PNWParksFan

It's been a little while since I posted an update here, so here's a quick summary of what's going on with Coastal Callouts development: I finally implemented a custom Grab feature, which allows the player to grab any human ped (even dead, injured, and cop peds). This has allowed for quite a few new related features, including different grab animations when carrying a ped in the water or carrying a dead or injured ped, and auto-grabbing peds when you reel in the life ring. Related to the grab feature is the new dual hoist capability, which lets the player grab a ped while using the hoist. This is really helpful for rescues in dangerous scenarios where you may not want to or be able to get off the hoist safely, such as cliff rescues. Dead peds can now be placed in the rescue stretcher, meaning it's now possible to recover any peds you find who are deceased. I've created a new callout called "capsized boater", which features various recreational boaters who have fallen out of their watercraft and are in distress. This includes kayaks, canoes, jet skis, and even surfers on surf boards! Over 200 different spawn points for the new callout, taking advantage of some really cool parts of the map which don't get seen much. Did you know there's a giant underwater cave on the east coast of the map? Work continues on several vehicles, including some enhancements to the existing boats and aircraft, and development of a new 87' Marine Protector Class Patrol Boat and a miniaturized dinghy to go along with it. So I know a lot of folks are of course interested to know what my plans are in terms of an eventual release date. Believe me, as soon as I know when it'll be ready to release, I'll tell you guys! Getting the grab update finished was a huge step towards that goal. The next major tasks to complete before I feel comfortable with a public release are as follows: Update the training callout to guide the user through the important new features which I've added since I created the training callout. Improve the help messages and guidance to the user in the other callouts. Make key callout information easier to understand. Create a custom installer. As anyone in the beta program can tell you, installing Coastal Callouts is very complicated - it involves setting up a custom DLC, modifying other game files, installing quite a few plugin and config files, etc. To minimize support requests and maximize user satisfaction, I will be making a custom installer to guide the user through the process. I am also working with various modders who are creating non-US Coastal packs, and will need to figure out some way to facilitate installing those customized packs. Add a couple more callouts and some detail to the existing ones. There's actually quite a few callouts now in the pack, but there's a couple more I'd like to add before release. Of course, after the initial public release, I'll continue to develop new features and add more callouts over time. Thanks to everybody for following this project, and extra thanks to everyone who has donated to support the development. As always, I'm still hard at work and look forward to sharing the mod with everyone when it's ready!

That function is for indicating that an AI ped is busy and not to give it cop tasks. It doesn't affect callouts. There is no API method to go on/off duty.

I will post here when it is released to the public. It's not ready yet. I don't know when it will be, it depends on how my work schedule and free time go. Please remember this is a hobby that I do in my limited free time for personal enjoyment. Some significant things still need to be finished before it'll be ready for public release. I don't know how long it'll take because some of those things require a lot of reverse engineering, and you never know how much time that'll take. If I could give a more precise answer I would. If anybody would like to sign up for a $5k/month donation I will gladly take an unpaid leave of absence from my day job to finish the mod and release it ASAP. :P That said, there has been some good progress lately, sorry for the lack of updates. Some great improvements in some development tools means I've been working on more map mod enhancements. SkylineGTRFreak is back from his vacation and is working on an 87' Patrol Boat cutter and I'll be working on some new features to utilize that larger boat. I'm still working on the grab system to accommodate moving and retrieving dead peds. I'm also making good progress on enhancing the tools for community members to add international DLCs for Coastal Callouts. There's been some good progress on UK and Spain content, and a bit of work on some German, French, and Australian content. Before I can do a public release I will need to finish making an installer system, finish the aforementioned ped grabbing feature, and fix up a few other bugs. I will probably do an initial public release before actually adding all the features I eventually want to include, just so I can get something out to the community to enjoy. But I can't stress enough that this is a very complex and gradual project, and that I cannot now and never will promise any specific timelines, because I can't guarantee them and don't know myself.

The file is fine, it's just incorrectly labeled as a ZIP when in fact it's a RAR. 7-zip can open it.

The USCG operates HC-144 Ocean Sentry and C-27J Spartan medium-range surveillance aircraft. A vehicle modeler on gta5-mods.com has a C-27J model that they plan to "eventually" finish; when they do so I will include it with Coastal Callouts. It's unlikely that I'll add the HC-144 as it's redundant with the C-27J and I don't have any models for it. I have some ideas for some callouts which involve vehicles in the water. Can't say much more than that til I actually create those calls though!

Finally got time to create a new actual callout! Suspicious Boat in Restricted Area takes place at various important locations around the map, and has many different possible outcomes! Is it just an innocent boater who got lost and didn't realize they wandered into the security zone near Fort Zancudo? Or is it a terrorist scoping out weak points in the Port's security to plot an attack?

Had a great time with @Albo1125 today doing the first-ever non-US Coastal Callouts stream! Thanks to Mark for helping out with some of these textures. In other news, quite a bit of development progress lately, although a lot of it internal code and configuration stuff which isn't so sexy to share here. There have been a few shiny things too though! The vehicle and ped spawning menus have been improved, and now more customizable than ever! You can set which peds and vehicles to spawn, give them names, etc. They can be spawned from the main mod menu, without needing to mess with any trainers or anything like that. Of course I still recommend EUP for the best ped experience, but if you choose not to use EUP for some reason, this is an alternative. Or you can even add EUP outfits to the Coastal ped spawning menu. Startup performance has been improved quite a bit with some internal code changes. I'm working on a new callout for suspicious boat activity near restricted area. A huge map update for the Coast Guard Air Station at LSIA. Added heli pads, lights, prop details, and more. Check out some screens below:

It's certainly possible to get decent performance on a laptop, but the cost-to-performance ratio is abysmal. With a desktop you can keep upgrading components over the years, and it's much cheaper. I stand by my statement that a gaming laptop isn't a good investment for someone who wants to play LSPDFR mods. Anyways, if people want to discuss PC specs in more detail, there's other sub forums here which are more tailored to that. Coastal Callouts will run if LSPDFR will run, but some of the boat physics in particular doesn't work right if your FPS is below about 30, and mods always do decrease the FPS, so that's something to keep in mind with regards to specs.

Coastal Callouts works best on a machine that can maintain stable 45+ FPS with LSPDFR running. It looks like the Alienware 13 is a laptop. I don't recommend gaming laptops for modding - the performance to cost ratio is just too low. For the ~$1k starting price you could build your own awesome gaming PC that could run GTA at 60 FPS no problem. Laptops overheat easily, are difficult and expensive to upgrade, and are never as powerful as desktops.

Happy to report that we're now at $475 in direct donations and $350 in matching funds, for a total of $825 in donations! Thank you all for chipping in!

As of right now, we have $345 in donations, and $250 of matching funds, for a total of $595 in donations! Thank you everyone for your generosity! If you haven't donated yet, there's still time. Please consider sending anything you can to help!

Just a quick update - it's been about 24 hours since this launched. In that time, we've raised $215 in direct donations, with 100% of that being matched so far, for a grand total of $430 in donations to support disaster relief for Hurricane Harvey. Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed so far! For those of you who are still thinking about it, please consider making any contribution if you can. Rescues are still ongoing as we speak, and thousands of people have been displaced and will need all forms of support. All of us here like to play heroes in GTA, here is your chance to be a hero for people in need in real life!

Thanks to everyone who's donated so far! I'm going to bed, but will update as soon as I wake up tomorrow with all the donation receipts I get overnight. Here is a link to a tracking page for the spreadsheet where I'm recording all the donations. Don't worry if your donation doesn't show up right away, I have to enter them manually, and will update it throughout the day. https://goo.gl/noFk1g