[EM4] Suggestions/Ideas Thread: (Revised)

[MikeyPI]

Eventually this will be open to the public, however I cannot say when since it is a great deal of content to go through before I can open this, if I open it in advance please understand that suggestions may not be answered by the modification designers.

This topic is NOT for questions regarding whether or not something exists in the area which this mod takes place, this is for suggestions and ideas. If you have a question about whether or not a certain vehicle or agency exists in the area this mod takes place go to the emergency question thread to ask about it.

This topic is for members to post their Ideas and Suggestions related to the Emergency: 4 and Emergency: First Responders version of the Los Angeles Modification. Before you post here we request that you read through the list of the most commonly proposed suggestions and ideas to ensure that your suggestion has not been offered already. Secondly, please take the time and effort to thoughtfully propose your suggestions or ideas. Please make sure you do research and ensure that your suggestion is relevant and meets one of the following criteria:

The Proposed Suggestion relates to one of the following criteria:

1. Exists in the City of Los Angeles.
2. Exists in the County of Los Angeles.
3. Exists as a state agency in the state of California.
4. Exists as an agency in the federal government of the United States of America.

If your suggestion is relevant to one of the above mentioned places, we are willing to hear your suggestion, please do your research and make your suggestion as informed as possible so that we may take the time to respond to a creative, well thought out idea! Below are some of the criteria we strongly suggest you do prior to making a suggestion:

• Do Research your suggestion to ensure that it may be possible for the game, requesting something that we have clearly stated does not work correctly is not beneficial to anyone.
• Do try to find an example from Los Angeles or any of the other mentioned locations of what you wish to suggest, this will help give an idea of what it is you are proposing.
• Do Clearly write a description of what you would like to see! If you clearly write out what it is you want in a nice description, it makes it easier to decide if it is something worth pursuing and if we can manage to make it work.
• Do try to ensure that what you are requesting is something that will make the function of the modification improve, we do not mind asthetic modification suggestions, however they are lower priorities over the more involving items that will improve the mod function or the gameplay.
• Do remember to write your idea/suggestion as clearly as possible, we understand that english is not the primary language of many visitors, but if we cannot understand your point there is no way we will be able to figure out what your suggestion is actually about.
• Do be patient when you submit suggestions or ideas, the people here are more often than not willing to discuss your contributions but we all have other things we must do so you have to allow time for other's to view your proposed suggestion or idea in order to get a sufficient response.
• Do try stay on task, we do not wish to see posts such as "that is a cool idea" or "I like this idea". Only post comments regarding someone's idea's functionality and whether or not it will work correctly and contribute to the modification. We do not wish to have this topic cluttered up with needless posts.

Things we request you do not do within the suggestions/ideas topic.

• Do Not request something listed at the beginning of this topic, if it is at the front of the topic in the post below this one, in our minds it has already been resolved at this time and does not require any more comments about it. If you post something that is already listed in previously covered suggestions your whole suggestion will be deleted. (The time was taken to compile the list, you should have the courtesy to read through the list before posting)
• Do Not disrespect other users or their suggestions, this is supposed to be a friendly topic so please keep in mind that while you may believe their suggestions are stupid or impractical, they are entitled to ask about them just as you are.
• Do Not repeatedly suggest the same thing repeatedly if someone has already responded in a sufficient manner concerning your suggestion or idea.
• Do Not complain if someone respectfully responds concerning your idea or suggestion, if someone explains that an idea is not going to work properly or that they suggestion/idea is inappropriate for this mod feel free to ask them to elaborate if they were not clear in their response but do not take it into an arguement.
• Do Not fight or argue in this topic, this topic is for friendly discussion and constructive concepts or ideas that you may have, anyone who instigates/provokes/or gets involved in a dispute will have their suggestions removed and will no longer be permitted to make suggestions.
• Do Not post in this forum any type of post that is just to try to get a response regarding your idea such as the following:
  "What do you think?" "Will this work?" "Anybody know if this will work?" "Please comment on my suggestion!" etc. Anyone who double posts with such comments will have their suggestions removed and will no longer be permitted to make suggestions. We will try to answer your suggestions and ideas, but we cannot guarentee that we can get to them within a certain time frame, so be patient and hopefully someone will be able to sufficiently respond to your ideas.

As the Suggestions and Ideas are added to the list below, the posts regarding such suggestions will be removed in an attempt to help maintain a very systematic order to the new Suggestions/Ideas Forum. Do not worry if your posts are removed, if we remove your posts and you have done nothing inappropriate, it has simply been added to the list below this post. So we can easilly track/maintain a list of what suggestions and ideas have been proposed, also the users who wish to make a suggestion can clearly see what has been covered previously and ensure their ideas are unique. This should also help eliminate the necessity to search the forums to see if your idea has been proposed previously.

This topic is still under construction, however, I will open it shortly to the public so that friendly discussions may be held here, however, please be advised that as the list of previously suggested ideas/concepts is extended any posts related to the ones added to the list of frequently proposed ideas/suggestions will may removed to prevent them from being discussed/propsed again since they are already covered in the beginning of this topic.

[MikeyPI]

Commonly Proposed Ideas and Suggestions: Also Included are the responses to each proposal that has been given, please do not request these futher unless something has changed within the mod that would now potentially permit the item in question to function correctly now. If the concept does not work completely even with any changes that have occured to the mod, please do not request it again since it still would not function properly.

1. A Third Fire Station, A Second Police Department, or A Second Hospital:
   There realistically is no need for any further structures related to the above listed fields, with the additional entry points that have been created on the map you can easilly reach anywhere on the maps within a reasonable timeframe.
   
   
2. Add The Fire Station/Police Department/Hospital to the Multiplayer Maps:
   The concept is a bad idea even if you could get beyond everyone (up to 4 players) wanting to use the fire department to park their vehicles in, also the fact of ownership of the console that permits you to order new men. It is true you could place four consoles, but in the end parking spaces are insufficient for multiplayer, also the instability that such objects would likely cause to the already somewhat unstable online experience in this game to begin with. All the stations would do is to create further lag and a gathering location for players realistically, the police station and hospital would likely just cause lag and occasionally due to the latency fail to activate all necessary scripts.
   
   
3. Add A Fire Truck Tiller With Ladder (Trailer Mounted Ladder with Rig Cab Pulling It):
   The idea and concept of this is a great idea to some of us, however, Emergency 4/FR Scripts currently do not enable a fully-functioning trailer to be used. The current trailers have no collision data associated with them, which sometimes will result in a game crash, the other problems are pathfinding due to it's length and the problems with managing to get your man to go from the ladder into a structure or fight a fire are most likely going to get worse with the increased size of the vehicle and the fact that the game was not intended for trailers, so it cannot back up easilly.
   
   
4. Add A Police Supervisor:
   The Current Police Officers in the modification can already call in ambulances and additional support, so adding a supervisor would not add any additional quality improvement to gameplay.
   
   
5. Make the Paramedic teams have to manually retrieve a stretcher from the ambulance before they can pick up a victim:
   While this may improve the realism of the mod, it would be too much interaction necessary to effectively retrieve the equiptment and the victim, this will reduce the speed of gameplay and probrably upset more users than it pleases. This will not be added to this modification.
   
   
6. Vehicles are only permitted to move when a passenger (driver) is present:
   With the exception of the Harley Davidson LAPD Motorcycle, no other vehicle will have this feature, while it adds realism to the mod it will also increase difficulty and most users will find this frustrating, so this will not be changed. The Motorcycle was given the attribute due to the fact that when it has no operator as a passenger it does not have one on the vehicle either, unlike all the other vehicles in the mod it would make the motorcycle look funny so that is why this was done specifically to that vehicle only.
   
   
7. Add A Mid-Mount Ladder Truck or any other varient of the Mid-Mount fire engine:
   The current ladder truck is acceptable for the time being, and although it may be possible to have a Mid-Mounted ladder present in the game now, it would still have the same problems that the current ladder truck has with reaching upper level floors and fighting fires. The fact is they may be made worse by the Mid-Mounted truck since placement in deployment is extremely important and how a Mid-Mount works in the game it would probrably not work perfectly. For the time being this idea is not one that will be pursued, it may change in the future but currently there is no desire to do so.
   
   
8. Add A Meter or a Water Level to the fire vehicles that will not permit them to pump water unless they are attatched to a hose or a Water Tanker Truck
   This is not possible due to the fact that the game is hard-coded to have an unlimited water capacity for all the fire fighting vehicles, including fire extinguishers. There is no known way around this, so please do not propose it since we can not find a solution around it Addition: This may be possible in a mission, but probrably does not work in freeplay/challenge.
   
   
9. Add Reserve Units or Auxiliary Units (Vehicles and Personnel):
   This may improve realism, but there is already a wide variety of units available in the game from many different departments, also most the time the reserves and auxiliary departments tend to use older vehicles that have since been retired from the respective primary office's fleets, so this would realistically not add anything great to gameplay. All that it would really add is yet another unit that serves the same purpose as the many vehicles already present in the mod.
   
   
10. Add a new vehicle with nothing but a lightbar change:
    This may improve realism, but for example if the only change is a new lightbar on top of another Ford Crown Victoria, there is no need to add it since there are already so many of that type available in the mod as it is. The same can be said about another unmarked vehicle if it is a Crown Victoria with different lighting for example, there is no need to add this since it really will not add anything too spectacular. You may propose an interesting new lightbar to be on one of the existing vehicles, but there is no guarentee that the new lightbar will replace an older one since they merely are asthetics and asthetics tend to be extremely favored personally by some, while disliked by others.
    
    
11. Add More of the same Units (vehicles) but with different Unit Numbers:
    EX: The LAPD Charger with different unit numbers (100,120,130,140, etc.) This will not be done even though it increases the realism of the game, it does not effect gameplay and only makes the mod larger and the UI purchase menu much much longer.
    
    
12. Add The Ability to have random unit numbers come out for a specific vehicle when you request it from the station:
    EX: Have the ability when you purchase or send the LAPD Charger from the Police Department to have a random unit number from a list that has been created as mentiones above (#12). While this is a cool idea that adds realism and perhaps possible, this idea would make the mod file larger. For that reason and the fact that no script currently exists to do such a thing this idea is not one that is currently being pursued.
    
    
13. Add More of the same Units (vehicles) but with different setups or paint schemes:
    EX: The existing vehicles seen in the mod that already have a few varients in the game like the Dodge Charger, the Crown Victoria, the Ford Ambulances are already well represented so there is no reason to suggest more of the same vehicles. If you happen to find a new unique looking vehicle that could add something new to the game, we are open to those suggestions. Such as new vehicle designs, unique purpose vehicles like command vehicles and things like that. We want a variety of special purpose vehicles in the mod more than we want more of the same.
    
    
14. Add A Conventional Pickup Truck Based Tow Truck (Compact Tow Truck):
    This may be possible to add into a mission, but unfortunately it will not function properly in freeplay or multiplayer modes due to the fact that you can't have the tow truck go and pick up a specific vehicle type. For Example if you were to send it to go get a sports car, and then sent another one to get a sedan it can't pick up the vehicle as you see it on the map and drag it back to HQ. It would have to carry a generic model covered up like the current tow truck uses, in my opinion that would not be an improvement, it would look much more strange than the covered box on the rollback model that currently serves as the tow truck. Aside from that in order to function correctly the cargo would have to be more along the lines of a trailer to simulate the method that a tow truck based on the Compact Tow Truck Design would. As mentioned before Trailers do not function 100% perfectly in this game and it could potentially crash the game. The Idea is an interesting idea, but it will not be pursued at this time if at all since there are so many problems with the concept right now.
    
    
15. Add Additional Parking to the Fire Station and Police Departments:
    This idea is a decent idea overall for those who wish to have a large deal of vehicles parked outside, or those who want realism. Unfortunately, the idea would require both stations lots to be re-designed due to the fact that vehicles would have a difficult time parking correctly in the respective spaces with the way the spaces are around the fire station and police department is right now. Add on top of that the extra scripts required in order to check to ensure that A). Parking is available B). The vehicle can fit in the parking space C). The Vehicle is authorized to park in that space. It would take a great deal of time in order to ensure that such things were correctly done in a script with all the various vehicles that could possibly park in the spaces around the stations. This feature while cool really would not effect gameplay much, it may actually hinder the gameplay since a cop would have a much longer distance to go in order to drop a suspect off, and he could possibly jam up the parking lot exit point for new units called on the map by the player from the police station. For these reasons this suggestion is not likely to be pursued at this time, possibly ever.
    
    
16. Add New Freeplay Events:
    While other modifications have successfully added new events, due to the fact this modification only has one scripter and the amount of time it takes to create a new script for a new event this is currently not something that will be pursued. Aside from the time involved, there are also issues with possible conflicts, bugs, and stability of the mod being effected by the addition of new events.
    
    
17. Add A System like the one present in the Winterberg Modification:
    Like written somewhere before, we wish to keep some of the original gameplay. It would require a lot of new vehicles, because each vehicle in that
    system is unique and can be called only once. What concerns us the most, is the fact you can't use the menu to call vehicles anymore. It would
    also make the mod unnecessarily complex for something that doesn't change gameplay that much (you still need to fight fires and arrest gangsters the same way as before). A huge change to the interface would be necessary to make a system actually fun to play with. Besides the fact we have no
    intentions to change the original gameplay, a system like this won't be added because interface changes are not possible in freeplay mode and the amount of time it requires to add it. It would be better to spend my time on a whole new game with many other (better) improvements. In our opinion, the Emergency 4 game engine is not really build for this.
    
    
18. A pullover command:
    Theoratically possible, but it would probably be bugged because of pathfinding, collisioning and updating problems that might accor. Such a
    command would never work very smoothly like it has too. It would still be a great addition to the mod though.
    
    
19. A Shotgun for Police:
    There is no animation for the officer to carry a weapon like a shotgun nor is there any support for such a weapon. This is not a necessary weapon and will not be added to the mod even if there were some way to make it work.
    
    
20. A Stun Gun/Taser:
    There is current no known way to temporarilly stun a suspect other than the hard-coded flashbang effect, which does not function like a hand held weapon. We currently do not know a way around this issue, or if it is even possible.
    
    
21. Make The Swat Team Automatically Clear A Room:
    The Emergency Series is not a First Person Shooter (like SWAT), it was not designed for this and can't really do it anyway. At best you could maybe get through a script for the officers to breach the door and throw a flashbang, taking the suspects into custody would still be your responsibility. For that reason we are not going to pursue this concept.
    
    
22. Make it Possible For SWAT Team Snipers To Deploy To Rooftops:
    This idea would require a very large amount of work to permit the officer to get on the roof, the existing rooftops are not landable by aircraft, nor walkable for the units.. Considering it does not change too much overall we do not believe this is going to happen.
    
    
23. Addition Of More Riot Gear For Police Officers:
    This idea would just add more point and clicking necessary to deal with a situation easilly addressed by sending a normal cop to go and arrest the primary protester, not to mention this is not a riot simulation. While it would add more asthetic improvements, that is about all it would be adding since as far as functionality goes it does not change much in the freeplay riot scenarios. This is something we are not pursuing due to how little it will change.
    
    
24. Addition Of New Air Units:
    While we agree that it is a good idea to have more variety in the air units, the level of difficulty associated with animating a new helicopter prohibits us at this time from adding any new aircraft. It does not take that long to design an airframe, most of the time spent is put into creating the animations for the new rotor assembly. Hoppah spent around 3 weeks designing the animation associated with the Blackhawk Helicopter for example. For this reason we will not be considering any further air unit additions at this time, should we decide to create a new air unit we will select one we feel is necessary or would contribute to the modification.
    
    
25. Prevent A Vehicle From Exploding When It Is Damaged/Shot:
    This concept may work in a mission, however, the particles and audio effects would still continue as though the vehicle were to be destroyed. The Prototype could be swapped in a mission. In Freeplay, this event is hard-coded and cannot be prevented.
    
    
26. Add Additional Commands To The Police Officers (Such As Calling Additional Units):
    The Police units already have plenty of commands and giving them special rights to call in the units would negate the purpose of the other special units in the game, not to mention the UI that you already have as well. There are plenty of methods to order new units to begin with, along with the fact that it is not possible to add any additional commands to the Police Officer.
    
    
27. Make The Firemen Capable of Breaking Windows Out:
    The game does not include breakable windows, so the only thing you could theoretically do outside of a mission would be to have a window that emulated a door which you could break with an axe to gain entry. This is the only possible use that you could grant to a window in freeplay as the game currently stands. You cannot add the ability to use it to vent the room or anything like that except in a mission.
    
    
28. Permit Multiple Firemen on the ladder truck's basket at the same time:
    This concept will not work due to the fact the basket is hard-coded to permit one firemen to occupy it at a time, we cannot change this.
    
    
29. Add A Police Battering Ram To Break Down Doors:
    Pretty good idea, perhaps we will add it at a later date. We have to ensure that the Police can have this attribute and use it. It is possible they lack the animations to do it amongst other potential issues.
    
    
30. Add A Command for Police Vehicles On The Ground To Pursue Suspects/Stolen Vehicles:
    I Wanted this as well, but we can't make it work. What ends up happening is if you just take the helicopter's command and apply it to a car the vehicle will just drive through all objects in a straight line to the target vehicle/person due to the fact that it no longer has collision data. The second method we attempted would permit the vehicle to go to the position of the target when the command was executed, this behavior was as if you were to manually move the vehicle after the target. Also the game does not permit "chained" scripts in freeplay, for that reason we can't make a chain of events occur such as dynamic movement to chase the target then pull it over.
    
    
31. Add A Police Chief/Supervisor, Technical Supervisor, or S.W.A.T Supervisor:
    Realistically adding any of these individuals will not be done for the following reasons. Technical Supervisor is not necessary considering the fact that you really only use the Tow Truck a great deal, the engineer occasionally has to come out but the other ones rarely ever come onto the map, adding another man to the list would not change very much about the gameplay for most users.
    The Police Supervisor is not possible due to the fact there are no command slots available for police officers in this mod, aside from that the supervisor for police is not totally necessary considering that it is not too difficult to send additional units as needed to handle the police related missions, if they were more involving I would agree this should be done but since only the protest/riot missions involve any real effort sometimes along with the fact that there are so many police units that we could not make a practical UI for handling this task; For these reasons we are not pursuing this idea.
    The S.W.A.T. Supervisor is not being pursued for similar reasons as the Police Supervisor, even though there are not that many S.W.A.T. units in the game, there just are not enough missions that would require you to need an individual to do this task for you, most the time if you need S.W.A.T. you send in the Unmarked Sedan or one of the APCs anyway.
    
    
32. Add A Police K-9:
    Adding a K-9 Dog is a problem because the default dog does not behave like a police dog, it is hard-coded to search for people that are injured on the map, we cannot change this behavior. In order to put a dog into the game we would either have to use one of the other dogs in the game or create our own model with unique animations, this would take a great deal of time that we are not willing to put in for these reasons: If we did create a dog and it's respective animations, we could not make the dog behave like a police dog, the game does not permit "chain" scripts, so you would have to control the dog like a police officer in order for it to be able to do anything elaborate. Aside from that if we were to do automated behaviors the best it could emulate would be the armed arrest script which police officers already have, and the fact that we can't change the pedestrian speeds so the dog would move at the same pace as a police officer can, which would mean that it would be just as slow and have to go through the same process to catch a suspect. While a K-9 would be cool, as you can see the problems with it make it either impossible or something that won't change gameplay much.
    
    
33. Add A United States Coast Guard Diver To The Helicopter:
    We liked this idea also, but unfortunately we can't drop the diver from the helicopter or pick him up via the helicopter. Throwing him out the door or putting him on a rope does not make a difference, the way that he would enter the water would likely cause the game to crash since in freeplay it is not designed for this behavior to occur, the man falling into the water is a scripted event, so this may work for a single mission but would not work in freeplay. Basically what you can do is to put a boat in the water (does not require a diver) and run over the individual who you wish to save, they are automatically picked up and placed in the boat, or use the slow diver and walk him into the water or put him into a boat.
    
    
34. Make The Brush Truck Patrol:
    In Los Angeles, they do not patrol the streets normally. Aside from that we can't make the Brush Truck follow it's own individual path around the map, it would join the rest of the vehicles on the map driving along the streets.
    
    
35. Modernizing Vehicles To Their Most Recent Years:
    This will be looked at on a case by case basis, some of the new years do not have any significant changes or are just prototypical test vehicles which are generally not in service in large quantities at this time. If we like the way the vehicle looks and feel it is worth pursuing we very well may, if we do not feel it is worth the effort we will decline it. You are welcome to post suggestions for modernizing units, but understand at the end of the day we will decide acording to our own personal preference since rarely will it effect the gameplay.
    
    
36. Add A Police Vehicle For Addressing Crowds:
    While it is an interesting vehicle, I really do not see where it would come into use in the modification, it might keep people away if we could make a script that permitted this, but most the time you can get by with police officers. The vehicles I have seen with the speakers do not really have any unique appearance to them, and since they would require a script to do the same job that the police officers already do well enough, I do not feel that it is necessary.
    
    
37. Add Investigations To The Freeplay Events:
    Freeplay events are hard coded and cannot be changed beyond a few simple edits, as it stands right now you can change the freeplay event file to have the suspect remain in place for however long you want instead of running around setting multiple fires, but adding an Inspector is something that could only useful as part of a mission, not a freeplay event.
    
    
38. Add Masks To The S.W.A.T Officers:
    I am unsure if we can add the mask through resistances (but I think so), I know we could add it to the model if we wanted to spend the time doing so. The problem with what you suggest honestly is, the Respiratory masks only protect your lungs, mouth, nose, and eyes, everything else tends to be fair game. Since most suits out there are not Biologically or Chemically protected, if there was a chemical in the area it would still drastically effect the officers. Probrably the suspect too, which is why you don't hear of many attacks where the suspect sticks around to watch. The Fire department has the superior protection for hazardous materials, for law enforcement it is more or less to protect against CS/Tear gas rather than chemicals or biological. Military personnel have pretty decent protection against the threat but I really don't know what necessity they have in the mod. The missions can be accomplished as they are currently, you just have to be careful, which is realistic for the scenarios as they are setup.
    
    
39. Add DOT/Parking Enforcement:
    It has already been suggested and discussed within the mod that they be added much like the original unarmed police in the game. Seeing as how a DOT van is already in the game with an arrow bar, and police are prevalent with cones and flares, as of now, it is super low on the consideration scale for it really doesn't add anything that can't already be accomplished easily with units in game.
    

This list is incomplete and will continue to increase, please be patient untill all addition are made unless you are familiar with ideas already proposed in the previous topic.

Edited December 30, 2008 by MikesPhotos
added DOT suggestion

[Hoppah]

MikeyPI and me have deleted some of the suggestions/posts. Like written in the first post we are going to keep this topic clean from double posted suggestions.

Don't take it personal if your post has been deleted. The idea has already been posted before, it's not necessary to repeat it.

This topic is primarely for discussions, we can't reply to every suggestion.

Hoppah

[MikeyPI]

Ok, later on (probrably sunday night) I will be cleaning out all the Responded to suggestions, those of you who have contributed and had your suggestions answered will now find them in the Frequently Asked List. We will continue to use this method to help keep the topic fresh and clean.

Here is a list of those things that have been added to the list of frequently asked: The responses to them were elaborated on so you can see what was said concerning them now up there.

A Shotgun for Police:

A Stun Gun/Taser:

Make The Swat Team Automatically Clear A Room:

Make it Possible For SWAT Team Snipers To Deploy To Rooftops:

Addition Of More Riot Gear For Police Officers:

Addition Of New Air Units:

Prevent A Vehicle From Exploding When It Is Damaged/Shot:

Add Additional Commands To The Police Officers (Such As Calling Additional Units):

Things not added but the responses to them right here:

The Addition of another parking space in the Fire Department for Paramedic Captain:

We have no desire to add additional parking due to the scripting and other issues listed in the Frequently Asked Section, you can easilly manually park the vehicle now in one of the vacant areas in the station area. I understand this is not as convenient, but since this suggestion is so user-oriented for the time being there is not any real desire to attempt to add further parking.

Traffic Advisor Bar on the Battalion Chief:

Have to check to see if the vehicle includes a lighting device that has a Traffic Advisor present on it, if it does this may be done even though it is not technically necessary. If there is no lighting on the vehicle at this time that would support it, I am afraid a cop car or fire engine will have to do the job of blocking the road for you since that would mean the vehicle is accurate as it is and does not support the feature.

Change all the LAPD Lightbars over to Arjent:

In my opinion it would detract from the originality of some of the units to have the same lightbar on them all. We like the variety of lightbars currently present, and given the age of some of the vehicles I highly doubt that the LAPD would spend the money to convert the lightbars over to the Arjent on some of the older units. So we will be keeping the variety.

Make the police vehicles more resistant to bullets so that they are less likely to be destroyed by gunfire:

Perhaps they can be increased in protection some, but if they were totally resistant it would make the SWAT vehicles obsolete, so it would be a matter of finding a good middle ground, good idea though. We may try to adjust that.

Rehab Truck:

While I like the specialized units, without some special attribute that they can do they just really never get used; If we could figure out some specialty use for the truck it might be a worthwhile investment of our time. Unfortunately the Fire Department and EMS lack the same possibilities that the Police do with all of their Weapons and Tactics they can employ.

Turnout Clothing:

The turnout Pants Idea I believe would probrably just make more effort required before you could do whatever it is you're there to do.. For some users this would not bother them, for a large majority it probrably would.

EMS 14 Truck:

EMS Captain 14 once again falls in the same category as the Rehab Truck, without something unique to make you have a reason for pulling it out I do not know if I see the need for another vehicle that does the same purpose as the Crown Victora does right now. If some other use were to exist that would require either of these ideas and make them unique it would be worth considering. Unfortunately, the Tec, Fire, and EMS are all lacking in variables to their missions and tasks they preform in the game, so there is not really too much you can do that will make a vehicle have a support role that would benefit the mod. I wish these tasks were more involving, but sadly they are not.

Regarding the LASD Lightbars:

Same statement still applies, we like variety:)

Two FireFighters in the Basket:

No, not possible. The basket is a hard-coded item, we can't just decide to add another individual to it, there have been many times I wish it had a higher capacity so one FF could use the extinguisher, the other could get the victims. But unfortunately, you can't.

Breaking Windows:

As was said regarding the Axes to smash the windows, there are no windows in emergency anyway, so you can't break out windows. If an entrypoint is accessable, it will automatically open. Now, it may be possible to create a facade window that mimics a door, but at the end of the day it would behave similar to the door.

Police Battering Ram to bust down doors:

Not a bad idea, swat does carry them so it might make it into the mod. It would help to have it on the apcs.

[Hoppah]

Hoppah could you make a firefighter that looks like the one you have in emergency 3 with a shirt and turnout pants. You usually dont need the put all of the gear on the fireman. And could you make is so the firefighters can climb up and down the ladder of the truck and maybe have the monitor still running. Also I like what you did in emergency 3 when you could remove the roof and see the firefghters gearing up. Or when you sound the alarm they will run out with no turnout gear on and get ready near the truck like real life. After looking at the previous emergency 4 videos on youtube, I see when you sound the alarm the battalion chief runs out. That is some much more realistic and since you have done it before, it should be easy, and turn out better. I also miss the CHP camero. You should incorporate tonys lights into the next mod so it is all one package. you should have a few more sever storms, like when trees and building get hit by lightning. Also during the storm you could have many calls with trees down and FD will have to go cut them down and remove them from the road way. I think under the dispatch thing near the firehouse there should be icons like engine 1 engine 2 truck 1 usar 1 and ambulance 1 and when you click it it staff's only that unit. And the alarm will say like engine 1 respond to the ......MVC at........ These were thought out suggestions. LoL

MIke

I'm sorry but I have to shoot your suggestions down for a couple of reasons. It's nothing personal, but they were my own choices while I was building the mod.

To make the game more efficient I decided not to add recruits (like in EM3) to the mod.

It just takes too much time to select and dress each recruit and put him in a vehicle. You don't have enough time for that in this game. It's not a simulator either.

Just pretend the game already does that for you when you alarm the stations.

It's not possible to add a climbing fire fighter. Besides the fact you can't change anything to the way the ladder acts you also can't create new person animations.

The model of the CHP Camaro wasn't 100% identical to the real one and has been replaced by the CHP Dodge Charger. If I'm not wrong there was even a poll about that on the forum.

Nevertheless, you can still find the CHP Camero in the mod. It's just disabled. Find some spare time and use the 'Adding vehicles' tutorial to enable it again.

It was disabled because the mod already has dozens of police vehicles which have all the same functions. Just different appearances.

Tony's lights aren't realistic and I don't want 100's of lights on the vehicles. Mikesphoto's (he is from LA) already changed the lights in the mod so they should match the lights in real life. Like I often have to say: Something that LOOKS cool doesn't mean it should be in the mod. There was already a big discussion about this before. Any posts mentioning tony's lights again will be deleted.

I like the suggestion for commands to staff only 1 vehicle in the fire station, but I don't think it's worth to spend hours of time on something that's not even that usefull.

I mean, clicking the 'Call a FF/EMT' button a few times and let them enter a vehicle works almost just as fast. A function like that would also need a command for EACH spot in the fire stations. You can park three ambulances in fire station 1, so you would need 3 commands to staff each vehicle.

I can't do the radio commands for the mod, because I am not American. Find someone to do that for each event. The event alarms are combined with a video, so you would need to edit like 40 video's as well.

Do you see why I didn't open a suggestions topic before now? There are multiple reasons for everything that has been or hasn't been in or added to the mod.

Hoppah

[Guest ComputerCop]

Maybe a stable command for the police men/woman that can stable a injured person

It's a good idea, since police officers do have some first aid training, but I'm not sure if it would really offer any advantage. The stabilize command only works on minor injuries, otherwise you get a message that says "this person cannot be stabilized!". And any calls with injuries that require police officers will probably involve people that are too seriously injured (in which case, EMS will already be on the way or already at the scene; they won't be that much slower than PD) so the cop won't be able to do anything. Minor injury calls don't really require a police unit to respond if there's no crime committed. If EMS is already dispatched, there's no point in sending LAPD, especially if the injury is minor and can wait for medical attention.

[billyfromhill]

Keep in mind that the FF/EMTs stabilize already. What your suggesting would make EMTs obselete.

[MikeyPI]

For FDNYRes1cue: Check the first post in the thread and you will see why posts magically disappear.

The diver idea is a cool one, but we can't figure out a way outside of a mission to drop someone from an elevated position into the water. Same deal with picking someone up from the water, we can't figure out a way to make that work either. I agree it's a shame considering that the diver is insanely slow.

The fire captain would loose his special purpose if he was in every vehicle, which is why he has his own vehicle, aside from that it would result in confusion if you had to deal with finding the one unique capt. that could bring in the variety the current one can compared to the rest.

Could a USCG Diver be added? He woud ride in the USCG Chopper and would be able to jump from the helicopter into the water, like a pararescue jumper, that way you could achieve quick water rescues. And could fire department captains were added to every unit like the real deal? They wouldnt be able to call the full assortment that B1 could but like a BLS engine and a BLS medic only. And then be able to extingish fire a little faster because of thier experience.

[MikeyPI]

As for the ambulance, not bad (I hate the new econoline van headlights) maybe it'll happen, I don't know. I have to re-fit my econoline headlights to accomodate the difference. So that's a maybe.

Yes, that is basically your two options. You can currently either manually send a diver into the water to retrieve the person (sometimes pathfinding is an issue to get him into the water). Alternatively, you can use a boat and just run over the victim, the victims automatically get pulled into the boat, you do not need a diver to get the victim in the boat unless he is in a place the boat cannot fit. As ya can see there isnt a need to refine that since it's already present and already offers a few techniques. In Multiplayer if I am stuck with fire, I always send a boat out as soon as I can so it is there if it is needed, then I send the truck back and sell it (minus the boat of course), you don't need a diver on board for it to function, it can run people over and pick them up.

Mike you could use the diver for the suicide attempts in the water, so we dont have to get a boat and a diver because they are both very slow.

[MikeyPI]

While I understand your point, and agree on some levels, the problem lies in the fact that most the units do not share attributes. For example the police and fire have totally different command options. It may be possible to change the priority of items used on all the types to be first, but they still would not match up in all cases since some units can get things, others can't. I hope you understand what I mean. Realistically I believe the UI is a bit disarrayed for the unfamiliar out there, but those who've gotten used to it tend to be pretty fast at getting what they need. I do not know if we will get around to re-prioritizing the tools and actions since there are a great deal of commands for each individual character that we would have to tweak around to make them easilly accessable.

Simple, yet maybe useful:

How about a fixed order of icons for the commands? For example it's confusing that a fire man has the "get fire extinguisher" command as button number 1, while a police officer has it as number 2. With a fixed order for all units that carries similar commands, it will be easier to automate / train yourself to do things more quickly.

[Hoppah]

I know we aren't supposed to use this thread to reply to other's ideas, but...

It's a discussion thread, ofcourse you're allowed to reply to others their ideas.

If you think an idea is bad you can give your thoughts about it.

Might help to prevent something stupid being added to the mod.

[MikeyPI]

This is a dictatorship, not a democracy!

We honestly don't care if you want to discuss ideas with one another, if we shoot them down though understand that we will not be pursuing them, but you're welcome to discuss them amongst yourselves. If we decline an idea, there is a specific reason either because of inability to function or we just don't think it adds much to the game to balance the effort required to do it.

It's a discussion thread, ofcourse you're allowed to reply to others their ideas.

If you think an idea is bad you can give your thoughts about it.

Might help to prevent something stupid being added to the mod.

[MikeyPI]

The rappel thing still has the same problem as just tossing him out the door, if we do either it still results in the same problem of we can't dump him into the water, it will probrably crash the game. We can't boot him out the door or use the rappel unfortunately.

An idea with the USCG diver(if its going to be made) is, if its possible that the diver can use the rappel script for army chopper to get down to water..

Hope you understand my "very good english" =P

EDIT: Yey, Semi-Senior Member

[MikesPhotos]

I have a question.... Regarding the radio commands, would you have any interest in changing them to an American dispatcher voice, instead of the current one?

I have always wondered if that would be something of interest to Hoppah for the LA mod.

~Cheers

Newfoundking

Regarding the dispatch audio/radio commands the problem with changing the video is that the game does not recognize the new files within the mod. You would have to replace the original files in the game outside of the mod folder, and with all of the issues people are already having with the simple mod installer, having them navigate, and replace original files would be a nightmare. I have many of the files already done with actual LAFD and PD dispatches recorded, but I am debating releasing it as a Do-It-Yourself with NO assistance submod or something.

What about adding Flight medics or flight nurses they could replace the paramedic and paramedics with stretcher, with Flight medic and flight medics with stretcher to the life net chopper. Like they would wear a flight suit with a helmelt. Like shown here at 1:06

and 1:55. It wouldn't make much of a difference in the mod but it would add some realism

Like you said, it wouldn't make much of a difference. Just a note, LAFD does not utilize Flight Nurses.

Khaki overalls = Pilot, Orange = Helitac Crew (operate the hoist, provide for safety on the ground and stuff like that), Blue = Helitac Medics

Heres my suggestion or idea. Add or update a new ambulance as pictured below. As you will see this has the new 08 Ford Chasis and is parked next to the now old style ambulance which we currently use in the game. I would remove the white/red bls ambulance from station 2 and make the now old style red/white ambulance which is currently the als into bls. Thus leaving the new style ambulance as the als unit. This way we don't have any more white/red ambulances in the mod which you wouldn't see driving around LA today.

You wouldnt? Where the heck was I when I took this picture a couple of days ago?

Remember, there have only been 35 of the new style rigs purchased. With 106 stations, and a great deal of those stations having both an ALS and a BLS ambulance assigned to it, you're looking at only about 20% - 25% of the stations getting the new ambulances. We'll be seeing the white boxes around LA for quite some time. The next budget is asking for just 23 ambulances, which might get cut down with budget cuts.

Shouldnt the brush patrol be able to acutally patrol? I would love to hook up the equipment trailer to it and have it patrol the city. That way if my USAR is already busy on an MVA or as extra man power, i can have a unit ready to roll for things like jumper calls. It would also be alot of help for vehicle and small fires. Just an idea

I think it would be pretty cool to have a brush patrol patrol like around the areas with brush, or like woods, or something along the lines of like houses and such that have brush, though I doubt it actually patrols in real life

Newfoundking is correct. The LAFD Patrols aren't fully staffed but cross staffed with other apparatus, or back filled during significant weather events. They don't actually patrol the city, but will patrol the foothills and mountain areas for mudslides and fires when weather requires it.

Hey guys

i was just wondering if you wanted to replace the old boring LAX crash tender with a new up to date vehicle? the vehicle that is was thinking about was the Rosenbauer Panther 8x8. I will enclose some pics. Also for the mission Explosion at an airport termanial you could have people trapped in the planes and you would have to use a vehicle called the Rosenbauer Airstair. I will also enclose some images of that too. Tell me what you think?

thanks Emergency 3 Freak

Panthers are my favorite fire truck buuuut..... the CRV ingame is fine by my standards at least. and i seriously doubt that LAFD uses Panthers. would be nice though; that new Panther is SEXY!!!

and theres already an LAFD stair vehicle ingame that is really stubborn in the editor cause i cant edit the lights

Ami is correct, LAFD doesn't use Panthers and the Firefighters assigned to Fire Station 51 are very happy with their Oshkosh and E-Ones.

[Hoppah]

Not going to spend time on Caprice police car. Why?

1. Because the mod already has dozens of police cars.

2. I'm trying to keep the mod as modern as possible.

3. I don't think PD's still use the car, someone once said the car wasn't very reliable.

4. And final, I don't like the car myself.

Hoppah

[MikesPhotos]

I've knda been lazy and haven't bothered to get 911 First Responders (I will after Christmas though) But in em3 in the train wreck mission, I kept having problems, because I couldn't get people in fast enough with exinguishers and the like, but is there any possibility of putting in smoke jumpers, with equipment packs on them (i.e. change traits to add a get axe command) and hav a hose built in like the water tender? That would have made that mission so much eaiser.

Having spent a good portion of my fire career, going on 14 years now, in Wildland and Forestry, I've only been on 2 incidents that involved smoke jumpers, 1 in California (Shields Fire) and 1 in Colorado. While Region 5 does have Smoke jumpers based 542 miles north of LA in Redding, the topography and accessibility of most areas in Southern California have made Helitack much more useful and effective. Stating with 1.7, you now have this ability in the game to transport a helitack crew of LA City or USFS firefighters into an area with extinguishers and axes to create fire breaks and put out fires in hard to reach areas. This is consistent with the tactics and resources utilized in the Angeles National Forest and both SRA (State Resource Area) and LRA (Local Resource Area) wildland, forest, and urban interface lands.

Also what about unit packages? For instance a Fire Assignment that contains a fire truck, firefighters, and an ambulance? SInce most units are dispatched in groups. For instance where I live it's (No Iam not making this up, our department gets this a lot, of course you have to see the T.V. show "Emergency" to get it) Engine 51 and Medic 51. That would save time in the buy pannel.

Unlike many areas of the US, set packages and alarms are not found in the LAFD, but instead, as discussed numerous times throughout this board, there is a complex algorithm used to dispatch units to calls based on availability, nearest ALS or BLS resource and type of call. The whole point of the game is to correctly manage your units and dispatch the appropriate ones to the call without completely depleting your units for the next call, just like in real life. With set dispatches, you run into the other problem of being tied to just on screen units that may or may not be available. What if its in an area where an LACoFD squad and a BLS ambulance might be more appropriate of a response, or an ALS engine and a bls ambulance, or an ALS ambulance and a light force? The combination's that are possible with the new and accurate EMS system are staggering and allow for the player to pick the best grouping for the call based on type, location, and resources allocated already.

[Hoppah]

Most of these car are a little stupid (with funny color theme or siren which siren isn't light a real) for me, maybe becouse they aren't different. In mod have 3-4 car which is alike. If you want to make this mod a real like you have more work and chages to this things. Watch more films with police, swat...

Nothing personal Hoppah,

lord_bonev

You got another warning for insulting me without a reason. Why? Because you post is based on NOTHING except personal taste again. Your post is personal because the mod is mine.

Come with facts man. FACTS, everything in your post is bullshit.

Funny colour schemes? Where the hell is that based on? What's so funny about them? The colour schemes of the cars can't get more realistic than they already are...

All the sirens are as realistic as they can get now. Guys like you always come up with the sirens you can find on the Federal Signal website. And GUESS WHAT?, according to Mikesphoto's they aren't like the real sirens in LA. I am not even going to start about the lights, you can match them with the real vehicles for most of them.

Lets start about the cars now. 3 to 4 cars which are alike? Almost all PD's still use the Ford Crown Victoria. OFCOURSE, they are alike. Most PD's in LA County have the black/white colour scheme, so that makes them look similar ofcourse. Adding an older LAPD Caprice isn't ANYTHING like the real situation in LA.

Films? Since when are films realistic? 99% of the films are FICTIONAL, so film producers can add or change anything they want. They often need to get permission and pay money to use real PD stuff in their films. Federal vehicles have often too much lights in movies, just because it's cool. I don't blame them for doing that. but cool doesn't mean realistic. So I don't base my mod on movies. It's doesn't make the mod more real AT ALL.

You're pushing it to the limit man. You KNOW I'm not going to add older cars, resisting against my decission doesn't work this way. You're a big joke, go back to school and learn English and the difference between personal taste, fiction and non-fiction.

If I don't like something I am not going to add it. It's my mod. That doesn't mean we can't talk about it, but your post is total bullshit.

I don't reply much in this topic. Even when I do, all I get is the criticizem. People are hard to satisfy here.

Hoppah

[soulbody]

maybe it is a idea to edit the system of the rappel command from the army helicopter. to make it just like the rappel command of the tech helicopter. like you just let the unit slide down instead of using a animation. this will make the command usefull for other units like the LAPD.

and i THINK you can be do it faster if you do edit it out the command of the tech force

[Guest MonkeySquasher]

.......replace the old boring LAX crash tender .......

Merry xmas

I actually think exploring another version of the Crash Fire Rescue truck would be cool, there are some neat truck designs out there. But just a reskin, because the current truck is great for when I have a large fire. And get lazy. =D

.....so you have to wait to stretch lines and wyes and let a tiny fire in a pile of firewood escalate it that whole forest going down.......

Research wildland and forestry firefighting. Very little of it involves water.. It's all about getting infront of the fire and making a fire block. Then you try to extinguish or let burn what's left. If you pull up to a working house fire, and the houses on either side start to go up, you protect them first, THEN the original house. If you always try to fight the fire that already exists, you'll just be one step behind.

Try playing the old EM3 forest fire mission with only chainsaws and dragging trees away... I did it, it was tough. And realistic. haha

[jab16]

Hey how about instead of all of us getting mad at each other we just be happy that we are able to share opinions for the mod in the first place.

oh also do you think you think that it would be possible for a diver to call for the boat when he is in the water just an idea

Regards

Jab16

[Newfoundking]

All I can say to this, is wow. That is directed at Hoppah. I would have left this mod, and the whole project years ago, with people acting like this. I am very grateful that you put so much work into a free mod. I am also very appreciative, that suggestions even get looked at by the team.

People need to grow up, and learn that because they can't take criticism, or the CREATOR of this mod doesn't want to add something in, doesn't mean to start a whole big fight over it.

Hoppah, I want to thank-you on behalf of everyone here that APPRECIATES this mod, and will play it without having to whine and sook over every little thing THEY don't like. Thank-you for your time and effort, I enjoy the mod, and I am sure most people are in the same mind set. Now I think, as it is coming up towards Christmas, you should take some time away from here, have a good holiday, and don't come back here, or do anything with the LA mod for a while, just because it is Christmas, and you deserve it. We know that you guys have lives outside of here. So go enjoy them.You worked hard the other 350 days of the year, take these ones off

That is my suggestion for the LA mod: The whole team take a break, and rest, don't worry about this for the rest of the Christmas time

Thanks for taking the time to read this

[jab16]

yes i agree with Newfoundking go take some time off and don't litsen to them because christmas is the time of giving and you gave a lot to us and if some certain people don't want to accept that this takes a lot of work and dedication to make then get mad at you thats just Rude.

Regards,

Jab16

[joachimnor]

I agree with newfound... GO HOPPAH merry christmas btw

But something nice would be to add is the possibility to shoot to kill

Edited December 23, 2008 by joachimnor

[Guest Battalion 1]

Since the battalion chief and the ems captain will have more functions like calling units not on the map, would it be possible to set up an alarm response button? this would add to the realism of the game. most of the time a battalion chief will say dispatch my 2nd alarm. they usually don't say give me 3 engines, 1 ladder, 1 rescue, 1ALS & 1 BLS. that's usually part of the alarm run card. yes there are times when a incident commader will ask for individual units when the fire is not too out of control, but not when it is out of control. The alarm button could work like the light force button. It would give players another option when playing. Maybe have it set up that if you hit the alarm button while pressing the CTRL button on the keyboard it would only send fire units without EMS.

My second suggestion is for the arson fires most of the time the actor is not still on location. they are usually gone by the time the PD and FD arrive or are in hiding watching the action. My suggestion is maybe once the fire is out have a fire marshal come to the scene to investigate or whoever LAFD uses in that situation. when the investigation is complete the actor icon could show up on the map. that's when you could dispatch the police to locate and arrest the arsonist.

These are only suggestions and hopefully this won't offend anyone. If so i deeply apologize. I realize this thread is a very sensitive area.

[Hoppah]

Actually this is not your business so shut up. You don't now what I wont...

Откъде се пръкнахте толкова много разбирачи незнам, направо не е истина. Добре прави си това, което правиш както искаш, но щом си направил тема за предложения си длъжен да се съобразяваш с тях. Ти правиш това, което искаш... Добре прави го, нечакай от нас предложения щом не ги уважаваш. Аман от такива хора.

Besides the pathetic way of talking in your own language, I HATE cleaning up topics for these useless discussions over and over again.

Because I don't want to spend time in translating what you just said in fake Russian I just ban you.

I also don't talk in Dutch when I am cornered by people who speak better English than myself.

See you back in 9999 days when we're all dead.

Hoppah