Call Family Hack?

[pamysue]

I haven't been able to find one, but would really like a Call Family Hack.  The Auto Yak Yak is essential for me and works great if my Sims are friends with their family members, but with Sims off at Uni and moved out, many don't even know their own brothers and sisters.  I had one Sim that couldn't get either of his parents to come to his wedding, I'm assuming because their relationships had dwindled so low.  Would it be possible to have a phone macro that would let you call family members?

[J. M. Pescado]

Sure. I've actually been thinking of just such a thing.

[Ancient Sim]

I have something which keeps all neighbourhood relationships static for YA's when they go to Uni, to save them having to keep phoning to maintain them.  I had a feeling it was one of JM's, but maybe it isn't.  I will try to find it.  You can also use the Flamingo of Decay from http://www.livin-it-up.net, which adds 1 point each day to relationships per flamingo.  This also stops them deteriorating and applies to all relationships in all neighbourhoods.

[J. M. Pescado]

If you downloaded the Director's Cut, "Enemies Accumulate" does this, suppressing relationship decay for people in "main neighborhood freeze time", so you only have to maintain things with NPCs and YAs. It also suppresses the creepy dead-people-relationship-decay, so you should not get creepy "is no longer in love with X" messages, and allows, naturally enough, enemies to actually accumulate. Because friends come and go, but enemies accumulate. Also, relationship decay on friends was made somewhat more probabilistic, so only SOME of them will decide that today, they hate you, instead of all 30 of them every day, meaning your sim's daily routine consists of about 5 hours on the phones.

[Katze]

A hack like that would be great.

[Inge]

Why not just use a teleporter to get them to show up?  I've got various at simlogical that do various things.  Saves you having to make a sim available to greet them, or even go to the phone in the first place.

[themaltesebippy]

I use the flamingo and the teleport painting.  If the child has an older sibling in college, I teleport that sim to fullfill the make a friend want.

[pamysue]

Sure. I've actually been thinking of just such a thing.

Thank you!   

[Brynne]

I played a few days without having my sims use the "call friends" function on the phone, and one day I was spammed with 53 "so and so is no longer a family friend" messages. When they finally cleared the screen, it sounded like a machine gun.

[J. M. Pescado]

That would have taken approximately 25 days, nearly a sim's entire adult lifespan. That's a little more than "a few" days.

[Brynne]

You say tomato, I say tomahto.
You are soooooooooo literal. However, yes, I think that for a few weeks I used the "call friends" function only sporadically. When I thought about it. And only for 1 or 2 sims in a full house. But, still, it was like a machine gun. Ratta tat tat.

[J. M. Pescado]

However, yes, I think that for a few weeks I used the "call friends" function only sporadically. When I thought about it. And only for 1 or 2 sims in a full house. But, still, it was like a machine gun. Ratta tat tat.

Intermittent use would still restore things back to full. You'd have to not only use it merely sporadically, but not use it at all for the aforementioned 25 days continuously.

[Brynne]

I repeat. You are soooooooooo literal. I do not know how often I used it. If you say 25 days, then I'll go along with that. But it sounded like a machine gun.

[katemonster]

I have a feature request for this hack if you are going to make it--is there any way it could be made to recognize in-laws or future in-laws (assuming the sim in question is engaged) as family, if only for the purposes of the hack? It drives me nuts how I can have a formal wedding but only half the invited guests will show up, because only one of the couple can do the official inviting, and I've forgotten to make him/her friends (manually) with each and every one of his/her parents and siblings in law. Or just do away with the strangers-declining-invitations, and restrict it to enemies, if you can't make in-laws be family.

Edit: Sort-of-alternatively, a "party cruiser" macro (as has been suggested elsewhere) which allowed sims to auto-socialize with guests at parties who were not their friends, would make this easier too, as I could have two "engagement parties" or some such thing where all the in-laws got invited over so they would make friends and actually come to the wedding. But I want it to be automatic!

[J. M. Pescado]

I have a feature request for this hack if you are going to make it--is there any way it could be made to recognize in-laws or future in-laws (assuming the sim in question is engaged) as family, if only for the purposes of the hack? It drives me nuts how I can have a formal wedding but only half the invited guests will show up, because only one of the couple can do the official inviting, and I've forgotten to make him/her friends (manually) with each and every one of his/her parents and siblings in law. Or just do away with the strangers-declining-invitations, and restrict it to enemies, if you can't make in-laws be family.

Well, one convenient thing about wedding parties is that you don't need to actually be friends with the invitees. Anyone invited to a wedding always appears. Period.

As for in-laws/future-in-laws, that is very tricky. And hard to test. I'm trying to think if there's an actual clean way to do this, but I can't think of one that doesn't involve a gazillion iterations right now. However, nobody declines an invite to wedding parties. That only affects normal parties.

[Ness]

can someone please remind my game - I've had sims refuse wedding invitations!

Ness

[katemonster]

OK. I believe you. I know I had sims with no relationship to the inviter who were invited to my last wedding, and they showed, but I thought I just got lucky. I guess I conflated old parties where guests didn't show, and wedding parties. I don't care so much if it's just regular-type parties. Still, a "make friends"/"party cruiser" macro for weddings and parties would be a good way to get to know all those in-laws.