Disabling/removing the car jacking animation [Solved]

[Kocayine 1]

Okay, granted, I have quite some crime in my city. It's a challenging problem sometimes and I'll try to deal with it, but it would be VERY nice if I could do it without seeing this stupid looking car theft animation everywhere in parts of my city. Some streets they drive around like convoys. If I dispatch a unit to the area it makes the car being stolen (mind you this is a repeating animation while the car just drives around normally, looks ridiculous) de-spawn but it'll soon appear again.

 

This is the one I'm talking about:

 

Any help appreciate but I'd really like it the best if the thing just got disabled permanently.

(Maybe I got some mod I don't know about, doing this? Enlighten me if so)

 

Thanks,

[omnimutant 2]

That's awesome. I've never seen that before. I guess I need to pay more attention in super zoom view.

[NCGAIO 562]

(Maybe I got some mod I don't know about, doing this? Enlighten me if so)

 

Thanks,

.

Easiest is to use a mod to get rid of crimes ...

.

That's awesome. I've never seen that before. I guess I need to pay more attention in super zoom view.

.

You'd be surprised what can be seen. Use the fraud sizeof 5 or 6 and will appreciate more closely events.

 .

Here's a link to some things ... - 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I suspect that is hard-coded in the game kernel and can't be fixed.  On the other hand, if you can afford enough cops, it doesn't happen.

[Magneto 316]

More cops, or mod

[Kocayine 1]

 

Look at this!?! So stupid. Well, I guess I gotta fix this retarded issue by removing crime completely.

 

 

That's awesome. I've never seen that before. I guess I need to pay more attention in super zoom view.

 

It's not awesome.... it looks so half-assed. The car just keeps on driving and the two people in the animation just keep repeating the jacking animation, while the car drives around.

[omnimutant 2]

 

Look at this!?! So stupid. Well, I guess I gotta fix this retarded issue by removing crime completely.

 

 

That's awesome. I've never seen that before. I guess I need to pay more attention in super zoom view.

 

It's not awesome.... it looks so half-assed. The car just keeps on driving and the two people in the animation just keep repeating the jacking animation, while the car drives around.

What I mean to say is, the Idea is awesome. Obviously the implementation of that idea leaves a lot to be desired.

[Bdub01 201]

Did you name your city Liberty City or San Andreas LMAO

[Turjan 1,048]

Did you name your city Liberty City or San Andreas LMAO

 

Given the username, I'd go for Vice City .

[Kocayine 1]

Did you name your city Liberty City or San Andreas LMAO

 

Given the username, I'd go for Vice City .

 

He He ;-)

 

Meanwhile:

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

In all the years I been playing this I never saw that before. That looks like a bug on your end. It reminds me of the never ending hovering police helicopter over the same crime spot I never figured out how to get rid of. Seems like some kind of loop the game is stuck in. Does this happen every time you load up the city?

[Kocayine 1]

In all the years I been playing this I never saw that before. That looks like a bug on your end. It reminds me of the never ending hovering police helicopter over the same crime spot I never figured out how to get rid of. Seems like some kind of loop the game is stuck in. Does this happen every time you load up the city?

 

That it does. It just keep happening. It's probably a bug but if the car/animation could just be replaced with something transparent, for all I care, then it would be fine enough for me.

[Zeratai 84]

Anyone found a solution? all of a sudden that hijack animation appeared in my city, a lot of those cars just appear but then for a moment desappear to appear again in mass

[rsc204 21,867]

I'm not aware of a fix, but I can confirm the problem is very real and seems to affect every system I've used and every city eventually shows this animation. The idea proposed above that you can somehow solve it by removing all crime, that's a fantasy, because in reality it's impossible to completely eradicate crime.

It's one of those things I meant to look into, but simply never got around too, however I suspect that finding the model/animation in question and giving it a null key or such would at least prevent you seeing it. I'll see if I can find the motivation to dig through the animations in the game files.

[rsc204 21,867]

Well having spent longer than I would like flicking through every ATC file in SimCity_1.dat and looking for all the usual suspects, there is no obvious sign of where this 'sequence' comes from. I would guess that the game takes an Automata car then 'attaches' the animation to that. But without a specific Exemplar or other item where the trigger can be disabled/modified, solving this is anything but simple. I suspect the reason no one ever fixed this is precisely because it's so hard to find the items in question.

[matias93 7,535]

It's an automata that includes both the car and the burglar; the solution would be to simply override the automata TGI with another automata, so the car appears but not the burglar

[CorinaMarie 29,899]

They can be comical too. (See here and here.)

 

On 4/4/2022 at 10:27 AM, matias93 said:

It's an automata that includes both the car and the burglar; the solution would be to simply override the automata TGI with another automata, so the car appears but not the burglar

That's a great idea, but it's three separate S3Ds and the animation of them is controlled from the .exe via class ID 0xcbb32b0a (much like the trains are). I have found the thief and painted him green as a test. Finding the victim will be much more difficult. The car should be easier.

 

However, I've looked into this and might have a simpler Lua solution.  

This will need testing and feedback to be sure it's actually doing what the tests seem to show. One thing I'm certain of is that any which have already spawned have to be removed manually. It they are on a street, click them with the street tool. On a road, with the road tool. Etc.

If it's possible to mess up complex network junctions and ramps or such by clicking network tools, @Cyclone Boom has a safe way too:

1. In the cheat box use the udriveit cheat command and press Enter. (Prolly requires the SimCity 4 Extra Cheats Plugin.)
2. Using the mouse cursor, click the car jacked car.
3. Press the Esc key and it will despawn.

So, my mod should work fine with no faffing about in new city tiles, but also work in existing ones if you install it and then zap each already spawned car jacking.

Maybe a Car Jacking Animation Remover by Cori - v0.01.dat
 

[Zeratai 84]

Thank you all

[rsc204 21,867]

5 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

However, I've looked into this and might have a simpler Lua solution.  

I've a few very specific spots where this problem never goes away, a brief check and indeed they are gone with a click and don't simply re-spawn like they would if you removed the networks temporarily. But for sure at first glance, it does appear you've resolved this thanks, this has been annoying me for a long time too.

[CorinaMarie 29,899]

6 hours ago, rsc204 said:

But for sure at first glance, it does appear you've resolved this thanks, this has been annoying me for a long time too.

Do you believe it's worth posting on the STEX or should we await additional feedback here?

[rsc204 21,867]

The true test would probably be to keep running those cities where this has been a problem, to check they are really gone for good. Checking them with new regions is a lot more time-consuming, because you have to go a long way to be confident of the results, given you just don't have any way of knowing that it would have spawned, were it not for your mod's presence. But I should think if it's getting rid of the problem permanently in known trouble-spots and for me these are really quite specific, that's a good indicator it's resolved. For example I know when I open the city this image is from, that I will have this animation on this island constantly:

I'm pretty sure your mod is working, because deleting the entire section of streets, it comes back every time, but after clicking here it seems to be gone for good.

I've actually got at least 2 spots in my current test region that are also triggering the same issue, so I'll be able to monitor those for a bit since I'm working with them quite actively right now. Of course more feedback is always better than less, so hopefully some others will try this out and then you can be more confident of saying it definitely solves the problem. But sure, I think it would make sense to add this eventually as a proper mod, certainly one to consider for your ModdPac (I'm sure it crossed your mind already). It's a really annoying issue and whilst it may not affect everyone due to varying play-styles, there is no harm in having it just in case. For me this is a game fix because for whatever reason these things never seem to de-spawn.