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Police Evasion Tactics Guide

by PE2 Master

====================================
|NEED FOR SPEED: MOST WANTED       |
|POLICE EVASION AND TACTICS FAQ    |
|By DD2004                         |
|v1.0                              |
|Created in 2006                   |
|To be used only on gamefaqs.com   | 
====================================

-=CONTENTS=-
1:Intro
2:Heat Levels
3:Evasion Tactics
4:Sergeant Cross
5:After the Pursuit
6:Contact Details
7:Version History

-=Section 1: Introduction=-
This is not a guide for careeer mode, quick races, car selection or anything like that, this guide focuses excluesively on the Police (cops) in Need for Speed Most Wanted, including what they do, how to evade them, how not to get busted, and every trick in the book to trick the cops, and probably to have fun while doing it. I have done my apsolute best to make this a spoiler free guide, because you probably need to evade the police to get upto the 10 million bounty that you need to face Razor. So, let's get to it, and thanks to you, the reader for choosing to read my guide. 

-=Section 2: Heat Levels=-
This section covers all the basic heat levels from 1-5, covering what the police will use and how they will try to stop you. Note that is no mention of the same tactics twice, because they will obviously use the same tactics throughout the pursuit, the lower level cars will leave the puruit when heat levels escalate.

--Heat Level 1: Easy Chase--
Vehicles: Civic Cruiser
Someone's been naughty, this is a kind of warning offense that you can usually get away with a bit of speeding and you probably won't need Pursuit Breakers or even hiding spots, the police are stupid and you can usually lose them easily. Nothing to worry about in this level.

--Heat Level 2: Men in Black--
Vehicles: Undercover Cruiser
Tactics: Roadblocks
This still doesn't prove to be much of a challenge, but be careful if you're somewhere around the region f blacklist 15-13, or driving a slow car, because the undercover cruisers are harder, they like to make life hard, so the undercover units are painted black (Wow, really clever...not)They do have an annoying tactic though, until they're actively chasing you at close range, and you've seen them, they're not on your radar, so you'll have to look out for them. The other new problem is roadblocks, 
they're pretty weak at this level, but they can still stop you if you don't be careful, the thing to know is to look out on your radar for sidewards cars, and there are two ways they can use roadblocks, surprise or straight-on, if they're surprise, they're around a corner and you'll have to think quicker, otherwise, you have enough time to take a good look at it. Either way, you should be aiming for the boot/trunk of the cars, because it's weaker there, if there is a gap at a Stop Sign sawhorse, use that, you can knock out a sawhorse a lot quicker than you can take out a car.

--Heat Level 3: So Undemanding and Various(SUV, get it?)--
Vehicles: State Cruiser, Light SUV
Tactics: Roadblocks, Rolling Blocks, SUV Rams, PIT manuvere
There's a lot more to contend with at this level, especially because of all the new tactics. First and foremost, state pursuit vehicles are a lot heavier than civic cars, so be careful of that. Now let's see about the new tactics, a rolling block is when the police try to surrond you and slow you down, just boost out of this. SUV rams are powerful, light SUV's will ram head on into you and if they hit, it's quite likely to stop you for a few seconds, or at least knock you back, these are very hard to evade, just be aware and you might be able to dodge them. PIT manueveres are easy to evade, they just punch your quarter panel and try to spin you out, just don't let them get to close to you to do this, also note that the sawhorses won't be such a good way through roadblocks, because the police will reinforce them by putting th engine end of their cars behind them, and the engine is usually too heavy to ram out of the way, so once again focus on the back of the cars, but they may also use reinforced roadblocks, which involves using other cars behind the first row, if this happens, reverse away from the roadblock if you can, otherwise, try to find a way through quickly.

--Heat Level 4: Send in the Copter--
Vehicles: State Undercover Cruiser, Heavy SUV, Police Helicopter
Tactics: Spike Strips, SUV blocks, Helicopter Tactics, SUV Roadblocks
You've got a lot on your hands now and the police are getting really serious now, they still use all the tricks they use from the lower heat levels, but now they're getting out some heavier means of stopping you. The heavier SUV's will damage and annoy you even more than ever because they are now extremely fast and powerful, and they will join the pursuit if they miss ramming you head on, the police will also make use of the new SUV's in their roadblocks, and a full SUV roadblock is a lot harder to get through than a police car roadblock, they have also advanced their roadblocks with one of the most dangerous weapons they can use, spike strips, if you go over these, your car is going to stop dead and you're instantly Busted, so watch out for this, listening to police transmissions over the radar is going to help you severely because you'll usually be able to hear what side of the road the spikes are on, always go for the cars in the block, never go for the open spaces, they will mostly have spike strips ready. The other big problem is the helicopter, this will follow you and assist the other units in the pursuit greatly, and you can't escape the pursuit with it following you, also, it tells the other cars where you are, so they always know where you are, it does have limited fuel though, so if you keep driving, it will stop and leave after a while, but be careful of it nonetheless, there is of course the added threat of the undercover state police vehicles but these mean nothing, they're pretty much the same as the state pursuit squad cars, they're just a bit faster, you should know how to avoid them by now.

--Heat Level 5: Sergeant Cross is Getting Angry--
Vehicles: Corvette C6 Police, Vicious Helicopter (helicopter attacks you), Sgt Cross' Corvette
Tactics: Everything they've used before and more
Ok, ok, take a breath, this is insane and I congratulate you on making it to this pursuit level, the state police now don't care about you because instead, you have Sergeant Cross' personal police service of Corvettes, these are as fast as your car, probably even faster, because they are exactly what they seem, fully tuned up Corvettes, and they even have Nitrous, so they are definately as fast as, if not faster than you, even if they are worth 20,000 bounty each. They also use plenty of their own tactics to get you stopped, so you're really going to need speed breaker, pursuit breaker, and everything else in the book, to escape these guys. The helicopter also gets more aggresive here, because it will attempt to attack you, and it is heavy, so be careful of it. But they're just the basics, Sergeant Cross will join the pursuit too, and he is very skilled, his car is extremely fast and it also weighs a lot, you can also tell it apart from the others because of it's zebra-like paint job, be careful of this guy more than anything, he won't quit until you take him down. You also have all the lower level tactics to deal with, good luck, you'll need it.

-=Section 3: Evasion Tactics=-
This is the point where rather than just explaining the Police Tactics, I'll explain how to evade the tactics and trick the cops.

-KEY FOR SECTIONS-
Tactic
Danger Level (1-5)
Heat Level Used (1-5)
Strategy
-END OF KEY-


1.Roadblocks
Danger Level: 1-5
Heat Level: 2-5
The strategy here will be different depending on the level of the roadblock:

=HEAT LEVEL 2 ROADBLOCK=
These blocks have no cover and are very basic, trash the boot/trunk of the cop cars to bust through, usually no need for nitrous or speedbreaker

=REINFORCED ROADBLOCK=
These blocks have cars behind each other and behind the sawhorses, you'll need to pick a point carefully to get through here, use N2O if you can get to about 140mph, otherwise, speedbreaker will help you through

=SUV ROADBLOCK=
These are the same as the roadblocks you get with the undercover cruisers at heat level 2, but these are made up of SUV's, rather than picking a point to attack, your best chance here is to try and slip through with speedbreaker

=SUPER ROADBLOCK=
In these roadblocks, they use a similar style to the reinforced roadblock, but they use cars facing head on to you behind the first line to make sure that you stop, be very careful evading these

=SPIKE STRIP=
The spike strip will either be on the left or right, listen to the police radio to find out which, and use this to your advantage, then make sure you aim for a car or one of the cars far from the spikes. Hit the spikes and you're busted.

=REINFORCED SPIKE STRIP=
Normally, you'd just attack where the cop cars are, but it won't work this time, because the cops have cleverly placed a car behind the spikes, I advise using speedbreaker to see where the spikes are

That's pretty much all the types of roadblock, anything else falls very close to one of those categories.

2. SUVs
Danger Level: 3-4
Heat Level: 3-4
Two types of SUVs that the cops will use against you, both types go for a head on attack, and will sometimes chase you after they have missed or hit you. Unfortunately, you won't know what type of SUV they are when they're attacking you head on.

=LIGHT SUVS=
These don't do as much damage and will simply knock you back a bit, use nitro or speedbreaker as soon as you see them if you want to evade them, or you can let them hit you, and use it as an advantage to reverse after the cops go past.

=HEAVY SUVS=
These guys are nuts, they come straight at you and rather than just keeping going, they will turn to try and hit you, and often hold together to try and causemore damage, they will knock you back more than the light SUvs, these sometimes only appear on level 4, but I have had some on level 3 before.

3.Rolling Block
Danger Level: 1-3
Heat Level: 3-5
This is quite a simple tactic, they just try to box around you and then force you onto a wall and slow you down or start to slow you down by slowing themselves down and then hoping you will, it's easy to just wait for them to slow down and then boost off. The only reason this is danger level 3 maximum is because if they use heavy suv's, it's harder to get out, you can wait for them to slow or nitrous off as soon as they call for a rolling block.

4.PIT Manuvere
Danger Level: 2-3
Heat Level: All
They use this all the time, just rarely at lower heat levels (1 and 2).
Here we go, all they do is drive close next to you and punch your quarter panel, attempting to spin you out, boost away from them and try to escape as soon as you can, because them turning you into a bunch of pursuing cop cars is the last thing you want. 

5.Helicopter
Danger Level: Unknown
Heat Level: 4-5
Danger level is unknown because it's mixed, it could be low because the helicopter does nothing to harm you, or high because it means you can't evade the police, however, once the helicopter is on the pursuit, it's unique because it's the only vehicle on a police pursuit that can't be destroyed, the only way to escape a helicopter is to keep driving and wait for it to run out of fuel, at which point you can evade it. However, the level 5 helicopter will try to attack you, in these cases, use speedbreaker or nitrous to get away, it's a helicopter, it weighs a lot more than your 'ride.'

6.Corvette Police
Danger Level:5
Heat Level:5
One word: Nasty. Don't even try and take these guys on if you can't get to 200mph (Imperial units). They are mentally fast and you are going to NEED pursuit breakers to get away from them, a good place to hide is the stadium, it's easily recognisable in Rosewood on the map, it is two very close pursuit breakers and it's on rhe west side of rosewood, trash the cops in one, then stay in the stadium until you end the pursuit, you DO NOT want to mess with these guys, they're completely insane, get away from them as soon as you can.

-=Section 4: Sergeant Cross=-
As you saw at the start of the game, he's out to finish street racing for good and that also means he wants you taken down, he is the most skilled driver in the rockport police department and he also has the fastest car in the police, it's quite easy to spot because it's a corvette with a black and white paint job, and whenever it is in the pursuit (Heat Level 5 only), it directs the strategies used against you and will be involved in most of them too, he is extremely dangerous and you should watch out for him if you get to heat level 5, unfortunately, even if Cross does get you busted on his own, you will still see a normal cop arresting you in the cut-scene that follows, so there's no way to get him arresting you.
His car is, as I mentioned, a Chevrolet Corvette and he has mastered driving it because he handles it perfectly, even a fully tuned car will not outrun it, your fully tuned car can only hit 240mph, Sgt. Cross seems to be able to get to about 250mph, pursuit breakers are probably your only way to avoid this guy.

-=Section 5: After the Pursuit=-
==5a: If you Evade==
If you evade the pursuit, you'll have won the pursuit and the cops will be told to go mobile, you'll gain all the bounty that you earned, all the infractions and all the cost to state, the disadvantage to this however, is that you have more infractions on you, so there are more fines due on that car, but if you win the pursuit, the biggest advantage is obviously that you get the bounty from it. If you evade the police, you'll return to free roam mode if you went to a hiding spot or if you stayed out of sight during cooldown mode, but if you went into a safe house to evade them, after the bounty totalling, you'll return inside the safe house, and it's then your choice what to do from there. You evaded the pursuit, so you keep everything you earned in the pursuit and you don't lose anything or gain anything that you don't want, however...

==5b: If you get Busted==
If the red meter goes all the way left and you get busted, the first thing that will happen is that your car will stop and that's it, the lights will flash rad and you can't keep going. The next thing that will happen is that you'll see a short cut scene of you getting arrested by the cops, with all the pursuit information displayed along the bottom of the screen. Secondly, because you were caught, there are a few more things you have to do, firstly, you're at the station and you have to pay up for any infractions you owe for. If you pay with a "Get Out of Jail Free" marker, you'll keep the heat level you were busted at and you'll lost no cash and you will also keep all the infraction fines, but you do not keep the bounty you earned, however, on the other hand, if you decide to pay with cash, you'll lose the cash you payed with, and you will get one impound strike marker on the car you were driving, you can increase the amount of impound markers you can take by 1 by using an impound strike makrer that you gained from one of the Blacklist. If you reach the max impound strikes you can take on that car (3,4 or 5), the word "Impounded" will be stamped on the car and you can't drive it, if you have another car (which you definately should) you'll be able to drive that car around for a while, otherwise you'll have to reload a saved game, so it's a good idea to have auto-save on, if you do decide to drive another car for a while, just do a few races, even if they are from earlier blacklist racers, after a few races you'll get a message from the police telling you that you can release your car now that they have decided the cost of it, the next time you go to your safe house and look at the car select screen, you'll see the release cost has been changed from "Pending" to a number, this number is th amount you must pay if you want to get that car back, note that you cannot drive or sell and impounded car. As soon as you pay the fine, you are back to heat level 1 and it loses all bounty on it, you will also get "Confirmed to Drive" written on the Rap Sheet next to that car rather than "Suspected to Drive". Finally, if you don't have enough cash or a marker to pay the fine, your car is automatically impounded and the cops take the rest of your cash.

-=Section 6: Contact Details=-
If you want to contac me to comment on this guide or to suggest something to add into it, please email me at [email protected], and I will try to respond to your email as soon as I can. I'll probably add something if you have something to suggest, but please remember this guide is only for police evasion tactics, and not for anything else.

-=Section 7: Version History=-

v1.0 First orignal finish of the guide, completed all planned sections. Planning on extending the guide for v1.1.