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Now that the first beta version of 1.09 is out I decided to take a look at the game again after mostly ignoring it for a couple of months. Although the game becomes ever more feature rich I believe that some aspects of it are still very shallow and one of the most shallow features imo is task force creation, their purpose and management. IMO the biggest question that would be great for the designers to answer: what is the objective/purpose of task forces in UAD? Currently, task forces are nothing more than a group/assembly of ships that have (in most cases) departed from a single naval base and sent to a sea region on the map. There, these "task forces" sit around and generate missions within that sea region. These auto-generated missions can be somewhat scewed by the way the task force is comprised and the abilities/features of the ships within the task force. For example, a task force with fast ships that support a long range have a benefit of triggering more favourable missions. Furthermore, with the introduction of the recon system, having high value recon ships (e.g. fast, small/stealthy ships) also impacts the ability of a task force to trigger more favourable engagements. Also, task forces can be given a mission, which is currently (1.09) limited to: sea control, protect and invade and according to the in-game help feature a control zone which prevents hostile ships from passing through unchallenged. The task forces will be supplied from your naval bases with ammo and fuel in an abstracted manner by the game so that it removes micromanagement. To me this approach that UAD feels very conflicted/confusing. I can fully understand their design choice from simplifying game design, but task forces are (as of now) a mix of the IRL patrol groups, fleets and task forces. I feel that the current UAD task forces should allow for much more detail in its organisation and objective. To my knowledge the devs are moving towards a more point based system in which the number and type of ships comprising the task force, will be impacted by your techology/research. More advanced tech will give you more points, hence allow you to create more complex/larger task forces. I would not be suprised if admirals (as in game characters) were to lead these formations at some point when implemented. It would be helpful if we were able to also choose a formation for the task force (even a list of preset ones would already be great) so that this helps us and the AI in organising the ships during battle. I hope that my rambling makes sense, please feel free to discuss.

When I make a taskforce and select invade instead of just making the ships more aggressive I would like the game to ask which enemy port I want to attack. Then the taskforce should sail to that port and fight the ships stationed there and any ships in the area. There could also be a modifier for coastal defence/port canons so that the after you beat the defending fleet the attacks success or failure, amount of damage done to port (reduced tonnage), and amount of damage done to attacking taskforce is determined by size of port vs. power of attacking taskforce. If a port is totally destroyed it should become an occupied territory that the host nation cannot use for rest of the war unless they counter attack with their own taskforce and retake the port.