Greetings from Los Santos

Picture this, you're rolling down the avenue, full tank of gas and the wind is in your hair. The smell of garbage is the lowest it's been in days and you started off good: only shot at twice and the ladies on the corner are already out dancing. It's mid-day so the sun shines and the air is warm — it's a great day to be in Los Santos.

Welcome to Project: Los Santos, an English speaking roleplay server for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Built around the Open Multiplayer modification, P:LS has been built from scratch while drawing inspiration from servers before it such as The Godfather, Project: Los Angeles (the namesake), Los Santos Roleplay, Underground Roleplay, Red County Roleplay, and many more. This blog will follow the development of the server before, during, and after its launch. Everything documented exists in the server, and anywhere planned features are mentioned a note is made.

This first post will introduce the project and explain its fundamental features. So far I've laid the foundation for many other systems and functionality to build upon. If it peaks your interest you are more than welcome to join the Discord where additional announcements are made, discussions are had, and suggestions can be voiced. Everyone is welcome so please feel free to say hi, ask questions, or make suggestions!

Environment

It's no secret that Los Santos, San Andreas is based on Los Angeles, California. For this reason, both the time and weather of the server will be synced to Los Angeles in real time. When it starts raining in Los Angeles, it will shortly begin to do so on the server. To help with the differences in timezones, a message will be displayed to all connecting players of the current time, day of the week, and weather. In the future, the hope is to expand this system to sync the weather of real life locations to areas of the map they are based on such as Red County to Kern County.

The image below provides a sample of your HUD, showing off how certain elements such as your location and the time will only be shown with specific items in your inventory. It also shows off the current vehicle speedometer indicating the vehicle you are driving's current fuel level, battery life, tire status, and more. Expect minor or even major changes to this HUD as time progresses, particularly the speedometer which I'd like to revisit before launch.

Accounts and Characters

Project: Los Santos features a multi-character system where each account can have up to three characters. These character's inventories, factions, houses, vehicles, and all other assets will be unique to each. Your account name can be any valid SA:MP username, such as "Ryan" or "MonsterKiller", so feel free to login with a different name than your character's. The limit of three is fairly arbitrary, so don't feel the need to multi-account to get more - just speak up and it's easy to raise the limit.

Inventory and Items

Items play a pivotal role on the server. They represent almost everything you are likely to interact with and range from watches and cash to scrap metal and slices of pizza. Each player can only hold a limited number on their person at a time, so items such as ALS and duffle bags exist to carry more at once.

Items like sheet metal can be used to repair physical damage on cars, and burn cream allows you to heal wounds from too much exposure to flames. Others need to be placed in the world or a vehicle before functioning. Many are planned with a variety of function fit for legal, illegal, neutral, and any other types of roleplay and play styles and will be documented in blogs to come.

Health and Well-being

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' health system has been overhauled to encourage roleplay while still attempting to be fun and fair to deal with. Taking damage will wound your character, potentially causing them to bleed from the part of the body which was hit. Different wounds will need to be treated differently, such as using pain cream on bruises or medical tape on cuts from a knife. Weapons have been overhauled and tied into the item system to allow for different calibers, muzzle velocity, spread, lethality, penetration, and more. You can also be temporarily knocked down if wounded too many times in quick succession or if hit with the right kind of weapon - such as a beanbag shotgun.

Your health bar will now represent your character's blood level, with it dropping to zero meaning your character has loss a too much blood and is going to fall unconscious and soon bleed out. Above it is a yellow bar indicating your character's energy level. Once bleeding is stopped, this represents the rate at which your body will naturally replenish blood. It can be increased by eating, drinking, or taking supplements such as weird pills from the gas station.

Everyone is human, and there is only so much your body can handle before it is going to give up on you. Regardless of your blood level, suffering too many wounds will cause you to enter a state of traumatic unconsciousness. Left untreated, you will perish due to complications from your injuries. Your character will then respawn at their preferred hospital and whatever server rules exist surrounding death will be in effect.

At any point you can use the /injuries command to view the injuries of yourself or a nearby player. This will list all of a character's wounds, where on the body they have occurred, as well as the wound's bleed-rate. Doctors, EMS personnel, or anyone with the right supplies will be able to attempt to stop the bleeding and treat wounds.

Factions, Families, and Gangs

A framework for factions has been put into place that allows them to be modified on the fly by both administrators as well as the faction's leaders. Legal and illegal factions are located alongside one another, with permissions being used - set by administrators - in order to designate what functionality a faction's members will have access to. In the future, any group of players are invited to apply for a faction in order to take advantage of its functionality, such as:

• Organizing your members based on rank.
• Having a personal, global OOC chat to discuss with your members.
• Creating a shared bank account from which members can be paid based on rank.
• Shared vehicles which persist even with no members online.
• ...more to be added over time...

Radios

While not limited to just factions, radios are a core component to communicating within one. Each radio can be tuned to a frequency, 1 to 99999, and set to a channel, 1 to 9, within that frequency. A radio's settings are tied to the radio, not a character - so having your radio stolen or taken by police may expose your family's communication channel.

The frequency 911 is encrypted, restricted only to authorized personnel. When tuned to it, channel 1 can be used to communicate with all other players with access to the 911 frequency and channels 2 to 9 with members of your faction. All messages sent over channel 1 will come in on your radio, regardless of whatever channel you are set to. Other channels will function as expected - receiving messages from only that channel.

Getting Around

Each character can own up to six different vehicles at a time. All of them will be present whenever a character is spawned in so a lock is a worthwhile investment - or an education in grand theft auto...

In the future, vehicles will be purchased at a number of different dealerships spread throughout San Andreas. Each will provide a unique set of vehicles based on type, category, or function. Prices will fluctuate depending on supply chain availability and the price of fuel, so be on the look out for deals.

Storage

Character's have a very limited inventory size and can only wear one bag, so vehicles work great at transferring items over long distances. Each model can store a unique amount of items based on its appearance; larger, bulkier vehicles can store more and smaller ones less. The current values are placeholders and will be fine tuned closer to release.

A vehicle's storage can be accessed by opening its trunk (or similar) and standing near it; trunks can be open from behind, as the driver, or through an open driver's side window. Then you'll need to hit the inventory key (H) or enter the command /inventory to open it while standing close by. Items can be moved from the vehicle and your inventory and vise versa. Items in your hand, such as bag, can be added to the vehicle's storage by pressing the drop key (N) or entering the command /drop while standing near the trunk.

Repairing

Vehicles need to be repaired both periodically and whenever damaged. Currently the only part which will wear over time is a vehicle's battery, however others are planned for the future. A vehicle's physical and HP damage can be repaired using Sheet Metal which results in Scrap Metal as a by-product. The same is true for its tires which give used tires as a by-product. Scrap metal and used tires can be sold at the Angel Pine Junkyard for fair market price.

Below I'll explain how to replace a vehicle's battery once it has lost the ability to be recharged. This process is very similar for replacing both a vehicle's tires and its sheet metal. The first step is to either obtain a car battery or call a mechanic using the number 555 and have them replace it for you.

Hold the battery in your hands while in front of an open hood to begin replacing it. You'll need to hold the F key for as long as the progress bar takes to fill up. You'll be given the dead battery after replacement which can be sold at the Angel Pine Junkyard for a small turn-in bonus.

Refueling

Every vehicle with an engine requires fuel in order to run. This is available either at a gas station - found spread throughout San Andreas - or by using a Jerry Can with fuel inside of it. Jerry Cans can be purchased from a hardware store and filled at any gas station. Mechanics will typically have one on-hand, so keep them in mind.

When filling up at a gas station, the progress bar represents how full the vehicle is. When refueling with a Jerry Can, it represents the amount of fuel left in the can. Cans hold quite a lot less than vehicles but can fill one up enough to make it safely to a gas station. Jerry Cans can be reused, so once empty feel free to refill it after topping off your car.

Earning and Managing Money

On Project: Los Santos, cash is just another item you hold in your inventory. It can still be used to purchase items from the server, shops, and other players - but it has a tangible presence and can be stored in storage containers - like the trunk of a vehicle or a safe in your house.

Dynamic Economy

The server's economy can be controlled on-the-fly by administrators in order to artificially create supply and demand, adjust bank account interest rates, manage tax rates, set vehicle prices, and more. Eventually, some of this functionality can be given to a government faction - allowing them to set rates after having had in-character discussions with their members and the people they represent.

Selling Goods and Performing Services

Items can be created, purchased, sold, and otherwise used to barter and trade with players and even the server itself. You can also perform services for players and the server in exchange for items. More and more ways of doing this will be added overtime, but for now I figured I would add a few things about the mechanic and taxi service.

Both of these services are easy, low barrier to entry jobs you can perform for other players to earn cash. They both require you to have a radio item (shown above) in order to listen to the dispatch frequency (700 for taxis, 555 for mechanics) and get notifications for new calls. You can use the radio to speak with other on-duty players (in-character) if you have questions, need pointers, or just get bored. You're free to set your own price, but just be sure to communicate this with any potential customers up front. At Unity Station you can find taxi cabs available for use in exchange for a flat rate per hour. Both taxis and tow trucks will be purchasable at the Commercial dealership. You don't actually need a tow truck to repair vehicles, just the right items to repair whatever problem a customer is facing.

Bank Accounts

Cash is just another item, so bank accounts are more important than ever on Project: Los Santos. Each character can have up to three unique bank accounts with separate balances. One of them can be selected as your primary account, which will be available at ATMs, is where your paycheck is deposited, and will be where funds are drawn should you not have enough cash. Each paycheck a character is online all of their accounts will accrue interest.

Faction leaders can open and manage their faction's bank accounts, which can also have up to three separate accounts with individual balances. Unlike character accounts, faction bank accounts will accrue interest regardless of if any members are online or not. All account activity is logged to allow leaders to keep track of who deposits, withdraws, opens, and closes accounts. A faction's primary account will be used to distribute pay to its members, based on the salary set by the faction's leaders.

ATMs aren't just useful for accessing your account's funds. With a crowbar in hand, anyone can soon be the proud owner an ATM's contents. Be warned, all ATMs come equip with tamper alarms which will notify law enforcement once the cash container has been breached.

Paychecks

Each hour your character is logged in they will earn a paycheck available at the bank or by texting "paycheck" to 500. This paycheck will be direct deposited into your primary bank account with any taxes or payments being automatically deducted. If you earn under an amount set by the state you will receive a welfare check.

Posted: Help Wanted

Are you an (in)experienced mapper or modeler? Enjoy writing rules and requirements? Want to help shape how drugs, weapons, the police, and EMS will function? If so and you're interested in mucking about - no commitment required - feel free to join the Discord and get in touch with Ryan (realstandal).

Below I'll list a few examples of the kinds of things I've made a note of needing, in case you'd rather take a shot with absolutely zero commitment. I have plenty more ideas and am always writing them down. As said, no experience required - you're more than welcome to use this as an excuse to learn and play around.

Testing

I'm hopeful to work closely with a group of players to break features before launch in an attempt to identify bugs and headaches. I can do a decent amount of testing myself, but my focus is always on developing new features so things can go unnoticed quite easily. Things may just be boring, too, and I'm happy to change how a feature works if it's not popular among testers - because chances are the general playerbase won't be fans either.

All of this is future plans, as I need people who are willing to test to actually start the group. I'm hopeful to also provide the team whitelisted access to a test server in order to benchmark how the gamemode performs for long periods of time and with more than one person logging in and out.

Administration

There are no server rules at the moment. I've created the dialog which will display them, but what I have is just placeholder. If you have experience in administration and writing rules and requirements you're welcome to begin working on the first drafts. Eventually we'll need to create rules around different systems and items, or tweak how systems function in order to ensure they run fairly.

Mapping

I love custom maps but sadly never took the time to become good myself. I think they breathe a lot of life into a server and help turn some of the flat, soulless areas of the map into vibrant areas rich with detail. I'd love to have Project: Los Santos feature these areas, so feel free to reach out if you're interested in lending a hand.

• Angel Pine Junkyard - Update the junkyard to appear more functional and used, not so much a ghost town.
• Bank of San Andreas - Create an interior which can serve as the Bank of San Andreas headquarters/primary branch. Smaller interiors to serve as branches spread throughout the map would be nice as well. Coming up with a new name is on the table as well if you're feeling creative/have an idea.
• Hospital - A general hospital interior is required, bonus points if you would like to create unique ones for each hospital/create additional hospitals in the county.
• Businesses - Interiors dedicated to different business types (and possibly variants) would be great. Some examples are an electronics shop, hardware store, general store, autoparts, and pawn shops.
• ...and many more...

Modeling

SA:MP 0.3.DL, and supported by Open.MP, allows for custom models and player skins. The server makes heavy use of an item system, so many models which don't already exist would be nice to have.

• Bags (backpacks, purses, ALS, duffle, etc.)
• Cash (currently using 1212 which feels comically large)
• Custom PEDs for businesses and factions (government, banks, court)
• Automotive parts (alternator, battery, coolant, tire (only the tire, no rim))
• Drugs and manufacturing (plants (grow stages), chemistry, transportation)
• Medical items (blood bag, defibrillator, morphine, burn cream, stretcher)
• ...and many more...