The Operation Anti-Drug Update is coming November 2nd – Open Beta starts now!

Fellow officers,

Fall has begun - and once again, we're bringing you fresh new content for Police Simulator: Patrol Officers. Welcome to The Operation Anti-Drug Update, now in Open Beta!

We hope you're ready for your next shifts in Brickston, the third district in the city of Brighton. The streets are waiting for you, especially when the full update launches on November 2nd.

Introducing: The Operation Anti-Drug Update

A new district

A third district will enrich the city of Brighton even further: Welcome to Brickston, the oldest district in the entire city - consisting of the neighborhoods of Sharnwick, Nelson Hill, Brianna, Wilcox, and Bannock. The iconic red brick houses are still considered a unique sight as history truly comes alive in this district. The street scene is characterized by a large number of narrow one-way streets while also housing the Brighton Hospital.

Greater, better, faster

In addition, we're introducing the Panther Z, a new car waiting for you in the parking lot. Choose your vehicle and go on car patrol, officer. While we're talking about mobility: We've expanded the player character animation system, making it more robust, dynamic, and responsive. Player movements should feel better now. Welcome to what we call Advanced Locomotion!

New violations

Oh, we're also adding some new violations to the game. First, some nasty people are putting graffiti all over the map. Poor houses. Second, some careless drivers started to block bus stops. Third, drug dealers are now present in the area and must be caught.

Bugfixing

But our main priority with this update is bugfixing, bugfixing, bugfixing. We are trying to work on as many bugs as we can of which you reported a bunch of. Thank you so much for that!

This time, we were able to resolve a bunch of issues related to multiplayer and have made the game a lot more stable which should lead to way fewer crashes. In addition, a lot of bugs where arrests, tows, frisking and searching plus handing out tickets were considered to be unjustified - even though they were definitely justified.

Good news: Issues connected to the use of gamepads, including not accepting inputs from the A button, were also fixed. You can find the full list of fixed bugs further below as we resolved some other issues connected to UI, NPCs, Patrol Cars, and Traffic Cars as well.

Balancing

Some events happened too often - and some were way too rare. That's why we rebalanced some of them, increasing a bunch while reducing some others. Yay!

Your wishes, our duty

Your voices have been heard: Suspects will now be handcuffed from the back. Last but not least, we're adding more alleys to allow better traversing on both car and foot patrol!

The Operation Anti-Drug Update will launch officially on November 2nd – but starting today, you can try out all the content already as part of our Open Beta!

How do I enter the Open Beta?

We've made the process as easy as possible to include you, the community, early on during the development of the game. To join the Open Beta, you only need to perform the following steps:

1. Right-click on Police Simulator: Patrol Officers in your Steam library.
2. Select 'Properties' in the menu.
3. Select 'Betas' in the sidebar on the left.
4. Select 'Beta' in the drop-down menu and confirm your decision to switch to that branch.
5. An update should now start - you are now officially part of the Open Beta!

To switch back to your stable save game, just repeat these steps again - but instead of selecting 'Beta', you just select 'None'. Easy.

Everyone can test the beta extensively and provide feedback on its features, balancing, and bugs. Feel free to send us your impressions on Discord, in the Steam Beta forums and on our Socials.

Here are the official patchnotes for The Operation Anti-Drug Update

New features, fresh content, fixed bugs - there's a lot to mention in today's patchnotes. Without further ado, here we go:

New Features & Improvements

• New District: Brickston
• New Car: Panther Z
• New Violation: Drug Dealing
• New Violation: Vandalism - Graffiti Spraying
• New Parking Violation: Blocking a bus stop
• Improvement: Handcuffing behind the back
• Improvement: Player character locomotion updated
• Improvement: Added 60min and 90min as options to customize shift duration setting

Game balancing

• Increased chance of 'Stolen ID'
• Increased chance of 'Missing Profiles' within 'Stolen ID'
• Increased chance of 'Stolen Car'
• Increased chance of NPC to stop fleeing when ordered to stop by the player
• Reduced chance of 'Expired ID' in 'Stolen ID'
• Reduced the chance of 'Too Loud Engine'

Bug Fixes
GAMEPLAY

• During NPC interaction: Fixed an issue where player suddenly interacts with a wrong NPC
• Fixed an issue where wanted NPC didn't match description
• Fixed an issue where NPCs with Fake ID can not be arrested with justification
• Fixed an issue where intuition feedback is triggered when focusing on NPCs before reaching the crime callout
• Fixed an issue where expired ID is sometimes not reflected correctly in background check
• Fixed cases where sometimes calling a tow truck was considered to be unjustified
• Fixed the issue where finding a switchblade by frisking / searching was considered to be unjustified
• Fixed an issue where gun aim was not working correctly

MULTIPLAYER
Host: The player hosting the multiplayer session
Client: The player joining the multiplayer session

• Fixed the issue where frisking/searching and finding Switchblade was giving unjustified points
• Fixed an issue where a player can't enter a patrol car in the next shift after the other player caused a 'Game Over'
• Fixed an issue where the client can't enter co-driver seat after the host exited the co-driver seat while the player is still sitting in the driver seat
• Fixed an issue where co-driver has no engine sound during car patrol
• Fixed an issue where the client got completely stuck after entering police car
• Fixed an issue where car color is different for host and client
• Fixed an issue related to the movement of the client
• Fixed an issue where camera tracking during interview from host applied to client and left camera stuck for client

NPC BEHAVIOUR

• NPCs now behave more realistic when arriving at a waypoint and then choosing a new one - no more stuttering
• Fixed an issue where a lot of NPCs are standing still in a particular alley
• Fixed an issue where NPCs are sliding while getting into the ambulance

PATROL CAR & TRAFFIC CARS

• Fixed an issue where the patrol car might sometimes not be available in car shifts
• Fixed an issue where an NPV crashes into an existing accident, leading to a pile-up
• Fixed an issue where a tow truck picks a random NPV not involved in the accident
• Fixed an issue where the player can get NPVs towed while the driver is still inside
• Fixed an issue where a vehicle has the expired license plate intuition displayed incorrectly when focusing on the license plate of pulled-over NPV
• Fixed an issue where the front of the police cars have a spot that opens the trunk
• Fixed an issue where emergency lights are activated for the client if they were turned on in the previous shift

UI

• Fixed an issue where mouse gets stuck in center or corner of the screen
• Fixed an issue where clicking on board computer icon on the bottom left of the shift report screen leads to a blue screen

CONTROLS

• Gamepad: Fixed an issue where walking speed switches to "walk" when person flees
• Gamepad: Fixed an issue where the game will sometimes not accept inputs from the A button
• Fixed an issue where keybinds for mouse and keyboard are reset after restarting the game (Specific keys like special characters, ex: +, ?)
• Fixed the HUD issue caused by the shortcut key “U”, by removing the shortcut

MISCELLANEOUS

• Fixed collision issues along with some level design issue

CRASHES

• Fixed a random crash for client when driving around in patrol car
• Fixed a crash while talking to accident npc
• Fixed a random host crash when talking to wanted suspect and giving back their ID
• Fixed random crash when focusing on NPV
• Fixed a random crash when joining a multiplayer session
• Fixed a crash when accepting a major accident callout
• Fixed a crash when host exists the game
• Fixed a crash for host when the connection to client gets lost
• Fixed a crash when resolving a dynamic accident
• Fixed a lot of other user reported crashes

https://store.steampowered.com/app/997010?snr=1_2108_9__2107