Task Force Admiral News

Dear Fans,
Dear Followers,
Old & new,

Welcome to this (late!) January 2023 dev diary for Task Force Admiral.

That was quite the busy month we had in January, and I had a bad cold right at the time I was supposed to upload all this stuff, so apologies for the unwanted delay...!

We have mostly worked on ironing out bugs and introducing our view system, while implementing thoroughly combat systems aboard ships and visual effects too. That might sound a bit surprising considering views & visual effects are not usually an important part of the wargamer's toolkit to a good experience. Yet, in the specific 3D environment of TFA, they remain central to the enjoyment of the game, and a fair companion to any After-Action Report minded playthrough. Let's see why.



[h2]The View System[/h2]

Our view system is sticking to a few cardinal rules in its design which, hopefully, will satisfy the expectations of most, whether you use it for your in-game enjoyment or as a tool for a video or picture-based after-action report.

• The views should give you as much freedom as possible when it comes to picking an angle
  
• They should be easy to navigate using a few keys, in an intuitive fashion, while making good use of the mouse without hampering gameplay functions
  
• They should help with focusing on a given unit from your current PoV with handy padlock options
  
• They should be fully interactive during pause as long as pause is a thing in your realism settings, and obviously will be as such when used in the future replay system
  

The first video below gives you an idea of the basic PoVs one can pick for any naval or air unit, on either side. Basically the different views are:

• A default Orbit view around the selected unit
  
• A Front view, at bridge-level for a ship, and above the engine cowling or the nose for an aircraft)
  
• A Left side and Right side view, which also works for the vulture’s row on a carrier
  
• A Rear view, which will puts you on the stern of a ship or the backseat of an airplane
  
• A Chase view, which will allow you to follow dogfights & the action in general with a cool head bobbing effect

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Of course this cannot equal all the options you would have in an actual plane or ship simulator, but we believe that it offers enough opportunities so as to keep you entertained. As you can see below, the free navigation lets you pick the angle you like best. Coupled potentially with a rewind function in the replay mode, you should be able to efficiently cover a given event under different angles without having to restart your track and pray to have it right the first time. At least, that’s the intent, time will tell if we manage to (pardon my French rugby lingo) convert our try by learning from the sins usually encountered in games with a comparable scope, while hoping we are not committing too many new ones while doing so!



[h2]Of Padlocking & FoV[/h2]

The padlock system works pretty well. It allows you to easily pick a friendly or enemy contact by switching between the different objects rather seamlessly. It allows for some dramatic angles, like these we’ve been showcasing in our shorter videos this month. Whether you are aboard a ship getting bombed, or seeing the action from the perspective of the aggressor, you will have you covered.

Another nice feature is the ability for the player to tweak the Field of View on the fly so as to find the best setting for your shots. It does change the perspective quite a lot, as you can see below. It’s an old trick from our simulation days, something that I remember from the very first Il-2, which would definitely give your screenshots the sort of inspiring oomph actual photography can instil in real life. In this mode, the work done on the 3D models shines, and I am happy to say that our 3D artist Rizki's work managed to give them quite the oomph factor despite our originally very tight triangle budget. As for their looks, they will be improved (some of these ships are still in their original untreated base texture). With the playable slice approaching, our 2D artist Julien will be hard at work to weather in a credible way all this wood and this steel.



Altogether, the camera options seem to make for a fair, functional package. We will carry on with the rest of our development pipeline for now. Naturally, all of this needs to be properly refined based on tester experience later on, and changes will necessarily happen, but the basic functions seem to do their job for the time being. Once paired with the future replay system we envision, we will hopefully achieve a relatable level of customization in the way you want to watch your gameplay contents. As such, we hope that it will result in a satisfying solution for those among our followers who favour colourful contents for their battle reports, whether these are posted on message boards or video platforms.

In the meantime, enjoy this lavish compilation below of all these aforementioned tools!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



[h2]Of Water, Fire, Guns & Fun[/h2]

Another area of interest this month was the continuation of the work already done on the mounts. After assigning them basic properties, it was time for us to put them in a relevant environment so as to test them against actual aircraft. Quite logically, it also led to an increased interest in the implementation of the corresponding sound and visual effects. These were applied to the guns and their target area alike. For starters, the sounds were properly integrated in-game and are now firing with a convincing punch. The guns themselves were fine-tuned so as to fire with a little more randomness to them and avoid the feeling that everybody is shooting in unisson whenever it is not warranted.

As for the visual effects, here’s a small demonstration below. Whether it is about water or fire, we went for solutions that might not seem always so popular with all developers, but we just could not accept the idea that billboards would look spectacular from one side, and suddenly look flat (well... like billboards are) the moment you rotate the camera to take a screen from another angle. Although this is certainly still work in progress, and will be improved over time, the water splash previously showcased really do work well and make you feel very much in the midst of the action.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

All these sweet videos might have gotten some of you readers a bit worried when it comes to the configuration needed to run Task Force Admiral. What was said on the store page back in the day is still pretty unchanged. Some time was devoted to the implementation of several techs that will allow the game to still run smoothly even if your computer is not NASA-grade. AMD FidelityFX™ Super Resolution (FSR) is among these technologies. The advantage of implementing the support for this tech in particular is that work with all manufacturers (unlike other comparable solutions) and will allow you to play at a higher resolution while dramatically improving performance by using upscaling smartly. Below, you can see the same scene, with native rendering on one side & a 0.75 rendering with FSR-managed upscaling. As you can see, differences are fairly minor - if you can't see immediately which is which, it is one of these rare times when it is actually good news ^^ - yet can mean the world to smaller rigs. It is in our interest to keep exploring solutions that will make TFA run smoothly on a larger panel of machines, so do expect us to keep optimization always in a good spot on our minds.





That's all for today Folks! As a parting gift, here's the traditional Greetings card for the Lunar Year authored by Julien. The year of the rabbit was a good opportunity to honor VT-2, which served from 1943 onwards with a mix between Bugs Bunny & Oswald as a mascot, riding a (working & modified) Mk13 torpedo. Feel free to greet your friends who celebrate the Spring festival in style!



As always, if you aren't too fond of Discord, Facebook, Twitter or else, don't forget that we have a mailing list here specifically made so as to keep you updated of all our Steam updates and other announcements which might be big enough to deserve a special treatment. Click on the pic below to access the form.



Cheers & take care, and see you (earlier than usual then!) for the February update at the end of this very month!

The Task Force Admiral team.

Dear Fans,
Dear Followers,
Old & new,

Welcome to this December 2022 dev diary for Task Force Admiral.

As December is only going to remain with us for a few more hours, the time for our usual Monthly update has come. Join us as we detail a few of the features & mechanics we have been working over the past few weeks.



[h2]Anti-Air Artillery Effects & Mechanics[/h2]

We will begin with the part of the work pipeline that involves the most eye candy. We’ve been at work on implementing Anti Air artillery systems in-game, both visually and on the programming side of things. Visually speaking, it was mostly about optimizing the explosion and smoke effects, while adding a few new gimmicks to improve overall immersion, such as shrapnel effects in the water below the explosion proper.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
As far as its in-game implementation goes, anti-air artillery is a complex, multi-layered affair that requires a detailed approach for it to shine – or at least start to look the part. Three main types of AA guns have to be accounted for in Task Force Admiral :

• Heavy Anti Air is made of naval guns acting in AA mode. Some of these are dual purpose by design, as their inner workings support high angle elevation while still allowing reloading and firing at a useful rate. In this category, you will also come across single purpose mounts, which cannot elevate past a certain angle and train past a certain speed and still remain efficient. Yet, most of these guns do have some limited anti-air use, as they can still shoot at low flying objects, and as such they will take part to the defence of the force against torpedo planes. This category of guns usually fires a time-fuzed projectile at aircraft, set to explode in the vicinity of where the enemy plane is to find itself a few seconds later. Said fuze is set just before loading by a complex system, which begins with the AA directors, the AA gun plot and ends with a fuze setter embedded with the mount at the mouth of the gun. The radar proximity fuze, an invention that was to find its way into the Fleet in 1943, was not available yet in 1942 to the US Navy, so back then it really was a matter of getting timing right, or get the odd lucky direct hit that would set off the impact fuze. In TFA these shells will be what they were in action: an ubiquitous sight on both sides when aircraft attack, but a mostly harmless display of pyrotechnics save for that one shell in a thousand that will manage to connect.

• Medium Anti Air mounts are a category the Imperial Japanese Navy never really managed to get quite right. These intermediate calibres attempt to retain the best characteristics of both worlds: powered mounts managed by AA directors, with several automatic guns bundled together so as to reach a critical, uninterrupted volume of fire. Thanks to their redundant feeding systems, these pieces usually don’t have to stop firing for a long period, and as such can put up an actual barrage of shells. As their ammunition is too small and their range too limited to warrant further fine-tuning, all the projectiles are set to explode with the same delay, setting up killing zones in the trajectory of approaching attack craft. The U.S. quad 1.1in (28mm), British 2 Pdr (40mm) and 40mm Bofors are among the most common systems of this kind you will encounter in TFA.

• Light Anti Air, finally, is a category made of all manually-trained, manually-fed and manually-aimed guns. These can be found in single, double or even triple mounts in the case of the IJN Type 96 25mm. They do not benefit from the input of a AA director, and their short range only allow for short duration bursts on a given target before said target leaves their firing arc. They end up being primarily psychological or even revenge weapons, but in the latter case, they still serve a purpose, as a damaged or destroyed aircraft, even after it has delivered its payload, is still one less threat to worry about in the future. On the US side, the Oerlikon 20mm and water-cooled .50 AA mounts are part of this category.

Naturally, all these different weapons and their mounts have their own technical specs, which will result in varying base accuracy and dispersion values, acquisition time, reload time, etc... Their base performance might or might not be improved by an additional layer of control offered by AA directors if these are available to them. As you can see in the screenshot above, we keep on deploying the relevant edition tools along with the new features they serve. As these are designed so as to allow everyone in the team to contribute to the integration of new devices, down the line they might prove handy for all those who wish to customize the in-game specs and tweak them to their liking.



[h2]The Air Plot[/h2]

Those who have been reading our previous update (click here if you haven't just yet) will remember that we had mentioned the Ouija board, or aircraft management screen, as one of TFA’s carrier-centric feature. This month, we fleshed out the other modes of what we call, in short, the “Air Plot”.

The Air Plot is an array of air-focused management screens which are here to provide the player with a complete panorama of the air activities in his task force. The different screens and their uses are as follows:

• The Aircraft Management Screen (which is the new, more practical name for the Ouija board) remains unchanged this month, besides the few functions left & right which were not there yet last time: it is used as an interface that allows you to check effortlessly the status of all the aircraft aboard a given aviation ship under your command.

• Using the same top-down layout of your carrier, the Deck Timeline will retain the upper part that displayed the flight deck and provide you with an extensive schedule of deck operations, indicating in details which aircraft are about to be spotted, launched or recovered. It is a more thorough version of the information always available on the air ops timeline at the bottom of one’s screen.

• The Mission Roster is a specialized table that goes the extra mile as far as commander awareness is concerned: all the air missions are there, with a number of buttons which will allow you to easily follow them on the map, edit them, or read their log and final report.

• The Squadron Roster on the other hand focuses on the air groups aboard your ships, giving ample details in regard of their readiness, their equipment, and their statistics since the beginning of the scenario.
  
• Finally, the Aviation Stores tab, not depicted here, will give you a complete brief about the allocation of aircraft loadouts. As bombs and especially torpedoes are in limited supply, we needed to make sure that you would have the ability to follow ammunition expenditure closely.

To those who might wonder about the effects of all these contents of the game’s complexity and accessibility: worry not. All these screens are mostly of an informational nature, with little in way of actual interaction – so no mandatory micro-managing hell is involved. Going through them is only necessary for those who want to make sure to know each and every detail of their on-going air operations. The same way one can play through a Paradox game without ever opening the ledger screen, one can succeed at Task Force Admiral while not giving a damn about which pilot is flying which plane, or which is the next flight in line for recovery. But considering all these information were there already floating around anyway, we had to think of a way to make them available in a centralized & exhaustive fashion for those who like to run a tight ship, so there you go.



[h2]Pearl Harbor Art[/h2]

December is like every year, finally, the moment when we can commemorate the event that started it all, that is the Dec.7 attack against Pearl Harbor. Over the last few years, our artist Julien has contributed quite a number of original pieces dedicated to the battle proper and to the events surrounding it. They will undoubtedly be an important part of the posters or postcards line-up in any physical box edition we might come up with during our launching phase.



Mentioning the said launching phase, I will happily use the opportunity offered by this update so as to reiterate that our plans are to have something playable in your hands certainly by the end of next year. Can’t say just yet which approach we’ll be using so as to reach this goal, but I take you as witnesses here and now stuck between Christmas & the New Year to claim that we’ll eventually get there. I hope that the progress shown over the last few updates has made clear that we know where we’re going, and that our deliberate pace is mostly the result of us trying to do the things the right way. Watch out for more exciting contents over the next few months!



That's all for today Folks! Although the day wouldn't be complete without the traditional season greetings by Taffy - so there she goes, along with a nice view of a very cute, illuminated Yorktown, waiting calmly for the release of Task Force Admiral like a good girl.



As always, if you aren't too fond of Discord, Facebook, Twitter or else, don't forget that we have a mailing list here specifically made so as to keep you updated of all our Steam updates and other announcements which might be big enough to deserve a special treatment. Click on the pic below to access the form.



Cheers & take care, all of you! Happy New Year to you and all your loved ones!

The Task Force Admiral team.

Dear Fans,
Dear Followers,
Old & new,

Welcome to this November 2022 dev diary for Task Force Admiral.

Ok, so what do we have here this month? Two much needed functions bringing us closer to our goal by a resolute margin were on the menu.



[h2]Of evasive maneuvers, exploding fishes and sacrificial helldivers[/h2]

First, we had our first actual attack with bombs, explosions, etc... that wasn't staged. That was enough of a small event to warrant some footage, so there you go.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Everything is coming together, slowly but surely. Obviously all visual effects are placeholders & there are glitches left and right - sorry for the occasional stuttering, it's been taken care of - but overall it ain't too bad. Also, don't pay attention to the fierce efficiency of the anti-air fire, it is obviously way too murderous for now - our poor Vals playing guinea pigs were slaughtered mercilessly, so we gotta tweak that among other things, of course. But we're getting close enough to the vibe we're looking for, and it is always a heartwarming and reassuring moment indeed!

(don't be shocked to see that Porter's guns at such a high elevation, the final version will take into account the single-purpose nature of these and all related fire direction issues)

The relatively crude state of all techs across the board provided a few smiles to the assistance. As our Vals are just not rigged for complete dismemberment on impact just yet, their carcasses ended up floating in the wake of our ships in a somewhat macabre and grotesque fashion. Well, at least the flotation part of the code still works, it seems!



At any rate, one might say that the main meat of this video was not really the pew-pew part. To be honest, it would rather be the whole evasive logic instead. As you can see on the video, our Task Force tries to remain cohesive & to maneuver together, as concentrated AA fire is the difference between life & death.



As enemy torpedo planes approach, the main units in your force will maneuver so as to offer as small a target profile as possible, usually running in the other direction if it can help putting some additional distance between the attackers and themselves. Their screen will maneuver with them, so as to keep their station and firing arcs optimum (which, hopefully, you'll have adjusted using the relevant formation before the attack). The goal for the friendly AI is to have the enemy torpedo bombers fly as far, as long as possible before reaching a favorable attack position, optimizing the chances for interception and loss of attack coordination. Even then, once the torpedo bombers will start their run, the ships will maneuver a second time so as to avoid the torpedoes themselves. Once the danger has passed, the ships will return to their previous heading, or prepare for the next wave if the enemy is already in sight. The opening sequence in the video precisely shows that happening.



At the end of the day, do not expect to hit ships moving at high speed too easily without favorable circumstances and numbers. Conducting a torpedo and dive bomber strike at the same time, and having enough torpedo bombers to enable a pincer attack to begin with will increase your chances of a successful attack remarkably, as only then will the enemy ships be forced into the difficult task of picking the lesser threat between two evils. Besides, as time goes, the formation will start to gradually lose cohesion, especially when some of its ships will start reacting individually to immediate threats, possibly decreasing the effectiveness of the defensive fire.

Sometimes you're lucky. Sometimes you're very much less so...!

[h2]Aircraft Management[/h2]

The second item on the list this month, as those who follow us on our social media platforms certainly know, was the design of a proper in-game interface for aircraft management. Not that we're planning on overwhelming you with tasks in that department (that is still fully automated, for your own good to be honest), we aim at providing the player with the clearest picture when it comes to knowing what your air group is up to. And oh dear, that's one busy part of your carrier indeed!

(Playing around little aircraft aboard USS Randolph - CV-15 in 1945. Ref 80-G-K-5395 from the NHHC website)

It all started with that: how could we turn the above view into something useful for the player? It actually came in very early in development, and one of our very first prototypes, 4 years ago, actually started with the idea that the Ouija (as it is called after the mystical board) should be an important part of gameplay.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
(very, VERY early prototype from our first trials back in 2018. The model was the World of Warships CV-6 that we had bought online thinking it was a legit one, ah jeez we were young & innocent back then...)
(Also, don't tell JB our dev I've shown it to you, or I am a dead man)

At any rate, the 3D version was cool, but let's be honest: it had no business down there in the flag plot, and it was going to be a lot of effort expanded for comparatively little gameplay potential, as we are not exactly remaking Carrier Deck here and can't afford to have the player mess around the parking spots and the missions all at the same time. That's why, four years later, when the topic came back to our attention, we went for something else which, just 15 days ago, looked like that:



Just a few days later, it had turned into this



And then... Into this





Gotta say, these were 14 very busy days. In its final form, the Ouija screen allows you to check quickly and simply in an overlay window the current status of each and every aircraft aboard a given carrier (and potentially within an airbase too). It will show you all the planes in different shades of color depending on their status (whether they are unassigned, assigned to a mission, ready to go, etc...), will tell you which one is going where, and allow you to visualize the flight deck as it is in the process of being reorganized for the next phase. You will be allowed to swap aircraft between the hangar floor and the storage area (a.k.a. the space overhead in an American carrier) where spare aircraft are stored. These will require time to be assembled. Same with the aircraft undergoing maintenance and repairs, which will have their own little icon depending on their current status. As you can see, there's more to come, but it's taking shape.



Now that the system is undergoing stress testing with the utmost number of aircraft would could expect to see aboard a Yorktown class carrier (based on the actual data we had from the historical battles, especially at Santa Cruz where Hornet and Enterprise were packed at full capacity), we are relieved to see that everything seems to be going according to the plans, give or take a few little issues. It is, at the end of the day, an efficient AI-based solution to our needs, although it certainly doesn't have the brains to replace the wits of a creative human deck officer. And believe us, it is not because we don't think you'd have the needed smarts either, but it's quite a specialized job to manage all this, and it deserves its own game. Perhaps someday, who knows? Not on the menu just yet though, and until then it's for your own good. Let's see how well you behave as a Flag officer first, and only then will we see if we can recycle your talent into some actual job...! :P



That's all for today Folks! As always, if you aren't too fond of Discord, Facebook, Twitter or else, don't forget that we have a mailing list here specifically made so as to keep you updated of all our Steam updates and other announcements which might be big enough to deserve a special treatment. Click on the pic below to access the form.



Cheers & see you for our next update!

The Task Force Admiral team.

Dear Fans,
Dear Followers,
Old & new,

Welcome to this October 2022 dev diary for Task Force Admiral.

Some new progress to show this month. Most has been showcased in our previous weekly updates on our social platforms, but as these are usually limited in terms of length of text and media quantity, this update is an opportunity to put that all somewhere, where it matters, and where it will last!

We will actually start with the main dish. Those who have been following us know that we have been making steady progress in the development of the GUI & gameplay-related functions over the last few weeks, bringing Task Force Admiral every day a bit closer to an actual game, rather than a mere tech demonstrator, if I was to be say it in a silly way. Here's a series of comments we posted regarding our scouting system and how the AI interacts with it, which will offer some insight in what we've been doing.



First of all, we've been teaching our Artificial Intelligence engine the ropes of carrier combat - and carrier combat 101 says that a good battle starts with some good scouting. This was also the opportunity to test our basic friendly fog of war. Indeed, we wanted to make sure that you actually lose contact with your scouts (at least as a permanently spotted, accurate plot on the map) the moment they leave your immediate sighting and radar range. That worked. And when they come back, they are also coming back as unidentified aircraft, so that works too. So far so good.

Still, it would be a bit unfair to leave you with no clue whatsoever in regard of where their position is, so we added a small icon on their flight plan which tells you where they should be if everything went well. Naturally, if they got shot down without sending a report, them not returning at all will be your first hint that perhaps not everything went so well on that specific search sector...



In other cases, we also had contacts spotted before a radical turn, and with the original spotter shot down shortly after its first report, the AI was not updated and sent its aircraft out there in the void. An embarrassing episode for that Japanese raid indeed, missing its target by a whole 50-60 miles. Bad luck, but all too historical actually!



By recreating the conditions for the random blunders of the era, we sure hoped to see our game recreate them organically, with as little intervention on our part as possible. Fortunately, our theory in terms of design did deliver ultimately, and we had our first small AI carrier vs AI carrier engagement proceeding as it should - that is, absolutely chaotically. We have described it below:



Ok, it wasn't really a full-fledged carrier battle, as we're still adding feature after feature, but that was the first time carriers actually engaged each other in some remotely comprehensive way that involved a full day of scouting & attacks, before retiring at night (which was helped by the fact that these ships cannot sustain damage as of now - again, upcoming features).

What was more interesting was that it was a full AI on AI battle, with no human intervention, and it was pretty fun to see how things evolved organically from very similar, remotely different standpoints using our observer mode. It might look like much from here, but believe me it tells some beautiful stories, really, and ends up being a happy confirmation that the gameplay certainly has much original potential.
The day started with a scouting mission programmed for each side. Both carrier task forces had an "interdiction" task set for them, which implied that they would search a given sector, either provided by the scenario maker (the case here), the player (if it's a friendly TF) or generated from known data (that is, around the area the AI would expect the enemy to be the day following a loss of contact later during a scenario).



As scouts went on their respective business, they both encountered the enemy and reported its position. The scouts on the IJN side were sent up faster (as the US carriers started in a recovery mode, necessitating a few extra minutes of rearrangement of the aircraft on deck). That mere factor changed a lot of things, actually.



As the scouts left the vicinity of the enemy force (ultimately you will be free to order them to loiter & shadow relevant enemy forces, but it wasn't part of their instructions here), strikes were prepared on both sides. The scouts weren't shot down (we haven't programmed automatic CAP yet) so they went to the end of their research leg and returned. The info having reached the Japanese carrier force first, it meant that the Japanese raid went out first and cleared the decks before the return of the US scout above the Japanese TF.



On the other hand, the US strike was still assembling when the Japanese scout came back, and it was shot down by a fighter.



This resulted in the Japanese losing sight of the US force, while the US side didn't. As both carrier task forces changed their heading a few minutes after that to remain in range of the enemy, the US acout came back in time to report this change, but nobody was now in position to do so on the Japanese side. The result is that despite faster reaction times, the Japanese strike was sent on a wild goose chase. As the Japanese bomber slipped by the US force, missing it from 50-60 nautical miles, the US force went straight for the enemy. Yet, the US force also experienced its own issues: it was now approaching the Japanese carriers with part of its escort lagging behind after having attacked the snooper...



These events are actually reminiscent of actions that took place on different sides in 1942 (the afternoon IJN raid at Eastern Solomons, which missed completely the US force for the first one ; the catastrophic distraction of Hiryu's escorting force at Midway, going out of its way to intercept lagging SBDs on the ingress leg, along with a comparable event at Santa Cruz for the second). And it is refreshing to know that these kind of SNAFU events can be generated by the flow of battle as long as the conditions are met to recreate their causes. That's what happens with a handful of aircraft in the air - imagine when there will be dozens of them, with their comms & doctrine fully implemented. Can't wait!



As October went along, we added feature after feature to the engine. The AI is now capable of setting up CAP patrols and is actively engaging incoming strikes all by itself.



We are also working on AAA (anti-air artillery) logic. We are testing guns on a few platforms first, so as to make sure that they will be properly calibrated in-game. But even with just a mere two ships firing, the results are pretty convincing, if not impressive at times in terms of volume of fire... Approaching a US Task Force will ill intents will be costly, as it should be!
















It's all very work in progress of course, but it's a good taste of things to come. This one is quite buggy, because the ships did not have a hitbox yet, and the aircraft don't explose on impact just yet, but here's a Val getting shot down on its dive and hitting the water just a few feet away from the carrier, like it happened so often in 1942. Hopefully this aspect will be functional in time for the next dev update - and I'll happily try to record a Val attack from Yorktown's vulture's row!



And, last but not least, a few shots of the Japanese strike getting home. Or at least, whatever is left of it after overstaying its welcome over the US task force (and yeah don't worry, Shokaku's antennas will be lowered during air ops, eventually!)







Ok, that was a long trek already. Now for those who like nice looking models, we had a new addition to the roster with Wasp, re-made with much love by our 3D artist Rizki. I am quite sure those among you who know about that one lady will appreciate the research he went through so as to recreate all aspects of her specific construction.



Her peculiar side elevator has always been a fan's favorite. It will be around for sure, at least, when we'll have understood how to animate it properly!



She's getting the full treatment, and is nearly ready for integration. With some more objects added...



... and her basic skin applied, she will soon encounter the digital paintbrush of Julien, our 2D artist, for her second life, a little more than 80 years after her dramatic loss.



Now, as a final shout-out, I wanted to mention two videos of importance released this month about Task Force Admiral. First, obviously Stealth17's blockbuster who brought us quite a few new fans from all around the world. If you were interested in hearing a second opinion about our July gameplay trailer, search no more, that man has you covered!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

And yet, if the perspective of a longtime UAD player wasn't close to enough, let me introduce you to Tim Migaki's take on the very same trailer - only this time for a full hour, and coming from somebody who's into real-life naval matters. About that, if you're into Navy stuff of all sort, and especially literature, don't hesitate to pay his great blog Fair Winds & Following Seas a visit!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Big thanks to both of them for their kind coverage

That is all for today Folks! Thank you all kindly for your attention, dear followers. Hope that extended gibberish made sense. That was another long one, but don't worry though - unlike what has been claimed by some out there - to my bewilderment really... - these updates do not affect in any way the pace of development, besides providing our single dev with some comfort to see his work being acknowledged and archived (who knows, we might need that for a making-of some day!). Our online presence is fully handled by yours truly, the producer, who doesn't get to write a single line of code or author a single stroke of virtual brush. Besides contributing to keep our feet firmly on the ground, while developing a sense of responsibility in regard of the feedback we offer our community and our publisher, these updates are a handy way to maintain a presence online and reassure those who might be wondering about the state of development of our baby. Hopefully, some of you do enjoy these monthly rendezvous. At the very least, we do!

As always, if you aren't too fond of Discord, Facebook, Twitter or else, don't forget that we have a mailing list here specifically made so as to keep you updated of all our Steam updates and other announcements which might be big enough to deserve a special treatment. Click on the pic below to access the form.




Cheers & see you for our next update!

The Task Force Admiral team.

Dear Fans,
Dear Followers,
Old & new,

Welcome to this September 2022 dev diary for Task Force Admiral.

Life’s been sweet to us in September, at least by the standards set by 2023. We didn’t have much to complain about, we were among our loved ones, doing our work. That work, unfortunately for most of it wasn’t very graphic, and as such can only be mostly explained through the unabashed use of walls of text and a few diagrams. Yet, it was an important step in the direction of providing Task Force Admiral with a soul beyond its pretty face.

Operation Barebones, the codename we gave to our basic playable slice, is well on its way. This month was all about artificial intelligence & its strategic implications, along with efforts to provide the game with its strategic layer. With each passing week, Task Force Admiral is morphing into an actual game, and like many of you might think - clearly it was about time!



So as to make sure that the enemy and friendly AI in Task Force Admiral behaves in a believable fashion, we need to reconstruct carefully a scheme of thought. The AI will be asked to adhere to this logic, that tries to emulate the process you would expect from a commander faced with dilemmas, over and over again, and reacts dynamically to them – with some sense, but often with some wrong assumptions of his own. It means developing a specific set of tasks which will identify clear goals, whether these are dictated by the original mission objectives or by the ever-evolving combat situation.



Another department where some sweat was expended in no small measure is our interface for the Naval Search missions. Separate from defensive and offensive missions, this tool will ultimately allow you to program your sector searches, the ubiquitous opening move of any proper carrier battle during which both sides send scouts to locate their opponent before launching a strike.



Yet, although it is a common matter treated by all games about the topic, Naval Search ended up being a remake of the irreconcilable "the chicken or the egg" kind of conundrum: setting up a flightplan based on a given sector you wish to investigate (aka populating it with your aircraft) vs. generating a sector from the aircraft you have available. Sounds kinda simple & harmless enough, but it ends up being a rather game design-defining choice, and a tough one at that!

Each system had a few issues of its own when it came to providing us with the tools needed for the job. The latter is actually what people usually have in games like that - say, in Carriers at War, Task Force & Pacific Air War, for instance. You add aircraft from your pool, sub-sectors are created each time and add to each other, and there you go, that's the good old Microprose way many of you have been used to, easy to use. I'd know that, I could use it when I was 9 and set in another language, so it must have been pretty handy after all!



On the other hand, you also have the rarer breed of the sector taking precedence over aircraft themselves, 2by3's War in the Pacific being one example. But even then, a squadron is limited to one sector search at a time, which means that you need two units when you need to cover two sectors. Mostly, each technique encountered can be either put under one or the other doctrine, with their own limitations. These are limitations we attempted to solve in TFA, hopefully with some luck, observing the best practices and learning from our illustrious forebearers. Here's the preliminary result we came up with.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

After some experimenting, we ended up convinced that the mission itself (aka the area to search) shall be the defining item, rather than the result of the air assets you have in hand - and if the latter don't work to cover your needs, then you'll have to revise your needs to take your limitations into account. Similarly, using a mission-based system rather than a plane-based system allows you to create as many search plans as you like, including two-phased ones or sector searches going in opposite directions, yet worked on separately by aircraft from the same squadron.

This done, the next stage will now include the vital doctrine-related & behavioral choices we want to inject in the gameplay, so as to allow you to brief your scout pilots - simply, but with some clarity - regarding what you expect from them. We will hopefully cover that in the next update, if all things go well in October, that is!



While Jean Baptiste our coder was busy trying to assemble the brains of our game, one cog at a time, obviously other had his own workload.

Now that most of the fleet is on its way to finalization, our 3D artist had some spare time to dedicate for a smaller task – and by that we don’t mean a matter not less important in the larger scheme of thing, but purely something that doesn’t involve big ships, but little men.



Our local pixeltruppen, that is our digital sailors, officers & other crewmen, are often requested as a feature in the comments left & right in our social media. Do understand that they are a concern for us all the same, but we are looking for the right most satisfying and balanced way of including them to the game without incurring a disproportional workload that would possibly affect our overall timetable and pipeline. For now, we will probably settle for static crewmen which will certainly add some bits of life to the scenes, despite their unequivocal stillness.



Adding animated models would require the opening of a different can of worms we can ill afford right now, but obviously our wish is to get there at some time down the line, especially if we were to be successful at release. It is, when all things are said and done, in the category of pure eye-candy, but this is the sort of feature that contributes its own valuable little step towards an improved overall immersion.



In the same fashion, don't expect these soldiers above to jump out of their Daihatsu barge and storm a beach. For now, it is all about adding some more immersion to the mix, and we will certainly develop this further as time goes once the game will be seating on solid foundations. But until then, at least we won't be afflicted with that silly "ghost ship syndrome" most of you dislike so much! Better than nothing, like they say.



As for the 2D front, we’ve been painting new ships one after another, while still researching better rendering techniques for our vehicles. As our skins are all layered with different effect, working on a given layer in order to improve a given effect doesn’t impact workflow as much as it used to back in the day when a single overall skin was to include everything you needed to dress up your model. Rivets in particular are a tough customer. Whether they are visible or flushed, they still require an extra bit of attention to render properly while being optimized so as not to slow gameplay to a crawl when a wave of 50 SBD is about to dive on the Kido Butai. The progress is probably more apparent with pics rather than words, so I’ll let the pixels speak!



And that will be all for this update! As a final word, yet again, don't forget that we have a mailing list here specifically made so as to keep you updated of all our Steam updates and other announcements which might be big enough to deserve a special treatment. Click on the pic below to access the form.



Cheers & see you for our next update!

The Task Force Admiral team.