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.
Anti-Air Artillery Effects & Mechanics
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.
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.
The Air Plot
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.
Pearl Harbor Art
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.
