Traffic AI Police Chases Not Working/Occurring

After updating my game from 0.29 to the latest update, I noticed that while driving around various different police vehicles, both stock cars and modded vehicles, traffic no longer generates random police chases as it used to. Is there something I’m missing here? If I drove around for a while on 0.29, a message would pop up for me to chase a vehicle and I’m not seeing that happen anymore.

 

Hi NJMoo and Fluffy Panda

I have the same issue since the 0.30 update. I have tried it on both the "vanilla" maps and some mod maps, and different police cars, but no "suspects are trying to escape".
All the AI have turned into boring, law abiding citizens.

I hope the BeamNG Team will bring back the 'police chase' function?

Thanks a bunch if you can make that happen, Fluffy Panda.

Edit: I tried running the game in Safe Mode, and there the police chases do happen(!) T.Y.
Is there a way of fixing it, so I can avoid running in Safe Mode (where I can't save progress or changes)?

 

If it works in Safe Mode, then it’s propably a mod related issue.
Are you using a vanilla or modded vehicle for this?

 

Hi SSRG
I am just using the vanilla vehicles (which I slightly modified myself, like changing a bumper or engine).
Perhaps it needs to be 100% vanilla?

 

No, that’s not it, at least I don’t think.
Try deactivating some mods to see which one may be the cause of the issue.

 

Hi SSRG

It turns out we were both right

• I deactivated all mods, relaunched the game and started "Free Roam"
• If I use the Vanilla police vehicles, suspects will start fleeing - - however, they have to be Vanilla; if I load my saved cop cars, no missions will start.

It is probably a temporary bug which came with the 0.30 update, which will be fixed (I hope).

 

Oooohh, I guess that makes sense.
Have you ever made info files for configurations?

 

No, I have not...only installed mods (mostly maps and cars + MP).

 

Oh, okay.
Because an info file not only allows to set a price for your config (which sorts it in vehicle selection), but you can also give it a set population value (higher population = more likely to be sold at the Career dealerships), or set the "Config Type" to "Police", which gives it police vehicle properties.
Here’s an info file to edit as reference, along with an example of how to fill it
Replace "configname" in the file name to the exact name of the configuration’s .PC file, and put it where that .PC file is (0.30/vehicles/vehiclename/)

 

Thanks, SSRG. But that is too complicated for me, and I don't wish to mess with something that could damage the game.

I will just disable mods for now, until the BeamNG team fixes the bug...

I appreciate your help!

 

Mods shouldn't be the issue. I installed 0.3 a while back and kept mods deactivated. And I too don't get any AI fleeing me when I drive a cop car. I already had this issue since 0.29 (I don't play a lot).

Edit: I now removed all my mods, completely empty, cleared the cache, deep cleared the cash and I still don't get any chases when in a police car..
Real shame, it was one of my favourite things to do..

Edit 2: deleted the game, all settings, everything I could find, re-install. Still nothing.

 

I tried safe mode, there it works... But I started with a complete fresh install with no user files? So besides setting up the game, I did nothing.

Eureka! I found the issue. I have the spawn traffic bound to a mouse button. It spawns traffic in a different way than the wheel menu! When I spawn traffic using the button, I get no grayed screen with a clock on it, I just get traffic popping in untill it's ready and then it runs. When I use the menu, the screen grays out, there's a clock, which sometimes stays way too long, but then I get a chase almost instantly.

 

I am also having issues with randomly not encountering police chases when I am driving a police vehicle and AI traffic has spawned. The issue occurs regardless whether I am in some built-in police car or a custom configuration.

I cannot exactly tell what causes this, but think that something is indeed broken.

I have tried safe mode and have not encountered the issue there. I did notice that there is a fundamental difference in safe mode though: Unlike with my regular configuration, traffic does not immediately spawn in safe mode so I will first select a police vehicle for myself and only then spawn in AI traffic.

When I respawn AI traffic in Freeroam after selecting a police vehicle I will get the opportunity to chase suspects again.

However, after a certain period of time sometimes no more chases will happen during the same session.

I have set the number of traffic vehicles to auto and have noticed that occasionally traffic vehicles despawn and get replaced by a new vehicle type. I guess that this is due to auto mechanic detecting that my framerate is running low (I am most likely CPU bound) and replacing CPU heavy with less CPU heavy or simplified vehicles.

I am assuming that BeamNG.drive is randomly selecting a specific vehicle type to start chases and that this mechanic is broken by e. g. not making sure that at least one type of traffic vehicles will have that flag when one vehicle type is replaced by another.

But without access to the source code I am really just guessing here and hope that one of the developers can step in and provide more details on how that mechanic works.

 

I am also having some issues with traffic and spawning in general after 0.30. I found that in LUA file in games folder - BeamNG.drive\lua\ge\extensions\gameplay\traffic.lua on line 688 there is random events set to false i set it to true with notepad++ and random police chases are working now. I dont know if its related issue but that is only thing i found

 

it depends on the parts the vehicle has, I added an antenna and spotlights to a custom bastion config of mine, and the chase notifications appeared again. another example is the notifications appear if you put the bullbar on the procyon centari. hope this helps!

 

I had the same problem in update 31.2 so I deactivated some mods I had and it fixed the issue