Community Lot Eating

[jack_d_spratt]

I'm a little slow getting OFB up, I held off for the patch then decided I needed a new rig for Oblivion and I just started playing OFB over the weekend.  I searched the forum and didn't turn up anything.

On community lots, all people seem to do is eat.  They are stacked up at the podium waiting to be seated, it takes the waiter forever to get to them, and the waiter has no spare time to clean up after the patrons.  As soon as they are done eating, they queue back up to be seated again.  I'm running the Eat More Talk Less hack, but nothing else I know of that should affect eating.

It's hard to interact with other Sims this way, I have to keep my controllable close and try to catch them between one meal and the next.  Anybody else seeing this?

[Karen]

Squinge has a "less attractive restauraunt podium" hack at MTS2.  The site seems to be down now so I can't post a link, but I think this might be what you're looking for.

Karen

[jack_d_spratt]

I saw a hack by Squinge that sped things up, but not one that reduced advertising for the podium.

I'm wondering if the game adjusted the number of people on community lots up because of the new rig, and that is what is overwhelming the restaurant.  Does the game allow different numbers of people on community lots based on hardware?

[Pegasys]

Check out this thread: http://www.moreawesomethanyou.net/smf/index.php?topic=3687.0

[MissDoh]

The main problem is that since OFB, townie appear on community lots with their hunger, fun and social needs at half level.  This was done so they will buy stuff on business lots.

Even with Eddief66 "less attractive restaurant podium" it does not change a thing.  I am the one that requested it and we tried to tune-it up me and Eddie with no success.  The townie are just too hungry when they appear on community lots so they must fulfill their hunger and because the hunger level is low, it takes more than 1 meal to fulfill their hunger.  So the moment you load a restaurant lot, expect your Sims to act that way.  I transform some of them and remove the restaurant part and added a BBQ instead.

The best solution is simply to wait until all the townie have appear on the community lot and then use the "maxmotives" cheat so all their needs will be fulfill.

I do this all the time and they started to interact again with each other and are using the fun stuff on community lots.  Don't do that on your business lots though since if the Sims fun level is full, it is almost impossible to sell them anything.

EDIT:  An overall motive boost mod would not help unless you are not planning to play the business part (I tested one and on business lots it was a disaster, no Sims where buying anything, their buying meter were completely empty).  I am trying right now a motive hunger boost only mod, it is working great so far, this can be found at the insimenator site, look for the YA and downtownies shopper post, it is an add-on mod in that post.

[jack_d_spratt]

Thanks for the point, Pegasys. And for the further info MissDoh.

I guess if I'm going to send a Sim dowtown to interact with non-controllables, I'll pick a non-restaurant destination.  It is kind of interesting, though, if Sims now start with such low motives, why do they hang out all day at the one business I have?  Can't hardly get rid of them there.  Oh well.

[MissDoh]

Thanks for the point, Pegasys. And for the further info MissDoh.

I guess if I'm going to send a Sim dowtown to interact with non-controllables, I'll pick a non-restaurant destination.  It is kind of interesting, though, if Sims now start with such low motives, why do they hang out all day at the one business I have?  Can't hardly get rid of them there.  Oh well.

Sims are not rational creatures so don't try to understand lol

[jsalemi]

  It is kind of interesting, though, if Sims now start with such low motives, why do they hang out all day at the one business I have?  Can't hardly get rid of them there.  Oh well.

Get JMP's 'Business Uses You' controller here in the FFS forum -- it has an option to make the hangers-on 'bugger off'.

[J. M. Pescado]

The catch with "less attractive restaurant podiums" is that if they're less attractive, business at your already low-margin restaurants kinda plummets. I bet I can tweak it so it remains attractive, but only to hungry sims.

Also, next edition of Macro/BRY should drastically improve the efficiency of owned restaurant workers. Right now they burn a lot of motives standing there uselessly like logs during "deadspace". Business Runs You will improve this behavior.

[MissDoh]

The catch with "less attractive restaurant podiums" is that if they're less attractive, business at your already low-margin restaurants kinda plummets. I bet I can tweak it so it remains attractive, but only to hungry sims.

Also, next edition of Macro/BRY should drastically improve the efficiency of owned restaurant workers. Right now they burn a lot of motives standing there uselessly like logs during "deadspace". Business Runs You will improve this behavior.

JM if you can get the "less attractive restaurant podium" to work so townie Sims on community lot won't just rush to that stupid podium and actually be available to interact with I would be really grateful.  So far I tried 3 different versions with no success.  Of course like you said, it must not affect business.

Of course, I am available to test this, just let me know if you come up with something.

[sintrinity]

Just a note on this and something to think about but ... I recently reinstalled everything and left all downloads out and this cleared up for me without a less attractive podium. 

They still eat while they are there but not obsessively and they can be interacted with before or after they do eat.

I have absolutely no idea which download to even look at since I had so many but I am loading them back as things bother me and making sure I go to a restaurant in between to check.

In the meantime - if you still have this problem go to FM and put soap in the fountain to make them all run outside (or put fountains at all your restaurants ) so you can grab who you want to meet.  It was the only thing I found prior that really allowed me to talk to them.