More Awesome Than You!

I don't mod, so I only have a limited understanding of this, but I get that the EAxis AI sucks.  If you leave sims to their own devices, they pee themselves and starve to death.  However, pets are necessarily left to their own devices (unless you use cheats), and they somehow manage to avoid peeing in inappropriate places and starving, as long as you give them the proper objects and train them.  Why is this?  Is the pet AI just better (or simpler, or more logical) than the sim AI?  Was the sim AI purposefully made stupid to make it more "challenging" for the player?  Is it just that there are fewer things to potentially distract pets and occupy all of their attention until they die?  Is there just something fundamentally different about the way pets were implemented?  I'm really curious.

You mean objects like the piano?  I almost always micro-manage my sims so I've never see it myself, but I have heard stories of sims playing the piano until they die.

Yeah, but strangely enough, not the TV.   :P  Sims have severe ADD when it comes to watching TV.

Karoake (http://zazazuabubu.livejournal.com/12765.html). I'm so glad the damn Sutherland twins are almost grown up, because I'm getting rid of that damn machine. I have most of the lyrics to all the karoake songs memorized.

The AI for pets is a different system.  They *do* actually learn, unlike humans.  That's why their motive grid in the TTAB is so hellishly complex that SimPE cannot yet label it usefully!

Yes, the pet AI is simply better than the Sim AI, for one simple reason: Unlike the Sim AI, the Pet AI has a hardwired heuristic safety net: Instead of standing around continuing to do stupid stuff, if the pet has not responded to standard advertisements, it activates a routine "Go Find A Place To Pee" at very low bladder levels, whereas sims simply pee their pants. The Pet Hunger and Energy AI is not significantly better than the Sim versions, but the pet energy fail is simply "take nap on the floor". Unlike with sims, there is no penalty associated with pets simply sleeping on the floor.

But mostly, EAxis just likes watching sims pee their pants, and rigs the game to encourage this behavior. Plenty of evidence classifying this particular behavior as fetishistic can be found within the code (which intentionally sets sims up for this for some reason) and Rod Humble himself, who went on and on about it during the TS3 previews until EA management had to attach a handler to him so he'd stop.

So you'd get on well with Rod Humble  ;)

No, actually, I wouldn't. If you really examine more deeply, you'd notice this.

I have found that playable Sims, left to their own devices, do rather well looking after their motives on autonomy alone provided there are resources available. And provided you use the fixes provided in the MATY zip folder, of course. That's why the Asylum challenge stipulates not enough beds, toilets, showers etc and no fire-control sprinklers or smoke alarms.

Townies are another story, I have mentioned before that some of my Sims had a home venue business where several Townies died after overuse of the treadmills. As far as i know, townies and NPC's are supposed to just leave the lot if their motive are low and unfulfillable. I have taken to Smiting evil witches who arrive at community lots, for that reason. After 3 or 4 smites they just fly away, where another Sim would have been dead.

I have also noticed that if a pet has been taught to eat Sim food, it will starve rather than eat Pet food.

Anyone who has succeeded  at the Asylum Challenge knows that it all depends on the layout of the house/lot and the objects available.

Part of the reason "playables" do better is because they have more actions available to form a complete set. Townies do not. I think they may also have a higher pulse rate. I'm actually experimenting in "Making EAxis AI smarter" by increasing the pulse rate when sims get low on critical motives, so instead of a mandatory enforced 10-minute wait, they will do something NAO.

I've build dorms where I could (with all seasons set to autumn) leave my sims to themselves for their entire college life.
They'd mess up a bit, and sometimes they'd miss a final, but no one (playable anyway) died or got kicked out.

I don't normally play like that, but it was a fun experiment.

Yeah, it's all about lot-building... I'm experimenting currently with building a lot on which one or more sims could live from CAS-adult to natural death without my ever touching the mouse. It's probably possible, but I'm depending on redundancy soo much that I'm having to use money cheats. I mean... twelve refrigerators? The repo man is bound to take one or two, and if there's only a couple left, sims will obviously go juggle bottles or pass out in front of them or sit down to hang out in front of them... Plus: Vermin. Somebody in the neighborhood WILL be mean enough to kick over your garbage can, and then your sims spend all their time starving and squishing roaches. Surrounding the house with water would work fine, if that didn't mean the sims were trapped at the curb... Fortune sims will eventually go into aspiration failure, and spend all their time begging...

Umm... I'd like to say this is some grand experiment, but really, I just kinda like laughing at the stupid Sims. ;D

For the most part, I leave my college kids be. I direct them to finals. If they have a want to do homework and are low on aspiration, I'll guide that. But otherwise? They can go nuts on ACR for all I care. And still, most of my sims graduate with honors.

1. Build pool.
2. Carve out middle.
3. Put ladder on middle island.
4. Put diving board leading into the pool from outside.
5. Build house on middle island.
6. ???
7. PROFIT

I am totally going to try that. :D

Pets will, in fact, starve if they've been completely trained to eat Sim food and there is none available.  If you want to see this in action, just plop the Crittur family down into one of your existing households.  The good news is, if you do manage to get them to eat Sim food, you can just scold them for it and then they'll eat the Pet food again.

...  :-X Evidently my brain has gone to vacation in Hawaii someplace, and decided to stay there...

Duh. Thank you.

I played the island idea for a few sim days. They had freewill on but I was directing them a bit. I moved an existing household, the Test Subject family, onto the lot. One elder, four adults and one teen. Also one cat.

I used a 4x4 lot and placed a swimming pool 3 tiles wide with rounded corners all around the outside of the lot. One diving board and one slide at the road side, various ladders on the inside.

I cheated to get the cat onto the island.

I made them all quit their jobs.

I found it necessary to move the trashcan onto the island. A sim was obsessing over it, trying to get to it to throw away a baby bottle (one of the female sims was pregnant at the time of the move.)

I got them to hire a butler just to see what would happen, he stood at the slide until I sent a sim over to fire him (had to briefly place a ladder to do this.)

As far as the teen is concerned, the school bus would drop from his queue. I used Inge's schoolwork table to keep his grades up.

Walkbys still stand around and then go. There is no doorbell to ring. I guess that the repo man could take stuff from across the pool if he tried, or else he might take the streetlamps which are on the outside.

I've always wondered what would happen if the Repo man came and you had nothing to repossess. The only problem is that there is nothing that contributes to bill cost which can't be repossessed, as far as I know. Do you suppose that columns would work?

There really is a dialog for that, actually. If you have NOTHING that can be repossessed, for instance, because you live in a GIANT EMPTY LOT and pay only lot-size-based bills, the Repo Man goes something to the effect of, "Geez, you really ARE poor!", and just gives up without taking anything.

Yup! When I was doing my empty-lot-living experiment, I never paid bills, and the repo man would always just leave!

I really should have checked whether it left a memory...

Or alternatively to the island method, just build a fence next to your house somewhere with a gate in it, put garbage can in the enclosure, and lock gate for anyone but household. My neighbourhood seems to be populated with means sims that have nothing better to do than pester other people and knock over their bins, so this is part of my standard house layout.

Prekick the can and use the new AL trash chutes. Once the can is down, leave it down.