More Awesome Than You!

Has the Pay-At-Box hack been updated for NL somewhere and I've just missed it? I pulled it after NL since it interfered with receiving letters and coupons (and created an obnoxious loop when those items were in the mailbox) but now I've got these morons trekking across the lot, up six floors, over a bridge, swimming the pool moat, then climbing up Rapunzel's hair to put their stupid bills on the most inconvenient end table they can find. And, I inevitably miss this epic journey and have to try to recreate it later when repo warnings start appearing. I hate ruining my pretty lots with end tables beside the mailbox but I'm getting close to damning landscaping. Soooooo.... pay-at-box, please, please, please. ~KG

I haven't seen Pay-at-Box, but I know Macrotastics includes a Pay-at-box sort of feature, and it seems to work for NL.

With the macrotastics one, the sims now take the bill from the box and put it on the ground. Then they have to be directed to pick it up and pay it. Something's a little broken.

EASY FIX: Just turn moveobjects on, then put a end table in the mailbox (you know what I mean). Macro.../Pay Bills will still work, and even if you get the bills out normally they'll be put on that table instead of anywhere else.

I haven't found anything broken with the macrotastics function.

It's the pay bills command and when you tell your sim to pay bills, they get them out of the box, put them on the nearest table (a bit of a pain in the arse I know!) then they pick 'em up and pay them at the box.

That's what I've been doing.  It works for me, although it's annoying when they want to put their thinking caps out there or other stuff.

My problem is the sims put it on the ground then don't complete the action. I have to tell them again. I wonder if I have any end tables at all free?

Yeah you should have some end table free witch...if you do, I'm sure the active sim will put the bills there and then pay them as directed.

Ahhhh, is that why several of my Sims now take literally nothing out of the mailbox, look at it carefully, then put it back in without the bill actually being paid? I assumed it was another 'feature' of NightLife, especially as it seems to be erroring on the Sim or the bills rather than the mailbox.

Or is that a totally different bug?

Well, Sims can now get coupons and love letters in the mail, so is it that they're looking at?

When you don't have this hack, they don't put it back in the mailbox, the love letter or coupon goes into their inventory and they just stand at the box until you tell them or they do something else.

No.

They pull their hand out of the mailbox. It's in the right shape for the animation, but it's completely empty. They complete the mailbox animation despite there not being any letters in their hand. When they're done, the mailbox is still selectable and no money has gone out of the household account, though it seems to satisfy the repo man. The mailman only puts new bills in; when he comes to take them out, he just stands around for a while then leaves. It seems to be Sim-based; I've tried resetting the mailbox and using the lot debugger to fix stuck bills, neither of which worked. In the most persistent household, any newly-Teened Sim can pay the bills once before the bug strikes them down too.

I'll try removing PayBillsAtBox; I completely forgot that it might be that.

EDIT: Confirmed. Thomas Pepper is now in possession of the love letter that he wrote his wife aeons ago, back when they were young and single and had no children. Nowadays they are less young, not single, and have seven children...

I have an occasional loop that involves paying a bill over and over again.  My Sim will take the bill from the box and then render to Caesar repeatedly until I remove the instruction from their queue.  Even after paying the bill several times I can still click the mailbox and get the  "Get Mail" option.  It doesn't happen on all lots, just some.  One lot I played long enough for the repo man to come and that resolved it.  I can't remember if I have tried JMP's fix for stuck bills or not. 

I always cancel the action as soon as they get the bill and then they place it on the ground right where they are.

I used to do that, but now they get the mail autonomously and cart it off to the nether regions of the house where I can't find it when I'm not looking.  Then the macro doesn't work.  I got spoiled by the pre-NL pay-at-box hack. :(

I use this, in the meantime. The sims always put the mail there.

http://www.sims2.thesimsresource.com/items/comments.php?ID=5823&type=ts2sets

That's a neat idea.  I'll definitely have to try it.  Thanks....

Karen