KESTREL: Automated Vehicle Recognition Network

KESTREL puts automated license plate reader (ALPR) poles on your map. Each pole reads the plates of passing traffic and logs the make, model, color, type, speed and direction of travel. On-duty units search those reads from a tablet and put plates on a shared hotlist. The moment a hotlisted plate passes any camera, every authorized unit gets an alert with a map blip.

Criminals can fight back. Ram a pole or torch-cut it down to blind the network, until a repair crew welds it back into service.

Preview: Watch the video

Who it's for

• Night ERS roleplay servers with police departments that want investigative tools beyond the traffic stop.
• Servers that want crime to have counterplay. Taking out cameras is a real, risky action that police get alerted to.
• Servers with a city works or council department that wants a job to do.

Plate-reading cameras

• Each pole reads plates inside a directional cone (default 30 m, 110°), aimed when the pole is placed.
• Every read logs plate, make, model, vehicle type, color, speed and compass direction, with the time and camera location (street and postal).
• Reads player-driven and NPC traffic (NPC reads can be turned off). Parked cars, aircraft, boats, bicycles, trains and emergency vehicles are skipped.
• Duplicate reads are collapsed (one read per plate per camera per minute by default), and reads are purged after 14 days. Both are configurable.

The KESTREL tablet

• Opens with /kestrel or a rebindable key, with a tablet prop and animation.
• Vehicle search by partial plate, * and ? wildcards, make or model, color, vehicle type, a single camera, and a time window of up to 14 days.
• One-tap plate history, waypoint to the camera and flag to hotlist from every result.
• Hotlist: add a plate with a reason (Stolen, Wanted, BOLO, Amber Alert, Missing Person, Other), notes and an expiry. Hotlisted plates are highlighted in search results.
• Hotlist alerts: an on-screen alert (even with the tablet closed), a sound, and a flashing map blip at the camera, sent to every authorized unit on duty. Each officer can dismiss or clear their own alerts.
• Camera network view with every pole's status (online, damaged, cut down), who changed it and when, and live coverage numbers.

Damage and tampering

• Vehicle impacts: hitting a pole at 25 mph or more (configurable) knocks it out. The pole tears off at the base and the top falls over.
• Cut it down: players use ox_target and a welding torch animation to cut a pole down. The top crashes to the ground, leaving a cut stub. On-duty units can't cut poles (configurable).
• A downed camera stops reading plates immediately.
• KESTREL units are alerted when a camera goes offline, and the script can raise a tamper call in the Night ERS MDT for police to respond to.

Repair job

• Choose which departments can repair poles, such as a city or council department.
• Repair crews get a Maintenance queue of downed poles, oldest first, with waypoints. An MDT work order call can be raised automatically.
• Repairs are done on site with ox_target and the welding animation.

Built for admins

• In-game admin panel, locked by an ACE permission.
• Department access toggles for each Night ERS MDT department: who can use KESTREL and who can repair poles. Saved instantly, no restarts.
• In-game camera placer: a ghost pole follows your aim and shows the read cone, so you can point each camera at the lane it should cover. Rename, move, teleport to, change the status of, or delete any camera.
• Discord notifications set up in game for hotlist hits, cameras going offline or coming back, and hotlist changes, each toggleable. The webhook URL stays on the server and is never sent to players.
• Server-side checks on every action. Duty, department, distance and timing are all verified by the server.

Technical details

What's included

• The resource, ready to drop into resources/ and ensure.
• The streamed KESTREL camera pole models.
• An SQL file, if you prefer to create the tables by hand.
• Full documentation, with a README in the download and the guide online.

Easy setup

1. Drop cfx-swr-KESTREL into resources and ensure it after ox_lib, ox_target, oxmysql and night_shifts_mdt.
2. Give your admins kestrel.admin in server.cfg.
3. In game, open /kestrel, go to Admin, tick your departments and place your cameras.

Docs: swrentertainment.com/docs
Support: Join our Discord