Police Chases

Police chases turn ordinary traffic into a pursuit scenario. Police cars spawn occasionally in the civilian fleet like any other traffic car; they only enter pursuit mode when the player gives them a reason. From that point on, reinforcements arrive in waves, a helicopter can join, and multiple police cars working at once produce emergent maneuvers — blockades, PIT attacks, brake-checks — that are not scripted but fall out of the AI rules on their own.

Where to find it

Main tab → Quick Settings → Police Chases. Nested sub-toggles appear under it (Aggressive, PIT, Damage, Helicopter). Four pacing sliders live under Advanced Traffic Settings → Police when Advanced Settings is on.

How police appear in traffic before a chase

Police cars spawn occasionally into normal traffic the same way civilian cars do. Before you trigger them, they behave like any other traffic car — they follow lanes, respect intersections, and drive at the lane’s speed limit. You can drive past a police car all day at a calm pace and nothing will happen. A chase only starts when the player does something that triggers it.

How to trigger a chase

There are several ways to flip a nearby police car from patrol into pursuit. Each of them is a specific player action, not a background score:

Speed past them above the lane limit + 20 km/h

Each lane carries a speed limit. Drive past a police car at more than the lane limit plus 20 km/h and the police engage. For example: on a 100 km/h lane you need to exceed 120 km/h. Slower than that and the police do not react to speed alone.

Rev the engine next to them for several seconds

Holding high RPM (above roughly 5000) for a sustained window next to a police car will trigger a chase. This covers the obvious “challenge the cops” gesture as well as the side effects: drifting and burnouts usually push RPM past the threshold for long enough to count, so they reliably trigger a chase if a police car is nearby.

Damage traffic cars where police can see

Hitting other civilian cars in view of a police unit triggers a chase. The rule is about visibility, not proximity alone — a crash a police car cannot see does not engage them.

Call them in with the phone

Hold P to open the phone, tap the green phone button, choose Call Police. A police car spawns directly behind you, already in pursuit mode. You can press the call button repeatedly to spawn as many pursuing units as you want at once — useful for chase-film setups where you want a full squadron on you immediately rather than waiting for the natural wave system.

How reinforcements arrive

Once a chase is active, additional police cars spawn in cycles rather than all at once. Two numbers control the rhythm:

Police Spawn Rate — the interval between cycles. Lower numbers produce relentless pressure; higher numbers leave calm gaps between waves.
Police Spawn Multiplier — how many cars are added per cycle, staggered by a few seconds so they do not appear in a single frame.

Two other numbers cap the intensity:

Max Police Cars — the hard ceiling of simultaneously active units.
Max Police Speed — a global top-speed cap that overrides each vehicle’s own top speed, so a pursuit unit cannot out-run or be out-run purely because of car-mod stats.

A chase is therefore a shape: bursts of cars arriving at a given rate, capped at a peak, each one accelerating up to the shared speed ceiling.

Aggressive Mode — a fundamental change in tactics

Without Aggressive Mode, police chase you but stay behind: they close distance and apply pressure. It is a straight-line chase.

With Aggressive Mode on, police change their goal. They try to get in front of you, brake-check from ahead, sweep alongside to force you off-line, and coordinate so one unit blocks while another boxes you in. A chase with Aggressive Mode feels like a team attempt to stop you rather than a pursuit.

Aggressive Mode is also the gate that unlocks the two most cinematic options:

PIT Maneuvers

An aggressive unit will occasionally attempt a precision-immobilisation nudge at your rear quarter to spin you out. Not guaranteed to succeed — it depends on speed, angle, and whether you notice and react.

Damage

When a police unit successfully stops you (a “bust”), this option applies mechanical damage to your car. Without it the bust is narrative only. Pair with Crash Physics / Deformation for a coherent experience where being caught costs you something.

Helicopter support

The police helicopter is not one of the default units. It joins only when you are being chased by more than two police cars at once — above that threshold the chopper enters the scene as air support.

The helicopter runs its own rubberbanding logic. It follows your position persistently, even when you leave the road, cut through fields, or try to lose it in terrain. You can still shake it — overpasses, tunnels, sharp changes of direction that break its line temporarily — but the default state is that it tracks you and reacquires. Losing it is therefore a separate effort from losing ground units.

Emergent multi-car maneuvers

When several police cars are chasing you at the same time, they start to do things that look scripted but are not. The tool does not author set-piece maneuvers — every police car just follows its own behaviour rules (chase the player, take over the front lane, change lane when blocked, PIT when the chance appears). With two or three cars active, those rules overlap into moments that look coordinated:

Blockades. Two units line up across adjacent lanes in front of you, each one filling its lane and together closing your straight-ahead escape.
Distraction + attack. One unit occupies you from the front while a second closes on your rear quarter and attempts a PIT. You reflexively swerve into an open lane — and find a third unit already there, brake-checking the exit you were about to take.
Sweeping lane changes. A unit in your mirror changes lanes to match yours every time you try to escape sideways, turning lane swaps into a cat-and-mouse game instead of a clean escape.

None of these is scripted. They are all emergent — a consequence of several police units following their own chase rules in the same space at the same time. Which is exactly why no two chases play out the same way.

Automatic road adjustments during a chase

When a chase starts, the tool briefly switches civilian traffic to a Light-like spawn profile (wider spacing, more room on the road) and lowers the active car limit. The logic: a chase where the player is boxed in by civilian traffic every thirty seconds is frustrating rather than cinematic. As soon as the chase ends, your original preset values are restored.

How to tune for a specific feel

Feel	Spawn Rate	Multiplier	Max Cars	Max Speed	Aggressive
Atmosphere — occasional siren	120 s	1	1	180	off
Casual chase	60 s	1	2	200	off
Default balance	30 s	1	5	225	on
Relentless manhunt	15 s	3	10	300	on + PIT + Heli

Start by tuning Spawn Rate (rhythm), then Max Cars (peak intensity), then the tactical toggles.

Interaction with other features

Car List Editor. A list without a police car cannot spawn police. If the feature seems broken, confirm your active list contains one.
Deformation Physics. Essentially required for PIT to land well — without crumple the hit looks flat.
Race Cars. A racer overtaking you aggressively can also trigger a chase; the two systems can run simultaneously.
Replay Mode. Chases record cleanly and are fully re-watchable.
Ambient Audio. Siren layer has its own volume slider — you can mute it without muting everything else.

Online mode

Police chases online are experimental. Each client simulates the pursuit locally against its own view of the world, so two players in the same session can see subtly different chases. Servers can disable the feature entirely in their config.

Troubleshooting

Police never engage me: You are not triggering them. Speed past a police car at lane limit + 20 km/h, rev the engine or drift alongside them, damage traffic in their sight, or call them with the phone.
I want a chase instantly: Use the phone: hold P, green phone button, Call Police. They spawn behind you in pursuit mode. Repeat the call for more cars.
No helicopter ever joins: The chopper only joins when more than two police cars are actively chasing you. Raise Max Police Cars and wait for reinforcements to stack.
Police cannot catch me: Raise Max Police Speed. Some sport cars have top speeds over 300 km/h — if the cap is below that, you can pull away indefinitely.
Helicopter clips into the ground on my track: Some tracks have terrain issues around the chopper’s spawn altitude. Disable Helicopter on those tracks; report it on Discord.