[EM4] Suggestions/Ideas Thread: (Revised)

[billyfromhill]

The problem with this is the fact that, at this time, no unit is able to call an "Off Map" unit which is why you are unable to call for tow or engineer or any other off-map only unit.

I though that with the new standby commands, units are able to be called from off map if no vehicle was available. If that is correct, I see no problem calling SWAT (or any unit for that matter) from off map. Correct me if I am wrong.

Can you give us some more information on your issue since I've never had any problem with patients dieing? If the patient is fully healed, you should be able to transport via any ambulance with or without a Paramedic inside and make it to the hospital with no problem. The only way I can imagine having an issue is if you stop treatment and leave the patient unattended for an extremely long period of time before transporting. Even with the patient just above the ambulance ok to transport limit, you can still make it the hospital from even the farthest corner of the maps via ambulance. Remember, just like in real life though you can't just abandon the patient for long periods of time and expect them to be ok. If you stop treatment and let the patient just lay there unattend on the ground for an extremely long amount of time, you are going to have issues. One of the great things about the new version is for those who are really bad off, you can have more then one medic team on them at once now and boost their health up faster.

I sure can. For example the airport mission in the LA mod. I carry the injured people out of the shops/departure lounges and take them to the lobby. I heal them up and then leave them there while I put out the fires. I usually keep at least one PM in the general vicinity of the "triage area" to heal new PTs coming in. When I call the RAs for transport, usually the first person I healed has had their health drop down far enough to warrant a "reheal" by a PM.

[MikesPhotos]

I though that with the new standby commands, units are able to be called from off map if no vehicle was available. If that is correct, I see no problem calling SWAT (or any unit for that matter) from off map. Correct me if I am wrong.

That is still something that is being tested. The only real use will be for more calls will be for groups of units since there is no use putting in tons of coding and testing hours and adding more buttons, for something that can be done just as easily and quickly with just the F1-F4 commands.

I sure can. For example the airport mission in the LA mod. I carry the injured people out of the shops/departure lounges and take them to the lobby. I heal them up and then leave them there while I put out the fires. I usually keep at least one PM in the general vicinity of the "triage area" to heal new PTs coming in. When I call the RAs for transport, usually the first person I healed has had their health drop down far enough to warrant a "reheal" by a PM.

Just like in real life, if they required ALS care, you cannot stop providing care for any great (and I do stress GREAT) length of time. The unrealistic cheat for your way of playing would be to leave an EMT in that area to stabilize them after reaching full heal. In that mission, you should deploy the MCU or a stream of ambulances and start shuttling as soon as possible instead of leaving patients unattended.

That isn't a bug or something that will be changed.

[jab16]

this is just somthing extra so instead of the same fbi and secret service unit mabie you could give them this secret service marked police car? Just an idea and if my idea offends anyone i apaligize for it.

Regards,

Jab16

PS: looks like port police car

[MikeyPI]

That is Federal Protective Services, they have been around for a while. Basically their purpose is to protect federal buildings, you will see that car around federal buildings mainly, not really straying too far away. That may have changed since they merged into the DHS system but I doubt it.

this is just somthing extra so instead of the same fbi and secret service unit mabie you could give them this secret service marked police car? Just an idea and if my idea offends anyone i apaligize for it.

Regards,

Jab16

PS: looks like port police car

[MikesPhotos]

That is Federal Protective Services, they have been around for a while. Basically their purpose is to protect federal buildings, you will see that car around federal buildings mainly, not really straying too far away. That may have changed since they merged into the DHS system but I doubt it.

Nope, you're exactly correct. They are the Federal equivalent of LA's General Service Police Department and the Los Angeles County Police Department (not LASD, LACoPD) which are basically security guards for their assigned buildings and property. The FPS in LA have an agreement, along with the FBI Police, that limits their jurisdiction to just the federal property, with only PC832 (think regular store security guard) rights and allowances off of federal property.

In Wash DC, you will find a special cooperation between the MPD and Federal Law Enforcement that is unique JUST to that area. You can read more about it here

But since this is LA, it wouldn't add anything to the game at all.

[theparanoid]

Having just finished an hour long free play game with la mod, it I wonder if it would be possible to move the USAR truck to station 2 and hazard mat truck to station 1. This way each station has resources to respond to car crash. Station one would have a light force and Paramedic enginee. Station two would then have Paramedic engine and USAR Truck.

I also would not mind have Paramedic with the light force.

[Guest firemanzac]

A similar though: What if we got rid of the Hazmat Truck at Station 2 (You can still buy it or call for it of course) and replace it with the Foam Tender? Honestly, I can count the number of times on one hand Ive had to call for the Hazmat Truck and to me its taking up bay space that can be used by something more functional. Given the industrial area's and woods around Station 2 and up on that side of the map, it makes more sense. In addition, perhaps the Foam tender could come with a button allowing you to switch from Water to Foam? The foam could simply be represented by a slightly more powerfull stream or white stuff fom the cannon. If in foam mode, you wouldnt be able to do rapid deployement or use a hose line (or you could). just some thoughts.

[Grim_Wizard]

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.

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.

Hmmm, well I live in a sleepy little town so I'm not accustomed to more citywide usage of response.

[Guest jaywilly]

A similar though: What if we got rid of the Hazmat Truck at Station 2 (You can still buy it or call for it of course) and replace it with the Foam Tender? Honestly, I can count the number of times on one hand Ive had to call for the Hazmat Truck and to me its taking up bay space that can be used by something more functional. Given the industrial area's and woods around Station 2 and up on that side of the map, it makes more sense. In addition, perhaps the Foam tender could come with a button allowing you to switch from Water to Foam? The foam could simply be represented by a slightly more powerfull stream or white stuff fom the cannon. If in foam mode, you wouldnt be able to do rapid deployement or use a hose line (or you could). just some thoughts.

I agree with that. It does make more sense to station a Water Tenderer at Station 2. I've had to call them in a number of times off the map for industrial area fires. Also, maybe a few parking spaces at the hospital (if feasable) to maybe park an EMS Captain car, Coroner's Van and spare ambulance.

[Paramedic_Engine_2]

How about adding a few storms where trees fall down in the road and FD has to go cut it out of the road. Down in GA, when there is a storm, FD is running calls all night and removing trees from roads, etc.

mike

[nick the greek]

about the chase script, Winterberg mod team managed to make a chase script that stops the car. i am writing this post because i think that someone said it is not possible.

merry Christmas!

[MikeyPI]

We personally have not made it work to any level of satisfaction by our standards. The Winterberg mod has many features that semi-function, I am not sure if this is one of them, but in a good deal of cases their addons tend to make things unstable. Since the game is already unstable to begin with we do not wish to make it worse wherever possible. You can do this particular function during a mission without a problem, but doing it in freeplay for us is something we have failed to manage to make work correctly.

about the chase script, Winterberg mod team managed to make a chase script that stops the car. i am writing this post because i think that someone said it is not possible.

merry Christmas!

[Guest Zohar]

Is there a way to have people assist others? For example, when someone is full health you can only get one firefighter PM to heal at a time, or at least the animation. I would like to have multiple guys healing one person at a time even if they're full health for realism, is this possible because its annoying when someone gets a heart attack and you have 1 guy treating while the other 7 are standing around.

[nick the greek]

ok Mikey i understand it. about the Winterberg mod it has so many features that you can't play the game more than 10 minutes(the chase command isn't so good though)

[MikeyPI]

That's what I heard about that mod, is that the stability of the mod is rather lacking:(

Some of it's functions are really cool but the game downright hates them, then there are others they have tried to make work but have not gotten there yet. The problem with borrowing from that mod is that they have changed so many things it really is hard to tell what exactly the culprit is when your game crashes:(

Our mod you're usually very good in SP, in MP shutting down the log file usually fixes the stability issues, with the exception of a few we've still not figured out.

We have tried everything under the sun to try to get this to work correctly (I wanted it too since a car is cheaper than a helicopter) but dynamic pathing seems to be what we can't crack, the car always moves to the target's last known position instead of to the target. Basically we can only make it behave as move does right now, unless the car is stupid enough to stop for fast food or gas we can't catch him.

As for the other function, I think it's hard coded that we can't make the guys all work on someone at once, it doesnt really have to do with animation restrictions, but more the heal script. It might be possible to ammend the script to add a multiplyer to it for when more persons are present and trying to work on someone to increase the rate of healing, but I honestly don't know.

ok Mikey i understand it. about the Winterberg mod it has so many features that you can't play the game more than 10 minutes(the chase command isn't so good though)

[nick the greek]

you know something Mikey i think that the most important thing in a new mod is to have some new scripts. if there is a mod only with new vehicles i don't like it very much. and here comes my suggestion, enjoy your holiday time(if you have) and i recommend you to not change vehicles or lightbars but try to make some scripts or even a mission if you can this mod is great and it has got many vehicles to worry about making more of them.

always friendly, nick the greek

[MikesPhotos]

Is there a way to have people assist others? For example, when someone is full health you can only get one firefighter PM to heal at a time, or at least the animation. I would like to have multiple guys healing one person at a time even if they're full health for realism, is this possible because its annoying when someone gets a heart attack and you have 1 guy treating while the other 7 are standing around.

As for the other function, I think it's hard coded that we can't make the guys all work on someone at once, it doesnt really have to do with animation restrictions, but more the heal script. It might be possible to ammend the script to add a multiplyer to it for when more persons are present and trying to work on someone to increase the rate of healing, but I honestly don't know.

Actually Mikey, what zohar is asking is already part of 1.7! While it is true that you can only have 1 FFPM with a bag healing (the original doctor in the game), you can have that person assisted by additional medics and medic teams without the bag which will cause the patient to heal faster and unlike with the FFPM with the bag who stops treating the patient when health reaches full, these guys will keep treating he patient until picked up and transported. So yes Zohar there is a way and it's already part of the game.

[Newfoundking]

So basically, I can have more than 1 guy heal someone injured, or normal?

I'm kinda confused

[MikeyPI]

Basically I think it works off the LA Stabilize script instead of default heal. Since the guys don't have medical bags, they just act as though they are stabilizing the victim, while the other guy is "healing" him. When the medical doctor guy is done, the others will stay and keep the victim stable untill he is picked up. So you can have more than one individual pitching in to get someone ready to transport.

So basically, I can have more than 1 guy heal someone injured, or normal?

I'm kinda confused

[Ami89E1234]

yeah im MP ive had some of my FF/EMTs help treat patients even though a doc from the EMS guy was already treating him. doesnt help much, but looks cool

[Newfoundking]

duh, stupid me, Thanks Mikey

[MikeyPI]

Yeah not a problemo:) mikesphotos plays with EVERYTHING, I rarely use all the scripts, I tend to end up missing half of them:( I am NOT the scripting guy, so I rarely test them unless specifically asked, so I miss a good deal of them, unfortunately. I assumed that LA Mod still was stuck with one FF treating, great addition to be able to hurry up the pace in a mass casualty scenario but I didnt know it was there either...

have fun guys,

mk.

EDIT**** Please if you believe something works that I call dead and can't work outright, please try to explain to me in as much detail as possible where it is in the mod and I will check it out as I can to verify if it works or does not work correctly, other mods I don't have:( already have LA mod 200X so adding more mods would just make my folders look like the Mod yellowpages. If it is from another mod go into depth about how it works and if there are any bugs, if someone else made it work stable we might be able to find a way to make it work, assuming it is functional and related to America-style mods of course:)

duh, stupid me, Thanks Mikey

[Grim_Wizard]

How about adding a few storms where trees fall down in the road and FD has to go cut it out of the road. Down in GA, when there is a storm, FD is running calls all night and removing trees from roads, etc.

mike

Odd, the Dept. of public works should respond to that. Also the only "real" way to get rid of trees is to use the recovery crane-

Wait Idea, forming...

I know, you can use the "Ctrl" Key to make the trees block the road, then the only way to move them is with the firefighter and chain saw. (I'm a genuis) The only problem is is that there will be no roots.

[MikeyPI]

Firefighters can choppy choppy trees down, occasionally i've nearly hit pedestrians with them, almost smacked a police officer in a fun game of tractor tipping too. Really you have to use the ff to move the trees I think, unless that has changed usually smaller trees can be moved about from what I remember, once again that's another feature i've never played much with. You SHOULD be able to add roots to a tree, but it is still the problem of making the trees fall. When you play a friendly game of landscaping via FF, the trees tend to land completely randomly, they don't follow any particular path down. I have a video where I did some landscaping to make the tractor-tipping obstacle course to make the tractor flip and roll.

DPW is more often in major locales responsible for landscaping downed trees into firewood but I aint sure how often you would need to do that, other than areas where trees gotta go. I sware at times I wish the bulldozer could run over trees, I ran over small trees doing a wheely on a quad without breaking it so I don't get why the dozer can't do that job too.

One of those things I guess.

Adding new events is hard if not impossible, basically from my knowledge we have to work with what is available, that's not to say would couldnt try to tweak a pre-existing mission into something else, but I honestly do not know how stable it'd be nor if it would work at all

Take care

mk

Odd, the Dept. of public works should respond to that. Also the only "real" way to get rid of trees is to use the recovery crane-

Wait Idea, forming...

I know, you can use the "Ctrl" Key to make the trees block the road, then the only way to move them is with the firefighter and chain saw. (I'm a genuis) The only problem is is that there will be no roots.

[theparanoid]

...

We have tried everything under the sun to try to get this to work correctly (I wanted it too since a car is cheaper than a helicopter) but dynamic pathing seems to be what we can't crack, the car always moves to the target's last known position instead of to the target. Basically we can only make it behave as move does right now, unless the car is stupid enough to stop for fast food or gas we can't catch him.

...

I believe that how they did this. I watch the police car the last time I try it winterberg. The police car drove to were the car was when I click the command. Stop for a few seconds then drove on and arrived behind the car I had targeted. That car stops at that point.

I think it only works because they increased the speed for the police cars to a very fast speed when the lights and sirens are on.