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Fellow officers,

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CLONG! Wait, is that a pair of keys that conveniently fell right at my feet? It seems like you might have lost them... but if they are not yours, they're yours now. Use them wisely to get access to Open Patrol with The Keys-to-the-City Update, now in Open Beta!

Enjoy never-before-seen freedoms, stop wallet thieves throughout the city, ban people from drinking in public, and interact with your citizens in new ways... and give us your feedback on all features before the full update launches on January 25th!

Introducing: The Keys-to-the-City Update

If you have seen our latest blog post, you already know what's going to await you - so just scroll further down below for the full patch notes. If you haven't, here's a quick overview!

New Features

It's time to receive some never seen before freedom! One of the most requested features by the community has always been the introduction of a game mode in which you can roam through all three districts of Brighton with a lot fewer limitations. So, here we are: Welcome to Open Patrol!

Just like with other stuff in the game, you can unlock this mode after playing and progressing some shifts. If you, obviously, have already unlocked everything there is or at least all three districts, the Open Patrol is available to you from the very start! In Open Patrol, you will have all the time in the world to protect your city (no GET BACK TO THE PRECINCT NOW anymore after 45 minutes).

That's not all! In addition, new violations and tasks now await all Police Officers. You can now interact in new ways with your fellow citizens: Some of them will ask you for directions while you are now also able to greet them. Of course, you still have to look out for offenders: Drinking in public became a major problem all over Brighton and a bunch of wallet thefts has been reported to the dispatchers. Get out there and help your citizens!

More NPC Variety

In this case, more actually means MORE. Pinky promise: We are not exaggarating here.

With the new update, we will now have both three new male faces and three new female faces - plus four new haircuts for female NPC and two new haircuts for male NPC. Since all NPC are randomly generated from a larger amount of different options (gender, hair, face, hair colour, clothes, etc), you will definitely see a lot fewer twins at every corner now.

In addition, we will now have tenfold the number of names than we had previously. We're speaking of 733 female first names (previously: 77) and 754 male first names (previously: 75). Plus, we will now have 769 last names in total (previously: 60).

After digging out my dusty calculator from school days, I was able to calculate that we now have about 1.100.000 possible combinations. Crazy.

Quality-of-Life Improvements

We have improved on some aspects of the game that were mentioned by the community most frequently.

For example, blipping now forces vehicles to stop in the right lane instead of looking for a parking spot - unless there is an available spot immediately nearby. No more driving behind them for what feels like decades. In addition, blipped vehicles will now no longer brake abruptly when starting their parking maneuver. That honestly gave me a heart attack a few times. Please call for an ambulance...

One smaller thing: The moment you discover some exciting Point of Interest, the in-game map gets updated with a corresponding shiny icon to better help you navigate the city - which is especially useful when your fellow citizens are asking for directions. One bigger thing: We now have an explanation system for the loss of Conduct Points so that the process is more transparent.

Missing in the beta but coming with the full release

We are currently still in the process of recording new voice-overs in both English and German and we won't be ready with them with the start of the beta. This also means that new dialogue will also not have new voice-overs yet as long as we're still in beta. However, with the start of the full release of the update, they'll be ready.

Bugfixing

Once again, we are prioritizing bugfixing above all. Our backlog of tasks is quite long and the team has already ironed out a lot of them - but just like with every game, work is never done! Please continue to send us your bug reports as we collect and read them all.

We know there are some that cause bigger issues and are also aware that there are some very nasty ones, especially when it comes to clipping and AI. Fixing those isn't easy and very often, we can not reproduce them internally until we get that one piece of information that is so crucial.

Please check out the full patch notes down below for more details on everything we've fixed with this update!

The Keys-to-the-City Update will launch officially on January 25th – but starting today, you can try out all the content already as part of our Open Beta!

How do I enter the Open Beta?

We've made the process as easy as possible to include you, the community, early on during the development of the game. To join the Open Beta, you only need to perform the following steps:

• Right-click on Police Simulator: Patrol Officers in your Steam library.

• Select 'Properties' in the menu.

• Select 'Betas' in the sidebar on the left.

• Select 'Beta' in the drop-down menu and confirm your decision to switch to that branch.

• An update should now start - you are now officially part of the Open Beta!

To switch back to your stable save game, just repeat these steps again - but instead of selecting 'Beta', you just select 'None'. Easy.

Everyone can test the beta extensively and provide feedback on its features, balancing, and bugs. Feel free to send us your impressions on Discord, in the Steam Beta forums and on our Socials.

Save game to unlock everything in the beta

By visiting this link, you can download a save game for use on the beta branch (and only on the beta branch!). This save game will unlock all features immediately. You also need to know that you must copy the save game into the following folder:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Boston\Saved\SaveGames
You can find the folder more easily by typing %localappdata% into the Windows search.

Since the save is named Career_0beta.sav, you have to delete any other save game which might also be called _Career0beta.sav. We recommend doing a backup of the old save game as well should you want to keep it for the future.

Of course, this is completely optional and intended to help those who want to see everything unlocked in the beta from the very start. The old method of unlocking stuff does still work.

Here are the official patchnotes for The Keys-to-the-City Update

As we get closer to Christmas, we want to thank all of you for the support you've given us this year. It has been an extraordinary ride and being able to read through all your messages, see all your gameplay videos and - sometimes - laugh at a few hilarious bugs was lots of fun. We have some big plans for 2022 and can not wait to share them with you as soon as possible.

Okay, enough said - let's get to the patch notes!

New Features

• New Feature: Open Patrol

• New Feature: Conduct Point Explanation System

• New Feature: Helping NPCs asking for directions

• New Feature: Greeting NPCs

• New Violation: Wallet Theft

• New Violation: Drinking in Public

NPCs

• Added 4 new haircuts for female NPCs & 2 new haircuts for male NPCs

• Added 3 new face models for female NPCs & 3 new face models for male NPCs

• Added more than 700 new first names for male NPCs & more than 650 new first names for female NPCs

• Added more than 700 new last names for NPCs

• Added some new animations to the police officers in the precinct reception

Police Car & Traffic Cars

• Improved NPVs reaction when blipped over: Blipped vehicles now do not stop abruptly

• Improved NPVs reaction when blipped over: NPVs now stop on the right lane if they can not find a parking spot nearby

• Improvement: Vehicles under the influence of your patrol car siren and blue lights can be blipped and consider their current "stop location" as stopped for parking

• Improvement: Pulled Over NPVs / Blipped Vehicles are blocked from moving forward when ELS is active

• Improved vehicle reaction to sirens: When blipping an NPV it does react to my code 1,2,3 and stops searching for a parking spot while the siren is activated (or the horn). When running code 1,2,3 NPCs and NPVs do not react enough and do not try to avoid me as a player / make way.

• Improved spotlights on Panther Z

• Car patrols are now available in high crime areas

World

• Added more lights in darker areas (especially useful in Night Shifts)

Handbook

• Modified handbook entry for Parking Regulations, to include explanation about cars with “Shift” sticker on them

Balancing

• Decreased chance for 'Smoking Exhaust' to be more realistic

• Decreased chance for 'Engine Too Loud' to be more realistic

Bug Fixes
GAMEPLAY

• Fixed a lot of cases where the action was unjustified in report, even though it was a justified action by the player

• Fixed an edge case where sometimes players were losing SP instead of CP

• Fixed an issue where player was able to hold two tools at the same time

• Fixed an issue where restarting shift was placing players into the running shift again

MULTIPLAYER

• Fixed an issue where some NPVs were invisible for client

• Fixed an issue where the player's position from the previous shift was also displayed in the new shift when leaving the area of jurisdiction

• Fixed an issue where 'Asking for ID' was blocking the client

NPCs

• Fixed many issues concerning NPC behaviors (e.g.: Drug dealer did not walk away after being let go)

• Fixed issue where graffiti sprayers were spraying on advertisement boards and windows of buildings that were invisible

• Fixed an issue where graffiti sprayers had no spray can in hand

• Fixed an issue where graffiti sprayers were spawning on top of buildings

• Fixed an issue where drug dealers were spawning in unreachable places

• Fixed an issue where sometimes the buyer does not walk away after a drug deal

• Fixed an issue in crime scenes where the criminal was still on the scene due to broken navmesh

• Fixed an issue where NPCs did not walk on sidewalk due to broken navmesh

• Fixed an issue where NPCs were floating in bus stops

• Fixed an issue where NPCs were sitting on invisible benches

• Fixed an issue where NPCs are sitting behind the bench

• Fixed an issue where NPCs were clipping through tables

• Fixed an issue where NPCs were clipping in Kiosk

• Fixed an issue where the NPC faces LOD were incorrect

• Fixed an issue where NPC feet were inside the ground

• Fixed an issue where some NPCs were showing skin through dress

• Fixed an issue where sometimes NPC fingers were all weird

• Fixed an issue where you could not interact with NPC when aiming with a tool

PATROL CAR & TRAFFIC CARS

• Fixed an issue where Patrol Cars were accelerating after returning from a tutorial popup

• Fixed an issue where Patrol Cars were accelerating on their own after closing the Board Computer

• Fixed an issue where Patrol Cars were disappearing from game session if the previous session was failed

• Fixed an issue where player could interact with NPCs while asking for NPC ID

• Fixed an issue where some parked NPC were submerged in the sidewalk

WORLD

• Fixed a lot of places where sometimes you could see spaces in between two buildings

• Fixed a level design issue with misplaced scaffolding on a building

• Fixed an issue where a small part of a building in Chester did not have a texture

• Fixed an issue where some walls were missing collision

• Fixed an issue where some walls in game were missing collision so that players could walk through them and fall into the never-ending abyss of Brighton

• Fixed some issues where cables were clipping through buildings

• Fixed some issues with coffee shops

• Fixed an issue where bookshelves in precinct were changing textures (are they chameleons?)

• Fixed issues where some decorative plants did not have collision

• Fixed an issue in parks where the grass textures looked really wrong

• Fixed an issue where graffiti cans were submerged into the sidewalk

• Fixed an issue where bicycles were submerged into the sidewalk

UI

• Fixed the developer debug string displayed in the intuition messages (no more #hackerman)

• Fixed an issue that caused the 'Aim mode: Field of View' settings have no effect

• Fixed an issue where the displayed intuition was sometimes incorrect and misleading

• Fixed an issue with the tool tip for 'Parking in Front of Bus Stop' that did not mention towing as justified

• Fixed an issue where the color of the game suddenly turned to black and white (thanks, Marcobarg!)

TUTORIALS

• Fixed issues with tutorials not triggering correctly

• Fixed an issue with cannabis tutorial which had broken gender text

• Fixed an issue where 'Expired Parking Meter' tutorials were triggering on handicapped cars

• Fixed an issue where 'Underglow Lights' tutorial was not triggered correctly

• Fixed an issue with 'Using Turn Signal' tutorial

• Fixed an issue with 'Wanted Person' tutorial

• Fixed an issue with 'Photographing' tutorial

• Fixed an issue with 'Broken Lights' tutorial

SOUND

• Fixed an audio loading crash when entering Patrol Car

• Fixed an issue where the sound of damaged patrol car engine was still audible after restarting the shift

• Fixed an issue where continuing a career from main menu after leaving a career mutes many sound effects

MISCELLANEOUS

• Fixed an issue where player character ragdolled after opening the patrol car trunk (do a barrel roll!)

• Fixed hands clipping through blazer

• Fixed an issue where the graffiti was visible when NPC is painting

• Fixed an issue where some hairstyles were missing in game

CRASHES

• Fixed a game crash when performing background check

Known Issues

Asking for directions

• Handcuffed NPC can ask for directions, leading to some weird graphical issues

Open Patrol

• The level progress bar does not reflect the progress correctly in shift report and also in map view

• Sometimes it might now be possible to join Multiplayer when hosted through public session

• Client compass displays all cars in Open Patrol

Multiplayer

• Ending the shift might sometimes now work immediately for the client. However, after 30 seconds the shift will end anyway.

• Sometimes the minimap is missing while driving the patrol car

• Host sometimes not fined correctly for illegal actions when casual mode is on

Other things

• Sometimes when starting a second shift, the game might show a 'Game Over' screen

• Sometimes new shift can not be started with getting critically injured in the previous shift

• After pulling over an NPV, the player is sometimes able to interact with both NPC and NPV

• In first-person view while driving, the board computer might get enlarged on the screen

• Already discovered POIs reset after loading a savegame

https://store.steampowered.com/app/997010?snr=1_2108_9__2107