More Awesome Than You!

Ok. This is weird.

I have two sims living together in a greek house. Aquitaine Ridge is the second gen heir of my current legacy. Marjorie Jenkins is her best friend and girlfriend of Aquitaine's brother London and sister Putney (founders of Free Love: Queen's Cove). Aquitaine has an MP3 player. Marjorie does not. Now, listening to her MP3 player has become Aquitaine's daily wake-up call, so I was quite surprised when she woke up at a point at the end of her Sophomore year and went to take a dip in the pool instead. Then Marjorie wakes up and starts listening to the MP3 player. What? I check inventory, and sure enough...Aquitaine's MP3 player is gone and Marjorie has one. Later that day, they are downstairs in the living room having some drinks and, by all appearances, passing the MP3 player back and forth.

Then Aquitaine goes to check and see if one of her many, many friends has sent her an email. The computer breaks. She repairs the thing autonomously. I didn't think autonomous repairs were possible!

I've seen sims autonomously repair a computer, and even had one autonomously repair a trash compactor once.  I think high mechanical skill (maybe maxed out) is needed before it happens.

Hmm...I think I've seen them repair plumbing on their own. I'm pretty sure Trepie fixed the shower today after he used it and it broke.

Oh man, ever since I installed OFB, my sims have been crazy about the auto-repair. I'd have one occasionally with just uni+nl, but now I'll have sims walk all the way across the lot or up to the third floor to try to fry themselves. Especially with the computer, but with the dishwasher as well. I've never seen it with the TV.

Every once in a while, I let them repair away even if they don't have the skill for it. But no casualties yet. *yawn*

But that MP3 player thing is very weird. I haven't let a sim have one in so long that I would never witness something like that.

I've seen them auto-repair, and they don't even need high skills to do it.  I lost a poor stupid teen boy that way once.  Oops! 

That's interesting about the MP3 player.  I've never seen that before.

I would expect that several factors are involved in auto-repair.  I have seen it happen, but only very rarely, like on the order of alien abduction.  I can only think of seeing it with the community shower and the cheap bathtub for certain, but it seems like I might have seen the computer repair once, perhaps.  I've never seen the MP3 behavior, but then I don't typically use them because they suck and blow at the same time and this dichotomous conundrum disturbs me.

Almost all of my townies/downtownies have all three handhelds from shopping at the convenience store, but the dormies don't have anything. Aquitaine bought hers to fulfill a want (Pleasure sims are so flaky). But yeah, never seen swapping before now.

Both girls have 8 mechanical points. Aquitaine has 8 in almost all skills for the scholarship moneys. Marjorie I had study up since both Putney and London think mechanically inclined girls are super hot. A bisexual, unemployed blonde is hard enough to find. Had to move her in to get her to fulfill all their attractions. Putney and London have taken OMG twindom to extremes.

Yes, it's really the dichotomy that got me. Two weird things, one day.

Yep, autonomous repair happens if the sim has mech skill 8 or more. Apparently it happens if the sim also has no other needs with high advertising (e.g. low social/fun/etc.): when it would probably idling, or something like that. I'm sure it's planned since the base game.

The MP3 swap seems weird, instead; maybe some inventory tokens messed up?

I've heard of Sims swaping MP3 players--it was a while ago but it seems like it had something to do with the other Sim listening in on the player and when they stopped it was random on who ended up with it.  Don't quote me because it was a long time ago and it never happened to me.

I've had sims swap mp3 players before too. A few people here (http://community.livejournal.com/thesims2/3975886.html) also mention having had it happen.

My sims have often played the 'let's freak out PurpleBunny by playing with an MP3 player we didn't buy' game. I don't let them buy them very often just 'cause it freaked me out so much the first time.

Currently, the only MP3 player in use in my 'hood is in the hands of one of a set of twins. He got it from his twin, who got it from their older sister. I'm just waiting for it to make the rounds of the spouses and kids now...

Now they are just bringing home all kinds of crap and putting it in places I can't see easily. Normal greek house behavior, it just shocked me when all the sudden London is pulling a video game controller out of his ass, then Putney's playing with a radio-controlled car...neither of which I'd noticed them bringing home because they were both put in front of the couch in a blind spot.

I know the bathroom auto repair is a feature of the FOJ's BUY. Which can be a pain when they have really low mechanical skills and they are banging on the fixtures for 27 hours.

I do not doubt it.

And I love the way it makes stupid visitors unclog their own mess. Then I don't care how long it takes them.

Agreed! With things like this, I no longer dread having people over. Brandi Broke was a particularly egregious offender. When she wasn't upchucking, she was taking monster dumps, apparently.

The Flushforce from TS1 never clogs. :P

Can I has Flushforce?

I forgot about that.

Also, does anyone know: if sims make an attempt to fix something, does the "fix meter" stay where your quitter sim finished when they stopped working on it, or does the amount of brokenness reset to "totally broken."

Go download it. It's in Playsets and Toys.

...and now they're replicating. Aquitaine came home. She invited her fiance to move in, and he immediately went to book a little getaway. While waiting for the van, she starts jamming. Then, suddenly, Lewis (fiance) and Brooklyn (mom) are jamming on MP3 players they didn't have a moment ago. Not in inventory, but in use...in separate rooms.

Crazy.