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Crime Bug in Megalots - Can we avoid them?

Started by RippleJet, February 11, 2008, 05:18:11 PM

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RippleJet

How many times have you got the message "Undercover Cop Unearths Den of Crime"?
Have you ever been urged to build a police station next to an airport, an army base, a country club, a university or a custom megalot?

Do I have to cheat in order to get rid of all those messages which won't disappear regardless how many police kiosks I build around my airport?
Well, not necessarily... but you will need to build a new police station! ::)


However, let's start with the experiment I've done, and return to the modding later on...






Let's start with a relatively young city in a well developed region. A university has already been built, but for the purpose of this test we will bulldoze all other schools (RalphaelNinja's Mini Hogwarts and the CSX Acadamy - Bates Polytech were used to quickly raise the EQ to 200). We enter the scene in April-04. At this point no police station has yet been built, and we've just had our first riot:



The mayor decides to build a large Maxis police station on the southern side of the city, close to the crime infested university:



Within a year after the first staion was built (red arrow),
the mayor decided to build another similar police station on the northern side of the city (purple arrow).

With these two stations, most of the city is covered and most criminals were caught.
Initially there were only about 2 crimes per month, but when the city grew, the number of crimes increased.

The graph below shows the crimes and arrests from September-03 till August-13.
Despite the two stations, you can see that some criminals won't get arrested (compare the blue and green graphs):



The picture below show a typical six crimes per month. This also shows that the university always stays at least yellow.
It never became less yellow than this. The criminality drops 20% every month, unless there's a new crime committed.
However, within the vaste area of the university, a new crime is always committed before criminality disappears completely.

If a criminal isn't arrested, there's a 66% chance that he will commit another crime in the next month.
Thus, the most important thing is to have a proper police coverage.
If the police coverage is at least 20%, all criminals will be arrested.



Now, the mayor (who shakes his head when someone mentions cheating), heard about a new police station.
In March-14 he decided to replace the southern station with this new one.

The new station is slightly larger than the large station by Maxis.
It didn't stop the crimes from happening, as you can see from this assault at the university which took place in July-15:



However, with the new station, the police made a better job, and in February-17 the university was cleared:



Now, let's take a look at the graph showing the number of crimes and arrests from January-10 till December-19.
Let's see what happened after replacing the southern station (green arrow).

There are two differences. On the other hand, the number of crimes dropped from about 6 to 4 per month.
Most importantly though, all criminals seem to be arrested now.



After this the mayor could be more at ease. The police was taking care of the criminals, and in his 33rd year he decided to remove the northern station and try to manage with only the southern one (orange arrow).

After 50 years in power he looked back and noticed two things:
1. After removing the northern station, some criminals managed to escape the police network.
2. Despite this, the criminality continued to drop.




The time scale for the criminality and education above are the same, from January-01 till December-50.
The blue arrow shows what happened when a private school was offered and built.
It was bulldozed a few years later in order to get the EQ down below 160 again.

The reason for the criminality to drop, was the ever rising EQ, that started to climb roughly at the same time as the northern station was removed.
Even if the city had no other educational facilities but the university, the aging population (almost all of them were older than 30 years) got an EQ of around 190.

With an EQ of 200, all criminals would disappear.
On the other hand, with an EQ of 0, as many as 40% of the R§, 15% of the R§§ and 10% of the R§§§ population are criminals.

A perfect educational system is always better at handling crimes than a perfect police system. :thumbsup:






Now, let's return to the modding of this new police station, which is the Bathurst Street Police Station by Mattb325.
First of all, the experiment above was conducted in a city not having the CAM.
With the CAM, the number of crimes would have been fewer, due to the better Crime Attenuation from Police Protection.

For each police station there are 6 properties that determine the strength of the police protection within the coverage area.

The Center Strength, the Exterior Strength and the Radius determine the basic police strength and crime attenuation.
For Maxis' large police station, the strength is 300/255 = 118% at the center and 0% at the rim of the coverage circle, having a radius of 585 m.

The Dispatch Center Strength, the Dispatch Exterior Strength and the Dispatch Radius determine the ability of the police to catch criminals.
Depending on how far from the street the crime is taking place, the police force has to move by foot to reach the criminals.

As soon as they leave their car, the strength drops rapidly though.
For Maxis' large police station, the dispatch center strength is 200/255 = 78% of the relevant basic strength where they left their car.
The dispatch range decreases rapidly down to only 20/255 = 8% of the strength where the car is. And the dispatch radius is only 48 m (3 tiles).

As a comparison, all in-game fire stations have a dispatch radius of 128 m (8 tiles), which means a fire can be extinguished in an airport, but a criminal cannot be caught.
Police stations (and fire stations) created with the "X" Tool will get all these properties set depending on the size of the station.

The Bathurst Street Police Station is larger than the in-game large station, and was given the following property values:
Center Strength:
460
Exterior Strength:
50
Radius:
928
Dispatch Center Strength:
200
Dispatch Exterior Strength: 
20
Dispatch Radius:
120

The graph below compares the strength of the Bathurst Police force and that of the Maxis large station, if the university is situatued 240 m (15 tiles) from the police station. Not that the Maxis police force is only able to arrest criminals within two tiles from the street. After that the strength drops below 20%, and the criminal escapes. With the Bathurst police force, the criminal is caught if hiding within 7 tiles from the street.



All new police stations made with the "X" Tool will have strength properties that increase, the larger the station is.
If you are playing for realism, I'd recommend to use these instead of those by Maxis.

Also, try to build roads/streets all around your megalots. Placing an airport in the city corner with no road around it is generally not a good idea if you want the police patrols to be able to reach criminals within the airport.

In addition to these there are of course cheating stations, such as the Modd Squadd Safety by RalphaelNinja or the CSX City Hall, which both have excessively high values for all strength related properties, including the radii. Use them only if you agree on the cheating. :P

threestooges

Very interesting analysis of the crime issues. I never knew that the simulator factored in foot pursuit into its calculations. Good work with this and I'll keep an eye out for new police stations.

blade2k5

I've been wondering about this crime issue for some time and found your analysis to be very insightful.  Thanks for sharing your analysis on this subject with us ;D

Berethor ♦ beskhu3epnm ♦ blade2k5 ♦ dmscopio
dedgren ♦ Emilin ♦ Ennedi ♦ jplumbley ♦ moganite ♦ M4346 ♦ nichter85 ♦ papab2000 ♦
Shadow Assassin ♦ Tarkus ♦ wouanagaine

Old fisherman never die, they just smell that way.

SC4BOY

Hehe.. well its all a matter of attitude.. the posited stations are too strong IMO.. I believe smaller more distributed stations should be more effective than giant central stations. This is the way real life works. If the police aren't based relatively close (or if a doughnut shop is nearby :) ) then crime will not be patrolled.. And I had discovered the "car radius" by observation rather than digging into the files, but certainly I had concluded the same.. road penetration mean police protection penetration  (and coincidently better large lot protection). I think that the 7 tile radius is awefully strong.. but probably needed for the maxis large lots..

Nice work and well presented.. as usual.. :)

For example I think an "airport security center" near the airport should be FAR MORE successful at controlling airport crime than some mega-station half a large city tile away. The mega-stations are a bit unrealistic in my mind.. but hey.. at least you're thinking about it.. :)

RippleJet

Quote from: SC4BOY on February 12, 2008, 01:40:07 AM
Hehe.. well its all a matter of attitude.. the posited stations are too strong IMO..

Really?
Usually the opinion has been that the coverage radii of the Maxis police stations are too small:


Police KioskRadius 192 m (12 tiles)
Small Police StationRadius 384 m (24 tiles)
Large Police StationRadius 585 m (37 tiles)
Deluxe Police Station  Radius 685 m (57 tiles)

All in-game stations have a dispatch radius of just 48 m (3 tiles).

Compare these to the size of the international airport (15×35 tiles).
Note also that the city in the example above is a small city, 64×64 tiles.

SC4BOY

I understand that.. but its also the general opinion frequently is that various custom downloads should "solve all my problems" .. that isn't my position either.. I'd rather have some relationship to real life.

I fully realize that there are many approaches to the game, but having "fixes" for any inconvenience isn't what I'm after.. (of course I realise I don't have to use it.. :) ) ..

I do acknowledge that the issue of "crime on large lots" IS and "unsolvable" issue for the "out of the box" maxis.. and THAT part of it should be addressed.. And I expect your "patrol car service" approach is needed for that..

The game is designed to have "transport" penetration of 3-5 tiles without roads and I think that approach should be followed.. but I also realize that other people just want it so they don't have to take up their "population space" by "nasty old services" .. hehe.. But take a look at a google map and see how much space is devoted to "overhead".. its a lot.

I'm only putting my 2 cents worth, and I realize you're designing it.. :)  So of course do whatever you feel does what you're trying to accomplish.. we all appreciate your work .. its professional in every sense!

RippleJet

Quote from: SC4BOY on February 12, 2008, 02:28:11 AM
I fully realize that there are many approaches to the game, but having "fixes" for any inconvenience isn't what I'm after..

Exactly, that's my approach as well. :thumbsup:
But it's also rather stupid to have the cops unearthing a den of crime in the country club over and over again.
Despite surrounding it with police stations...

The only solution so far has been to cheat, either with a radical police station or with RalphaelNinja's Crime Doesn't Pay ordinance.
And that's not the way I like to play. I want the simulator to be like RL as well! :)

Increasing the dispatch radii of the police stations provides a solution that reduces criminality in megalots, but won't remove it all together. ;)

xxdita

In real life, Airports, country clubs and Universities have their own security and often their own police force, keeping crime to a minimum. And airports and universities have plenty of transport networks within them, whereas the lots in the game do not. Add to this the possibility of Police on equestrian patrol, bicycles, and motorcycles, or undercover, plus Federal law enforcement officers helping to keep an eye on things.
Also take into account that any off-duty officers called in usually have their squad cars at home with them, and I think a boosted radius is more than justified.


SC4BOY


mattb325

Thanks for the thorough explanation (and plug  $%Grinno$% ).

I particularly like the crime vs education explanation and always wondered why large lots suffered so badly from crime - plus I hate the look of having to place large police stations next to the golf courses in the middle of wealthy suburbia  ???

Out of curiosity (and following xxdita's post regarding universities and airports having their own networks within their confines) - if one of these large lots is transit enabled - even just for pedestrians - should that also reduce crime or does the simulator just work off the number of tiles from the network when catching crooks?

SC4BOY

#10
I'm just speculating here.. hopefully RJ will give more info.. but as I understand "TE LOTS" they don't actually "put a road in the lot" but instead turn the whole lot into a "transit hop" .. that is any sim "entering" the lot are instantly at all places at once and may leave freely at any other point. This is an interesting trait of TE lots and leads to a lot of their peculiar actions in the transit systems.

What exactly this does for the "policecar operational radius" I don't know.. in truth it would probably take a short experiment to see.. Hmm.. I think I'll go take a look at a large lot.. brb

OK.. (happened to have SC4 running.. :) )  It seems to me that if you TE a lot, it is in effect a 1x1 lot.. therefore it will not suffer from the "road penetration" issue.. but for a different reason.. it does seem that the crime algorithm treats it as a 1x1 lot.. or possibly even as a piece of road.. which as best I can tell NEVER has crime.

Hmmm.. this is interesting.. if the lot is a "plop lot" which is TE, it never has crime, but if it is a "growable TE lot" .. and I'm not sure what the meaning of that exactly is.. but there are "growable lots" that are transit enabled.. Here are some sample pics:

The upper lot is a TE "plop".. ie no zone.. the other is a cemetery.. (not TE) its also further from the police


The right-hand lot is a TE "plop", the upper is a growable (no TE) police gradient is lowerleft to upperright, the middle (large lot) is growable non-TE and the lower right is a plop non-TE.



I'm trying to find a "growable TE".. *wanders off*
hmm.. can't find one right off.. there aren't many..  Redwing Mill by Jestarr maybe.. I think Andreas has played with it.. but generally its not done often as its hard to control the connection alignment if it "grows" the wrong way.. :)
So I guess I'm done for now.. :)


mattb325

Thanks for the answer, SC4Boy. Much appreciated - but I think my question wasn't overly clear, as there was a second component I missed altogether (I blame old age  ::) ).

When transit enabling a lot, I understand the transit switching points can be removed to stop hopping sims from going all over the place. I was also referring to this method. But I'm glad to see that a standard TE lot has only the same crime stats as a smaller lot...

RippleJet

I lost my Internet connection at home yesterday, and haven't been able to log in until today at work...
Sorry for that! &ops


Quote from: mattb325 on February 12, 2008, 01:55:09 PM
When transit enabling a lot, I understand the transit switching points can be removed to stop hopping sims from going all over the place. I was also referring to this method. But I'm glad to see that a standard TE lot has only the same crime stats as a smaller lot...

Indeed, that's what I was thinking about when you said Transit Enabled, allthough you should have said Network Enabled.
A megalot with a road going through it, but without transit switch properties making it function like a station would be worth testing.

For testing you need to compare two identical sized lots, one of them network enabled and the other one not.
The two lots should be placed on an equal distance from a standard Maxis police station.

Observations need to be made over an extended period of time (tens of years).
If the network going through one of the lots would help the police get into the middle of it to catch the crook,
then over time that lot should in average have a lower criminality than the one that isn't network enabled.

Rayden

Ah-ha, now I understand why one of my favourite malls, Lloyd Center, always had so much criminality. I once surrounded it with 4 small Police Kiosks to see if I could stop that, but it was in vain. ;D
I'd better check all the police stations I have on my plugins to check that dispach radius is over 3 tiles. ;)
Thx Tage. :thumbsup:

Rayden

#14
I've been looking at some police stations and most of them are like RippleJet said, the default 3 tiles Dispatch Radius (48 meters). But I found a few tweaked ones.

DP CTU by powl with a dispatch radius of 250 tiles (4000 meters)  $%Grinno$%
Shmails Sheriff Stations by gshmails with a dispatch radius of 30 tiles (480 meters)  $%Grinno$% too much as well.
Bathurst St Police Station by Mattb325 with a dispatch radius of 7.5 tiles (120 meters) which is the only one with a decent radius, enough for a 15x15 lot. There is hardly many lots biger than that. ;)

Now it's up to the players, if they want, to change the property "Police Station, Dispatch Radius" of their police stations to a decent number like Matt's one, or to a cheating value like the one of the CTU. It would need a lot bigger than 500x500 to make that police station obsolete. :D

Andreas

Well, sheriffs have to browse the woods for criminals as well, and who knows if there isn't some 60x60 woodlands lot out there? ;)
Andreas

Rayden

Quote from: Andreas on March 02, 2009, 03:22:15 PM
Well, sheriffs have to browse the woods for criminals as well, and who knows if there isn't some 60x60 woodlands lot out there? ;)

You're probably right, David (3RR) might have done some for his project. ;)

j-dub

#17
Crime will always occur in game, lot or not.

Heres a GTA in progress. I have only seen some guy's car get stolen in this game once.



Honestly though, no matter how many police stations I put right next to these giant buildings, crime still suffocates these places that they dilapidate. How many loss prevention stations do I need to surround a 12x24 mall?! This visually does not look good.

allan_kuan1992

#18
Hmm... (thinks about his modified police stations with a 600 tile dispatch radius) :D

I guess I have to recorrect the buildings. :P

EDIT:
Reading over the article once more... So the dispatch, radius, and strength values all vary depending on the size of the building?

What would you suggest to a 4x2 police station, a 1x1 custom kiosk, 1x2 gshmails Sherrif Stations, and a custom police helipad that I made?

- Allan Kuan

RippleJet

Quote from: allan_kuan1992 on March 08, 2009, 09:30:36 PM
What would you suggest to a 4x2 police station, a 1x1 custom kiosk, 1x2 gshmails Sherrif Stations, and a custom police helipad that I made?

Instead of guessing the size of your buildings, I'll give you the formulas we developed for the "X Tool". :)
They are all a function of the volume of the building (LOD box) and extrapolated from the ingame police stations:

Volume = Width × Depth × Height × Filling Degree

Radius = 16 × INT ( (160 + 1.5 × (2 × Volume)^0.55) / 16)

Center Strength = 5 × INT ( (100 + 0.7 × (2 × Volume)^0.55) / 5)

Exterior Strength = MIN (5 × INT (0.1 × (2 × Volume)^0.55 / 5), 50)

Total Dispatches = INT (0.025 × (2 × Volume)^0.5) = Response Vehicle Count

Dispatch Radius = 8 × INT ( (48+0.25 × (2 × Volume)^0.5) / 8 )

Inmate Capacity = 10 × INT (0.2 × (2 × Volume)^0.55 / 10)