Testers wanted: Slower Aspiration Benefits in Freetime.

[Doc Doofus]

I'd like feedback on this.  The object of this is to slow down the accumulation of aspiration benefit points.  It is set to divide new points earned by about 1/3, although I suspect there may be another place where points are accrued that I may have missed.

Preliminary testing suggests it is safe and it is doing what it is supposed to.  Feedback welcome.

[croiduire]

Testing now. I've wanted this since FT came out. Shiny!

[Chaavik]

This is exactly what I am looking for to slow down the aspiration points being earned far too quickly by Sims born after FreeTime. I don't mind testing this for you.

Anything in particular you're looking for in feedback other than how slow the points are earned?

[Doc Doofus]

Two things...

1. Does it blow up?

2. Does it seem to be slowing down the aspiration accumulation ENOUGH?  There is apparently more than one place where the aspiration benefit points are accumulated.  The game code calls this LTA for (Lifetime Aspiration.)  I can change some more bhav's, if necessary, but if this is enough tweaking to keep them from going permaplat before turning elder, then I'll be satisfied.

[croiduire]

It doesn't blow up, and it does work, but if it would be possible to slow it down even more I'd like it very much. A "glacier speed" would be appreciated, setting the normal acquisition to about 1/10th, since there still are various sources of bonus accrual. 

[Doc Doofus]

You want it slower?  I was playing with it most of yesterday, and it seemed positively glacial.  I was two inches from trying to speed it back up a little. 

Try it a little more and see.  I had a baby born that got two benefit points shortly after learning to use the toilet, which seemed fast.  BUT my students on a university lot went to college, maxed out their greek house, fell in love, lost their virginities, got A's, and they still haven't earned a new benefit point.

[Alawren]

Just a couple of observations. Absolutely no blowing up here. I've noticed that in University there is practically unable to earn points even prior to your hack. My ingame born sim transitioned from toddler to child with 4 benefit points, normally seemed to obtain at least 5.

[Chaavik]

That is exactly what I was going to comment after I played my new Uni student for awhile last night.

She was a CAS Sim with four points given to her when I put her on a dorm lot. I've tried nearly everything she could possibly do and haven't earned any new points from First Kiss, First Woohoo and Best Friend (I think that is a separate issue since I have Pescado's BFFarefor12s mod and my Sim was a YA).

The Lifetime Aspiration Meter completely stops on Uni lots and community lots (the meters haven't progressed on those lots after I checked some of my other playable Sims who showed up there). I haven't tried the Hobby lots yet to see if anything is different there. But my newly graduated CAS Sim's Lifetime Aspiration Meter began moving after she moved in with her partner on a home lot, but like you said.. at a glacial speed.

The mod is working pretty well and not blowing up. I think the rate of progress needed to be bumped up just a notch mostly for Uni, but if you intended for the Lifetime Aspiration Meter to stop on those lots, then I will understand with no problem. Just enough to see significant progress after the Sim achieve a milestone. There are a total of 16 available points to spend, and so far, my new Sim earned 7 points, but only after she graduated from college did those two points become available. The option for Pre-FT on the Debugger is missing for her after I put this mod into my game. I don't know if this is related, but it is something to look into to verify.

[Doc Doofus]

Okay.  I don't have the latest FFS Debugger installed yet, but will do.

What does Pre-FT do, just for my edification?

As for earning benefit points in Uni...  I managed to earn a point last night.  But it is slow.  I will switch to playing neighborhood CAS Sims tomorrow, to see if there is a difference.  Maybe it's just an inherent glitch in the game that makes UNI students gain more slowly, regardless of the mod?

---update---

I just had an interesting thought.  I'm not using Pescado's BFFsarefor12s.  I have the third FT patch, installed, and I am STILL getting First BFF icons in my Sims' memories.  If all new BFFs are being treated as First BFFs, that may be one of the things that was causing Sims to gain aspiration benefit points so absurdly quickly.  Could those "First BFFs" have been inflating the aspiration benefits?

[Chaavik]

You just reminded me to post what I have since this probably would help you more because people have different setups for Sims 2:

I have all expansion packs and all stuff packs. I currently have the third patch for FT (Didn't touch the first two with a 20-ft pole), the latest Debugger and BFFsarefor12 mods. I obviously also have other mods, but the ones I listed pertain to how the points are earned and how these mods affect the Sims' LTAs and friendships.

Pre-FT is supposd to give older Sims the points they wouldn't have gotten unless they were born or created after FT is installed. The Capps and the Montys (just an example) were existing families before FT, and they didn't earn any point because they existed already and already achieved those milestones. That is what the Pre-FT option on the Lot Debugger is for. This also can be applied to CAS YAs, adults and elders.

The progress on the Uni lots stopped fullstop. Points earned on those lots aren't earned until after the Uni student graduates or leaves. I think that is the case. My Uni student woohoo'ed and kissed her adult (non-Uni) partner for the first time. I looked at the popup on her LTA meter and saw zero points earned for those two events. She was supposed to earn those two points but she didn't get them until after she graduated from Uni. Those two points would've shown a significant progress on the meter as one whole box filled in.

As for BFF and memories, Pescado's BFFsarefor12s mod allows teens and younger to have BFFs and memories from having BFFs for the first time. The mod doesn't allow YAs and older to have BFFs. The BFF stuff sounded like what kids would do in real life. So, his mod made alot of sense. I gave my YA that point after she made a BF (Best Friend) with an adult Sim on a community lot.

I couldn't answer that question about First BFFs inflating the aspiration benefits because I recalled that gaining points so quickly happened before I installed Pescado's BFFsarefor12s mod when I got tired of seeing adults make BFFs with everything that moved.

[Chaavik]

I am still checking the mod on a normal lot to see how fast the LTA meter progress and how fast the Sims are gaining points to spend. So far the meter progressed normally but I haven't played a family long enough to see more results from this mod yet. I will get back when I can.

[Chaavik]

I came back to let you know that there is a problem with the mod. At first the aspiration meter is progressing just fine but when my Sim does earn an LTA point to spend, he doesn't get that point at all. For example, my Sim had a baby for the first time, but he didn't get the point although his LTA meter progressed. I looked at the LTA window and saw that he had no point from having the baby for the first time. I checked his points and LTA milestones with Pescado's Lot Debugger, and the "Get Child" option is greyed out.

This is an issue that needs to be looked at to be sure that the Sims are actually earning their points and slowing their LTA meters down considerably so they don't earn those points too quickly. The meter progressed slowly just fine but the Sims are missing their points they earned.

[Doc Doofus]

Hmmm....  Okay.  Thanks for the feedback.

For the last few days, I have been immersed in playing a Uni greek house and haven't got my head out of my ass yet.

I wasn't sure what the LTA Milestones thing did.  Thank you for pointing that out to me.

When I tested my mod, before, with the Sims I described in the Podium forum, Sims that had a real baby gained fewer points with the mod installed than when they didn't have the mod installed.  It was both visible, in the LTA meter, which didn't rise as high when the mod was installed, and also in SimPE, where the lifetime aspiration number only went up by 1/3 as much.  Apparently, having a baby, for a Family Sim is worth 1200 LTA points, normally, but with the mod installed, they only gained 400 points according to SimPe. 

I'll try having some more Sim babies soon and see what the meters look like. 

[Chaavik]

No problem! The LTA milestones are big achievements in the lives of these Sims. When they achieve something important like a First Kiss, First Woohoo and whatnot, they earn points from those milestones and spend them in their LTA window to gain benefits to improve themselves.

[Doc Doofus]

Maybe I misunderstood something here.

There is the sim LTA value, which you can see in SimPe, the LTA meter, which you can see on the game control panel, and then there are the spendable Aspiration Benefit Points.  All my hack does is reduce the accumulation of LTA value points from meeting aspirations like Have A Baby.  You get those points, regardless of whether your Sim had the want at the time; they are automatic.  I am only dividing them by three before adding them to the LTA.

As for the spendable Aspiration Benefit Points...  I may be wrong, but I had assumed that that was controlled by the LTA value, and that by reducing how quickly that builds up, they would get fewer spendable Aspiration Benefit points.  (If they are unrelated, what was the whole point of having an LTA value for?)  I'll need to see what's going on there.

Here is the thread in Podium that talked about my first experiments:

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,12364.0.html

[Kazzandra]

Is this compatible with AL?