I really like Yukon so I’m gonna address your points and pitch a bunch of my own ideas.
terrain
It’s simple and it worked for what it was made for (constant snowfall which heavily obstructed view past 50 meters), it looks a bit odd when you can see far distances clearly and I’m not really sure how it could be improved.
locations/layout/loot (this all ties together really)
I think the biggest issue with Yukon currrently is the fact that PDW even spawns on the map and the only mags that you can get for it are drums, the map used to be fine with just civilian guns and the best thing you could get was Viper. There’s also couple ways to execute some semblance of progression of acquiring items (be it deadzones, diving equipment or something else) and yet Yukon makes no use of that so that’s definitely an aspect that could be improved.
A long while ago (about 3 years now I think) I made what I called ‘Yukon Remastered’ which was essentially Yukon with heavily tweaked layout, some improved locations and some new ones. Files to that have been lost to time but here’s rough concept.
The mine is accessible and has metal nodes.
RCMP outpost/shack whatever is moved towards left top and replaces useless barn, it’s honestly sort of meta spot on Yukon for easy shotguns and it being so easily accessible always bothered me. That general idea of the map is instead replaced with a mountain with a cave system housing some new loot in form of ranger loot (obviously limited to low tier guns such as Kryzkarek and rarely MP40.
Whitehorse gets a crane cause cranes are cool.
Crashed heli is removed entirely because it allows easy access to unique research loot.
Boat area is changed to be mostly water (which during constant snowfall is dealing a lot of damage due to cold) effectively putting bit of a gate on that loot.
Off-Limits could be made into a deadzone although idk where gasmasks could be obtained from/or how crafted.
I’m really passionate about Yukon, it obviously didn’t age well and with all the changes it got I feel like the map just got worse (weather changes and addition of PDW with drums), it was always a nice different experience, maybe purely because of its limited arsenal and low visibility but it was fun to play with that for a change from PEI or Washington.
Station, when you start from nothing, you will be hitting it to get a blowtorch. I had some experiences when reaching the location that some arsehole barricated himself in and with a Safezone Radiator, giving me to chance to start for real. Unless of course I kill someone already carrying one in his inventory. But I rarely PVP right away with no skills no warm clothes either.