Autonomous career selection

[dizzy]

This is another one of those pop-up dialogs I hate. Okay, I understand career is kind of a big deal for some people, but to me it's just another annoyance, and I just use Insimenator and some dice to sort out by hand. With some of my houses (22 sims on occasion), this is just tedious.

There are issues, of course. Whether job hunting agrees with their aspiration and/or situation should be measured. Little things like random nanny insanity can contribute to the family situation and that naturally raises the disturbing (for some) possibility of autonomous job quitting, as well. All very simple things that can be hashed out in a simple way, no doubt.

For me, the problematic part is implementation. I'm never comfortable making new objects or complicated controllers, but this would definitely involve one or the other or both. Doing things in a simple way is ideal to my point of view, but it also carries the uncomfortable burden of being trampled on by Maxis coders who seem to love making their own lives (and ours) complicated by adding complexity/bugs/randomness and thus changing how every simple thing works with every EP (and thus, why I no longer support my mods).

In short, I won't be doing this. I'm just wondering if it's a good idea. 

[ElfPuddle]

It would be a good idea if someone AWESOME(tm) or awesome (not tm) did it and was willing to support it for future EP/SP issues. It wouldn't be a good idea to hurry through and do it just to do it. I'm sure we can all think of modders we would dl this from, and others we wouldn't touch.
In short, maybe.

[KittKitt]

Had to vote with the grilled cheese.

But my answer to the question would be more on the lines that I could see it as very useful, so long as you could somehow toggle it on/off per sim.

Some of my sims, it'd be great to just let them handle their silly pointless jobs in the mailroom.  Others, I know exactly what they're gonna grow up to be the minute I start playing them and wouldn't want them mucking around in some job field that made no sense for them.

So yeah, plus what Elfie said too. 

-Kitt

[BlueSoup]

Dizzy would be one of those modders I would download it from.

[lindaetterlee]

Anything that Automates the game is my kinda thing. Dizzy get snappin.

[dizzy]

I guess we could hash out the issues:

1) Aspiration. This would give a heavy weight to job hunting/quitting motivation. Fortune sims would be positively weighted. Knowledge/Family sims would be very negatively weighted. Other aspirations would have milder levels of negative weight.

2) Family situation. This would have to address budget vs. need. In fact, you could almost just say { Family situation = Need / Budget + Some Tuning Value } and that would suffice. "Need" would probably address food + bills + misc and be fairly simple to calculate. Some wildcard issues might include pregnancy and teens and such.

3) Nannies. It almost goes without saying that there would need to be something to automate the facility and contain the stupidity of nannies. You can't consider working without factoring in nannies, but you can't rely on the Maxis routines. You'd have to have a custom controller to be certain that this was working correctly, for certain.

[lindaetterlee]

Also, not sure if you were meaning this but could it be made so that a sim can be auto placed in a career? Possibly even above their qualifications. Ex. such as automatically making a sim an Astronaut. Also could you make it so a sim is locked into a career is they choose. Ex. They would always be an Astronaut instead of being able to be promoted to General.

[dizzy]

Giving sims jobs they aren't qualified for is pretty easy to do already. Locking them into a career is not so easy. You'd have to have a token or something like that to that effect.

[Inge]

I'd have it.  And I would also like an automatic aspiration and turnons decider for those who become teens.   I want the aspiration to be based on the adult they have the highest short term relationship with, and the turnons to be based on the physical attributes of the parent of the opposite sex (or randomised would do)

[laeshanin]

This would be stellar bright *puts on shades to save eyes from glare* and too Awesome for words. So when will this be happening then? 

[travellersside]

Hmmm.

Well, I voted "Grilled Cheese" because who can resist its yummy goodness, but also because I didn't like the other options.

It would be tricky, because the one thing I can guarantee is that someone would complain. Either it doesn't reliably give the career they wanted, or it gives the wrong one, or they didn't want a job just then because they wanted to train or socialise more etc. Ho-hum, that's humans for you.

Anyway. Under normal circumstances, I and many others, although certainly not everyone, try to get a sim into its LTW career. If it's possible to check what that is, then that'd be a big help, but I doubt that Maxis made it that easy.
(I'm also using the hack that limits the number of sims who can reach the top anyway, so that doesn't mean that being on that track guarantees the LTW)

Also, would you include a check as to whether they're eligible for the University careers?

Would it be possible to get a sim do the same adult job as it did as a teen? That could be useful - except for the Uni careers.

An interesting idea would be job switching. Not quitting then getting a new job at minimum level, but actually changing to a different track and taking a thematically linked job there instead. Sims 1 did this when you hit level 10 - each day a random, but tiny chance that something would happen and you shift to a level 6-8ish job on another track. They did this because otherwise the immortal sims would be dull to play. But this could be linked to aspiration perhaps, or if it's possible, the job performance meter.

Anyway, I can see this as being a hefty amount of work, and yes, you would need a controller, because not only would you need default settings, but there should be a way of customising, preferably on a sim-by-sim basis.

  But if it existed, yes, I'd use it.

[Karen]

What about custom careers?  I have a lot of them in my game and it would be a shame to limit this to only Maxis careers.

I think this is a good idea and I would love to see it implemented.

Karen

[jsalemi]

3) Nannies. It almost goes without saying that there would need to be something to automate the facility and contain the stupidity of nannies. You can't consider working without factoring in nannies, but you can't rely on the Maxis routines. You'd have to have a custom controller to be certain that this was working correctly, for certain.

Well, JMP's Baby Controller, combined with Lobonanny fix most of the nanny problems.  And there's alternatives, like Christianlov's nanny NPCs or DMA's live-in babysitter.

[dizzy]

All these ideas are great, but it's one of the things I was afraid would happen: added complexity and unrelated features.

1) Custom careers: optional feature. Not easy to test or debug so not really feasible. In the long term, they could be handled with an optional plugin (Inteenimator style).
2) LTW: not trackable (by Maxis design). In any case, Wants are the epitome of something designed to be outside AI control. I wouldn't begrudge them a major feature.
3) Aspiration and/or turn-on/off decider: totally different idea. Really, that would belong in a different hack. 

Preferences would depend on the method of implementation. My initial thoughts were to modify how the newspaper works, but this would depend on who does this hack.

As for Uni careers, this is a good thing to mention. Uni careers would have to be factored in (and factored out if the player doesn't have Uni).

Culture could play a part in this decision (i.e. passing down careers from parents to children). IMHO, it would be good as an optional preference because it likely would weigh heavily in choice of career and because the game does seem to embrace modern standards of free and open choices.

Job "switching" would probably be a convenient abbreviation of the Quit and Find a Job interactions, streamlined so that the new job leaves your sim just slightly underqualified. Another good idea (especially if job convenience/performance level is a factor). 

[J. M. Pescado]

2) LTW: not trackable (by Maxis design). In any case, Wants are the epitome of something designed to be outside AI control. I wouldn't begrudge them a major feature.

I would. Because it's a stupid feature, and deserves to be begrudged at the first available opportunity. It seems very inane for a sim to want something, and have no way of knowing he wants it, let alone acting on this.

[dizzy]

So, is a cigar really just a cigar? 

[J. M. Pescado]

So, is a cigar really just a cigar? 

Yes. Freud was a little nuts, anyway.

[laeshanin]

Why, yes, he was. And completely and utterly barking up the wrong tree generally.

[dizzy]

To address Pescado's complaint, yes it is inane. However, given the fact that there is no strong connection between motivation and memory, there is a greater inane problem for them to deal with first (if ever).

This leads me to another great idea. Memories should be a factor as well. If a beloved relative dies in a fire, for example, a sim might be less inclined to choose the Culinary career.

[MaximilianPS]

perhaps a much lazy sim didn't want a job at all .. lol

yes, absolutly yes i whant that hack !
the sims for me it's like a fish in an aquarium ... they live their life.. i just put some object on the acquarium for my and them fun

so more autonomous they have more happy i'm !
*and if say "sul sul" when they go to work / school that will made me more happy

i think that the newspapaer should have the job menu at the end, but, if a sim whant a specific job, could read the news paper and a popUp
will bring on.. "i whant this job ("& JOB &"&) should i take it ?"


that i think 

[cyperangel]

wow, a hack like this sounds way more wesome than anything i could ever imagine. Where can i sign up for a chance to crash my test hood and get to run it around the block a few times?


i want it !

[Frankenbeasley]

Well, I'm not certain what the issue is with careers. Personally, apart from a few special exceptions, my Sims go for whatever gives them the most money in the shortest time from the point at which they are looking. I have my little list containing all the career info to hand (days off, hours, requirements, salary) and I use that to boost their incomes by chopping and changing jobs, even to the extent of having two jobs in a single day, occasionally. Once they have attained a sound financial/material footing then they can feel free to settle down to a more vocational occupation.

The only strictures I have are that there should only be one Mayor, one Cult Leader and one Captain Hero in a neighbourhood ata ny one time. I allow for 3 Generals (Army, Navy, Airforce), 2 Criminal Masterminds (because otherwise you can't have Mob Wars) and 2 Chiefs of Staff (1 Private & 1 Public Hospital). I can have as many of everything else as I want. Now, if there was something to automate that sort of job division I'd be interested.

Oh, and I voted for the cheese, of course.

[jsalemi]

The only strictures I have are that there should only be one Mayor, one Cult Leader and one Captain Hero in a neighbourhood ata ny one time. I allow for 3 Generals (Army, Navy, Airforce), 2 Criminal Masterminds (because otherwise you can't have Mob Wars) and 2 Chiefs of Staff (1 Private & 1 Public Hospital). I can have as many of everything else as I want. Now, if there was something to automate that sort of job division I'd be interested.

I think Pescado's 'harderjobs' hack takes care of some of that, at least as far as restricting things to one mayor, one Captain Hero, and maybe one Police Chief.  You'd still have to manually control the other top jobs.

[dizzy]

Moonlighting would definitely be a tough thing to factor in. You'd need a pretty high positive motivation for that, I would think. 

[Magicmoon]

2) LTW: not trackable (by Maxis design). In any case, Wants are the epitome of something designed to be outside AI control. I wouldn't begrudge them a major feature.

I would. Because it's a stupid feature, and deserves to be begrudged at the first available opportunity. It seems very inane for a sim to want something, and have no way of knowing he wants it, let alone acting on this.

If the LTW is set by the Debugger rather than by Maxis, couldn't you set a token as to what LTW was chosen and then be able to track it that way?