Bathroom Controller: In Soviet Russia, Bathroom Uses You!

[J. M. Pescado]

The problem with using bathroom mirrors is that then it clashes with sims trying to use the bathroom! This used to be an early complaint, that before "Reject Bathroom Mirrors" was added, the queue would be stomped anytime someone needed to use the bathroom and shooed out the mirroring sim. Since the mirror-user will likely be there for a very long time, it is unwise to block the entire bathroom so someone can use none of the actual bathroom functions. So while bathroom mirrors may be placed for cosmetic purposes, they will not be used for skilling since it would interfere with the use of the bathroom.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I suppose a mirror in the hall - if they HAVE a hall!

[BlueSoup]

OK JM, but what about the headmaster and the changing appearance in the mirror?

[ZephyrZodiac]

By the time my sims can even consider Private School (ahem Public School over here) they probably have more bathrooms than sims!  So I'd remove the BUY from one of them anyway, so when they throw a party their visitors can take a bath!

[PlayLives]

What's up with the latest version of BUY (5-28)? It is pushing my sims into the bathroom even when their bladder & hygiene is almost complety full (sometimes maybe 90% full). Serioulsy, they are running to the bathroom constantly on home lots and business lots where I have the rolls installed. I've tried setting 'Seek' to on & off but it doesn't matter. What's going on? 

[J. M. Pescado]

What's up with the latest version of BUY (5-28)? It is pushing my sims into the bathroom even when their bladder & hygiene is almost complety full (sometimes maybe 90% full). Serioulsy, they are running to the bathroom constantly on home lots and business lots where I have the rolls installed. I've tried setting 'Seek' to on & off but it doesn't matter. What's going on? 

Beats me. I cannot reproduce this result. What are you doing to cause it? Seek isn't even programmed to TRY on a sim until bladder/hygiene are pretty low, and that code hasn't been changed in ages. What are your sims doing at the time?

By the time my sims can even consider Private School (ahem Public School over here) they probably have more bathrooms than sims!  So I'd remove the BUY from one of them anyway, so when they throw a party their visitors can take a bath!

Visitors should be able to be processed for showers if they have the "shower enabled" visitor mode set, as per normal gameplay. They should be kicked out if they're attempting to loiter in the bathroom, which is the usual reason they're trying to go in there, to stalk someone ELSE who went in there.

[ZephyrZodiac]

It happens to my visitors when the BR is empty, and they've gone in to wash their hands!

What shower enabled visitor mode?

[J. M. Pescado]

It happens to my visitors when the BR is empty, and they've gone in to wash their hands!

Shower-enabled visitor mode is normally triggered when you invite someone to stay over, which sets a flag on their visitor-state which enables them to use the shower. BRY checks for this (in the old days, it would try to force any visitor into the shower if low enough, resulting in a hang), and thus ignores the shower-part for anyone loitering in the bathroom.

And the bathroom is intentionally forced to remain empty, so that people looking for a docking port do not wind up in a traffic jam. This is why nobody, ESPECIALLY visitors, is allowed to perform any spurious silly activities in the bathroom, such as aforementioned pointless handwashing. Everyone OUT! If any idiot was allowed to simply waltz in anytime they randomly decided to do something stupid there, and then loiter as long as they wanted, there'd be a massive, unentangleable traffic jam as everyone piled into the bathroom, rendering it impossible for anyone to leave or use the fixtures they NEED to use.

This is why leaving a bathroom "unequipped" is folly and the people being thrown out deserve it.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, yes, I sse all that, but what about if Inge's apartment sink is in the bathroom?  Also, why can't party guests use the bath or the shower?

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, yes, I sse all that, but what about if Inge's apartment sink is in the bathroom?  Also, why can't party guests use the bath or the shower?

Well, presumably, Maxis saw it as being somewhat STRANGE for you to go to somebody ELSE's house to take a shower, perhaps because then, having no source of clean uniforms, you'd just have to get back into your stinky, smelly clothes, thus defeating the point of the exercise. When was the last time you went to somebody's house to use their shower, anyway?

And what is this "Inge apartment sink", and why does it matter if it's in the bathroom or not? No loitering in the bathrooms means no loitering in the bathrooms!

[ZephyrZodiac]

It was just so funny watching them!  As you keep reminding us, these are sims, not human beings!

[PlayLives]

Beats me. I cannot reproduce this result. What are you doing to cause it? Seek isn't even programmed to TRY on a sim until bladder/hygiene are pretty low, and that code hasn't been changed in ages. What are your sims doing at the time?

They aren't doing anything just walking around. Even when visitors show up, the 1st thing they do is run to the bathroom. I have use one roll per bathroom or stall, is that to much?
I'll look more closely at their bladder/hygiene level to see when it's taking affect. Maybe my sims have a case of the runs, who knows. lol

[MistyBlue]

I am having a problem. BUY works fine except for when someone is using the bathroom and someone is waiting for the bathroom. The person in the bathroom gets stuck in an endless loop and I have to tell him to do something in order to stop the loop. While it's not really a big deal, it sort of defeats the purpose of BUY and I'd like to get it resolved. I have done all of the common steps to isolate the problem, but I can't find a cause. Any suggestions?

[J. M. Pescado]

Hmm. Normally the person in the bathroom gets tossed out and then the next one takes his place. Can you describe exactly what you mean by "endless loop"?

[MistyBlue]

The person in the terlet just paces back and forth. The person waiting paces as normal. I can end the pacing by canceling out either persons action in the cue. I'm stumped by this and it just started a few days ago.

[aussieone]

Yep, I was having this very problem a little while ago.

I thought it was fixed with a macrotastics update, but since then (and another macrotastics update) the problem has re-presented itself.

The 'endless loop' that MistyBlue is talking about is that when a sim is being used by the controller, if another sim is queued up by the controller to use the bathroom, after the first sim finishes his 'business' in the bathroom, he becomes 'stuck' and won't be ejected out of the bathroom by the controller and the icon on the screen that represents him being used by the controller, 'flashes' for want of a better word. So what I do to get him out of the bathroom is just press on an empty floor space and tell him to 'go here'.

It is an annoyance, especially if you're not watching at all times and you find sims going into bladder failure due to this problem.

[MistyBlue]

I don't have a flashing icon, but other than that it is the same problem. I did recently download the directors cut becuase I knew that most of the stuff in my game was from when OFB just came out. Maybe that is the problem.

[J. M. Pescado]

I will look into the queuing code and see if something has affected it, and if I can reproduce the results.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I've noticed it recently too, and it's also particularly annoying when you have a sim due to go to work so you click on Be Used, and the controlller takes over and sends a kid who isn't even near bladder failure, or hygiene failure, and doesn't have school that day, to use the bathroom and nearly make her father miss his carpool!  Would it be pollible to make the Be Used feature override the controller, as with everything installed, you would only be using it when really necessary.

[J. M. Pescado]

Should be fixed now, along with the Headmaster tour thing(at last!) and the NL/OFB version split (should be unified now).

[ZephyrZodiac]

Great!  Can't wait to try it out and see what happens!

[Myth]

Were you able to duplicate the running to the bathroom with a 90% full bladder bar?  I've been having the same issue.  There is nothing special that is happening when my Sim runs for the terlet, it's completely random other than their bladder bar not being completely full.

[J. M. Pescado]

Were you able to duplicate the running to the bathroom with a 90% full bladder bar?  I've been having the same issue.  There is nothing special that is happening when my Sim runs for the terlet, it's completely random other than their bladder bar not being completely full.

Unable to reproduce this phenomenon. I will continue to investigate it, but cannot find any particular trigger for it. In fact, it shouldn't happen at all, since Seek won't even try to haul in a sim below the seek point, which has not been changed, especially not if Seek is off. What is your sim doing at the time that triggers this behavior? Power Idle?

[Myth]

Nope.  Haven't used the power idle on him.  He will be doing everyday Sim things; playing chess, talking to another Sim etc. and then run for it.  I will play more tonight and see if I can find a common denominator.  Since I just recently got this hack I thought it was normal behaviour until I saw PlayLives discussing it.

(I was thinking that if there was a certain percentage of the bladder bar that you set BUY to activate at, maybe that had an issue?  )

[ZephyrZodiac]

Is the sim near the bathroom when it happens?  Or directly underneath?