Customer Selector v2: Hobbsee STILL has a scrawny pencil neck!

[J. M. Pescado]

Now in shiny Boolean Logic Edition!


customerselector.zip

Recommended:
Business Runs You!
No Playable Shoppers

Customer Selector v2 for TS2OFBp1-p2
Made by: Flying Fish Systems (J. M. Pescado & Doctor Boris)

Special Thanks To:
BlueSoup Fat Head
Hobbsee the Scrawny Pencil Neck

Congratulations to: Draklixa!

INSTRUCTIONS:
Place in your MYDOCU~1\EAGAME~1\THESIM~1\DOWNLO~1 directory.

FEATURES:
For ages, OFB businesses have been hampered by one thing: The inability to
target your business at a specific clientele without random idiots showing up
who don't fit the profile you want. With this shiny gray box, there are now
dozens of configurations to choose from!

For optimal results, it works best with the new version of noplayableshoppers,
and the new Business Controller. It will function alone, but noplayableshoppers
causes the normal spawner to yield to the Customer Selecter rather than having
to fight. Although if you don't have it, the Customer Selector is prepared to
do battle against it.

SHIFT-Click while in debug mode gives an option to reset all options to
default.

How to use it:
Buy the controller block (small gray box in Misc/Misc for §1) and place on lot. 

There are three choices for each option - OR, NOT and AND
Depending on the option, they're either set at OR or NOT by default. A setting
of NOT will disallow a sim from being acceptable to this block if they have
the NOT-characteristic. A setting of AND will allow a sim ONLY if they have
that characteristic. A setting of OR will allow a customer if they satisfy the
above and any requirements for visitation as normal.

You can make blocks that configure customer interest settings as well,
targetting Sims who are looking for something specific like Entertainment or a
restaurant. Timepiece - Another gray box in the Misc/Misc catalog for §30, which
turns into an alarm clock when placed.

You can attach it to one of the gray blocks and cause it to load a different
policy at a specific hour. For optimal results, you should place two clocks per
box, one to change it at a specific hour and one to change it back.  This is
helpful if you have a club that you want to be frequented by vampires at night,
but regular Sims during daylight hours.  The blocks are conveniently numbered
with ID numbers so you can attach the clock to a specific block.

There are import and export settings on the clock - import copies your current
settings of that particular block onto the clock, saving them so you can order
the clock to apply it at a specific hour.  Export applies those settings back
to the block right now so you can edit them and reimport them, or just because.

Multiple controller block to create 'OR' groupings. If, for example, you want
gay vampires or male robots, you can create one block with permissions for gay
vampires, and another block for male robots.  That way these two specific
groups show up and you don't have to override one or the other.
Simply place more than one controller.

And remember: BlueSoup has a fat head and Hobbsee has a scrawny pencil neck.

COMPATIBILITY:
Compatible with all FFS hacks. Tested for TS2OFBp2.

SIDE EFFECTS:
May cause computer damage, incontinence, explosion of user's head, coma, death,
and/or halitosis.

WARNING:
Do not open, crush, dispose of in fire, put in backwards, short-circuit, or mix
with non-awesome hacks - may explode, leak, or catch fire, resulting in injury
and/or death.

[Flamingo]

I'm not entirely sure what the changes are, but I'm going to download anyway. I'm sure whatever you've done is most decidedly an improvement.

[breyerii]

And indeed, one wonders what changed between this version and the one currently in the brand new "obsolete" directory.

[J. M. Pescado]

And indeed, one wonders what changed between this version and the one currently in the brand new "obsolete" directory.

The old override/accept/reject system was replaced with a cleaner system of boolean logic. This could break compatibility with the previous version, if you were heavily abusing the override setting.

[JadeEliott]

I have installed the latest version of this - I do not have Pets.

I placed it on the lot, set ages child and teen to AND and all other ages to NOT. Yet adults/elders still showed up.

I restarted and tried it again. Same occurrence.

This is a home business lot, with the ticket thingy on it.

I finally ended up using TJ's visitor controller, but I don't want to as it refers to all visitors, and I just want to limit customers.

Has anyone else got this to work? Is there some secret 'on' button I am not pushing?

Please help.

Thanks!

[J. M. Pescado]

Issue will be looked into.

[JadeEliott]

I am wondering if it is because I do NOT have Pets installed...

[jrd]

I get a similar problem (No Pets, but the rest installed): I set kids and elders to NOT, but they still showed up.

[J. M. Pescado]

Does this only affect home businesses?

[jrd]

In my case I had the selector at an unowned comm lot (a modified version of the NL gambling place). I set the options when a Sim visits.
I am not sure if this is a supported use at all...

[J. M. Pescado]

I have installed the latest version of this - I do not have Pets.

I placed it on the lot, set ages child and teen to AND and all other ages to NOT. Yet adults/elders still showed up.

I am slightly puzzled by this on further examination. If you set both child and teen to AND mode simultaneously, then nobody should have showed up since it is physically impossible to be both at the same time, which is what AND mode requires. The fact that you're allowed to do this at all is really a bit of legacy coding for reverse-compatibility (there's really little point in having an AND/OR mode on mutually exclusionary options like that).

I am unable to reproduce your results, however. Next time you see an inappropriate visitor, SHIFTCLICK him, make selectable, then SHIFTCLICK the Customer Selector and choose "Test Visitability". If you get a "Not Allowed", he's somehow sneaking onto the lot through an alternate vector.

In my case I had the selector at an unowned comm lot (a modified version of the NL gambling place). I set the options when a Sim visits.
I am not sure if this is a supported use at all...

Not a supported use. Unowned community lots do not use the business customer routines.

[JadeEliott]

Could a conflicting mod cause this problem?

I will test as per your instructions above and let you know what happens.

[jsalemi]

In my case I had the selector at an unowned comm lot (a modified version of the NL gambling place). I set the options when a Sim visits.
I am not sure if this is a supported use at all...

Use TJ's Visitor Controller -- it's not a fine tuned as this is, but it will keep some of your unwanteds off the lot.

[Gwill]

I'm trying to set up a salon to give make-overs to NPCs; especially professors.
Normally the NPCs show up among normal townies and I give them makeovers and everything is fine, but now I'm trying to do just the NPCs, no regular townies, but I can't get it to work.
Setting Townies to "not" seems to also exclude NPCs (apparently they are also townies), but setting NPC to "and" also results in no customers at all.
Any suggestions.
For the record, I am temporarily using a non-awesome hack to allow me to give makeovers to NPCs.

[JadeEliott]

The Customer Selector is not in the Seasons directory. So not compatible or just forgotten?

[dracine]

Ooh, this will come in handy.

*bows down to the god known as pescado*

[J. M. Pescado]

The Customer Selector is not in the Seasons directory. So not compatible or just forgotten?

Fixed.

[JadeEliott]

Thanks. The Customer Selector is an Essential Simming Tool. (TM)

[jsalemi]

I'm having a problem with this since the Seasons patch (or maybe since Seasons, but I think it's post-patch) -- if I have one of these on a business lot, only 2 customers at a time show up, regardless of the business level.  I tried replacing it, and that didn't fix it.  But if I delete it completely, the proper number of customers show up within minutes.

Pretty much all my business-related mods are from here, so this one has me stumped.

[J. M. Pescado]

I'm having a problem with this since the Seasons patch (or maybe since Seasons, but I think it's post-patch) -- if I have one of these on a business lot, only 2 customers at a time show up, regardless of the business level.  I tried replacing it, and that didn't fix it.  But if I delete it completely, the proper number of customers show up within minutes.

Hmm. That'd be interesting, considering that the code used to derive customer numbers is standalone. But we will look into it. Is it possble that your set of restrictions is such that there are ONLY two customers in the game that qualify?

[jsalemi]

Hmm. That'd be interesting, considering that the code used to derive customer numbers is standalone. But we will look into it. Is it possble that your set of restrictions is such that there are ONLY two customers in the game that qualify?

Well, the only restrictions I normally put on it are to eliminate poor, playables (which I think is a default) and zombies. But deleting the existing controller and putting a new one on the lot without changing anything still causes the problem.

I first noticed it with the sim that owns the Inner Child shop two days ago; it's level 10, but only 2 customers at a time were showing up.  I tried a couple of things, even putting the Paladin customer adjuster on the lot (it showed 2 customers as the max setting), and setting it to 10 customers, and that didn't work.  It was only after I deleted the customer selector that the number of customers started rising, but then it was time to close the store.  So I chalked it up to maybe the selector getting borked in the reset.  But then it happened again last night with two different businesses owned by a different sim.  This time, I replaced the selector right away, leaving it at the default settings, and there were still only 2 customers at a time (one business is L5, the other L8).  I deleted the selector on one lot, and put it in the owner's inventory on the other, and in both cases the number of customers jumped up to normal levels.

Edit: One more test confirmed this problem.  Different sim, different business (Amelia's Closet) -- it was level 4, and with this on the lot, only 2 customers showed up.  Put it in the owner's inventory, and another customer showed up right away.  Business reached level 5, and 4 customers appeared.  Put it back on the lot, and 2 customers left the lot, still holding their shopping bag (never paid, as far as I can tell). Deleted it, and right back up to 4 customers. So something weird is going on.

The only other new hack I've added recently was dizzy's process autonomy hack, and I took it out for this session, so that's not what's causing this issue.

[J. M. Pescado]

Continued investigation remains unable to reproduce your results. As you can clearly see from this scene at Brynne II Silly's business, "Honest Otto's Used Johns", there are clearly more than 2 customers. Not sure why you're getting only two customers. Are you running any anti-visitor-cap hacks or cheats?

[jsalemi]

Only other hack/object I have that affects number of visitors to a business is Paladin's customer controller, but it's not a global hack, and has to be on the lot to have any effect, AFAIK. And it's not present on these (or any other lots) right now.  I'll remove it, and see if that changes things, but I'm stumped on this one too.  I ran a hack conflict scan, and nothing showed up as affecting the same things as the customer selector, so it's not an obvious conflict.  And the fact that it started only after the Seasons patch is what really puzzles me.

I'll keep playing with it and see if I can find a cause.

Added: ok, this is just weird.  I took out every hack I had related to a business other than ones from here, and I still have the same problem.  I'm going to have to go deeper and see what's causing this.

Solved, I think:  So I sent a sim to an unowned community lot, and after a bit noticed that there were only 2 visitors on the lot the whole time he was there.  Which is strange, because my community lots are usually pretty full.  So when I thought about it a bit, I realized that I also put a new video card in this machine around the same time that I installed the Seasons patch, and I remembered that when it started up, all my graphics settings were reset to the lowest settings.  That clued me in -- I got a Visontek X1300 XGE, and Maxis in their usual idiocy sees all ATI X1300 class cards a low end.  So a quick check of my config log, and I found that the game was forcing maxNumOfVisitingSims  to 2, thinking the card can't handle more.  I'm still not sure why taking the customer selector off an owned lot let the number of visitors go up, but I've added intProp maxNumOfVisitingSims   8 to my userstartup.cheat file.  I'm done for the night, but I'll check it out next time I play and see if that fixes the problem.

Stupid Maxis....

[kuronue]

then how did you get four without the customer selector?

[jsalemi]

then how did you get four without the customer selector?

I have no idea.  But that's the only thing I can think of that would affect the number of sims showing up on a community lot.  I'm testing out raising the maxNumofVisitingSims right now on a comm lot -- if that doesn't work, then I'm really stumped.

Edit: It worked, and I think I have it sorted out (Pescado can correct me if I'm wrong ). Because running a business with only 2 customers at a time doesn't make a whole lot of profit, I'm guessing that OFB bypassed the usual visiting sim generator in the game and ran its own routines to determine how many visitors to send to an owned business, based on the business level.  This mod supersedes the OFB visitor generator, and maybe invokes the game's standard generator to filter the visitors according to its settings.  So the visitor limit kicks in when this is on the lot.  When it's removed, the OFB visitor generator takes over again, and ignores the usual visitor limit, so more customers showed up.

In any case, setting the max number of visitors higher seems to have solved the issue I was having so far.  I only have a level 1 business in the hood I'm currently playing (it's a fairly new custom hood), but 3 customers showed up right away. And it was nice seeing 8 sims on an unowned comm lot again. So maybe I'll bump the max visitors to 10 so I can have a full compliment next time I play my level 10 businesses again with the customer selector active. My computer can handle it -- it did before, and in spite of what Maxis thinks, this is a better video card than my old one.