Testers Wanted: Ask About Relationship Status Interaction (Updated 12/3/2006)

[syberspunk]

Ask About Relationship Status v3.00 for TS2PETS v1.0p0
Made by: syberspunk

I made this hack because it was a great idea and I'm glad *I* thought of it!

It complements my 'Go Steady for Adults' hack but they do not require each other i.e. they are separate hacks and can be used separately.

This hack is a new interaction under the Ask... menu that allows sims to ask non PC or visiting sims what their relationship status is. This option should only appear if the sim you click on is a visitor, townie, or NPC and the currently selected sim (that you are controlling) is not already Going Steady, Engaged, or Married to them (because obviously they should know who they are going steady, engaged, or married to ).

The package contains two files, the controller and the interaction. You need BOTH files for this mod to work properly.

:new: Added Feature  for v3.00

Sims can now ask others to scope out the room. The other sim has to have a decent relationship before the option appears (STR >= 20). They also have to be a visiting sim and not in the same family household. I wanted this feature so I can sort of play cupid with my playable sims for townies/dormies/downtownies. I highly recommend using twojeffs ACR mod to enable autonomous casual romantic interactions. Now you can use all your influence points to get other sims to flirt with each other and the ACR mod should help things further along.

I have also tweaked the acceptance code for the relationship status option. This part probably needs more testing. It now has a random chance of accepting, with a default chance of about 40-50% chance, and factors such as outgoing, nice, Mood, STR, and LTR potentially boosting those chances up to 100%. I also added a dialog message where, if the sim is in a poor mood, they will tell you, so you can try to ask again later when they are in a better mood.

:new: Added Features for v2.00

As requested, I have added a couple of new features:

1) A new interaction for an Ask About Gender Preference option. I figured it was a pretty personal question, so I've tweaked the acceptance. More outgoing sims will be more open and willing to answer this. If the target is not very outgoing, then acceptance will depend on how nice they are and their mood, with a bit of randomness thrown in. Please report back if you find the acceptance to be too low. I'm open to suggestions. Also, responses may vary.
2) I have also added a feature to report the sims that the target has a crush on or is in love with. This will only happen if the target sim is single. This seemed natural to me because if you are in a committed relationship with the target sim, they most likely wouldn't tell you who Else they are in love with or have a crush with. That should most likely make you jealous, and I didn't want to try and program anything more complicated involving jealousy. Besides, it would only be a surprise if you don't keep track of all your sims prospects. And you could always ask Before you get into a committed relationship with them while they are single. I've also tweaked the acceptance for the relationship status slightly. So shy target sims are less likely to answer unless are nice and in a good mood or they have a decent LTR with the asking sim.

The acceptance and report messages are loosely open to suggestions. That is to say, I am amenable to perhaps changing them around if a lot of people feel they need to be tweaked, and it falls in line with my own thoughts, AND if I'm not too lazy to do it.
Oh, and I decided to call it 'Gender Preference' as opposed to 'Sexual Orientation' to sort of make it more family friendly. You can easily change these things yourself using SimPE and editing the appropriate TXT files.

These new features need testing once again, so please report back if you have any problems.

NOTE:
This has been tested in OFB/FFS and works fine. It probably will work for NL as well, but I am not sure if it will work for the basegame or Uni ONLY. Please carefully read the compatibility section below for further details.

Future Prospects:
I am sort of half-assed looking into the possibility of getting the speech bubbles to show the double hearts and double rings icons for going steady, engagement, and marriage. I'd also like it for the face/icon of the sim they are going steady, engaged, or married to show up as well. If I ever figure this out, I may update this hack in the future. For now, you will only see the dialog boxes.


INSTALLATION:
This MUST be in your Downloads folder, typically found under:

C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\My Documents\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\Downloads


Compatibility:

Note: I've tested this hack in OFB/FFS only, and it works fine so far. It should work for NL as well, however, since I basically cloned it from one of the existing Ask... options, I am unsure if it will work in the basegame or Uni ONLY. So if you are willing to test this out and report back if you ONLY have the basegame or Uni, please don't hesitate to provide feedback. I think it should work... but it uses some animations that were added in NL. I included the animation text file in the package, but I am not sure if that is sufficient for it to work in older games, or if something else needs to be added to make those animations available for older games, or if I will have to switch to animations that are available in all versions.

Please report back if you have problems.

This hack is compatible with most, if not all mods by MATY crew (Pescado, TJ, and CBoy), dizzy, and probably more. Again, up to you to help me determine any possible conflicts.


:!!:REMINDER and fine print (to cover my ass ) :
Remember to ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR DATA BEFORE INSTALLING NEW HACKS. By using this hack, you agree to absolve me of any responsibility or liability for any potential loss of or damage to your data. You have been warned.

:!!:HOW TO REPORT: Conflicts, problems, or errors
I would appreciate any constructive criticism and feedback that is actually helpful. With that in mind, it would be helpful, when reporting any conflicts or issues, that you include the following:

1) thorough but reasonably brief description of what you were doing
2) clear, comprehendible explanation of your problem
3) list of hacks that may be related to going steady or engagement/marriage
4) archived (.rar or .zip) of log produced by error


:!!:HOW TO PRODUCE AN ERROR LOG:
1) Open the cheat menu - Ctrl + Shift + C
2) Enable the debug mode - Type: boolprop testingcheatsenabled true
3) Hit Enter
4) Play as normal until an error occurs. If an error dialog box pops up, note the location of the error log and choose Reset. If the error pops up repeatedly, choose Delete and exit WITHOUT SAVING!
5) Post your error log here, preferably as a .zip or .rar archive.


Posts which do not include a clear description of what your problem is will be pretty much ignored. (i.e. posts such as "This does not work! I am taking it out! You suck! Nice try! etc.") I can't and won't help you if you don't explain what's wrong.

Please be nice when trying to explain your problem and I might be nice and help you.

:grouphug: Finally, my Thank Yous go to:

J.M. Pescado, twojeffs, dizzy2, and jase439 for being excellent tutors and providing excellent models in their mods. As always, thanks to those creators who've put out some excellent modding tutorials, Quaxi and co for SimPE, and dizzy2 for disaSim2, and the finally letters T and S, and the number 2, all of whom, without which this mod would not be possible.

Thanks to Avalika, but mostly thanks to myself for the great idea, glad *I* thought of it.

Thanks to curiousfire for providing the error logs with the bug in reporting crushes and loves.

If I left anyone out, I apologize in advance. You know who you are and you deserve my thanks.

Version History:
v2.00 - Added Ask About Gender Preference options and reporting crushes and loves for singles only.
v2.01 - Fixed Check tree primitive blocked completion error
v2.02 - Testing version with tweaked/lowered acceptance requirements for gender preference
v2.03 - Fixed bug in reporting crushes and loves

Here, the interactions show up under the Ask... menu.



As you can see at first, the sim reports that she is single.



After making her 'Go Steady' with another sim, I have the sister ask the same thing, and now she says who she is going steady with and their image shows up as well.



Here you see the sim reporting her gender preference.



Here is the option for Scope Room as it appears on the menu. My sim just asked a dormie to scope the room.



Here is the dormie scoping the room.

[jsalemi]

Shiny!  You're getting to near-awesome status, ste.

[Avalikia]

Actually, to give credit where credit is due, I got the idea from...someone, I forget who, maybe it was Rainbow?  Well someone else was saying how nice that option would be.

In any event, I'll be testing this out next time I have a free moment.

[ilikefishfood]

Stellar!  Happy to test!

[jrd]

Shiny.

About time you get your own section here ste....

[Magicmoon]

I've been trying this out with Uni & NL installed. So far it is working well without any problems.

I do have a question. The sims look like they are doing a slight flirt when asking this question. Does either sim take it as a flirt? Does it affect the relationship score at all?

[RainbowTigress]

Awesome, can't wait to try it out!  I don't think this should be a flirt action.  The sims in Syber's pictures look like I've seen sims act with all the other "Ask..." interactions.  I think there was a bug when NL first came out that asking a sim a question was seen as romantic, but that was fixed in a patch.  I always like using these interactions even if I know the answer because it seems to give the relationship quite a boost.

[Magicmoon]

I don't mind if it is, but I want to know before I start using married sims to ask questions that I want the answer to, rather than the sim wanting to know.

I find that 'peck' makes sims fall in love faster than smooch and make-out combined. So if such a simple action as that can have such dire consequences, I thought it would be good to ask about this interaction.

I had a married elder ask this question to a sim who had just turned teen because I wanted to test it out. After that he followed her everywhere and cried twice as loud as her husband did when she died. Now maybe this sim really had the hots for her and this would have happened anyway, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

[syberspunk]

I know it definitely causes sims to become best friends. In my testing, I had sims crush/fall in love, but at the time, I was also using the 'Go Steady' interaction too... so I don't remember exactly whether the 'ask' interaction sets crush/love by itself. I'll try and test this a bit tomorrow to see, unless someone else tests and reports back to be sure.

In my tests tho, I had 'Toviah' ask 'Hannah Lawrence' the question, and it set them as best friends. I had them go steady, and then I had his sister ask this time, and it boosted the relationship, but I don't know if it was necessarily romantic. I am using Pescado's experimental noinstantlove hack too. I'm not sure if the game can conditionally treat certain interactions as romantic And platonic depending on the situation. Or if romantic and platonic interactions are mutually exclusive.

I did clone the interaction from the Ask about the zodiac sign, so if that interaction is romantic in anyway, then this one will pretty much act the same way. Are all the Ask interactions supposed to be platonic and never set crush/love heart bits? I don't even know. I've only used them so far with sims that are on dates... so they are typically already romantically involved.

I had a married elder ask this question to a sim who had just turned teen because I wanted to test it out. After that he followed her everywhere and cried twice as loud as her husband did when she died. Now maybe this sim really had the hots for her and this would have happened anyway, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Did you notice if the sim that was asked had any hearts (crush or love) show up for them? If it turns out that the interaction is romantic, and people would prefer it not to be, I can look into making it strictly platonic, or possibly making a platonic only version so people have a choice.


Ste

[Emma]

OMG this is awesome Ste and I want it-but can someone email the hack to me please? For some reason I cannot download attatchments from SMF forums 



[edit] Thanks for sending it to me Ste 

[Magicmoon]

Did you notice if the sim that was asked had any hearts (crush or love) show up for them? If it turns out that the interaction is romantic, and people would prefer it not to be, I can look into making it strictly platonic, or possibly making a platonic only version so people have a choice.
Ste

I'm using No Romance swoon, so sims only swoon over those they are interested in. He started swooning the moment he layed eyes on her. The "ask" did not cause the crush icon to appear. It seemed more like...from a woman's point of view...when a guy comes up and you can tell he is interested. Then you ask a simple question like "What time is it?" Then the guy thinks "I can tell she wants me!"

It appeared to me that it was a light romantic interaction. Not as big as a flirt. But I could be wrong as there have been sims in the past that are so attracted to another sim that they start stalking. If there is someone who is more familiar with the "ask" interaction, maybe they can tell us if some level of romantic interaction is happening.

If it is a romantic interaction, that's fine with me. I just want to know ahead of time so I know what I'm getting into. I personally don't feel the need for a separate platonic version.

[RainbowTigress]

I'm pretty sure it's not, because the bug in NL was that the Ask interactions were causing crushes, and they weren't supposed to.  That was fixed in one of the patches.  I did some testing at the time, but I will do some more testing with this hack in place and report back when I get a chance this evening. 

Ste, if you had it cause best friends, that was possibly because they were close enough to become best friends so all it took was one interaction to trigger the double smileys and memory.  Do you remember what their LTR was before?  If it was higher than 50 on each side, than it would definitely cause best friends.  If it were a romantic interaction, this would have also caused a crush (pink heart) or love (red heart) if higher than 70.  I will do some tests and report back later in order to give a more concrete opinion.

[syberspunk]

I did a bit of testing and I think you're right, it doesn't seem to set romantic bits. I checked those sims that I tested, and they had both STR/LTR well over 70. I queued up multiple Ask About Relationship Status interactions, and it did set best friends, but no hearts. They already had crushes from before, but the love hearts were not set. I then tried to use the interaction with his sister, who had zero/zero with her, and the interaction did not seem like it was a romantic one.

Anyhew, I think I'd be most interested to see if anyone who only has the basegame or Uni report back as to whether it works for them or not.

Ste

[RainbowTigress]

Well, I didn't get around to it, but that's about what I was going to do anyway. 

BTW, I put this hack as well as the latest updates by Pescado for OFB, and when I entered the house, my sims were reset.  Do you know if your hack or the last few updates Pescado did would cause a reset?

[Magicmoon]

This mod didn't do a reset for me. However, JMP's No Instant Love has caused resets in several people's games, including mine.

[RainbowTigress]

I don't have that one.  It must have been something else then.  Thanks though.

[Simsbaby]

Shiny, used it on three sims and it worked as stated. Thanks!

[Magicmoon]

I had a sim ask a sim that he didn't know about their relationship status. She didn't answer and they both got -1 relationship scores.

So it seems at least some previous relationship must be built before they find it an appropriate question.

[RainbowTigress]

I guess that makes sense.  I think I'd look at someone kinda weird if they walked up to me on the street and asked my relationship status. 

[Magicmoon]

I thought it was realistic too. I think most or all of the 'ask interactions' behave this way.

This mod is working great. It's a big help especially since I'm testing the Casual Romance mod right now. The 2 seem made for each other. No more zoom in shots to look for a stupid ring on the finger! (Plus do they even wear a ring if they are just going steady? I never looked).

[RainbowTigress]

No, they don't.  They just hold hands and hug, they don't exchange rings until they get engaged.  I'm not using ACR, but that's how it works when you have them do it.

[Emma]

This works really great Thanks! I am wondering though if it would be possible to add 'I have a crush on __' and 'I am in love with __' or something to that effect.

Oh, and I had 1 reset sim when I installed this hack, it was a former professor who was married into the base neighbourhood. Otherwise everyone else was fine.

[syberspunk]

:new: Added Features for v2.00

As requested, I have added a couple of new features:

1) A new interaction for an Ask About Gender Preference option. I figured it was a pretty personal question, so I've tweaked the acceptance. More outgoing sims will be more open and willing to answer this. If the target is not very outgoing, then acceptance will depend on how nice they are and their mood, with a bit of randomness thrown in. Please report back if you find the acceptance to be too low. I'm open to suggestions. Also, responses may vary.
2) I have also added a feature to report the sims that the target has a crush on or is in love with. This will only happen if the target sim is single. This seemed natural to me because if you are in a committed relationship with the target sim, they most likely wouldn't tell you who Else they are in love with or have a crush with. That should most likely make you jealous, and I didn't want to try and program anything more complicated involving jealousy. Besides, it would only be a surprise if you don't keep track of all your sims prospects. And you could always ask Before you get into a committed relationship with them while they are single. I've also tweaked the acceptance for the relationship status slightly. So shy target sims are less likely to answer unless are nice and in a good mood or they have a decent LTR with the asking sim.

The acceptance and report messages are loosely open to suggestions. That is to say, I am amenable to perhaps changing them around if a lot of people feel they need to be tweaked, and it falls in line with my own thoughts, AND if I'm not too lazy to do it.
Oh, and I decided to call it 'Gender Preference' as opposed to 'Sexual Orientation' to sort of make it more family friendly. You can easily change these things yourself using SimPE and editing the appropriate TXT files.

These new features need testing once again, so please report back if you have any problems.


Ste

[Emma]

Oh thanks Steve Could I ask you to please email me the new file again? Sorry, I know I suck

[J. M. Pescado]

Oh, and I decided to call it 'Gender Preference' as opposed to 'Sexual Orientation' to sort of make it more family friendly. You can easily change these things yourself using SimPE and editing the appropriate TXT files.

I'm pretty sure asking such questions is already not-family-friendly. Besides, this site isn't family friendly. People bring their families here anyway, but no one said it was friendly. Well, okay, it's friendly by *MY* family standards, but my family is not friendly!