Ice

Looks pretty cool! Would love to see a solid-colour version of it as well which would fit into the RA1 time period better, like a Dunkelgrau Allied version or a Protective Green 4BO Soviet version.

If anything the most sensible choice would be the K-5/K-55 or K-8 (the missiles which the MiG's Kh-66/Kh-23 were originally developed from IRL), or perhaps the K-13. That being said, I personally don't think they should have an anti-air weapon since they're supposed to be a bomber, not a fighter (That's the Yak's job). It was described in cutscenes as 'essentially a bomber', and it can only shoot other aircraft while they're grounded or just taking off. Plus it shouldn't overshadow the Yak too much and the roles in which they excel should be divided nicely, with the Yak being primarily a maneuverable anti-air dogfighter and anti-infantry strafing unit, and the MiG specializing as a fast anti-vehicle and anti-building bomber unit.

Yeah, MiG's in RA1 are strictly bombers so they're not supposed to be good against aircraft in APB. Personally I think their missiles (being Kh-23 air-to-ground missiles) shouldn't even be able to track aircraft at all lol (but on the flipside, getting a lucky hit on an aircraft should do massive damage if not outright destroy it). Do you mean aileron rolls (commonly confused with barrel rolls)? Granted, you can do both kinds of rolls and either way it's fun.

Custom texture/emblem I guess?

Not only that, but realistically both the Allied tank classes (Light and Medium) would not be comprised of a single design each, but would in fact be a collection of many different (primarily if not exclusively European) designs, as each country would be using their own national tank designs; Germany producing Panzer-style light tanks, France further developing their R35/R40 series light tanks or perhaps producing something similar to an early-model AMX-13, England producing something similar to the Cromwell, etc. Medium tanks early in the war would likely be a mixed bag of mid-to-late 1940's designs similar to the proposed E50/E50M. Later in the war as tank design changed, these earlier designs may be supplemented or replaced with something resembling the early-model Leopard 1 or AMX-30, and finally the Abrams-like tank shown in RA1 cutscenes could be one of the 'definitive' designs introduced near the end of the war. IIRC there's also a cutscene in RA2 which briefly shows footage of Soviet troops surrendering to a Panzer III. Although obviously this tank would be completely obsolete in RA2's time period and thus not in service with any Allied country, it can be interpreted that the Allies were in fact reusing old stock footage from the previous war for propaganda purposes, and it's entirely possible that the Panzer III (or other similar designs), despite its obsolescence even back then, may have still been in limited/reserve service with some countries during RA1, especially in poorer or less-industrialized countries which lacked the means to produce/purchase more modern tanks at the time. In any case, I don't see much need to change the existing Light Tank; it's clearly distinguished from the Medium and Heavy tanks in-game, it very clearly fits into its role, and suits the 'Light Tank' title perfectly, quite unlike the old APB Light Tank which was based on an M60 Main Battle Tank for some reason.

While you're correct that there isn't really any homing mechanism for people, you're also assuming that the Mammoth's missiles are fire-and-forget, when they could just as easily be wire-guided manually by an operator with a controller (MCLOS and SACLOS), or even laser-guided. While using such missiles against infantry formations is usually redundant when there far more economical weapons for that job, it is quite possible to do if you really had to. This also depends on what exactly the missile pods are firing; Are they relatively inexpensive unguided fragmentation rockets being used against infantry, or wire-guided anti-tank missiles, or sophisticated short-range anti-air missiles similar in size to the Strela-1? One could assume that anything like a real-life GDI Mammoth Tank would be designed to be capable of firing several different types of rockets/missiles (possibly out of their own separate specialized pods; frag rockets in one and AA missiles in the other) for different kinds of threats, but this also depends on what roles such a vehicle would be designed for, and the underlying reasons for developing such a thing in the first place.

Yeah an airfield would be a very important strategic target for both sides, and it would be a top priority for the Soviets to want to recapture/destroy one that the Allies had captured from them; not only would the Allies be denying its use to the Soviets (meaning that Soviet air support could be unavailable, or at least they would need to come from other airfields farther away, hampering response time and overall effectiveness, as well as using more fuel), but they would also be able to use it to repair/refuel their own aircraft (Bf 109's, Fw 190's, Spitfires, etc.) as well as bring in supplies/reinforcements via cargo planes.

Here's a crazy idea: Would we even need airfields in a planes-only map? What if players simply spawned already flying in the plane, similar to War Thunder or WoWP?

An assault map based around air raiding is an interesting idea! Could be a neat way to change up the gameplay a bit. On the subject of air units, it was recently revealed to the public that airplane physics are getting an overhaul. When the new physics are complete, airplanes will handle a bit more closely to other flying games, and be capable of several new types of maneuvers; rolls, loops, etc. With this new system in place, true air-to-air combat may finally become technically possible. Of course, in RA1 airplanes weren't available to Allied players due to balancing and faction-variety, but one thing I'd really like to try out is a special type of Deathmatch map where instead of fighting on foot, you dogfight in planes; Soviet Yaks and Allied "Yak clones" battling it out for 5 minutes or so. Personally, I think this would make for an interesting experiment and potentially open the possibility of a new kind of gameplay in APB. What do you guys think?

Building on what Killing_You said, we want to offer something a bit different from the other W3D titles, and are intending for GZ's gameplay to be a bit more tactical and less "spammy". What exactly this entails is still largely up for debate, but in general you can expect longer combat ranges (likely up to several hundred metres!), more realistic (to an extent) weapons/vehicle handling (damage/RoF/reload speed, ballistics & shell drop, APB-style first-person vehicle cameras instead of the usual third-person ones, that sort of thing), and more "high risk, high reward" gameplay. Your decisions will play a larger part on the outcome of the battle, and you'll want to carefully consider what sort of equipment you bring to the fight, and what you spend your credits on; For example, a tank could be an excellent investment in an open environment where it can shoot at enemies 300 or even 400 metres away, but could be a liability in an urban environment where enemy Rocket Soldiers could very easily ambush it, and the terrain will play a big factor in what weapons/vehicles/tactics work best. Of course, as Killing_You said, large-scale classic tank rushes can certainly still happen; They just won't necessarily be the most effective tactic in every scenario. While tanks can be devastating in open country where they can fully take advantage of their long-range cannons, tanks tend to do poorly in heavy forest or in urban areas due to the limited mobility those kinds of areas impose, and the large potential for ambushes. In these sorts of environments, infantry and even light vehicles could very well have the advantage over tanks and other more cumbersome vehicles, even though the tanks may be significantly more powerful "on paper".

Remains of abandoned/destroyed bases are certainly a possibility! One of the things I really want to do in GZ is feature a lot of "reminders" of GWWII, much like how the real world has random WWI/WWII relics being found every so often. Some of these would be more subtle than others; An abandoned Allied Pillbox overgrown with moss, a long-dead Soviet Heavy Tank half-sunk in a swamp, a monument in a village dedicated to the Allied soldiers, an old Light Tank as a museum piece, stuff like that. Imagine you're sneaking through a forest in some obscure corner of the map, and you come across something like this: Or this: These are the kinds of things I want to feature a lot on maps whenever it makes sense; Subtle homages to RA1/APB, and reminders of the war that devastated the world 40 years before GZ's time.

The Medium Tank in RA1 is not an Abrams though; it only looks like one externally. Same with the Heavy Tank. While they look like certain modern tanks that we know, they're different "on the inside"; WWII-style steel armour instead of composite, more primitive electronics, different guns, etc. Make sense? Meanwhile, the GDI Medium Tank would be much closer to the real Abrams in terms of technology. Also because this is an alternate timeline, things developed a bit differently. So no, you don't need to make a tank exactly like its real-world counterpart. (otherwise the double-barreled Heavy Tank wouldn't exist at all) Another way to think of it: Imagine if someone traveled back in time with the Abrams/T-80 designs, and attempted to reproduce them with WWII-era technology, inevitably making numerous compromises in the process due to the limitations of the technology available at the time (less armour, weaker engines, more primitive electronics, etc.), as well as the cost of production. That's pretty much what the RA1 Medium/Heavy tanks could be characterized as.

By the standards of the time period RA1 takes place in (1949 - 1953), a 105mm actually would often be considered to be a heavy tank gun, depending on a given country's definitions. Not only that, but RA1's rules.ini (the coding document from which Pushwall quoted the tank's stat's) specifically lists the Medium Tank's weapon as a 90mm, which by comparison also makes the Heavy Tank's gun, well, heavy, compared to the Medium Tank's. Plus it has TWO of the damn things, compared to the Medium Tank only having one. Also two 120mm - 130mm guns would be absolutely ridiculous for the RA1 Heavy Tank. Even the Mammoth, a superheavy tank, "only" has 120mm guns. Personally I've never had a problem playing Heavy Tanks. Their turret restriction is fine and doesn't need to be removed, and I'd rather not see the guns clip through the fuel barrels. A suitable alternative, however, would be to remove the turret restriction, but have the guns somehow be forced to elevate slightly when going over the fuel barrels, just high enough to clear them. If such a feature were technically possible, then this should also be applied, to a lesser degree, to the Medium Tank, to stop the gun from clipping through the engine deck.

And please break any large posts into smaller paragraphs and lists so the information is easier to process. Walls of text look overwhelming and could easily turn people off reading it at all. Instead of this: Try this: Looks a lot better and is much easier for everyone to read. Just some friendly advice for future posts

I'd love to see a new city map, something based on Stalingrad, Berlin or Moscow. A very war-torn looking WWII-style city map with lots of cover for infantry, and lots of places for house-to-house fighting. Overall a dark and grim theme, perfectly suited to RA1.

I don't get what some people's problem is with infantry-only and nonstandard-gameplay maps. Personally I find only ever playing one game-mode to be very repetitive and draining, and it's nice to mix it up with other gameplay styles where you're not just constantly trying to destroy the enemy base again and again.

I agree. Personally I don't want the APC to have a 360 degree turret. Not only would this give it more overlap with the Ranger, but it would also put the unit further away from its RA counterpart (which could only fire forwards) as well as not making sense from a realism/practical standpoint (the way the gun is mounted, combined with how boxy the vehicle is, should make effectively aiming towards the rear physically impossible, and allowing it to shoot through its own rear end like it did in certain previous versions of APB just looks ridiculous). 180 degrees is sufficient IMO, maybe even allowing up to 270, but it should NOT have a full 360 traverse.

Those rocks look amazing! Imagine how maps like Pipeline or most TSR maps could be enhanced by stuff like this. Really looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

To be fair, the ants are explicitly a part of RA, and iceberg bases aren't terribly far-fetched, while the moon map hasn't been in the server rotation in quite a while now. The medieval cannons, despite their exaggerated size, have at least some basis in reality, while the "alternate reality" map is essentially a parody map for the lolz (and AFAIK is also not in the current rotation). That all being said, to me the screenshots look like they could be straight out of AR or Reborn, and the props shown would be perfect additions to several of their maps

AFAIK most trees grow vertically like this too IRL.

Looks amazing! The American cactus might not be appropriate for APB (no major combat took place in North or South America during RA1), but this would be absolutely perfect for Reborn or AR, and should definitely be included in those games!

Regarding Volkov's aesthetics, I've always leaned more towards KY's vision in that he's meant to be clearly a human who's been mechanically augmented with experimental bionic technology (in the 1950's, for that matter); He's not a robot and shouldn't look like a Terminator. IMO (assuming we ever got a new character model), the "enhancements" should look relatively clunky, primitive and prototypical, like something you'd expect to see in a Wolfenstein game or something. With this basis, his design would serve to reflect the time period APB takes place in, as well as show the cruelty of the human experimentation which enabled his transformation to even be possible. NOTE: The image below is a very extreme example and Volkov would obviously look nothing like this (and definitely not a zombie lol), but it does have some elements of how his visible mechanical/cybernetic components, if any, should generally appear; primitive, prototypical, cruel and reflective of their time period. His eyepiece (assuming we copy the RA1 box art) would by far be the most refined-looking piece of technology in his design. Still, perhaps the easiest solution would be to simply give him the face of the RA1 box art, with a similar uniform to his current in-game model, plus the addition of some SN-46 body armour or something similar.

Just to clarify for the OP, Tanya uses the Colt M1911; the Desert Eagle won't be invented for another 25+ years!

I'd be fine with shotguns only having 1 firemode (standard buckshot) if a plausible secondary firemode can't be found; The best I could come up with so far was a shorter-range and gravity-affected version of Dragon's Breath, possibly also using more ammo per shot, although I don't really want both sides' shotguners to be identical either if it can be avoided. Hmmm... another route I thought of was differentiating the two sides' shotguns (Allies keep their pump-action while Soviets get a double-barrel, unloading all damage at once but more frequent reloading?), but this might be hard to balance. Also, how exactly should Volkov function if his current incarnation overshadows too many other units? Making him worse at CQB might help him not overshadow CQB-oriented units, but then would his ranged combat have to be enhanced to compensate, and how would this affect long-range units? Basically we need to define precisely what his exact role should be in relation to other units, and then go into the finer details of what his weapons, abilities, etc. should be.

Regarding shotguns, I always found having the Dragon's Breath rounds as the primary fire to be rather odd and, IMO, not really appropriate for the "standard" fire-mode. My initial thoughts were to essentially switch the roles of the Starshina's ammo types; have the normal, standard buckshot (basically the current DB but without the burn, like you described) as the primary fire, with the more exotic Dragon's Breath functioning as a shorter-range but higher-damage secondary fire (basically the current buckshot secondary but with burn damage and some projectile-drop) and probably having some kind of speciality bonus like extra MCT damage, but there are probably also some other options that could be explored as well. Regarding Volkov, it would be nice to tweak his role to be more of a field-commando type, and this could be a good opportunity to change his weapons to something not only more suitable to such a role, but also more plausible; replacing his rather far-fetched arm cannon with more conventional, but equally effective weapons (hand-held grenade launcher, anti-material rifle, etc.), giving him unique abilities that really set him apart from other units, etc. The tricky part will be in designing him in such a way that he's very effective in his intended roles without overshadowing other infantry units too much, while also not being cripplingly overspecialized.