Towing

This page covers how a car gets from the street into a yard: who can call a tow, who collects it, and how the trucks are worked.

Police forced removals

Who can call one

• Who. Anyone holding a job listed in Config.PoliceJobs (default { 'police' }) or Config.TowTarget.jobs, plus admins.
• Which job counts. Each job name is checked, so on Qbox an officer whose primary job is something else still qualifies.
• Duty. If the framework reports that the officer's police job is off duty, the request is refused with "You need to be on duty to call in a tow."

There are two ways in:

• /requesttow (Config.TowCommand). Sit in the car or look at it, up to 30 m away.
• Request forced removal. A target option on any car, used on foot within 4 m. It is only shown to the police jobs and Config.TowTarget.jobs, so an admin who holds neither uses the command. Set Config.TowTarget.enabled = false to remove it.

The request screen

The screen shows the car's model, plate, and photo, and lists every yard that can collect it, nearest first. Each yard shows its distance and who would answer: NPC truck, N on duty, or Nobody on duty.

• The best choice is marked Suggested and preselected.
• A yard with nobody to answer cannot be picked.
• Pick a reason from the six chips (Illegally parked, Abandoned, No insurance, Evidence, Blocking traffic, Recovered stolen) or type one, up to 64 characters.

Walking more than 15 m from the car closes the screen. A car that is already impounded or already called in is refused.

How the yard is chosen

1. If the car stands inside one or more lots' call areas, only those lots are offered.
2. Otherwise, the lots with no area drawn are offered.
3. Within that set, an NPC-served yard is suggested first, however far away it is, because its truck appears near the car rather than at the yard. Otherwise the nearest yard is suggested.

What happens next

The officer is told "a truck from lot is on its way" (NPC truck) or "sent to lot's staff" (dispatch board).

The choice is made once, when the tow is requested. Open tow orders are held in memory, so a resource restart clears them.

The NPC tow truck

At an NPC-served yard the script runs the whole tow:

1. A tow truck with a mechanic at the wheel appears on a road 55 to 180 m from the car, out of the players' view where possible.
2. It drives up, lines up behind or in front of the car, reverses onto it, and hooks it with the truck's real tow arm. Nearby NPC traffic is held back while it works. Player cars are never touched.
3. It drives away. Once it is at least 140 m from the pickup and no player is within 80 m, the car is booked into the yard and the truck is removed.

The truck is always a stock towtruck2, because that is the model the manoeuvre is calibrated on. The yard does not need to own a truck. The driver's ped model is the Tow-truck driver ped model setting.

The dispatch board

At a Player Staffed or Auto Staffed yard, police tow jobs and assistance calls land on the staff terminal's Dispatch board, the Assistance calls page. Calls from people waiting at the roadside are listed above tow jobs.

• Who can answer. Any employee of the lot. If the lot has a clock-in point, they must be clocked in.
• Accept call. Takes the job. The officer or caller is told who is coming, and you get a GPS route that is set again when you sign a truck out.
• Decline. Hands it back. The officer is told the yard cannot collect it and to call it in again.
• Close job. Clears it from the board once it is done.
• Show on map. Shows where the car or the caller is.

Assistance calls

Any player can ask a yard to come out to them with /chiama (Config.CallCommand, rename it to suit your server). Anything typed after the command is sent as a note:

/chiama flat tyre on the motorway, blue sedan

• The call goes to the nearest staffed yard that has a staff terminal placed. Call areas are checked first. NPC Staffed yards and Public Job depots never take calls. If no staffed yard exists, the player is told "No impound service is open right now."
• The caller's position and nearby vehicle are recorded. The call does not follow the caller if they move.
• Each character can have one call waiting, with at least 10 seconds between calls.
• Calls expire from the board: 15 minutes if never taken, 45 minutes once accepted, and 10 minutes after they are closed. If the caller disconnects, a waiting call is removed and an accepted one is marked "caller left".

Recovering a car (staffed yards)

1. Clock in at the clock-in point.
2. Sign a truck out from the fleet attendant. It appears on the tow-truck spawn. See Running a yard: taking a truck out.
3. Accept the job on the board and follow the route.
4. Recover the car with a hook truck or the flatbed (below).
5. Book it in at the impound point or with the impound clerk (below).
6. Return the truck to the fleet attendant at the end of the shift.

Hook trucks

towtruck, towtruck2, towtruck3, and towtruck4 use the game's own tow arm. Reverse the arm onto the car and it hooks. The script adds no controls of its own here. The stock flatbed has no tow arm at all, so it is sold as a support vehicle and cannot tow.

Booking a car in

Employees can book in any car they bring in, with or without a police order:

• The impound point. Drop the car on the point and leave it still. When an employee who is clocked in at that lot is nearby, the booking screen opens by itself. Give a reason, using the same six chips or free text, and confirm. Tow trucks and cars still on a truck are ignored.
• The impound clerk. Choose Book a vehicle in. He lists up to 8 cars standing within 15 m of him (not ones already held, parked in a bay, or with someone at the wheel). Pick one and give a reason. A car fastened on a flatbed3 deck can be booked in straight off the deck, and its chocks go back into your inventory.

The reason you give goes on the record. Each car booked in counts towards the lot's accreditation and adds wear to the truck you have out.

The flatbed recovery truck

flatbed3 is a custom truck the script streams itself. Its deck slides back and tilts into a ramp, and two winch cables pull a car up onto it. It recovers what a hook cannot. It is bought on the boss terminal (heavy tier) or, at a Public Job depot, as the top rung of the truck ladder.

Everything is done on foot through target options.

The deck panel

A panel on the truck's rear flank. It appears when you are within 40 m, nobody is in the driver's seat, and the truck has been still for 2 seconds. Only the options that make sense right now are shown:

Lower, Raise, and Winch in run by themselves until they finish. They also stop if you pick Stop, walk more than 15 m away, get into a vehicle, or die. The deck will not move while a cable is out.

Loading a car

1. Park with the rear of the truck facing the car, get out, and pick Lower deck.
2. At the reels at the head of the deck, pick Take the winch cables. They reach 30 m, and beyond that the hooks slip back.
3. Aim at the car and pick Hook the cables. Your character kneels at the bumper of the end you are standing at and hooks both cables on.
4. Pick Winch in at the panel. The car is pulled up the ramp and straightened as it comes.
5. Pick Place wheel chock on each wheel. Each one takes a wheel_chock from your inventory.
6. Pick Secure vehicle. The cables come off and the car is fastened.
7. Pick Raise deck and drive.

A car driven or pushed onto the lowered deck can be chocked and secured as it stands, with no cables.

Unloading

Lower the deck and pick Release vehicle. A chocked car stays put until you pick the chocks up with Pick up wheel chock, which returns them to your inventory. Then it rolls off down the ramp.

Admin tools

• /impound impounds the car you are sitting in or looking at (within 15 m) into the nearest yard.
• /release <plate> brings a held car out at its yard's handover bay.

Both are admin-only. See Commands.