Make locations work for your account without confusing map labels, mission eligibility and travel time.
A map label is not a MissionChief POI
A Point of Interest is a game marker used by missions that need a particular location type. The real map may visibly contain a hospital, factory or school without the necessary game POI being available to your account. The official POI article explicitly distinguishes player-created POIs from the underlying map.
You can use community POIs or choose only your own in the mission settings. If you switch to your own POIs, audit coverage first: a familiar mission may disappear simply because the marker it previously used belonged to the community. Keep a short list of the mission families you want and the POI types each requires.
Match the POI to the generating service
The marker must be within the permitted generation range of a suitable generating station. Placing a factory near a police station does not by itself make a fire-only factory incident eligible there. Check the mission type and station prerequisites on the UK mission page before adding markers.
A useful POI layout serves actual gameplay areas. Start with the required types for your current fleet, inspect each location on the map and remove accidental duplicates or wrong categories. Realism players can follow actual premises; fictional accounts can still use consistent, sensible placement. A crowded pile of labels is not a substitute for understanding which calls the area can support.
The 2026 range controls
The official July 2026 update introduced generation ranges for individual mission types. Players can select two types for individual ranges without Premium; Premium permits individual ranges for as many types as desired. The control lives in the Missions settings. This is a meaningful change from older advice that describes only one global radius.
Increasing a range can bring more relevant POIs into reach, but it can also create longer journeys. A larger radius is an eligibility tool, not a free income multiplier. Use it selectively: keep frequent short urban work compact while giving a geographically sparse specialist category an appropriate reach, if that suits your fleet.
Separate three distances
Generation range controls where a call can appear relative to its generating station. The dispatch-screen maximum-distance filter controls which vehicles you can see for selection. Actual journey time controls how long the chosen unit takes to arrive. Changing one does not necessarily fix a problem in another.
If a vehicle seems to be missing, widen or inspect the dispatch filter before buying a duplicate. If a mission never appears, inspect POIs and generation settings. If calls complete slowly despite correct dispatch, inspect actual travel routes and the location of the slowest required unit. These three diagnoses prevent expensive changes aimed at the wrong problem.
Place a network, not isolated icons
For a new region, choose several candidate sites and consider recurring call locations, support overlap and destinations. A hospital or custody destination can pull vehicles away from their home area; a station that looks central on a flat map may be badly placed for the journeys that follow completion.
Use a small trial to compare locations. Record a handful of ordinary response journeys, one specialist journey and one patient or prisoner transport. The goal is to expose an obvious weak route, not calculate a falsely precise universal coverage radius. Real road geometry, mission mix and your play session all affect the result.
When expanding an existing network, fix the largest gap first. That might mean a support vehicle in a neighbouring station rather than another building. Keep the design understandable enough that you can explain which units back up each region when its usual vehicles are busy.
- Confirm the account's own-versus-community POI setting.
- Verify required POI names against the selected UK mission.
- Check generation range by mission type.
- Inspect road travel rather than straight-line spacing.
- Recheck transport destinations before repeating a station layout.
Sources and further reading
Latest editorial change: Added an answer-first summary, action checklist and related planning/reference link. Detailed source dates remain independent.
Official sources establish game rules; practical build orders and planning examples are TKB recommendations. Follow the UK game’s current requirement panel where a later update differs.