- Staff
- #1
This is a shot in the dark but I’m willing to take it lol.
As some of you might be aware, last year we lost the academy server in place of an in game training system. As Head of TFU and a long serving member of TFU training, as well as an ex patrol trainer and an on/off traffic trainer, the academy server granted us full creative freedom to run detailed, realistic assessments for our applicants as well as amazing training sessions for divisions.
For those of you who did not know about or were not around during the days of the academy server, it worked as such:
- The academy server was a passworded PERP server, running the PERP gamemode, with the following differences:
- Inventories and possessions weren’t logged with the main server.
- Divisions weren’t whitelisted, for assessment / recruitment purposes.
- PD command members had admin perms and trainers had moderator perms, but all permissions involving IP addresses and logs weren’t accessible. (Logs aren’t accessed in game anyways), except for use of text chat and death logs.
The exact given reasonings for the removal of the academy server was:
- It took players from the main server.
- Permissions were “abused” often there.
My take on these issues:
- Taking players from the main server is no longer an issue when the main server is often full nowadays anyways.
- Permissions being abused was easily resolved and often was enforced, unlike the issue we now have where anyone with Noclip permissions could spectate what is otherwise considered to be a pretty confidential assessment with us being none the wiser. Event panel was “abused” apparently until it was taken from command rightfully so (Even though they were told they could use it)
The new training area has the following issues for each division:
Patrol:
- Other than taser training the patrol training session options are limited. Training sessions were a staple for patrol training and now they just assess taser applicants.
Traffic:
Pursuit training: Completely lacklustre, impossible to lose the car they are pursuing as they are always in eyeshot. All the roads are straight, meaning driving is piss easy and leaves little room for error. There are also no real obstacles in the roads like on the server where curbs can immobilise you. There are no blind spots. Blocking in a vehicle requires the applicants to mount a pavement which is frowned upon in RTU.
Traffic policing: Picking a spot for a good speed trap is a brownie point task, among other things without leaking the criteria (PD command / developers can contact me for more information).
In general: No choice on what cars spawn, it’s all random. We often end up with identical cars,
TFU:
The following activities are impossible to recreate and despite being a staple of TFU training / assessments previously, are no longer plausible:
- Anything in light gear.
- Open Area shootout (business was the location for this, primarily around bazaar).
- Bank robbery (this was incredibly important to TFU assessments as it’s one of the hardest situations TFU can counter on the server).
- Vehicular Apprehension (Or literally anything to do with range rovers and light gear).
- Counter sniping.
Issues with the training area for still in use assessments such as the raid and hostage situation:
- We stopped using slums in Favour of Regals in 2020 because it was technically easier to push in to but harder overall to raid once you were inside without being patient.
- Picking spots to cover and contain hostage situations isn’t hard when there’s so few spots to begin with.
Back when we hosted training sessions we could easily accommodate multiple players and assign them teams, nowadays planning a training session would be a useless endeavour as it would take hours and all they would get to do is something involving a subs or slums apartment.
Other issues:
- We don’t have phones to detonate bombs with.
- Slums raid has a wall which we have to tell applicants not to use since the wall wouldn’t be there in a real slums raid.
- Long range combat is impossible to do without being super easy since the training area is just flat grass.
- Without Noclip, assessors would be unable to monitor TFU applicants properly if more facilities were added, like bank or bazaar to do our original, far superior assessment activities with.
The academy server granted command members full administrative power to determine exactly what they expect from an applicant, this new training area limits our creativity and forces us to badger developers for changes when this time could be spent developing content for the server beyond PD training, something a huge portion of the playerbase wants to have. The majority of the players aren’t interested in the PD and don’t invest time into seeing the new training features, and these developments take a fair amount of time just to make the lives of the command members and training staff slightly easier.
What benefits would this idea have for the department:
- Higher quality division members.
- Full Creative freedom for command to determine how they recruit.
- Player count is the least of our concern at the moment. in fact, people want LESS players!
- Server slots and server performance do not hinder the progress of an applicant.
Negatives:
- Taser training does not require academy server at all.
- Having 2 servers open I guess?
- Development of in game training being in vain.
As some of you might be aware, last year we lost the academy server in place of an in game training system. As Head of TFU and a long serving member of TFU training, as well as an ex patrol trainer and an on/off traffic trainer, the academy server granted us full creative freedom to run detailed, realistic assessments for our applicants as well as amazing training sessions for divisions.
For those of you who did not know about or were not around during the days of the academy server, it worked as such:
- The academy server was a passworded PERP server, running the PERP gamemode, with the following differences:
- Inventories and possessions weren’t logged with the main server.
- Divisions weren’t whitelisted, for assessment / recruitment purposes.
- PD command members had admin perms and trainers had moderator perms, but all permissions involving IP addresses and logs weren’t accessible. (Logs aren’t accessed in game anyways), except for use of text chat and death logs.
The exact given reasonings for the removal of the academy server was:
- It took players from the main server.
- Permissions were “abused” often there.
My take on these issues:
- Taking players from the main server is no longer an issue when the main server is often full nowadays anyways.
- Permissions being abused was easily resolved and often was enforced, unlike the issue we now have where anyone with Noclip permissions could spectate what is otherwise considered to be a pretty confidential assessment with us being none the wiser. Event panel was “abused” apparently until it was taken from command rightfully so (Even though they were told they could use it)
The new training area has the following issues for each division:
Patrol:
- Other than taser training the patrol training session options are limited. Training sessions were a staple for patrol training and now they just assess taser applicants.
Traffic:
Pursuit training: Completely lacklustre, impossible to lose the car they are pursuing as they are always in eyeshot. All the roads are straight, meaning driving is piss easy and leaves little room for error. There are also no real obstacles in the roads like on the server where curbs can immobilise you. There are no blind spots. Blocking in a vehicle requires the applicants to mount a pavement which is frowned upon in RTU.
Traffic policing: Picking a spot for a good speed trap is a brownie point task, among other things without leaking the criteria (PD command / developers can contact me for more information).
In general: No choice on what cars spawn, it’s all random. We often end up with identical cars,
TFU:
The following activities are impossible to recreate and despite being a staple of TFU training / assessments previously, are no longer plausible:
- Anything in light gear.
- Open Area shootout (business was the location for this, primarily around bazaar).
- Bank robbery (this was incredibly important to TFU assessments as it’s one of the hardest situations TFU can counter on the server).
- Vehicular Apprehension (Or literally anything to do with range rovers and light gear).
- Counter sniping.
Issues with the training area for still in use assessments such as the raid and hostage situation:
- We stopped using slums in Favour of Regals in 2020 because it was technically easier to push in to but harder overall to raid once you were inside without being patient.
- Picking spots to cover and contain hostage situations isn’t hard when there’s so few spots to begin with.
Back when we hosted training sessions we could easily accommodate multiple players and assign them teams, nowadays planning a training session would be a useless endeavour as it would take hours and all they would get to do is something involving a subs or slums apartment.
Other issues:
- We don’t have phones to detonate bombs with.
- Slums raid has a wall which we have to tell applicants not to use since the wall wouldn’t be there in a real slums raid.
- Long range combat is impossible to do without being super easy since the training area is just flat grass.
- Without Noclip, assessors would be unable to monitor TFU applicants properly if more facilities were added, like bank or bazaar to do our original, far superior assessment activities with.
The academy server granted command members full administrative power to determine exactly what they expect from an applicant, this new training area limits our creativity and forces us to badger developers for changes when this time could be spent developing content for the server beyond PD training, something a huge portion of the playerbase wants to have. The majority of the players aren’t interested in the PD and don’t invest time into seeing the new training features, and these developments take a fair amount of time just to make the lives of the command members and training staff slightly easier.
What benefits would this idea have for the department:
- Higher quality division members.
- Full Creative freedom for command to determine how they recruit.
- Player count is the least of our concern at the moment. in fact, people want LESS players!
- Server slots and server performance do not hinder the progress of an applicant.
Negatives:
- Taser training does not require academy server at all.
- Having 2 servers open I guess?
- Development of in game training being in vain.
