Freelance tow truck job

[Jagger]

We’ve all been there, stranded up north or even in the middle of Los Santos and you’re making calls to the mechanics to seek help and no matter how long you wait, sometimes it can be days before you can ever get your car rescued.
Now I understand sometimes there’s not enough mechanics around or nobody that is of rank to do it, but there are times as well where they just straight up ignore your calls and it’s a bit frustrating. 

 

I think it would be cool to have a separate company that takes care of towing. Could be just like the cab company where you get charged for the distance they tow the vehicle. When they pick up your vehicle you can request them to take it either to Los Santos customs or Bayview and they just simply drop the car off in the parking lot and continue on with their day. 
 

I think this would be a really cool thing to have because it will create more jobs and RP for players. It would be way more efficient than to just rely on mechanics all the time. 

They could even possibly have the ability to check for parking passes at the bank and other places like that and if they don’t they can get towed to the impound? 
 

 If this could be a possibility I think it would be best for this job to be whitelisted and run by players, just like the cab company. Obviously you wouldn’t want just any random person jumping in a tow truck rolling around. 

hope this gets taken into consideration as it would be a huge benefit to the community!!

 

 

***If any mechanics are offended by this post please make your way to Chatterboxes Funhouse and have a discussion about it in the basement. hehehehe***

 

 

 

Edited February 28, 2021 by Jagger

[Dimja]

Big +1, the amount of hours I waited while mechanics were on duty, was awfull.. Hope this solves it and brings more RP to the server!

[MrHardswell]

Being Able to Push the Vehicle or to have a Small Repair kit that allow your to start you car one last time at least would be great. if not being able to be towed without relying on Mechanics would be Great! The time wasted on a dead car is time wasted on good Rp,

Edited February 28, 2021 by MrHardswell

[attacktrap]

+1 repair kit. Like  jerry can for mechanical stuffs

 

[Markez]

If they do make a repair kit i say its a great idea to put it, make it so the repair kit doesn't fully repair the vehicle and make them somewhat expensive i say like 4-5k maybe.

this will make players only need to buy a repair kit if they REALLY need one and mechanics are too busy to get out to the vehicle, it'll also make the players need to drop their car off at LSC or Bayview anyway because the repair kit will only let you start the vehicle not fully repair it, this sounds like a good idea to me.

 

But It's all open to suggestion so everyone feel free to comment on my response, this seems like the best way to go about it, however the DEV implements this if they do is on them but i like this idea, it doesn't take business away from LSC or Bayview cause the person is still gonna need to repair their vehicle unless they wanna spend another 5k or whatever the price may be, which i doubt they wanna do.

[DjBricheta]

+1 Just yesterday I couldn't join a RP opportunity because I had to wait a lot for a mechanic to come with a flatbed.

[CaesarSeizure]

+1 I think that it could either be a faction or a freelance job. Would rather it was just a freelance job, offering people a cash payment per car towed, with a safety command that would allow for vehicles to be towed only if the owner or a LEO approves it.

[IAmTurtle]

-1 The amounts of cars actually being need to tow or the amount of mech request are very little. Even during peak hours. There are just a few times on off hours that lead to low mechanics which leads to people waiting.

[Victor Einhart]

While it sucks to wait, if this was a freelance job people would abuse it to tow people's cars to a chop shop.  It would need to be it's own faction with OOC corruption rules to prevent this, and I honestly don't think there's enough content here to justify that.

[Yputi]

The problem would probabbly just transfer to the suggested faction as well. This has already been tried by someone, but with just towing you haven't solved this problem yet. You will need a fully operational mechanic shop, as most of those people who require towing have stalled engines.
Personally, from what I experience, it's not really just the lack of mechanics or effort, but also the amount of calls at the same time due to peak hours, mainly caused by the insane amount of people crashing their cars. This also includes vehicles that are getting smashed by busses for example, which is also a quite good amount.
In this case, I personally prefer to also take a closer look at the source of this issue, where I rather have a system so people would value vehicles more so less vehicles get destroyed, which would lead to less people dependent on mechanics in this way.
In addition to this, there is also a big porition of people who call and wait for hours in a row, instead of trying again later. I have seen this in the past in PD as well at the impound. 

In conclusion, I personally believe there is a combination of multiple issues where adding just a towcompany won't solve them.

Edited March 1, 2021 by Yputi

[KKaybe]

There is a roadside branch at LSC. It's currently inactive I'm pretty sure but there is talk of it being started up again.

[Asiantator]

As a roadside mechanic at LSC, we have to perform a balancing act. If there are less than 2 mechanics on the ledge at LSC, I have to bring my towtruck back to LSC and assist at the ledge. When I am finally able to return to roadside, I attempt to answer every call. However, people will make a call, I will respond and before I arrive they start their vehicle and leave, wasting my time and delaying it for the rest of people. During impounding for the LSPD, I get harassed from people at the impound lot, standing behind my truck or climbing all over it while screaming obscenities at me, again delaying me. If you are up north, I am required to wait no less than 5 minutes OOCly, in order to give Bayview a chance to respond to the call. If you are in a high crime area(near chop shops or drug labs) I usually call up and ask for someone to come escort me. In other cases, you are in an area completely inaccessible to a flatbed and I need to return to LSC and check out a truck.

 

A suggestion I CAN present, however, would be to add repair kits. You can keep one in your car, repair your vehicle just enough to allow it to start and nurse it back to LSC/Bayview to get repaired if you are unable to get a mechanic to come assist you.

Another suggestion, stop driving like morons. I don't have an exact statistic but an overwhelming majority of people I come to repair their vehicles, where because they did something stupid. Drive like you would IRL and a majority of this would be avoided. I do know sometimes it unavoidable, but driving just a bit better might solve some of these issues.

 

As far as getting more people out on the road, there was a new recruitment drive at LSC for new roadside drivers, and we are trying to train up as many as possible. However we cannot just leave a busy ledge and get out a tow truck to go to every mechrequest. 

[Mortimer Hauch]

Proposal:

Make a freelance job that spawns a flatbed

Allow /mechanic roadside requests to be passed through to the job, and the freelancer accepts the tow jobs 

Only allow /towposition and /untow at two pre-defined locations: public parking or mechanic shop

Job site HQ as the scrapyard

 

Benefits:

Reduces the knock-on effect of understaffing "2 on ledge at all times per handbook rule"

Increases the chance of a mechanic available on the ledge for repairs and mods 

 

Cons:

Something something less mechanic RP something

Edited July 29, 2021 by Mortimer Hauch

[Mortimer Hauch]

Found duplicate - even more traction!

 

 

[Mortimer Hauch]

+1 Having experienced this a significant amount of times, it would remove the frustration involved in failing to receive a tow, and it looks like this suggestion was raised mainly to eliminate frustration and in my opinion video games shouldn't frustrate you unintentionally.

Would suggest /towposition and /untow only being allowed in either the parking lot or the mechanic shop, to avoid the chopshop issue.

Experienced just now with towing a boat from the vehicle market to the sea.

 

On 3/1/2021 at 5:26 PM, Yputi said:

a system so people would value vehicles more

IMO a terrible way to look at it - would you remove EMS, instead adding a system so people value their life more? Looking at it from this way, this one aspect pointing at player fault hinders all other scenarios where towing is needed as a result of an action that is not the player's fault (victims of road collisions, boat sales, car spawn bugs), even if it is the majority of roadside callouts. Make a rule so that it's worse if the player caused it idk, just don't penalise everyone else in that swoop. 

[Jbacon]

The issue I have with this concept is currently both PD and SD rely on tow services to assist us with impounding vehicles. Similarly to utilizing the coroners, (which has been seen to be a gang member that had just been involved is showing up to collect bodies.

 

Now if tow trucks operated the same, the gang could potentially get into a massive incident and then come when PD calls to scoop up cars that are suppose to be going to impound, and just drop them off at their gang HQ... this is one concern....

The second is something that has been abused in the past by players when they steal a towtruck, they will go to an NCZ (Police station or hospital) and tow the car out of that area, and then lockpick them. I have had this happen to myself a fair few times from both the Police Station on Mission Row as well as various other NCZ areas, even whilst i'm engaged in rp.
 

[DjBricheta]

On 8/6/2021 at 8:29 PM, Jbacon said:

Now if tow trucks operated the same, the gang could potentially get into a massive incident and then come when PD calls to scoop up cars that are suppose to be going to impound, and just drop them off at their gang HQ... this is one concern....

But in a way this would open up new RP opportunities, wouldn't it?

 

I agree with your second point, though.