Postal codes on a FiveM server: baked into the map, or drawn by a script?

#The two approaches

Neither is wrong. They answer slightly different questions: the baked grid tells a player where everything is, the script tells them where they are.

#How a baked postal map works

The numbers are pixels in the minimap texture, rendered at the same resolution as the roads and the coastline. There is nothing to run and nothing to configure — the map has the grid on it the same way it has street names on it.

The trade-off is that the numbers scale with the map. At full radar zoom while driving they are small; on the pause map they are perfectly legible. This is why most servers that use a baked grid also run a small "nearest postal" HUD element, which is the one legitimate reason to have both.

#How a postal script works

A postal resource ships a list of coordinates with a number attached to each, finds the closest one to the player, and draws it. That is the whole idea; the differences between implementations are the size of the list and how efficiently they search it.

-- the shape of the data every postal resource uses
local postals = {
  { code = '119', x = -1037.0, y = -2737.0 },
  { code = '120', x =  -900.4, y = -2600.1 },
  -- ~1600 more
}

-- fine: recompute a few times a second, not every frame
CreateThread(function()
  while true do
    Wait(500)
    nearest = findNearest(GetEntityCoords(PlayerPedId()))
  end
end)

#Which one should your server run?

• You already run a postal HUD or a dispatch that draws postals — take the no-postals map. Two sets of numbers is worse than either alone.
• You want players to be able to read the grid off the pause map — take the baked map.
• You use custom postal numbering — take the no-postals map and let your script own the numbers.
• You are starting from nothing and want the least moving parts — take the baked map. It cannot break.

#The standard grid

Nearly every server uses the same community postal set, which is why a player from one server can read numbers on another. The numbers run roughly 1 to 1500 across the island, denser in Los Santos and sparse in the north.

Renumbering to something custom is possible and almost always a bad idea: you lose the shared vocabulary, and every new player has to relearn the map.

#Making dispatch and the map agree

1. 01 Find which postal data your dispatch uses

   It is a Lua table or a JSON file in the dispatch resource. Note the number range and a few sample coordinates.

2. 02 Compare against your HUD resource

   If they are different files, they will eventually disagree. Point both at one shared file.

3. 03 Decide who owns the numbers

   Either the map or the script. If the map is baked, the script must match it — not the other way round.

4. 04 Spot-check three locations

   Pillbox, the airport and Paleto. If all three agree, the sets match.