Task Force Admiral News

Dear Fans,
Dear Followers,
Old & new,

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

Hopefully we'll keep it short and to the point, with a recap of a few items of interest that have been explored this month, including some that were kept for this very update.

First of all, the video of the month, this time courtesy of our 3D artist Rizki. As people often ask us questions about our ships and how they're done, our artist filmed himself while recreating a ship from head to toe. Nothing fancy, it is an auxiliary, so it is comparatively simple - yet it is probably a good introductory video for those who might be interesting in trying out their skills in 3D ship making. Everybody has to start somewhere - might as well start with him!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

His technique was mostly self-taught, like it is the case with many artists out there, so it certainly doesn't mean that there's a single right way to get to the final result. Yet, as Task Force Admiral will have to display massive engagements over a very large area, we made sure that all elements in the pipeline were as optimized as they can get. At the end of the day, this ship is a good example, as a game ready model which required less than 30,000 triangles. Sometimes the perfectionism, especially when it is all about applied knowledge, is about doing more with less rather than the other way around.



Featured in the video is AD-15 Prairie, as a good example of the auxiliaries you will find in-game. As a Dixie class tender, she shared a hull with USS Dixie (AD-14), but also in most part submarine tenders USS Fulton (AS-11) and USS Sperry (AS-12) and to some extent USS Curtiss (AV-4) - which requires a big fat hangar on the stern - all of which at one point or another contributed to the battles and theaters featured in Task Force Admiral vol.1, and will show up where they are supposed to be. And if they don't, well, you'll be free to tailor make some scenarios to make them shine! They will be joined by a large family of other smaller combatants, merchants or specialized vessels. Often ignored in the domain of gaming, auxiliaries were actually the most common sight even at sea or off the coast of Guadalcanal. Giving them the attention they deserve is paramount to making Task Force Admiral a bit different from what came before it, hopefully all for the best.



Note that Prairie and her sisters are only halfway to her homeport. It is time for Julien our 2D artist to ride the pipeline and use the assets produced by our 3D artist to give the ship her final look. In a game like Task Force Admiral, it is important to make the most out of the 2D art itself so as to complement, enhance the 3D model. Now that the original skin has been produced by Rizki, Julien can work his magic and start providing the ship with as many liveries as required - as you can see here with Kongo Maru, another one of these ubiquitous designs that you will often encounter in the game, and bomb accordingly.



The amount of work Julien accomplishes when fine-tuning 3D models into the ships you will have in-game is absolutely paramount to the end-user experience. You can very easily compared the result between the base 3D model of Yamato (1941) when she was fresh from the 3D shop in the July update, and how she looks like now, after a few good strokes of paintbrush and a huge load of talent. Hopefully we'll get to show you Prairie in her new clothes soon enough too!



Don't worry though, the art team wasn't the only one hard at work this month. Despite a short Summer respite so that we could spend a few quiet days with the family, one cannot say that time wasn't used productively



First of all, performance tuning is still on-going, and we did step it up a bit further. After the 50 v 50 dogfights of a few months ago, we wondered how it would scale beyond that, with, say, 200 aircraft and 50 or so ships in the same scene. We're happy to say that it is still going fine, with zero bug in sight. A most important matter when a battle like Midway entails having around 500 aircraft and 40 ships maneuvering in such a tight space. If they were to all meet in the middle of the ocean, one would have to take into account the workload of the AI and the effects proper, but when it comes to displaying these numbers, we are not too afraid.



On the GUI (Graphical User Interface) front, we have started the design process on the counters you will be using on the strategic map. Although the old tabletop-like wargame counters you could see in the original trailers were kinda cool (at least to yours truly ^^) and worked fine in our prototypes, it quickly became obvious that they were unfortunately a cul-de-sac design-wise. They wouldn't indicate the heading of the relevant task force or contact, would definitely loose clarity when zoomed out, even when rescaled... And last but not least, we just did not find a satisfying way to have them coexist when two forces are so close to each other that some sort of merging was required.



As such, we had to stray away from a purely skeuomorphistic approach by abstracting them to some extent. This will have the combined advantages of making the mission of the task forces clearer, and more obvious to the untrained eyed, while the round shape allows us to put a directional indicator along the ring. Although these below were early prototypes, we are definitely heading that way. Note that the large space above the ships will probably be used for a nationality flag to add to their readability. The facing will also help our color-blind players to more easily distinguish between friends and foes, beyond the colors themselves. As for the other information, it will be displayed in a dedicated pop up window during fly overs, not unlike what you had in games such as Task Force 1942 or 1942: The Pacific Air War.



Once the display system will be in place, at least sufficiently for proper testing, we will spend our time on the AI logic that brings these forces in contact and in conflict. Task Forces types, Tasks and waypoint types and everything they cover will finally be designed and implemented fully. As for the rest, it's reaching a point that I might call "mature" enough for dedicating our next round of effort to substance rather than looks. Getting there boys!



August was also, naturally the 80th anniversary of Operation Watchtower, which marked the beginning of the Guadalcanal campaign. Like all the rendezvous of 1942, we couldn't let that go without a small homage.



It came in the form of Julien's latest painting, depicting the last moments of unfortunate USS Quincy, sunk 80 years ago off the coast of Guadalcanal in the first of many bloody surface engagements in what was to become the Iron Bottom Sound. CA-39 sustained crippling damage during the engagement, leading to a dramatic loss of life, leaving more than half of her complement dead, wounded or missing in action.

Those who have an interest in learning more about her fate can read her official damage/loss report, available online at the Navy History and Heritage Command at this address.



Click here to download the high-res JPG version of Julien's work.



Finally, a shout out to Jochen Heiden, a noted War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition who has taken a liking to Task Force Admiral and has begun to cover us, and has kindly offered us shelter on his discord server too!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

His tutorials are the top of the crop when it comes to taming that tough beast that is WitP:AE, so don't hesitate to subscribe to his channel if you are among the few ones who got acquainted with this monument these days, as it is sitting at a formidable -80% discount for an extra few days. If you're a PTO fan, that one game was very much worth its $80 - you can expect it to deliver all the same at $16! ːsteamthumbsupː



That is all for today Folks!

Thank you all kindly for your attention, dear followers. Wishing you all a fine life September, especially to all those who study and work at school – days ahead remain tough, but there's one thing you can be certain of, is that we're way too far in development to let you down. Hopefully, we'll see each other again for great news by the end of the Fall. By the way, if you don't want to miss a thing, and aren't 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 July 2022 dev diary for Task Force Admiral.

As always, the last few weeks have been filled with honest progress. A specific care was given to the optimization of the game environment, in regard of the tech of course, but the GUI in its larger meaning too. Let’s go over the contents of the last months, including some new cool stuff released just yesterday.

The part of the GUI relevant to player user experience has been discussed already at length in the previous video – although we do have a new version now, with a spoken narration. We also added some extra trivia regarding our vision of how history can be made to speak to you through the diegetic interface we have been designing. It might be worth a look if you haven’t seen the original video – and even then, we have thrown in a few more gameplay sequences at the end that might sweeten the deal!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Talking about behind the scenes contents, we just had an interview with the right honorable Wolfpack345 some of you no doubt know well for his adventures over the Russian front, the Solomons or the bottom of the Norwegian sea. He was kind enough to extend an invitation to us for this new feature, and we went for it. Obviously our game designer is no professional interviewee, but it was a first for Wolfpack, so we were in good company! We did throw in there a lot of original contents, especially some nice sequences of Rizki, our 3D artist, and Julien, our 2D illustrator hard at work. The complete videos will be released later in early August – it will be a treat for whoever among you is into naval architecture using Blender, or digital painting.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Finally, in regard of non-player GUI, we also made a lot of progress on the integration tools we will be using ourselves when calibrating ships and aircraft in the game. These tools, readily available in the general interface of the engine, will be available to some extent to those among you who might want to tweak around the ships – or add your own creations. Task Force Admiral in its current form will be a single player game, so there is little incentive to prevent you from playing around the properties and try your own stuff. We are of the opinion that good games inspire people to mod them – while great games actually give them the tools to do so. We’ll do what we can to steer in the direction of the latter.



In the meantime, these tools are practical for those in our team who can now give a hand to our developer without prior experience with coding & all the sweet programmer stuff. It will certainly improve the workflow – all these 90 ships and 40 aircraft ain’t going to get right into the game all by themselves, are they! Talking about the former, let's finish this update with a few screenshots of the latest additions to the Japanese roster. Not all ships are at the same level of finish just yet, and the textures are the main mapping (that is the clothes that come with the 3D model) not the final deal just yet. But we know we have a few Nihon Kaigun enthusiasts in here who will not say no to some more additional relevant eye candy... So there you go, enjoy it all thoroughly!








Thank you all kindly for your attention, dear followers. Wishing you all a fine life & a safe Summer – take good care of yourselves, and of all those you love!

Cheers & see you for our next update in late August!

The Task Force Admiral team.

Dear Fans,
Dear Followers,
Old & new,

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

It is coming late in June, but it’s still June!
Don’t worry, what we are showing to you today was certainly worth the wait. As the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Midway went by, we did not rest – quite the opposite. That is the sort of event that gives you wings, and tells you that it is about time to go public about a certain number of points.



It just so happens that our builds are starting to really feel like, look like, play like a real game, so why not go all in and give you a sneak peek? We’ve run the game for a good 10 minutes, in order to showcase a few features which are nearing their completed stage. We are not showing everything – we are actually only showcasing some of the basic functions, and a lot of contents were either not finalized or not ready just yet for a demonstration. A few disclaimers are below the video in the description section - don't be too scared, it is all very much Work in Progress, and it is not entirely representative of the final state, beyond the underlying big chunks of code at work.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Still, consider these bits of contents as the tree that hides the forest, as there is still much more depth left to explore: search ops, attack operations, anti-air artillery, strategic movement & tasking, surface combat, chain of command & communications, submarine encounters... It is all there at different levels of completion, and all will come in due time, but fear not, we’re getting a bit closer, and it kinda shows.



This video aside, our collection of loading screens dedicated to the Battle of Midway have got larger with two new artworks from Julien. One of them depicts the workhorse of the Patrol squadrons, the Catalina, which played a pivotal role during the battle, contributing to the final victory in no small measure. The machine depicted is PBY-5A BuNo 04982 (callsign 8V55) from VP-44, which was the first to report the invasion force on June 3. Another PBY (BuNo 04975) sharing this callsign & this search sector was shot down and forced to ditch the next day by three F1M2 observation planes from Chitose, becoming the only combat casualty of the Patrol squadrons during the battle.



Another one depicts the final fight of Chikuma's n°5 Aichi E13A “Jake” scout floatplane, shot down by a Combat Air Patrol from Task Force 16 in the early afternoon on the first day of the battle. I will let John Lundstrom, the author of the First Team describe the action so much better than I would:



Both are very representative of the kind of action you will go through yourself when playing Task Force Admiral. Catalinas will be there to serve as the eyes of the fleet, and will sometimes be your last hope to find and fish out of the drink one of your precious airmen (who happen to be worth a few victory points too!).





As for the snoopers of all sorts, being shadowed by the enemy is always a bad sign and the first signal that things are going to turn sour very quickly. Jakes are nimble aircraft, and not so easy to down when there is plenty of cloud cover around... Don’t underestimate them, truly, sometimes shooting them down might very well buy you a few extra minutes of respite, and will possibly be the difference between life and death for your Task Force. Just make sure to only shoot down enemy "seagulls", not one of your own...!



That’s all for today! We do hope that you will enjoy our little video. We will probably write more in the next update, and add some updated visuals too. Stay tuned for our July contribution, hopefully a bit earlier than on the last day of the month this time!

Cheers and take care

The Task Force Admiral team.

Dear Fans,
Dear Followers,
Old & new,

Welcome to this May dev diary for Task Force Admiral.

As promised, we are now on a monthly schedule. This one will be dedicated to air-to-air mechanics.



[h2]Hello to all our new friends! (aka thanks Shermie!)[/h2]

First of all, allow us a shout-out to Sherman on Youtube, who had the kindness to cover us in a video earlier this month. Seems it went quite well (100k+ views, cool!) and there's a lot of you out there who mentioned how they'd love TFA to somewhat bring back the emotions we all had when playing Battlestations more than a decade ago. Well, we can't promise anything when it comes to direct control of units, although it is considered to some extent for future development - but be certain we'll do what we can to have the sort of looks, sound environment & general vibe necessary to look the part!

At any rate, here are the sequences - some of them original, some of them longer versions of scenes you might have seen already. Hope you'll enjoy the ride. As for all our new followers who joined us following this vid, welcome aboard - and let's get to the next item of interest.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Drama in the air: developing air combat and TFA's flying fighting machines[/h2]



We have reached a point in development where we're busy testing - if I might say, even brute stress-testing - existing mechanics so as to ensure that they will work properly, especially in the demanding scope of an actual carrier battle. As you certainly know, these engagements could involve dozens, if not hundreds of aircraft in relatively close distance of each other, all busy with their own mission and priorities. At one point at Midway, literally more than three hundred planes were in flight between Midway, the Kido Butai and the American carrier task forces.



Granted, not everybody was engaged at the same time in the same spot, but still we have to plan for contingencies. In an alternative world, where the US commanders get their act together, Midway's own attack force, say, could have been striking at the Japanese carriers at the same time as all the converging carrier-based raids, while the Japanese were launching their own raids. In such an extreme scenario, what would happen to your computer next?



Well, good news, we ran some tests: seems like your computer will be alright. That's a good start, isn't it! Unlikely 100 v 100 dogfights were set, and our computers are handling that like fairly well. That one thing is a relief already, and it is pleasing to know that this part of the development is on the right track. Engagements of a moderately epic scale (for the genre that is... We ain't UEBS in the air either) will be possible and should allow us to rest easy when simulating some of the most complicated battles of 1942, including on a resource-heavy map like this one which encompasses the Solomons, New Hebrides, New Britain, a bit of New Ireland and a big chunk of Papua New-Guinea.



This also allowed us to explore a bit further the damage system. As you can see above, each aircraft is made of larger main parts (wings, fuselage, tail, engine which all have a certain amount of hitpoint before they finally break down, possibly with catastrophic consequences). Sub-systems, such as the pilot himself, fuel tanks, landing gear, radios, other avionics when present (IFF, navigation homing devices, radars), guns, etc... will be added to each aircraft and can be damaged or destroyed by the occasional bullet or shell. It is, obviously, nowhere close to the sort of detail you would have in a simulation like, say, Il-2, but it is still a good compromise considering we're making a wargame with an air combat element - and not the other way around (we'll mention this again later in this update).



Now, as for how combat proper would look, I guess a video is worth a thousand words. Here are a few minutes captured and put together in a short showcase.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

So, what you're looking at is our fighter AI interacting on both sides of the aisle, trying to make best use of the aircraft flight models and overall doctrine they're provided with. The pace of the action is deliberate: Task Force Admiral doesn't try or ambitions to be on the arcade side of things. Air combat will be at times murderous, but it's nothing like the sort of overkill you'd see in action movies or more recent action games. We try to inject some humanity in our pixel pilots: they are not omniscient, their actions require a base reaction time, wingmen will try to cover their leaders before going for the cheap kill, etc... We encourage them to exploit the vertical plane and the offensive and defensive maneuvers (split-S, Immelmann, scissors) that make good use of it. That would explain why in this sequence, you see them start the engagement over the clouds and end up on the deck. Besides, when specific conditions are met, complex defensive maneuvers like the Lufberry circle or the Thach Weave, or beam defense maneuver like Thach would call it himself, will be attempted by sections under pressure.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Overall, it is not perfect, but it feels real enough so as not to warrant much more work for the time being. We'll fine tune AI behavior based on results once we get an actual battle running from the beginning to the end, including through the calibration and use of varying skill levels for the pilots (Midway-era VF-8, watch out!).

At any rate, for those who did not know about our earlier efforts regarding the implementation of complex tactics, please check out our old video about the Weave - that one ain't nothing new, but if you had missed it, here it is for your enjoyment!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

In regard of aircraft performance, that one recurring question, we will stick with what is made available to us from the archives. Then again, we don't pretend to hold the holy truth when it comes to aircraft specs - honestly who does? Old Il-2 hands who have been around for a couple decades will know what I am talking about. But we'll try as much as possible to remain faithful to the references we have in our possession.

Our main dev JB has developed a tool that allows him to double-check in-game aircraft performance against actual curves from existing data. Such a feature should also be welcome if you were to mod that thing down the road, whether it is about tweaking the performance of existing aircraft... or pre-visualizing the flight characteristics of new ones.




[h2]History corner: Fighter sections in action, or where game design comes from[/h2]

As small essay might appear necessary, as to explain what you were watching just earlier, exactly. That is, how we proceed when we design our AI behavior, in regard of what references we use, and why we’ll always go with doctrine, reference literature and statistics over a mere “gut-feeling” whenever we can afford to do so.

One thing that might not seem too obvious and lead to some surprise when watching the action depicted in the videos, is the way the said action seems to be based around sections rather than individual planes. Indeed, it so happens that modern takes on World War 2 air combat in our films and video games tend to completely set aside the importance of the section as the actual basic combat element, instead of individual aircraft. Much like naval surface combat is in fact a game of divisions (we'll come back to this in due time), naval air combat in 1942 in the Pacific (I wouldn’t go as far as commenting other theaters) was a matter of tactical sections bouncing tactical sections. Although we could very well indulge in that department and go with the flow, it just did not feel right, especially as a starting point for our game series.



Certainly, what you see is arguably showing near-perfect behavior and discipline on part of our pixel pilots, which was what was expected, yet not always found in actual American pilots, and even less so in their Japanese counterparts. We'll make sure to add some more uncertainty to all of this, especially through our pilot proficiency system. Yet, the section - and formation flight in combat - was not just a fancy impracticable idea born from the desk of officers safely theorizing behind the lines. These combat methods were designed by actual fliers, and flown in combat by then.

In regard of the section concept proper, its point was to precisely enable, well, section combat tactics. These could only be done as long as fighter pilots followed “intensive training in maintaining position in a section formation in every type of section maneuver.” Indeed, as “the section being the basic unit of the fighting squadron, every section must be thoroughly trained to maneuver as a unit at all times.” (USF-74, 2-302 – Basic training)



Section tactics have their use on the offensive, where the wingmen are expected to cover each other during firing passes, but obviously are the condition sine qua non to enable some of the more complex team-based defensive maneuvers, such as the Lufbery Circle or later on the Thach Weave. To be pretty straightforward, you can’t make a circle alone, nor can you weave without another friendly aircraft (or ideally, by the book, another section). These maneuvers were important enough that the Beam Defense Position (as Thach called the Weave) led to the adoption, service-wide, of the divisions of four aircraft made of two sections, instead of the (until then) regular divisions of six aircraft made of three sections, as the earlier model left one section without a role or a cover. Even then, this reform and the tactics which motivated it were only allowed by a prior change in 1941, when the Navy, learning from the lessons of air combat over Europe, had converted the basic fighter tactical unit from the three-plane section to the pair. That’s how important these formations were: they defined the shape of fighter air combat by merely subtracting a plane from a section, or a section from a division. Ordered air combat was no furball – nor was it fantasy, as it was the foundation of the greater success the US Navy would obtain in the air, first in the Solomons with the performance-challenged F4F, then for the rest of the war with its more potent successors.

Agreed, there’s still much to do to give the Japanese counterpart, the Shotai, the same sort of relevant treatment in-game, and take into account the relative yet well-documented hotshot tendency of its pilots. But at the end of the day though Task Force Admiral is - we'll repeat it, sorry - a wargame with a lite air sim component, and not the other around. Beyond the show, it is important for us to focus on the actual results & statistics of the encounters we orchestrate, and put to rest a few popular tropes along the way if need be. In that regard, this leads us to another cliché that might need some clarification too – that is, overall air combat lethality.



From the little that could be collected from the comments made under the videos posted above, some viewers have been worried about how deadly these combats would be if the AI is not able to pick every single opportunity to shoot its guns at the enemy. It just so happens though that the overall death toll of naval fighter air combat over the Pacific in the first half of 1942 is particularly underwhelming compared to your average video game session.

Naval fighter encounters for instance (that is, every time a carrier-based US fighter type met with its Japanese Navy counterpart, be it a carrier or shore-based squadron) between Pearl Harbor and June 1942 can be counted with seven of your fingers alone, actually, as you can see in the table below. Note that all aircraft were not all engaged at the same time or at all, and that bombers were present too (but here only fighter on fighter kills are accounted for). Damaged aircraft are indicated when known in details, and this table does not claim to be overly accurate (it was compiled for the sake of the argument), but gives a good idea of the actual losses. Note that 3 to 4 times as many kills (or more!) were routinely claimed by the airmen on both sides during the very same actions.



For most of the pilots involved in these encounters, it was their very first experience with air combat. Some had not flown in a combat environment at all before these dogfights. In addition, US combat performance during these early days was particularly vulnerable to debilitating gun jams. As these were solved and pilots on both sides learned the ins and outs of the enemy (and the limitations of their own aircraft), and as the elite Tainan Kokutai pilots started to fly over the Solomons at the very edge of their range, naturally, these losses increased. But it is a good reminder that one-sided battles were rare, and definite kills hard to achieve. Most of the excellent pilots involved in these battles never became aces, the luckiest ones had a few victories by July 1942, most none at all – and even though these numbers include bombers and search planes too, bear in mind that most of these kills were not confirmed by post-war research when they involved fighters. Unhinged sky massacres, leading to the obliteration of one side when it came to fighter combat as you know them from your usual multiplayer engagements, simply did not happen back then, that is a fact. And this is what we will base our in-game experience off, as much as we can.



Good sources for these contents are naturally books such as the legendary The First Team duology by John Lundstrom at USNI Books, and Michael Claringbould & Peter Ingman's South Pacific Air War series - and many other volumes over there at Avonmore Books. These are all very good readings which will set the mood just right for our game.



Finally, allow us to wish all Veterans, Servicemen, Servicewomen and those who love them and care for them a warm, restful, kind Memorial Day. We know there are quite a few of you from the US Navy, Marines & Coast Guard - and relatives - among our followers. A few kind words are the least we can do, even though we are not from your place - but still owe you much of our freedom, and have gone through some loss ourselves all too recently. Thank you all for your service, and the service of those you love - and please stay safe.

Take care, all of you.

The Task Force Admiral team.

Dear Fans,
Dear Followers,
Old & new,

Welcome to this Easter dev diary for Task Force Admiral.

Sorry for having made ourselves scarce over the Steam store & our own very website for so long. I would like to give you a satisfying, simple answer to that, but it is a complicated matter. If you don’t care much for devteam babbling and came for the update proper, please jump to the part beyond the next one to get in the thick of it. Otherwise, here are a few introductory words.

[h2]Short Intermission: of Steam & our Communication Conundrums[/h2]

We have not been deaf to the remarks made on the Steam general discussion boards. Yes, we have not posted much lately - but it does not mean that we were inactive, nor uninterested in maintaining the link. We simply had to make some choices.



As a small team - remember, there’s basically four of us – rest assured that we are working hard to deliver this game, and would love nothing more than to share our progress with the greater number. What is certain is that in order to reach our life goals, we all have to focus on our tasks at hand in spite of everything happening around us. Over the last few months, illness & fate have taken loved ones away, and with no exception we all experienced bad news – all of which crippled us emotionally, a feeling I am sure too many of you have experienced over the course of the last two years. Yet, fear not, for we have carried on.

None of these events proved life-threatening for the project proper, the progress of which remains unaffected overall. Nevertheless, you will certainly understand that some of us would rather use the extra time outside of what we devote to development & design to spend a few moments with the family in these trying times, or take care of important issues which cannot wait. In that regard, if we were to sacrifice something, we’d rather give up on extended communication rather than game progress proper, I think we can all agree on that. A call had to be made. It was made.

Those who follow us on social media will know that we still managed to maintain a good pace over there, with weekly updates on Twitter, Facebook & Youtube (check the community tab for the dope!). In order to maintain a proper presence on Steam – which obviously matters as it is the main public vitrine for our game, but also the most time-consuming one – we will from now on do our best to provide you with monthly updates. These will elaborate on the weekly updates already posted elsewhere, along with some new bites of good stuff. The same will apply to our website-based dev blog (which is in dire need of a new look, by the way). As we are nearing our own internal playtest, we need to put the history of our progress somewhere where it can be easily assessed and remembered, and our Steam community page seems to be the right spot for that, as eventually players will come to knock on that one door. I still remain hopeful that Steam will at some point introduce social-minded functions which will allow developers to expand less time and sweat to post even the smallest update, but we’re not quite there yet.

Anyway, to inaugurate this new monthly rendezvous here, are a few selected nuggets from the last few months. Hope you’ll enjoy the ride!



[h2]In-Game Videos in TFA - Historical Research in the Service of a Treasured Legacy[/h2]

This month, we're offering a sneak peek of the prototyping work accomplished so far in regard of our in-game videos.

Although these videos certainly do not replace a proper modern interactive tutorial (these are planned too, worry not), we thought that it would be too bad to claim the name of Microprose and yet not pay homage to this classic feature of the late 1990s. Ladies & Gentlemen, allow us to introduce you to the first chapter of our Naval Academy module Know Your Ships: The Destroyers.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

TFA is being designed in the tradition of the combat simulations and wargames of the 1990s, a time when developers would not shy away from expanding the lore of their work so as to strengthen the credibility of their game. Needless to say, our own inspiration is not coming from nowhere, and in this we're standing on the shoulders of giants, at least by the standards of our niche.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
SSI's Fighting Steel IJN campaign intro video (2000) - hosted by Jeff Baker's Youtube Channel

Obviously back in the day, simpler graphics also meant that all this content was much-needed food for the imagination, but these thick manuals, narratives and spec listings of all sorts did leave a mark in the minds of the people of our generation (aka the 30-40s crowd). When the multimedia age emerged in the mid-1990s, games started to feature more generous video and audio contents, as the new supports which were the CD-ROM and then the DVD allowed for more leeway in that department. Games like M1 Tank Platoon 2 or Fighting Steel for instance would include a series of videos with the dual purpose of being both a source of entertainment and a learning tool in an age when interactive tutorials were not the norm just yet.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Microprose's M1 Tank Platoon 2's training videos (1998) - hosted by Adam Piskorski's Youtube Channel

Those were the days, when extra contents were seen as a welcome addition to existing means of instruction. Nothing was too good, indeed, when it came to provide the player with the much needed background and awareness he/she needed as to make sure not to look too silly once in command.

To make it happen, we had to design a fully integrated video player which should allow us to play these videos with subtitles in your own language. Full English voice-over is a guarantee - as for commentaries in other languages on the other hand, we'll see how far we can get before release. Can't promise anything, but fingers are crossed!



Another perk of the in-game video system is that it will allow us to let our imagination run wild when it comes to the in-game briefings. Not only will these be detailed as thoroughly as possible so as to provide you all the important keys to understanding the overall tactical & strategic picture, but you will also be able, as custom scenario designers, to provide your own creations with the amount of multimedia contents you will deem necessary. A few months ago, we delivered the community with an early prototype which outlines the level of research & historicity we want to adopt as a hallmark of our values. Allow us to post that one here once more for the posterity!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

This one is showcasing the "long" Coral Sea scenario, which will take a few days of in-game time to complete. It begins before TF-17 strike against Tulagi, and will end with the success or the failure of the Japanese landing at Port Moresby.

Although there's nothing special on the technical side of things, we tried to innovate in regard of how the information is constructed & delivered. We went through actual archives & well-known reference books so as to try to provide the player with a realistic yet exhaustive level of intel contents. Doing so, we also tried to provide as much context as possible so that you don't need to be an actual WW2 PTO buff to understand the stakes. One of our inspirations were the briefings you had in Silent Hunter 4, others might see DNA from Silent Service 2 too!

These video sequences will be strengthened by a full text-based briefing which will contain all the details the player needs to accomplish the mission. Hopefully, it should work whether you are new to the topic or a very old Pacific hand, with Shattered Sword, Black Shoe Carrier Admiral or Neptune's Inferno as a bedside companion!

[h2]The Tactical View and the Fleet Board - New Ideas to Visualize Old Needs[/h2]

Task Force Admiral will ship with a few interesting gameplay features you might not have seen before, at least under this guise. Features related to formations & the tactical map were detailed in our interview with Tim Stone over at the Tally Ho Corner, home of the holy Flare Path (see you at "M" for Miniature interview). Don’t hesitate to check it out! I will simply quote myself:



THC: Which aspects of Task Force Admiral are consuming the most developmental man hours at present?

The Producer: The formation system and the maneuvering AI that goes along with it has consumed a big chunk of our development power over the last two months. I think it’s a cardinal sin that in 2021 most naval games still have AI ships bumping into each other on a regular basis. I do understand that these things happen, but it shouldn’t be such a common occurrence when it’s broad daylight, everybody is in view, and nobody is actually being engaged. The men manning these ships were drilled for a reason, and drilled well. Collisions shall remain mostly a combat-induced occurrence or I will simply not deem the game to be functional. If my robot vacuum can avoid a chair in real life, my pixel boats should be able to find their way on the open seas! (...)



Besides, we are not giving up on the standards of our genre, as we do have a map interface already readily available for strategic moves and actions, but we needed something more easily relatable to the 3D world for hands-on moments such as air attacks or surface engagements. We ended up going for a system not unlike that in the Homeworld series with the so-called “sensors view”: a 3D tactical view which can be instantly summoned with a key stroke. So far trials have been going pretty well. It allows players to visualize altitude and distance more easily, it can be readily turned into a 2D-like view for traditionalists, and it provides the necessary background to use our cool smaller miniatures, which will make the in-game tactical map look like your average Fletcher Pratt-inspired living room.



We will go back in details to these functions over the course of the next few months, as new content is being added, fleshing them out somewhat. It is a relief, though, that it starts to look more and more like a real game rather than a tech demo. You can certainly take a breath now, we're on the right track!

[h2]The Art of Task Force Admiral - Giving Loading Screens their Old Glory Back![/h2]

Finally, Julien our 2D artist has been very busy over the last few months. A number of his fine artworks were published on our social media platforms. For today, we will focus on the main event, which was Julien’s rendition of Enterprise’s sortie from Pearl Harbor on December 9th 1941, following her nightly pit stop while Battleship Row was still burning in the background, giving the scene a rather gloomy look.



I can say that the team is truly blessed to count Julien as one of its pillars. Specialized and talented artists are not easy to come by and to combine. We are in the opinion indeed (French bias?) that art is really too important to be left in the hands of amateurs. How many times have you seen your favorite ship or aircraft on screen or on paper put in an awkward setting, paired with improbable or even anachronistic fellow models, with little to no concern shown for proportions, realism and overall credibility? To be honest, as of late, we have sometimes seen waifu-related art pay a better homage to the ships, the aircraft and the men we are trying to depict in TFA, than some games supposedly entirely about them. When you know that all it takes is a little bit of research, whether it is about the right sources or the right talents, it is a sad feeling indeed.



The amount of detail Julien went for in this scene is mesmerizing, whether it is about the appearance of Pearl Harbor that morning or that of Enterprise, which very specifically that day had not released her scouting, bombing and torpedo squadrons ashore. There was tension in the air indeed, as Enterprise had narrowly escaped the attention of the Japanese carrier force two days earlier. Her airgroup had suffered a lot, her SBDs being engaged during the attack on Pearl Harbor proper by Japanese aircraft, while her fighter squadron had fallen victim to friendly fire later in the darkness of the evening, as they approached NAS Ford Island. When she finally entered the port, her usual berth was unreachable, obstructed by the heavily damaged USS California. Moreover, there was no desire to linger and complicated maneuvers were prohibited: exceptionally, she would go around and drop anchor on the opposite side of Ford Island, where she would be attended by the oiler Neosho, of future dramatic Coral Sea fame. There would be no port call for the crew of Enterprise, as everybody was in a hurry to look for the supplies she would need for her next deployment – a job which usually would take several days in peacetime. To add to the overall feeling of despair, Neosho was inexplicably late to the rendezvous.



When she finally set sail in the morning of December 9, Enterprise had her fuel tanks filled up, her bomb bays full, her aircraft ready, as she embarked on her first actual war cruise. The “Galloping Ghost, off the Hawaiian Coast” was starting a war in which few would predict then she was to become the most decorated American warship of all times.

Talking about the glorious Yorktown sisters, let us not forget that yesterday was April 18, the 80th anniversary of the famed Doolittle raid. If you like Julien's work, let's post this one again, which celebrated the operation in most satisfying fashion indeed.



If you like this depiction of the blue lady and her valorous army fliers and might want them to grace your virtual desktop, click here to download the full resolution!

Here, it should be enough for today! If you liked what you've just read and you'd like to know more, don't hesitate to express your support by wishlisting Task Force Admiral. We're not quite sure yet when Enterprise, Hornet and their sisters will be ready, but we'll make sure to let you know when the moment will come for them - and for you - to join the Pacific Fleet!

Happy Easters to you all, and take good care!

The Task Force Admiral team.