An Atmospheric Addition- Traffic

[Toklo23]

Good day everyone. I've been playing for the past couple of days and in my time settling in, I've had a little time to consider some suggestions, the most prominent being traffic along the streets of San Andreas, or the lack thereof. Now, I have no understanding of how the coding/scripting/magic/witchcraft that goes into developing the mods that make the server what it is, so I have no idea if this is even possible, but I'll share anyways.

 

I'd like to see npc's back on the streets of the map. I don't know if they've been gone since the beginning, or were removed for a certain reason, but the map just feels so empty without the traffic you're used to seeing in the regular game. Even when interacting and rping with other players, everything still feels a little lonely. So the basic premise is to add npc's into the game to add to the atmosphere and further enhance the environment. Different times of day could yield different levels of traffic, as in real life. Bumper to bumper traffic during rush hour in certain parts of the city compared to sparse traffic in the middle of the night. And, just to be clear, my idea includes npc traffic only, not npc pedestrians.

NPC traffic will completely ruin police pursuits, as players will try to ditch their vehicle and steal an npc's in order to evade easier.

This is a valid point, however I see a solution. In real life, rarely, if ever, does a suspect attempt to steal a car along a major freeway or busy road. Carjackings during pursuits usually happen in parking lots or gas stations or other residential areas, and pursuits usually end there as well, since the suspect has very little time to get away before they're taken down by the cops. And, a player attempting to stop an npc going 50+ mph on a major road and jack their car is completely unrealistic, and could be taken as that player disregarding their safety and therefore devaluing their life and personal property due to the obvious danger. Now, if for some outlandish reason that were to happen, the victim of the car jacking would most likely be able to inform police of the stolen vehicle anyways, and possibly a description of the suspect, defeating the purpose of attempting to use a "cool" getaway vehicle. Should a player try and steal a parked car, they should have to go through the process of unlocking it via bobby pin, which brings me to my next point.

By default, all npc vehicles, both active (driving) and parked, should be locked. Most car makes and models going back at least 8 to 10 years have automatic locking systems when a vehicle is put into drive. So it's extremely unlikely that a given player could just run up and drag someone out of a vehicle and drive off, and if they were able to, the likelihood of bystanders witnessing the incident would be high, given the area. If a player wants to steal a parked car, they should have to go through the process of using bobby pins to get inside.

So what prevents players from abusing this feature and instead of utilizing the already available transportation services, just bounce around in different stolen cars?

Good point. My idea here is to implement a system that has a random chance of flagging the vehicle as stolen, giving the police a description of the vehicle and plate number, as well as a last known location. When trying to break into a car currently, there is a random chance of whether or not the bobby pin will work, and the same could be applied to stealing an npc vehicle. There's a moderate to high chance that the vehicle ends up being flagged as stolen. ICly, this could be an npc looking out the window noticing the carjacking, or the owner of the vehicle coming back to where they parked to find the vehicle gone. It still depends on police trying to find the suspect, but the extent to which the cops want to rp that kind of situation out would be up to them.

Alright, but what about players abusing npc traffic by just taking cars and scrapping them or modify them?

Also a valid concern. The solution I see works similarly to a certain game mechanic found in regular GTA Online. There are certain vehicles that are flagged as "too hot" and cannot be modified or sold. If possible, all npc vehicles could receive a similar flag that prevents them from being scrapped. It's already impossible to modify a stolen vehicle as it stands in Eclipse. The same could be applied to trying to modify a stolen npc vehicle.

 

So, the takeaway here is that traffic would do so much to add to the atmosphere of the server. We don't have to be able to interact with npc's in the ways we are able to with players, but traffic would do so much to breathe life into the city and other parts of the map. The roadways wouldn't feel as sparse and dead as they currently do. It's nice seeing the occasional player flyby on the opposite side of traffic every now and then, but to be able to rp and play around real flowing traffic would tremendously boost the environment the server has to offer.

 

 

[Xoza]

+1

I would love to see more NPCs added, even if minimal. From vehicles parked or even static props to full immersion. Sync, bandwidth and processing I believe are what hold it back though.

I wonder if there's a way to have an adaptive NPC handler, if it has the power and bandwidth, it'll have NPCs, more players on the server would 'take up' those NPC spots and remove NPCs. Even simply just having static NPCs hanging out would be a great addition. Standing in a store looking in the fridge, hanging out on Grove Street, standing in line at a theater, playing mostly idle animations.

[Denni]

Though I would like this, I believe Rage MP does not support it.

I couldn't see it being very lag free, with 200 people and civilians.

[Marca]

Sounds nice to have an alive city with AI, but lets be honest, the AI in GTA was always very dumb. Usually they will just ram at a blockade on the road, honk endlessly and sit there, even if there's a free lane right next to them. Aiming a gun at them makes them go crazy and just cause more havoc, especially if someone shoots a gun nearby. Traffic would be chaos in highly populated areas because they would never despawn since players are nearby. Lets not forget that AI would also be very more intensive on peoples computers and probably kill the server. 

Rage also doesn't support this and even if it did, I'd be against it. I'd much rather RP with 200 players in a server with no AI, than RP with a small number of players with AI. AI ultimately plays a very insignificant role in the whole RP experience anyway, only being there for the eye-candy and people easily stealing vehicles.

-1

[KeistuoliZ]

-1

I wouldn't like to see NPC's as it would cause more lags, and it would be really messy, its enough to have real people thats it.

[Salvador Rivera]

Rage MP is not supporting NPC ! 

I would love to see more than 300-400 people in server . That would fix a lot of 

Edited January 27, 2019 by Chris Bluestone