How the Police Work
The police here are AI and they're everywhere: radar traps, patrols, foot posts, convoys. They don't need a player cop online to come after you. Here's how it actually works, start to finish.
How you get stars
- Doing crime the game notices: shooting, hitting people, stealing a car in front of someone.
- Robberies report you. Store, bank, jewelry, and truck jobs all put stars on you.
- Getting clocked: radar traps catch speeders in a cone ahead of the cruiser. Officers also pull you over for riding without a helmet, wheelies, or using your phone while driving. A caught speeder is followed calmly at first. Keep speeding and it becomes a real chase.
What the stars mean
- 1–3 stars: a chase. Sirens, boxing you in, PIT manoeuvres. They mostly don't shoot unless you shoot first.
- 4–5 stars: a shootout. They come to kill.
- They get in front of you. If they can see you, expect roadblocks and spike strips ahead on your route.
- Hurt them and it escalates. An officer down brings extra units. Units that take heavy losses retreat, regroup, and come back.
- Crossing between the city and the county hands the chase from LSPD to the Sheriff.
They only know what they can see
This is the most important thing on this page. The police aren't psychic.
| Your stars look like | It means |
|---|---|
| Solid | An officer can see you right now. |
| Flashing | They lost you and are searching: they drive to where you were last seen and sweep outward in a growing circle. Both circles show on your minimap. |
| Hollow outline | You're wanted, but no officer has actually seen you yet. |
| Solid red | They've given up looking. The stars just haven't cleared yet. |
- Break line of sight and stay hidden. Stay out of sight long enough and the search is called off. The stars then clear after about 1 minute at 1 star, rising to 2.5 minutes at 5 stars.
- Firing a gun gives your position away to any officer who can hear it.
- Stolen police cars are always visible. See the GPS tracker in Stealing Cars.
Changing Your Look
The first time an officer actually sees you, dispatch records a description: your outfit, your vehicle, and your voice. Your HUD shows icons for the ones that still match you. While they match, you're easy to spot.
| Description | How to lose it |
|---|---|
| Outfit | Change any piece of clothing. The match is exact, so taking off a hat or putting on a mask breaks it. Quickest way: the clothing commands below. A clothing store works too. |
| Vehicle | Get in a different model of car. The same model in another colour still matches. |
| Voice | You can't. Once they've heard you, it lasts until the chase is over. |
| Injuries | Being visibly hurt is a giveaway too. Heal up. |
Clothing commands
Toggle a single piece on or off instantly, without a store:
/mask /hat /glasses /visor /top /shirt /pants /shoes /vest /bag /gloves /neck /ear /watch /bracelet /hair
/revertclothing puts it all back. Don't do that while they're still looking for you, because putting the old outfit back on makes you match again.
Tickets, Arrest & Jail
Traffic tickets (1 star, driving)
- Press H while driving to signal that you're stopping. Your hazards come on.
- Stop the car completely. An officer walks to your window and writes the ticket.
- $750 fine, taken from your bank (or cash). Can't pay? It goes on your record unpaid, and you still drive away with your car.
Pull away before it's done, or if you've fired at police at any point, and the chase is back on.
Arrest (on foot)
- Press H to put your hands up. Officers walk over, cuff you, and put you in the back of a car.
- BUSTED. You wake up at the nearest station and are sent to Bolingbroke Penitentiary.
- Your sentence depends on your criminal reputation: 5, 10, 20, 35, or 60 minutes for tiers 1 to 5.
- Inside: there's a canteen for food and a doctor for check-ups, and you can check your remaining time.
- Serving your full sentence wipes your area heat completely and knocks your criminal reputation down a bit (1 point per minute served).
- Prison break: gate terminals can be hacked. Failed hacks usually set off the alarm.
Reputation & Heat
| Stat | Goes up from | Does |
|---|---|---|
| Criminal rep | Armoured trucks (+25), jewelry (+15), chop shop (+12), house burglary (+10), car break-ins (+6), pickpocketing (+5), melting jewellery (+5), selling to fences (+4) | Unlocks the Fence's better stock (tiers 1–5). Also makes your jail sentences longer. |
| Trade rep | Honest work, odd jobs, bounties, helping strangers | Cheaper companion hire. Being a known face. |
| Explorer rep | Geocaches, barn finds, releasing fish | Bragging rights for now. |
| Area heat | Getting stars in a part of the map (15 heat per star) | Come back while it's hot and a cop who spots you might put stars on you on sight (10–30% chance, 1–2 stars). It cools by 1 a minute. Jail wipes it. |
| Regular | Visiting the same place over and over | After 15 and 30 visits, staff treat you like a regular, with small discounts where it applies. |
| Honor | How you treat people | Angel or devil standing. Hit −100 and it's permanent. |
Honor
Every character carries an honor score from −100 to +100, starting at 0. It's shown on your HUD and changes as you play. Honest work raises it, killing lowers it, and a heist pulled off without anyone dying counts in your favour. It's a "clean criminal" score, not a crime counter.
- +40 or higher: 😇 angel standing.
- −40 or lower: 😈 devil standing.
- Hit −100 and it's permanent. Your devil badge turns grey and cracked for good, and no amount of good behaviour afterwards will ever restore it on that character.
Other systems in the city read your honor too, so it's worth protecting.