Task Force Admiral - Vol.1: American Carrier Battles

[Asid]

[EA SITREP #6] Weekly News: Steel, Reefs, Patch Notes & Staying the Course
Sat, March 7, 2026



Your weekly news on Task Force Admiral, courtesy of the dev team!


Note & credit: Action screenshots were provided by players on the game's Discord — today featuring Ferda1947, Hood & Ram399. Big thanks to them!

Greetings, admirals — and welcome back to the bridge.

Six weeks in. The coffee is cold, the paperwork is stacking up, and JB's screen has probably forgotten what sunlight looks like. But the ship is still underway, and that's what matters.

Before we dive in: we know some of you are waiting for new scenarios. You've been patient, and we owe you both an explanation and an honest accounting of where things stand. We'll get to that. First — the recent patches, the pretty things, and a few words about what's been happening below decks.




Latest Patches

Two more beta builds went out this week and were consolidated in a public release. Here's what was in them, with a bit of context for each entry.

Midway Map – Sand Island & the Surrounding Atolls

•     Improved Sand Island topography.
•     Added Kure, Pearl and Hermes atolls.

We've pushed the Midway theater closer to how it actually looked from above. Sand Island's topography has been reworked to better reflect the real terrain — which matters more than it might seem once land-based elements come further into play. But the headline here is the addition of Kure, Pearl and Hermes atolls, lying to the northwest and to the east. These are not mere decorative additions: PBY crews and long-range patrol operations used these landmarks as reference points, and Kure in particular was to become a floatplane base for the Japanese following the invasion of Midway, as a support hub of the expected "Kentai Kessen" event. They'll be relevant once we push further into extended area operations. For now, enjoy the view from altitude — it is, we think, rather beautiful.






Deck & Air Operations

•     Fixed bugs with multiple wave strikes.

This one was a proper edge case, and a nasty one. The scenario goes roughly as follows: you have a strike mission already scheduled for a future launch window. In the meantime, you pull aircraft out of storage — reassigning them, repositioning them, whatever the reason. The system, at that point, was not correctly accounting for the fact that those aircraft were already spoken for by the upcoming mission. When you subsequently planned a new strike using the available pool, the scheduling logic would get confused about what was actually available, leading to conflicts, phantom assignments, or outright broken strike packages. It is exactly the kind of bug that only surfaces when you are doing three things at once — which, in a serious game, is more or less constantly, but needs precious user feedback to get resolved. Fixed.

•     Fixed damage detection code being too sensitive and sometimes preventing air operations on carriers.

This one was subtle but maddening. Under certain conditions, the damage system was interpreting minor hits — or even near misses — as sufficient grounds to lock down flight deck operations entirely. In other words, you could take a single 100 lb bomb glancing blow and find your entire air group grounded as if the ship had just taken a Nagumo-style funeral pyre to the face. That is no longer the case. Damage thresholds have been recalibrated to behave more sensibly. This might affect the AI too, which might strike back on a more regular schedule.

•     Fixed aircraft sometimes circling forever above an airbase during landing ops.

An somewhat embarrassing infinite loiter problem. Some aircraft, having been recalled, would simply orbit their destination airbase indefinitely rather than committing to a landing — apparently unable to decide whether they wanted to go home or keep flying until the fuel ran dry. We have resolved this identity crisis. They will now land.

•     Fixed CAPs taking off after sunset if takeoff had been delayed because of deck operations.

Let's say that night CAPs were not something the Imperial Japanese Navy or the US Navy were eager to improvise in 1942 — and they shouldn't be something TFA cheerfully generates on your behalf because of a deck scheduling conflict.

Read on....

[Asid]

[EA SITREP #7] Weekly News: The Sound of TFA, Patch Notes & Next Stage Your weekly news on Task Force Admiral, courtesy of the dev team!
Sun, March 15, 2026





Note & credit: Action screenshots were provided by players on the game's Discord — today featuring Ferda1947, TyGamer, TWC Walmart, Spicywolf, Munchlol & Ram399. Big thanks to them!

Greetings, admirals — and welcome back!

Thank you again for joining us. As you know very well by reading the patch notes, we are not there just yet, and I am afraid we might disappoint when it comes to the contents of what is to follow - still, as you can see, we have hardly been idle, and we've been progressing as much as possible on as many fronts as possible. Still, we will focus soon our attention on a central gameplay mode in the days to come so as to satisfy the needs of those who crave for more varied tactical situations (we can't blame them for sure). This should buy us a little more time while you're busy managing your heroic pixel guys over Midway.



Latest Patches

Another week, another round of fixes pushed to the public branch. Crash reports have decreased very substantially but we're still tracking down the odd issues, while trying to make sure we're not creating new ones, which is easier said than done. Indeed, some of these patch notes might be summarized in a couple lines, but truth be told, the work behind the scenes can take the better part of a long day of work, independently from the actual issue.

Midway

•     Added AAA defenses on Midway.

Midway Island is supposed to be a bastion, but until now, attacking aircraft had a rather more relaxed time over the target than they historically should have. Ground-based Marine anti-aircraft fire is now active over the island. This makes land strikes a genuine proposition requiring proper approach planning, and gives the island's defenders something to say about the Kido Butai birds buzzing around. This is also the first step toward broader land-based defensive systems — relevant for Henderson Field and for future scenarios beyond the current Midway theater. It was at any rate one of the missing pieces when it came to prepare the ground for damage persistence, as a non-trivial number of aircraft assigned to these missions, on recovery, would prove to be unusable in a hurry, or even totaled. This will happen eventually.



Air Operations & Aircraft Issues

•     Fixed SB2U defensive turret.

The Vindicator's rear gunner was, until now, essentially decorative. This has been corrected. He will now do his job — which in a slow, underpowered dive bomber against a Zero is still not going to end well for him, but at least he'll go down fighting.

•     Reworked attack patterns for ground strikes.

Ground attack runs were previously using approach logic tuned primarily for ship targets — which produced some visually and tactically awkward results when applied to fixed land positions. Attack patterns for ground strikes have been reworked accordingly, giving your pilots more sensible behavior and improving the overall effectiveness and legibility of land attack missions. The AAA addition above will ensure they still have to earn it. That is bringing us closer to player-managed ground strikes too, of course.

•     Fixed planes crashing at takeoff & landing from Midway.

Aircraft operating from the island's airfield were experiencing a variety of departure and arrival accidents entirely unrelated to enemy action — which is not the kind of attrition we want to be simulating. The runway logic has been corrected. Midway's air group can now take off and land without the field itself claiming more victims than the Japanese.

•     Fixed bombs remaining attached to a broken invisible wing.

That has now been properly resolved — without introducing new crashes this time, we are pleased to report - at least from the feedback we could collect. If you still see it happening or came across a strange CTD, please tell us more.

•     Fixed crashes when moving planes to and from storage.

A related stability issue around the storage transfer system. The conditions that could trigger it overlapped with the multi-wave scenario above — moving aircraft in and out of the pool while missions were in various states of planning or execution. This has been addressed alongside a hangar/deck scheduling fix.





Read on....