Business Controller: Business Runs YOU!

[Katuchan]

Hi, I was looking for a way to automatically assign my home business employees to do a set task when they come in. I was referred here, but I don't really need all that other crazy hoohah...what would you recommend? Thanks in advance!

[J. M. Pescado]

Hi, I was looking for a way to automatically assign my home business employees to do a set task when they come in. I was referred here, but I don't really need all that other crazy hoohah...what would you recommend? Thanks in advance!

The "crazy hoohah" is necessary to make your sim actually carry out the task effectively. Otherwise the tasks cannot be performed effectively because sims are really stupid.

[Katuchan]

Hi, I was looking for a way to automatically assign my home business employees to do a set task when they come in. I was referred here, but I don't really need all that other crazy hoohah...what would you recommend? Thanks in advance!

The "crazy hoohah" is necessary to make your sim actually carry out the task effectively. Otherwise the tasks cannot be performed effectively because sims are really stupid.

I have other mods that do little simple things that I want, such as refresh my employee's motives so that there's no need to take a break, and a sign that automatically calls in and sends home employees when I want them to, and so on. The only thing I want is to auto assign an employee a task when they arrive on the lot. I need to download all of this:

businessrunsyou.zip
autosoc.zip
autoyak.zip
bathroomusesyou.zip
macrotastics.zip
skillinator.zip

Just to do that? I'm aware that sims are stupid...but is that all really necessary?

[jsalemi]

businessrunsyou.zip
autosoc.zip
autoyak.zip
bathroomusesyou.zip
macrotastics.zip
skillinator.zip

Just to do that? I'm aware that sims are stupid...but is that all really necessary?

Once you add those to your game (and the sleepclock, and the lot debugger), you'll wonder how you ever played without them...

[Venusy]

I have other mods that do little simple things that I want, such as refresh my employee's motives so that there's no need to take a break, and a sign that automatically calls in and sends home employees when I want them to, and so on. The only thing I want is to auto assign an employee a task when they arrive on the lot. I need to download all of this:

businessrunsyou.zip
autosoc.zip
autoyak.zip
bathroomusesyou.zip
macrotastics.zip
skillinator.zip

Just to do that? I'm aware that sims are stupid...but is that all really necessary?

To put in context: it has probably taken you more time to whine about this than it would have taken to download the relevant hacks.

[BastDawn]

To be fair, I don't think Katuchan is complaining about the time it takes to download and install the hacks, just that so many are needed.  In my own case, I don't like having hacks that do stuff I don't want or need in my game, so I didn't install macrotastics or the skillinator until the other hacks had won me over.

Katuchan, try "bathroom uses you" just to see what these hacks are like.  It's worth installing just for the way it ejects idling sims from the bathroom.  And if you really don't want the excellent hacks that support BRY, go ahead and try BRY without them -- you won't get the best functionality, but it won't hurt to try it on its own.  If you're refreshing their motives instead of letting them take breaks, you are already doing the stuff that the related hacks would direct them to do when needed.

[Gwill]

I was trying Business>Be fisherman and got this:

[J. M. Pescado]

I was trying Business>Be fisherman and got this:

Make the pond more accessible.

[SimDebster]

The whole unusable chair deal happens in Uni, too, and it is annoying as hell.

In Uni, this is caused by the noassignmentlitter hack.  I was going to report it, but it had no thread, so I just removed the hack from the game because I figured it was less aggravating to have assignment litter than unusable chairs and the whining that ensued from the sims.  If you force error on the chair and choose reset, it will make the chair usable again.  Of course, if you continue to use the hack, the chair will just get stuck in the "in use" mode as soon as another sim sets homework down but does not sit down right away (whether from blockage by other sims, etc. or said sim found something else more pressing to do).

[J. M. Pescado]

I have not found any correlation between noassignmentlitter and stuck chairs. I had stuck chairs before I added that, and I've not had stuck chairs after it, so the correlation seems weak at best.

[Gwill]

Stuck chairs happened for me before, during and after noassignmentlitter.
It's definitely caused by dormied autonomously doiing assignments, but not by the hack.

[SimDebster]

It was a year ago that it happened to me.  I guess it was just a huge coincidence then.  It is just that I did not have the problem of stuck chairs before installing the hack, and have not had it happen since I uninstalled the hack.  It could also be the permutation of hacks that I was using vs. the hacks you are using now.  It could even be the use of non-awesome hacks in combination with that hack.  I really could not say since it was so long ago.  I do always run the hack conflict utility every time that I install new hacks, so I know that it was not a conflict.  Anyway, I use the hack that prevents the dormies from creating another assignment if one exists (cannot remember the name off the top of my head), along with the Grand Trianon desks which seem to make sims want to put assignments on them, and it all works out pretty well.

[sloppyhousewife]

Is there a possibility to either exclude some employees from the influence of BRY or to take actions other than selling, restocking etc. into account? I've tried to run sort of a pay-to-stay coffeeshop (where visitors can help themselves from the buffet and have some coffee, but can buy cake too), but I cannot assign an employee to the coffee bar (the action keeps dropping out of the queue), and another employee assigned to cleaning doesn't do anything besides kicking flamingos ^^.

Am I missing something or do I really have to abandon BRY for this particular business ?

P.S. Yeah, necromancy

[J. M. Pescado]

Is there a possibility to either exclude some employees from the influence of BRY or to take actions other than selling, restocking etc. into account? I've tried to run sort of a pay-to-stay coffeeshop (where visitors can help themselves from the buffet and have some coffee, but can buy cake too), but I cannot assign an employee to the coffee bar (the action keeps dropping out of the queue), and another employee assigned to cleaning doesn't do anything besides kicking flamingos ^^.

Am I missing something or do I really have to abandon BRY for this particular business ?

How do you know what's going on in an employee's queue, anyway? You should just be able to assign him to "Barista", and he should do his thing. Barista-being is a static, non-assisted job, and BRY only has an influence on that employee when he stops working from low motives. The flamingo kicking is how fun is raised to keep motives at a worky level. What things are not actually being cleaned?

[sloppyhousewife]

How do you know what's going on in an employee's queue, anyway? You should just be able to assign him to "Barista", and he should do his thing. Barista-being is a static, non-assisted job, and BRY only has an influence on that employee when he stops working from low motives.

Sorry, I should have made this clearer: I'm talking about the owner's queue here - when I try to assign a barista, I click on the coffee bar, choose an employee's name, the icon appears in the owner's queue for a split second, then vanishes. There's no reaction from the employee in question, and his/her name stays in the "assign..." menue. S/he just acts as if s/he weren't assigned to anything (which obviously is the case).

The flamingo kicking is how fun is raised to keep motives at a worky level. What things are not actually being cleaned?

Yes, I'm aware of the fun raising aspect, I've been using BRY for all my other businesses for a while now. The employee fails to clear the empty plates (haven't tried it out long enough to see if she would clean the toilets) - the owner can clear them without problems (using macro... clean here).

[J. M. Pescado]

Yes, I'm aware of the fun raising aspect, I've been using BRY for all my other businesses for a while now. The employee fails to clear the empty plates (haven't tried it out long enough to see if she would clean the toilets) - the owner can clear them without problems (using macro... clean here).

It sounds like your employee may be suffering from the holdover effects of the "can't clean up plates" bug, or perhaps the use of anti-cleaning hacks.

[sloppyhousewife]

No anti-cleaning hacks used in my game, so I'm going to investigate what else might be the cause for my employees' disobedience.

I understand that the barista and cleaning assignment *should* work with BRY? Phew - I'm really relieved to read that, I was afraid I had to run that specific business all by myself .

[NixRMax]

Small question, is there a way to stop BRY's influence on employees? Like stop the 'Assign's I give them through it completely? I had one of my Salespeople be a BRY Salesperson, and I want to sever him from BRY completely and make him a salesperson the long Maxis way, as he is doing something I absolutely forbid: Restocking. Sims controllable by me are the only ones allowed to restock in my world, as I run businesses very carefully, and sales-restockers are messing up my careful plans, not to mention my profits. So is there a way to do this, or do I have make him a manager, ahead of when I wanted to, and try to get rid of it there?

[Marvin Kosh]

If you don't want them to restock in between sales, simply don't have them earn a restocking badge.  It'll be cheaper to employ them under BRY if they have less badges, although they'll be less versatile.

[NixRMax]

I didn't have him earn a restocking badge, he came with a Silver Restocking badge, among others, I could actually promote him when I hired him. Although I will keep this in mind for the future, there is nothing I can do now. I'll admit, his 'help' is nice in the middle of the work day when I'm busy trying to help extra customers, but it's not appreciated when I am almost ready to close up shop but Mr. Wonderful decides to restock the entire store for me.

[jsalemi]

Just click on the BRY controller and dismiss him early, before he starts running around restocking. It'll send him home as soon as he completes whatever action he's currently doing, so at worst case he'll finish restocking the item he's working on and then leave.

[NixRMax]

Well, if that's all I can do, alrighty then...

[notveryawesome]

You could always stop using BRY on that particular lot. Blasphemy, I know, but that's what I would do.

[kuronue]

I've seen no-restocking-badge employees restock before, typically when I assign them before opening the actual store so they've nothing else to do.

[jsalemi]

I had a weird thing happen with this twice in the last two days.  Two different businesses, both have managers.  In the first one, the manager was being paid 60 simoleans an hour (she had two gold and a silver badge), which when she was promoted in the last pay session was listed as 'fairly paid'.  About 1/2 way through the business day, her listing suddenly changed to 'ridiculously underpaid' (yes, I have releventwages in my game).  I tried to use BRY to boost her pay, but it would only let me boost it by 1 or 5 simoleans at a time -- clicking on the 10-simolean option just returned me to the previous pie menu with no change in her pay.  I managed to get her up to 100 simoleans, but she was still listed as underpaid and quit before I could get it any higher.

Last night, same thing happened in another business.  Manager has two gold and a silver badge, was promoted in the last session, and was making 50 simoleans an hour.  This time I managed to raise his pay fast enough to keep him from quiting (again, only the 5-simoneon option worked), but I had to get it up to 115 to get him back to 'fairly paid'.

I have no other hacks in the game that affect business wages than this and relevantwages, and I did a HCDU scan to be sure there weren't any hidden conflicts. Don't know if it's a combined problem of this not raising wages by 10 and relevantwages being broken, or if relevantwages just noticed that the sim had been promoted a 'day' later, but something is borked somewhere.  I hated losing that manager, since it'll take a while for any other employee to get to the point where he/she can be promoted.