The upcoming AI update introduces true real time strategy gameplay to EmergeNYC. AI firefighters and paramedics can auto respond to calls on their own, follow commands, and assist you on the fireground. Firefighting is a team sport and up until now, the single player experience in EmergeNYC has consisted of trying to do everyone’s job alone. Now you can easily assign tasks to AI controlled companies and firefighters and complete all the objectives at a fire simultaneously.
Real Time Strategy
This update has taken all of my years of modding Emergency 4 and used those influences when creating the Real Time Strategy aspect of EmergeNYC. Since the beginning I’ve had the vision of blending the simulation genre with the Real Time Strategy genre and creating a strategy/simulation game where you can play as an incident commander with an overview of the scene, assigning commands to companies and members, while at any time being able to select any member or unit and control them directly. AI firefighters are capable of being assigned all of the same tasks that you have been able to do as a lone firefighter in the past.
No longer do firefighters need to spawn in individually and despawn when you change roles. All companies are staffed when spawned and you can seamlessly switch between roles and AI will take over that firefighter instead of it being deleted. AI is toggleable meaning you can easily enable or disable AI firefighters and continue to play the game as you have since the beginning if you prefer.
Auto Respond
Units will auto respond to emergencies based on if they are on the run ticket. For every call I placed individual parking positions for all of the on map units to respond to. Companies will read the ticket and determine if they should respond as well as determine how quickly and if they should gear up depending on if the call is for a reported fire, or if it is a more minor emergency. No more needing to drive each company one by one to the call or place all of the respond to positions individually. If you are playing as an individual in a company, the AI will not drive off until all members are on the truck. If you are playing as the chauffeur of the company, all of the members will gear up and board the truck and wait for you.
Improved AI Driving
Since AI will be driving most of the time in the new update, I improved the driving mechanics and now companies can arrive much faster to emergencies with less margin for errors like crashing into trees and buildings. AI will now only brake at intersections they are going to be turning at and not every individual intersection which greatly reduces response times. Engine companies can swing turns with minimal braking which can get your units on scene much quicker than before. Options for different response speeds & urgency have been added. The slower speed has a slower max speed and move at the speed of traffic and have minimal siren and horn usage, while the faster option moves much faster and responds much more urgently with a lot of siren and horn. The normal option is somewhere in between the two.
Optimizations and Bug Fixes
I spent a lot of time optimizing the current mechanics of the game including vehicle physics, hoses, fires, and getting rid of some of the more severe lag spikes. There are still more things I can do to profile and eliminate and reduce lag spikes, frame loss, and memory usage and I will continue to improve on that aspect. So far the performance improvement has been a success in this update and allowed me to be able to fit all these units with entire staffed companies without causing significant frame loss. The majority of major issues from the previous Rescue Update have been fixed and will be included in the AI Update when it releases. Many people may have concerns over performance, crashes, and bugs and I am aware of each of these issues and working diligently to address them, clean up and polish the project while continuing to progress the game forward in the direction of progress and fulfilling my original promises of features in the game which include the AI and eventually the PD Mechanics which are some of the final things that need to be completed before we move into the alpha and beta stages and eventually a full release. There will be no new units or features that don’t contribute to the core purpose of the game being added as focus is shifting into completing the features and mechanics that we promised you at the beginning of the project, cleaning it up to run as smoothly as possible, and making the game an enjoyable experience.
Recently assets that don’t belong in the game or are not properly licensed have been pointed out and acknowledged. These assets and brandings will be removed from the game but will not impact any of the current gameplay. I want to make sure the project is heading in the right direction and avoid any shady business.