OFB Business Type Questions

[GayJohnScarritt]

Restaurants are a pain.  I ran one once, but got tired of it quickly.
Hook

   The only time i ever deal with a playable owned restaurant is i had one of my Rich Merchants in my Royal Challenge buy the One-Twenty, make a few changes to get rid of the EA choke points, hire some of the lower classes, then he never touches it again.  Put BRY & Customer Selector in, and only use it for my teens/adults to go to on dates.  That way my playables never have to interact with the townies. 
   For my 100k sims, it's Snapdragons on a lot, 2 poker tables and a ticket machine set at 999, and rape/pillage those townies.  For those 5 Business wants, it's same type of lot, but set at cheap, get LVL 10 with no interaction, sell/buy/rinse/repeat.  Once i've done my first business selling items to LVL 10, why go thru the hassle again.

[Zazazu]

Another question I have is about home businesses. I stopped having them because the sims would always get visitors who turned into customers and then complained to the sims that lived there. Does this still happen?

Yup. Even when you give the ingrates a free pass.

[Orikes]

WHat I absolutely despise about complaining customers is the fact that they will be the ones to make the mess and then complain about it. I had one throw a waterballoon at the manager, then after they both laughed about it, instantly wanted to complain about the puddle on the floor. Or they'll eat a bowl of cereal set out for them, then want to complain about the empty bowl the moment after they stand up from the table. Grr.

Does BRY fix that? Heh.

[J. M. Pescado]

WHat I absolutely despise about complaining customers is the fact that they will be the ones to make the mess and then complain about it. I had one throw a waterballoon at the manager, then after they both laughed about it, instantly wanted to complain about the puddle on the floor. Or they'll eat a bowl of cereal set out for them, then want to complain about the empty bowl the moment after they stand up from the table. Grr.

Unrelated problem stemming from the general inability of sims to comprehend cause and effect.

[Sleepycat]

I use Squinges "OFB_CustomernoMoreComplaining" hack 
http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=7026
it still works in Pets and Seasons

[witch]

I'll give that a try, thanks for the link. 

[Flamingo]

   For my 100k sims, it's Snapdragons on a lot, 2 poker tables and a ticket machine set at 999, and rape/pillage those townies.  For those 5 Business wants, it's same type of lot, but set at cheap, get LVL 10 with no interaction, sell/buy/rinse/repeat.  Once i've done my first business selling items to LVL 10, why go thru the hassle again.

I did basically the same thing; however, I set my ticket machine even higher. While it is a bit of a hassel trying to get customers in, and you can't do it without the proper sales interactions, I set the ticket machine up to about $25,000 an hour. My family of two servos had more than two million dollars in two days. It is such a manipulation of the game, though, that I won't be allowing any of my other Sims the privelage.

[Magicmoon]

Another question I have is about home businesses. I stopped having them because the Sims would always get visitors who turned into customers and then complained to the Sims that lived there. Does this still happen?

Although Squinge's hack does help, it doesn't fix it all. It stops all complaints from customers, whether a home business or a comm lot, but that isn't what I wanted. I just wanted visitors to home businesses to behave as visitors rather than customers. But visitors still turn into customers if the home business is open when they arrive. Even booty calls! I was upset to see a Sim finally decide to do a booty call, then watch her beau start shopping the minute he arrived. Even children start shopping when invited over after school with the school bus dialog!

But at least if the home business is closed, their visitors don't start randomly complaining if Squinge's mod is installed. The customer selector doesn't help. It stops chosen Sim types from showing up as customers, but it doesn't stop visitors from becoming a customer when they arrive on the lot even if they are one of the banned Sim types.

That mod was my last hope for home businesses. Home business owners can only have friends visit them after hours.  Since I'm using Comm lot Time, I really wanted a few mothers to make some extra money with a home business since they can work an still take care of the little ones.  But I'm ready to give up on home businesses.

[J. M. Pescado]

The visitor-to-customer logic is basically tied, likely inextricably, to the AI of sims themselves, which means that all sims, unless the option is explicitly denied, will respond to the shopping advertisements and thus start shopping on arrival.

[witch]

Yes, that's actually what I wanted, for visitors and customers to stay separate, if they won't, then no home businesses. Thanks for that info - unwelcome as it is.

[ZiggyDoodle]

Has anyone used the coconut pinball machine (gamer career reward) in a business? 

My eyeballs popped as I watched the family income increase by about a thousand bucks when it was played for the first time last night by a guest.

The machine belongs to a newly married couple who need a bigger house. Husband is the gamer but I think Isabella's going to quit her job as chief of staff and get into the gamer field. 

Two of these pinball machines set up in an on-premises gaming hut with a ticket machine should get them a new waterfront home pretty quick.

[Sagana]

I love in-home businesses. If my business-owner wants to socialize, I close the business. I don't have time for playing with guests and working the register or whatever at the same time anyway. If the visitor is for someone else that lives in the house but isn't currently helping with the business, I can generally keep them from becoming shoppers by paying attention to them and doing guest/host type stuff - they do go off to become shoppers if their host takes their eyes off of them though.

I get complaints, from any kind of shopper, if they've got a negative score with one of the employees/household members, if there's trash or dirty dishes, or if the shelves aren't stocked particularly with what they want to buy. Sometimes I try and fix it, sometimes I cancel the 'complaint' and sometimes I just send complain-y customers home - didn't need you anyways.

I don't understand the... obsession... with making money from businesses. One of my biggest thrills is the ability to use a business to take money away from my sims - anyone in my game 2nd generation or better has too much money anyway if you ask me, so I never bother to try and max out business stuff. Oooh, you've got extra money - let's buy a store. I buy things for the business at the wrong times and let them depreciate and everything. They still end up making a lot of money eventually, but it takes longer. Unless I need money for something specific, or to fulfill a want that I'm determined to fill, I mostly just let it worry about itself and it mostly ends up being in the 'too much' category. Then everything is easy and lesser fun.

[Gwill]

The pinball machine is crazy.  Nannies pay for themselves.

[witch]

I can't stand the constant kaching noise. If someone made a silent version I'd use it again.