Project Reality Forums

Name: Red Gate
Location: San Francisco -- Presidio/Golden Gate Bridge/Marin Headlands
Size: 4km
Factions: USMC, PLA
Gameplay: AAS, infantry, hopefully all/most heavy assets
Concept Map: https://gyazo.com/caac19c95df7d5ae9070ce927682ac9d

Hi everyone! I doubt any of you remember, but a few years ago I floated a rough idea for a San Francisco-based map -- I was, however, still in high school at the time and never really had time to work on it so it never got underway. But now that I've started playing PR again I've decided to finally try and make that idea a reality!

Anyways, here's my concept and work so far on Red Gate. Since it's my first real attempt at making a map I've decided to post it here while it's early on in development so I can get feedback and avoid as many beginner mistakes as I can.

In broad strokes, I want to base this map around a north-to-south amphibious assault by the PLA on San Francisco, with them attacking from the Marin Headlands in an attempt to capture the Presidio area of north SF. As the name suggests, I'd like the Golden Gate Bridge to be a major setpiece of the map, leading from the PLA mainbase to the northern Presidio area.

Although I envision the PLA having access to some boats and amphibious APCs from the start, capture of the southern bridge end will be vital if the PLA wants to bring in the rest of its non-amphibious land assets like tanks and logi trucks. I'm thinking the bridge checkpoint would also be heavily fortified and difficult to take head-on from the bridge itself, but would be vulnerable to troops landing underneath/around the bridge and making their way up the footpaths to the checkpoint -- vegetation is plentiful, so hopefully this would provide enough concealment/cover to give them a leg up. From there, the PLA can progress along the roads and through the forests to the other points on the map, which I think will probably be the old military bases to the south/southeast and the beachside town to the southwest.

A quick note on the bridge itself. I used USGS data to build the heightmap such that the map itself should be 1:1 in scale. The Golden Gate is quite long (1.6 km), so I spliced out a 700 meter stretch of the ocean in the heightmap, which shortens the bridge distance to a more manageable ~900 m (roughly the size of a Kashan Desert airfield). This is why I had to draw in the Marin Headlands at the appropriate point in the above concept map. That said, to my knowledge we don't have any assets that would be able to mimic the Golden Gate, so it seems like this would be a thing that'd have to be 3d modeled on its own (although perhaps the roads on the bridge itself could be made of existing assets). I'd really appreciate it if anybody would be willing to help with this.

Also, here are some screenshots I have of each coastline so far. I was wondering if I could get y'all's feedback on how I handled the texturing of the Presidio side. Although it is a lush area, I came to the realization from pictures and Google Earth that it's lush not because of grass, but because of the tons of scraggly brush and eucalyptus trees that grow on the brown-red soil on the coastline. And although I'm worried it looks ugly, I'm hoping that when I fill in the overgrowth bushes/trees it'll mostly mask that dirt color. Thoughts?

View of Presidio coastline (south of Golden Gate): https://gyazo.com/f8c596e268800968802c4264c2433dbf

View of Marin Headlands coastline (north of Golden Gate/PLA mainbase): https://gyazo.com/9887218b3f2e553627187f94ead3e274

I imagine that there's stuff I've missed here, and there's also stuff I'm not quite sure about like what exact assets each team should have and how many, so I'd really appreciate any advice you can give!

First of all you'd need to find a 3d modeler willing to create the bridge static, which might be problematic. Personally I wouldn't really start working on the rest of the map until the bridge is in place.

My personal thoughts:
The amphibious assault sounds like a cool idea but gameplay-wise it wouldn't work well, maps with limited paths tend to not work well with PR in terms of advanced teamwork possibilities and gameplay quality overall. Take Ghost Train or even vanilla Strike at Karkand which often ended in a stalemate on the bridge as an example. It would be extremely difficult for the PLA to get across. I would probably move the whole map over to a different area close-by without the bridge so it's also easier to create. The initial chinese assault wouldn't include tanks realistically, so it's down to apc's, ifv's, boats and cas support.

About textures:
Once you generate your terrain lightmaps they will become significantly darker, but I'd still use a color that's more brown-ish for that area irl. Undergrowth won't be rendered over longer distances so only overgrowth will somehow affect the final result.

To clarify, I'm not turning your idea down, you're free to do whatever you like, just providing some feedback, good luck

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, honestly I'm also a bit worried about the bridge static and the limited paths available. I was actually thinking of making the map before the static in the hope of convincing someone that spending their time to make the bridge would be worth it.

I've always imagined that this map could be stalemate-y, but my intent behind it is to introduce a significant obstacle in a way that incentivizes teamwork and problem-solving. I wanna give the PLA a significant ticket advantage to compensate, but I'm hoping that the challenge of the first cap makes it necessary for, say, ground troops and CAS to work together to take out the fortifications that turn the bridge into a killzone. Or perhaps it could be the other way around, where armor on the bridge uses its elevation and superior view to suppress the checkpoint and cover the infantry that move in to cap. The coastline also has several points that are scalable by normal troops, especially if they have breacher kits. It'd hopefully depend on how the USMC team decides to structure their defense, so my goal is to give both teams a variety of options here.

I just know that some of my favorite experiences I've had in PR and other tactical shooters have involved fierce battles for tightly-held positions. Not only do I think they look cool, I think they also force people to use the skills that PR tries to incentivize in creative ways.

That said, I know there might not be good precedent for this and I'm willing to bet a lot of y'all's opinions on this are more informed than mine. But does any of what I said help my case?

Cool, new map of the United States?But usa dlc object Content is scarce?unable to build a modern city?
There is a damaged Golden Gate Bridge at 2142?Not sure if it can be used?only bridgehead has static?

I've been creating some static objects recently?But the work quantity of this bridge will be very large?
Look at the countless railings and steel?Unless you only need a very simple bridge deck?And the most obvious features?
Of course, there is the worst way, like marlin?Use BF2 bridge to splice into Golden Gate Bridge

was thinking that destroyed should be easlier to make ... try to use that object from 2142 ... maybe it works