[EA SITREP #15] On the Road Ahead: Summer Design Notes

Note & credit: Action screenshots were provided by players on the game’s Discord - today featuring 『GӨᄂDΣП』 [Awrf], Hyacinth, Poodle007, SundryZoo98697 & Reis!

Hello there, Task Force Admiral fans!

The team is still on its summer break, so this little pause feels like a good time to reflect on the current state of the game, and on what we'll be working on once everyone is back from the holidays.

What's been done, and what hasn't

With regard to the original roadmap, let's have ourselves a healthy checklist moment, as we reach the original six-month mark.

Graphics & Sounds

Visuals are probably the department where our focus will be lightest in the near future. The animated crew has been taken care of as far as phase 1 is concerned, and is now about to be set in full deployment mode, with a lot of new, original contents.

We'll keep pushing to generalize the little guys throughout the carrier fleet: first to Enterprise and Hornet, then to Lexington and Saratoga. A few graphical fixes might slip in along the way, but the real next frontier will be VFX for surface combat, and that comes after the sound work.

Sound, on the other hand, is very much on the table. We will be adding more voice calls of all sorts in the coming months, which will make the radio, and your carrier, feel more alive, during attacks and lulls alike. Hopefully it will push immersion just a bit further, and make for a full-spectrum experience you simply won't find anywhere else in the current WW2 naval gaming landscape just yet.

As for music, we've had new deliveries from our musical team, and we're looking for good ways to integrate them in-game once they've gone through the review process. Truth be told, some of these tracks ended up quite different from our original prototypes, and at some point we'll have to choose between the new material and the old ones we've all grown used to. Either way, the new arrangements can still be saved for the actual orchestral recording planned down the line. Time will tell which ones we eventually pick.

Other Functions

The UI effort continues. There are so many aspects to improve - the OOB panel, access to crucial information, and more - that there's no chance of us growing bored anytime soon. The new order wheel will be deployed to the 3D world and the tactical map, allowing direct interaction with what's on screen, ahead of letting you issue actual tactical orders through it. We know it hasn't been universally acclaimed, but we had our reasons for streamlining things this way. We'll see whether letting each player pick the design they like best is a practical option: if it is, we'll do just that.

As for tutorials, Wolfpack345 has finished a first wave of videos. We're looking for a proper way to integrate them without creating new issues. The plan is to display them as in-game videos when you click the button sitting next to the interface element they describe. We're eager to hear your feedback on how helpful they prove to be.

Here's a preview of his feature regarding strikes and naval search.

The FAQ is also on the way, although we're still of two minds about how best to present it: easy to access for you, easy to update for us. Updating really is the operative word here, and it's also why we haven't invested more in interactive tutorials yet: the mechanics need to settle down a bit before we build learning tools around them. Once the advanced air options for strike & search missions are in, along with the cloud stuff, we should be able to move forward.

The same goes for translation. Right now, things aren't final enough to allow a proper localization pass without spending an unholy amount of time redoing it every time we push something new. This should resolve itself in the near future, and it remains an extremely important priority, with big sales implications, especially regarding our German and Chinese players. So don't think we're holding off by choice: it is, first and foremost, a matter of timing it right with the features and the content.

Gameplay Contents

Most of the units the game needs are now integrated in-game. On the US side, USS Wasp and USS North Carolina are the next two priorities, as both are absolutely essential to the Solomons battlesets. New search functions were implemented, but most of that department is still to come, along with an expanded role for seaplanes (which will mostly make sense once submarines and rescue duty are implemented). Loads of debugging happened, and is still happening, alongside much-needed optimization. On that front, the upcoming Kantai Kessen scenario is one of our most ambitious yet, with 100+ active ships and 600+ active aircraft. Time acceleration has taken a hit, but it also helped us zero in on several areas that can still be optimized. Considering no other game out there sustains that sort of simultaneous naval and air activity in 3D at that speed, we find ourselves in a pretty good spot, but there's always room for improvement.

What we did not deliver on, though, was that "early 1940" scenario. With life-changing events hitting our 3D artists, we simply couldn't muster the resources for a proper lineup of 1940-era US aircraft: all of them very peculiar, and most likely to be used only once. We decided to focus on other aspects. But if we couldn't get you a 1940 scenario, know that you'll soon get a late-summer 1942 one instead, featuring a refreshed, radar-ready Kido Butai - we just need to get Wasp operational first (yes, she's hard to escape despite the little time she's been around...).

In general, the question of "more scenarios = better game" is a tricky one. Obviously, we want to make more of them, ASAP. But at the same time, we want the best possible foundations, so that:

• nothing needs to be retrofitted into a number of scenarios when it's too late;

• nothing gets broken by new mechanics or fixes.

We're always looking for better ways to improve the game through the new functions required by any given encounter. For Kantai Kessen, for instance - which is around the corner and currently undergoing testing - we had to come up with mechanics to make Japanese seaplanes eligible for naval strikes, to get surface TFs reacting aggressively to carrier spotting, and so on. Obviously, a lot of what has been implemented so far was done in a rather case-by-case fashion. Before the end of the holidays, we need to solidify our foundations and come up with a more resilient system that works in all situations, while retaining flexibility for our future scenario makers. This will also allow us to improve the random generator and release the first version of the mission builder.

That means working hard on the underlying architecture and AI as a prerequisite before going much further. It's coming. We will notably streamline the way task forces are defined: along the lines of their missions, beyond their mere composition, as has been the case until now. A system not unlike that of War in the Pacific has our preference, but it remains to be seen how well it can be integrated in-game so as to produce the sort of response we want from the AI, both at the operational level (aka where it should go, to do what it should be doing next, and against whom) and the tactical one (aka the way it takes granular decisions in regard of air ops). The good news is that the design work is nearly done: what remains is the actual implementation, and that takes time and sweat. At least we know what we're going for, and this has big implications regarding the next point.

Campaign Thoughts: What to Go for Next

We're tempted by an encounter-campaign system in which you grow your task force and your squadrons along historical lines - or tactical choices. These missions could be pre-made, like they are in the much-acclaimed Task Force system of Sea Power, released just a few days ago. They could also be generated. Or you could be asked to play CINCPAC and dispatch your forces around the map.

All of this, though, depends heavily on the completion of the missing maps - even if those aren't too much of a challenge on the surface. Wake and the CENTPAC in particular need taking care of, and require some research plus a number of new objects to become viable. SOPAC itself still has work ahead of it, with Rabaul in particular still in the shop. We'll also have to add at least Shortland, Lae and Espiritu Santo to the lot if we want something functional. It might not be 100% historical, but we certainly need it to be 100% operational.

So we're of two minds here. To some extent, I believe the SOPAC campaign is the way to go in the middle term, but a short-term foray into a Sea Power-like mode with progression (which is also very much what Regiments achieved) shouldn't be ruled out.

A working South Pacific (SOPAC) campaign is yet another obvious path, but it has its own limitations and challenges. One of the aspects that was never really solved in a computer-based naval Guadalcanal campaign is the way the land campaign can be treated so as to remain relevant and under tension, without becoming a burden to gameplay. Task Force 1942 did it pretty well back in the day - and to some extent, thirty years later, it has never been outmatched in that field.

Basically, a SOPAC campaign should probably focus on Guadalcanal alone as a good start, and in particular on the defense of Henderson Field. But you don't want to give the player too many tools: to begin with, he isn't Vandegrift. And empowering the player with too many ways of influencing the battle would mechanically result in new ways to game the whole thing.

There are excellent designs out there. The Pavlov's House Valiant Defense system does have a Guadalcanal iteration for instance, and I've just played another excellent prototype focusing on Dien Bien Phu, Iron Swell: Diên Biên Phu, by a compatriot, recommended by Tim Stone over at Tally-Ho Corner. In both cases, though, it might be going too far for a naval campaign, especially if said campaign is in real time. Whether ours NEEDS to be in real time is another matter entirely.

Indeed, we are clearly faced with the choice between a turn-based system and a real-time one. The latter is probably the most natural fit for our current architecture, but is it the most reliable, and the most relevant? The smaller timeframe of the Guadalcanal campaign allows for a more forgiving game length than your average War in the Pacific playthrough: we could very well go for a system with separate AM and PM turns, or even add a night turn to it. That would help a lot with air missions (especially routine ones), and would genuinely facilitate intel & order-delay management by limiting order-giving to a few set moments in the day. Perhaps TFA's theater layer could even work as a more classic wargame, with tactical combat resolved in-engine, turning us into some sort of hybrid.

Conclusion

So, here we are. Sorry for that bit of chatter. Is the situation perfect? Certainly not. We haven't been happy with everything we have done, and obviously, as some could expect with projects of this magnitude, we are late on schedule.

But some work has been done, and some other work, not exactly planned in that order, got done too, so I suppose the pros kinda balance the cons out. Hopefully we have made it obvious by now that we are not going anywhere, and that we are still working on the game with the kind of energy we hope fits our ambitions. Obviously, none of this would be possible without your support, and especially the trust and patience of our Kickstarter backers. I wanted to take this opportunity to give them my specific thanks, and to extend them to all our Early Access players, who decided to take a chance on us. To all of you who follow us: thank you for being around, and for playing a part in helping us build something special.

Discord & Modding – Sink Hornet!

The modding scene has come up with a fun scenario where the player is expected to face Hornet, now re-equipped handsomely with a very large Japanese complement after having been captured at Santa Cruz. Not really too realistic, but apparently it's a lot of fun.

For this scenario and other modded contents, please join the discord here :

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE BUORD DISCORD

And as you know Task Force Admiral also has its own server. For any in-depth, direct support for technical issues, please do pay our tech support section a visit.

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE OFFICIAL TFA DISCORD

Finally, please also note that TFA remains on sale at -10% until July 24th. If this whole presentation convinced you we're going somewhere, don't hesitate to give us a try - the demo is always around, your curiosity will be painless ^^

Task Force Admiral Vol1 American Carrier Battles Best regards to you all, and see you soon for Kantai Kessen!

The TFA Team