Faction Reputation

Faction reputation is the gate between basic shopping and the more interesting Windrose faction inventory. It is not the same thing as selling loot for money. In the live build, reputation rises through Bounty Agent turn-ins and faction-aligned progression, while ordinary selling still belongs to the economy and buyer network.

How the System Works

1. Fight Blackbeard-aligned enemies, board ships, or complete faction-relevant content to collect reputation items.

2. Bring those items to the faction's Bounty Agents.

3. Raise reputation with that faction only. Reputation is tracked separately for each player-facing faction.

4. Use the higher rank to unlock better Provisioner stock and faction-specific progression routes.

Turn-In Items

The Four Player-Facing Factions

Where Reputation Hand-Ins Happen

Known Rank-Gated Example Unlocks

The safest named rank examples still come from current guide coverage rather than a full official rank table. Prima's launch-week trader guide is the clearest public example here, listing the Brethren Brig design at reputation level 2 and the Frigate at reputation level 4.

That example matters because it shows what reputation is really buying: access. A reputation unlock does not place a finished ship or finished armor set in your inventory. It opens the route to the plan, and then the material grind still has to be real.

Which Faction to Push First

How to Spend Smartly

• Inspect faction shops before handing over your best insignias.

• Do not unlock a ship design just because it sounds important if your material chain cannot actually build it yet.

• Treat reputation as build planning, not as roleplay flavor. Pick the faction that solves your current bottleneck.

That planning angle is the difference between reputation feeling powerful and reputation feeling fake. Windrose will gladly let you unlock a plan that you still cannot use. The game assumes you are looking ahead, not just reacting to the flashiest icon in the vendor list.

What the Current System Does Not Do

• It does not collapse every faction into one shared universal rank.

• It does not replace ordinary currency. You still need Piastres and sometimes Guinea for actual purchases.

• It does not turn every sale into reputation. Selling goods and building rank are separate actions.

What Still Needs In-Game Checking

Rank thresholds are standardized across every player-facing faction: Rank 2 requires 100 reputation, Rank 3 requires 400, and Rank 4 requires 1,000. The same thresholds apply to Brethren of the Coast, Buccaneers, People of Tortuga, and Smugglers of Port Royal, because every faction treats Blackbeard's crew as a shared enemy and accepts the same insignia and Letter of Favor turn-ins. One Letter of Favor grants +10 reputation, a Deckhand Insignia grants +4, a Newhand grants +1, a Veteran grants +20, and an Old Salt grants +80.

See Also

• Trading and Merchants - the money side of the economy

• Bounty Agents - where the reputation turn-ins actually happen

• Factions - the larger faction structure and story context

Reputation in Context: Pirate-Game Guilds

Creators converging on launch-week guides describe the faction reputation loop as closest in spirit to the guild systems in other pirate games. You pick the factions whose gear and quest lines you want, hand over reputation tokens to push through ranks, and unlock a progressively deeper shop at each rank. Windrose diverges in one important way: reputation does not only unlock gear. It also unlocks crafting recipes and crafting materials that are locked to that faction, which means faction rep feeds directly into your base's production chain rather than only your character loadout.

The practical consequence is that faction rep is a progression gate for more than shopping. Reaching Rank 2 with Brethren does not just put a Brig design in the vendor menu; it unlocks the ship itself as a craftable hull at your shipwright, provided you also have the biome materials for the build. Reputation and material progression advance together, so rep pushes pay off only when your material chain has caught up.

Reputation Unlocks on the Main-Story Path

Faction reputation is not available from the start. You unlock Bounty Agents and Provisioners when the main story routes you to Tortuga, which happens after the opening islands and coastal jungle introduction. Before that, insignias and Letters of Favor accumulate with no spend target. After the Tortuga unlock, all three Tortuga-resident Bounty Agents open at once; the fourth Bounty Agent for the Smugglers of Port Royal activates after a follow-up quest introduces the smuggler archipelago.

The common mistake is rushing the first Tortuga visit to a single vendor and leaving before picking up the smuggler breadcrumb in tavern and waterfront dialogue. Exhaust every NPC conversation on that first visit; the Underground Network quest that exposes the smugglers' hideout seeds here and is easy to miss.

Why Smugglers First: The Naval Tactics Argument

Within the four player-facing factions, launch-week creator consensus is to push Smugglers to Rank 3 first. The reasoning is that Smugglers are the only faction that sells Naval Tactics, which are a ship-wide passive slot unavailable anywhere else. Every other faction has a close equivalent in another faction's inventory (cannons overlap with hull armor roles, armor sets overlap with Buccaneer gear), but Naval Tactics are unique. Unlocking them first installs a baseline ship passive (out-of-combat chip heal, suppressing debuffs on enemy ships, or stored-damage volleys) that benefits every subsequent reputation grind.

If your priority is a bigger ship instead of a better passive, Brethren is the alternative first target; the Brethren Provisioner sells the Brig at Rank 2 and the Frigate at Rank 4. Ship-first and passive-first players converge on Buccaneers (for the Rank 2 cannon with the post-reload damage ramp) and People of Tortuga (for merchant contracts that automate base resource income) as their third and fourth targets.

From Reputation to Equipped Ship Gear

Rank-unlocked Provisioner items are schematics, not finished gear. The full conversion chain from reputation to a working cannon on your ship is:

1. Turn in insignias or Letters of Favor at the Bounty Agent to cross a rank threshold.

2. The Provisioner next to the Bounty Agent now displays new schematics.

3. Pay Piastres (or Guineas for top-tier Smuggler items) for a schematic.

4. Return to base, open your journal, and learn the schematic. Schematics are dormant until learned.

5. Craft the item at the appropriate bench. Ship parts use the Shipwright's Workbench.

6. Mount the finished part at the wharf. Cannons slot into cannon mounts, hull armor into plating slots, Naval Tactics into the ship's tactic slots.

Blue-tier and above items also carry passive rolls (damage, reload speed, damage reduction on incoming shots). A favorite piece can be ascended at the anvil from blue to purple and purple to legendary, unlocking an additional passive slot at each rarity step. Ascension materials (like Tumbaga Ingots) are rare enough that it is usually better to reach Rank 2 or Rank 3 first and ascend the item you plan to keep late-game, rather than spend ascension materials on a Rank 1 filler piece.

Reputation is Not Selling: Two Parallel Economies

Faction rep and faction trade are separate activities. Insignias and Letters of Favor go to the Bounty Agent for reputation; Naval Supplies, Medical Crates, contraband, and luxuries go to the matching faction's buyer NPC for Piastres or Guineas. The Tortuga hub explicitly has no generic buyer; every tradable item's tooltip names the correct faction camp or the smuggler archipelago. If a trade good has no buyer at Tortuga, do not dump it; sail to the faction the tooltip names and cash it in there. This split between the two economies is why new players often complain that Tortuga "doesn't accept anything"; the hub exists to hand out reputation, not to buy loot.

Early Rogue Buccaneers Rep: The Glorious Hunters Shortcut

If the Buccaneers are your first rep target, the cleanest early boost is Glorious Hunters, a Rogue Buccaneers side quest seeded at the Abandoned Buccaneer Camp on the starting island chain. The payout is a flat +200 Rogue Buccaneers reputation on top of a Buccaneer's Friend musket, deposited directly into the faction without a Bounty Agent hand-in.

That single quest is not enough to clear a rank threshold on its own, but combined with the Insignias you pick up during its naval-combat final step it usually carries a zero-rep character into Rank 1 Buccaneer territory, where the Provisioner starts listing Flibustier armor plans and Rank 1 cannon schematics. If you are planning a rep push order, Glorious Hunters is typically the third target after Smugglers' Naval Tactics and a Brethren Brig pass.

Insignia Donation and Component-Upgrade Timing

Reputation with each faction is raised by donating insignias to that faction's representative at their main port. Insignias drop from defeated enemies and from sunk enemy ships, and the higher-tier insignia you turn in, the more reputation it grants per donation. Each faction's standing caps at level 4, so the goal is to reach the highest tier on whichever factions sell the gear and ship parts you actually want to use.

By far the fastest way to farm insignias is naval combat. Sunk ships drop floating loot crates that contain insignias in addition to silver and consumables, so a single afternoon of patrolling shipping lanes near a faction's waters can move you a full reputation level. Boarding actions also yield insignias and silver at the same time, but pure sink-and-collect runs against freighters tend to be the fastest pure reputation grind once your ship can reliably out-gun escort patrols.

Each level of reputation expands what the faction's provisioner is willing to sell you. Higher tiers progressively unlock blueprints for blue-tier ship cannons (most importantly the rare 12-pounder and 24-pounder plans), blue-tier hull bracing, blue-tier weapons and armor pieces, and additional merchant contracts that let you build extra in-base shopkeepers. Most of the meaningful mid-game power spikes for both your character and your ship come through these provisioner unlocks rather than from world drops.

Resource-saving timing tip: raise faction reputation before you spend ore, lumber, and rare components upgrading your green-tier (uncommon) ship parts. The blue-tier 12-pounders, 24-pounders, and hull bracings that level 2 to 3 reputation unlocks will outclass even fully-upgraded green parts once they are ascended to purple. If you sink dozens of materials into upgrading greens first, those resources are effectively wasted the moment you can afford to buy and ascend the blue blueprints. Treat the first reputation level on each faction as a checkpoint that tells you whether their ship-parts catalogue is worth investing in, then push to level 2 or 3 before crafting the gear.

Stock differs sharply between the four player-facing factions, so focus the faction whose specialty matches your build. The People of Tortuga lean toward general utility, food workers, and balanced ship parts. The Brethren of the Coast specialise in heavier warship components and gunpowder-related goods, which favours boarding-and-sniping builds. The Rogue Buccaneers tilt toward aggressive offensive gear and mobility-focused ship parts. The Smugglers of Port Royal carry the strongest contraband-trade contracts and several unique ship part variants tied to lighter, faster hulls. Plan one or two factions to push to level 4 first; spread donations only after your primary faction's catalogue is fully unlocked.

• Cap is 4 per faction. Reputation does not climb past level 4, so any insignias donated beyond that point are spent silver.

• Sink ships, then board. Sinking awards insignias from floating loot; boarding awards silver and consumables. Run sink-then-board on freighters for the fastest combined reward.

• Hold green-tier upgrades. Do not pour materials into green ship parts until at least one faction has reached level 2 to 3 and you have seen which blue plans they sell.

• Pick a primary faction. Match the faction's stock to your weapon and ship build, push it to level 4 first, and only then start raising the others.

• Letters of favor are a top-up. Quest-reward letters give a small reputation bump, but the fast curve comes from naval insignia farming, not from quest hand-ins alone.