As you may have noticed, GTA IV's natural system for spawning police cars and officers is a little bugged. Primarily, it doesn't mix the two types (Skinny cops and Fat cops for peds, and the Vapid Cruiser and Merit Patrol for cars) it just goes all in with them. For many, this is annoying (to say the least) and kinda immersion breaking when 15 fat clones are all having heart attacks while Niko goes on a rampage. Some have tried to alleviate this problem by replacing fat cops with female officers, but the fact that you can't get a mixture has always bugged me. Here's an example: 

How do we fix this?

Well, frankly, we can't, or at least not in the sense of getting the game to choose both models equally. But what we can do is simply stop the game from picking fat, unrealistic cops when deciding what officers should be spawned. It is also worth mentioning you can pick any police model, and also replace the officers in Alderney (or have state troopers spawn anywhere.) The best part? This takes about 15 seconds and only requires notepad.


1. Officers  
Go to 
Grand Theft Auto IVCommonData and open up pedgrp.dat

Press ctrl+f and search "# POPCYCLE_GROUP_COPS" or simply keep scrolling until you see it.
It more than likely looks like this:

# POPCYCLE_GROUP_COPS (M_Y_Cop_Traffic removed. Was the one in NJ)

M_Y_Cop, M_M_Fatcop

M_Y_Strooper 

M_Y_Cop = Skinny LCPD officers. Almost all mods mod this.
M_M_Fatcop = The two fat LCPD officers
M_Y_Strooper = The State Trooper Model
M_Y_Cop_Traffic = The blue shirted LCPD Traffic model

The game reads this as specific instructions. The first column is the first model that can spawn in all districts except Alderney. The second slot can also spawn there (but they will not spawn together). The final slot is the officer model that will only spawn in Alderney.

If it isn't apparent, you can simply change 'm_m_fatcop' to 'm_y_cop', and the game will always choose m_y_cop in Liberty City. You can change any of the 3 slots to any law enforcement model. I have m_y_cop spawning in all 3 districts.

BUGS:
This is a rare bug, but sometimes the game will freak out and pick all of the in game models flagged as police officers for checkpoints. The most obvious place this happens is the NOOSE/LCPD Station in northern Algonquin. This only happens to the models who stand around holding M4's, not the cops who stand around talking. 
 

2. Vehicles

This is the same principal; tricking the game into only choosing one model.

Open up cargrp.dat and scroll to # POPCYCLE_GROUP_COPS. The first two models on the list are the ones that spawn in traffic. NOOSE and SWAT Vehicles are handled on their own, so sorry, but you can't change that. If you change "police, police2" to "police, police, police2" then police2 will not show up in traffic. This is useful for those who cannot use the TBOGT and TLAD vehicle mod, or simply need another slot for a non-patrol vehicle.

Edited March 25, 201313 yr by BroCop

Question: Can you also post this to our Tutorial Database?

Question: Can you also post this to our Tutorial Database?

Not a problem, I'll post it now.

Thanks!

To solve the fat cop problem, you can also replace the fatcop model with a normal officer and change the walk style, that's what I did.

To solve the fat cop problem, you can also replace the fatcop model with a normal officer and change the walk style, that's what I did.

This is a little less user friendly, but an option for those who may want it. Funny thing is, I never wanted to change all the .dats and such, and because of that managed to stumble onto my solution.

As you may have noticed, GTA IV's natural system for spawning police cars and officers is a little bugged. Primarily, it doesn't mix the two types (Skinny cops and Fat cops for peds, and the Vapid Cruiser and Merit Patrol for cars) it just goes all in with them. For many, this is annoying (to say the least) and kinda immersion breaking when 15 fat clones are all having heart attacks while Niko goes on a rampage. Some have tried to alleviate this problem by replacing fat cops with female officers, but the fact that you can't get a mixture has always bugged me. Here's an example: 

How do we fix this?

Well, frankly, we can't, or at least not in the sense of getting the game to choose both models equally. But what we can do is simply stop the game from picking fat, unrealistic cops when deciding what officers should be spawned. It is also worth mentioning you can pick any police model, and also replace the officers in Alderney (or have state troopers spawn anywhere.) The best part? This takes about 15 seconds and only requires notepad.

1. Officers  

Go to 

Grand Theft Auto IVCommonData and open up pedgrp.dat

Press ctrl+f and search "# POPCYCLE_GROUP_COPS" or simply keep scrolling until you see it.

It more than likely looks like this:

# POPCYCLE_GROUP_COPS (M_Y_Cop_Traffic removed. Was the one in NJ)

M_Y_Cop, M_M_Fatcop

M_Y_Strooper 

M_Y_Cop = Skinny LCPD officers. Almost all mods mod this.

M_M_Fatcop = The two fat LCPD officers

M_Y_Strooper = The State Trooper Model

M_Y_Cop_Traffic = The blue shirted LCPD Traffic model

The game reads this as specific instructions. The first column is the first model that can spawn in all districts except Alderney. The second slot can also spawn there (but they will not spawn together). The final slot is the officer model that will only spawn in Alderney.

If it isn't apparent, you can simply change 'm_m_fatcop' to 'm_y_cop', and the game will always choose m_y_cop in Liberty City. You can change any of the 3 slots to any law enforcement model. I have m_y_cop spawning in all 3 districts.

BUGS:

This is a rare bug, but sometimes the game will freak out and pick all of the in game models flagged as police officers for checkpoints. The most obvious place this happens is the NOOSE/LCPD Station in northern Algonquin. This only happens to the models who stand around holding M4's, not the cops who stand around talking. 

 

2. Vehicles

This is the same principal; tricking the game into only choosing one model.

Open up cargrp.dat and scroll to # POPCYCLE_GROUP_COPS. The first two models on the list are the ones that spawn in traffic. NOOSE and SWAT Vehicles are handled on their own, so sorry, but you can't change that. If you change "police, police2" to "police, police, police2" then police2 will not show up in traffic. This is useful for those who cannot use the TBOGT and TLAD vehicle mod, or simply need another slot for a non-patrol vehicle.

can you add noose, fbi or the other cars to popcycle group to spawn in traffic?

can you add noose, fbi or the other cars to popcycle group to spawn in traffic?

Yes, but the police and police2 cars won't spawn anymore. You can just replace police with noose and police2 with fbi, or something like that. It should work.

This is a little less user friendly, but an option for those who may want it. Funny thing is, I never wanted to change all the .dats and such, and because of that managed to stumble onto my solution.

My way also unfortunately eliminates the ability to play as the "Paul Blart" cop, which can be entertaining at times lol.

It also stops scripts from spawning other cops (with this method, you can make normal cops patrol Alderney and then use Traffic Spawner to spawn stroopers everywhere).

Hey BroCop

 

Good tutorial.


Hey man, this is how I did it.

 

I replaced the security guards with a female cop, changed her voice and movement to that of a female and also enabled her as a cop so she can also arrest you etc...

I removed police2 from the police group and added it in a couple off the other spawn groups and in the copgroup I added 'police' twice. I now have both cop cars spawning togheter.

And since I changed the police to NYPD and the NYPD doesn't use shotguns while the skinny cops do, I did this:

Replaced m_y_cop with the fatcop so now I only have fatcops spawning. I changed the fatcop his voice, his skin and his movement to that of the skinny cop so they look exactly the same as the skinny cops; they in fact are the skinny cops now. But in case you hadn't noticed, fatcops don't use shotguns and M4s in free roam (except for chopper and boats) so now all my skinny cops use pistols only :D

 

And 'cp702' his trick seems nice as well, I'll check it out.