Story Mode

[Swiftgold]

Ahh, wonderful. Maybe he'll just have to meet with a fatal accident, then...

[Motoki]

Speaking of 'effed up situations in the neighborhood, in my game Don Lothario married and had a kid (I know, right?) and then he and his wife soon after the baby's birth became elders. Well Don just croaked and the mom is at 92 days so she's got one foot on the grave and the other on a banana peel. The girl just turned into a teen so she's only a day or so into the teen stage with the rest of it left to go.

What happens if the mom dies before she becomes an adult, which seems likely at this point? Will some social worker come and take her away to Simbuktu behind the scenes when I don't see it?

[J. M. Pescado]

Nothing. I don't think the SS takes 12s.

[Motoki]

Nothing. I don't think the SS takes 12s.

So the game would just let her function as a single teen townie with no source of income? Odd.

I hadn't noticed if it assigns random part time jobs to teens but it doesn't seem to. I know my sims don't seem to have bosses or coworkers when they work part time jobs.

[J. M. Pescado]

So the game would just let her function as a single teen townie with no source of income? Odd.

The game doesn't consider a source of income a prerequisite for survival, since a sim can survive for a very long time on no income just purely off of saved cash.

[Wolfeyes]

Nothing. I don't think the SS takes 12s.

So the game would just let her function as a single teen townie with no source of income? Odd.

I hadn't noticed if it assigns random part time jobs to teens but it doesn't seem to. I know my sims don't seem to have bosses or coworkers when they work part time jobs.

And there is this Motoki... since she's a Lothario and should be considered "One of the Founding Famblies" in Sim History...  you could take pity on her and make her a young rich heiress or something like that... or age up Malcolm Landgraab and have her marry him since he should be rich... even tho he's pretty mufugly... might have to send him to the plastic surgeon to "have a little work done"...      

[J. M. Pescado]

Yeah, but you can still override it by setting different permission levels in different directories and then giving another XML mod higher permission than Awesomemod. The Teen Woohoo mod in the Pudding Factory does this and it works just fine.

There's a few caveats, though: You can't just override, you have to splice the files together. Otherwise, a fatal error occurs and your game crashes.

That's disappointing but it makes sense. You need to mod in a way that makes sense for you and shouldn't be forced into methods that are not efficient or conducive to your goals.

Well, it's more that the methods simply are not compatible. The present splice method simply doesn't permit me to *DO* some of the stuff I've done.

[jwaas]

I've read this discussion with interest, and I think I'll finally ask the burning question I've had for about a week now, even though it may mark me as terminally non-Awesome:  Is it possible that the default EA Story Mode may be adequate for those of us who actually play Only One Fambly?

I'm a huge admirer of Pescado's work in general and the AwesomeMod in particular, but am not running it right now.  I used it for a while because I liked things such as the facial slider multiplier and the squashing of the teen curfew helicopter police.  I have downloaded the Indie Stone mod but have never tried it.  Right now I'm running only various XML tweaks to take the place of some of the AwesomeMod features that I liked.  In addition to this, the Indie Stone mod conflict detector tells me I'm running two core mods, namely Delphy's facial slider hack and klanly's InSimenator-like "duma" mod -- but strangely, it says there is no conflict between the two, and my game runs fine.

As I type, I just married off Lawrence Lum's son (or Theodore Lum's grandson), after starting with the bin Lum family in a fresh hood with Normal lifespan and the setup described above.  I've watched the hood around my family, and unless I'm missing something, have seen nothing unusual.  Sims have moved into and out of the town, which doesn't bother me -- I'll take my chances with my Sims losing friends.  (Though I do wonder where Sims go when they move out, as it doesn't seem like EAxis to delete them cleanly and non-destructively).  Single Sims are spawning clone babbies, which also doesn't bother me -- if I were playing a single Sim, he'd be allowed to adopt, so the townies might as well also be allowed to do so.  In public, I certainly see Sims interacting in the stupid hilarious ways I've come to expect -- I even saw my first TS3 fistfight in the park yesterday.  I do miss the AwesomeMod protecting my Sims from random bus firings, deaths, and body shape changes -- but I figure if my Sim gets fired, oh well, there are other jobs; if he dies, I will have a one-parent household and a greater challenge; and if he gets run over by a bus, my third-generation Lum family has long since had the body shape changer reward item.

Most importantly perhaps, I have no lags, at 1:00 a.m. or otherwise.

I would use the AwesomeMod again in a minute if there were a "Light" version that left the default Story Mode (mostly) untouched, but gave me the benefits I miss such as described above.  I will probably reread this thread and other similar ones because I'm sure I'm just not noticing all the problems with the default story mode, which is why I'll keep playing this Lum family through at least one more generation and watching the hood while I do so.  In the meantime, I'm certainly open to suggestions/macros/pointing-and-laughing regarding what I'm missing by using the default Story Mode, or if it indeed could work OK if you're running Just One Fambly.

One last question:  I read earlier how the AwesomeMod could lead to a dying geriatric town, which it did indeed do a couple of times for me.  I also read that this is probably the player's fault, unless I misunderstood.  If true, this is fascinating and chilling.  I would especially love to know what I did wrong in those cases -- probably I focused too much on my Sim's career and should instead have made sure he got married and spawned lots of kids.

[moondance]

If you're really only interested in playing one family, you're better off with Indie, or with AwesomeMod with parthogenesis allowed, or with no mod at all.

[Motoki]

I'm more or less only interested in playing one family for the bulk of my play time. I still feel like I want more out of the townies than what the default story mode does but maybe I am expecting too much.

I run Awesomemod (with parthenogenesis off) the bulk of the time then every once in a while if I feel like the population is getting a bit thin or old I'll swap it out and let Indie run for a bit.

The gameplay features/fixes/tuning in Awesomemod really makes a big difference for me and even when I run Indie I get bothered not having it.

I feel like AM in its current state doesn't do a ton with story mode, though I do feel like it is a bit stringent in some areas. Still, the 1am thing can be worked around by changing all the house names to include the name of the family residing there thus making it an ancestral home. If you do that and turn parth off and maybe every once in a blue moon let Indie run for a couple of sim days I think it works pretty well with story mode. Or as well as can be expected at this point in time. I'd still like to see more out of townies but maybe by design we just never will. 

[GayJohnScarritt]

In TS2, I had no problems with going from house to house, playing my Spares/Multiple Famblys, yet I find myself without the strength to play my Spares is TS3.  I know what the reason is, but it's humiliating to admit it.  I find myself unwilling and/or unable to give up the 'fantasy' of believing what EAxis promised us with TS3.  A living/breathing/evolving community around our 'One Fambly'.  Until I can resolve that personal conflict, I'm unable to 'Switch Households'.

And yet, I'm also unwilling to give up AM and all of it's fantastic features.  So I continue playing a hood until the point when tumbleweeds start blowing down Main Street.  Then I scrape it and start all over again in a new hood.

[caitlyn]

I'm really not finding the 1:00 moving around that everyone talks about.  At most, every night I get maybe 4 or 5 events. Most of those are "befriend" or "antagonize".  I started in an empty town and deleted all characters.  Then I created my Legacy Sim and am on the 6th generation.  I still only get a couple of move ins or family creations a week.  I never get marriages, and the births they announce at 1:00 are sims that I can't find.

Also, sims I send out into the wild never do anything again.  No promotions, births, marriages...nothing.

Side note:  Just last night, I had the announcement of a birth baby named with only Stars again, and I have the absolute latest awesomemod installed every time I start the game.

[Enelen]

Do we know what the Indie mod enables to pair off townies? I get notifications at 1 AM of townies making enemies and friends, but what does it take to make married couples? I'm obsessed with marriage at the moment, because my pre-married couples didn't have any problem producing babies, but I haven't got any for a while, and now when I took a quick tour of the townies, I could see that they have enemies and friends, but no love interests, and no new marriages...

Also, I thought that the musical houses problem was fixed in the latest Awesomemod... at least now I don't get any. No idea what I did, I re-downloaded the aweconf for the SC, and the whole mod for good measure, in case something was changed and I missed it, and all my townies stay put now. So you are saying it's only luck and they may start moving again any time now?

[imyourboy]

I used Indie last night for the first time and I was surprised when it married two guys and moved into their own house.  That was great!

[Motoki]

I'm really not finding the 1:00 moving around that everyone talks about.  At most, every night I get maybe 4 or 5 events. Most of those are "befriend" or "antagonize".  I started in an empty town and deleted all characters.  Then I created my Legacy Sim and am on the 6th generation.  I still only get a couple of move ins or family creations a week.  I never get marriages, and the births they announce at 1:00 are sims that I can't find.

That is pretty much all I get in my neighborhood at 1am are moves and nothing else. And this was after the AM that supposedly fixed it. I guess I should finally get around to just ancestral homing everyone.

Also, sims I send out into the wild never do anything again.  No promotions, births, marriages...nothing.

I've noticed that too. That the sims I create and move in but don't play these core mods ignore them entirely. I wonder what's up with that.

Do we know what the Indie mod enables to pair off townies? I get notifications at 1 AM of townies making enemies and friends, but what does it take to make married couples? I'm obsessed with marriage at the moment, because my pre-married couples didn't have any problem producing babies, but I haven't got any for a while, and now when I took a quick tour of the townies, I could see that they have enemies and friends, but no love interests, and no new marriages...

I have no idea. It seems arbitrary though. I'm sure whatever means they use would not be Kosher with Pescado and his stringent demands for realism.

I used Indie last night for the first time and I was surprised when it married two guys and moved into their own house.  That was great!

Really? Wow that's pretty cool. Especially since I've hear a number of people complaining about the lack of that with Indie.

Now the real test is if it get them to adopt on its own without any player intervention. Hell, if it does that I might even switch over to Indie more often.

[imyourboy]

I used Indie last night for the first time and I was surprised when it married two guys and moved into their own house.  That was great!

Really? Wow that's pretty cool. Especially since I've hear a number of people complaining about the lack of that with Indie.

Now the real test is if it get them to adopt on its own without any player intervention. Hell, if it does that I might even switch over to Indie more often.

I'll keep my eye on them and if it does have them adopt I'll report back.  I noticed it when it first said Cyclone Sword (sp?) was dating some guy last name Boyd I think, then it said they married, then they moved into a house together.  So I'll watch them off and on without selecting them, and see if it progresses.  Cyclone is an elder and Boyd is a YA.

[moondance]

I have no idea. It seems arbitrary though. I'm sure whatever means they use would not be Kosher with Pescado and his stringent demands for realism.

It's funny how often those arbitrary pairings are either just perfect (Bella and Mortimer,) or are so wrong that they are funny (Agnes Crumplebottom to Iqbal Alvi.)  Interestingly, Indie seems to like to pair VJ Alvi with Lisa Bunch, which is exactly what I always did when I was doing my own matching.  But, it also annoys me by pairing a lot of adult and YA men with elder women.  I don't mind so much when it's the other way around, but the whole point of matching them up (for me) is for breeding.

[jwaas]

In TS2, I had no problems with going from house to house, playing my Spares/Multiple Famblys, yet I find myself without the strength to play my Spares in TS3.  I know what the reason is, but it's humiliating to admit it.  I find myself unwilling and/or unable to give up the 'fantasy' of believing what EAxis promised us with TS3.  A living/breathing/evolving community around our 'One Fambly'.  Until I can resolve that personal conflict, I'm unable to 'Switch Households'.

And yet, I'm also unwilling to give up AM and all of its fantastic features.  So I continue playing a hood until the point when tumbleweeds start blowing down Main Street.  Then I scrape it and start all over again in a new hood.

I think you hit the nail on the proverbial head in terms of why I'm playing only one family too.  That, and I just can't be bothered to micromanage that many spares -- and also, to some extent, because I'm still watching this game and trying to figure out how it works.  Really, I'm doing the same thing over and over again, and trying to keep an eye on the hood in general at the same time:  (1) Get male YA married, give the Mrs. plastic surgery if needed, feed her lots of apples, and spawn The One Manchild; (2) Age baby up to a toddler immediately, then up to a child as soon as he has learned all three toddler skills; (3) While advancing parents' careers, start the child on making friends (maybe I can find him a potential mate even at this early stage); (4) Age child to teen as soon as he's getting an A; (5) Increase teen's skills and school performance (parents will become Mature Adults by this time); (6) When teen ages to YA, age parents to elders and kick them out; (7) Repeat from step 1, moving into a nicer house at the same time.

I'm getting more and more curious about the Indie Stone mod, though it sounds so heavy-handed that I think I'd like it less than the AwesomeMod.  In the meantime, I'll keep experimenting with the more-or-less-unmodded Story Mode.  One thing I've noticed already is that I have had zero need for babysitters, due to the enforced maternal leave which lasts well into The One Manchild's 6 stage, and even then one of the parents is bound to come home about the same time as the 6.  I am not exactly what you'd call progressive, and still find this very insulting and annoying.  But I know others have commented on this already.

[Solmyr]

What I've done for now to keep my town alive:

1.Play with AM until you feel like you need some more townsfolk. Save.
2.Disable AM, enable Indie. Delete script cache. Reload the save.
3.Config Indie options for Silly Fast story progression, relationships allowed, childbirth allowed, household moving not allowed (if you prefer to keep everyone put). You can also enable reports for all to see what's going on.
4.Play with Indie until you get enough marriages and new babies to satisfy your needs. At Silly Fast setting playing for half a day to a day will get you tons of that.
5.Disable Indie, enable AM. Delete script cache. Reload the save. Continue playing with all-new townsfolk relationships.

This seems to work fine for me so far. I don't use Supreme Commander though and assume it would not allow this kind of mod hopping, but if you are not into controlling everything then the above should get you by.

[Motoki]

What I've done for now to keep my town alive:

1.Play with AM until you feel like you need some more townsfolk. Save.
2.Disable AM, enable Indie. Delete script cache. Reload the save.
3.Config Indie options for Silly Fast story progression, relationships allowed, childbirth allowed, household moving not allowed (if you prefer to keep everyone put). You can also enable reports for all to see what's going on.
4.Play with Indie until you get enough marriages and new babies to satisfy your needs. At Silly Fast setting playing for half a day to a day will get you tons of that.
5.Disable Indie, enable AM. Delete script cache. Reload the save. Continue playing with all-new townsfolk relationships.

This seems to work fine for me so far. I don't use Supreme Commander though and assume it would not allow this kind of mod hopping, but if you are not into controlling everything then the above should get you by.

That's more or less what I do, but I don't even bother to delete the cache and I find Indie on normal speed is sufficient, though I guess if your goal is simply to power breed the town as quickly as possible and get back to Awesomemod as quickly as you can then the fast mode would probably be best.

Pescado warns that enabling Supreme Commander may make you unable to remove Awesomemod with your save in the future, however in my experience of A LOT of swapping out with Awesomemod running, then not running, then running again I have not had any problems even with Supreme Commander enabled. Of course your mileage may vary. You will also want to make sure that when you save and get ready to take Awesomemod out that all SC functions on all your active sims have been canceled and no one is currently running using any SC macros before you save and exit the game.

[Doc Doofus]

Is it possible that the default EA Story Mode may be adequate for those of us who actually play Only One Fambly?

No.  The first time an important non-fambly sim moves out of town forever with no way to recover them, you'll be frantic to abandon EA Story Mode.  As for the other miscellaneous bugs, you might be able to live with them

I had the geriatric community problem before using AwesomeMod.  I had to run vanilla for the first two or three weeks because of a recurring VooDoo Crash using the older versions of AwesomeMod.  That's gone away, and I'm strictly AwesomeMod now.  But even when I ran vanilla, I still had the geriatric problem.  I think it stems from the fact that almost all the starter families in a new game are YA's, and they all reach elderhood at the same time without yet dying to make space for the vanilla game to generate new townies.

[chaos]

Story Progression likes to report fake babbys. I moved a custom fambly that I made, but never intended to play, into a random house that happens to have a crib in it. All three sims are unrelated and single. Two nights in a row, Story Progression reported a babby with an unknown name being spawned on that lot. The next day, I went to check it out. No babby. All three of the single sims were home. I removed the crib from the lot, and have had no more fake babby reports. Apparently, Story Progression senses a crib on a lot and tries to create a story around it, but without actually implementing the story action. This is lame.

[J. M. Pescado]

There are several reasons why the Baby action may produce no visible results:
1. The action makes a sim pregnant. It takes a bit longer for the baby to actually pop.
2. On closer examination, there are no valid parents. Because parthenogenesis is not allowed, the baby fails to spawn on account of a lack of proper parents. Detecting this failure condition is much more expensive at ActionGen than it is to simply fail at Execution, so this invalid condition passes without note until the action is chosen attempts to run, whereupon it fails. This is all brought about by the incredibly bass-ackwards method of generating events, where the directive comes from the top-down without any regards for validity, instead of being launched from a sim deciding to do so after satisfying the conditions.
3. Aging is off. The game will not fire the baby-spawner while aging is off because otherwise the babies cannot advance.

[Mootilda]

Pescado would you care to explain how the jeebers hell did you hack the story progression part of the game pescado? Im not getting rid of awesomemod i just want to get better at it if i do once decide to become a semi professional modder

Here's the answer to your question:

There are various tutorials for creating core mods.  Read them to understand the process.  Then, use that process to do the following:

Extract and disassemble the DLLs in the vanilla game.  Extract and disassemble the DLLs in the AwesomeMod.  Optionally decompile both sets to Mono or C#.  Diff.  Examine the differences and try to understand what they do.

Honestly, if you want to understand, this is your best option.  It's a lot of work, but well worth it if you want to become a "semi professional modder".

[chaos]

Gah! I started a new default Riverview and, like clockwork, at 1 AM I see moves, moves, and more moves. I've only recently started playing with storymode reporting enabled, and I now understand what everyone's been complaining about. I see reports for anywhere from 5 to a dozen famblies moving out of their houses EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, and it causes lag, especially when I'm playing the family with the large haunted house (Jones, I believe). It's just plain weird.