Dispatch Centers

I have 3 counties covered in Florida and I used 3 separate dispatch centers, one for each one. I use each dispatch "Create your own coverage area. Stations belonging to this dispatch center are considered for missions in the assigned dispatch center area" feature for each one. This allows for the dispatch center to make calls that only its units/stations can handle. It's very helpful because I don't have to send a unit that is 1 hour away across 3 counties just to complete one mission. That's just why I do separate dispatch centers, and because its realistic.

also you can make a center and say call it in progress or something along that, assign new stations to that, until they are ready for calls -( just turn off that center so any assigned wont create calls ( credit to Forestry in my alliance)

I personally use dispatch centers to organise my game better (e.g. i got a dispatch center for all of my fire schools, one for all my rescue schools, etc.).

Also you can (as PBCFireBuff already mentioned) use them to steer how missions are generated.

You can read how exactly that works here:

Quote from jxn_30

For the sake of completeness:

Mission generation:

* Generating building is assigned to a dispatch center with its own coverage area => only buildings of this dispatch center count towards the minimum requirements!

* Generating building is not assigned to a dispatch center => all buildings of the entire account (independent of dispatch centers) count towards the minimum requirements.

* Generating building is assigned to a control centre without its own coverage area => All buildings of the entire account (independent of dispatch centers) count towards the minimum requirements.

Important: Distances do not influence the generation of missions in the first place. A mission can be generated within a certain secret radius X around a station (e.g. Fire missions around fire stations). As long as the other requirements in the respective coverage area (see above) are fulfilled, the mission can be generated. Regardless of whether these are 2 miles, 500 miles or several thousand miles away.

Important information about patients:

Patients can appear if an ambulance station or active ambulance extension is within a maximum distance of 15km (source, german). Coverage areas are irrelevant here.

Ambulance station and active ambulance extensions that are assigned to a disabled control centre no longer generate patients since 27 March 2023 and are no longer included within this 15km radius. source, german

Disabled dispatch centers:

If a dispatch center is disabled, the buildings assigned to it can no longer generate operations; the above-mentioned cases for minimum requirements are independent of this.

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I have multiple for the reasons stated above as far as Mission Control. And for realism.

Quote from ChiefBoden61

Ok......just some clarification for my troubled mind? I have played for going on 3 yrs and in that time have built out most of Florida now. However, I only have one (1) dispatch center. No issues with call generation. "If" I now add more centers will units still show up as closest in jurisdictions that each other. As an example Each Center has multiple counties and some counties stations are closer to areas but they are in another Center's area. Will the other units show up? Trying to stick with the Statewide Mutual Aid as it exists in Florida so I have resisted adding more centers because I was not sure how or if it allowed units to cross dispatcher center availabilities?. I hope that question is clear as mud and thanks for the answers in advance.

The game has worked fine with one, but the problem I am having now is when I go to that center to check extensions or units, those tabs never load and i am "assuming" that relates the huge amount of "stuff" assigned to that one dispatch center. All the other "tabs" in the center work?

Yes. Should recommend the closest units regardless of their assigned dispatch center

I'm having an issue finding the Dispatch Center options that "Create your own coverage area". Did they remove this feature? I'm runnning into an issue that a separate dispatch centre is asking for tow trucks 6 hours away.... This was never a problem before. how do i correct this?

Quote from ChiefBoden61

..... "If" I now add more centers will units still show up as closest in jurisdictions that each other. As an example Each Center has multiple counties and some counties stations are closer to areas but they are in another Center's area. Will the other units show up? Trying to stick with the Statewide Mutual Aid as it exists in Florida so I have resisted adding more centers because I was not sure how or if it allowed units to cross dispatcher center availabilities?. ....

The dispatch centers are a way to organize your stations, and some people use them to game out what missions they get. You can organize your stations inside dispatch centers anyway you want you can group by type of stations, location, county, state, city, anything you want. it does not make a difference for the game on default settings.

It can make a difference on mission generation if you change from default settings.

For responding to missions the units belong to the stations they are located in, the dispatch center does not affect that. So responding units will come from the closest stations to the mission with nothing to do with dispatch centers the stations are in.

For examples on settings, I will use the following for all examples

Dispatch Center A, 5 fire station, 1 police station, 1 ambulance station.

Dispatch Center B, 5 fire station, 1 police station, 1 ambulance station.

On default settings for mission generation all stations have 10 fire stations, 2 police, and 2 ambulance.

Setting dispatch center A to create own coverage, Dispatch center B default.

Stations in dispatch center A for mission generation will have 5 fire stations, 1 police, 1 ambulance. Stations in dispatch center B will still have 10 fire stations, 2 police, and 2 ambulance for mission generation.

For the next example set all back to default, same dispatch centers.

Set dispatch center A to out of service dispatch center B default, now all the stations in dispatch center A will not generate missions but they are still available for other dispatch centers. So dispatch center B stations will still have 10 fire stations, 2 police, and 2 ambulance for mission generation. And all the missions will generate around your stations in dispatch center B.

you can use combinations of that to get missions to generate just how you want, like say you wanted to just make missions in Miami, set all dispatch center but Miami out of service and all your missions will be in Miami, or you want just wildfire, put all your wildfire stations in a center together and set all but wildfire out of service and you will just get those missions(you will need to make some adjustments using the wildfire example). If you share missions in your alliance, you can use that to make your own “events” or themed missions that you share, like only Miami for a week, ect..

if you have 2 stations in a different state or a ways out from your other stations you can set them in dispatch center, set it to create own coverage and it will only make missions using the stations in that dispatch center. You can use that to slowly expand into an area.

The main issue you will have depending on how you named all your stations you will need to go thru every individual station and assign them to a new dispatch center.

Quote from Mattez

I'm having an issue finding the Dispatch Center options that "Create your own coverage area". Did they remove this feature? I'm runnning into an issue that a separate dispatch centre is asking for tow trucks 6 hours away.... This was never a problem before. how do i correct this?

You can find the option when editing the dispatch center (the button with the pen at the very bottom of a dispatch center page).

I had a dispatch center for each county for about a year. Then the Federal police were added, and it became a problem to generate all the possible missions. Then I switched to one dispatch center for all my counties. Then I had the problem of calls showing up in rural areas that I didn't have equipment for or hour-long trips for equipment to travel. I am now splitting the area in half with a new dispatch center and adding the rural and urban extensions, I hope it works better.

Quote from Barake

I had a dispatch center for each county for about a year. Then the Federal police were added, and it became a problem to generate all the possible missions. Then I switched to one dispatch center for all my counties. Then I had the problem of calls showing up in rural areas that I didn't have equipment for or hour-long trips for equipment to travel. I am now splitting the area in half with a new dispatch center and adding the rural and urban extensions, I hope it works better.

I don’t fully understand what the problem was when you had one per county, but dispatch centers will not change anything with mission generation unless you change them from default. You would need to set it to own coverage or out of service if you do not change to those settings they do not change mission generation.

My guess is you built some federal stations and maybe they took over your missions with cannabis missions. And maybe you built the max needed of 8, if that is the case put 7 of them in a dispatch center by themselves and set that dispatch center to out of service. That will leave you with 1 federal station to get missions from and you will still have 8 for mission generation even though only 1 is generating missions.

I have my dispatch centres separated into areas and into different centres for Police Comms, Fire Comms , and Ambo Comms, This gives me the ability to manipulate what I want to play so I can turn the cops off or even the town or city . I have 8 dispatch centres

Quote from Gorron24

I don’t fully understand what the problem was when you had one per county, but dispatch centers will not change anything with mission generation unless you change them from default. You would need to set it to own coverage or out of service if you do not change to those settings they do not change mission generation.

My guess is you built some federal stations and maybe they took over your missions with cannabis missions. And maybe you built the max needed of 8, if that is the case put 7 of them in a dispatch center by themselves and set that dispatch center to out of service. That will leave you with 1 federal station to get missions from and you will still have 8 for mission generation even though only 1 is generating missions.

Your explanation of the federal police lost me. Since missions are generated by the number of stations assigned to the dispatch center, it would allow missions anywhere in its coverage area. The fed police missions worked fine but the fire missions became a problem. With the advent of the station classifications, I think that fixed my problem.

I use to use a hand full of dispatch centers for my blue channels and small city channels but I switched to only 3 dispatch centers. Catalina Island dispatch, I/S dispatch for in service stations and O/S dispatch for stations out of service. O/S is for stations that are in the process of building before completing then moves to I/S dispatch. after switching to 99.9% of my in service stations on 1 dispatch I have generated much larger and complex runs then having 25-35 stations per dispatch center. this case is for FD only. my Sheriffs and LE were all on 1 dispatch county wide and EMS was joined within FD