PD Helicopter Tracking.

[Quietthecutie]

28 minutes ago, DontSniffSugar said:

I don’t believe the helicopter’s camera is that overpowered, I’ve lost AIR-1 several times since the implementation of the camera. As others have mentioned, the camera needs a co-pilot to operate, and is a lot harder than would be assumed to quickly get a co-pilot during a high speed pursuit, given that the majority of cars driven by criminals can outspeed and out maneuver the standard police vehicles.

My only real complaint is AIR-1 flying so high to the point of not seeing or hearing it.

 

Almost all police helicopters IRL are equipped with cameras:

 

Tremendous argument which falls flat on 2 accounts.

1. This is a videogame. An RP server, sure. But the priority should always be on keeping it fun and entertaining for all parties first and "realistic" second.

2. Unless i am misinterpreting the mechanics, if time is a cruicial factor theres no need to actually wait for a co pilot, air-1 can still take off solo and the pilot just reverts to the old fashioned way of calling it himself.

Now if there was some kind of limitation added that im unaware of where air-1 can no longer be flown solo, please let me know because that would actually satisfy my concerns and validate your argument.

Edited June 17, 2024 by Quietthecutie

[risk]

Quote

the only issue i see with it is the literal aimbot, the copilot simply needs to lock on then their only job is to zoom in and out, the addition of a spot light and camera are amazing dont get me wrong, i like it, i just think, like real life, human input is a needed thing, it gives room for human error during air-1 use meaning the copilot has to remain attentive the whole time moving the spotlight and camera themself 

 

irl you can outrun the heli and its not aimbotting the car the whole time. Crims pay alot of money for cars to do this stuff and now its almost impossible to simply outrun air-1 anymore

 

Playing devil's advocate, that's not entirely true. They're not impossible - they just require new tactics. When something gives you problems in real life, you don't expect the obstacle to change, you adjust your own path to counteract the obstacle.

Is it more of a challenge now? Absolutely!

Does this also give you, as a criminal, the opportunity to adjust how you roleplay and provide RP ops to your faction to learn new things? Most definitely.

Do I personally wish to see LEO factions implement new procedures to balance these new tools? Yep! 

But we have no control over others, only ourselves, and until factual evidence shows these helicams are doing undue harm to the criminal community (Videos, evidence, reasoning even after adjusted actions are taken ICly), it just continues to be a cycle of arguments.

The "in real life" argument loses its merit when it's only applied to the other side in my opinion. In real life, 50 people don't have keys to one car or pose a continually hostile threat to LEO without longterm consequences or open fire on someone in the middle of a city just because of verbal disrespect for funsies on the daily. 

As for the argument regarding being more fun for the co-pilot, maybe! I have no opinion there- the one time I flew a heli I crashed it into a building so the only thing auto-tracking would do for me is to make sure I saw the ambulance coming to try and save me. 

[Bala]

1 hour ago, risk said:

I don't typically comment on these Crim vs LEO discussions as I often see both sides and they turn ugly rather quickly but I think dismissing concerns regarding a new scripted feature as a skill issue is a large part of the problem. There are many things about PD/SD functionality that are kept secret - which is a discussion in and of itself not needed here - and you of all people understand how this community works. 

Transparency regarding concerns can nip gossip in the bud and prevent over exaggeration. Both sides of the coin need to be more open to addressing concerns without just tossing them aside. 

As far as the helicopter cam is concerned, I have no issues with the spotlight as long as it remains synced and the tracking is what it is. 

I'll echo DontSniffSugar's sentiment my only concerns are with how high the helicopter can fly now, out of render distance and essentially an invisible spy. Even that may be an exaggeration because of the aforementioned lack of transparency. Perhaps some clarity can be provided. 

The problem is that there isn't actually a problem, only an assumption of one because people either don't know the facts of the matter.

Even before the helicopter camera and spotlight was given to Paulius, the functionalities were balanced by high up members of the cop community. The original version had a built in thermal camera, it had a built in plate scanner, it had a bright spotlight that went up to 10. The spotlight brightness was hard-capped at 7 and the decision was made by PD leadership, to only go up to x amount during pursuits, so that evading players wouldn't be overtly effected by it. The thermal camera was removed also.

So, already, you have members of the cop community opting to scaling back on something, to be fair to those we're chasing.

The script is sent to Paulius and the subject of the plate reader comes up. Perfectly legitimate in terms of real life, but deemed by the higher staff to be too far. Paulius tests out the heli-camera and questions if the lock on is supposed to break as much as it does. The implication being that it's actually quite easy to break it and it is.

The feature is then put into the server, with responsible and realistic guidelines for everyone to follow.

Now, in terms of the original posters complaint, I think it's a fair question because if it's the Paragon pursuit from earlier. They took a Kamacho offroad from Catfish to Paul's Farm, drove up Senora to Bayview and got into a Paragon. They went from Bayview to Chiliad Tunnel, then Stab City then to Route 68 then up through the Vinewood Hills to where they were eventually caught at Red Parking. My point being, there are no obstacles to block the helicopter's line of sight in that route. It's some tall trees and a tunnel. A tunnel has two ends and the trees, if you're at 800ft, you can see above them all anyway. 

It's easy to call for democracy and fairness and common sense when that spotlight is shining on PD, but I sort of lose sympathy when we've got people dropping fireplaces while cuffed and insta-spray painting how much the PD loves semen on the inside of Government buildings. 

At least we made reasonable concessions and one would assume that having implemented it, the developer and owner of the server is good with it, as is.

Edited June 17, 2024 by Bala

[Quietthecutie]

11 minutes ago, Bala said:

The problem is that there isn't actually a problem, only an assumption of one because people either don't know the facts of the matter.

Even before the helicopter camera and spotlight was given to Paulius, the functionalities were balanced by high up members of the cop community. The original version had a built in thermal camera, it had a built in plate scanner, it had a bright spotlight that went up to 10. The spotlight brightness was hard-capped at 7 and the decision was made by PD leadership, to only go up to x amount during pursuits, so that evading players wouldn't be overtly effected by it. The thermal camera was removed also.

So, already, you have members of the cop community opting to scaling back on something, to be fair to those we're chasing.

The script is sent to Paulius and the subject of the plate reader comes up. Perfectly legitimate in terms of real life, but deemed by the higher staff to be too far. Paulius tests out the heli-camera and questions if the lock on is supposed to break as much as it does. The implication being that it's actually quite easy to break it and it is.

The feature is then put into the server, with responsible and realistic guidelines for everyone to follow.

Now, in terms of the original posters complaint, I think it's a fair question because if it's the Paragon pursuit from earlier. They took a Kamacho offroad from Catfish to Paul's Farm, drove up Senora to Bayview and got into a Paragon. They went from Bayview to Chiliad Tunnel, then Stab City then to Route 68 then up through the Vinewood Hills to where they were eventually caught at Red Parking. My point being, there are no obstacles to block the helicopter's line of sight in that route. It's some tall trees and a tunnel. A tunnel has two ends and the trees, if you're at 800ft, you can see above them all anyway. 

It's easy to call for democracy and fairness and common sense when that spotlight is shining on PD, but I sort of lose sympathy when we've got people dropping fireplaces while cuffed and insta-spray painting how much the PD loves semen on the inside of Government buildings. 

At least we made reasonable concessions and one would assume that having implemented it, the developer and owner of the server is good with it, as is.

Im sure its very easy to have those discussions about balancing when only one side of the community is present. 

People would be less inclined to call foul if development was more open about what they were adding and other senior members of the community were party to those discussions. instead of just LEOs. im glad some balancing concerns were raised but its still gonna create waves when the first people hear about it is either through the discord development thread after it drops or they just see it in game. what, we keep getting updates about the clothing development but nothing about this until its already implemented? how else was this gonna be received by crim mains other than negatively?

The best thing that happened to the server in a long time was the open discord call the devs had with the community. everyone left feeling heard and reassured. i wish we had those on a regular basis.

[heelsoul]

@Bala Why is it always PD higher up making these decisions? Obviously they wont see the POV of what problems it causes for crims and it would be biased even though you claim it wouldnt. It seems like you are missing the point. IT IS AN AUTOLOCK its literally aimbot with a camera. It should be manual. How does that make sense in an IRL and videogame fairness stand point? Not sure what you meant, but I didnt drop any campfires or do something childish like that.

Every time it comes to discussions like this, it seems like the developers/modders are always sort of arguing the point that what they did is completely fine and everyone else is wrong. This is biased and you should listen to the complaints of the community. Obviously it isnt balanced if I made this post today and already 10+ crims support my claim. An overall solution could be actually getting opinions from all sides of the community, all though I know its difficult, but keep an open mind to suggestions.

For your information, I did go under like 3 bridges and was going through red parking and driving around the highest buildings in the city.

 

EDIT: Quiet just posted sort of what i said.

Edited June 17, 2024 by heelsoul

[Vez]

+1 shouldn't have ever been added as a script the fact you need a co-pilot changes nothing because they will just adapt to meta and always have a co-pilot now, it is not fair for a camera to be 100% locked onto a car in any aspect should be manual, plus don't know if its fixed but when it first was implemented last week the camera was "bugged" and wouldn't unlock even under bridges or lost sight, it is not fair at all air 1 was already good enough with no more sewers or train tunnels being open in the server for the past 2+ years due to "Sync" or whatever it was already hard enough to lose a Heli compared to how it once use to be, unnecessary content IMO, have been a criminal on this server for 5 years and have never seen anything so unbalanced and it just gets worse.

Edited June 18, 2024 by Vez

[risk]

Quote

The problem is that there isn't actually a problem, only an assumption of one because people either don't know the facts of the matter.

That's exactly my point. You cannot expect people to know what they do not know and you cannot fault them for daring to ask or suggest as we encourage open, productive conversation. People are going to make assumptions and as mentioned before, transparency is not a bad thing. This was not a one sided call for sympathy nor were you asked to have any.

If you're tired of the finger pointing in these conversations, do your part to refrain from pointing them right back. 

I appreciate the transparency from both yourself in how the script works and the balancing that went into it and from the developer of the script for being open to potential modifications if there's found to be a problem. That was the crux of the suggestion, it need not be anything more or less and there's zero reason for this thread to devolve into another endless PD Bad, Crim Good or vice versa debate. 

[Bala]

2 hours ago, heelsoul said:

@Bala Why is it always PD higher up making these decisions? Obviously they wont see the POV of what problems it causes for crims and it would be biased even though you claim it wouldnt. It seems like you are missing the point. IT IS AN AUTOLOCK its literally aimbot with a camera. It should be manual. How does that make sense in an IRL and videogame fairness stand point? Not sure what you meant, but I didnt drop any campfires or do something childish like that.

Every time it comes to discussions like this, it seems like the developers/modders are always sort of arguing the point that what they did is completely fine and everyone else is wrong. This is biased and you should listen to the complaints of the community. Obviously it isnt balanced if I made this post today and already 10+ crims support my claim. An overall solution could be actually getting opinions from all sides of the community, all though I know its difficult, but keep an open mind to suggestions.

For your information, I did go under like 3 bridges and was going through red parking and driving around the highest buildings in the city.

 

EDIT: Quiet just posted sort of what i said.

Because the person that developed it, is a law enforcement roleplayer and they made something that is exclusively for law enforcement? And also, in my opinion, there are very few reliable people on the criminal side left anymore that can give a balanced and informed opinion on stuff like this. I could probably name them on two hands with a couple fingers left to spare. If you wanna go deeper, most of the high up admin team are law enforcement based. Hell, I'm on the modding team and I'm law enforcement based

I don't know where you are getting that it's aim-bot, you have to use a key on your keyboard to lock on and if the line of sight is broken, which it is really easy to break, then you can't lock onto the vehicle again. It's not our fault that people have not yet adapted to things.

I'm not being funny when I say this, but if we add stuff then people complaint. If we don't add stuff then people complain. I complained about how silly the current implementation of the spray paint was and how people were misusing it. You know what I was told? It'll calm down. So, don't worry, it'll calm down.

I hate to break it to you but you're in the minority mate. Great, 10+ crims support your claim, how many have used the heli camera? How many criminals do we have playing on the server? Those 10 criminals will probably go on the other anti-cop threads with an axe to grind and do the same thing, you'll see the same people over and over again. I don't know what these people do in-game but I know what they do on the forums.

Also, I gotta be honest with you, I was flying the helicopter as the main pilot and I'm pretty average at flighting, at best. The only time you may have lost me was by the Scrapyard when you U-Turned going to the Marina. By that time though, we had ground units on you. The spotlight was just for immersion and I had to keep yelling at Cowell to provide updates because he wasn't really paying attention to the pursuit.

I can't wait for the new lab locations to drop and have 'well, he's just moved them there so its easier for cops to catch them' or for the clothes to come and be told 'well, he's just done faction clothing so they are easier to arrest'. 

The same person that made the heli camera for us, is the same person that made the graffiti script for you. I'm arguing with you about this but I'll be honest with you, the bias accusation at me isn't going to wash because I've done more than my fair share for Eclipse's criminal community. That didn't just involve making big threads that went nowhere, I actually did shit but I'm starting to think that was a mistake and wasn't worth my time.

I would be really thankful that there is someone else willing to commit time and effort to making stuff for this server, if I were a regular player, if I'm honest. And as for those people in PD that were involved in this, some of them in particular have been instrumental in making sure things are as fair for you as possible. Maybe their endeavors were misplaced as well.

Edited June 18, 2024 by Bala

[Quietthecutie]

7 hours ago, Bala said:

Because the person that developed it, is a law enforcement roleplayer and they made something that is exclusively for law enforcement?

Law enforcement use it, Crims have to play against it. again there's 2 sides to this coin and you only looked at one side. how can you not see the problem with that?

This Blaise, dismissive attitude towards all crim mains, making us feel like substandard players, not worth consideration or consultation,  more of an inconvenience than the element that gives LEOs their reason to exist, is exactly why a lot of crims have quit. Its discrimination.

Did it ever cross your mind that the reason alot of the old "reliable" crims left is because they were done with this kinda shite?

7 hours ago, Bala said:

I'm not being funny when I say this, but if we add stuff then people complaint. If we don't add stuff then people complain. I complained about how silly the current implementation of the spray paint was and how people were misusing it. You know what I was told? It'll calm down. So, don't worry, it'll calm down.

Then TALK TO US. A lot of the problems between both parties can be resolved through dialogue, if you're gonna add something, that directly affects interactions between LEOs and crims, talk to us. we might not agree but at least then we could have a voice, some imput and at the very least it wouldnt come as a shock when its added...and yes, of course kids are going to abuse spraypaint what did you think was gonna happen with that one? even when it calms down itll still be toxic thats how graffiti works.

I fucking hate it, when i look at forums. and see a crim just outright flaming LEOs for no reason, but at the same time, theres a lot of ire out there that exists for very legitimate reasons. the lack of any kind of consultation with a vital part of the community that are more affected by this change than LEOs because they are the one that has to endure the consequences, and the total disregard for anyone who isnt an LEOs thoughts on the matter.

And then you rue the fact that theres only a handful of crims left on the server that are reliable....i wonder why.

Edited June 18, 2024 by Quietthecutie

[Jett_J]

+1 plus it's mega cringe that I have AIR-1 following me all around the city then calling for a unit to pull me over and give me a speeding citation etc.

I don't really care if the helicopter script is "realistic" but balance was definitely not in consideration with this. My biggest gripe is that the helicopter cam can get the speed of your car.

[Vez]

12 hours ago, Bala said:And also, in my opinion, there are very few reliable people on the criminal side left anymore that can give a balanced and informed opinion on stuff like this. I could probably name them on two hands with a couple fingers left to spare. If you wanna go deeper, most of the high up admin team are law enforcement based. Hell, I'm on the modding team and I'm law enforcement based

The fact of this statement is disgusting and it is things like this why there is only a handful that will be respectful about opinions and give them because no one else gives a shit enough to be respectful anymore, the amount of misinformation in this thread is disturbing you’re  hiding the fact that the camera doesn’t work as properly intended anyways, no it doesn’t unlock under bridges currently I was told that by multiple LEOs and the fact of that being hidden is even more concerning, there are only a few left to be asked because no one does reach out and asks any of us anymore, there was really good things put in place at one point, crim chat and more involvement from FM but sadly those have faded due to lack of care the crim chat is now inactive and holds so many players that haven’t played actively in 2+ years within it, when it comes to saying and blaming it on criminals for not having anyone left to have these discussions with it is not fully on us it’s due to the lack of care

[Zion Willard]

I don't really feel like the helicam offers any additional advantage in pursuits.. Are we really just malding that now you have a big scary spotlight on you?

[Charlie2231]

 +1

[HobGoblin]

1 hour ago, Vez said:

no it doesn’t unlock under bridges currently I was told that by multiple LEOs and the fact of that being hidden is even more concerning

It does unlock. It was bugged for at the start to which OOC regulations covered the issue and since then the devs have fixed the issue. 

[Harveyyy]

Any and all troll comments will be removed and forum warning points will be issued if this immature behavior continues.

[Bala]

26 minutes ago, HobGoblin said:

It does unlock. It was bugged for at the start to which OOC regulations covered the issue and since then the devs have fixed the issue. 

Yeah but can't let the truth get in the way of a good story. I got no reason to lie, to any one about this stuff but at the same time, people are going to believe what they want to believe. 

The same people that will moan about realism, are the same ones that think a spotlight and camera on a police helicopter is unreasonable. Until you've been in the helicopter and used the camera in a pursuit, don't talk. Because, it's just yapping at that point. None of this vague "some cops told me so" bollocks. 

I pride myself on calling it as it is and speaking openly with people, you might not like the responses you get but at least you get one. We made our own concessions to ensure the heli cam was fair and it was tweaked and then approved by the server owner/dev. In all honesty, we probably could have just sent it as is and we may have gotten more of an advantage.

We removed the thermal imaging from it, because it was like xray vision.
We hard capped the light brightness and size because it was too aggressive. We made in-character policies to regulate what level of light we used in different situations so that it was both from a game point of view, acceptable and somewhat realistic. 
The locking feature was designed to break, on the line of sight being interrupted. Originally, it was written in javascript and had to be converted, somewhere initially as @HobGoblinsaid, that conversion broke it but it's working as intended now.

Graffiti right now is less balanced than the heli camera, but I don't see the same level of outrage and urge to address that on these forums.

I don't dislike criminal RP and I've done as much as anyone to support it, but I'm sick of seeing people slandering me and my fellow faction members, like we're some third world government or something. Educate yourselves properly on the facts of the matter, don't make wild assumptions and accusations, because reality is, PD and SD voluntarily hold back on a lot of stuff in the interest of fairness and it doesn't take being threatened to do so. We're responsible factions.

Edited June 18, 2024 by Bala

[ShawnsBeard]

1 hour ago, Bala said:

Graffiti right now is less balanced than the heli camera, but I don't see the same level of outrage and urge to address that on these forums.

 

[SquirtleSquad]

52 minutes ago, ShawnsBeard said:

 

There are all posts asking for adjustments to the script, but not in regards to them being unbalanced, providing unfair gameplay, or community members thinking that the Graffiti script integration being unfair to criminals or law enforcement. I believe that was the point that Bala was making.

[Hubie]

Glad someone said it +1

[Hubie]

17 hours ago, Bala said:

I'm not being funny when I say this, but if we add stuff then people complaint. If we don't add stuff then people complain. I complained about how silly the current implementation of the spray paint was and how people were misusing it. You know what I was told? It'll calm down. So, don't worry, it'll calm down.

The thing is there’s a difference between spray cans and a helicopter that can lock on to vehicles no matter where they are.

[Quietthecutie]

11 minutes ago, SquirtleSquad said:

There are all posts asking for adjustments to the script, but not in regards to them being unbalanced, providing unfair gameplay, or community members thinking that the Graffiti script integration being unfair to criminals or law enforcement. I believe that was the point that Bala was making.

The attribuable affects of grafitti from A gameplay perspective are not appriciable to anyone who isnt in a gang that holds turf, so i have no personal experience on the matter.

If we are talking about how its an eyesore and how people are writing very mean things about different people or factions, yeah.....its grafitti....thats always gonna happen.

[SquirtleSquad]

37 minutes ago, Quietthecutie said:

The attribuable affects of grafitti from A gameplay perspective are not appriciable to anyone who isnt in a gang that holds turf, so i have no personal experience on the matter.

If we are talking about how its an eyesore and how people are writing very mean things about different people or factions, yeah.....its grafitti....thats always gonna happen.

I'm just clarifying up a misunderstanding in the persons response. That's all. They responded with posts looking for Quality of Life updates for the script, not things that inherently unbalance things.

[addybeta]

The helicam doesn't really change any aspects of evading that I can think of. The only thing that changes is you have a light on you. How you lost Air before was to go through tunnels like, La Puerta, LSC tunnel, and Lower power, to name a few. This still hasn't changed. You still have to lose the heli the same way as it was before. Granted it is hard, but this update does nothing to make that task more difficult. 

Something that is an issue is how little sound the helicopter makes when it is above you. You shouldn't have to play a guessing game on wether it is above you, Either you hear it, or you don't. 

[Fancyme]

+1 Havent seen a single good argument for why it should lock on. Give the co-pilot something to do and add some skill to it instead of spoon feeding. Crims get told to get better at evading, surely a cop can get good at pointing a spotlight.

[Symere]

+1 There is no reason the camera should lock onto players, PD already had a massive advantage during chases before the camera was implemented, adding aimbot to the camera is too overpowered imo...

The co-pilot should be forced to control the camera and spotlight manually.