Talk: Quasar

Quasar request

Anyone have an extra quasar or could help me get one? Gt:gameboy627 Gameboy627 23:37, February 15, 2010 (UTC)

2 Quasars

Hey guys, i found 2 Quasars this morning in Saints Row 2. But unfortunately i don't have a camera. But i will test the 2 of them and add some further information ;) SUV-Riderz. 10:05, August 20, 2011 (UTC)

Freelander removed

i dont think the car looks anything like a freelander, could this be removed from the trivia section? Anonomous (unsigned: 94.169.233.237 15:11, June 7, 2012)

After a very brief image search, I agree, so feel free. --452 20:53, June 7, 2012 (UTC)

Im new to this whole wiki stuff so idk how to do it. do i need to make an account? (i dont even know if this is how to reply to someone) 94.169.233.237 21:53, June 7, 2012 (UTC)anonomous

Nope, just click "edit" at the top of the article, or in a section heading, just like you did here. You might want to check out Category:Saints Row Wiki and Saints Row Wiki for general help, but if you have any specific questions, let me know. :) --452 22:06, June 7, 2012 (UTC)

Sorted, thanks for the info, would it help to make an account? like would it send an email when someone commented on a talk section ive also commented on or posted?94.169.233.237 22:11, June 7, 2012 (UTC)Anonomous

Yes and yes. You can get emails for changes to talk pages, as well as changes to articles. You can choose on a page per page basic which to get emails for. If you're planning on sticking around, making an account can help because then other users will recognise your name when you make an edit. Also, if your IP changes, or you edit from different locations, all your edits will be user the one username rather than different IPs. --452 22:23, June 7, 2012 (UTC)

okay thanks, will do. i made my first article, but it needs A LOT of work, its called "future soldier outfit" please help me to clean it up, thanks

I know this is unrelated but i just made my account .22-Shooter 23:14, June 7, 2012 (UTC).22-Shooter

Thanks for letting me know. That's a pretty good first article, I've seen a lot worse. Which is a shame because of what I'm going to say next: I've moved the info you added to Explosive Combat Pack and added a link on Clothing. Because it comes with the Explosive Combat Pack, I think it's better to describe it there. It's great info that should definitely be included on the wiki, it just doesn't need a whole article. Most of the DLC pages don't list what is included, so if you want to add other DLC items to the DLC articles, please do. :) --452 01:18, June 8, 2012 (UTC)

Does anyone have the exact spawn formula?

After a ton of searching I finally found a Quasar this morning, but I am curious as to how the game handles the spawning. I'm not familiar with reading game code to determine these, and I don't know the procedure for it. (I'm looking for something like the footnote of the Kent page, where it describes City-Civillian-Farm as the only character to use it) This may have been done before, but I want to know how the game handles the vehicle spawning, if there's a certain procedure it uses to generate the cars and from that what is the chance of the Quasar spawning as opposed to others, or if it requires a specific rare-spawning driver (I got mine by driving head-on into it and ejecting the driver) If anyone can help with this it would be appreciated. (74.71.46.75 00:00, December 27, 2012)

Take a look at Forum:Vehicles for a list of those vehicle spawning areas. Suburbs Expansion and Downtown are the only places the Quasar will spawn. I'm not sure how well it works, but supposedly driving a vehicle of the same class will cause it to spawn more often, but in theory it's never going to spawn anywhere but those places. The part on the Kent page about the Civilian types is what was used to make that list, I could look up exactly which civilian types drive the Quasar, but it's not important since we already know that whatever they are, they will only drive it in those two areas. -452 00:45, December 27, 2012 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, this is going to be an interesting bit of reading, but it's a bit disappointing that the game only provides the chances of that particular citizen spawning and not the car itself (aside from the variants part). Is there anywhere that you've seen that has the chances of spawning a certain vehicle based on the person who can drive it? If so, would it work to make a list of the civillians who can spawn driving the Quasar and then see the percentages of it, or at least compare it to those of other vehicles competing for spawn? Forgive me if this has been stated elsewhere, and at this point I really have no need to look further into it, but if there is any way to view the spawnrates of the vehicles themselves I think I'd be set for life. (unsigned: 74.71.46.75 04:16, December 30, 2012)

I have made a list of the civilians who can spawn driving the Quasar, I then used that list to make a list of where those civilians spawn so we know where the Quasar will spawn. I've posted that list at Forum:Vehicles.

There are no "spawnrates of the vehicles themselves". That is not how the game works.

As I said, the game first selects an NPC to spawn, then randomly selects which vehicle that NPC drives.

SR2_spawn_info_groups.xtbl says that the Quasar can be driven only by "City - Civilian - Downtown", who can drive 47 different vehicles. (Randomly, with no weighting, which is why the spawn percentages are only a guide)

SR2_spawn_info_categories.xtbl says that "City - Civilian - Downtown" can only spawn in two areas: Suburbs Expansion (DayChance = 0.2, NightChance = 0.3) and Downtown (DayChance 0.2, NightChance 0.1)

This tells us that the Quasar will only ever be driven by NPCs in those two areas. -452 17:07, December 30, 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, knowing all of this still doesn't help find it. I realised today that I don't have a Quasar myself, so I've been trying to find it without any luck so far. I looked back into the whole spawning-selection process, and there is one detail I missed, so here are the facts again:

The Quasar can only be driven by one NPC group "City - Civilian - Downtown"

There are 6 NPC types in that group: npc_business_male, npc_business_female, npc_business_female_cell, npc_business_male_cell, npc_rich_female, npc_rich_female

"City - Civilian - Downtown" can drive 47 vehicles. These appear to be randomly selected with no greater chance of any of them.

"City - Civilian - Downtown" can only spawn in Downtown (20% day, 10% night) and Suburbs Expansion (20% day, 30% night).

There are 28 Civilian groups which spawn in Downtown. There are 19 Civilian groups which spawn in Suburbs Expansion.

This is the detail I didn't may attention to earlier. The "20%" chance I've been quoted is likely to be effected by the number of Civilians in the pool. It's also not a literal "20%" chance, it's in the data file as a "DayChance" of "0.2", the highest DayChance value is 1.0 - Bums in the Caverns have this value - while the percentage is not literal, it's still useful when you compare that number relative to other figures.

Of the 19 groups that spawn in SE, only 11 appear at night, I'm not sure if whether the sleeping 8 are excluded before or after random selection.

The total of all NightChance values in SE is 1.95, meaning the percentage chance is 0.3/1.95 = 15% chance, as in 1/6

Apparently 1 out of 6 Civilians is in the "City - Civilian - Downtown" group. These people can drive 47 vehicles, so - if I'm working this out correctly, that's a 1 in 282 chance that a car you see will be a Quasar - that sounds about right!

(edit: "car you will see" is incorrect, it is "a car that will spawn nearby", the thing is: it may spawn behind you and you won't see it! -452 (talk) 23:33, January 30, 2014 (UTC))

The Justice, Tetsuo, Kenshin, Nelson, Stiletto, Zomkah, Voxel, Eiswolf, Baron, Compton, Mag, Venom Classic, Magma, Hayate Z70, Wakazashi, Wellington, and Bulldog should spawn just as infrequently as the Quasar. (Some of them spawn in other areas)

The reason why you can see some other cars much more commonly is because some vehicles are driven by EVERY civilian - if you look closely at the driver of every Nordberg, you'll probably only see the same driver 1 in 20 times.

The group with the highest percentage chance is "City - Civilian - Truckers", with 0.5/1.95 = 25% chance - they only drive a Peterliner, and they don't spawn in SE at all.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that the Peterliner can only spawn on highways and other roads defined as being large enough for it. That's why there are so many of them on the highways, because when they CAN spawn, 1/4 cars will be a Peterliner.

Perhaps, and this is a BIG perhaps, the game DOES select "City - Civilian - Truckers" a quarter of the time, but because the Peterliner doesn't spawn there, the game spawns nothing in it's place. That could go a long way to explaining why some places are so empty sometimes. (Also, notice how the highways are usually full of cars all the time, but other streets can be deserted? - I think that supports my theory. The reason for the Kent not spawning is the same reason, it "can't" spawn, even though it is supposed to.)

So, some of the things that it says in these files don't quite make sense. But the majority of the things that the files say have turned out to be true.

I think I'll redo all the vehicle spawning figures the same way I did them here, and we'll see how accurate they turn out. -452 (talk) 23:12, January 30, 2014 (UTC)

But again, even knowing more accurately how infrequently it spawns won't help find it. There's still no way that it will spawn anywhere other than those two districts, and no sure way to force it to spawn more frequently. I've been driving other SUVs for hours and I think the "drive a similar vehicle thing" may be rubbish. (Driving the exact same vehicle definitely makes others of the same spawn, that can be seen easily, and developers have confirmed it.) -452 (talk) 00:01, January 31, 2014 (UTC)

I drove around SE for a few hours and the list of other infrequent vehicles seems about accurate. I'm currently working on generating more meaningful spawning figures. -452 (talk) 01:40, November 7, 2014 (UTC)

Strange Quasar Glitch

After 2 full days of searching for the quasar I finally stopped, but as i was traveling through rebadeuax I saw an orange one parked in an alley. I grabbed it and saved it to my garage, and saved my game. After I woke up i went to play and the quasar had been replaced with a strangely colored reaper. The reaper also dissapeared. (Unsigned: User:Lynch Himself 21:22, November 27, 2013)

That's a strange glitch, I've never had a vehicle disappear like that. Try saving another vehicle, then restarting the game and see if it's still there.

Are you sure you loaded the right save? (And are you sure you weren't dreaming after a long 2 days of searching? :P) -452 (talk) 21:30, November 27, 2013 (UTC)

Spawning civilian Quasar

I yesterday played Saints Row 1 and when I drove Traxx Master during Snatch activity I saw spawned civilian Quasar next to Foreign Power in the Arena district. And when you drive on Westside Rollerz hood with Mag, Traxx Master, Quasar or Ricochet, Rollerz drive in streets with Quasar without any notoriety. (unsigned: CSGF1995 - 2014-07-09 21:04:27)

Thanks for confirming that! -452 (talk) 22:38, July 27, 2014 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I have had Rollerz drive Quasars without any notoriety as well. I was driving a Cavallaro from Chinatown into Ezpata and actually saw a Rollerz Quasar turning onto the road that links Ezpata to Encanto - I guess he spawned before I left the Chinatown border, but did so in a Carnales location? (unsigned: 67.246.112.238 - 2016-01-20 04:29:51)

I've also found parked Quasars, but never a civilian driving one, as well as Rollerz driving them with no Notoriety. -452 20:20, February 27, 2016 (UTC)

Curiously, I found the parked ones in the Apartments district, and you found one in the Arena district: both Rollerz territory, so maybe that has something to do with it. I'm playing a new game so the Rollerz are still around, it would be interesting to see if they still appear once the Rollerz are gone. -452 20:22, February 27, 2016 (UTC)

Quasar sighting

While driving a Shard at night on the main road in Adept Way, I saw a Quasar, but it disappeared as I was turning around - confirmed due to license plate on the left. -452 (talk) 19:52, January 5, 2015 (UTC)

Currently looking for a Quasar in SR2

So I've been searching for a Quasar in SR2 for a while now, and on my most recent save, I decided to take a drive around Quinbecca (particularly, near the Church of Cheese and the Marshall Winslow Recreational Centre) in an Eiswolf. Although I did find an NPC from the "Rich/Business" NPC class described above (middle-aged Asian woman wearing a silk shirt and skirt) driving a Westbury outside the latter location at one point (not my most recent try), I have yet to find a Quasar. However, driving an Eiswolf did spawn a lot of Swindle in the area, although I believe this is probably due to the proximity of the beach in the neighborhood. I believe the in-game time was around 18pm to around 5am, and the woman spawned just before 4am. Am I doing anything wrong, or is the car just a bitch to find? This gives me vibes to finding the Euros/Phoenix in GTA:SA, which likewise had extremely low rates of finding the cars Spiky Eared Pichu (talk) 20:37, May 16, 2019 (UTC)

You're not doing anything wrong.

Have you read the rest of this page? -452 21:30, May 16, 2019 (UTC)

Alright. And yep, I have. One question, though - Is it only rich NPCs who drive the Quasar? Spiky Eared Pichu (talk) 18:48, May 20, 2019 (UTC)

As I mentioned above in 2014: npc_business_male, npc_business_female, npc_business_female_cell, npc_business_male_cell, npc_rich_female, npc_rich_female

See also: Forum:SR2 Character List for the same information.

452 18:56, May 20, 2019 (UTC)

After reading through that, I tried again two nights ago, spending at least 48 hours driving around Quinbecca. In the second morning, the game did spawn at least 3 rich female NPCs (two typing on computers and one walking around) and a few more driving around in Raycasters, but I did not see any Quasars. Spiky Eared Pichu (talk) 20:40, May 24, 2019 (UTC)

After messing around with the files and successfully getting the Kent to spawn, I decided to do the same thing to the Quasar, to make sure there wasn't actually anything impeding it from spawning.

After editing the files to both remove all other civilians from spawning in Downtown and Suburbs Expansion, and removing all other vehicles driven by the "City - Civilian - Downtown" group, my Downtown is now full of Quasars.

So: There's no other reason Quasars aren't spawning in Downtown, other than sheer improbability, and multiple Quasars can definitely spawn at once, which usually means that if there's ever 1, there will likely be multiple, just because of how vehicle selection works.

I drove around in a Quasar for a while so my Tornado despawned, so I almost didn't bother driving out to Suburbs Expansion. However, I decided to check for completeness sake, and I'm glad I did, because I found something weird: Nordberg, Voyage, Phoenix, Varsity, Ethel, Topher, Keystone, etc were spawning.

But I had set Suburbs Expansion to only spawn City - Civilian - Downtown, and set City - Civilian - Downtown to only drive Quasar.

I then changed the Default category to only spawn City - Civilian - Downtown, but the same vehicles spawned in Suburbs Expansion.

I then changed the Suburbs category to only spawn City - Civilian - Downtown. And then? Quasars in both Suburbs and Suburbs Expansion.

Volition fucked up. Suburbs Expansion doesn't have it's own spawning category, it has exactly the same vehicles as Suburbs - which means no Quasars.

It was also Volition who first stated that it spawned in both Downtown and Suburbs Expansion.

Quasars can only spawn in Downtown.

452 15:54, May 29, 2019 (UTC)

Another anomaly:

Forum:Vehicle spawning has a few inconsistancies compared to Forum:SR2 Character List.

The spawning pages does NOT list Phoenix as a Suburbs vehicle, but I've seen multiple. The character list says it has 0% chance, so I omitted all 0% vehicles from the spawning page.

The Phoenix is in the "Default Spawn"/"City - Civilian - Generic Middle" group, but I changed my files to that group only loads the Quasar anyway. After removing everything but the Mail group from the Suburbs group, nothing but Newmans and Delivery Trucks spawn. No Quasars anywhere, so the Default Spawn group must only apply to areas without a spawn group. It definitely applies to Highways and Mt. Claflin, because they are now full of Quasars.

After re-adding the 0% chance Phoenix, there are Phoenixes everywhere, so apparently 0 doesn't mean 0, so Forum:Vehicle spawning is massively in need of an overhaul.

-452 17:12, May 29, 2019 (UTC)

Like you, I focused the majority of my searching in Suburbs Expansion, due to the slightly higher spawning chance at night.

I'm not sure which NPCs you were seeing in Suburbs Expansion, but it is impossible that they were from the City - Civilian - Downtown group.

452 16:05, May 29, 2019 (UTC)

Now that you mention it, it really did seem suspicious to me how the Quasar didn't spawn in the SE district. Thanks for updating me about that. In regards to the new information, how many cars would it take until a Quasar spawns in the Downtown district? Spiky Eared Pichu (talk) 18:48, May 29, 2019 (UTC)

• There are 28 Civilian groups which spawn in Downtown.
• Of those 28, 5 of them have a 0% chance at night. But that 0 just means "very small chance", instead of "no chance". I'm not sure how to factor in that chance, because I normally just add them up. (I will do additional experiments soon to test the frequency of 0 spawns)
• Of those 28, only 21 spawn vehicles on normal roads. (edited 23:35, May 29, 2019 (UTC))
• "City - Civilian - Downtown" has a 0.20 out of 4.10 total chance of spawning in the day. That may mean "4.88% of the time" as in 1/20. We don't know for certain. The 3.12%, but that's ignoring the 0 values, so the real chance would be even lower.
• "City - Civilian - Downtown" can drive 47 vehicles, theoretically evenly weighted.

If I'm working this out correctly, there's a 1 in 940 chance that a car you will see in Downtown in the day time will be a Quasar. (edit: this is probably the minimum chance, the chance is probably a little higher, due to the groups that don't spawn vehicles on normal roads 23:35, May 29, 2019 (UTC))

That's a hell of a lot worse than we thought the chances were in Suburbs Expansion. But at least we know for sure that they will spawn eventually in Downtown.

Before Volition said that it would spawn in Suburbs Expansion, people already knew it only spawned in Downtown, and everyone who has ever found one has found it in Downtown, so it's a shame we - and a lot of other people - wasted so much time.

I have spent a lot of time doing blocks around the Downtown Loft myself in the past - because people have reported finding them parked in that parking lot - so it's still going to take a long time to find one. (edit: I just confirmed they definitely spawn parked there, and every other parking space in Downtown, when they are the only vehicle that can ever spawn.)

If you're going to keep looking in Downtown now, can you do me a favor and make a list of every car you see in Downtown? I'll make a list of every car that should spawn there, and we can compare notes. (Just remember that crossing into Museum/Suburbs/High End Retail will cause vehicles from those areas to spawn all around, including in Downtown until you go back there.)

452 23:08, May 29, 2019 (UTC)

BTW, it can definitely also spawn on the Highways within Downtown. Any Highway within a District has the spawn chances defined by that District. The Default Spawn group only applies to Highway bridges between Districts.

I'm not sure whether this would help because every second vehicle will be a Peterliner, but at least it's a single stretch of road with fast moving cars.

-452 23:25, May 29, 2019 (UTC)

The percentages are meaningless!

I set the Quasar to have a 90% chance, and the Newman to have a 10% chance, with no other vehicles allowed in Downtown, and they both spawned equally.

The only time the spawning weight did anything was when it was 0. And I still saw a Newman when it was set to 0, but only very rarely

I also tested the caps, and they don't do anything either, again, unless the cap was 0.

(I did see also a parked normal Baron when I had the Baron set as a Gang Vehicle, and a parked NRG V8 - but I didn't have that set as a gang vehicle, but never any other vehicles driving)

Since the spawning weights do nothing, then the Quasar is between a 1/987 and 1/1316 chance. Maybe.

It's a 1/21 or 1/28 chance that a vehicle is from the Downtown group, and a 1/47 equal chance of it then being a Quasar.

But knowing this doesn't really help, because we already knew it was "very rare", now it's just "a little more very rare".

Obviously some vehicles ARE rarer than others, but that is likely due to them being driven by multiple groups. I'm going to do more experimentation to narrow it down further.

452 01:53, May 30, 2019 (UTC)

After some more experimentation I've found... annoying results.

I configured the Downtown District to spawn only 2 groups: the Mail group with 1 vehicle and the Downtown group with 47 vehicles, and adjusted the chances:

• Downtown=1% (cap 47), Mail=100% (cap 47): 1-2 Newmans per 10 cars. More than 1 in 47, less than 1 in 2.
• Downtown=100% (cap 47), Mail=1% (cap 47): 1-2 Newmans per 10 cars. More than 1 in 47, less than 1 in 2.
• Downtown=cap 1, Mail=cap 47: increased the percentage of Newmans to about 50%.

I haven't previously factored the caps into the rarity guess, and I'm still not sure how I would.

Next test: 5 groups: 4 with a different NPC all driving a Newman, 1 with only Quasar. Expected result: 1 Quasar for every 4 Newmans. Actual result: 50/50 split. Again. And this is with the Quasar group still having a 1% chance and all Newman groups having a 100% chance, with no caps.

Next test: Re-arranged the groups in the files, just in case. No change.

Next test: 5 groups again, all with different vehicles. Results more sensible, 1 Quasar per 5 vehicles. When the chances are changed, the in-game population change is visible, but not exact.

• Quasar 100% and 4 other vehicles 1% results in approximately 1-2 Quasars per 10 vehicles. (Does this mean 2 chances in 6?)
• Quasar 1% and 4 other vehicles 100% results in approximately 1 Quasar per 20 vehicles. (Does this mean 1 chance in 9?)

So... having the same vehicle in multiple groups does not appear to increase it's commonality.

But it looks like an increased percentage for different vehicles does mean something, but only on a macro scale. It certainly seems like every group starts with an equal chance, and the defined chance stacks on top of that. (setting the chance to 2000% did not do anything more than 100% did.)

One thing I did find with just having 2 groups and all 47 vehicles available is that I definitely saw the expected 1/47ish population of Mags and Quasars. So that's something at least. But it still means there's around a 1 in 1000 chance.

452 17:30, May 30, 2019 (UTC)

I bought the Downtown Loft today, saved, and then refreshed the game. I took Pierce's Mag out of the Garage and proceeded to drive around the loft for approximately two in-game days. Unfortunately, I did not find a Quasar yet again. However, I did see several NPC Mags parked in the two parking lofts and occasionally driving around on the first night. I can't remember every car off the top of my head, but most of them weren't cars that wouldn't typically spawn downtown. I'm unsure if the La Fuerza, Bulldog and Hollywood (my current gang cars) are supposed to normally spawn around Downtown, however. The rarest cars I did see were cars like the Zenith, Vortex, Bezier and Attrazione. I'm honestly guessing that I'll be at least a week in game trying to find it. Spiky Eared Pichu (talk) 19:37, May 30, 2019 (UTC)

Here are all the vehicles which are defined to spawn in Downtown.

• Highway: Peterliner, DonoVan, Cheetah, Longhauler (I saw a Longhauler off the Highway, so...)
• 1 at a time: Ambulance, Buffalo, Mule, Newman, Delivery Truck, Oring, Shaft
• Downtown only: Justice, Kenshin, Quasar, Non-bling Baron
• Downtown, Mount Claflin, and Freeways: Bulldog, Hayate Z70, Magma, Nelson, , Tetsuo, Wakazashi, Wellington
• 2 Districts: non-Beater Sabretooth
• 2 Districts, and Mount Claflin and Freeways: Stiletto, Venom Classic, Voxel, Shard, Socialite, Zomkah, non-Bling Eiswolf, non-Beater Widowmaker,
• 3-4 Districts: Attrazione, Bezier, Keystone, Mag, Melbourne, Reaper, Status Quo, Superiore, The Job, Vortex, Zenith, non-beater Danville, non-Beater Bootlegger, non-Beater Phoenix
• 5-10 Districts: Anchor, Keystone, Quota, Raycaster, Titan, Widowmaker
• 10+ Districts: Alaskan, Beater Bootlegger, Betsy, Capshaw, Churchill, Compensator, Compton, Cosmos, Ethel, Go!, Taxi, Stilwater Municipal, Thorogood, Varsity, Halberd, Hollywood, Komodo, Legion, Mockingbird, Nordberg, NRG V8, Swindle, Topher, Voyage, Westbury, Zimos, Zircon

However, as you suspected, Gang Vehicles cause normal variants to spawn also.

452 19:49, May 30, 2019 (UTC)

Updated vehicle lists with more granularity 452 23:50, May 30, 2019 (UTC)

Note: all vehicles in the "Downtown only" list have the same chance of spawning as Quasar, as they are in the same spawning group as Quasar. But we don't really think of most of them as being as rare, mostly due to them being gang vehicles. -452 23:39, May 30, 2019 (UTC)

I just rediscovered a comment I made years ago about vehicle spawning: Forum:Vehicle spawning#Comments

It's possible that driving a vehicle in Downtown, that can only be driven in Downtown by the "City - Civilian - Downtown" group will increase the chance of finding a Quasar. However, it would still be a 1/47 chance. But if it works, it's better than 1/1000

So, the vehicles which might help are: Baron, Bulldog, Compton, Danville, Eiswolf, Hayate Z70, Justice, Kenshin, Mag, Magma, Nelson, Quasar, Socialite, Stiletto, Tetsuo, Venom Classic, Voxel, Wakazashi, Wellington, Widowmaker, Zomkah

As you might notice, not all of these vehicles are in the "Downtown only" rarity list. But the key is that within Downtown, they are only driven by the same driver as the Quasar, so within Downtown, they are just as rare, even though you can find them more easily elsewhere.

This theory is based on the old idea that "Driving a vehicle of the same class might help", which doesn't really make that much sense. But we know for a fact that the car you are currently driving will often spawn, which means that the driver of that car is definitely spawning, so other vehicles driven by that driver may also spawn.

Good luck! 452 01:54, May 31, 2019 (UTC)

It also occurs to me that using any 3 of the following Gang Customization vehicles should also increase the likelyhood of the Quasar spawning, for the same reason: Baron, Bulldog, Compton, Justice, Magma, Nelson.

I'm about to being searching again myself, so I'll be using these.

452 18:55, June 1, 2019 (UTC)

...on the other hand, having 3 of those chosen as gang vehicles means those specific vehicles are overwhelmingly selected, which may reduce the chance of any other vehicle from that group spawning. -452 22:46, June 1, 2019 (UTC)

Finally found a Quasar in Saints Row 2!

452, I cannot thank you enough for helping me find my favourite car in the series.

I loaded my save file at the Downtown Loft today and began to drive Julius' Eiswolf around the block at 5:42 AM in game. Eventually, after 3-5 in-game hours, I spotted two Quasars in the eastern parking lot, a bling and a normal version. I immediately took the normal Quasar and drove to the garage to save it before saving my game. I took a photo of the saved car (as I initially found it) with my phone if you want me to send it to you. Again, cannot thank you enough. Spiky Eared Pichu (talk) 20:41, May 31, 2019 (UTC)

Awesome. Did you see any Eiswolfs driving around, particularly around the time you found the Quasars? -452 21:01, May 31, 2019 (UTC)

or any other cars from that last list? 452 21:02, May 31, 2019 (UTC)

I did not see any Eiswolfs, but I did see a few Mags. Spiky Eared Pichu (talk) 19:31, June 1, 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your discoveries!

452, thanks so much for the information you uncovered here. It's made me want to go back and search for a Quasar again!

I've found three, and all of them were unexpected. The first one came after two days in a row of obsessively searching for one. Couldn't be found. So the next day I booted it up and wanted to go fly a plane. Spawned at the downtown loft, got in a car (can't remember what), looped around the block once just to quickly see if one spawned, and started driving south. Got distracted by something (probably a Nordberg, or worse, a bling Komodo) at the intersection just northwest of the courthouse, turned the camera toward whatever it was. Drove head-first into a car coming north through the intersection. Was about to get back into my car when I realized I'd just crashed into a Quasar and ejected the driver from it. I hadn't been playing for more than two minutes... after probably about ten total hours of trying to find one!

The second time was doing the downtown Snatch. This was a new game and I was using an Ultor Bear. I came up along the east bend where Friendly Fire is. I was approaching the bridge you go under leading into Amberbrook when I saw a Quasar coming the other way. I tried to drive toward it to stop it, but it passed. I got out of the Bear and was debating whether or not to chase it - when I realized the car immediately behind it, which I had just stopped by parking in front of it, was ALSO a Quasar! I cancelled the mission and had to drive the thing all the way to the starting house because I hadn't done any missions yet. So yes, that lends more credence to the theory that the same vehicle spawns multiple times in the same area. I also have a theory that better cars tend to spawn during activities and missions, but this might just be coincidence.

It's funny isn't it? The Quasar isn't really a good car at all - it's just rare. There are plenty of better cars, and for that matter plenty of other rare cars. I hardly ever see Mag, Justice, Nelson, Zenith, Oring, Titan, Zomkah, Socialite, or Voxel out in the wild. But you can get all of those easy, through chop shop, missions, gang vehicles, phone numbers, things like that. The Quasar is really the only vehicle that you can't get through any method other than sheer luck and perseverence. And that's why we love it!

(unsigned: 45.37.139.243 - 2020-04-25 01:32:53)

The funny thing is that I've still never found one myself! (but I haven't really been looking) 452 01:41, April 25, 2020 (UTC)

I have a few questions/theories that I was wondering about earlier. Went on a hunt again (mostly killing time so I could get the Still Addicted achievement) and while I didn't find a Quasar, I had a number of thoughts. If you have any comments about any of this, I'd be interested to know more. Nearly all of this is just a theory - I don't have concrete proof! Please correct me on anything I'm wrong about. I don't have access to the game's code, nor do I have the essentially encyclopedic knowledge you do!

So we know that the reason the game will spawn the same vehicle multiple times is because there's a set number of slots for "current vehicles" that the game pulls from - from your post on the vehicle spawning comments page, Volition said it's 7. So I'm going with that number just for the sake of the theory, even if it may be different or have variables or whatever. The game has 7 vehicle slots, meaning that at any given time there can't be more than 7 different vehicles spawned at the same time. And rather than waste processing power to generate a new one, it checks to see if any of those 7 current vehicles are spawn-able in the current area. If it is, it just drops another one in. That's why you can sometimes see 30 taxis in 30 seconds.

We also know that certain vehicles, like Five-O (I think), Ambulance, Delivery Truck, Newman, etc. are forced by the game to spawn - Five-O might be independent of the 7 car limit, but the others are there because they break up the monotony of civilian cars and they make the game feel more organic. When one of them spawns, it takes up one of the 7 slots. When it de-spawns, that opens up a slot that a new vehicle can spawn in. We also know that it does shuffle up the list on its own, but one of those vehicles is guaranteed to free up a slot (as long as another one doesn't appear before the first one de-spawns, of course).

You determined that the odds were between 1 in 987 and 1 in 1316 or something like that. Does this factor in the fact that the cars are selected first from that pool of 7, then randomly after that? The old figure was 1 in 282 (though that may have been for the now-defunct SE percentages), which seems accurate if every car was picked totally at random. But since they're not, and you could see 200 of the same 7 cars before the pool changes once (depending on how bad your luck is), the odds are much lower. I'm not sure, though, if the roughly 1-in-1000 chance you suggested factors that in or not.

Now here's one thing which could totally throw things for a loop. Does the game count the same vehicle twice in those slots? For instance, could a Cosmos fill two slots simultaneously? Would it pick from Slot 1, Cosmos, and Slot 6, Cosmos? Or does each vehicle have its own slot? One of my theories was to set all gang vehicles to be the same, then drive one during the search, so that 6 slots would be open instead of 4 (as the game is always going to spawn Saints cars in Saints-controlled areas). But if it's going to put my current choice of Attrazione in three separate slots, it doesn't really matter, does it? And that throws a wrench in my plan.

Another thing we don't know is NPC spawning. If it works the same as vehicle spawning - and if the game doesn't assign the same vehicle to different slots - then setting all gang vehicles to something like the Baron or Bulldog would theoretically cause more of the NPCs which can drive the Quasar to spawn (as those vehicles are only driven by that group in Downtown). Then, when a slot was free, it would select the downtown NPC due to it currently being in the NPC pool (if that exists), then randomly select 1 of the 47 (or, if currently active vehicles are discounted, 46) vehicles, which could be a Quasar. And that would make the chances significantly higher. BUT, I don't know if that's how the game does things.

There's the old theory that driving vehicles of a similar class will help more similar vehicles spawn (SUVs, bikes, etc.) I personally am of the mind that this is incorrect - when Nordberg was one of the 7 active cars, I didn't see any other SUVs, and when Komodos were running rampant, I saw no Nordbergs. I suspect that was just an early guess that someone threw out (or perhaps more misinformation or a misinterpretation from Volition) and we've been running with it ever since without officially confirming it. I could be wrong, but based on my experience, I don't think that's the case.

But... all of these thoughts boil down to the following: IF the game spawns NPCs in a similar manner to vehicles, and IF a vehicle cannot be duplicated across multiple slots, the best way to increase the odds of spawning a Quasar would be to set all 3 gang vehicles to either Baron, Bulldog, Compton, Justice, Magma, Nelson, or Venom Classic; make all three the same (to only take up one slot - IF that's how it works). Drive around Downtown in one of those vehicles, which would - in theory - cause the downtown NPC we want to spawn more frequently (already being active in the NPC pool - IF that's how it works). Whenever a new slot is vacated, that NPC would have a higher chance of spawning, there would then be a 1 in 46 chance (IF it doesn't allow duplicate slots) of being a Quasar. All of that is dependent on NPC spawning working the same as vehicle spawning (which, to my knowledge, hasn't been tested), and the "7 slots" theory (which we're also still not 100% sure on) not allowing the same car to appear in two different slots.

If you have any comments regarding any of this, or any desire to examine the game files and see if you can uncover anything, I'd be interested to hear back. These are just theories and thoughts I had while running down the time to the last achievement I needed. Sorry for making such an excessively long post - I'm no good at being concise, haha.

I'm going to set all my cars to be Magma and drive around downtown, and see if I can find one. Earlier, I had them all as Attrazione (to make stunt jumps easier each time my car landed upside-down, which was 90% of the time) but I'm going to set them to one of the ones that, in downtown, are only driven by the same NPC that can drive the Quasar. And I'll see if that affects anything. I'll report back. (What are the odds that I'm going to load the game and there will be a Quasar or two parked across the street from the downtown loft?)

(unsigned: 45.37.139.243 - 2020-04-26 03:46:10)

Those are a lot of very good ideas, but unfortunately we just don't know.

I'm not certain whether those 1-car-at-time vehicles would fill one of the 7 slots, but it seems from my earlier tests that it might. There are some more specific tests I could do to try and figure it out.

I really hope that the vehicle selection would not select a Cosmos for 2 of the 7 slots. That same re-test for 1-cap vehicles would shed some light on that: having an available pool of just 1 vehicle for instance.

Good question about NPC spawning. That's something else that could stand some additional testing. I think that I had just been assuming it worked the same. We don't even know something as simple as "how many different NPC types can spawn at once".

I agree that the class theory is probably something people heard about GTA. I find that driving a Nordberg at least helps you identify other Nordbergs. :P

It would actually make more sense if it worked the opposite way: to create more variety by NOT selecting too many SUVs. (I think I brushed on this idea in the past)

Your complete theory sounds great.

One thing I just never got around to doing was completely rewriting the program I was using to parse the spawning files and generate the percentages - but they were never meant to be specific anyway, just a general estimation. Although I'm generally a perfectionist and would rather have more accurate numbers, I feel like the discovery that they only spawn in Downtown completely outshadows anything a couple of more accurate numbers could tell us. I'd rather spend that time doing something with a more useful outcome - but doing some more experiments as to how spawning works might be useful enough to motivate me! However:

I've heard that IdolNinja intends to release the SR2 PC source, so it doesn't seem like there much point trying to reverse-engineer the spawning chances when we will be able to use the game code itself to forward-engineer them. With access to the source code, we can answer ALL of the questions about the 1-cap vehicles, and how the 7 vehicle slots work.

However, in the past Volition have said things they would do that they never actually did, so who knows whether it will eventually happen.

I think the first thing I should do is summarize everything I've ever said on this page, I just tried re-reading it and there is quite a lot of get through.

452 15:50, April 26, 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply! Yeah, there's a lot of things we've been told that weren't true (such as Quasars spawning in SE - well, they're in the SE group, that group is just not used). There's no way to know for sure without diving into the code.

In playing the other day, though, I definitely noticed a few things. (A Quasar was not one of them!!) I chose to set all my cars to Magma because, A, it's only driven by the same NPC that drives the Quasar in Downtown, and B, during my previous search (during which I devised all my theories posted above), I never once saw a Magma. So with all my gang cars as Magma and while driving a Magma, I saw them everywhere. No joke, I actually saw more civilian Magmas than Saints Magmas. The parking lot across the street from the downtown loft usually had 2 Magmas (if it didn't have 2 Anchors - not sure if it's just a coincidence, but I almost always see Anchors there, regardless of what I've been seeing before). Magmas were everywhere - which supports my 7 slots theory: although the game WILL change them periodically to mix things up, it will do what it can to conserve processing power by applying an already-active vehicle when a new "vehicle template" (for lack of a better word) spawns.

Another theory I have? Some cars are just plain rare. You're going to see Zircon far more than you'll see Attrazione - even if all your gang cars are Attrazione, you'll only see a handful of civilian ones. Mag is rare - even when doing Chop Shop, you'll still have to wait a while and you'll rarely see more than one marker on the mini-map. Magma is a car I used to think was rare, but now I think it's common - it just gets "picked" for one of the 7 slots infrequently. I mentioned a Wakazashi in my previous post; that's one of the vehicles that, in downtown, is every bit as rare as the Quasar. While driving the Wakazashi, I did not see another one. (Should clarify - though by discussing Saints vehicles it's obvious - the Ronin are gone, in fact this is a 100% completed save file.) In two separate instances, separated by a save/reload, I found Socialites; one single Socialite, and even driving it around for multiple minutes (until my reckless driving caused it to blow up), I did not see another one. One would think that, by me driving the vehicle, it would occupy one of the 7 "active vehicle" slots. Perhaps that's not the case, either. Perhaps the vehicle you drive is independent from that. Perhaps I was just unlucky in all three instances. Perhaps the Socialite and Wakazashi are just plain rare and no amount of dissection is going to change that fact.

Without knowing all the details, we can only guess and hope we have different results. We don't really know how the seven active vehicles work. We don't know how NPC spawning is processed. We don't know (I think I may have forgotten this in my original post) if calling a phone number to spawn a vehicle (like a fire truck or Oring) will cause a slot to open and then be re-filled with something new. We don't know if the player-driven vehicle counts toward that pool. We don't know if certain vehicles are programmed to be "rare", or if it's some combination of statistics that causes them to just appear less frequently. There's so many things we don't know. If the code is released, that will help greatly. But - I still think the whole thing boils down to this: no matter what you do to increase the odds, this is just a very rare car, and you're not going to find it without a ton of luck.

I should add I didn't test the theory about using the phone to spawn a vehicle. Whichever phone number spawns the Mongoose (is it Company of Gyros?) would probably be the best way to test this, as that's not a civilian car; once the Mongoose de-spawns, it should - in theory - be replaced by something new. This may not change the odds of finding a Quasar at all, but it might keep the 7 active vehicle slots rotating a little bit faster.

(unsigned: 45.37.139.243 - 2020-04-27 10:49:05)

So you literally saw nothing but Magmas for a little while?

"One would think that, by me driving the vehicle, it would occupy one of the 7 "active vehicle" slots."

Yeah, that's the theory, and it generally seems to hold true. Which does raise an important question: if you're driving a vehicle in an area where it isn't driven by Civilians, will there be only (max - 1) different vehicles around?

Another thing I could test is making a row of 12 parking spaces with 100% spawn chance and see what happens. How many cars would be get, and would only those cars be driving around? And what if you set them to 12 different specific vehicles? And as you mentioned what would happen if I then called an Oring? And then all of my Homies? (If I test this I'll give all of them unique cars which wouldn't normally be around) (Note to self: incrementally increase the number of specific parking spaces to test max random vehicle classes)

"We don't know if certain vehicles are programmed to be "rare", or if it's some combination of statistics that causes them to just appear less frequently."

I'm 100% certain it is the combined statistics. My previous modding tests have proven that. I can fill the road with Quasars by changing the numbers - the reason those vehicles are rare, as mentioned years ago, is simply because Downtown has 28 Civilian groups that can spawn there, and only "City - Civilian - Downtown" can drive those cars, and that 1 group can drive drive 47 vehicles, including many which are not so rare. And I'm 99% sure that because they can also drive non-rare cars, there's a high likelyhood that one of those non-rare cars will already be loaded, so you'll get "normal NPC who drives normal cars" driving a Zircon and then "rare NPC who can drive a Quasar" also driving a Zircon because the Zircon was already loaded.

That is the reason why some cars are "just plain rare". Even without looking it up, I can tell you that more classes of civilians will drive Zircons, while Attrazione only has 1 class of driver.

If you haven't seen it already, that information is in the table here: Forum:SR2 Character List#Group-based (I looked it up, Zircon is in the default group which spawns everywhere, and is indeed also driven by Quasar drivers as well as 2 other Downtown-specific groups.)

In addition, Attraziones (and the 4 other fastest sports cars) will spawn more frequently than a Quasar in Downtown simply because the Civilian group has the same 1-in-28 chance, but they only drive those 5 fast sports cars. Possibly 10 times more common.

But yeah, we don't know the exact process which selects NPCs or vehicles.

One other thing I should specifically test one day is if more cars in general will spawn if the "walking only" characters are removed.

452 01:16, April 28, 2020 (UTC) (expanded 01:23, April 28, 2020 (UTC))

To clarify, no, I did not see ONLY Magmas. I saw tons of them, though. My guess is probably skewed by my theory about the 7 active slots thing, but I probably saw between 2-3 Magmas for every 10 cars. Sometimes there would be more and sometimes there would be less (which gives me pause as to whether or not the 7 slots can contain duplicate vehicles), but they were always around. And out of every 10 Magmas, only 1 or 2 of them would be a Saints Magma.

The comment about some vehicles being just plain rare was a guess more than anything. Since re-reading this page, I see you did a test when the Quasar driver was the only NPC spawning and you saw that the 1/47 odds were about accurate. I found it strange that I did not see any other Socialites or Wakazashis while I was driving one - but that led to the suggestion that perhaps the player's vehicle is not counted in the 7 active vehicles pool. I saw tons of Magmas while I was driving one, but the Saints were driving Magmas as well, so that was definitely in the pool. If I were to drive a Mongoose, would that affect one of the slots?

Also with regards to that comment, it would then seem that the NPC spawning is quite different from vehicle spawning. Is it possible that, while on the road, it will spawn a vehicle first and then an NPC to drive it? If that's the case, in that split-second when a car is generated but a vehicle and driver are not selected, it could be trying to load a Wakazashi or Socialite, but due to a different, independent NPC spawning formula, an NPC that can't drive it is selected, and then from there, it sees if any of that NPC's cars are currently in the pool, and then picks that one. (This one right here is my wildest, most "conspiracy loony" level theory, haha.)

I'm going to do some more searching and testing. Admittedly the testing has nothing to do with the code, so it won't be concrete. I'm just going to see if I get any noticeable results from driving different cars and by calling numbers like Company of Gyros and the fire department (a non-civilian car, and the fire truck I see extremely infrequently - perhaps spawning one via the phone will cause others to spawn as well). As it's a more-or-less random process, any results I get are basically nebulous - but they might point toward some more crackpot theories that will, if nothing else, keep me entertained until the source code is released and the exact spawning formulas come to light!

One other thing which I may not have mentioned - as evidenced by the way I found my first one, a sure-fire way to "reset the pool" is to load a new game. If the cars get stale, save and reload, and then you'll be looking at that initial 1-in-282 odds (or whatever it is for downtown) instead of the roughly-1-in-1000 odds you'll be looking at once the game gets into its rather unorthodox spawning routine. One last thing - thanks again for indulging me in this! This is like a fun DIY science experiment, except with machineguns instead of beakers.

One test that would be interesting would be to set all the gang vehicles to something that doesn't spawn at all in Downtown, and see if that changes the results at all. (I'm not sure offhand if one exists in the vanilla game, though.) I saw no Magmas until I set my gang vehicles to be Magmas, and then they were everywhere. (And that's one of the vehicles that ONLY Quasar drivers can drive in Downtown.) What if it's set to something that doesn't spawn in Downtown? Perhaps, say, a Bag Boy? Would we just be wasting a slot, or would we be shaking up the results of the other slots?

Okay, an update: I've been playing for about an hour. (No Quasars.) I have not yet tested using the phone to call other vehicles and see if that shuffles up the available vehicles. But, I'm now 95% confident that the player's vehicle is NOT counted in the active vehicle pool. I played for about half an hour, just having fun, before I started considering that theory. So I waited until a glut of cars I hadn't seen in a while showed up. That turned out to be the Raycaster. If I had seen one during the first half hour, I didn't remember it. Now there were a few dozen. So I hopped in one and drove around for a while. Pretty quickly, there were no other Raycasters on the road. It stayed this way for about ten minutes. Then, randomly, I saw one - and instantly saw a dozen more. Second test: another car I hadn't seen much of, a Bootlegger, turned up in that little parking lot across from the loft. Hopped in, drove toward the bigger parking lot. I passed another Bootlegger on the way toward the courthouse and main 3-lane street. Then? Nothing. No other Bootleggers.

I say I'm 95% sure because I won't rule out absurdly bad luck. But given my previous experience with the Socialites and the Wakazashi, and compounding it with these two controlled experiments, I feel confident in saying that the game does not count the player's vehicle toward what vehicles spawn. I will say that on previous (now lost) save files when I had a Quasar, driving one around did not cause more to spawn - yet, in the example I posted the other day, I found two at once driven by civilians (one immediately behind the other). Now I'm off to go call some phone numbers and see if that affects the pool at all. I will say this - if I happen across a Quasar, I'm going to set up my phone on a bookshelf to guerrilla-style film the TV, and try to follow it around to see if more spawn before getting into it. I might end up losing the Quasar that way, but that's really not the end of the world. The thrill is in the hunt!

(unsigned: 45.37.139.243 - 2020-04-28 05:46:02)

I found it strange that I did not see any other Socialites or Wakazashis while I was driving one

I doubt that the NPC slots are as limited as the vehicle slots, so I don't think that driving a Quasar will automatically cause more NPCs from the "City - Civilian - Downtown" group to spawn. Just that in the 1-in-28 times they do spawn there is a higher chance of them driving the same vehicle as you. IF your vehicle is counted as in the same pool of "7" available vehicles.

I think the character is selected first, and I will endeavour to test this in future. As I mentioned, the files are character-centric. One spawning file has locations with lists of characters, then a second file has characters with lists of vehicles. It wouldn't make sense for the vehicle to be selected first.

I recommend always writing down what you see in your tests, I narrowed down which spawning group Mount Claflin used by just noting every vehicle I saw: Talk:Mount_Claflin. If I had written down the vehicles I saw in Suburbs Expansion when I was focusing my search there, I probably would have caught on to the spawning group discrepancy a lot sooner.

"City - Civilian - Fire" only spawns 1 at a time, so if you drove one, then saw one randomly, then called for another one, you could get 3 on-screen at once, but there will never be 2 randomly driving around at the same time.

(edit note: All of these vehicles have a "unique" flag set. Testing has shown this flag to limit spawning to 1 at a time.)

• Vehicles which independently spawn one at a time: Ambulance, Meter Maid, Mule, Titan, Blaze, Atlasbreaker, Oring, Shaft, Buffalo, Cheetah
• An Anchor specifically driven by a reporter is also set to spawn one at a time, but it ALSO in the default group of generic civilians and spawns everywhere.
• On highways specifically, you will only see one of these at a time: DonoVan, Cheetah, Longhauler
• Only one of these will spawn at a time: Backhoe, Bulldozer, Longhauler, Septic Avenger
• Only one of these will spawn at a time: Newman, Delivery Truck
• Only one of these will spawn at a time: Attrazione, Zenith, Vortex, Bezier, Superiore
• Only one of these will spawn at a time: Convict, Skipper
• Only one of these will spawn at a time: Miami, Python, Maelstrom, Hurricane
• For the same reason, you will only see one of each of these NPCs walking at a time: Streaker, Old person with Oxygen Tank, Beach Comber with Metal Detector
• Only one of these NPCs will spawn at a time: Hot Dog Mascot, Gyro mascot - but this includes NPCs wearing the Gyro jacket without the mask.
• And if they spawned correctly, you would only see one of these at a time at the Farm: Kent, Mongoose, Toad, Sandstorm

You're 100% correct about reloading being a good way to refresh what is loaded - in theory leaving the area and returning might also be useful, but vehicles would probably still carry over, so reloading is better. (Because the night chances are less, I usually save at 6am and reload when it get dark - I should probably very when "night" starts, as there are several different trigger times: Forum:Time)

Good idea about the gang vehicles: Hammerhead and La Fuerza are the only gang vehicles that don't spawn Downtown - good luck!

(Notes to self: 1: determine pool limit. 2: Force pool-1 with last slot random, test if own car forces final slot, repeat with gang car)

452 16:02, April 28, 2020 (UTC) (expanded 16:08, April 28, 2020 (UTC))

I have expanded the information listed here: Forum:SR2 Character List#Area-based - these are the changes that each civilian class spawns in each area. This information is directly from the spawning categories file, and is not an interpretation of the data, it's basically just the raw data itself. One difference is that the file itself says "chance: 0.50", and I've translated that to "50%".

The next section in the article Forum:SR2 Character List#Group-based|#Group-based hasn't been updated, but is a combination between the spawning groups file, and the area chances. These aren't in percentages, so 0.5 means 50% - I'll update it sometime to match the other section.

The common vehicles are in many different sections, the next step is to amalgamate the data per vehicle - but that's where "interpretation" comes into it, and why the "1 in 282/940/987/1316" chances are so wildly different.

I'll need to do some more experimentation before deciding how to combine the data in a way that accurately reflects what the information means for the actual spawning in the game.

452 22:42, April 29, 2020 (UTC)

I took your advice and set all my cars to Hammerhead. Theory being, if the game is only loading Hammerheads when Saints spawn, there will be more time for 7 slots to be occupied by different vehicles (the trade-off being that the seventh one will only appear briefly before being replaced by the Hammerhead). I made a strange discovery. As you said, nobody in Downtown drives a Hammerhead, and the only ones I'm seeing on the road are being driven by Saints. But my parking lots are full of Hammerheads. The small lot across from the crib usually has 2 or 3; the large one next to it usually has 4. The multi-level parking garage in Filmore didn't, but I only checked that once; it's possible a Saints driver wasn't loaded at that point. So there is definitely a different formula for spawning parked vehicles versus spawning driven vehicles - even though both are definitely still pulled from the same pool. (Evidence: I saw no Magmas until Saints car was Magma, then they were all over the road, ditto Baron; with Saints cars as Hammerhead, they are rampant in parking lots, but not on the road.)

I haven't done much testing with using the phone to call Company of Gyros. I only tried it a few times. If the vehicle pool was changed by it, I didn't notice, because it basically took as long to do that as it did for the game to just randomly shuffle the vehicles up. And frequently, the Mongoose would spawn going the wrong way and never despawn, so I'd check my map a few minutes later and find out is was driving around the Parthenon up in the Museum district. I found the process of testing that to just be a hassle and gave up on it.

I have seen multiple civilian Attraziones and Beziers spawn at once, even when my gang cars are set to something different. And while I don't think I've ever seen two Delivery Trucks on screen at the same time, I will often pass one, turn onto another block, and see another one drive past. The first one probably de-spawned by then, but it seems to conflict with your analysis. Not that I'm doubting your research - but perhaps it's another case of the game files not being clear, such as "0.0" spawn rate not actually meaning zero.

(unsigned: 45.37.139.243 - 2020-04-30 00:24:43)

Oh right, I think I remember previously noticing that about parked cars - so that tells us that parked cars are drawn from the available pool, and that the gang vehicles are definitely using a slot in the available pool. Which probably means that you'll see max-1 different civilian cars around, so that would theoretically make it harder to find a Quasar - it would be best to use a common vehicle that would probably be in the pool anyway.

Yeah, the phone vehicles are pretty buggy sometimes - the worst time it happens is with taxis and calling Ship It to have a boat delivered. I can't recall if your vehicle homie can also drive your boat off into the sunset, but that probably happens as well.

That's interesting about the 2 Attraziones and Beziers, I may be misinterpreting the "unique" flag. Oh, the "Civilian - Sportscars" group has a day cap of 2 in Hotel and Marina, High End Retail, Downtown, and Saints Row, and Hotel and Marina has a night cap of 2 as well. So apparently the "cap" value is what is important and the "unique" flag is... redundant and unused perhaps? I will definitely do some tests with the "unique" flag, and I'll set the Attrazione-driver cap at 20 to see what happens.

"Civilian - Mail" on the other hand, is always capped at 1... oh, but the Delivery Truck is in the damn "default group", so there are some Delivery Trucks driven by Newman drivers, and other driven by generic civilians, hahaha.

Let's see what else might be wrong: 2 Ambulances Barrio Night, 2 Quotas Arena Day, 2 Mules Factory Day, 2 Shaft Projects Day, 2 Buffalo Hotels/Museum/Trailer Day

And the most unsurprising one of all: 4 Cheetahs Freeway Day and Night. When I put Cheetah on the list, I thought to myself "no, that can't be right" and even double checked that it had a unique flag, and figured I must just have been wrong to remember the freeway having multiple Cheetahs. Oops.

I'm going to stop there and just strike out that the whole section for now. There are a few that are right, like the Newman and Blaze - that's because they are specifically capped at 1.

So please feel free to doubt my research, and also feel free to double-check the info on Forum:SR2 Character List yourself if something doesn't add up. Thanks to you, now we know the unique flag probably does nothing!

452 01:53, April 30, 2020 (UTC)

Newman is a vehicle I definitely don't see more than one of at a time, and the Blaze is something I've only seen maybe ten times in the wild. For a long time, I thought the only way to get one was by calling the fire department or occasionally finding one while Shivington is burning - but I have seen them around. They're just very rare. But the sports cars, which are definitely rare, are not limited to one at a time. I have seen two Attraziones at once while my gang cars were something else; can't make a statement on whether I ever saw more than two. If my gang cars are Attrazione, though, that cap goes out the window, and I do indeed see more civilian ones then. So perhaps that cap is irrelevant when the car is guaranteed to spawn.

As for using gang vehicles that don't spawn in the area: I don't know if the game will ALWAYS keep gang vehicles in memory, ready to be loaded, or if they'll only add it to the pool when a driving Saint spawns. If the latter is the case, it would actually be good to set all the vehicles to Hammerhead or La Fuerza, because then, as long as you avoid places where parked cars are, you'll have an extra slot. If the game constantly keeps gang vehicles in memory, though, it doesn't matter, and then you'd be best to use something like a Magma (if it doesn't duplicate vehicles across slots, that is.)

Anyway, I finally found a Quasar. (You'd think that would be the first thing in the post!) It probably took around five or six hours total of actively searching (I did take regular breaks and also had to go to work and all that. But I did find one. I had all my gang cars as Hammerhead, but I can't even comment if that made a difference because I'm fairly certain there were Hammerheads in the little parking lot when the Quasar spawned (I found it right at that little ramp that goes over the underpass, where you can get a stunt jump). I set up my camera and took a video where I followed it until it got in an accident (at which point I just grabbed it for fear that the driver might panic and speed away). I'll get that uploaded and send it to you if you're interested.

I can't help but laugh at the fact that we've devoted this much time and energy into searching for a car which handles horribly and is a complete chore to drive!!

(unsigned: 45.37.139.243 - 2020-04-30 06:43:21)

The first thing you said was that you found 3. I don't need a video. Congratulations! 452 13:56, April 30, 2020 (UTC)

I have begun testing, and it appears that the "unique" flag DOES work.

In my first test, I wiped the vehicles for the default spawn group, and set their only vehicle to bulldozer.

I also removed almost all of the groups from the downtown spawn area, so that only vehicles which should be 1 at a time should spawn. Newman/Ambulance/Shaft/etc.

I then set the caps on each of those vehicles to be 20, day and night. And set the night chances to be equal to the day chances.

I started the game, and only saw 1 of each, despite the cap being 20.

I then removed the "unique" flag from the ambulance group.

I started the game, and downtown was full of Ambulances.

I also did a quick stakeout on a highway, and never saw more than 1 Cheetah at a time, so when I was remembering seeing multiple, I must have been thinking of Saints Row 1.

I do not believe it is possible for there to be 2 random Ambulances at once. However, maybe it's possible for there to be 2 special spawns when you kill someone.

Also, if you see an Ambulance and kill the driver, that probably allows another to spawn.

I have now removed the strikeouts I added above, since the unique flag does work.

Next test:

With all gang vehicles set the Betsys, I went back and forth between all of the parking spaces: Only Betsys.

Then I went into the Museum district to turn around, and when I came back to Downtown, parked Mags spawned.

Mags do spawn in Museum, and I've previously noted that you sometimes get other areas vehicles when you cross over.

Next test:

I then set only 3 vehicles to spawn, and played around with the chance values, which had absolutely no effect.

And then I realised that the chance values aren't the change it will spawn the vehicle, it is the chance that that vehicle will be selected into the spawning pool. Once in the spawning pool, all vehicles are equally likely.

So with 3 vehicles with the chances: 100%, 50%, 1%, they're all going to be in the pool, and then all spawn equally.

That's enough tests for now, more to follow.

452 21:05, May 7, 2020 (UTC)

Oh right, I completely forgot to mention: no Bulldozers in Downtown - only on bridges (and previously found to be on Mount Claflin)

The default group only spawns when a group is not defined, and is not a "spawns everywhere" group. EXCEPT that just about every spawn area also specifically includes the default group. But the purpose of the test was to prove that it wasn't a special case.

Next to test: the anomaly with 2 sports cars at once, and adding 1 vehicle at a time to the downtown spawn group until I find the pool limit.

452 21:14, May 7, 2020 (UTC)

The non-gang vehicle pool appears to be 6.

Method: Removed all pedestrians so they wouldn't effect the results

• Added 6 "unique" vehicles set at 100%, and an non-unique Ambulance at 1%: Never saw an Ambulance. EXCEPT for when I called 911, then they immediately started spawning. So, that tells us that forcing a vehicle to spawn definitely adds it to the pool.
• Removed 1 of the 100% vehicles: Saw an Ambulance almost immediately, with the same frequency as the rest.
• With 6 vehicles again, I removed all Ronin vehicles and loaded an early save: Saw an Ambulance almost immediately, with the same frequency as the rest.
• 6 Vehicles with just 3 Wakasashis: No Ambulances
• 6 Vehicles with just 2 Wakasashis: Ambulances.

Based on this, you will never see more than 6 different random vehicles on screen at once. And gang vehicles do take up slots, up to 9. But 3 Betsys doesn't help, they apparently take up individual slots.

I double checked a few times, just in case I was getting 1/100 lucky during the tests, but it was pretty consistent. I never saw an Ambulance randomly with 6 vehicles + 3 gang vehicles enabled.

I had also left the sportscars group intact, and after stealing a Vortex, I mostly saw other Vortexes but did see other cars also. So it does seem to weigh it towards the car you are driving, but it doesn't necessarily force the car you are driving. Reducing the sportscar group to just Attrazione did not make Ambulances spawn - the entire sportscar group takes up 1 slot, with an equal chance of which sports car is loaded.

One other interesting thing is that even with all pedestrians disabled, I don't think I ever saw more than 3 different cars at once, and never more than 4-5 cars on screen at once with duplicates. I would see all 6 within a minute, but never all on the same screen. I need to remove the "unique" flag from all groups and caps and re-run all the same tests again just to check.

This does not answer all of the questions yet, but it's a start. 452 17:53, May 8, 2020 (UTC)

Read over this thread in my free time, and from what I can remember, the Quasar spawned when I drove Julius' Eiswolf around the Downtown district for a few minutes. I'm unsure if the Eiswolf actually spawns around Downtown, but if anyone wants to try that, go ahead. Also, the Quasar doesn't "handle horribly" and isn't "a complete chore to drive"? It handles better than most of the cars in its class. In my opinion the only flaw it has is that its not very bulky. Spiky Eared Pichu (talk) 00:47, May 10, 2020 (UTC)