completion/result recognition survived the optimized route. A fast or low-resource run that triggers the old-looking duplicate should be checked against patch and reproduced, because an altered sequence might expose a separate current bug rather than the historical one. Report both runs with their exact transitions.