vangar

Woot, this modder managed mounted officers! Is this still available to download?

No hostility was intended. Sorry if it sounded like it is.

 

Your statement made no mention of the LA mod, and you only said that "every emergency in the game". You did not specify missions, freeplay, or any mod really, which is why I assumed you were assuming every game mode and every modification. This assumption led to the way my post was written. I was in the belief that you were blanketing that statement onto the entire game, regardless of anything. I felt it was disrespectful to the modders and the game itself, because your statement's context made me think you believed the game to be so simple (and therefore bad), and the whole modding process to be a one step thing that is easy (which it certainly isnt).

 

 

 

In that case, no hard feelings. Maybe I read too much into it, sorry for doing so My statement was made in the LA Mod forum, not Emergency 4 General so I assumed that's what we're talking about. And while it is true that LA has custom missions I considered the freeplay mode the heart and soul of the mod. But you are right, I should have mentioned that seperately, sorry about that.

But this is in no way disrespectful towards modders or the game itself. I play the game and I play the mods and have a lot of fun doing so. And I never even touched the subject that mods would be easy to make, I actually said the exact opposite earlier. The point of view that a simple game equals a bad game is your interpretation alone, I never said anything about that. I do stand by that the core gameplay of Emergency is rather simple - that does in no way mean I devalue the games' development or the mods' creation in any way, shape or form. After all I enjoy the game and the mods and I registred here and create topics in the forum to partake in the community.

If you prefer to play such as that, then I have no problem with that. I digress that both of our posts are open to misinterpretation due to ommision of words, or generalized blanket statements. There is one thing that I will be honest and upfront about. I have a dislike posts where people suggest things and then expect someone else to pick up the tab. As NFK stated, it is a lot of work even getting 1/4th of this thing off the ground.

I don't prefer to play that way, I just know how to "trick" or play the actual core gameplay to get things done very fast because I played the vanilla game long before I knew there were mods at all to great extend. At some point I think it's natural you begin to "take apart" the game. When playing LA I actually like to play it slow and "RP", be it single or multiplayer.

You also misinterpreted my whole intend. I did not suggest something and waited for someone else to pick it up. I was interested about the issue and asked a question. And now the topic is rolling I find it interesting to share thoughts and simply engage in a "what if" or "how could one" debate. Because its interesting and fun. I don't think a forum is just there to make requests and either dismissing or accepting those.

Another thing I have to be honest with is, I do not agree with the horses as well.

 

Looking at it from this standpoint, it seems totally unwarranted because it is so much work for a single unit. I definitely understand putting work into something like Hoppah's LWS, which is useable for all FD units, and all mods.

 

An addition to NFK's statement I have is the comparison of the K9 to the horse. Note that in default Em4, there is already a dog system. It is not much of a stretch to simply make the dog attack people/scare people instead of finding missing people. The script Hoppah made simply calls on the existing system and simply allows the dog to scare people and attack people. Both commands use an existing system in Em4.

 

The horse is completely unchartered water, as there is no default script in Em4 to utilize or manipulate ambient animals.The animation system for having an officer on top of the horse is non-existent, and somehow linking the horses' move animations to the move script would be a problem as well.

 

 

 

Yes, I am fully aware of that. See above, my point wasn't to ask for anyone to perform any kind of work on something I'd like to see, merely engage in a discussion about it. If this forum is just a place to drop requests and have them dismissed with words written in bold followed by exclamation points I did join the wrong community, that's for sure. But this was neither my intend not how I understand this platform. Yes, it's much effort and uncharted territory. Still we can talk about it

False. Overgeneralizing that aspect in order to justify your horsie won't do you any favors:

 

You cannot solve the following with only a fire engine (vanilla game GTF)

• HIgh Angle Rescue (DLK)
• Car Accidents (RW)
• Water based incidents (TFMB and FLB)
• Extinguishing fires without hoses or personel (LPF and TLF)
• Extinguishing large fires at once (LF)

With one police car (vanilla STW), the following cannot be solved:

• SWAT Callouts (MTW, SW)
• Riots (WAW)
• Building evacuation and putting officers in unreachable areas (RHC)

With one ambulance (vanilla RTW), you cannot solve:

• Mass Casualty Events (ITW)
• Search and Rescue (RHW)
• Air Transport (RHC)

With one tow truck (vanilla ASF), you cannot:

• Operate switches (Engineer Car)
• Build pontoon bridges (Bridge-laying vehicle)
• Lift debris (Crane)
• Clear objects/vegetation for easy acces (Buldozer)
• Rescue victims and persons from scenes (TEC Helicopter)

So nope, you cannot solve every emergency in the EM Series with only those 3 vehicles. If you would like to counter, then I challenge you to finish ALL 20 campaign missions at 100% with only those 3 vehicles.

I may misread that, but your posting comes over as rather hostile to me. What did I do to deserve that?

You are right that I generalized to make a point however in terms of the LA Mod I am of course only talking about free-play events. The missions are designed to specifically use certain units and use timers that require you to use more units to save time. However, no police action actually requires more than the regular patrol car, except stopping a getaway car as it requires you to use caltrops to stop the car which only come with the Mannschaftswagen. But the SEK units (SWAT) are not required unless a mission is scripted for you to use them. Any kind of arrest is actually faster and easier with just rushing the car up to the target and let the officer arrest it. Indoors, the perpetrator cannot shoot either a hostage or the officer before he's arrested. Riots, if not scripted to start with large groups, are broken up by driving up, using the car to make a wall and arrest the first three persons. Granted, you may need a second officer for that as one can only endure two, maybe three fights before getting injured.

Casaulty events can be completed with one RTW you just have to use quite a lot of dancing around. The Notarzt (FF/EM) just has to dance around the victims, stabilizing them a little bit to keep the casaulties alive. The ambulance takes the victims form the scene and then, of course, has to return. The default fire engine should have access to all essential items - it's not comfortable to play this way, I just wanted to make a point. And yes, the HAZMAT is also essential, I forgot about that one.

Or, to translate it to the LA mod - all units that are not the basic vanilla units do not have a purpose. You don't need four kinds of ambulance or fire engines, you don't need unmarked patrol cars, swat vans or K9 units. But they are there because it's fun. So yes, you are right that you literally need more basic units but as I said I was making a point to comment on "a mounted unit would serve no purpose" and I am baffled that your posting feels so heated. If that wasn't your intention and it was just me interpreting it that way I apologize, of course.

If you wanted people to go away from the horse on command, that'd be easy enough, similar to the dog script already in existence. To clear people always, you need to set a dummy object to spawn and always clear away people in all directions (or in front, whateveR)

 

The reason there isn't a horse in any mod yet is due to the size and work required for something relatively useless other than aesthetics. To put into perspective:

 

You need to find a model size that works. It needs to be bigger than a human, but not comically large, which is a task in and of itself

You need to develop a script that activates animations of moving legs when the vehicle is moving. This would likely take weeks to make it look natural. Even still, it could only go forward, not turn or anything like that. Just spin. 

If you want the horse to have more than one speed that's another set of animations. 

Also comes the logistics of having the horse become injured and die, but not explode, which is a queer thing to script.

There also lies the problem of how does the horse get to the map. Walk onto the map from the edge, or come in a trailer? Then there's the method of making a trailer and script to work with the horse spawning. 

 

All in all, it's a complex set of scripts, which would likely be prone to many many error all for something that looks nice but serves little purpose in game. 

I understand that's a lot of work, hence my question if anybody ever tried that. I'm just one of those smelly end-users without much knowledge in the complex modding tools. If I ever find some spare time though it'd be fun to get into it and see what's necessary to make the horse model that's already in-game work.

But I'd like to comment on the "serves little purpose" part - technically, at least three quarters of units in the game serve no actual purpose if we're honest. What makes this mod and scene thrive is to add little details and then play it somewhat realistic for our own pleasure. To complete the missions the game throws at you you never need more than one police vehicle with one officer, one ambulance and one kind of fire truck - every emergency in "Emergency" is solveable by those (and yes, a tow truck probably ).

Are there any modifications, released, WIP or planned ones, that let us use officers on horseback?

I'm not really sure myself how they would work. Maybe similiar to the motor patrol, a bit slower but with a build-in ability to keep civilians at a distance. It would, in any case, be very cool to catch all those shooters, thieves, arsonists and other evil guys on horseback Heya!

I would like to change some of the w00d map 4x4 vehicles to LA mod 2.1 ones because the new ones give me trouble. For isntance I'd like the vintage ambulance back - is there a way to do that?

The second downloadlink for the required coronas doesn't seem to work, it just forwards me to a blank page Other than that I really like the new map. It's fascinating what little detail work you have done (patrols, the soldiers at the base etc.).
 Is the map compatible with all events, also the easter egg ones? (new year and zombies)? LA Mod vanilla seems to crash on the zombie event for me.