Sam

It doesn't really matter if you have a gun or not, if someone else with a gun pulls it out and shoots you in the back, there's nothing you can do about it. I already explained the nature of Chicago's gun problem and yes, I agree, in that instance, gun control makes the problem worse. The difference between the UK and the US, however, is that the UK isn't completely saturated by guns. Guns are rare here, and aside from armed police, I've never seen a real one. In the US it doesn't matter if you have gun control or not, a criminal is still going to be able to get a gun because there are simply far too many of them available. Let's face it, there's quite possibly more guns than people in the US. There's no way you can control that and under no circumstances do I think gun control would ever work in the US. This isn't about the US, though, this is about a British serviceman having his head chopped off in London, UK.

The problem with violent crime is that there are varying definitions, for example: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Report (FBI UCR) counts four categories of crime as violent crimes: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault." Side note, what the hell is forcible rape? Isn't rape simply rape? Vioent crime in the UK is much more varying in scope, with all violent acts against a person being reported and recorded as violent crime, this includes the most minor of assaults.

That's like comparing the crime rate in London to the crime rate in Edinburgh, or the crime rate in Detroit to the crime rate in Fairfax, Virgina. Chicago's crime rate doesn't stem from gun control measures, it stems from a storied and well documented history of inner and outer city gang problems and conflicts, as well as organised crime, not to mention the higher crime rates that densely populated urban areas experience on the whole. Edinburgh has a population somewhere between 490,000 to 500,000 people, as does Fresno, CA. There were 5 murder cases last year in Edinburgh. There were 51 in Fresno. This disproves any claim that gun control itself is responsible for Chicago's high crime rate - it isn't. The problem with Chicago is that there are already so many illegal guns in circulation, therefore gun control hinders the lawful users, negating any benefits that the right to bear arms brings. On the other hand, in Edinburgh, where guns are very few and far between, gun control helps as it stops guns from entering into mass circulation among criminals. For a city saturated with guns like Chicago, gun control is not the answer to violent gun crime. For a city where guns are scarcely available like Edinburgh, gun control helps keep firearms out of the hands of the wrong people. If the UK Parliament passed a law allowing guns in Edinburgh and suddenly gun shops swarmed the city and large numbers of the population had firearms, I guarantee you the murder rate would go up and not down.

You might want to refine the title further. I came to the thread expecting to see images of Ford shutting down the country in a hostile takeover. Quite disappointed :(

Obviously you would rather have a gun, but this opens up whole new possibilities and dangers. If, say, this British serviceman was armed, it most likely would make no difference so long as the man with the meat clever decapitates you before you can fire your weapon at him. The thing with carrying a gun is that it isn't an automatic protection, you actually have to draw it and fire it. If the guy with the meat clever is behind you, with the weapon hidden in his coat, then as he quickly catches up to you he pulls it out and starts hacking at your head with it, what can you actually do? Sure, there's a chance you might notice it coming and have time to react, but most likely it all happens to fast and you get decapitated either way. Of course, bystanders or persons nearby may also be armed, and this is where the next problem is introduced, do they all pull out their guns and start shooting at the attacker? If they do, are they proficiently trained marksmen? What if the bullets hit the victim? What if the bullets go through windows and kill small children playing their Xbox? And yes, this does happen, just look at the LAPD during the Dorner manhunt where supposedly trained police officers managed to miss the truck of the innocent victims in the mistaken identity incident and lodge bullets in houses and garages (http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/08/local/la-me-torrance-shooting-20130209).

Disappointing they went down the path of in-game content for the special editions. I got the GTA IV special edition with the soundtrack and duffel bag, it was pretty decent and I still have all the stuff. I think the baseball cap and the bag look silly though :( Also I don't like how the game will be easier with the special editions, it should be the same core game for everyone!

Completely disagree. British police are powerless to deal with these situations until armed officers arrive. Just about every other country in Europe, let alone the world, arms their police, even places like Sweden, Norway (all officers firearms trained but guns in cars only) and Denmark where many officers will go through their entire careers without ever even drawing their gun. The fact of the matter is that if you get called to an incident where a guy is using a machete to decapitate a young girl and you get there in enough time to have 10 seconds or less to make a difference, what do you do? Pull out some pepper spray and watch the girl get chopped into pieces? Run towards them and try to take on the guy with the machete with your bare hands? Criminals definitely don't use guns because the police don't use guns, that's like saying they don't commit crime because the police don't commit crime. It's entirely false. Criminals in the UK don't use guns because they are very hard to get and even once you have them, they're hard to keep under the radar and hard to maintain (ammo, etc.). Heck, if I wanted to pull of a big crime, I'd want a gun so that I'd get an extra 5-20 minutes to escape while they waited for an armed unit (and yes, it could probably even take longer up in some rural parts of Scotland). And no, our police don't have Tasers in routine deployment either. Only certain forces issue Tasers to officers other than those in their firearms units and even then the percentage of officers armed with Tasers is relatively small. If you lunge at someone with a crowbar, you're probably going to get knocked into next week. While I doubt that the police in Britain will ever be armed in the near future, I think it's only a matter of time before Tasers start to see more routine deployment.

Have you guys considered that perhaps he has searched on google and is looking for a more specific result than pages and pages of configs? You can't talk to google, you can to other forum members.

Try searching around more, otherwise try making a request here: Please use the correct forum sections next time. It clearly says when you try to make a new topic here what this section is and is not for.

That's disgusting!

By default we assume that you have permission to upload whatever it is you're uploading. I can't really imagine any circumstances where someone wouldn't be okay with uploading a modified config file so yes, as long as you provide appropriate credit then we'll allow it. Since we assume that you have permission, however, that means that if the original author does file a report with us claiming you don't have permission, we will take the file down and you may be issued a warning under Copyright & Plagiarism if we believe there was malicious intent or if you've had files removed before under similar circumstances.

So I've just finished my weekly ELS-DN coding session and it now has support for all three pattern types (WRNL, PRML, SECL). Additionally, I've done some work on the LED light type: That's the Buffalo from all the previous pictures with the same rotator lights and a new LED traffic advisor.

Caine has released a small update to the ELS 7 package - it now includes a list of default controls and all vehicles are set to 'on' by default.

You can spend a great deal of effort on texturing as well though. I mean you can spend hours getting every little detail right on a texture, from making decals look as though they've got a reflective property, to adding wear and tear, to aligning everything perfectly, to making your own logos, symbols, seals and whatever else. Thing is, you can't exactly lock your .png file to stop people from ripping or stealing it can you? People still make textures though, don't they?

I've taken notice of the points you were making and hidden the replies - I'm looking into it now.

Moved this to GTA IV Support, use the LCPDFR Support Requests section only for LCPDFR related issues. I recommend you try OpenIV instead.

Well clearly it isn't on by default so that you actually have to set it up correctly so that it works! I mean come on, use some common sense here.

This is a pretty big moment for all of us here at LCPDFR, especially me. For quite some time now, LCPDFR has been a really big site with a massive community, a huge downloads database and everything else but for me at least, it's always felt like there has been a huge piece missing from the puzzle. Now, with the release of ELS 7 right here on LCPDFR.com, it feels like we've just taken a massive step forward to the completion of that puzzle. ELS ultimately embodies everything that the game modding community is all about - we see a missed opportunity, a mechanic that hasn't reached its full potential or just simply something that we all believe is wrong with the game and we do what we can to fix it. In LCPDFR's case there has always been considerable demand for an entirely new game, something which is the complete opposite of GTA. For years we'd waited, and for years nothing had happened. Eventually, I just gave it a bash to see what I could do and from that point on it just grew and grew and grew. The story for ELS, though, is a little different, seeing as there had actually been police lights in every GTA game. The beauty of this form of modding though is non-acceptance of the status quo and an ambition to make something better. Essentially, that's what Caine did back in 2009 with ELS, he made a simple system to enable better looking emergency lights. While already a big accomplishment on its own, this new system opened up all new forms of possibilities, something which grew into the state we're in today where ELS cars absolutely dominate the vehicle modding scene. Not only did Caine offer an improvement to the existing systems within the game, he also revolutionised the entire emergency vehicle modding scene - something which is often overlooked as we're simply so used to it now. I'm hesitant to continue at this point, as I don't want to detract from the release of the mod or the mod itself, although this is a big moment for all of us, and I do feel as though it is an appropriate time to briefly point out Caine's contributions to the entire emergency modding community, not only here at LCPDFR.com, but also including GPM - the place where for many of us, it all began. While many of you will only have known him as the talented guy behind ELS, DAS and DLM to name but a few of his scripts, as well as the countless models he's gifted to us over the years dating as far back as the POLC and POLP, the mods that almost everybody had in their game at the time, well before the CVPI and Charger came about, Caine was also an important person backstage at GPM and was, in my opinion, single-handedly responsible for the much talked about transition between GPM 1.0 (the phpFusion site) and GPM 2.0 (the IPB site with the famous cracked road background). The importance of GPM 2 was that it advanced the idea of having a modding website centred around an actual community, rather than being simply a place to download mods and look at pictures. Not only that, but Caine was also the one that pushed forward with the ideas of organisation and professionalism, an approach that put less emphasis on individual egos and instead shined the spotlight on the site in general. From a personal perspective though, the best thing that Caine did was simply being Caine. He was the one guy that would stand up for me, that would help me and he was ultimately the one that took me from being simply the guy that made LCPDFR to being what I am now. Finally, I'd just like to point out that although ELS 7 has been uploaded to LCPDFR.com by myself, it goes without saying it goes without saying that it was developed exclusively by Lt.Caine - I was involved with the development process only slightly, assisting with a select few features. NIcolaiB has also been actively involved with the project from a very early stage, giving his input and advice which has shaped many of the new core features of the mod. Understandably, Caine wishes to retain his privacy and anonymity at this point - something which may change if we can work out a way to combat the masses of messages, questions and thank yous he is likely to receive. I think it is one of the most admirable qualities that you can have, and it's something that I do my best on, but to go to the effort of actually reading all the messages that people send you is quite a challenge when the numbers involved are staggering. I know that for most people here, this is a great moment because ELS 7 has finally arrived. For me, though, it's genuinely an extraordinarily special moment because I've been lucky enough to be part of it and I've been fortunate enough to be the first to announce it. From the man himself. "it's certainly nice to be here, this place is amazing, and it's an honor to know that I've contributed to making you feel better about it." You can find ELS 7 in the Downloads section here: Sam.

Using offset positions from the centre of the vehicle - it's the only way you can do it seemingly :( As for other vehicles, yes, it works with anything provided it is a valid model.

Yeah, it is possible and I'll be working with Lt.Caine on this topic - he's pretty good at interfaces in GTA IV and whatnot, so it will be interesting to see what we can come up with in regards to in-game editing of the lights. Again, I doubt this will make the first release as I'd quite like to get something out sooner rather than later. As far as ENB goes - if it can affect the default lights in GTA IV like the headlights, streetlights, taillights, etc. then it can also affect these ones. There won't be a file where you can adjust the visual settings of the lights, however you will be able to do it within the actual light definitions themselves inside the vehicles, meaning some vehicles could even have brighter lights than others.

This is an old picture, but as you can see, it definitely does not look like a circle sprite if you do it right: As far as being visible through the car,in the screenshot I posted with the FBI car, there's actually lights in the back that are on - as seen here with my fix for the problem disabled: Also, by default, the ELS lights look pretty bad - you have to either change the emissive properties of them (which itself causes other problems like the taxi signs and still doesn't look that good IMO) or you have to use ENB which some people, me included, just can never get to work properly or not look like dog crap.

I disagree. Coronas give a better effect, they are after all the way in which all other light in GTA IV is displayed. Also, if other people in multiplayer have the mod, they'll be able to see it.

230 :)