Community Skilling Snafu

[croiduire]

I have broken my absolute favorite hack and I don't know (1) how I did it, or (2) how to get it back. I must have community skilling. It is Beyond Awesome. It was working fine and then I downloaded three hacks: the famous InSIMenator, the smart-serve2g.package and the homework-in-bedroom1c.package (the last two both Dizzy's at Variousimmers. http://www.variousimmers.net/vsimforum/forumdisplay.php?f=193)

I load up my game and get no skill bars for visitors. Nada zip zilch. I checked in SimPE to see if they were actually gaining skills, but invisibly. They weren't. The conflict detector shows nothing, but naturally the hacks came out of my game anyway. Unfortunately, it didn't help!

What do I do now? Redownload the Most Awesome hack? Could something else be conflicting?

[MaximilianPS]

well i've comm-skilling.package .. but i think it's an Awesome hack .. and it's work with FFS

[ElfPuddle]

I have the puppy killer and smart serve; comm-skilling works fine with them. Have you run Clean Installer or Paladin's program to see what conflicts with each other?

[croiduire]

Yes, of course...that's what I meant when I referred to the conflict detector--Paladin's. It showed only four conflicts, and they are old and known to be non-issues (Crammyboys nudist hacks).

Clean Pack doesn't help me, frankly--I already know they're game altering hacks and are supposed to be bright red or they aren't working--but I ran it just in case it was a simple object file causing unexpected problems. No luck.

I'm going to try a redownload just in case...wish me luck, please.

[syberspunk]

I assume you are using Pescado's comm skilling and Not Squinge's, right? Just a dumb question, but I thought I'd ask anyways.

And I have a lot of dizzy's old hacks, including the homework in bedroom one, and it all works fine for me. Just the other day, I was playing my sims at the pool, and all of them were skilling up Body points. *shrugs*

What were your sims doing? What skills were you trying to get them to gain?

Good luck. Hopefully you'll find out the problem.

Ste

[croiduire]

Yes, Pescado's and in both cases they were playing chess as visitors at other sim's houses. Just simple, ubiquitous chess.

And redownloading comm skilling didn't help. *gloom*

Since the problem persisted with all three new hacks removed, and a fresh download just in case somehow something was corrupted, I obviously can't blame them, so I'm looking at what else I downloaded that might affect behavior (like objects...)

Looking in my folder, the next latest hack I downloaded to the best of my knowledge before the problem began was MTS2_305288_syberspunk_hardergrades2.0-lesscheering. I also grabbed lots of bedding, several of Boblishman's knick-knacks, the stairs from Holy Simoly, items from CTNutmegger, Darter and Zillah, MTS2_315292_Numenor_MaxisLost_SouvenirCabinet, and MTS2_244726_simnuts101_Two_Manual_French_Harpsichord. None of these designers are careless as near as I've even seen.

I'm going to pull the Harpsichord to start with. I believe it's the only skill-related item, and I have to start somewhere. I'll make it go away and see what happened. BIAB.

[Ness]

Pescado's comm skilling is working as intended then.  It does not allow playable sims not currently being played to gain skill on comm lots.

[croiduire]

Blink blink! But it always has before in my game! OK, I don't want to fix it, I want to break it properly again, just like it was. That SUCKS!

It has always made me crazy that effort expended away from home is null and void.

[syberspunk]

Well. You might have had the version that Motoki tweaked, to allow all sims to skill. Pescado's reasoning is that you might want to control when your playable sims gain their skills, in particular Knowledge sims, since gaining multiple skills tends to clog their wants with... well wanting to gain skills in multiple skill tracks, which can be a bother.

If you want skilling for all, you can use the 'non-awesome' version by Squinge. I think it pretty much does the same thing without restrictions, afaik. I actually prefer Pescado's because I tend to be OCD when it comes to micro managing my sims.

Ste

[croiduire]

I must have had an altered version (and will try Squinge's)

Obviously this is a huge difference in playing styles. I give my sims longer life spans at every stage, even the boring and inconvenient ones, I always play with free will on. I love it when my sims spawn totally odd wants, like my knowledge sims aching for bubble blowers, or my pleasure sims busting to do term papers.

I prefer it when platinum moods are as rare and special as they are in real life. I crack up when the "moments of truth" arrive, for example, the time I discovered that all three children of my family sim, whose lifetime want was six grandchildren, were gay, and it was never, ever going to happen. I play for the journey, not the destination, and the life-long learning, anywhere they go, approach suits me down to the ground.

If the baby wants a cuddle, they stop and cuddle. If they just want to relax and look at the clouds, they can do that too. I wish the harder jobs hack was available to NL (or that I was awesome and could fix it myself). I think a sim should have to spend at least as many days in a job as the level of the job and--as another aspect--a sim with a degree in history, on the military track, who graduated summa cum laude should start as a lieutenant or whatever they term the most junior officer. One with a degree in art starts as a recruit, just like in the real world.

Anyway, thanks everyone. I suppose it's a good thing game mechanics-wise that it's fixed, even if it does make me sad.  C'est la vie.