From the Office of the President — LightVille Police.
For as long as SAPS has existed on this server, being on duty has meant one thing: sit on the radio, wait for a red blip, and drive. Every officer, every call, every time. It worked, until it didn't — and every officer reading this already knows the moment it stopped working. A single traffic stop turns into four patrol cars parked nose-to-tail on the same street, because nothing in the system ever told the other three cars not to come.
That's not a roleplay failure. It's a systems failure — and today, we fixed the system.
Effective immediately, SAPS is moving from a command-driven department to a state-driven CAD (Computer-Aided Dispatch). This is the single largest infrastructure change the department has ever received, built and shipped in five phases. This bulletin explains what changed, why, and what it means for you on patrol tonight.
🧠The Philosophy: Why This Had to Happen
The old department had no memory. An officer could fire off /taser or /ar at any moment, on any call, with zero awareness of who else was already there, what priority the incident was, or whether backup had even been requested. There was one radio channel, and everyone was on it, all the time.
The new department has state. Every officer belongs to a Unit. Every incident is a Call for Service that exists as a real object the server tracks — who's on it, how many are allowed, and what channel they're talking on. Nothing happens by accident anymore; it happens because the system assigned it.
The result: fewer cars dogpiling minor stops, more officers actually spread across the map, cleaner radio traffic, and a department that finally looks like a real dispatch operation instead of a free-for-all.
🚓 Units & Divisions
You no longer clock on duty as a lone officer. You clock on duty, then you form or join a Unit — and your Unit now belongs to one of four divisions:
| Division | Phonetic | Example Callsign |
|---|---|---|
| Patrol | Alpha | Alpha-4 |
| Traffic | Tango | Tango-2 |
| Detective | Delta | Delta-1 |
| Anti-Gang Unit | Golf | Golf-3 |
Your callsign is no longer something you type — it's assigned automatically from your division the moment you form a unit, using the lowest open slot number in that division. Senior officers (Captain and above) hold priority slots 1–3; everyone else fills in from slot 4 onward. Ride with a partner and you'll see the same callsign with an A/B suffix (Alpha-4A / Alpha-4B) — one unit, one callsign, two officers.
A permanent HUD now sits on your screen showing your callsign, your status, and the call you're attached to — so you always know exactly where you stand, and so does everyone dispatching you.
Duty pay is untouched. Units sit on top of /duty, not in place of it — clocking on still starts your paycheck exactly as it always has.
🚨 Calls for Service — and the End of Swarming
This is the core of the whole system. Every incident, from a routine stop to a full firearms callout, now exists as a Call for Service with a hard cap on how many units may attach to it:
| Priority | Example | Max Units |
|---|---|---|
| P1 — Code 3 | Shots Fired, Armed Robbery | 4 |
| P2 | Disturbance | 2 |
| P3 | Traffic Stop | 1 |
Initiate your own traffic stop with /trafficstop (or /ts) and the system opens a Priority 3 call, at your exact location, capped at one unit — you. If a second unit tries to /respond, the system will refuse them outright: "Unit is handling this call alone. Response denied." If you genuinely need backup, you ask for it — the system doesn't assume it.
Bigger incidents work the same way, just with room to breathe. A /cad create call at Priority 1 allows four units in, no more, no less.
🎯 Requesting & Responding to Backup
/backup— called by the primary unit only. Raises the call's unit cap by one, opening a slot for exactly one more unit to respond. Use it when you actually need it, not by default./respond [CallID]— attaches your unit to an open call. You'll get a waypoint straight to the scene and a live blip on your map — visible only to units actually attached to that call. If you're not on it, you won't see it cluttering your radar./clear [code]— closes your unit out of a call. See dispositions below.
📡 Radio: Tactical Channels
The main SAPS frequency used to carry every conversation, from idle chatter to an active firefight, all at once. Not anymore.
The moment a unit attaches to a call, the CAD automatically opens a tactical (TAC) channel for that incident and moves attached units onto it. Officers not on that call stay on MAIN, exactly as before — nothing changes for you if you're not attached to anything.
/rnow only reaches officers sharing your current channel. Attached to a call? You're on[TAC-1](or whichever TAC was assigned) with the other units on that call. Not attached to anything? You're on[MAIN], same as always./rd— a new all-hands channel that reaches every on-duty officer regardless of what TAC they're on. Use it for department-wide calls that need to cut through the noise.- Clear your call and you're automatically retuned back to MAIN.
One honest note: this phase covers text radio only. Voice chat frequency is not yet auto-tuned by the CAD — you'll still want to /setradio manually if you're coordinating by voice on a call. Automating that is on the roadmap; see below.
🖥️ Seeing the Board: MDC Dispatch Visibility
Open your MDT and the Dashboard now shows your department's Active Dispatches in real time — no more relying purely on word of mouth or the radio to know what's happening citywide.
Want the full picture with more detail? /dispatches opens a complete table of every open call — priority, status, units attached versus the cap, and its TAC channel. Click a call you're eligible for, and your unit attaches to it on the spot, exactly as if you'd typed /respond.
✅ Closing a Call: Dispositions
Every call now closes with a proper disposition code, logged for department records:
| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
RT |
Report Taken |
ARR |
Arrest Made |
GOA |
Gone on Arrival |
UTL |
Unable to Locate |
NAT |
No Action Taken |
FALSE |
False Alarm |
Type /clear [code] — e.g. /clear RT — and your unit detaches, your radio resets to MAIN, and the call is logged. Clearing with ARR doesn't change how bookings work; it simply logs the arrest against the call while you process the suspect through the existing charge process exactly as before.
📋 Quick Command Reference
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/unit create |
Form a unit — callsign auto-assigned from your division |
/unit join [UnitID] |
Join an existing unit as passenger |
/unit leave |
Leave your unit (passenger promoted if you're the driver) |
/unit disband |
Disband your unit (driver only) |
/units |
List all active units and their status |
/10-8 (/available) |
Set status: Available |
/10-97 (/onscene) |
Set status: On Scene |
/10-6 (/busy) |
Set status: Busy |
/trafficstop (/ts) |
Self-initiate a Priority 3 traffic stop |
/respond [CallID] |
Attach your unit to an open call |
/backup |
Primary unit only — raise the call's unit cap by 1 |
/clear [code] |
Close your unit out of a call with a disposition |
/dispatches |
View and respond to all active calls from a table |
/r |
Radio — reaches your current channel (MAIN or your TAC) |
/rd |
All-hands dispatch — reaches every on-duty officer |
🛣️ The Road Ahead
This bulletin closes five phases of work, but it doesn't close the project. Sitting on the roadmap, deliberately not rushed into this release:
- Voice TAC auto-tuning — automatically moving your actual voice frequency onto the call channel, not just text.
- EMS cross-agency integration — Medic units bridging onto the same tactical channel as SAPS on shared incidents, so Police and EMS coordinate on scene without cluttering either department's main net.
- A smarter unit map — status-based colour coding so command can see availability at a glance, done carefully so it never exposes Detective or Anti-Gang units working undercover.
Each of those is a real, scoped piece of work, and each will get its own rollout when it's ready — not bolted on early and done half-right.
For now: get on duty, form up, and put this to work. If something in the field doesn't behave the way this bulletin describes, that's exactly what we need reported — this system was built to be lived in, not just launched.
— LightVille SAPS Command
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