CRAZY TAXI TECHNIQUES

Fire Station Slopes — map and notes about customer selection

ASCII Map

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|      .-------.      .-------.      |
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|    8 |       |   10 |       |   12 |
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| 7    |       | 9    |       | 11   |
|      |       |      |       |      |
|      '-------'      '-------'      |
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|      .-------.      .-------.      |
|      |       |      |       |      |
| 2    |       | 4    |       | 6    |
|      |       |      |       |      |
|      |       |      |       |      |
|      |       |      |       |      |
|      |       |      |       |      |
|      |       |      |       |      |
|    1 |       |    3 |       |    5 |
|      |       |      |       |      |
|      '-------'      '-------'      |
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'--------------.      .--------------'
               |      |

Customer Notes

Dark-green customers in this area may send you either forward or backwards. It's possible (though highly unlikely) that every customer here could send you backwards.

  • The customers on the left and right sloped streets (1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, and 12) come in two colors, dark-green or light green. When one of these customers is light-green, it will always send you forward (to the Cable Car Top, Freshtree Street, or Sail Street). Picking up these customers when they're dark-green may result in a trip forward (same locations) or backwards.
  • The customers on the middle sloped street follow slightly different rules. You want to take the ones on the lower slope (3 and 4) when they're light-green for possible trips to the University. On the upper slope, take Customers 9 and 10 when yellow for possible University trips.

Here's my recommended strategy for emptying out this area...

  • STAGE 1 – Lower Left and Right Slopes
    • The first two times you make a drop-off at the Fire Station, drive to the lower end of the left slope and take Customers 1 and 2. Unless you see that farther Customer 2 is light-green (assuring you of a forward trip), take them in numerical order. (It helps to have a system so you know exactly where you're going.)
    • Repeat this process for Customers 5 and 6 of the lower right slope after making your third and fourth Fire Station drop-offs.
  • STAGE 2 – Upper Middle Slope
    • Now concentrate on Customers 9 and 10 of the upper middle slope after Fire Station drop-offs. Customer 9 will almost always take you to the University when yellow. However, I've found that it's best to take yellow Customer 10 when Customer 9 is either orange or absent.
    • As you travel up the middle slope, you'll be able to see the color (or absence) of Customer 9 as you approach the cross street. If it's orange or missing, continue up the slope in the hopes that yellow 10 will appear. When this is the case, pick up 10 as there's a good chance it'll take you forward. If 10 is absent, keep traveling up the slope and look for a "forward" customer at the Tennis Court.
    • The other possibility is that you'll see that 9 is yellow as you drive up the middle slope (meaning you won't want to pick up 10). When this happens, take the cross street to the left and go up the slope there to choose from 7 or 8 (following the same rules for 1 and 2 above). Should you pick both of them up, start turning right at the cross street for 11 and 12.
    • Once 10 has been taken, pick up 9 any time you see it's yellow. Continue using 7, 8, 11, and 12 as backups when 9 is orange or absent. (BTW, unless you're having really bad luck, you shouldn't have trouble emptying the upper middle slope before your left and right upper-slope backups are gone.)
  • STAGE 3 – Lower Middle Slope
    • When 3 is light-green and 4 is anything except light-green, choose 3 for the best chances forward to the University. After 3 has been taken, take 4 whenever it's light-green for a University trip.
    • Continue using 7, 8, 11, and 12 as backups if they're still available when 3 and/or 4 aren't the colors you need. When they are gone, drive forward to the Tennis Court area instead.
  • backwards customers
    If sent backwards by the dark-green customers on the outer slopes you'll go to either Sky Bank or C.T. Hospital. Light-green 4 may send you backwards to Crown Arena. Dark-green 3 will send you back to the Clock Towers Theater. When red, both 3 and 4 will send you backwards to Lookout Tower. You'll go to the Bus Terminal when sent backwards by yellow 5 or 6. When either of these are orange, you'll go backwards to Lookout Tower.

Additional Notes...

  • One purpose of the above strategy is to prevent you from driving aimlessly around the slopes when the customer you were hoping to pick up either would have sent you backwards or doesn't appear. This way you'll have a game plan and know exactly where you're going next when fortune doesn't smile on you. Another purpose is to maximize the number of times you concentrate on the customers on the middle slope. If you choose to simply empty out the left and right slopes first, you'll miss out on many chances to remove "correctly colored" middle slope customers; the game may not give you those opportunities again before it's all over.
  • Regarding lower middle slope customers, they are chosen last so that if you should drive passengerless from Lookout Tower and not find a forward customer at the Fire Station, you'll (hopefully) be able to drive up the slope and take 3 or 4 forward. (I like to think that when the game forces you to drive passengerless from an area with no forward customers, the next area will have a forward customer in rotation if it hasn't been emptied out already; often, it does work out that way...)
  • Constant Limiter Cutting up the middle slopes turns them into ramps leading enormous jumps! If your destination is beyond the Tennis Court, you can actually jump from the top of the middle slope and land past the furthest customer there on one of the wavy one-way roads! On the other hand, when you are going to the Tennis Court, either Limiter Cut less often or tap the Brake and/or switch gears to Reverse before reaching the top of the upper slope so you don't overshoot your destination.
  • When you pick up a dark-green customer from the left or right slope, hedge your bets by Crazy Drifting and/or Crazy Tailspinning your cab so it's perpendicular to the street. This way you'll be able to speed off towards their destination whether they want to go forward or backwards rather than guessing and running the risk of wasting seconds turning your cab around if you're wrong.
  • It's possible to force customers to shift colors on these slopes. For instance, let's say you really wanted to ensure you'd go forward after your first Fire Station drop-off. However, when you went to pick up 1 and 2 they were both dark-green, so you continued up the slope only to see that 7 and 8 were also dark-green. What you could do is, making sure that you drive up the slope past Customer 7, perform a Crazy Drift u-turn with your cab and head back down the slope again. When you see Customers 1 and 2 this time, they won't be in the same "color rotation phase" they were in before. It's highly likely that one will be light-green now. This works exactly the same on the middle and right slopes. Just make sure that you go past the "inner" customers (either 2, 4, 6 for lower or 7, 9, 11 for upper) before heading back to the slope you came from to make them "rotate." Before you start doing this all the time, please read on.
  • (for advanced and expert players)
    When you move well beyond the $20K milestone and are shooting for the best final score possible (possibly the $100K milestone), you actually need to be sent backwards by some of the Fire Station Slopes customers if you're playing the sit-down cabinet arcade version with default settings. I had one weird game when nearly everyone I picked up here wanted to go forward. I thought it was going to open the door to a great final score. Instead, on the 1st Half of the course I ran out of customers that would take me across the highway! This resulted in an excessive number of passengerless trips to the Downtown area and a premature end to my game. Customerwise, the game can support extra trips from the Downtown area to locations containing customers that can get you back to the 1st Half of the course (as long as you're choosing customers wisely). However, on the 1st Half of the course, you almost never want to be sent backwards. The moral of the story is that getting sent backwards here, while frustrating at times, isn't such a bad thing after all.