Can We Say That The Police Kiosk Is The Maxis Station With The Best Penetration

[Moses Zal 46]

I don't know if the word penetration is the the correct term to use here. But with it, I mean the ability to arrest criminals beyond roads. Below are the stats of maxis police kiosk. Since this station has no dispatches, then I think that the dispatch center strength, dispatch exterior strength and dispatch radius are irrelevant. What is relevant are the radius, center, and exterior strength. The police has to arrest the criminals by foot since this station has no cars. With a center strength of 100/255(0.39) at the center and a radius of 192 (12 tiles):

Police center strength (0.39) / coverage radius (12) = 0.03. This means that starting from the rim of the coverage circle where the exterior strength is 0, the police strength increases by 0.03 every tile towards the police kiosk reaching a police strength of 0.39 at the heart of the kiosk.

So 0.03 * 7 = 0.21. We have a police strength of 0.21 seven tiles away from the rim of the coverage circle. 0.2 is the minimum strength required to arrest criminals.  12 - 7 = 5. Having said that this station has no cars, this means that the center strength, exterior strength, and radius applies to arresting criminals by foot. This means that the police kiosk can capture criminals 5 tiles beyond the road while other maxis police stations can only arrest criminals 3 tiles beyond the road since they have dispatches and the default dispatch radius is 3 tiles. 

Did I got this right or f*cked everything up in my calculations and why?

Edit: I am guessing that maybe the dispatch center strength, dispatch exterior strength, and dispatch radius of the police kiosk comes into play when kiosk's police try to arrest a criminal beyond the road. 

[CorinaMarie 29,934]

I'm not techy enough to know if this is how they work so I'm eager to see what the experts say. One thing I do know just from playing the game is that when one uses the Kiosk there needs to be a jail in that city tile or the criminals just get released.

[Moses Zal 46]

@CorinaMarie

Your comment shows that I made myself clear at least

[CorinaMarie 29,934]

13 minutes ago, Moses Zal said:

Your comment shows that I made myself clear at least

Yep. I do understand and it seems like a logical conclusion. It seems, too, that one could also test this empirically by creating a city with a fair amount of crime and saving at that point.  Then placing police stations for full coverage and run it for awhile. Make note of the crime graph. Then start from the same saved date prior to that test and do the same with a Jail and Kiosk barrage.

[twalsh102 1,601]

40 minutes ago, Moses Zal said:

With a center strength of 100/255(0.39) at the center

You lost me here!  I don't understand why the center strength gets divided by 255?

I think your premise is based on some false thinking.  You're assuming that the ability of a police station to capture criminals is dependent on dispatches for those stations that have dispatches.  If you get right down to it though, dispatches only capture any criminals when you see a crime in progress, and manually dispatch a unit.  Criminal apprehension is still occurring even when a unit is not dispatched. You just don't see it (like you don't see it with a Kiosk, which has no dispatches).  

From the Prima guide:

CRIMINAL APPREHENSION
"Whether criminals are caught or not depends on the level of police coverage. If the crime protection value on a tile is above 20 (usually within the inner 80 percent of a police radius),
an arrest will happen.
Beyond that, it’s dicier, with dispatching providing your best bet for catching crooks.
Apprehension ability can be increased by overlapping station radii. Because crime protection effects are additive, overlapping increases police protection in outer areas."

Notice that the only mention of dispatches is here is in reference to apprehending criminals beyond the 80% point in coverage radius.

1 hour ago, Moses Zal said:

Edit: I am guessing that maybe the dispatch center strength, dispatch exterior strength, and dispatch radius of the police kiosk comes into play when kiosk's police try to arrest a criminal beyond the road. 

If a Station with dispatches could only catch criminals when a dispatch is made, then its center and exterior strength would be irrelevant.  I think the key wording in the Guide is here:

"When on a call, Police Dispatches work like mini-Police Stations, enhancing coverage within their radii (suppressing crimes and arresting criminals)."

and here:

WHAT IS A DISPATCH?
A dispatch works like a mini Fire or Police Station. Its area of protection while at a dispatch scene is strongest near the pylon and dissipates with distance.
While on site, the dispatch will quell fires and crimes within their area of effect at the same time they’re doing their appointed task."

This would tend to imply that dispatches only exert their influence when they are at the site they were dispatched to.  Secondary to this is the implication that dispatches don't actually exist as an "entity" until a manual dispatch is made.

Stats:

Police Kiosk      Center Strength:  100  Exterior Strength:  0  Radius: 12 Tiles    Gain or loss per tile:  100 / 12 = 8.33/tile  Your math:  100 / 255 = 0.39 / 12 = .03/tile

Small Station    Center Strength:  200  Exterior Strength:  0  Radius:  24 Tiles   Gain or loss per tile:  200 / 24 = 8.33/tile  Your math:  200 / 255 = 0.78 / 24 = .03/tile

Large Station    Center Strength:  300  Exterior Strength:  0  Radius:  37 Tiles   Gain or loss per tile:  300 / 37 = 8.11/tile  Your math:  300 / 255 = 1.18 / 37 = .03/tile

Rush Hour adds the
Deluxe Station  Center Strength:  350  Exterior Strength:  0  Radius:  43 Tiles   Gain or loss per tile:  350 / 43 = 8.14/tile  Your math:  350 / 255 = 1.37 / 43 = .03/tile

 

[Moses Zal 46]

1 hour ago, twalsh102 said:

You lost me here!  I don't understand why the center strength gets divided by 255?

I am using the same method used in this link http://wiki.sc4devotion.com/index.php?title=Tutorial:Crime_Bug. Jump straight to where he starts to talk about Mattb325's police station. I think that his method is true. According to Prima guide, If the crime protection value on a tile is above 20 (usually within the inner 80 percent of a police radius), an arrest will happen. With 20, they mean 51. Why? Because 51/255 = 0.2 thus 20%. To prove my point and RippleJet's method validity, Let's take the Large Police Station stats.

Center Strength: 300

Coverage Radius: 585

If the crime protection value on a tile is above 20 (usually within the inner 80 percent of a police radius)

585 meters = 36.56 tiles

Center Strength 300/255 = 1.17

Starting from the rim of the coverage circle, each tile gain a strength of 1.17/36.56 = 0.03 

36.56 * 0.8 = 29.24 tiles (this number represents the 80 % of the police radius)

Now let's calculate the police strength at 80% of police radius:

36.56 - 29.24 = 7.32 tiles (this number represents the number of tiles between the rim of the circle and 80% of it)

7.32 * 0.03 = 0.21

So there we go, at 80 % of the police radius, the value is 0.21. So 21%

If I want to do the same method by using 300 instead of 1.17, I won't get a value of 20 at 80% of the circle. 

I used the same method with Deluxe Police station and got 0.25 = 25% at 80% of the circle. 

[Moses Zal 46]

@twalsh102

Regarding dispatches, I'm gonna start with what I think and then I'm gonna explain why. Dispatch radius, dispatch center strength, and dispatch exterior strength work in 2 cases: Manual Dispatch and criminal apprehension beyond roads. When a criminal commits a crime 2 tiles away from the road and within police coverage, apprehending him is now dependent on the stats that are related to dispatch (Dispatch radius, dispatch center strength, and dispatch exterior strength) because the police have to go out of their car and arrest the guy by foot. 

I'm not only thinking that because RippleJet said so in the link I provided in my previous comment. But also because maxis police stations can't apprehend criminals beyond roads on their own due to their weak stats when it comes to dispatch center strength, dispatch exterior strength, and dispatch radius. While for instance @mattb325's bathurst police station can apprehend criminals beyond roads on its own. This shows that dispatch's (center, exterior strength, and radius) doesn't only work in manual dispatching. 

Keep your comments and thoughts coming because I want to make sure I got this right. 

[mattb325 28,899]

@Moses Zal, some clarification here is needed I think.

The Bathurst St Police station was the first station modded to combat the inherent crime bugs that plague large (or mega lots). All my subsequent police stations are modded to this principle.

Bear in mind the testing & experimenting was done by us almost 10 years ago, so my memory may be a little rusty and I only have one small snippet between ripplejet and myself left on the topic after all these years, but this is as much of what I recall.....

There are 6 main lot properties that determine effectiveness/strength within the coverage area.

The Centre & Exterior strengths and the radius determine how much police effectively lessen the effects of crimes within that radius. Think of those properties akin to a deterrence by criminals to commit the crimes in the first place within the radius covered by these exemplars.

The dispatch centre strength, the dispatch exterior strength and dispatch radius determine the ability of police to catch criminals. If the crime is taking place away from the street/road, the police have to then go by foot to catch the criminal. The problem with the Maxis police lots is that as soon as the police attempt to catch criminals on foot, theses strengths diminish rapidly.

According to ripplejet, with the Maxis large police station, the dispatch center strength is 200/255 (i.e 78%) of the relevant basic strength where they left their car back on the street. The dispatch range decreases rapidly down to only 20/255 (i.e 8%) of the strength where the car is. And the dispatch radius is only 48 m (3 tiles).

The whole idea was prompted by the fact that the fire department with a dispatch radius of 12m (8 tiles) could put out a fire in the middle of the country club or the airport, but police couldn't catch criminals and this triggered the crime bug (or the advisers constantly nagging about the dens of crime)

 

[Moses Zal 46]

@mattb325

So is my analysis regarding maxis police kiosk in the original post true?

[mattb325 28,899]

49 minutes ago, Moses Zal said:

@mattb325

So is my analysis regarding maxis police kiosk in the original post true?

If I look at the last 3 lines of the SC4 Tool screen shot in the first post, Center strength = 200; Dispatch exterior = 20 and radius = 48, so it will suffer the same issues as the large police station (as listed by ripplejet) and explained in my post.

So to put this another way, lets take a 6x6 lot with a single street/road frontage and entirely within the 12 tile radius of the police kiosk...with those stats and even with no cars whatsoever, if a crime occurs on the footpath/sidewalk, the police have almost a 100% chance of catching the criminal, if it occurs on the 1st tile in, they have a 78% chance of catching the criminal, but by the 3rd tile in, only an 8% chance. If the criminal activity occurs on the 4th, 5th or 6th tiles away from the road, then the police just stand at the 3rd tile and watch the crime unfold.

As for the other parts of the first post, in addition to being able to catch criminals within the given radius, imagine the first 3 elements that make the police kiosk (center strength to radius) within the framework the following scenario: if you are driving along the road and you see a police station, you and other drivers are unlikely to speed past it, but rather make sure that you are obeying the road rules and speed limit; similarly, if your intention was to graffiti a building, you would probably not do it in plain view of the police station...the fact that it is there acts as an immediate deterrence, and it is the same with SC4. Placing police stations - along with ensuring the other factors in your city such as health, education, mayor rating, employment, etc - will act to reduce the incidence of crimes occurring within the coverage radius.

[CorinaMarie 29,934]

@Moses Zal

Have you peeked inside the Crime Doesnt Pay mod? I wonder it a comparison of the values in its exemplar(s) vs the vanilla version would provide any insight.

[rsc204 21,869]

@mattb325, thanks for an insight into the crime problem that I was previously oblivious too. Whilst I always used the Crime Doesn't Pay mod and found it helped with the mega-lot problem, I also just accepted that larger lots would be a hotspot for crime. Knowing that the police simply can't stop crimes in such lots, I can mod my custom police stations to hopefully overcome this limitation of the game.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

17 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

when one uses the Kiosk there needs to be a jail in that city tile or the criminals just get released

Are you sure that a regular police station's cell capacity is not good enough? In other words, shouldn't a kiosk + station act like a kiosk + jail (as long as the station is not full)?

[twalsh102 1,601]

@Moses Zal, here's where I think your initial premise goes a bit off-track. 

17 hours ago, Moses Zal said:

Having said that this station has no cars, this means that the center strength, exterior strength, and radius applies to arresting criminals by foot. This means that the police kiosk can capture criminals 5 tiles beyond the road while other maxis police stations can only arrest criminals 3 tiles beyond the road since they have dispatches and the default dispatch radius is 3 tiles.

The primary difference between the Kiosk and any other Maxis station is that the Kiosk has no dispatches.  Your premise hinges on an assumption that stations with dispatches have no other means to apprehend criminals than with dispatches.  If having no dispatches means "the center strength, exterior strength, and radius applies to arresting criminals by foot," and since dispatches have their own center strength, exterior strength, and radius, what then do the center strength, exterior strength, and radius of the station itself apply to?

The Kiosk and the Small Police Station both have the same number of employees/jobs.  So your premise philosophically says that the majority of Police Officers working at the Kiosk are out on foot apprehending criminals, while at the Small Police Station, the only Police Officers that can apprehend criminals are the two who have vehicles available to them, and they are limited in their effectiveness due to the limited radius of coverage of a dispatch. And/or, they have no means at all of apprehending criminals if the available dispatches are already busy.  I don't see how that can make any sense.

[mattb325 28,899]

2 hours ago, twalsh102 said:

Your premise hinges on an assumption.......

........If having no dispatches means "the center strength, exterior strength, and radius applies to arresting criminals by foot," and since dispatches have their own center strength, exterior strength, and radius, what then do the center strength, exterior strength, and radius of the station itself apply to?.........

.......I don't see how that can make any sense.

In order to avoid making statements about the original posters' intention (which requires the operation of that individual's mind...something no-one but Moses Zal is in a position to do), in addition to the overview of the Prima Guide (which incidentally left out the police kiosk altogether in these stats and lists two different values for the large station interchangeably), let me briefly summarise what each of these values do.

To avoid confusion, I have also listed the exemplar value:

1) Police Station, Center Strength (0x48D71ED0)/Police Station, Exterior Strength (0x48D71ED1)/Police Station, Radius (0x48D71ED2) - these first three values represent the effectiveness of deterrence and crime fighting within the immediate vicinity of where the station is placed. In game, this is represented by the coverage circle that one sees when a station is queried. Typically, the crime fighting and deterrence abilities are strongest at the first value (ie the center of the circle) and weakest at the second value (ie the edge of the circle).

2) Police Station Total Dispatches (0x48D71ED5) = the number of police vehicles available for dispatch. 

3) Police Station, Dispatch Center Strength (0x48D71ED9)/Police Station, Dispatch Exterior Strength (0x48D71EDA)/ Police Station, Dispatch Radius (0x48D71EDB). These last three values refer to the effectiveness for the police to penetrate (ie the title of this thread) the lot to fight crime. The value is highest at the center strength and weakest at the exterior strength. The values are typically: 0x48D71ED9 = 200 and 0x48D71EDA = 20 regardless of how the station is modded.

According to the testing Ripplejet and I did 10 years ago, and as postulated by ripplejet, it means that the rate of (0x48D71ED9) is 78% effective at the first tile away from the road diminishing to (0x48D71EDA) 8% effective on the last tile that the police can reach. This value is determined by Police Station, Dispatch Radius (0x48D71EDB) and for all Maxis & custom police stations (apart from mine, and those which have used the same modding techniques as me) is only 3 tiles deep. My stations increase this value to up to 12 tiles deep before the effectiveness of (0x48D71EDA) diminishes to 0%.

[CorinaMarie 29,934]

4 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

Are you sure that a regular police station's cell capacity is not good enough? In other words, shouldn't a kiosk + station act like a kiosk + jail (as long as the station is not full)?

Nope. I'm not certain at all. For the stage of the game I'm playing I don't have any police force at all. I did some random tests in which I put out police kiosks only and then later added a jail.

Your premise would be easy enough to test if one wanted to. I would suggest testing in a city with a very stable population which has no police force to begin with. Save at that point. Plop a police station only and run for 10 years. Check the number of prisoners. Exit without saving. Reload the save and now try with a police station and police kiosk. The kiosk would need to be completely outside of the station's radius to see if the convicts it catches get transported to the cells of the police station. I only know in my kiosk and jail only test they did not need to be close to each other at all for the jail to gain inmates.

[Moses Zal 46]

16 hours ago, mattb325 said:

The Centre & Exterior strengths and the radius determine how much police effectively lessen the effects of crimes within that radius. Think of those properties akin to a deterrence by criminals to commit the crimes in the first place within the radius covered by these exemplars.

The dispatch center strength, the dispatch exterior strength and dispatch radius determine the ability of police to catch criminals. If the crime is taking place away from the street/road, the police have to then go by foot to catch the criminal. The problem with the Maxis police lots is that as soon as the police attempt to catch criminals on foot, theses strengths diminish rapidly.

But of course you don't mean that center strength and exterior strength doesn't contribute in apprehending criminals. Do you? I had to ask to make sure. 

According to Prima guide, if the crime protection value on a tile is above 20 (usually within the inner 80 percent of a police radius), an arrest will happen. This means that the center strength and exterior strength matters in arresting. If your testing contradicts with this, please let me know. 

And besides, if center and exterior strength works only in preventing crime but not in arresting criminals, this means that arrests can happen at the rim of the circle where exterior strength is 0. 

One more question Matt, we know that arrests happen in tiles where police protection is at least 20%. Is there a formula or rule that shows when a crime is prevented? I know that there is a probability up to 50% to prevent crime the closer you get to the station, but is there a more specific rule?

Edit: You don't mean that center strength and exterior strength doesn't contribute in apprehending criminals. I got the answer after reading your reply to Twalsh. I usually read and reply by order. Still need an answer for the one-more-question please. 

[Moses Zal 46]

14 hours ago, mattb325 said:

If I look at the last 3 lines of the SC4 Tool screen shot in the first post, Center strength = 200; Dispatch exterior = 20 and radius = 48, so it will suffer the same issues as the large police station (as listed by ripplejet) and explained in my post.

So to put this another way, lets take a 6x6 lot with a single street/road frontage and entirely within the 12 tile radius of the police kiosk...with those stats and even with no cars whatsoever, if a crime occurs on the footpath/sidewalk, the police have almost a 100% chance of catching the criminal, if it occurs on the 1st tile in, they have a 78% chance of catching the criminal, but by the 3rd tile in, only an 8% chance. If the criminal activity occurs on the 4th, 5th or 6th tiles away from the road, then the police just stand at the 3rd tile and watch the crime unfold.

So it's like I figured out in the edited text in the original post

[Moses Zal 46]

@twalsh102

I am aware that my original post is based on an idea that make personal sense to me. I could try to explain how I assumed that, but that would be pointless. In the original post, I focused on the calculations and explained only a little why I thought that. My interest is not in what makes sense and what doesn't, my point is investigating the truthfulness of an idea I thought is true. This is why I ended my original post with a question whether I got this right. 

[mattb325 28,899]

17 minutes ago, Moses Zal said:

But of course you don't mean that center strength and exterior strength doesn't contribute in apprehending criminals. Do you? I had to ask to make sure. 

According to Prima guide, if the crime protection value on a tile is above 20 (usually within the inner 80 percent of a police radius), an arrest will happen. This means that the center strength and exterior strength matters in arresting. If your testing contradicts with this, please let me know. 

And besides, if center and exterior strength works only in preventing crime but not in arresting criminals, this means that arrests can happen at the rim of the circle where exterior strength is 0. 

One more question Matt, we know that arrests happen in tiles where police protection is at least 20%. Is there a formula or rule that shows when a crime is prevented? I know that there is a probability up to 50% to prevent crime the closer you get to the station, but is there a more specific rule?

If we continue with the kiosk as an example: It has a total radius 0x48D71ED2 (ie the green circle) of 12 tiles, so based on the Prima guide if the kiosk is fully funded, arrests for crime that occur on the street will automatically occur within 9.6 tiles of the kiosk..this deals with the first 3 exemplar values of the station. If a crime occurs on a lot within this 12 tile radius, then the last 3 exemplar values (ie how far the the police can penetrate the lot) kick in as well. Additionally the fact that a fully funded kiosk is placed, should, according to the Prima guide deter crimes from happening within that 12 tile radius in the first place.

I have to take this statement at face value as it would be too laborious and time-consuming to test, but it was easy to test the results of increasing the value of 0x48D71EDB from the default 48 (ie 3 tiles) to a larger value and see the immediate reduction of crime on large lots.

 

[Moses Zal 46]

8 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Have you peeked inside the Crime Doesnt Pay mod? I wonder it a comparison of the values in its exemplar(s) vs the vanilla version would provide any insight.

Gonna peek into that. Although my wife doesn't like me to peek