Fellow officers,
just recently I watched the new Doctor Strange movie and realized: Wow, being able to redirect a car falling down from the sky after being smashed by a weird demon through a portal... that's pretty neat. While you can not perform magic in our game, we will provide you with other ways to take control of traffic!
Welcome to The Traffic Management Update - now available in Open Beta before the full update launches on July 12th!
Introducing: The Traffic Management Update
Safety first. We always pledged that. And that's why the Brighton Police Department invested heavily into new tools and guidelines to help all officers in their craft.
Check out the trunk of your patrol car - new goodies await you! Use your cones and barriers to block off individual lanes, entire streets, secure accident sites, or annoy other drivers! The latter one is a joke, please don't do that.
Use your commands!
Why do you have hands? Yes, to carry things from A to B. And yes, also to hold a gamepad. But more important: You can use them to perform gestures & issue commands!
With The Traffic Management Update, you receive a variety of options just for that!
You can now order...
- NPCs to stop and wait
- NPCs to walk to a different location and wait there
- NPCs to not use the sidewalk at all
- NPCs to turn around and use a different route
- NPVs to wait
- NPVs to turn around and use a different route
- NPVs to reverse drive
We highly recommend using a combination of tools and manual commands to redirect traffic in a way that suits your present needs.
Note: The option to order NPVs to reverse is not present in the beta yet! We currently plan to release a hotfix on June 28th which will contain this option.
Mod your ELS!
Oh lord, never ever could we have anticipated the huge amount of mods you would create! It was clear to us that you really want to receive even more options to modify, personalize and optimize the game.
That's why we couldn't wait to introduce ELS Modding which enables you to adjust both sirens and blipping, customize all lights on all patrol cars, change the frequency, switch up the brightness and variate the colors.
Note: Of course, you can currently only use ELS mods with the beta branch and NOT with the stable branch.
Of course, we've both updated the official mod kit and written a guide to help you with your creations! Check it out here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2808924041
Smarter AI, Happier I
While we give you a bunch of new options to direct traffic yourself, it was crucial to optimize the AI at the same time. We're shipping a bunch of AI improvements that include a smart reaction to sirens, a better approach to intersections, an advanced lane switching behavior... and more. If you want to take a closer look at the changes, we've created an article with a few example videos:
https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/997010/announcements/detail/3337742851856313742
Bug fixes, performance improvements & other new features
As with the last updates, the team put a tremendous focus on fixing a bunch of longstanding bugs. You can take a closer look at them in the patch notes further down below.
We also resolved a bunch of crashes - and improved performance plus framerates across the board. In addition, you can now adjust the spawn density of NPCs and NPVs while fleeing has become an official arrest reason!
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:
- Right-click on Police Simulator: Patrol Officers in your Steam library.
- Select 'Properties' in the menu.
- Select 'Betas' in the sidebar on the left.
- Select 'Beta' in the drop-down menu and confirm your decision to switch to that branch.
- 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.
Save game to unlock everything in the beta
By visiting this link, you can download a save game for use on the beta branch (and only on the beta branch!). This save game will unlock all features immediately. You also need to know that you must copy the save game into the following folder:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Boston\Saved\SaveGames
You can find the folder more easily by typing %localappdata% into the Windows search.
Since the save is named Career_0beta.sav, you have to delete any other save game which might also be called Career_0beta.sav. We recommend doing a backup of the old save game as well should you want to keep it for the future.
Of course, this is completely optional and intended to help those who want to see everything unlocked in the beta from the very start. The old method of unlocking stuff does still work.
Here are the official patch notes for The Traffic Management Update
No more talking, now it's time for the Open Beta!
Traffic Management
- Added Traffic Cones: Players can now place traffic cones around the accidents and on the road in general, to make traffic around them more manageable
- Added Road Barriers: Players can now place road barriers on roads and around accident sites, to make the NPVs take a different route
- Added Hand Gestures: Players are able to order NPVs to stop/continue driving and do a u-turn, which makes the player to be in control of the vehicle drivers around him
- Giving orders to NPCs: The player now has the ability to make an NPC wait, or evacuate the area they are currently in to make the player be in control of any situation around him
Modding
- Added a new modding system for ELS: Players now can change their police vehicle emergency lights and sounds for the emergency siren (can't wait to see what you'll create!)
AI & NPC Improvements
- Improved the way NPCs and NPVs react to the police car with lights, emergency siren and lights & siren together
- Improved traffic behavior at intersections
- Added AI improvements which make the AI more human-like: NPCs react to the police cars sirens and actions around them, if there are gunshots or taser being deployed (instead of chilling like nothing has happened at all and that is just a regular occurence in their neighborhood, just like an old lady throwing flower pots at you just because you've been a biiiit louder when gaming, smh)
- Changed the stopping distance between NPVs in traffic and on accident sites
- Added more functionality to NPCs feet making their walking more realistic
UI
- Added the names of NPCs in Encounter reports to make it clearer what actions and NPCs caused loss or gain of the CP/SP (now you know who to blame)
- Improved the handbook, added categories to make it easier to search through the handbook entries
- Added warning pop-up messages after player changes the spawn density/range settings
- Adjusted in-game credits (it's me!!)
Gameplay
- Players can now arrest someone for fleeing
Performance
- Improvement of overall in-game performance
Balancing
- Adjustment of NPC spawning range and density in multiplayer
Tutorials
- Added new Tutorial "Radar-Gun" which explains how to use the Radar Gun
- Added new Tutorial "Stun Gun" which explains when and how to deploy a taser
- Added new Tutorial "Flashlight" which explains how to turn on your flashlight
- Added new Tutorial "Driving with a broken Windshield" which explains when a driver should be detained for their broken windshield
- Added new Tutorial "Open Patrol" which explains the basics of playing an open patrol shift
- Added new Tutorial "High Crime Area" which explains to the player what is a high crime area in the game
- Added new Tutorial "Fleeing" that explains what should be done, if an NPC is fleeing
- Adjusted Gun tutorial text to make it clearer when it is allowed to use your gun during the shift
Happy Birthday!
- Decorated the precincts to celebrate our upcoming anniversary!
Bug Fixes
GAMEPLAY
- Fixed a bug where a player would get stuck in a fleeing dialogue
- Fixed issues where SP could get farmed
- Fixed an issue for there being no CP loss after tasing an injured NPC
- Fixed issue where a player could tase a driver NPC
- Fixed an issue where Traffic Stop parking slots would not get properly filled by the NPVs
- Fixed issue where a player would not be able to give orders to a detained NPC
MULTIPLAYER
- Fixed a bug where in Multiplayer the second player would see NPC outside of their vehicle
- Fixed Multiplayer issue in which the second player was not able to interact with NPCs
- Fixed an issue where there would be almost no NPCs during a Multiplayer session
- Fixed patrol vehicles animations when both players interacted with it at the same time
NPCs
- Fixed an issue with floating NPCs
- Fixed an issue where there were no NPCs in the holding cells
- Fixed NPCs clipping into vehicles in accidents after they would step out of their vehicle
PATROL CAR & TRAFFIC CARS
- Fixed bug where Utility vehicle could get damaged too much visually
- Fixed NPV clipping and floating issues in accidents
- Fixed a bug when a police officer crashed inside a vehicle in accident it would add more evidence (technically, that's realistic, but...)
- Fixed issues where the cars number plates would float
- Fixed NPVs reacting to the Emergency Siren while they were driving the opposite direction
- Fixed NPV teleporting after using the police ladle
WORLD & GRAPHICS
- Fixed the ability to clip into various objects after opening the trunk of a police car
- Fixed issues where objects at accident sites would be fallen over unnaturally
- Fixed Emergency Lights not showing properly on low & medium video settings
- Fixed issues where certain precinct walls had gaps
UI
- Fixed a bug where video settings would not get saved
- Fixed a UI overlap when a player would receive "Your First Shift" tutorial
- Fixed tutorials not opening their correct handbook page after pressing "H"
- Fixed an issue where video settings would not get applied after pressing "F" button
- Fixed multiple text overlaps in UI
- Fixed various translation issues
CONTROLS
- Fixed loss of input after attempting to give directions to the NPCs
MISCELLANEOUS
- Fixed bugs where uniforms would have graphical issues
- Fixed various other minor bugs
CRASHES
- Fixed bug where the players game would crash after taking arrestee into prison cell hallway
- Fixed various other crashes (thank you, everyone!)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/997010?snr=1_2108_9__2107