DCC phone application and scripting update

[Varakai]

Downtown Cab Co – In-Game Phone App Refresh

So the Downtown Cab Co App has been around for a fair while now and is a great piece of script for players to request a pickup for a taxi. I remember back when it was a /taxi to do a request, then evolved to dialling 1111 on the phone, to currently now we have an app to request certain vehicles for certain situations. But the system needs to evolve again slightly with some newer features. I will go over some potential quality of life improvements that would be very beneficial, in my opinion as a DDC employee, that would improve in immense ways. If these are at all possible within the ability of the modders.
 

Live Tracking for Customers

One big thing that we see a lot of is from our newer players, and sometimes from our more seasoned ones too, is that they will move away from the requested location of the taxi pickup point, automatically cancelling the ride request. Our drivers are then often wondering in the back of their minds “Did they intentionally move away and cancel, or did they do this accidently and not notice that we are no longer on the way”. They then submit a new request, which if it is a busy time, they get bumped down the queue of requests.

Instead of drivers tracking to the location of the pickup point, we now track the location of the player (or in the RP sense, the players phone) with live tracking. This would be the same sense as the LEO factions pressing the panic button on their radio and other units responding to them. If the player requesting the taxi moves, the location moves with them. This gives the player requesting the fare a greater amount of leniency that they can perform other activities whilst waiting for a taxi. For example, someone makes a request to be picked up at Braddock Pass, but they are on the way to the city. They can continue to walk further down the highway if they can or need to and still having the possibility of getting picked up.

 

Fix Available vehicles on App

At DCC we have a comprehensive list of vehicles available to us to use for different fares, at the moment though, if a driver takes out a service of any kind apart from the regular taxi vehicle, it does not show as available on the right hand side, but at the top it shows that we have Active Drivers and Free Drivers. If passengers see that there are active drivers but no free taxis in this list, then it has the potential to make them confused.

To fix this, it would be better off to categorise the different types of vehicles on the App, rather than specifically having only a few vehicles linked to the App. The list wouldn’t be final but an idea of how to categorise the vehicles would be:

-          Regular: Stainer Taxi, I-Wagen, Moonbeam, Dynasty, Eudora, Broadway

-          Luxury: Super Diamond, Omnis E-GT, Jubilee, Baller, Radius, XLS, Mesa, Deity, Raiden

-          Party: Stretch, Patriot Stretch

-          Commercial: Dashound, Shuttle

In the list of the vehicles, I would also put down the cost per km for both city and county. That way there is not a surprise or a “I didn’t know it would cost that much”

Cancelling a Taxi Request

With the change of the script of automatically cancelling the request if you move too far away from the request location, it would then be asked “How does a player cancel a request?”. So, there would be a few ways that a request can be cancelled off.

-          Firstly, would be from the customer themselves. At the bottom of the DCC app there would be a “Cancel my Request” button that, as the name implies, immediately cancels your last request with the DCC tracking system.

-          The second way would be from the taxi drivers side of things, similar to how LEO factions can “/closecall [Call ID]” for a 911 call, taxi drivers would be able to “/cantr [TR-ID]” to manually cancel a taxi request of a customer if a request has been open for too long/no taxi drivers are able to take the call type (if the request is for a type of vehicle that the current drivers on shift can handle)/or if the individual requesting the taxi is Blacklisted. This would be done RPly through the company tablets that we are asked to take out on each shift.

-          Thirdly, taxi request would be closed if there was no response from a taxi driver for 30 minutes or more, much like the 911 system, the call then automatically closes.

-          Finally, a taxi request could be automatically closed if the last driver on duty goes off duty or disconnects.

 

Implemented Blacklist Script System

A big piece of Role-Play that takes place in DCC is the Blacklist System. With the App changes, it would be beneficial to have a scripted Blacklist System (that only DCC High Command can make changes to). If a player is Blacklisted, then the App would still show for them, however if they try to request a taxi from DCC of any kind, a message would appear saying “You are currently Blacklisted from Downtown Cab Co. If you more information about this, go to www.downtowncabco.com”. A list of commands would be:

-          /showblacklist [page number] (Available to all Taxi Drivers to view)

-          /blacklist [fname_lname] [DD/MM/YYYY – end date] [Reason] (e.g. /blacklist Donald_Trump 31/12/9999 Killing cab drivers) (Only available to DCC Command and higher)

-          /unblacklist [fname_lname] (Only available to DCC Command and higher)

The great thing about having a scripted Blacklist would be that if a player changes their name, then like the criminal record system, they would not be removed from the Blacklist.

 

 

[Malinq]

Actually the blacklist /showblacklist could be useless if we can blacklist someone, and it would block them from making a call, imo that would make more sense.
And GPS for a customer! if they get in taxi just mark it for us on our GPS  

[Dan Dasilva]

+1

[Jayden_Lemone]

+1

[Varakai]

21 hours ago, Varakai said:

Downtown Cab Co – In-Game Phone App Refresh

So the Downtown Cab Co App has been around for a fair while now and is a great piece of script for players to request a pickup for a taxi. I remember back when it was a /taxi to do a request, then evolved to dialling 1111 on the phone, to currently now we have an app to request certain vehicles for certain situations. But the system needs to evolve again slightly with some newer features. I will go over some potential quality of life improvements that would be very beneficial, in my opinion as a DDC employee, that would improve in immense ways. If these are at all possible within the ability of the modders.
 

Live Tracking for Customers

One big thing that we see a lot of is from our newer players, and sometimes from our more seasoned ones too, is that they will move away from the requested location of the taxi pickup point, automatically cancelling the ride request. Our drivers are then often wondering in the back of their minds “Did they intentionally move away and cancel, or did they do this accidently and not notice that we are no longer on the way”. They then submit a new request, which if it is a busy time, they get bumped down the queue of requests.

Instead of drivers tracking to the location of the pickup point, we now track the location of the player (or in the RP sense, the players phone) with live tracking. This would be the same sense as the LEO factions pressing the panic button on their radio and other units responding to them. If the player requesting the taxi moves, the location moves with them. This gives the player requesting the fare a greater amount of leniency that they can perform other activities whilst waiting for a taxi. For example, someone makes a request to be picked up at Braddock Pass, but they are on the way to the city. They can continue to walk further down the highway if they can or need to and still having the possibility of getting picked up.

 

Fix Available vehicles on App

At DCC we have a comprehensive list of vehicles available to us to use for different fares, at the moment though, if a driver takes out a service of any kind apart from the regular taxi vehicle, it does not show as available on the right hand side, but at the top it shows that we have Active Drivers and Free Drivers. If passengers see that there are active drivers but no free taxis in this list, then it has the potential to make them confused.

To fix this, it would be better off to categorise the different types of vehicles on the App, rather than specifically having only a few vehicles linked to the App. The list wouldn’t be final but an idea of how to categorise the vehicles would be:

-          Regular: Stainer Taxi, I-Wagen, Moonbeam, Dynasty, Eudora, Broadway

-          Luxury: Super Diamond, Omnis E-GT, Jubilee, Baller, Radius, XLS, Mesa, Deity, Raiden

-          Party: Stretch, Patriot Stretch

-          Commercial: Dashound, Shuttle

In the list of the vehicles, I would also put down the cost per km for both city and county. That way there is not a surprise or a “I didn’t know it would cost that much”

Cancelling a Taxi Request

With the change of the script of automatically cancelling the request if you move too far away from the request location, it would then be asked “How does a player cancel a request?”. So, there would be a few ways that a request can be cancelled off.

-          Firstly, would be from the customer themselves. At the bottom of the DCC app there would be a “Cancel my Request” button that, as the name implies, immediately cancels your last request with the DCC tracking system.

-          The second way would be from the taxi drivers side of things, similar to how LEO factions can “/closecall [Call ID]” for a 911 call, taxi drivers would be able to “/cantr [TR-ID]” to manually cancel a taxi request of a customer if a request has been open for too long/no taxi drivers are able to take the call type (if the request is for a type of vehicle that the current drivers on shift can handle)/or if the individual requesting the taxi is Blacklisted. This would be done RPly through the company tablets that we are asked to take out on each shift.

-          Thirdly, taxi request would be closed if there was no response from a taxi driver for 30 minutes or more, much like the 911 system, the call then automatically closes.

-          Finally, a taxi request could be automatically closed if the last driver on duty goes off duty or disconnects.

 

Implemented Blacklist Script System

A big piece of Role-Play that takes place in DCC is the Blacklist System. With the App changes, it would be beneficial to have a scripted Blacklist System (that only DCC High Command can make changes to). If a player is Blacklisted, then the App would still show for them, however if they try to request a taxi from DCC of any kind, a message would appear saying “You are currently Blacklisted from Downtown Cab Co. If you more information about this, go to www.downtowncabco.com”. A list of commands would be:

-          /showblacklist [page number] (Available to all Taxi Drivers to view)

-          /blacklist [fname_lname] [DD/MM/YYYY – end date] [Reason] (e.g. /blacklist Donald_Trump 31/12/9999 Killing cab drivers) (Only available to DCC Command and higher)

-          /unblacklist [fname_lname] (Only available to DCC Command and higher)

The great thing about having a scripted Blacklist would be that if a player changes their name, then like the criminal record system, they would not be removed from the Blacklist.

 

 

One other thing I thought of but forgot to mention, the possibility of a queue system that tells customers how many other requests there are or how many unaccepted calls there are ahead of them. This would be especially beneficial when there is only a small number of drivers on but with a large number of requests, you finally get to your customer and they don't suddenly get huffy and go:

[BlossomyBrush87]

+ 1 

[Quietthecutie]

+1, 

Definitely a lot of ways the app could be improved.

[PurplePlant]

+1 we were suppose to get more faction apps, maybe they forgot but phone updates are needed badly.

[Gataki]

Big +1 

New players use cabs a lot and it's some kind of first impression on the server.

DCC needs some love with these bug fixes and improvements.

This faction has been providing endless RP to all sides of life in the server. I think it's deserved a little bit of an update.

Edited March 6 by Gataki

[Cup]

+1 for most of this the only thing I slightly don't like is the automated blacklist system as that removes a lot of possible RP.

[Joveltine]

2 hours ago, Cup said:

+1 for most of this the only thing I slightly don't like is the automated blacklist system as that removes a lot of possible RP.

There is no such thing as an automated blacklist system in DCC's case

[Cup]

i was referring to the end of the suggestion where it mentioned how someone could call DCC and it would tell them they are blacklisted but other wise i likes it

[Tom Solar]

yea the app definatly needs updating, I always had this idea:

So for the ppl using TTS to 'read' these:

- I would remove the 'Free Drivers' counter as it doesnt update when drivers are 'on the way' with the customer, it only updates when a driver accepts a taxirequests and is on the way to pick him up, ariving at the customer marks the driver as 'free' but then he still needs to drive to the location.

- Replace the pictures on the left with either updated cars or just generic themed icons since the fleet updates now and then.

- replace the shuttle with Electric, we havent had the shuttle in our fleet for over 2 years, we made a big point IC in taking on more electric cars and we have 4 now. 

- Remove the counters on the right next tothe 'request' button, these only update when a driver is in the vehicle and only when its the specific vehicle displayed in the image, taxidrivers spend most of their 10-9 time outside the taxi socializing and a big red 0 next to the request button demotivates people from ordering a taxi or requesting a special one.

this has been proposed ic aswell and could all be fixed fairly easy -i think-  by changing whatever textures this uses.

On 1/20/2024 at 3:16 PM, Malinq said:

And GPS for a customer! if they get in taxi just mark it for us on our GPS

Im sorry Damian but I don't like that idea, I understand the pros but I have played on servers that have that and I can show you a typical conversation between taxi and customer there:

-customer gets in-, driver: "hey man, how you doing?" -...- driver: "uhhm okk, where do you wanna go buddy?"-...- driver: "sir?" -...- customer: "man i put it on gps"

I get that people say "oooh but uber has gps" but we dont roleplay uber we roleplay a taxicompany.

On 1/21/2024 at 3:03 AM, Varakai said:

the possibility of a queue system that tells customers how many other requests there are or how many unaccepted calls there are ahead of them.

This is a great idea, I would love to see some sort of que system but it would need to track when taxidrivers are 'on the way' with the customer, contrairy to how the app works.

On some other ideas:

Live tracking: idk how i feel abt this, its not really up to us to go look for the customer after they move, this would just make it more difficult for us i feel. Its also a bit unrealistic imo.

Canceling the request: a customer can cancel a request failry easy by running 10-15 meters but a taxidriver needs to relog i think for the call to become available again. A way to cancel a request would be good from our side but I can see this being abused by people wo dont want to drive to paleto so I would rather not see this implemented.

Blacklist script system: so this would make our lives easyer but i actually dont want it, from our side: people forget to check it, they get into funny situations and we get to barrade them for it. from the blacklistee side: characters get blacklisted for a reason, if they are unsure if they are blacklisted or why, they will try to find out, creating funny situations.