Note: There is a Poll at the end where you can vote wether you like the idea or not.

First of all: What are ARVs?

Well, ARVs are a type of vehicles meant to recover allied vehicles and do field repairs.

Well how would these vehicles work in World of Tanks?

It’s quite simple actually, me and a couple of people have talked about it in the RsR discord channel. If you haven’t joined it already, I highly recommend you do. Link to the Discord is here.

Also a huge thanks to wapted for making these amazing images.

After a healthy discussion we’ve come to the conclusion that ARVs likely need 3 modes: Repair mode, Defender mode and Travel mode. ARVs would start off in Defender mode in which they have average mobility and are able to place down Tank Traps and Anti-Tank Mines.

Repair Mode:

First, we have the Repair mode: In Repair mode the ARV can not move, however now it can boost the repair speed of allied tanks within an area of 30-40 meters. It could also boost the effectiveness of damaged modules, so orange modules normally work at 50% of their usual effectiveness, and an ARV in Repair mode can work at 75% of their normal effectiveness. Additionally an ARV can repair orange modules with the same speed as it would take to repair a red module. The Tank which wants to get it’s modules repaired can choose which module, it would work like a repair kit, press a button and then chose what module you want fixed. It’s basically a Repair tool on tracks with a much shorter cooldown. It’s main job is it to make allied tanks fit for combat again and heal them (more effectively than in Travel mode). which can be compared to a field repair in Real life.

Also Allied vehicles in proximity can replenish their ammo, in order to not make people spam premium ammo, the ammo should be only filled with standard shells like AP or HE, depending on if the gun is a derp gun or a standard Tank gun.

It would maybe replenish a shell every 0.5 seconds for very small guns up to a couple of seconds for high caliber guns.

Ammo resupply could also work like the target heal, where the ammo gets fully replenished instantly but there would be a cooldown of maybe 30 seconds.

Travel Mode:

Next, we have Travel mode, they’re more mobile as in defender mode, but they can not boost any module repairs neither can they place mines and traps. They can however buff individual Targets ( which is the opposite as arty) which does last for a couple of seconds, damage done during that time counts towards assist damage. They can also heal hit points of tanks for example 300 HP with maybe 40 seconds cooldown to not make it to op. In travel mode they can also unflip allies and get them unstuck if they somehow screwed up. When an ally is flipped, the ARV driver would get a notification on their screen and Minimap that an allied tank is flipped, in addition allies could call for a towing cable in case they’re stuck on map obstacles ( Sand River, i’m looking at you)

AT Mines:

Also yeah, we know that historically, AT Mines were meant to destroy tanks, but we don’t want the same problems to come back like with arty, so they should do a lot of damage to modules like tracks but minor damage to the tank itself. They would also be visible, not too visible though, just enough a good ARV player could hide them well enough that bad players can’t see them in time while bad ARV players would place them in places where they’re easy to spot. The mines would also have a detection radius and whenever a tank enters that radius, the mine would go off.  You can destroy AT mines merely by shooting at them or alternatively just avoid them.

Doing damage in ARVs might be difficult depending on play style. Also in order to prevent the ARV to place mines while it’s getting chased, the ARV must stand still in order to place a Mine, same goes for the Tank traps. Since you rely on the relatively passive anti-tank mines to deal the damage, you need to know the flow of maps and predict where enemies will drive so as to run over your mine. Many players would switch to tank trap deployment and healer roles due to this unpredictability, after all, having teams steamroll, push, or camp too hard provides too little advance for the enemy, and reduces chances of enemies rolling onto deployed mines. Also if an enemy does happen to run into an allied mine, following would happen: it would inflict damage, which is low however, doing damage isn’t the main purpose of an ARV, and it would notify the team where the mine went off, so like a Ping on the map.

Depending on if WG wants to consider the ARV class, it could also be possible for German ARVs to mount the Goliath remote controlled mine, but that’s merely just a thought and should not be considered atm.

Tank Traps:

Next are the Tank Traps, they do whatever Tank traps do best: prevent tanks from moving to a certain location and damage lightly armored and light vehicles.

While you do ask yourself, why the hell ARVs should get traps and mines, it’s easy. It’s one way for them to defend themselves or a flank. Without that, ARVs would have no way of defending themselves, it would also add some strategy to the game and a way to block out paths momentarily,. which could give your team the ability to retreat, considering the ARV placed them smart, as it would only get a limited amount of Traps and AT mines which it can place at once. Nobody would like a chokepoint with 20 mines and 30 traps. That isn’t to say you can’t put a few mines or traps in “tank alley” on Himmelsdorf and such, they could definitely act as a deterrent to funnel enemies towards other parts of a map. They would also get a limited amount of mines and traps that they can bring in one battle.

Tank traps would be divided into 3 different types: Light, Medium and Heavy traps.

Light traps can be destroyed by every class just by driving into them, light vehicles take some time to destroy the traps. Vehicles with light traps can place more traps than vehicles with medium or heavy traps.

Medium traps can not be destroyed by light vehicles and it takes medium weight vehicles a while to destroy these. ARVs with medium traps can place less down at once than vehicles with the light traps, but more than vehicles with the heavy ones.

The heavy traps work pretty much the same as the others, it just takes heavier vehicles to destroy these traps.

While this all looks like a lot of information. Let me boil it down:

This is how an average tier 10 ARV could potentially look like if WG decides to add them:

 

Overall: ( works in all modes)

Passive ability: +25% Effectiveness of damaged modules within 40 meters

Passive Ability: +10% Repair speed within a radius of 40 meters

 

Travel mode:

Ability 1: Heal 300 damage every 40 seconds ( you’d have to target an allied tank)

Ability 2: Buff allied tank for 20 seconds, cooldown 2 minutes ( buff can be negated by Artillery. In the same way a well placed buff can negate an artillery hit on an ally)

Ability 3: Tow Cable

 

Repair mode:

Takes a couple of seconds to go into repair mode ( 5 seconds maybe)

Passive ability: +25% repair speed within radius of 60 meters

Passive ability: Fully repair damaged modules.

Ability: Heal 600 damage every 40 seconds ( you’d have to target an allied tank)

Drawback: you cannot move.

 

Defender mode:

Ability 1: You can place Tank Traps in front of your tank when you press LMB you can have a certain amount of traps active at once ( depends on type), newly placed ones will replace old ones ( replaced traps could be given back to the player)

• You must be standing still to place them

• Does not affect allies (to prevent trolling)
• Can be easily destroyed by heavy vehicles, not so much by medium vehicles and hard for light vehicles

Ability 2: You can place mines in front of the tank when LMB is pressed. you can only place 3-4 mines at once, in general it’s the same as with the tank traps.

• You must be standing still to place them

• Can be Destroyed by gunfire
• When you run over one, it will likely destroy your tracks
• Would do the same damage to the tank as an average shot from a medium tank of the same tier.
• Does not affect allies.
• Can be seen and avoided when played smart.
• Can be hardly seen and avoided when properly placed.
• Can not be placed in close proximity to each other.

This is just a way on how the ARVs can both control flanks and support the team when the situation calls for it. It would be interesting to play and depending on how it’s implemented, a very interesting addition.

I haven’t looked greatly into some of the tech trees, but most major nations could make a line from tier 3-4 to tier 10.

Also each nation could get a trait that makes them special, one nation could be focused on the Defender Mode ( more traps, more mines with more damage) while others could be able to give 2 buffs or heal less but have a shorter cooldown between heals. while another nation could have a big heal but a very long cooldown.

Possibilities are endless and it could be easy for WG to test it on the Sandbox if they ever decide to try them.

Also if the Mine thing bothers you, there’s always the possibility for WG to maybe add a commander perk which shows you whenever you’re in proximity to an enemy mine. It won’t show you how far away it is, nor where it is.

Sure, we might have overlooked a lot of things, but this article is merely about what still could be done. And yes, while the ARV class sounds like a difficult one to play, it could find a lot of fans and add some new strategic possibilities from closing down Flanks to apply the buff in the right moment to push a flank which could make competitive play like CW, stronghold or even Esports more strategic.
What do you think, would you guys like to see ARVs if they would be made like this?