Small fires script - Encouraging more fire roleplay

[Cobra]

Small scripted fires that encourages random fire roleplay

 

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Short description

A variety of small scripted fires to provoke FD/PD/civilian roleplay during quiet server times when there's not many other roleplay scenarios happening. 

This could be a derivation of @-Andreas's awesome fire script which only applies to properties and wildfires; and are considered larger scale emergencies that require a large amount of FD members to be on duty, while this script would only require 3 to be on-duty. 

 

Daily we find our daytime players can wait a good 8 hours before actually getting an emergency call out, with peak time (17:00+) being the busiest. 

This is essentially my solution to FD's life-long problem of becoming bored and then inactive because we sometimes find ourselves waiting hours without a call-out.

While passive RP is good, it only goes so far. We want to get using our equipment which we've spent hours writing about in guides and to be a Fire Department. 

 

I fear if we didn't have a regular scripted system that could occur at any time, our daytime players would become inactive and/or leave as has happened every month (except October) for the past year this server's had a Fire Department.

 

Example:

 

A small fire that was spawned into GTA World as a wildfire - I observed it for a while and it remained to that one bush which in part gave me the idea of a small fire script. 


A bush on fire in Raton Canyon

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Detailed description

Overall brief: 

• Various different types of small fire call outs
• The fires will spawn on pre-defined co-ordinates of the GTA V map that are placed on objects e.g. trash cans
• Only requires 3+ Fire Department members (Or 1 Fire Engine) to be on duty at any given time
• These will spread slowly but must be dealt with before it becomes worst; as all fires have the potential to burn down homes
• Regular urban fires and less-regular rural fires

 

Call-out categories: 

The type of categories the fire department would list the call-outs as:

• Outside fire (general outside fires that aren't categorised)
• Garbage/Refuse fire (fires that involve waste)
• Vegetation fire (fires that involve vegetation; trees, bushes, plants...etc.)
• Electrical fire (fires that involve electrical components and machinery) 
• Vehicle fire (fires that involve vehicles)

 

Call-out examples: 

See a list of call outs involving objects I've searched for on the map that can have fire spawned on them (contains picture examples).

(Spoiler is meant to start here, but turns out it causes huge issues to have more than one spoiler in a post)

 

Outside fires: 

A market stall that could be contained by one crew

 

• Guard box fire (Several flames spreading over a security guard box object)
• Market stall fire (Several flames spreading over a market stall object) 
• Mailbox fire (1 flame over a mailbox object) 
• Newspaper stand fire (1 flame over a newspaper stand)
• Outhouse fire (Several flames spreading over an outhouse object) 
• Shed fire (Several flames spreading over a shed object)
• Telegraph pole fire (A few flames climbing up a telegraph pole object)
• Tent fire (A few flames over a tent object e.g. the homeless tents in Pillbox Hill)
• Wooden bench fire (A few flames spreading over a wooden bench object)
• Wooden billboard fire (A few flames spreading along a billboard object)
• Wooden chair fire (A few flames spreading over a wooden chair)
• Wooden fence fire (A few flames spreading along fence objects)
• Wooden pallet fire (A few flames over a pile of wooden pallet objects)
• Wooden sign fire (1 flame over a wooden sign object)
• Wooden table fire (A few flames spreading over a wooden table)

 
Garbage/Refuse fires: 

A pile of trash that could be contained by one crew
 

• Dumpster fire (A few flames over a dumpster object)
• Trashcan fire (1 flame over a trashcan object)
• Trash pile fire (A few flames over a pile of trash objects)
• Wheelie bin fire (1 small flame over a wheelie bin object) 

 
Vegetation fires: 

A small patch of vegetation in an urban area which could be contained by one crew
 

• Crop fire (A few flames spreading along crop objects)
• Bushes on fire (A few flames that spread along bush objects)
• Hay bale fire (A few flames on a hay bale object)
• Tree on fire (A few flames climbing up a tree object)
• General vegetation fire (A few flames along a patch of vegetation) 

Electrical fires:

A manhole and an electrical access box that could be contained by one crew
 

• Electrical access box fire (A few flames on an electrical access box)
• Generator fire (A few flames on a generator object)
• Lamp fire (1 flame in a light fitting object, e.g. street lamp)
• Manhole electrical fire (1 large flame coming out of a manhole to an underground electrical unit)
• Telephone booth fire (A few flames over a public phone booth object)
• Traffic light fire (1 flame in the traffic light object)
• Transformer fire (A few flames over a transformer object)
• Vending machine fire (A few flames over a vending machine object)
• Wires fire (Several flames spreading along electrical wires)

 
Vehicle fires:

A non-driveable abandoned vehicle object in GTA V which could be contained by one crew
 

• Abandoned vehicle fire (A few flames over one of the abandoned non-drivable vehicle objects seen in the game)
• Vehicle fire on driveway (A few flames over one of those non-drivable vehicle objects seen on driveways)
• Player owned vehicle fires are up to the role-play of the characters involved

(Spoiler is meant to end here, but turns out it causes huge issues to have more than one spoiler in a post)

 

Call-out notifications:

When there is a fire there could be several ways in which we receive the call out to make it seem role-play like.

 

What we currently have: 

• 911 call (An actual playable character has to see it and report it)
• Departmental (A member of the government reports it over our interdepartmental radio)
• Discovering it (We merely find it during our day to day activities)

 

What we could have: 

• NPC 911 call (The script produces a 911 call in the exact same format as a player-911 call, but instead has a random NPC name as the caller) that shows on the 911 map
• An alert that informs us of the fire, type and location with a GPS placed on map (like the current fire script does) 

 

NPC (Non-Playable Character) 911 Call: 

• The script could automatically choose NPC 911 call as most of the map doesn't have a sufficient amount of players to notice a fire, meaning nearly all the fires will spread out of control.
• There may be a delay from when the fire starts to when the call is made (To simulate the idea that the fire may have been going a while and a non-playable character (NPC) has just discovered it)
• The name would be a random NPC name picked from a database of random names e.g. John Doe
• The phone number would be listed as 'WITHHELD'
• The location would be the street name, district and/or city of the co-ordinates
• The description would be picked from a database of the fire types but made to sound pedestrian

E.g. Trash pile fire: "Hey looks like there's a pile of trash on fire here"

E.g. Trash pile fire: "Pile of trash on fire in the middle of the sidewalk"

E.g. Market stall fire: "Oh my god my market stall is on fire, my business is ruined!"

E.g. Market stall fire: "I just drove past this vegetable stall on fire, worried about it spreading to the field nearby."

 

Call-out frequency and quantity:

The call outs should be frequent and can happen at anytime in the 24 hour day to keep us active, but also shouldn't overwhelm us. 

 

Frequency (max 2 hours, min 10 minutes):

• Minimum of 5 minutes before the next fire
• Maximum of 2 hours before the next fire
• The average would be 62 minutes and 30 seconds before the next fire

 

Quantity (min 0, max 3):

• Minimum of 0 active fires at any given time regardless of how many FD on duty (meaning there may not always be a fire active even if lots of FD are on duty)
• Maximum of 1 active fires at any given time if 3+ FD on duty
• Maximum of 2 active fires at any given time if 6+ FD on duty
• Maximum of 3 active fires at any given time if 11+ FD on duty 
• Anymore than that would use up all our fire engines and we still need to have staff available for ambulances too!

 

So for example, if there are 3 FD on duty, there can only be one fire at one time and no others will re-spawn until it's extinguished.

But if there are 6 FD on duty then two could occur at the same time.

They should be random as to when they occur so that we're not going from fire to fire and never return to the fire station. 

 

It'd also be nice if some fires turn out to be a false alarm. We arrive and find nothing is showing or the fire is a controlled burning e.g. someone burning trash in their backyard or having a BBQ. 

 

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How does this vary from the current fire script?

• The current fire script is spawned by an admin (will be random in the future) and can be spawned where they choose
• The current fire script is for properties and wildfires only, which are large events

 

• This fire script will depend on actual pre-defined placements on the map that are fairly random
• Things like vegetation fires would be isolated to small areas

E.g. Vegetation on fire by a freeway in Pillbox Hill, as oppose to larger wilderness on fire in Raton Canyon which would be a wildfire

• This fire script would only require 3 FD members to be on duty, while the current one requires over twice that

 

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How would this affect other players?

• Players may randomly find themselves involved with incidents they didn't expect, creating different role-play scenarios
• They can be the ones to call it in
• They can be the ones to become injured
• They can try and put it out with their own extinguishers
• They can even roleplay a cause, e.g. they were smoking a cigarette and dropped it
• The LSPD can play firefighter until we arrive, something we all know cops secretly want to do

 

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How would this suggestion improve the server?

• Encourages the Fire Department to remain active throughout all time-zones

Meaning when we get a call out involving players e.g. a medical or a collision, we have members on duty to respond

• Increases the role-play reputation of the Fire Department and leads to more people joining
• Increased likelihood of spontaneous role-play for players who are bored
• Overall makes Los Santos seem more lively
• Makes the server look good, as one of few servers who actually has a functioning Fire Department with exciting roleplay

 

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Additional information

• This script would be similar to another script I am planning on suggesting soon, a hazards script, which is the other types of incidents FDs deal with and are more likely to have characters injured e.g. falling rubble from a roof threatening pedestrians.
• If this small fire script turns out to be a success we could have medium and/or big fires e.g. gas main break fire, large shed fire, large trash pile fire...etc. which require a lot more FD on duty.
• This script is inspired somewhat from an old server I used to play, where myself and a developer spent a large amount of time finding co-ordinates for objects to set on fire and then categorising them as to the type of fire. When the script activated, the flames would appear on the co-ordinates in the server's map and any FD on duty were alerted. 
• I'd be more than happy to spend a large amount of my time collecting co-ordinates for each individual flame and providing them with a description of the call-out in a notepad to developers, leaving them with less work so they can focus on making the basis for the small fires script.

 

An example of how I'd produce these notes can be seen in a reply below. 

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LAFD Engine 27 dealing with a dumpster fire by themselves (left: Engine 27's KME apparatus, center: 1 Firefighter and 1 Apparatus Operator, right: burning dumpster)

 

You may be curious to know as to why I posted this here and not on the Fire Department suggestions. This script would affect other players, so I wanted to know your opinions.

 

Edited October 31, 2018 by Cobra
Update the call out examples; some were in the wrong category.

[Cobra]

Apologies for the formatting errors and the lengthy-information. The original post had multiple spoilers so you'd see a brief outline, and could read more if you wanted to, unfortunately this caused the format to bug. I've had to edit the post using a backup I made in Microsoft Word. 

 

Self-note: 1 spoiler per post or else it bugs

 

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So I've made this section for another spoiler to demonstrate how I'd create a note involving co-ordinates and information to the developers. 

 

Example of a developer note seen below: 

 

 

1 - Garbage/Refuse fire: Dumpster fire. 

 

NPC 911 CALL: Howdy there, looks like someone's dumpster is on fire! I sure hope it doesn't burn down the liquor store.

NPC 911 CALL: I just drove past this dumpster, it looks like it's on fire.

NPC 911 CALL: There's smoke coming from a dumpster in a parking lot. 

NPC 911 CALL: Oh my god there's something on fire over here, looks like someone's dumpster is on fire, I hope I don't die watching it from 50ft away!!!!

 

X:1686.838, Y:4805.655, Z:43.05666, R.x:0, R.y:0, R.z:52.87395 (seen in the position my character is standing below)

 

2 - Outside fire: Newspaper stand fire

 

NPC 911 CALL: I just tried to buy a newspaper, and some delinquents set the bloody thing on fire! 

NPC 911 CALL: Ay' bro, send a fire truck, them newspapers are on fire again

NPC 911 CALL: Hello. There appears to be a newspaper stand on fire here, and I'm worried about it spreading

NPC 911 CALL: The newspaper stand is on fire, I can't buy a newspaper. 

 

[co-ordinates]

 

...etc., ...etc.



My character standing in the exact spot fire would appear on a dumpster fire. 
 

 

Edited October 31, 2018 by Cobra

[Fremie]

I think it would make things less boring when there's a lack of calls.

 

+1

[-Andreas]

I'm definitely down for expanding the current fire system! You got lots of great suggestions, and overall I agree the system is lacking the random aspect of it all. We wanted to have that from the start of the release, but for each fire we start there has to be one player who has that part of the map loaded. Meaning if a random fire starts out on the county side, we need some player to be present there for just a split second to get some data about the surroundings like the height of the map in that area. That's one of the reason it was postponed and left up to the admin team to start them manually.

I already have some what of a solution, but it will require a staff member to be online, but doesn't require them to be active, only online.

Anyway I actually already had a few suggestions I wanted to implement for the fire system as well, but had to wait a bit and deal with something else first.

 

Suggestion is approved, but I will wait a bit before I forward if there's anyone else who want to give their input !

 

EDIT: I also want to say thanks for making the suggestion as detailed as it is. You didn't leave anything out, which makes a lot of the decision making easier during the creation phase. Good job.

[Björk]

10/10 suggestion again. The detail and effort never ceases to amaze me, bud. My -only- issue is that at times these fires may occur at the wrong time, like our 2 times of call out rushes during the day. So it would likely require some minor moderation and as well the internal issue of us needing atleast one FF1+ on duty during the hours in case one springs up. And let's say it's the situation like the car fire not too long ago where we had 2 firefighters out in chiliad with a life flight and only a probationary is at station and no one picking up the pagers we have. I understand they're small fires, and pretty simple to handle at times. But if a fire goes unattended for a bit it can potentially lead to a bigger fire. All that would need to be asked is a form of moderation to prevent to lack hands on deck. Another example say we have a code 0 and we have 13 people on. To a situation and then 3 fires pop up.

[-Andreas]

3 hours ago, Riayadh said:

10/10 suggestion again. The detail and effort never ceases to amaze me, bud. My -only- issue is that at times these fires may occur at the wrong time, like our 2 times of call out rushes during the day. So it would likely require some minor moderation and as well the internal issue of us needing atleast one FF1+ on duty during the hours in case one springs up. And let's say it's the situation like the car fire not too long ago where we had 2 firefighters out in chiliad with a life flight and only a probationary is at station and no one picking up the pagers we have. I understand they're small fires, and pretty simple to handle at times. But if a fire goes unattended for a bit it can potentially lead to a bigger fire. All that would need to be asked is a form of moderation to prevent to lack hands on deck. Another example say we have a code 0 and we have 13 people on. To a situation and then 3 fires pop up.

A fire like a wildfire consists of a bunch of primary fires that all has the ability to spread smaller fires (children). Each of these primary fires can not spread more children than we define (With a maximum of 25 though as a limitation not controlled by us). So don't worry about a garbage fire or whatever it might be, spreading and getting out of hand. Eventually it will contain itself. The children fires will extinguish and form again constantly as long as the primary fire still exsist, but as I said, never exceed the predefined maximum allowed children.

[Cobra]

11 hours ago, -Andreas said:

I'm definitely down for expanding the current fire system! You got lots of great suggestions, and overall I agree the system is lacking the random aspect of it all. We wanted to have that from the start of the release, but for each fire we start there has to be one player who has that part of the map loaded. Meaning if a random fire starts out on the county side, we need some player to be present there for just a split second to get some data about the surroundings like the height of the map in that area. That's one of the reason it was postponed and left up to the admin team to start them manually.

I already have some what of a solution, but it will require a staff member to be online, but doesn't require them to be active, only online.

Anyway I actually already had a few suggestions I wanted to implement for the fire system as well, but had to wait a bit and deal with something else first.

 

Suggestion is approved, but I will wait a bit before I forward if there's anyone else who want to give their input !

 

EDIT: I also want to say thanks for making the suggestion as detailed as it is. You didn't leave anything out, which makes a lot of the decision making easier during the creation phase. Good job.

Thank you for your support - I'm glad the info provided is sufficient (I was concerned it was too much) as I put a few hours into thinking it all through and planning it. 

 

That makes sense in regards to collecting data from having a player in the area  to load the map.

Would having pre-defined co-ordinates as suggested in my post be a solution to this? As all the height and location data would've been collected beforehand when the script is made.

So the fire would spawn on those co-ordinates.

Or perhaps have it so when the script is activated, it sends all the required alerts including the location based off the co-ordinates, but doesn't spawn the fire until a player is near? So when a person (E.g. a fire truck) is getting near the map loads, and the fire appears - but because we only see it when we get near, it has the apparent appearance that it's been going for longer?

 

Feel free to discuss anything regarding ideas and scripts you have with us in FD, maybe you should even join our Discord (after speaking with @Lionhearted first of course)?

We're constantly coming up with ideas for the fire script, new scripts and issues that often get discussed in our Discord but we then forget to forward it on. 

 

I'd be interested to see what others have to say. 

 

5 hours ago, Riayadh said:

10/10 suggestion again. The detail and effort never ceases to amaze me, bud. My -only- issue is that at times these fires may occur at the wrong time, like our 2 times of call out rushes during the day. So it would likely require some minor moderation and as well the internal issue of us needing atleast one FF1+ on duty during the hours in case one springs up. And let's say it's the situation like the car fire not too long ago where we had 2 firefighters out in chiliad with a life flight and only a probationary is at station and no one picking up the pagers we have. I understand they're small fires, and pretty simple to handle at times. But if a fire goes unattended for a bit it can potentially lead to a bigger fire. All that would need to be asked is a form of moderation to prevent to lack hands on deck. Another example say we have a code 0 and we have 13 people on. To a situation and then 3 fires pop up.

 

I was thinking this would perhaps be an issue. But in terms of the script I can't see a way around it except trial it for a month first and then refer the thoughts and details to each other and Andreas. 

It's like player-related calls we get anyway - sometimes we just don't have the resources for that callout because they're not online or they're unavailable elsewhere. 

 

It's more of an FD issue like you said would perhaps require some internal moderation, which I'm sure we'll be able to solve this month merely because we have more fire/rescue trained and Firefighter I+s then ever before and will continue to promote and certify more this month. 

 

Hopefully a script like this would also encourage more to sign up and join as well so we have more chance of having fire/rescue trained members available at any given time. The more the better. 

 

I mean if necessary it's a case of delaying the response until the unit is available.

After-all ambulances could still respond to get an initial attack with an extinguisher if no fire engine is available, and then wait until an engine arrives to to take over and make sure the fire is out. Something like a bin fire can quickly be knocked out by anyone with an extinguisher, but an engine is still needed to make sure all the fire is got at and there's no further hazards. 

 

2 hours ago, -Andreas said:

A fire like a wildfire consists of a bunch of primary fires that all has the ability to spread smaller fires (children). Each of these primary fires can not spread more children than we define (With a maximum of 25 though as a limitation not controlled by us). So don't worry about a garbage fire or whatever it might be, spreading and getting out of hand. Eventually it will contain itself. The children fires will extinguish and form again constantly as long as the primary fire still exsist, but as I said, never exceed the predefined maximum allowed children.

 

This would actually work nicely. As a small fire we don't expect to become as quickly devastating as a wildfire or property fire does. Really only would have one or two primary fires that would slowly spawn children. This would allow us to respond when we're ready. 

 

So for example if there's a dumpster on fire, really it'd remain contained to that dumpster as oppose to spreading across the concrete ground around it. 

[Lionhearted]

3 hours ago, -Andreas said:

A fire like a wildfire consists of a bunch of primary fires that all has the ability to spread smaller fires (children). Each of these primary fires can not spread more children than we define (With a maximum of 25 though as a limitation not controlled by us). So don't worry about a garbage fire or whatever it might be, spreading and getting out of hand. Eventually it will contain itself. The children fires will extinguish and form again constantly as long as the primary fire still exsist, but as I said, never exceed the predefined maximum allowed children.

Perhaps in specific types of fires (purely wildfires in tall dry grass / forests) you could make it so that if the parent fire has the max limit of children fires (25 as you said), it'd create another parent fire to continue? Perhaps with a limit of 10 parent fires so it can create a huge wildfire?

[-Andreas]

22 hours ago, Lionhearted said:

Perhaps in specific types of fires (purely wildfires in tall dry grass / forests) you could make it so that if the parent fire has the max limit of children fires (25 as you said), it'd create another parent fire to continue? Perhaps with a limit of 10 parent fires so it can create a huge wildfire?

I got no way of detecting which "biome" you're in in regards of tall dry grass and so on. But fires consists of a random amount of parent fires of a minimum of 20. Each of those parent fires can spawn a random amount of children with a minimum of 10. 

I will think of something that allows greater control of the size when spawning the fire, especially for the admins. 

[-Andreas]

22 hours ago, Cobra said:

 

 

Would having pre-defined co-ordinates as suggested in my post be a solution to this? As all the height and location data would've been collected beforehand when the script is made.

So the fire would spawn on those co-ordinates.

Or perhaps have it so when the script is activated, it sends all the required alerts including the location based off the co-ordinates, but doesn't spawn the fire until a player is near? So when a person (E.g. a fire truck) is getting near the map loads, and the fire appears - but because we only see it when we get near, it has the apparent appearance that it's been going for longer?

 

1) Funny. I was actually thinking about such a solution to the problem just today. Then I got a bit lazy as I'd have to rewrite part of the current system to properly implement that which made me tired (-; I'll probably end up doing that to be honest, as it's a fine idea. Only problem with this is getting the coordinates that are on land, so we don't end up with a random fire starting under water (-;

 

Feel free to discuss anything regarding ideas and scripts you have with us in FD, maybe you should even join our Discord (after speaking with @Lionhearted first of course)?

We're constantly coming up with ideas for the fire script, new scripts and issues that often get discussed in our Discord but we then forget to forward it on. 

 

2) Sure just send me an invite and I'll join up with you guys if you want me to!