More Awesome Than You!

So, I've been working on making sets of default Townies/Downtownies/Vacationers/Locals/NPCs (ala Madame Mim's medieval set), for use with blank templates or custom neighborhoods. So far, I've been making them in CAS and turning them into Townies/Downtownies/etc with the shrub. What I'm unclear on is what I should do with dormies. Does anyone know whether making them in Uni CAS to make them Young Adults, then setting them as Townies, will make the game pull them as Dormies when assigning rooms in a new dorm, or is there some other procedure I'll have to use?

I've never actually tried that, but you could simply create them as YAs and move them into the townie household in SimPE since dormies, townies and ss members are all in the same household.

I believe you have to put them on a Rental Lot (vs dorm) and use the shrub if you want them to be Dormies, but it's been a while...
try one or two...

You can put them on a dorm lot - just don't have them chose a room. Make them townies, boot them off the lot and next time you enter that lot they'll start to come along and claim rooms.

Of course I don't know what effect this will have on using them as part of a default template (I keep threatening to do so, but get the collywobbles at the thought of all that deleting to clean an add-on Neighbourhood up). I've only made them 'to order' as it would be.

Well, if you use a cleaned up template for your college, (I'm sure there's one around) then create your college which should then have no dormies, create as many dormies as you think you want and then go into SimPe you can mess around a bit with their personalities if you want, and then move the whole lot into your townie family there and then, so if you have twenty you can do it all in one fell swoop, and next time you open your game they should all be there, and they will have the customized personalities instead of the limited CAS ones, which can make it a little more interesting to play them.

I did it with most of the Maxis pre-made students that came with the University hoods -- just plop a teleporter shrub on the lot (doesn't matter if it's a dorm or rental house), adjust their personalities (I have the testing cheats on all the time), and then just turn them into a townie.  They've been haunting my dorms (in some cases, literally :) ) ever since.

I do this all the time.  In UNI-CAS, I use the household name "dormie" (anything works really, since they are not going to stay playable), and then create a batch of 8-10 dormies with their own first  and last names (as per usual).  It's better to make a mixed gender group, since dormies seem to enter dorms in the order they were created (see note below).

I usually create a "bus stop" residential lot for making dormies - move the group of new dormies into the lot (it doesn't have to have anything on it except your teleporter) and then make townies or make dormies (I usually use the Insim "family tree"), whichever command is available.  When all are dormie/towniefied and off the lot, you can save and exit.  Next time you move a playable into a dorm, the dormies should start showing up to fill empty rooms.  (I think the reason you can't really use a dorm that well is that your group of new dormies may be too many for the number of dorm rooms available.)

Note: Because of the order of creation issue, if you make a group of 8 girls and then a group of 8 guys, the 8 girls will show up first to fill the dorm.  In my current uni, my first playable moved in and the girl dormies started showing up to claim the other rooms.  I realized in time that  it was going to be all girls if I didn't do something.  Using "moveobjects on" I trapped any new girl sim that showed up in the guys bathroom (they can't go through the door) until a guy dormie showed up and claimed the last room.  Then I released the girls (moved them manually out of the guys bathroom into the common area) who just left the dorm.

You need TwoJeffs' Dormie Gender Controller (or Ste's version here that includes JMP's noundeaddormies functionality).

Cool.  On the other hand, having a bunch of confused female dormies all wondering what they were doing in the guys bathroom was kinda funny.  After a while (this took a few sim hours to finish after all) one or two of them sat down and did their assignments.  Lots of socializing going on, but no ACR action - too bad.  Outside the dorm, my playable student had just moved in and within 4 sim hours was ACR woohooing one of the female dormies (I think he had met her as a walk-by when he was a teen in the main hood - so there was some STR/LTR in existence already).

The dormie controller lets you pick the gender (or just let it pick), so you could still have that. :)

Normally dormies don't do walkbys in the main hood - maybe he met her Downtown on a comm lot or in a Simternet chatroom?

This is extremely true.  However, I think that with BV out, I need to develop a new definition of "normally".  :)

It may be that she was on a comm lot (she's a non-playable dormie, so not someone that I personally sent anywhere), and I know they met at the sim's house when he was a teen.  Possibly an acquaintance of his father who was invited to a party? (There have been a few birthday parties at the hut.)  That would bring her to the residential lot.  I recall having him macro-socialize-friendly with her after transitioning to teen.  In any case, there must have been some existing relationship, or I can't see them going from 0-woohoo in such a short period of time (especially since there was a shower and lunch involved there as well).

If they have 3 LBs, and are the right aspirations plus outgoing personalities, they'll woohoo on a five-sim-minute acquaintance - but try any of the romantic interractions out of the love tub, and it's egg-on-the-face time!

 :D LOL
I recall, before I understood the nuances of the LB system, that I tried to get one sim to "leap into arms" of another sim.  He fell on his ass, with the other sim waving their arms and doing the "what the fuck are you thinking, you moron!" action.  That had me in stitches.  I found out later that she wasn't even interested in male sims when I loaded ACR and caught her heading to the hot tub with another female sim.

ACR certainly spices up the game! ;D

I think the EAxian programmers have some kind of personality problem, though, that they seem to think having a "quick one" normally happens on five minutes acquaintance!  And I hate the way siblings, parents etc. are only too quick to try it on with their son/daughter/sibling's fiance(e) and often the only way to stop them, even after the sim gets married, is to go and check their family boxes in SimPE, as the game only seems to do it automatically for Family sims.

And have you noticed how visiting adults in Uni go completely sex-mad?

I have not really done that much with visiting adult sims in Uni - I'll try that.  Generally, if one of my playables invites so much as a professor over to boost grades a bit, the professor slaps the sim around a bit when he accepts a flirt from one of the dormies who happen to be about.  Consequently, my sims never seem to get romantic with professors - furious yes, but not romantic (interesting - no "make up" woohoo).

Now that ACR is configured, I'll try inviting a couple of adults over to see what happens.

I had the odd situation of my Uni sim's mum (romancemod installed) snogging with a neighbour during a party - i.e. accepting a flirt and a kiss with her husband in the house, during a birthday party.  She's popularity, not romance, and had no particular wants.  I thought the romancemod would prevent extra-curricular flirting for married sims, but perhaps she's too outgoing (the whole family tends to wander around naked - in fact she walked to the wedding arch naked before changing into her formalwear just before the actual marriage interaction).  I refuse to edit that sort of thing out in SimPE, so they'll all just have to live with the consequences.  The only thing I've done is to prohibit "ACR-try for baby" for her token.

Considering how woohoo-mad everyone seems to be in my 'hood so far, I think it's not that surprising that I haven't noticed "odd" behaviour of adults in the Uni.  ;D

I've found mostly that all aspirations apart from married/joined Romance sims and married/joined Family sims are totally promiscuous unless you change their autonomy to Spouse Only.  Unmarried Family sims, even when engaged, are trollops (or the male equivalent).

Generally, my Romance sims are (a) jealous (even though according to ACR they aren't) and (b) not given to tomcatting around at home, or anywhere else if the spouse is there.  Nearly all my break-ups, or near break-ups, have been caused by unattached Family sims on the prowl!  Even before ACR, it was Cassandra in at least three versions of the game, started flirting/kissing either with someone she'd brought home from work, or when going home from work with a colleague.  In one game she was married to Beau (I'd played the Brokes a lot before I bothered with the Goths) and brought Daniel home from work, and immediately gave him a romantic kiss, even though Beau was outside clipping hedges!  I never saw Beau move so fast as when he ran across and slapped her face, pummelled her and generally went totally bananas!  I dread to think what had been going on in the changing rooms that day.......

If you've got BV the cat is recommended rather than the shrub.  The shrub is so... yesterday!

Unlike the mortgage shrubs which are so tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomo...................................................................................... ;D

There's a cat?  What cat?  Where?

Your cat waiting for you here:
http://www.simlogical.com/sl/Sims2Pages/Sims2_Teleporters.htm
 :)

That's what I found strange.  Maurey jolrei (self-sim's wife) is a married family sim.  I thought combination of ACR and romancemod would deal with the whole extramarital thing.  Apparently not.  She's got outgoing=8 or something, so perhaps that takes care of it.  At least they didn't woohoo or Bexley's birthday might have been his parents' divorce day as well (and they have 2LB for each other so it's not a bad match).

Problem is, the ACR only actually affects ACR initiated actions, not Maxis ones, so even if you have autonomy set to 0, a visitor can initiate an action and Family sims seem unable to say no!  I think one reason why I have less problems with Romance sims is I tend to give them more assertive personalities, and rarely make them very nice - niceness seems to be one of the factors with some of the Family sims - like "Well, I know I'm married and shouldn't have affairs, but I don't want to hurt your feelings......."

Sounds like you need Pescado's romancemod, which quashes that behavior... most of the time.

Niceness has no effect. Non-Special Sims, however, do not autonomously flirt with others as long as they have either A: No gender preference, or B: An existing romantic interest. As by default, sims basically never refuse flirts, there is no defense against this without installing the Romance Mod.

I do, of course, use the Romance mod, and have done ever since you first made it, and as you say, it does quash a lot of that behaviour, but I tend to think that Uni is a bit of a red light district, really, and some of the "normal" behaviours don't apply, at least to Pleasure sims.  Unfortunately I can't check that out yet, still no main computer, and only have Base Game on this or Base Game + Pets on the laptop.

I'm glad to know that niceness isn't a factor though, as although I mainly prefer my less nice sims, it would be boring if they were all grouchy!

Is the romance mod ok with ACR?   I have to laugh at my stupid sims trying to "relax" using ACR.  The double bed is upstairs, the couple agree to "relax" on it while still downstairs.  Man heads up the stairs, woman has a tantrum because man is on the stairs, then decides "Not tonight darling, I have a routing issue".  Over and again.  They've not made love since moving into that house.

I have both, and I've yet to encounter any problems.

'Not tonight, I have a routing issue?' That's absolutely hilarious.

TJ recommends the use of the romancemod with ACR.

Inge, are you using the non-modular stairs?  I always use modular stairs, and never have that particular problem, although sometimes "Ask to be Read to" or "Play Red Hands" etc., can interrupt the queue......

I agree. I can't even remember when I last used the non-modular stairs because of that silly sim-behavior. Ever since Pets, I even had problems with the modular stairs, so I've been using Targa's stairs/elevators. They might not look very pretty, but they get the job done. Plus, they don't take up a lot of room and they don't obstruct my view. The invisible one is a blessing in my game. Although, even with Targa's stairs I need to use two.

Silly Sims.

Also, if you have a flat roof over part of your bedroom floor, or a large balcony, you could put an outside staircase up and they should just use that instead if their is a routing problem with the stairs. (Always providing you have noroutefail in your hacks...)

Yeah lol this is a Maxis house and it came with a one-piece staircase, so I am not altogether surprised.  But they're my test sims anyway so I don't mind if they'd rather stomp at the foot of the stairs than actually enjoy themselves.  :D

Don't they have a sofa or a hot tub?

In that case, neither am I. Add a pet, and you have a 100 % birth control rate. By the way, pets use the Targa stairs as well, but the animations are funky. Funny, but funky. The pet moves as if actual stairs are present, so it looks as it the dog/cat is moving on air in an upward/downward slope. But that's still not enough for me to quit using them.

I also have had the same experiences as Jolrei. So I have a batch of YA's in the simbin that I made in BodyShop. I just tweak them a little because I usually make about 16, and then import them via Inge's (very decorative) cat into the dormie pool. 4 boys and 4 girls at a time. I have a special lot I use. It has a 3 space wall for Merola's painting so I can alter them to my taste.

I have downloaded your one tile 'Merola' painting, Inge. That was a great idea, by the way - Merola's painting is quite useful, but it does need a lot of wall space. Now there's more variety.

I like being in complete control of my sims, down to their personality, interests, and DNA. I never go with the EAxis selections, mainly because they, as usual, suck.

Yeah, well, my problem right now is that I can't quit making the damn things.  I go into CAS (fatal error) and suddenly come up with someone I like ("Oh, he/she has to be in the game!").  I just created 3 more tonight (the hard way - individual adults, one at a time, for the main hood - I didn't want to muck about with relationships in SimPE - silly jolrei.  I think I'll make two of them zombies and test the zombieapocalypse hack - never seen that in action yet.  I'll probably decimate the non-zombie population of the hood, with my luck.  :P

I always use romancemod and ACR together (well, always since I first loaded ACR last week  ::) ).  However, I never really expected that this would eliminate extramarital romantic action fully.  Consequently, if I don't want any more spawn from a particular couple, I will rule out "try for baby" for those sims, at the very least.  For uni students, I don't manage their relationships at all.  My playable student right now has woohooed two girls in his dorm (both seem to be OK with this - nice romancemod), and is headed for a third (there are only 5 sims in the dorm  ;D ).

For my houses, I got tired of waiting for sims to walk slowly up and down stairs, so now I try to build on one floor, as much as possible and avoid stairs.  That also means limiting the size of family in a house at one time.  I generally don't have more than 2 parents and 2 spawn at any one time living on a single lot.  That way the house doesn't get too sprawled out.

In the Uni section of SimPe there's a box you can check to make the YA "on campus".  Wouldn't this automatically make them show up as dormies?

ZZ is right - there are clean templates for the universities.  She is also right that if you use one, you need to generate dormies in some way, either by CAS creating them, or by generating them automatically (see tutorials on creating a clean custom neighbourhood).  All YAs are already at Uni.  There is no way to be a YA without being at Uni.  Consequently, this step in SimPE would be superfluous.

I have never tried clicking on "on campus" in SimPE.  I do not know how this would work.  I would suggest that it would be more advisable to move townie teens (or other teens) to Uni via the in game method of moving teens to uni.  These teens could then be made into dormies via Insim's famliy tree, or the teleporter shrub/whatever-it-looks-like-now.  I generally take it as a rule of thumb not to use SimPE to do things that can be normally and easily done "in game", to avoid future problems.