SimSheet (a sim-tracking program) [Now with Aspiration and LTW tracking!]

[Inge]

Ok then I added you to the group.  You should be able to see the QA forum next time you log in.

[katemonster]

Don't know if the changes in the latest version are addressing whatever output problems are causing my crash, but I'm still getting the same crash.

[rufio]

No, we're still figuring that out.  Actually, it would really help if you (or the other person who was having this crash) could get the QA, generate the output file with it, and post it here.  You'll need to find a command line (I believe going to Run and typing cmd.exe does it), and then type:

cd C:\path\to\new\QA\
SimPe.exe -rufio -hood NXXX

where NXXX is the name of the folder of the neighborhood.  The output file will be in the Rufio folder in your Sims 2 folder.

[katemonster]

I need the newest QA for this? I'm not on the SimPE QA list (I am a member of the forums however, same username). Do I need Inge to add me?

[rufio]

I'll send it to you if you don't want to go through all that.  (I assume it's ok for me to distribute this for testing purposes?)

[katemonster]

I can't get this command to work  Are you sure this is the right path for a Windows machine? I get "The system cannot find the path specified." Sorry, I feel like a moron...

[rufio]

You need to replace the \path\to\new\QA part with the actual path (e.g. C:\Program Files\SimPE or something like that).

[katemonster]

*weeps* Wow, that was dumb. The backslashes threw me off and made me think this was a real path for some reason. I'm really an intelligent person, I swear. Sort of computer literate, even. WTF is wrong with me? Sorry.

Anyway, here's the output.

[Inge]

Yes once a QA is published certainly neither Peter nor I mind how it is shared (and Quaxi isn't saying).  Just when you get a private version I will say what restrictions there should be on sharing (usually for technical reasons rather than preciousness).  But of course QAs should be expected to contain bugs, so use your last public version for editing live game data.

[rufio]

Sorry, Inge, you're going have to explain how the "days until lifestage" field corresponds to the number of days until lifestage in the game.  With playables, at any rate, it seems to be one less, so that someone who is "1 day until teen" in the game will show up as "0 days until teen" in the output.  Yet, (down)townie teens, who should be "14 days to adult" in the game are also "14 days to adult" in the output, not 13 as expected.  Does this work differently for different classes of sim, or something?

[Inge]

I am sorry but I can't explain it as we have no idea what those fields mean.  You will need to see if you can make them correspond to what you were talking about to do with the elders' age, by any formula, or whether they are useless to you.  I already told you everything I know about the age-related fields I know about.

[rufio]

Well, where do you get these fields from/how do you calculate them?  That might help, at least.

[Inge]

He's not calculating them, they're in variables SimPE already had, at the point it opens the SCSD editor.

[rufio]

Ok, the off-by-one error seems to have been my bad.  Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't just be better to completely overhaul the aging system and set it up the way the game does it. 

[rufio]

Inge, in the latest output, did you get rid of the lot description (or whatever was causing the newlines)?  I can't find any problem newlines in kate's output.

ETA: New version is up:

Code:

11/24/08
- SimSheet can now import from output files made with SimPE QA 0.73.18
- "At Large" household changed to "Townies and Dormies" for clarification.
- Households added as a column in the main List of Sims.

Note that the other QA and the version of SimPE I was initially giving out don't work with this anymore, since the format has changed slightly.  If you don't have the 0.73.18 version, let me know and I'll send you a link.  This should, however, fix all newline issues people were having.

ETA2:  I'm getting tried of clandestinely giving out links in pms and email, so the link to SimSheet is now in the first post.

[katemonster]

Success! 

Man, I missed Sims2DB. This makes me happy 

I will probably have umpteen feature requests but I'll give you a rest for now...

[rufio]

Well, if you want something soon, you should get it out pretty quick; as soon as I rewrite the aspiration page GUI and get that working, I'm going to start working on savefile 0.6 (with career tracking and age duration hack support) and there won't be updates for a long while.

[katemonster]

Okay--this is probably something for a future update, but I like to keep track of my sims' genetics, personalities, and turnons/turnoffs. It doesn't look like genetics and turnons/turnoffs are in the current SimPE output, so that's probably a major change, but I'd be happy with being able to enter those manually.

ETA: I've already demonstrated that I'm a total bleeding idiot, so I might as well just roll with it. I can't figure out how to delete a sim I've entered. (I entered some dummy sims I didn't need.) Is this not possible or am I just, as proven earlier, a moron?

[Inge]

Are they not?  Oh I'll see if Peter can get those then.  Personality is already output by SimPE, but I think you're right about the Turnons.

Rufio, no he just stuck quotes round all the strings like I said.  So if your program is now coping with quotes and newlines that's a success.   There will be new fields in the new QA -  someone requested filenumber for the sims in order to cross-reference with SimEnhancer.

In order to ensure SimSheet is not broken by future additions or rearrangements to the output, can I suggest you read the headings explicitly rather than just taking the fields in the order they come.

[rufio]

I was actually thinking about genetics too, since I like to keep track of them as well.  That would have to be for the new savefile, though, since it's going to add more information to the records that has to be saved and read.  I don't think importing it from SimPE would be a good idea; alien skin tone and eye colors in general seem to be represented as a big long sequence of numbers and letters, and I imagine it's worse if you have a lot of custom genetics.

What I can add before the new savefile is stuff to do with displays (like adding Households to the list of sims) and filters and whatnot, or stuff to make it more user-friendly/easier to navigate/more convenient/etc.

In order to ensure SimSheet is not broken by future additions or rearrangements to the output, can I suggest you read the headings explicitly rather than just taking the fields in the order they come.

Yeah, probably a good idea - will get that in before 0.6.

[katemonster]

OK, another probably-stupid thing--I converted the pngs in the SimImages folder to jpgs, but when I try to add an image to a sim, it crashes the program. Not sure if this is just because images are generally borked or an actual issue.

[rufio]

Oh.  I fixed it so that it wouldn't crash when the explorer was closed, but forgot to check what happened if you actually tried to set the image.    I'll get that, and see if I can't figure out how to make the images work as well.

[Inge]

I was actually thinking about genetics too, since I like to keep track of them as well.  That would have to be for the new savefile, though, since it's going to add more information to the records that has to be saved and read.  I don't think importing it from SimPE would be a good idea; alien skin tone and eye colors in general seem to be represented as a big long sequence of numbers and letters, and I imagine it's worse if you have a lot of custom genetics.

Then you will appreciate the proposed addition of the sim's character file number, as then you can read the genetics directly from the file?

[rufio]

If anything is coming in through character files, it's going to have to be through SimPE, since I don't know how to decompress DBPFs and find information in them.  I just don't know how useful the information I'd be able to get out of SimPE would be.  Would it be convertible into something human-readable?  What about custom genetics?

[Inge]

No, I can't see any value at all in trying to read the genetics, but I didn't want to poopoo anyone who thinks they *can* use them in some way.