Testers Wanted: Carpool Bring Friend Dialog (Updated 9/16/2008)

[syberspunk]

Carpool Bring Friend Dialog v1.05 for TS2AL v1.0p0
Made by: syberspunk

You will receive a dialog when adult/teen Sims want to bring someone home from work asking you if this is okay. If you say no, the sims will still get the 20/20 relationship boost but the sim won't come over.  Choose cancel and the sim won't come over and you won't get the automatic relationship boost either.

I also completely stoleborrowed the code for choosing the sim to bring home. You should notice much less lag while the game picks, as well as much smarter choosing. Sims are picked in this order of preference:

1. Playable sims not met yet.
2. Townies not met.
3. Playable sims met but not friends yet.
4. Playable sims or townies that are friends.
5. Townies met but not friends. (if you met them but aren't friends, you probably don't want to be).

There is also some randomness built in to keep sims from always picking the same people, and especially to keep them from always favoring the last created/born sims in the neighborhood.

This hack also includes the nofraternization portion that applies to bringing home co-workers.  I believe this makes it so that sims only bring home co-workers who are within 2 job levels/ranks.  Also, if any interactions are queued up for your sims who are away at work, then they will not bring anyone home.  If you don't want this, then I suggest using Monique's version.

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

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

:!!: Note: You can use subfolders, however, be aware of 'benign' conflicts that depend on the load order of hacks.


Compatibility:

This hack should be compatible with Pets and up, at least.  I am not sure if it is backwards compatible.  You can give it a try, I guess.

This hack is compatible with asprechargehack by FFS (but just in case, make sure this hack loads last).

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 aging, moving in sims, or inheritance
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.

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.

Special Credit: goes to

1) twojeffs since I basically narfed his code for the school bus dialog hack and used as a model to make this hack.

2) FFS since I narfed the nofraternization code.

Version History
v1.01 - Fixed silly dialog text error; compressed resources
v1.02 - Tweaked code to prevent adult sims from bringing home retired sims.
v1.03 - Updated for Bon Voyage
v1.04 - Updated for Free Time
v1.05 - Updated for Apartment Life

[miros]

Trying this now...

[Dark Trepie]

Not sure if you or anyone else has noticed yet or not.  But I'm getting a bunch of gibberish in the dialog box when someone brings a friend home from work.



I've got all the eps and stuff packs installed.  And pretty much all of Pescado's, Two Jeff's, and Crammyboy's hacks in the game.  Along with a few Peasantry hacks.

[syberspunk]

Ooh!  You actually have someone to bring home?  Lol.  I have yet to have any sims bring home anybody.  So, yeah, it's been a bit difficult for me to test.  I don't know what it is about my game... maybe it's due to nofrat... and the fact that I haven't played a lot of adult households.  The majority of my adults that I have played (all 5 of them) I pretty much played until they reached the tops of their careers.  So... all along the way, they hardly never had anyone to bring home from work.

I will look into this when I get home.  Thanks for testing it!  Hopefully it's just some small mistake with the dialog strings.


Ste

[Invisigoth]

Actually, ste, I was wondering if this was just sadorandom or a problem with the hack...Since downloading it NO ONE has brought a friend home.  I think I downloaded this within a week of you posting it.  I don't use no frat.  The weird thing is that schoolbus bring friend works fine and so does the welcome wagon dialog.  I know those aren't your hacks, but you mentioned that you borrowed the school bus code, so I thought that maybe it would be helpful to mention that that one is working normally.

[syberspunk]

Actually, ste, I was wondering if this was just sadorandom or a problem with the hack...Since downloading it NO ONE has brought a friend home.  I think I downloaded this within a week of you posting it.  I don't use no frat.

Well... if you weren't using it before, you are now.

Note: This hack also includes the nofraternization portion that applies to bringing home co-workers.  I believe this makes it so that sims only bring home co-workers who are within 2 job levels/ranks.  Also, if any interactions are queued up for your sims who are away at work, then they will not bring anyone home.  If you don't want this, then I suggest using Monique's version.

The thing is, I had hacked this up myself, before (or just around the time) that Monique made her version.  Since it was twojeffs code that I modeled it after (the school bus hack that is), it would use the same BHAVs as Pescado's nofrat, which I was using.  On top of that, monique released her version.  So, I never bothered to make this available really.  Then, some people mentioned they still wanted it.

Anyways... I wasn't quite sure if my version is causing nobody to be brought home, or if it's the nofraternization part.  I suspect it is the latter... because prior to putting this in my game, I still rarely had any body being brought home from work.  I think, once your sims get promoted up several ranks, if there is no one within that rank span (2 levels), they won't bring anyone home.  In my own game, I have only played 3 households with adults.  And since, even with harderjobs, it is still somewhat easy to move up in ranks fairly quickly, reaching the top of careers in under 2 sim weeks, I rarely have any other sims in the same career at the same rank levels to bring home.


Ste

[jsalemi]

It still works fine in my game, though yea -- there does seem to be less and less folks to bring home in established hoods.  More often than not now, it's another playable in the same career.  I rarely see them bring townies home now, except in a newer hood.

[Invisigoth]

Oops...Silly me, I always RTFM, but I guess I missed the clearly marked bright red lettering.  After the first few hacks I downloaded from you I started skipping over the directions and warning of potential impending doom type stuff, so I must have figured that it was part of that.  ::blush::
Anyway, I don't care if they are hanging out with the lowly mail guy when they are the CEO so I'd like a version that doesn't include the nofrat if possible (pretty please), but I know you have a million things going on right now so it's not terribly important.  I know I could use monique's version but I prefer your hacks so I'd rather keep this one in as is than download hers.  Plus, for some reason I get walkbys about 10 times a day instead of the usual 4 so my sims don't really have trouble meeting new people.

[syberspunk]

It still works fine in my game, though yea -- there does seem to be less and less folks to bring home in established hoods.  More often than not now, it's another playable in the same career.  I rarely see them bring townies home now, except in a newer hood.

I had a feeling it had to do with the fact that I don't have many sims in the same career tracks and/or near the same level/rank as my sims.  Do you have a larger neighborhood?  Do townies even have a decent span of ranks?  Or do they tend to be near the lower end in the career tracks?  I haven't noticed.

Oops...Silly me, I always RTFM, but I guess I missed the clearly marked bright red lettering.  After the first few hacks I downloaded from you I started skipping over the directions and warning of potential impending doom type stuff, so I must have figured that it was part of that.  ::blush::

Hehe.  It's cool.  I'm just a tad lazy and I copy and paste that whole schpiel in all my RTFMs, just so at least it explains how to generate error logs.  Still... people (not here of course, but from MTS2 where I still distribute some of my hacks there) will still post with very vague or totally undescribed problems.   And if I respond by asking to elaborate, and try to get them to post an Error log, they still have no clue.

Anyway, I don't care if they are hanging out with the lowly mail guy when they are the CEO so I'd like a version that doesn't include the nofrat if possible (pretty please), but I know you have a million things going on right now so it's not terribly important.  I know I could use monique's version but I prefer your hacks so I'd rather keep this one in as is than download hers.  Plus, for some reason I get walkbys about 10 times a day instead of the usual 4 so my sims don't really have trouble meeting new people.

Oh, alright.  Since I had the hack open, it only took a few seconds to remove the nofrat part (I just had to skip those lines).  Download the carpoolbringfriendsdialogminusnofrat.zip file.  The actual file name remains the same, so you can just overwrite the old one.


Ste

[jsalemi]

It still works fine in my game, though yea -- there does seem to be less and less folks to bring home in established hoods.  More often than not now, it's another playable in the same career.  I rarely see them bring townies home now, except in a newer hood.

I had a feeling it had to do with the fact that I don't have many sims in the same career tracks and/or near the same level/rank as my sims.  Do you have a larger neighborhood?  Do townies even have a decent span of ranks?  Or do they tend to be near the lower end in the career tracks?  I haven't noticed.

Yea, it's large and old -- my main hood is Pleasantview, which is in its 4 generation now, and I probably have 130 or so playable sims in it and its sub-hoods. Townies tend to be all over the map when it comes to careers, but they also usually only have the originals. I can't say I've ever seen any with the Uni careers (obviously, since they didn't go), or the new Seasons careers, and I've been putting more and more playable sims in those. Maybe newly generated townies will get the newer careers, but since my townies so seldom die or get moved in I don't get many new ones that I don't make myself from self-sims here and elsewhere.

[pioupiou]

The other day, I had a sim bring home another playable who is RETIRED and from another career track.... I don't really know if it comes from this mod, but it is the first time I had this...
Everything was fine, except this particular sim should not have been chosen.
I use the version without no fraternization if it matters.
Pioupiou

[syberspunk]

Hrm.  Interesting.  I'll try and took a look into that sometime.  Perhaps when I edited the version for without nofrat, I may have accidentally removed the retirement check (I don't even know if there is one though).  I'll update when I can, if necessary.


ETA:

The other day, I had a sim bring home another playable who is RETIRED and from another career track.... I don't really know if it comes from this mod, but it is the first time I had this...
Everything was fine, except this particular sim should not have been chosen.
I use the version without no fraternization if it matters.
Pioupiou

Hrm.  I just realized you are using the version without nofrat... so, choosing a sim from another career track makes sense.  I am curious, does this retired sim have another job?  Since it is quite possible that you could have placed him in an elder job, or a 2nd job if you are using noagediscrimination.

Anyways, I added a check for retirement to both versions just in case.  I'll upload them shortly, so please redownload and let me know if you still have problems.


Ste

[pioupiou]

I use the version without no frat.
One sim was in the athletics career and brought home another who was retired from military and did not have another job.
I'll try your new version and will update if it happens again or not.

[syberspunk]

I use the version without no frat.
One sim was in the athletics career and brought home another who was retired from military and did not have another job.
I'll try your new version and will update if it happens again or not.

Doh!  There I go again, being all dyslexic with my words.  I meant to say, that you were using the one without nofrat, or no nofrat.   I forgot to put the extra no in there.  I fixed it now.

However, I just realized something... I can't recall if the bring home from work normally brings someone home from the same job.  Was the point of nofrat just to make sure that someone brings home people from the same job and within two ranks?  I can't even remember now. I may have to go back and fix it, so that it brings people from home from the same career track, regardless of rank.

As it stands now, the version without nofrat will bring home anyone from any career track.  I'll have to check the original Maxis EA code, since I was gonig by Pescado's nofrat, and I couldn't remember what things he changed.


Ste

[pioupiou]

Without any hacks, sims bring home people from the same career track only, no matter what rank.
So I guess from your explanation, except for the retired part, bringing home a military when you are in athletics is normal with your mod. I'm not sure I don't like it, so you don't really need to change it, but I like the retirement check, thanks.
Since downloading the new version (with retirement check) I did not have any sim brought home. (but I played less than usual).

[J. M. Pescado]

However, I just realized something... I can't recall if the bring home from work normally brings someone home from the same job.  Was the point of nofrat just to make sure that someone brings home people from the same job and within two ranks?  I can't even remember now. I may have to go back and fix it, so that it brings people from home from the same career track, regardless of rank.

Bring home from work NORMALLY brings from same career track, regardless of rank, AND inappropriately dresses the bring-home-ee in the uniform of the person doing the bring-home, instead of the person's correct uniform. The result is glaringly and apparently wrong in the military track when Private Pyle promotes himself to a General.

Two hacks are involved in fixing this: One, carpoolfix, causes them to use the CORRECT uniform, and the other, nofrat, makes sure that they are within 2 levels, as well as adding a busyness check, so if you have actions queued to do after your sim's return, the game will see this as "too busy, don't bring home loser".

[syberspunk]

Ok, so I fixed the minus nofrat version, so it should now bring home co-workers from the same career track, irregardless of rank.  Let me know if there are any other issues.


Ste

[Kyna]

Tried this out with Freetime and ran into a bug. I tried enableing the debug mode and all that, but can't quite get it to work properly, I'll try again later.

The bug is that I didn't get a confirmation dialog, Remington Harris of Pleasentview just came home with me from work. Which is weird 'cause he's got a job as a maid :p but nvm. Apparently some loop got triggered and now my sim brings home Remington every day from work. I then sealed Remington into a room and let him die from starvation and gave the tombstone away as a gift. Remongton is still brought home, but a message then states he died on another lot well return there.
Chageing careers didn't make him go away so I'm guessing he's tied to my sim, who will die of old shortly so it's no biggie, just thought I'd give you a headsup.

I'm sure most of the bug lies with giving away tombstones of people who were never controlable, even after giving it away I still had the "place grave here" interaction with floors until I tried it and it went away.

One more thing: I had Carppolfix in at the time as well.

Your sim didn't get a hobby chance card that said he was bringing a friend home, did he?  If so, that explains Remington coming home with him every day.  TwoJeffs has a fix for this EAxis "feature" over at Simbology.

[Magicmoon]

Is this a problem? Is it a load order thing or a don't use together thing?

*** POSSIBLE CONFLICT DETECTED ***
File Type: BHAV
Procedure Name: Sub - Return to World - Try Bring Friend
Group ID: 0x7F8F4EB6
Instance ID: 0x0000202C
Packages Containing This Procedure:
\downloads\Hacks\MATY\JMP\alfixes\alfixes.package
\downloads\Hacks\MATY\Syberspunk\carpoolbringfrienddialogminusnofrat AL\carpoolbringfrienddialog.package

[tunaisafish]

In alfixes, that's the fix for pets coming home from their jobs and reseting (so no pay or promotion).
The bug that EA introduced in ALp2.  Probably while they were trying to fix...

"A friend that was brought home from work after certain hobby chance cards will only be brought home once instead of every day."

Ste's mod will be useless without this BHAV, so I'd say use both and load his last.
Ste's mod might not have the chance card bug in it anyway.

[Ambular]

Does this require an update for Mansions & Gardens?

[J. M. Pescado]

The chance card bug has existed since FT, so yes, it would still exist in this one. However, you can use this (with the bug anyway), and use the Lot Debugger to fix this same bug, which can be found under the "Nuke" button if you have one of these Klingons on your ass.