No (civilian) Traffic Glitch

[Art Blade]

This keeps happening to me. Now that I am aware of it, I'm trying to find out if something triggers it. I don't think that the BOLOpatch has got anything to do with it, but I don't know.

The glitch seems to happen particularly at night, that's what made me ignore it the first one or two times, I thought "well, they don't drive much at night, how realistic." And when night turned day, still no traffic, I thought "well, it's the desert. Kind of deserted, literally" and "feels like a Sunday trip. Everyone is at home but me." What kept up the illusion that everything was alright was the fact that both govmen and facmen were on the road, as were pedestrians in the villages.

I drove to Panau City expecting to see at least some traffic there, it's a big city, but it was almost like a ghost town by comparison. The sound of traffic coming from highways was a fake, environmental sound effect.

The positive aspect of the glitch is that you can bomb down roads at max speed without having to fear to plough through oncoming traffic and this condition is ideal for road-based race challenges.

Apparently the glitch remains only until you reload a savegame or, in case of a race, "restart from checkpoint."

It may be coincidence, but it seems to happen at night, mostly. Right now it happened on a motorway to Panau City, not in the desert, I lost control over my Hamaya Cougar 600 and dug up some dirt and flowers next to the road. When I got back on, the traffic was gone. A glance at my map showed 2:00am ingame time. Maybe that's when it happens? I suspect that you need to be on a road first, then get off of it. I remember the last time it happened, I was on top of a hill overlooking a small road where I kept taking out govmen vehicles and other vehicles, then I had to escape, at night again, and on returning the road was empty. I waited quite some time and realised that the civilian traffic had ceased. Occasionally some govman jeep or a facman patrol came past, that's it. I like that glitch  :)

Please let me/us know if you have encountered similar situations, if you have observed anything that might help reproduce the glitch (or maybe, if you need to, avoid it).

Cheers :)

[PZ]

I've noticed that the traffic is sparse at times but have never correlated it with anything.  I recall that someone made a mod that empties out the traffic, so it must be possible to change the traffic patterns via a simple change of parameters.

[Art Blade]

I'm still in the same game (no reload) and now it's 6:00am, the traffic is back as if nothing had happened. Strange :)

[Art Blade]

Had experienced another bike crash in the same game (no reload) (and by the way, no death) and now traffic is gone again. 10:40am (well, I "discontinued" playing in between ;) )

[Art Blade]

Apparently there are two different reasons behind "no traffic."

1) If I got it right, between 2am and 6am there is never traffic.

2) The glitch seems to correlate with how long a single gaming session is going on. The longer I play non-stop, the more likely it is to happen.

I found a comment on our affiliate site justcause2mods.com where someone asked for a no traffic mod; someone else replied that the game engine was so unstable he had difficulty in keeping the traffic and therefore didn't need a mod for that. LOL

[Art Blade]

Now I'm getting so used to that glitch that I keep waiting for it to happen. This time I loaded a savegame to start playing and only around 45 minutes later the traffic was gone. All I have to do is not to reload anything. I'm alone on the road with faction and government vehicles now, I like that because I love to race around in cars or on bikes ;D

By the way, that glitch only affects cars and bikes. There are still boats and pedestrians etc. You can have yourself extracted to locations, the traffic will still be missing.

[PZ]

Good to know these nuances  :-X

[Art Blade]

I don't know if you guys playing on consoles only also experience that glitch, but at least on a PC it is quite some fun to make good use of it while it lasts :)

[PZ]

I'm not sure, but I'll look for it - I'm playing on the console and the PC - at the relative same percentage of completion in both.  It's interesting to see how mods can completely change the way you play the game.  For instance, I'm using the thruster mod on the PC where you always have it, and it never overheats.  I did the mission to disarm several bombs, and it was child's play while the same mission on the console was more challenging because the thrusters overheat.

[Art Blade]

And poor me has to use a chute without any thrusters. Still, manageable  ;)