More Awesome Than You!

Hmm not sure where I should be posting this, but I wanted to say I have some apartment fixes in testing at http://simlogical.com/slforum/index.php?topic=1770.0

At this stage, the hack is making apartment neighbors more intelligent about when their bedtime is, and more intelligent about when is a good time to come out into the communal areas, so they don't immediately turn round and go back again.

Roomies no longer run errands to green up - they have to use the items on the lot!

Coming soon - an indicator-object system to let the tenants know if they have everything they need in their apartments or if they need to come out to see to certain needs.  Hopefully to make other scenaria such as hostels possible.

Excellent. Will tenants spontaneously use objects such as the gym equipment?

I haven't done anything about that yet, but I welcome all suggestions in the thread, especially at this stage.

Would it be possible to make the roomie mod as a separate hack?  I don't have any problem with the way the neighbors act, but I want my roomies to be non-invincible.  Pretty please?

Sounds great! Any way to get the file(s) without doing a registration dance?

I got the files just fine without any dancing, registration or otherwise.

Excellent idea  some of apartment neighbors are so annoying I hate it when they keep going in out and they never seem to sleep.

I may be able to split the roomie bits from the rest.  I will see.

I find the opposite problem, that they tend to run off while you're in the middle of a conversation with them...or even when you've forced them to selectableness and are giving them instructions!

I was having the same problem, Inge's mod helps a lot with that. Now they only run off on Mondays when everyone must pay rent, and to go to work.

I am not sure Pescado would use one of my hacks, on principle :)

Because you're so mean?  :D

I don't have an anti-Inge principle, and, in fact, use the Ingelogical Shrub, but I do tend to have a clear not-invented-here bias in my game...especially when the not-invented-here conflicts with the invented-here! My version is more concerned with making them disappear back into their rabbit holes before they die due to the fundamentally stupid AI, and discouraging them from loitering forever in empty corridors. Like I'm perfectly fine with roomies that "run errands" to go green up. I mean, isn't that what YOUR sims do on community lots? The alternative tends to have them repeatedly die because the sims AI is stupid and incapable of long-term survival, especially when they are also trying to undertake timed subgoals like "go to work at X". If anything, the bandaiding functions like "run errand" and "disappear into rabbit hole" are a sign that the Sims designers are REALIZING this, and while we don't want invulnerable sims that play the instruments forever, I don't really want them suiciding themselves (especially when they are playables!), either. Disappearing into their rabbit hole is acceptable.

Also, my undiscovered shiny is basically aimed at the same thing, but without "indicator objects", since trying to relandscape the common area of an apartment is a bad, bad thing.

BTW, Inge, you're in Awesomeland now. I made you the Landlord NPC. You'll be seen in the next episode as, naturally, "Gray Fatness".

Sigh....  get the CAT already :rolleyes:

Anyway the indicator objects are meant to go in at the same time you kit the rest of the communal areas - after all that's when you will be deciding what needs are contained in the apartments and which needs are provided communally!

But I *LIKE* the shrub! When I think Ingelogical, I think SHRUB. Plus, this is like Ingelogical Shrub dating back to Uni. I personally hacked it myself to continue to function, as well as do assorted esoteric things-of-the-moment that only I would actually want. At this point, it's sort of like my trusty crowbar.

Pescado, when can we expect the undiscovered shiny to be discovered? Is it one of those we have to encourage fat gwilly people to ask for? Because I want to nom nom nom it!

Inge, I tried out your fix, and it seemed to work as intended on most lots, however I had some issues with a lot where another family's apartment were visible - these neighbors just stood around doing nothing after a while, starting to stink. They didn't even go inside their apartment, and when they finally did, they still just stood there. When I played said family, everything was fine, and the other family was working fine. I am going to test out some more.

Gotta say though, it was kinda nice and shocking to have the room mate actually go to sleep in a bed!

I had the one about the family unable to go into their apartment.  Was it the family with toddlers?   I think one of the toddlers got stuck just inside the door.  Eventually the family sorted themselves out, after several sim hours, and were able to go inside.  I might look at making a fix so that if it happens again they will be able to just "jump over" the obstruction lol.

Well, incidentally they had a baby, and it was just inside the door. But first they just stood staring at each other on the other side of the lot, so I am not sure what happened exactly. I used my playable sim to call them and then say good bye, and that made them first stand outside of the door for a while, then they suddenly went inside and stood there instead. Truth be told, I can't be sure it's your hack that are doing this, maybe it's just regular borkage. I will take out your fix and see what happens - I don't have any other hacks besides awesomeware because I took out twojeffs after they crashed my game. The family is the Patels, so we might be able to throw the blame on eaxis for this one - I'll test more.

could someone make a mod to stop the autonimously playing chess pleasssse? they're driving me nuts

See here (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,9495.0.html).

I am almost ready to release a much shinier version that I started developing before Inge made hers: Unlike the Ingelogical version, it does not require any configurational signs at all! It will auto-detect all these features for you. The crash-testing will be visible in the next episode of AWESOMELAND! Coming soon to Fat Gwilly People near you.

In Inge's defence I'm fairly sure that the pictures are part of the customisation ability and not designed that way out of an inability to force standardised conformist behaviour.

That said I await your version with baited breath. I've got some wierd interaction (no conflict listed) that causes problems when I use Inge's version.

What weird interaction?

Pescado is in your mind.  Auto-detecting your thoughts.

I'm not out to force a conformist behavior either: I went for the "natural" approach of actually detecting what things are present and making sims thus respond accordingly to those things. Also, a number of unrelated bugs like Sleepwalking and Busted Autonomy were resolved.

It sounds like you're approaching this from the other angle.  Since non-playable apartment neighbors cannot see or use their apartment contents, putting the knife and fork picture up is a signal to them that "you do not have eating facilities in your apartment".   So they will never be able to get their hunger satisfied while in their apartment.   It sounds like your approach is "There is a toilet in the communal area, so use it rather than your own".  With my system, without a toilet picture, the Sim won't prefer the communal toilet to the (theoretical) one in his own apartment.   Also you could put all the paintings up, but not supply the equipment, and let them suffer.  It's slightly more under the player's control what scenario s/he's simulating.

However, I wish you'd said, earlier on, that you had already begun developing this "before I did", as I then might have left it to you and I could have concentrated on some other project that you weren't already doing.

Actually, it's even better: They *DO* see their apartment contents. While they do not have the ability to use them because the items are disabled, and no actual simulation occurs because it would be massively expensive, they *CAN* see that the items are there, and I use this to determine what motives should be refilled when they are blacked out. They will then, similar to yours, emerge from their rabbit holes to fill the motives they cannot get satisfaction for in their apartments...but also, they will bugger the hell off after they are done rather than loitering in the hallway with blank looks on their faces, slowing your game to a crawl as they scratch their heads in confusion with nothing to do.

I did mention this, but also, I didn't quite realize I was actually doing that until you described it for me. It started out as just a collection of bits and pieces to resolve assorted nuisances, and it wasn't until you MENTIONED this that it really became clear that, "Hey, that's what THIS does!". It *STARTED* as a set of totally unrelated items that I just cobbled together as a personal grab-bag of apartment-related functions, and it wasn't until you described what YOU had done that it really came together what I had actually made.

Mine don't do that :)  And what if the player wants some of the lots sociable?  My system has an indicator that lets the player decide whether or not they want to be bothered socialising with neighbors.  Each lot can haz its own character, and you don't have to start rebuilding/refurnishing the apartments to quickly reconfigure it.

Oh, the socializability factor has already been taken into account: If you don't hang out in the hallway, the NPCs won't either. The anti-loiter clear also acts faster when the player stops looking at them and/or engages the warp drive. Mashing "3" while looking on a entirely different floor is a pretty strong signal you don't care, so why waste time having them loiter in a hallway where you can't see them anyway?

As a result, each lot has its own character, much like your system does, but without the need for explicit configuration, and instead the game will respond based on your furnishing choices and personal behavior. The amusement sort of showcases itself in the next upcoming AWESOMELAND. Where, on the suggestion of the Whale, I put the Whale in a 24-unit apartment with only a single bathroom and then proceed to seriously stress-test Bathroom Uses You.

Like most things I've done lately, it basically starts out as an undirected edit for personal amusement that begins to snowball until someone, such as Fat Gwilly People, mentions a particular annoyance.

Well let's just say yours is more awesome and mine is more logical ;)

Well, more Ingelogical, anyway. I tried to avoid as many arbitrary fudge factors as possible. Like your "in apartment" motive drain is flat for all sims, whereas mine actually uses an emulation of their standard decay rates and takes into account their LTA perks, so that they lose power at about the rates that they would normally, other than some rounding truncation. Also, the "furnishings" are individualized, rather than lot-wide, and responsive to their individual circumstances: Each apartment is treated seperately, so that if your apartment is populated by different playable families with different furnishings, they will behave according to what they have: If ONE apartment has a Kick The Cheat installed, while other apartments have absolutely nothing fun, residents of THOSE apartments will come out looking for something to do (if something to do actually exists on the lot), but the family (probably playable) that DOES have those upgrades will simply use their own and not come out for that reason. Whereas with your "signs" method, they would come out regardless of what they have or what is present, and would not react adaptively if their apartment were upgraded by the player in the next playing session. Also, your method doesn't account for the Special Creatures and just drains everyone's motives the same, even if they don't actually "have" those motives.

None of my hacks take special creatures into account.  I have no time for all that nonsense!  I have hacks installed to prevent supernatural nuisances occurring anyway.  I am trying to play a life simulation not a la-la land.

Seriously though, it sounds like you have some very good ideas there, and I would use more of your hacks if they didn't so often seem to come with the extra baggage of the efficiency enforcements.   For me it seems to make the sims into little more than automatons.  Well of course they are automatons, but I like to be able to try and forget that while I am playing.   I made my apartment fixes to fix what seemed to be automaton-like behaviour in the non-playables, to make them behave more like playable sims with the difference that they can respond to lot overcrowding by going into or staying in their apartments and disabling themselves rather than remaining active and slowing the game down.

Yes, but I prefer not to willfully bork features of the game that others may be enjoying. It is up to you whether to HAVE such creatures, but at least I'll handle them correctly. :P

You must be thinking of Macrotastics. That basically *IS* an efficiency hack. Efficiency is good!

I find that the opposite effect is created by EAxis behavior: They STILL seem very much like automatons, but now they are very BADLY MADE automatons that repeatedly do stupid, obstructionary shit with absolutely no way to discourage or counter! (As opposed to in real life, where when people do stupid shit, you just smack them aside and go about your business)

My idea started out as an anti-loitering hack, because I had them just constantly pop out of their apartments and then stand there with dumb looks on their faces for no apparent purpose for hours at a time doing absolutely nothing until they finally decided to leave. So the first draft involved adding an advertisement to their doors to encourage them to see "Go Away" as an action, and then I began addressing issues like "So, why are they out here in the first place, anyway?", and it went from there.

This isn't one of those "automaton" hacks you rail at, though. Although it CAN be, if you arrange your apartments in a decidedly automaton-fashion like I often do, with the result that if your apartment block is inhabited by pod people, they will continue to behave that way. Otherwise, looking over your code, it seems like there is a lot of convergence in methods, except yours relies more on explicit and inflexible configuration which cannot be changed once the apartment has been inhabited without evicting anyone, and mine operates by environmental logic.

You're mistaken.  These "indicator" pictures can be placed in a playable Sim's apartment at any time, though of course they will then only be observed while playing that particular household.  I would have thought it was your hack that required forethought when building, more so than mine does, since your hack needs to detect actual provided items which are really only easy and reliable to place and detect before anyone moves in.

As my pictures can either be added to communal areas at build time, or to playable apartments at runtime, it means you can reconfigure if you wish to on the fly without using any complicated cheats to allow communal object placement.

Yes, but the indicator pictures would result in inconsistent behavior if a different playable apartment is played and "opens" an apartment with a conflicting set of pictures, resulting in unpredictable behaviors, whereas my method works based on what is actually present, eliminating the possibility for error in indicator placement.

The behaviour would be configurable, but not unpredictable or unreliable.  It was in testing long enough!  Now if I can just get Madame Mim to describe this problem she has, we can get whatever the last glitch is cleaned up.

What happens when a playable opens up another playable apartment that has a conflicting set of signs? The behavior immediately becomes chaotic and no longer conforms to the configuration, which was in itself inconsistent. It just has this kind of singular inelegance I try to avoid. And I finally managed to make the 8009 BHAVs USEFUL. I have no idea why EAxis is so fond of them, seeing as unless you're actually USING the memorization bit, it is simply useless, so it seems pointless that they went and deliberately converted some older 8007s to 8009s without changing anything.

Ok, change of topic lol.  What is this "memorisation bit"?  It sounds potentially useful information for me :D

...wait, what? You're the one who told me in the first place!

Am I?  Maybe I have misunderstood what you're referring to then?  Or maybe I am just overly grey these days....  Remind me lol!

The short version of it is that setting the "cache" bit to "0x01" in an 8009 will allegedly improve performance by "memorizing" the True/False return value in a function given a set of arguments, so that if the function is called again (live time unknown), the actual function will not be run and the results will simply be dumped back from the cache. This will improve performance with a computationally expensive function with low volatility where the value is used a lot. In theory. I have no idea if it actually works, I'm just going on what you said!

I'm sure that wasn't me.  Sounds like something Dizzy might have found out while involved in RE.  Still it will have its uses, I dare say :)

What's is "RE"?

I am trying to be subtle about it, rather than risk getting him into trouble :)   Think of something we're not meant to do to commercial software.

Well what on though?  They can't use their own cookers or bookcases, and they can only use visitor-enabled stuff.

Inge: The same one I was reporting on your site. I just didn't go into details here because it wouldn't be important to Pescado et al.

I remember that conversation/discovery.  I don't have my old notes so can't see how much was found out about it.
I'd grep for 'memoiz' if I had them.

Tuna:But I wasn't there was I?

MM: Thanks.

Now you're asking...
I can just about remember *me* being there.