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Don't mind me, I'm just Easter egg harvesting. (i know it's a poorly done avatar)

Why? Just because RA did it? I'd rather go with the option that won't leave 95% of the player base asking "why am I not able to hurt this helicopter that I am clearly able to hit?" and continuing to ineffectually shoot helicopters expecting it to work like it logically should ESPECIALLY with non-bullet weapons. Making defenses only target them when they're on the ground is not possible. They can either be able to aim at VTOLs all the time or they can't. And even if it was, adding it would have practically no effect on the gameplay because in what situations are people actually going to bring an air unit that low to shoot at a defense, except against Tesla Coils, which need to be unable to shoot Longbows for them to be balanced? How is it "needed"? Just because rifle soldiers are able to do more than 0 damage to air units does not mean they are a good counter to them. First of all, "RA balanced". Pfft. The most you ever had to do was build a power plant, refinery, war factory, and then build refineries and war factories ad nauseum. The situations that actually encouraged you to build any further than that (getting barracks, helipads, radar domes, tech centres, or superweapons) were far too scarce to be considered "balanced". Second, the Gamma version of this game (2011-2015) had a tiering system where the tech levels gradually unlocked over time (i.e. in the first 3 minutes you could only build infantry, then for 4 minutes afterwards the only vehicles were rangers and light/heavy tanks, etc) which was somewhat close to that. It was such a horribly unfun design choice that it drove almost all the players away. I will not bring back a feature that nobody (who knows what they're talking about) wants and has been proven to be a bad feature.

Hmm, we could have a map where we could script the mcv to activate some events, like two sides fighting for an abandoned mid base which would give the other team access to some technology, extra silos, working defence and refil pads. It would be more fun to escort a whole mcv rather than just exploit engineers again for everything capturable as we do now. We already have many props of abandoned bases on some maps, but they are not used. This could give the MCV some meaning after-all. Also there were some interesting MCV coop missions on the zunnie's coop server, where you had to protect the MCV, not sure if the MCV had any ability or purpose back then though.

You must be joking. As MCV would not serve any purpose beside making your teammate useless craps by driving a vechicle which functinality is way below the cheapest vechicle right now - supply truck - for way bigger price then i suggest to rethink your propositions under cold shower. Cruiser is already out of reach because of points mentioned by Pushwall. Not to mention even Destroyers can get out of range of V2 and safely hit sub pen (on Coastal infulence at least) And V2 being weaker than Arties? Damn, i gotta start building up better stats for V2

Only if all of its floor is above ground level (such as any defensive structure). Try that with a construction yard and you'll get a lot of z-fighting on the ground floor and won't be able to get in or out of the basement because it's blocked off by earth. Even then, if a building uses main building logic (i.e. required for base destruction victory), I'm pretty sure if you put that in midgame it doesn't function properly. Defensive structures certainly work though.

That spy-sub thread really set things off, didn't it...

Okay I'm just going to stop you right there and list some of the problems with balancing everything the way it works in the original game: Soviet Tanyas that the Allies have little defense against due to not having AP mines. Even the Soviets have little defense against Tanyas anyway, because APCs can trigger AP mines harmlessly by either firing one bullet at their vehicle-sized hitbox or even driving over them. Tanyas that, in addition to massacring all infantry in one shot, outrange all other infantry. Tanyas/Engineers that just have to tag the wall of a building from the outside once to instantly damage/capture/fully repair it (engineer) or give it a godly one second grace period before it dies (tanya). Volkov with several thousand HP and concrete armour. Fair! Technicians that might as well not even be armed because it took what, 50 hits against a non-prone soldier to kill them? Aircraft being invulnerable to all but a very small number of units, despite the fact that all infantry and most vehicles are very capable of looking up and firing up (which we can't prevent on infantry) That "small number of units" doesn't even include other aircraft. Dogfighting certainly works out nicely in this game, why remove it just because it wasn't in RA? Ore Silos that don't actually do anything because a credit limit is not a thing that exists here. V2s killing buildings in 2-3 hits. Way too fast to actually deal with them. MAD Tanks that take about 10 seconds to detonate. Again, way too fast to actually deal with them. Missile Subs that can kill some buildings in one salvo. DEFINITELY way too fast to deal with them even if you could see them coming. Artillery that barely even has enough range to safely hit flame towers. Tesla Tanks that outrange Artillery AND kill them in one shot. Because RA Artillery apparently weren't useless enough just lacking the ability to outrange Tesla Coils. APCs that move faster than Rangers. What's even the point of Rangers then? Especially since being ~true to C&C~ also means giving every vehicle the same sized hitbox rather than hitboxes that make sense? Phase Tanks either not existing, or having passenger slots. Destroyers that do everything that Gunboats do but better. What's even the point of Gunboats then? Mine Layers that are OCD and must face exactly north and be temporarily locked in place every time they place a mine. No sergeants/captains = little variety in infantry. And no snipers = no way to fight them at range... not that that would matter with RA balance because... Infantry that exist only to die, because they're all useless except engies/tanyas/volkov, and even then they need a transport to not suck because they're all too slow to avoid being crushed by anything. Except Volkov who is practically unkillable by design. No barracks = no infantry units at all. Which would probably mean having to make it so you don't even respawn when you die. Fun! Vehicles can't be driven by anyone other than rifle soldiers. Which, to be fair, is probably one of the less unreasonable changes that could be made... except it'd be a big step backwards with regards to making infantry useful, and would be a MASSIVE nerf to the Allies due to mechanics. A nerf which they really don't need considering it is very possible for Soviets to win games in the face of LOLOPMECHS. In the end there's only a very small number of ground units per team that matter: medium tanks and Tanya APCs for Allies, and heavy tanks and V2s for Soviets. Or just Volkovs and nothing but if we're going with the "Volkov is mary sue" interpretation. Everything else is fluff. Red Alert is not a balanced game. Trying to mimic its balance will make APB unfun. There's a reason OpenRA changed things. And there are ways of maintaining the feel that don't involve breaking the balance.

Hires version, plox (<--- Usagi Yojimbo comin' through)

Keep in mind that i have basicly swim right next to you in my naval transport and you havent even noticed. BTW: Irwe's stream from today session of APB will be uploaded to Youtube in matter of time. For now there is the VOD: https://secure.twitch.tv/irwe/v/54999045

Keep in mind that was the same game where I managed to get a Soviet Gunboat as well, which sank many a destroyer and one of the stolen missile subs as you can see in one of the screen's killfeeds, and managed to keep it intact despite several daring trips to the frontlines and not being a submarine. Probably my favourite part of the match was spending a good 5 minutes running laps/hitching rides around the frontlines as a rifle soldier and still being able to make meaningful contributions to the siege. Regular guy supremacy! Wish I'd remember to take screenshots of the hijinks I get into though.

Another office project - AMX-10P. Modeled by someone on my team, painted by me. Done entirely in Quixel SUITE 2 using nDo and dDo. I'll post another rendition of it soon - this is still a WIP. 4k texture for the body, 512x for the tracks.