No Secret Society Respawning (01/03/06)

[J. M. Pescado]

Severely cuts down secret society townie respawn: The game will prefer to induct existing townies until no choices are available before finally creating one (and only one!). No longer will it insist on generating them up to your max visitor count, either: If it cannot find any after already having created one, it will simply run undermanned.

01/03/06:
Should no longer puke if you deplete the entire townie pool.


nossrespawn.zip

RTFM:
Anti-Secret Society Respawn (v1b) for TS2U v1.0 - TS2NL v1.0p1
Made by: Flying Fish Systems (J. M. Pescado)

Special Thanks To:
Quaxi, for writing SimPE
Fairlight the Bitch

Congratulations to: Draklixa!

INSTRUCTIONS:
Place in your MYDOCU~1\EAGAME~1\THESIM~1\DOWNLO~1 directory.

FEATURES:
Eliminates respawning of Secret Society members. Secret Society members should
not be spawned to replace ones you happen to kill for whatever reason, except
as a very last resort of total desperation (which should be near-impossible, but
is there just in case), in which it will create one member. If there are not
enough SS members, when the game attempts to generate one, it will, instead of
generating a new NPC, induct a YA townie instead, and use him. The game will
also not insist on generating more to fill max visitor count when you are
abducted(IF you still are abducted: should theoretically work with no-abduct).
Therefore, if there is no SS townie, the game will first attempt to create one
by promoting an existing YA townie. If it cannot, it will only create one if
there is not even a single available member to perform the initiation ceremony.
If for some reason your university has a dormie population of zero, don't kill
this last guy.

COMPATIBILITY:
Compatible with all FFS Hacks. Tested for TS2U v1.0 & TS2NL v1.0p1.

SIDE EFFECTS:
May cause computer damage, incontinence, explosion of user's head, coma, death,
and/or halitosis.

WARNING:
Do not open, crush, dispose of in fire, put in backwards, short-circuit, or mix
with non-awesome hacks - may explode, leak, or catch fire, resulting in injury
and/or death.

[Ancient Sim]

There's somethng not right about the whole process of creating SS members.  My Strangetown just created one new one the other day for no reason whatsoever, because there were plenty already.  I also made a big mistake in Pleasantview - having upped the minimum visitors to 12 for a grad party, I carried on playing the dorm and someone was abducted that night.  As I recall, the game created at least 8 new SS members to make-up the 12, even though there were more than enough in the first place.  If it is indeed true that the game can only cope with a limited number of character files, why on earth does it keep creating all these extra characters?  And why do we need all these superfluous NCP's anyway?  Only one can visit a lot at any one time in the case of maids and so on, so why are we forced to have all the extra ones?

[J. M. Pescado]

Actually, it's possible for multiples to be visiting. If you invite one over before the maid arrives, they'll have to send a replacement. So that's why NPCs are sometimes spawned. Which doesn't excuse why they insist on making more even when this is not the case, especially for entirely *USELESS* NPCs...like the "Call In Sick" guy. Who can actually be safely deleted since he never appears in the game for anything, and his sole reason for existence is apparently to have a face in the phone dialog. Real necessary there. Look for him to receive the axe soon.

[Ancient Sim]

Call in Sick guy?  Now that's interesting, because I've never noticed one of these.  Mine rarely call in sick because even when they are sick, they're told they're not.  The only time I noticed anyone's face was when one of my Sims in the Science career called in sick and the person who answered his call (telling him he didn't sound sick when he had just been coughing his guts out) was in fact Cassandra Goth.  As I recall, at the time she was in a lower position in that career than he was, but I can't remember for sure.

And why do I have a pair of lips with a cross through them next to my name?  Does this mean they've been ripped, or are about to be ripped?  Do I need to worry about this?

[veilchen]

Hi Ancient, welcome to the rank of the lipless :D

I thought the 'sick guy' was just a jpeg or something like that, but he/she is a whole character? I could do without the majority of the NPC's anyways. I never use a maid anymore since the macrotastic mod was introduced, I use Inge's non-maintenance bushes and no flower-beds so I don't need a gardner. Macrotastics and the lot debugger take care of the bills in case I forget/stuckiness, so the repo-man has not been around. Since a near disaster, any Nanny that dares to show up will be immediately disposed of; I use Inge's teleporter shrub to move in someone (a hapless townie who just meanders by in all innocence for example) for child-care purposes. I don't need a headmaster. Private school, ha, public is just fine, what was good enough for me is good enough for my pixel-people. I've only seen a social worker once (because that was in my plans) and never seen a social bunny (although I'd rather like to) I don't mind the fun NPC's like the psychologist, the grim reaper, and the alien person etc., but the others I can do without.

I used to hate the coach and the professors that were hell-bent on bothering my YA's, but recently I learned about new and fun ways to use the SimVac :D

G.

[J. M. Pescado]

The Psychlerjist, the Grim Reaper, the Hulas, and the Alien Tech are not "real" NPCs. There's only one of them, and they're unique. You cannot kill them (without buggering your game), and they're not "characters". The "Call In Sick" guy *IS* a real NPC, however, even though he's entirely useless as you never even *SEE* him in person, and could easily just be an abstract icon. In fact, that's what I'm doing with him.

[Hook]

The "Call In Sick" guy is probably a holdover from when there was supposed to be a Boss Scenario.  I've noticed the game will pause to generate this Sim when my Sim calls in sick.

I wonder what would happen if you used a teleporter device to get this Sim on your lot, met them, then later invited them to visit.  Would it initiate the broken/unfinished Boss Scenario?  Hm.

Hook

[breyerii]

Call in Sick guy?  Now that's interesting, because I've never noticed one of these.  Mine rarely call in sick because even when they are sick, they're told they're not.  The only time I noticed anyone's face was when one of my Sims in the Science career called in sick and the person who answered his call (telling him he didn't sound sick when he had just been coughing his guts out) was in fact Cassandra Goth.  As I recall, at the time she was in a lower position in that career than he was, but I can't remember for sure.

I suspect this is why your sims are not believed: angry, rancorous subordinates get the call and avenge themselves...

[J. M. Pescado]

Call in Sick guy?  Now that's interesting, because I've never noticed one of these.  Mine rarely call in sick because even when they are sick, they're told they're not.  The only time I noticed anyone's face was when one of my Sims in the Science career called in sick and the person who answered his call (telling him he didn't sound sick when he had just been coughing his guts out) was in fact Cassandra Goth.  As I recall, at the time she was in a lower position in that career than he was, but I can't remember for sure.

I don't really think that's even possible, according to the code: It must find an NPC. So the fact that you managed to get a Cassandra Goth lookalike is coincidence.

The "Call In Sick" guy is probably a holdover from when there was supposed to be a Boss Scenario.  I've noticed the game will pause to generate this Sim when my Sim calls in sick.

Probably, yes. Even if the Boss Scenario actually FUNCTIONED, though, there's no reason to need to generate one merely for "Call in Sick", as the Boss NPC is not actually used as anything but a face, and this doesn't actually make any sense when applied to some jobs: The Criminal Mastermind has a boss?

I wonder what would happen if you used a teleporter device to get this Sim on your lot, met them, then later invited them to visit.  Would it initiate the broken/unfinished Boss Scenario?  Hm.

Very doubtful. There isn't even a functioning scenario controller.

[jrd]

Hmm. I never noticed the 'CISG' wasn't just an NPC.
What about the carpool and bus drivers, are those from a special pool as well?

[J. M. Pescado]

Carpool and bus drivers are one and the same, from the same special pool, yes. They're not ordinarily sociable either, although they do make physical appearances and therefore are "necessary" in that sense. As a result of making actual physical appearances, they tend to have memories of anyone they noticed peeing themselves or passing out immediately upon disembarking.

[Sandilou]

The cisg was rotated between serving npcs when I used to play Veronaville - back before my game exploded into a fiery ball. I recall npcs fulfilling the role, because one of the barmaids who took a call went on to become Romeo's wife - I recognised her because he was dating her.  Also, I've seen other people with the same occupation take the call - eg Mrs Jennifer Burb's icon (who was in the army) took a sick call from another army sim who was calling in sick.

But I could be making it up - I might be confusing it with sims that take calls for townies who are at work.  It was a long time ago!  Oops - there go my....

[Oddysey]

This is a most excellent hack, as I can now create a SS without fearing the spawnage of way too many sims. One thing that annoys me is that you never see playable sims on the SS lot. Why is this? Because the SS townies have no skills, it makes it kind of useless to have all those career objects. Or is that the point? Hmm. It would be nice to occasionally see a playable sim as an uncontrollable at the SS lot, though. Don't know if it's possible, but it would be cool. Especially since it would mean that townies would not be required for the Secret Society. Death to all townies! They clog up the neighborhood and are generally pointless. If I want a random sim, I can generate it myself.

[chintznibbles]

May I admit ignorance (instead of just, you know, implying it right and left) and say that I don't understand the point of the no-respawn hacks?  Do I need them if I never kill, marry or even really look sideways at a town/dorm/ss-ie unless they get randomly brought home?

I gather the point is to reduce unneccessary character files, which can cause neighborhoods to self destruct and also contribute to system slowness.  How prevalent is this (considering that I don't think I engage in many respawn-necessitating activities)?

[Sandilou]

My layperson's understanding of too many character files is that when you have reached a certain (don't ask me how many) number, you simply cannot create any more sims; this means that any CAS or newborn sims simply disappear after you've saved your lot/game.  It happened in my game and in the end I had to start from scratch again. 

Back then, I played every neighbourhood for several months, expanded each to a population of atleast 40+ lots in Pleasantview, approximately 20+ lots in Strangetown and 50+ lots in Veronaville. In total there were about 450 playable sims - if you average each household to 4+ sims. Also I had a legacy neighbourhood (10 households) and one other neighbourhood with 5 approx households.    My downfall was that each household in each neighbourhood was regularly reproducing, also I'd done the unforgiveable and moved several lots between neighbourhoods. I had also downloaded and used peopled lots. Most of my sims had married or moved in townies, so they were respawning rapidly.  When Uni came out I moved most of my townie teens in one neighbourhood to Uni. 

Subsequent implosion of the game was just a matter of time!

[RainbowTigress]

Call in Sick guy?  Now that's interesting, because I've never noticed one of these.  Mine rarely call in sick because even when they are sick, they're told they're not.  The only time I noticed anyone's face was when one of my Sims in the Science career called in sick and the person who answered his call (telling him he didn't sound sick when he had just been coughing his guts out) was in fact Cassandra Goth.  As I recall, at the time she was in a lower position in that career than he was, but I can't remember for sure.

That's interesting.  I've never had any of my sims be turned down for calling in sick, even when they weren't.  Perhaps your sim's job performance wasn't high enough.

[themaltesebippy]

I have alot of nice community lots for my college and I haven't had my sims visit much because of the bar spam and the SS spam.  The game produced 2 SS members on one community lot.  I have no use for the SS at all so this will be great.

[jrd]

It seems to me the millitary career won't allow sick days in most cases.
But maybe that's because only my antisocial underachier Sims become soldiers.

[ZephyrZodiac]

If they have any vacation days, then they are usually ok, they just lose one of them.  But they get paid.

[lakota]

It seems to me the millitary career won't allow sick days in most cases.
But maybe that's because only my antisocial underachier Sims become soldiers.

I guess that would be like real life. The military is not allowed to "call in sick"

[themaltesebippy]

I sent my sims in the main town and college town to a few community lots today and no new SS members spawned.  thanks.

[gillies]

I'm not sure this is working properly. I turned Jimmy Phoenix into a townie awhile ago to make up the numbers in an dorm, since this hack became available I killed all the other townies (something I've been wanting to do for a long time), after I added my test sim to the society using the cheats and visited the lot Jimmy was there, but so were a whole lot of newly generated townies as well.

Am I right that this shouldn't happen, or did I miss the point somehow?

[J. M. Pescado]

Fixed now. Should no longer generate any as long as one could be found.

[gillies]

It's working now. Thanks Pescado, that's decidedly awesome.

[PanSola]

I guess NL modified some stuff related to SS so this was listed as noe-NL compatible?  Has anyone tried it with NL regardless and see if fireballs spit up?

On a slight tangent:
I've been playing with only officially NL approved hacks, didn't notice this wasn't in there because I haven't been playing university lots.  Last night on one neighborhood I created 4 YA sims, cheated to induct 3 into SS, and let the 4th be friends with them.  They were all in the same household.  Then at 23:00, the limo came to abduct my 4th sim, but once the limo drove away, the game didn't load to the SS lot.  The 4th sim was simply removed from the selectable list while the residential lot continued to play with the 3 other sims.  I didn't wait around to see if the sim would come back later cuz I had to sleep, but did NL change the abduction behavior?  Or did I run into a bug?