12 replies to this topic

[vangar]

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!

[EmC-Unit]

There are none on my memory

[Pottyscotty]

While I do not know of any, it is indeed possible. As you said it would probably work using the motorcycle script, you would have to have a horse model, with animations preferably, could use the default EM4 ones for example although I do not know if the sizes would make it look right. The horse would have to be a 'Vehicle'.

 

To scare people away you can probably just edit the existing command for the Police dogs. Although bear in mind that when a vehicle gets close to a person anyway they run away a little.

[Newfoundking]

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. 

[vangar]

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 ).

[itchboy]

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 ).

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.

[vangar]

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.

[itchboy]

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).

 

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.

 

 

 

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.

[vangar]

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

[MikeyPI]

This community stands for me to ban you, and anyone else whom I disagree with, part of my powers to abuse really.

 

Seriously though, this place exists for discussions and for people to hash out ideas, though in the past many people tried to get people to do things for them so regrettably it is commonly an assumption made that would be the intent.  The reality if one wishes to have a discussion about an idea but doesnt wish to get someone to make it, that's fine by me just the same.

 

The problem with this horsey idea is namely in if you wish it to look crude or pretty.  In short, yes I can force hoop at gunpoint to fudge the concept into a crude but serviceable horsie with a cop on top but in my eyes that's missing the intention a good bit.

 

To do this proper like would require far more work than that, in reality to make a really nice addition it would require a few things:

The horse it's self might be usable from the stock factory horse in the game, that's debatable as I've never looked at the horse it's self to see what it's got going on.  For the sake of argument here we'll assume she's usable though.

Next it'd need a saddle added, all in all not that difficult assuming the horse it's self is usable and doesnt "bound" or gallop when it moves, if it does that would be a serious hindering problem to overcome, ultimately requiring the saddle to be mounted onto the horse, which may not work so hot if she does gallop, rear or anything of the sort.

Next up would be a rider, I've made one before for the motorcycle found in LA or NY mods (same guy/same bike in both mods just modded for ny)... I had to make that guy from scratch for the bike, he was a new model, not an existing em4 model because of what was needed to make him mount since he's animated to do so..  Let's say that you wanted to do this the easy way and plop him on top the horse in saddle, no mounting.. It still requires making a person model that fits the bill and designing him in such a way to fit on the horse (without the horse being present unless you have Zmod3 which most of the modders don't).  

Worst case for the rider you'd want him to mount the thing, which would require someone with a whole lotta patience to move the guy in a relatively fluid matter, this game you have to animate using pretty crude techniques for most modders around, so it's seriously painful to do it.

 

Now, worst case scenario here:

The horse is bad, and won't be possible to use at all... He just is a bad horsey and is lame so we put em' down... *throws flower on po' horsey's grave..

 

This is the part that really sucks here.... If the horse is junk as far as the concept goes and we'd need a new horsey from the ground up... As a modeler myself I'd want to shoot myself to be blunt, but it would be possible to make the horse with relatively little pain.. The fun part would be that I would then have to animate his actions/movements to be as fluid as possible. That's alotta work, but the good news is the saddle nor the person matching is not an issue one bit compared to the horse.

 

Then the scripting it's self, for the easy route is relatively easy to do in of it's self because in essence the horse would become a person (means set speed and all that jazz though) If you made it a vehicle it would be far more intensive to sort out.

 

The harder route is a ton of work because you'd basically have to script the horse's movements for every single movement he does, along with triggering the animations for his movement and all that stuff, a serious task to undertake but ultimately the end result would be far far better..

 

 

 

My final thoughts...  To be totally blunt for me and my perspective this task to do it proper and have a really high-quality end result is a ton of work for something that in essence is purely cosmetic... Granted, it could have some cool and fun features for crowd control and things like that, but for the work involved I wouldnt undertake this task.. This task would take someone with moderate to advanced skills for both modeling and scripting to do right, and a good bit of time for quality-control and testing to make sure it did not bug out.  If you wish to try to undertake the task, I wish you the best of luck as it would be a cool cosmetic addition but a difficult one to do right.

[Newfoundking]

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   ).

 

Technically yes, you could go through the LA mod for instance, delete all but like say 2, maybe 3 cop cars, and over half the other units in the mod as well, BUT they're much easier to make. A good modeler can probably make a car, fully skinned and in game in under 12 hours. That's still probably a week for most people with lives, but it's still manageable. Plus most models can be at least partially reused to make numerous more. This means that you can get away with the 12 initial hours to make it only a few for each additional. 

 

So to rephrase: 

The horse is not practically useful. The amount of time for something solely aesthetic is not practical, when that time could pretty much develop an entire mod in place of the horse. And almost certainly the mod would be much better functioning than the horse

[MikeyPI]

Ehh I have to disagree with you on the time it would take to do such a thing, in reality with people who know their stuff the total time invested in the "worst" scenario would be about 1 month of their time if they worked devoted to this cause and shelved all other projects they had in mind.  That being said, yes it is indeed quite a bit of work for the proper finished product desired, is it really worth all that? Sadly, not to me even though it is something you do see in real life, and something cool to think about what you could do with it as far as this game's mechanics go.

 

Someone else might want to take a bite at this one, but to me being that I already went down the road with a person on the motorcycles I don't want to head down what is a similar road all over again (myself anyway).  The idea it's self is no different than many other things which are added into the game, it does serve purposes just purposes that have to be catered to it.

[amuchalipsis]

Hi, I saw a 2 year old bumped topic that has some pictures of mounted policemen

 

http://forum.emergen...t-to-v3o-files/