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Book A Ride

Players use a quick chat emote to call in a horse, minicopter, motorbike, attack heli, transport heli, RHIB or premade car right next to them, with a cooldown per vehicle and optional free fuel.

01Free and Premium

  • Free: Horse, Bike, RHIB and Car.
  • Premium: adds Minicopter, Attack Heli and Transport Heli.

02What it does

Book A Ride lets players order transport without crafting or buying it. They send a quick chat emote, the bot replies with a menu in chat, they pick a vehicle with another emote, and it appears right beside them.

There are seven transports. In game they go by these names, and each one is claimed with its own reply emote:

  • Stallion (the horse): Yes
  • Mini (minicopter): No
  • Bike (motorbike): OK
  • Attack Heli (attack helicopter): No problem
  • Transport Heli (scrap transport helicopter): Thank you
  • RHIB (rigid hulled inflatable boat): Hello
  • Car (a premade 3 module car, ready to drive): I'm sorry

Book A Ride is on by default, with every transport on and a 5 minute cooldown on each.

03How players use it

  1. 1Open the quick chat and send the ride emote from the Orders section. That opens the ride menu.
  2. 2A message appears in chat with their name and "What form of transport would you like?", listing every transport they can use and which response to send for it.
  3. 3Within 10 seconds, send the matching phrase from the Responses section of the quick chat: Yes for Stallion, No for Mini, OK for Bike, No problem for Attack Heli, Thank you for Transport Heli, Hello for RHIB or I'm sorry for Car.
  4. 4The vehicle spawns beside them, and chat confirms it with "Received their Mini" (plus a line about fuel if you give fuel). Bigger vehicles spawn a little further away so they never land on the player: about 4 metres for the Car, 5 for the RHIB and 7 for the Transport Heli.

It works from any chat: local, team, global or server. If a transport is on cooldown, the menu shows how long is left next to its name. Picking it anyway gets the cooldown message instead of a vehicle.

Tip

The RHIB spawns where the player is standing, so tell players to stand at the shoreline or in shallow water before they order it.

Tip

Tell your players about it in a Scheduled Message, and say which quick chat phrase opens the menu. Most people won't find it on their own.

04Setting it up

  1. 1Open Features > Book A Ride and make sure the master switch says Enabled. The line under it tells you if the bot is connected.
  2. 2On the Transports tab, click a transport card to open its settings. Each card shows the vehicle, the emote players reply with, and whether it's on.
  3. 3Set it up the way you want, then press Save transport.
  4. 4Repeat for the others. The cards show ON or OFF, LIST if a transport is restricted, and how much fuel it comes with, so you can see everything at a glance.

05Every transport setting explained

  • Transport (On / Off): whether players can order it at all. Off means it doesn't appear in the menu.
  • Cooldown Timer: how long a player waits before ordering that same transport again. Pick a number and Minutes, Hours or Days. Set it to 0 for no cooldown. Each transport has its own cooldown per player, so ordering a Mini doesn't lock you out of a Bike.
  • Use list: when on, only players you've added to the Book A Ride list (with this transport assigned) can order it. Everyone else won't see it in their menu.
  • Give Fuel: every transport except the Stallion. Enter an amount and players get that much low grade fuel in their inventory along with the vehicle. Leave it blank for no fuel.

06Restricting transports to certain players

Want the Attack Heli for VIPs only? Turn on Use list for it, then add players under Management > Role Lists > Book A Ride List.

  1. 1Turn on Use list for the transport and save. Surge switches the Book A Ride list on for you.
  2. 2Go to Management > Role Lists > Book A Ride List.
  3. 3Type the player's exact in-game name and press Add to List.
  4. 4Pick which list-only transports they get, or choose all of them.

Transports without Use list stay open to everyone. If you later turn Use list off for a transport, it's removed from everyone's list assignments automatically.

07Personalizing the cooldown message

The BAR Personalize tab lets you change the message players get when they try to order something still on cooldown. You can use:

  • {playername}: the player asking.
  • {transport}: Stallion, Mini, Bike, Attack Heli, Transport Heli, RHIB or Car.
  • {cooldown}: how long they still have to wait.

The default reads along the lines of "Zander, Please wait 3 min before claiming Mini". The success message ("Received their Mini") and the menu itself are fixed and can't be edited.

08Good to know

  • If a player has nothing they're allowed to order (everything off, or all list-only and they're not on the list), nothing happens when they send the emote.
  • The 10 second window is strict. If they miss it, they just send the menu emote again.
  • To stop chat spam, the cooldown message is only sent once a minute per transport, and if everything they can order is on cooldown, the menu only reappears once a minute too.
  • The player has to be online and the bot has to be able to find where they're standing. If it can't, no vehicle spawns and no cooldown is used up.
  • If Skip Night voting is live, sending Yes to grab a Stallion also counts as a skip night vote, since both use the same emote.
  • The Transport Heli is big. Order it somewhere with open space around you, not inside a base or under a roof.
  • On a Free server, the Minicopter, Attack Heli and Transport Heli don't show up in the menu. Their settings are kept, so they come back as soon as the server has Premium.