More Awesome Than You!

Newer, shinier, more updated. Now with OFB inventory-pillaging action!

(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/terror/green.gif)
(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/zip.gif) macrotastics.zip (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/ofb/hacks/macrotastics.zip)

RECOMMENDED FOR OPTIMAL EFFECT:
autoyak.zip (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/nl/hacks/autoyak.zip)
bathroomusesyou.zip (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/nl/hacks/bathroomusesyou.zip)
sleepclock.zip (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/nl/hacks/sleepclock.zip)

Macrotastics (v0.90) for TS2U p0 - TS2OFB p0
Made by: Flying Fish System (J. M. Pescado & Doctor Boris)

Congratulations to: Draklixa!
In Memoriam: Dizzy

INSTRUCTIONS:
Place in your MYDOCU~1\EAGAME~1\THESIM~1\DOWNLO~1 directory.

FEATURES:
Most features accessed by clicking on your sim and choosing Macro.../Option.

I. HARVEST MONEY TREES
   Harvests money trees on lot. Option appears if your sim is in gold+
   aspiration and you have money trees on your lot. Your sim automatically
   travels from tree to tree harvesting the shinies until he either runs out
   of trees, his mood becomes very critical, or he loses gold aspiration.

II. PROCRASTINATE
    Your sim will stand there and idle until you or something else tells him
    to do something more intelligent, or motives become really low. Option
    is only available in "Free Will", since the purpose of choosing this is
    mostly to block your sim from choosing other actions if you want him to
    simply wait for something.

III. USE BATHROOM
     Your sim will seek out the nearest designated and appropriate bathroom
     and perform bathroomly tasks. Requires properly installed and configured
     FFS "Bathroom Uses You" controllers (>= v1.68). Option will not appear if
     none are installed or appropriate.

IV. GO TO BED
    Your sim will go to sleep in his designated bedroom. Requires properly
    installed and configured FFS Sleep Clock. Option will not appear if none
    are installed, or your sim is not assigned to any of them.

V. CONCENTRATE
   Your sim will concentrate on his present task, boosting it in priority
   so that it will not immediately drop if you queue another order after it.
   Examples of when to use this include an autonomously chosen task you want
   your sim to complete, not abort, when you queue things after it, and tasks
   like "teach" or "help with homework", which have the annoying habit of
   cancelling themselves if you tell your sim to do anything after it.

VI. CLEAN/REPAIR/GARDEN
    Your sim will seek out things to clean, repair, and garden, using better
    search algorithm than "apparently at random" that the maid uses.

VII. TAKE OUT TRASH
     Your sim will empty the trash. Including the trash compactors.
     This will be automatically called after "CLEAN" is invoked, or it can
     be called manually.

IX. KICK STUFF
    Your sim will seek out and kick the nearest flamingo or gnome, re-standing
    them up if they fall automatically so that they can be kicked again.
    Requires properly installed and accessible Lawn Flamingos and Gnomes.
    Fastest source of fun in the entire game!

X. CAFFEINATE
   Your sim will chug-a-lug the coffee to restore his energy. Bathroom breaks
   will automatically be taken as appropriate if "USE BATHROOM" option is
   available. Chugging will continue until energy is filled or a critical
   motive becomes too low and cannot be resolved.

XI. DO HOMEWORK
   Your sim will seek out homeworks belonging to him on the lot(where-ever)
   they may be hidden, and do them. If Fun or Bladder is too low, the sim will
   attempt to resolve the problem by kicking stuff or using the bathroom
   before continuing.

XII. PAY BILLS
   Seeks out the mailbox, fetches mail, and pays affordable bills.

XIII. COLLEGE RAMPAGE!
   Accessible from the "College" menu, begins a rampage where your sim studies
   for college using all of the college tools until he maxes his current
   grade-o-meter! All needs except hunger automatically are taken care of
   during the rampage.

XIV. EAT
   Sim will scavenge for available edible foods and eat foods that can restore
   his hunger without being overfilling. If no foods are available, sims with
   adequate cooking skills will cook one. If OFB is installed, the inventories
   of resident sims will be pillaged for foods if none is found present, as if
   you dragged it out of the inventory and dropped it on the floor.

XV. POWER IDLE
   Sim will autonomously handle all basic needs. Will autonomously call friends
   if AutoYak is available, using cellphone if available. Sim will respond to
   any orders you give it while performing this function. If not given any
   orders, and all needs are satisfied, sim will do something quiet and
   not disturbing, like cleaning the room or sitting quietly in a couch. Will
   not bogart the desk chairs and render it impossible to use the computer.


COMPATIBILITY:
This hack is fully compatible with all FFS hacks. Tested for TS2NL v1.0p1.

SIDE EFFECTS:
May cause computer damage, incontinence, explosion of user's head, coma,
death, and/or halitosis.

I just got BV and re-installed all my old hacks. For some reason, whenever I use any Macro, the Sim goes to eat some food. If I cancel the order, the Macro reinstates it. It doesn't matter whether the Sim needs to eat or not. After the Sim eats, (s)he gets something else to eat. If his/her Hunger is too high, the order fails out, and so does the Macro order.
This has happened with Skillinator and with the new "dig for treasure" Macro. (I haven't tried any other Macros.)

I haven't observed the particular behavior you describe, but will keep an eye out for it. What do you mean by "goes to eat some food"? Are there stray foods lying around which would be enough to top off the sim's fuel tank without overloading? Also make sure you are using the most recent version as available on the site.

I can confirm that this is happening with the macrotastics updated at 18 dec 07, and bry updated 16 dec 07.

I've had to drag the hunger up to full to stop a sim with even 98% full hunger traipsing off to a plate of food when beginning skillinate/businessate. This also includes when in the presence of no less than three snapdragons.

I had testing cheats enabled at the time & no errors were reported.

*Edit - they only appear to do this when there is food available. If they would be required to get their own food, they don't go in search of it.

I often get that when I change an employees job from say, cashier to salesperson. I always have a buffet available on business lots so the food doesn't need to be prepared. The sim will have an almost full hunger bar and be low on something else like bladder, but the BUY will send them to eat first.

Hmm. What are the personality stats on the sim? What kind of food is provided?

Middle of the road for the most part, one was high active (child) the other that I noticed it with was an elder female romance sim, all stats within two points of median, Romance sim. By noticed, I mean almost tore my hair out in frustration with.

The food was anything from pancakes to turkey to toaster pastries. If there was food on the bench, it was preferable to anything else. The worst times for it were midday & about 9am.

I haven't seen it anywhere else since most of my lot-testing hasn't involved macro anything.

Need exact numbers, particularly on Active.

*Edit*

Well I found some time to fire it up so I figured I'd check for you. And the stats for the two I observed:

kid: 1 neat, 10 outgoing, 5 active, 7 playful, 4 nice. (was skillinating creativity on standard easel.)

elder: 8 neat, 3 outgoing, 5 active, 3 playful, 7 nice. (was brying a florist business on a home lot.)

So, all lazy sims. I can't see where in the code this is happening, though. In fact, there's a specific trap for this. Can you get a screenshot of this behavior, including the motive panel and target food?

Patrick, the Sim I sent to Skillinate, has
1 Neat
10 Outgoing
7 Active
10 Playful
0 Nice
He is a Werewolf, but was not transformed at the time. (In case that's relevant.)

Xavier, the Sim I sent to Dig, has
0 Neat
4 Outgoing
2 Active
1 Playful
0 Nice
He is a Zombie (if that's relevant).

Both were in the same household. The food available was Gelatin.

ETA: Flora is a normal Teen. The same thing happened when I told her to Macro : Do Homework, when her Hunger was above 50%. (Again, Gelatin.) Her personality is:
6 Neat
5 Outgoing
9 Active
9 Playful
1 Nice

Was the gelatin able to exactly fill your sim's fuel tank? Gelatin is not a very filling item, so may be able to top off the tank and thus be chosen anyway.

I wasn't watching very closely, but one of the Sims was continuing to eat once the Hunger bar was completely full.
I've seen this with other foods, too, but no specific anecdotes are coming to mind right now. I think one of them was Baked Alaska, but the Hunger bar may have been low enough to warrant that anyway.

Babies aren't pets!!  :o

Feed pets is included as a sequence of Power Idle. It presently feeds womrats and birds for sure. Not sure if I ever covered fish. Babies is the Baby Controller. And they aren't technically pets.

While we're on the subject, what about regular pets?  Does it cover those? 

I had a cat once.  I got rid of it after the fourth time I forgot to feed it and it almost died of hunger.

You should buy the bigger food dish. That way you will have a few more minutes in between required feedings.

Macro-Power-Idle automatically feeds Pets. The Awesome Pet Stories Food Dish holds MOAR FUDZ.

ok cool.  I haven't had a pet since I found MATY, so I haven't tested it yet.


wut?  ???

Ok, something keeps smashing my queue, including disabling power idle.

Is this normal or do I get to play troubleshooter with all my hacks? :-[

Look around the dowload directories. Start here (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs) Explore. Learn. Also read the RTFMs. They are really very helpful. Sometimes it is also a good idea to go look through the threads with the same name as the hacks you are looking at.

You'll have to be more specific. Is it smashing the queue as in, very abruptly, with a possible error, or something else?

Not really sure because I have yet to see it when it happens.  I just leave a sim on power idle with it running at 3x while I'm waiting for my bandatron businesses to get stars and then suddenly notice that my sim is running around doing stupid things without power idle...or I'll be on another sim and realize the other is off power idle again.  I'll try to keep an eye out and see if I can find the cause.


Yeah, I've been doing that.  Although sometimes the RTFMs only tell you the bare minimum of things I want to know. :P

Power Idle works best with free will turned off. I like my sims completely lobotomized.

Oh, wow!  My servo, who went on a Far East vacation and learned to teleport, just teleported during a gardening macro!

Is that your doing? (I can't see EAxis being that smart)  And if so, does that work for all special movements? (like vamp fly if the vamp can't run)

Also, update on queue smashing:  So far the only thing I've seen do it is an employee quitting and that didn't happen the other night.  Can cranky customers crush queues?  Or maybe it was just a bizarre, one night only series of queue dropping...

Of course it is. EAxis can't even figure out that you need to MOVE TO THE DESTINATION before you can do anything, and would rather take 3 hours doing it. Never is this more apparent than in Castaways, where a sim can burn half a tank of gas just crossing the lot.

Vamp Fly is not used as a movement mode because it offers little or no speed benefit over walking. In some cases it is able to bypass interposing objects and fly through them, but for the most part this is not a movement mode that offers a real speed boost. As true ground-distance calculation is not something that can be easily performed using the tools available, we can't determine what benefit will be attained by utilizing the flight mode. As such, we only have a relatively crude heuristic estimate used to determine the movement mode to use.

Yes, cranky customers using the "Complain" Action can queuestomp.

haha, are those "stories" games really worth getting at all?  I haven't tried any of them.


Any chance of increasing the flight speed to make it worth using?  It's just so damn cool!  ;D

Also, how do you (read: I) learn to do this stuff?  All the tutorials I've found basically say "there's no way to teach it, you just do it"  :-\


That might be some of what caused it, then.  Still doesn't explain the bandatron businesses...but I guess it can't be too common if I only had it the few times the other night and nothing since.

They are a cute concept. Not enough content to be worth paying for, and you won't want to play past the scenarios since you already have Sims2. Pescado ripped the special objects over in Playsets & Toys.

Is there anything I can get to make the macros repair local relationships the way they do the phone-ins with autoyak?

Macro...Socialize...Friendly...?

I meant without having to select each family member and do it.

Also, power idle doesn't socialize.

[edit] basically, I want to focus on one sim at a time without the others self-destructing.  I hate juggling.

Wow, you only have to click once on each family member to get them to talk until 100. How lazy can one get?
Need someone to play your game for you?

Wow, you can't read.

I need the other family members to take care of themselves when I'm not using them. 

Let's see, if I have 4 family members, that means I have to socialize three people with the first one, two with the second and one with the last.  That's six times that I have to set it up to repair the relationship and then keep up with when they've stopped so I can move on to the next.

I don't like juggling sims.  I prefer to play one at a time.  The problem is, the others have a tendency to fall apart at the seams when I don't give them enough attention.  I wish they could maintain status quo without my interference.

So no, I don't want someone to play the game for me, I just don't like having to juggle eight needs on four sims, PLUS trying to skill up and badge up and accomplish other such things.  That's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much micromanagement.

Yes, I could use snapdragons all the time, but that feels lame.  At least with macros, it feels more like the stupid sims just aren't stupid...the needs still have to be filled, I just don't have to micromange it.  With snapdragons, I can completely ignore the needs altogether and that feels like cheating.

So, really, if I was lazy, I'd just use snapdragons all the time. :-\

How are their relationships getting damaged, if you have power idle on?  One of the benefits of power idle is that sims don't do things that are destructive to their relationships.

If you have 4 sims, it's really quite simple.  Sim A macro-socialises with Sim B, while C and D macro-socialise with each other.  Then when they're done, Sim A macro-socialises with Sim C, and B with D.  Then A macro-socialises with D, and B with C.  And you're done.

If you want some sims to take care of themselves while you micro-manage one or two sims, then put power idle on.  Sims will tend to their own needs*, and won't do anything stupid or destructive.  It also helps if you turn free will off - otherwise they'll lecture each other for breaking the shower or something like that, and this could cause them to drop out of power idle.  You can use macro/skillinate if you want them to learn skills or earn badges while you're ignoring them - again they will take care of their own needs.*

*Assuming you have the lot properly set up with Bathroom Uses You, something kickable for fun, and sleep clocks.

1) Time

2) I should clarify, I partially want to repair the relationships because any other type of autosocializing would be counterintuitive and currently, power idle tends to ignore social need if you don't have a phone or friends with phones (and possibly if your friends are all at 100)...in any case, my sims are constantly getting visits from the social bunny, which is a queue stomper.


Yes, I can do the math.  But read that again and tell me it doesn't sound tedious. (not as tedious as manually socializing, granted, but tedious nonetheless)  I just wish this was part of power idle the way autoyak is.


Except social, apparently...which is what I'm talking about here.  Also, I've noticed the macros sometimes let needs get to critical levels and then get themselves queue stomped by the sim complaining about his/her/its needs.  This may be because I have cheap stuffs that don't fill needs quickly...which may not be a fault of the macro (except social, I'm totally blaming the macro for that)...but I haven't tested it with the high-end stuff because I'm a lazy ass that uses snapdragons by that point.


oh yeah, got all that.  ;D

Don't get me wrong, I love the macros...I'm just noticing some areas that to me seem like rather large omissions and am wondering if I'm missing something or if they just weren't included.

Really, I just hate the social need and relationship decay.  It's absurd.  I'm all for being able to damage relationships, but natural decay?  I don't see it.  I've never had someone call me up and say "we're not friends anymore because I haven't seen you in a couple weeks"  :P

Why no phones?  Phones are one of the things I give my sims as soon as I move them into a lot.  If social is a problem for your sims there are things you can do - sit them at a chess table together, or tell them to chat on the computer, or write in a diary, or send them to daydream on their beds, or send them to a community lot to socialise.  There are plenty of ways to gain social manually.  Or just let the social bunny come to fix their social, and then set them back to what they were doing.  Their social need will fill to halfway while the bunny is on the lot, while they get on with skilling or sleeping or whatever.


Sounds like you want macrotastics to have all of your sims in a household automatically make friends with each other.  I'm glad they don't - sometimes I want damaged relationships within a household for storyline purposes, and it would annoy the hell out of me if Pescado changed macrotastics so that sims automatically made friends with all other members of their household.  I want to be in control of who my sims befriend, I don't want to hand that control over to a macro.


Sounds like you need lesswhiny and/or dontwaveatme (I forget which one it is).  Stops them complaining about their needs.  I wouldn't worry too much about the needs being critical.  The only critical need combination that can be deadly if left to macrotastics is critical sleep + critical hunger.  So long as you don't let that combination happen, then macrotastics will handle the rest (apart from social, as you noted).  Macrotastics is an aid to playing your game, it isn't meant to replace you playing the game, and you do need to keep an occasional eye on your sims to avoid the fatigued & starving combination.

BTW, macrotastics works best if free will is off.  You are less likely to get queue stomping actions that way.

well, sometimes I don't take the time to make neighborhood friends when I move sims in because I'm focused on doing something else with them.  And it annoys me to have two or more sims running around on a lot that I've already taken the time to make them friends and have them ignore each other and fall into social failure while running macros....I hate stopping macros when I'm trying to grind them up to something. 

I guess maybe grinding out the gate is bad?  Me needs learn patience.  :P



No, I just want them to keep being friends after I've made them that way.

I've never been good at large scale multitasking...I get too focused on one thing and other things fall apart.


I have them both.  They don't seem to always work.  I still get queue stomped when a sim gets too low, it's especially annoying when, say, a plantsim wants sunlight, but won't listen to anything I say when I'm telling him to "go stand under the sunlamp, moron" because he's too busy whining about sunlight  >:(  (I'm assuming macrotastics doesn't really account for the sunlight issue...I don't see how it could since there's no "stand under the light" behavior that I know of.)

I'll have to check and see if there's a conflict, but I don't think there is...there wasn't last time I checked.

Yeah, I just wish it would let me know when a sim is reaching critical stupid (i.e. when a need that causes stompage gets close to stompage level).  Or at least a warning message when a macro gets queue stomped.

Really, I don't know why maxis chose animations over text when warning of low needs.  Animations cause interruption that prevents you from satisfying the need and fixing the problem.  Very counterintuitive.


Hmmm...but I like seeing the autonomous behaviors after I've got a sim finished with my current goals....I just let them do their own thing for a while instead of standing around like a puppet with no master.  It's especially bizarre seeing a family of sims on power idle all sitting on a couch together and completely ignoring the presence of the others.

Maybe I'm just trying to have my cake and eat it, too... :'(

I think we're dangerously close to derailing the thread at this point, so I'll shush.

Nonsense. Crack that whip! Socializing is for wussies! Let them see the bunny.

I decided to run a massive farm through the ringer in a test hood to see if it would be viable for regular gameplay.  I've run the scenario through a few time and it always gets to the point of "Too Many Iterations" errors from Macrotastics in conjunction with BRU and your test garden files.  Do you already know of a set breaking point with number of plants &/or employees?  I've attached the logs from the last time through.  I hope you find them useful.  I can recreate the error if you need some info that I may have left out.  If you can suggest any workarounds or let me know of a conflict from my end, please do.

I am uncertain how it manages to get to that many iterations. This never happens in my game. How many plants did you HAVE?

The last try, and peak, was 928.  The first was between six and seven hundred.  The first try definitely had some bugged plants (some unbendable, and one or two overlapping plots), but I didn't detect any of those on the last.

I have no idea why macro skillinate doesn't have the ability to dig for stuff for macro -> skillinate -> body... just seems weird to completely ignore a fun body-building activity.

1 Thanx for putting bed making into the clean menu choice.  It really helps to cut down on micromanagement.  (baa)

2 Near the beginning of this thread, it was mentioned that cat food bowls are too difficult to keep track of. That's why I buy two bowls.  It's rare that I don't notice when one is empty.

3. I see no problem with dig for stuff having its own menu item.  As an aside, I've never had a Sim develop the body skill while digging.  Has it always been this way?

Digging does not give Body. In fact, digging itself gives nothing. Undigging seems to give a skill, but not much of it, so I don't know which one, plus, undigging does not give any items.

I wish digging gave body. Or at least fitness.

Hi,

there seems to be a little conflict with something in the "eat" macro.
When my Sims prep some food for themselves using the microwave they don't eat it. Instead they put it directly into the dishwasher.

Shouldn't happen unless the food was defective. Will keep an eye out for it.

Filling in holes gives cleaning points, though not quickly.

And since the objective of macro-digging is to dig as much as possible using the SAME hole, undigging is performed rarely and not high-yield, and thus not a very good source of cleaning.

Pes, using macrotastics to macro > sew with a bronze badge is causing the sewing machine to "sew" tulip bouquets. Manually selecting sewing gives you the options for the regular bronze badge items.

I had the same issue as Jelenedra but I also got the wrong icon appearing - I had the one for pottery. By cancelling, manually directing the sim to sew and then clicking on Macro > Sew I got the right icon and sewing the correct items.

Issues will be resolved in next version and replaced with all new issues.

I'm getting errors when I try to have kids use the new Macro...Hobbinate (love the name, btw  :)).  In this particular case, I selected Macro...Hobbinate...Nature, with an ant farm on a table in the same room.  It threw the attached error.  I clicked on the very same ant farm to queue the action the usual way and the kid had no problem using it (in fact it triggered his One True Hobby).  The errors seem to happen when any kid chooses Hobbinate, no matter what option they choose.  I am not sure if it's an issue for any other age groups.

I am running the latest versions of macrotastics and skillinator, both dated 3/2/08 12:18 pm. 

Karen

EDIT:  It's not just kids.  I'm getting the same thing with other Sims too.

I'm having problems with sims dropping their entire queue when I direct them to hobbinate. And sometimes for no reason that I can see. Also in one dorm when they are directed to skillinate-->creativity they want to play piano, but they have no piano so the icons just blink. They do, however, have easels so I don't get it.  :-\

Macro.../Hobbying / Literature made my Sim call friends. Canceled the action he repeated to call friends.

From my observations it seems the Hobbinate is *always* triggering the Call Friends.  Something's definitely not right there....

Karen

Hobbination is not finished. I had to release the current version to fix an unrelated bug. If you use it right now, I am not interested in your error logs, and most hobbies do not have actions plugged.

This behavior is actually correct. A sim will perform all his necessary damage control work before engaging in a hobby. The Hobbinator is basically just Power Idle on Speed With Hobbies.

I noticed the new Fix > Borken Mood Boosts is this to fix the stuck aspiration mood problem I was having?

Ah. Hobbination not fixed yet. That's why I couldn't get anyone but the tinkerer to hobbinate correctly. Everyone else would just sit or pace back and forth, even though all the necessary objects are hanging around.

I'll be on the lookout for the finished version.  8)

Jelenedra: That is not new. I usually click it when it appears. I figure it means something like "mood boosts are broken -- click here to fix them" or something along those lines. I rarely notice any sudden or amazing change afterwards, though. I am sure it does something important.

:P


ETA: Oh, and it isn't part of the Macrotastics box. It is part of the Lot Debugger.

Bah. It sure is. >_<

I keep getting the drasted 404 message when I try to download the skillinator.  Also, I must be blind because I can't find it on (in?) the list.

Download Macrotastics.zip, skillinator is in there.

Just figured that out and came to retract my stupid statement.   ::)   I was busy updating and didn't install as I went.  :-[  Forgive my rashness and thanks for letting me know.

What happened to the lastest version of Macrotasitcs/Skillinator for BV/FT uploaded to the site at March 5, 2008 3:30PM (Or as shown in the Zip file Macrotastics 3/4/2008 12:15 PM  Skillinator 3/4/2008 12:25 PM)?  My sims get green then stand there.  I'm still using Bon Voyage.  Freetime I'll get after ACR is updated (Correction: Inteenimater must be updated for Freetime, more than likely ACR will have to be updated for the Freetime Version of Inteenimater therefore to be more nearly correct I'll get Freetime once Intenimater is updated.).  I tried one sim to skillinate - body, another sim  I tried skilinate - charisma.

Thanks,

Pcgeekri

Classical case of disregarding the old rule: "Don't fix it if it isn't broken!"

ACR works fine with FT.  It didn't need any updating, according to Twojeffs.  So don't let that stop you.

Karen

Actually, you should check his thread. He has been updating like crazy.

Actually, he has updated ACR.  It was a minor change to take into account NPCs you shouldn't interact with (such as Food Judges).  And everything else of his that I use has now been updated.

TJ posted an alert early this morning that FT could make ACR seriously wonky, due to the way the two aspirations are stored.  ACR currently can't distinguish between them, and may use the secondary asp for its calculations rather than the primary one.  So it's usable, but it may not work the way we think it should.

Really?  Thanks for the update.  I have been checking his site for updates daily since FT came out but I must have missed that one. 

It's a REALLY simple function call, so I have no idea why he would bother to write that instead of just FIXING it.

He also said something about having to see what impact is has on the rest of the code in the hack.

I downloaded the latest DC about an hour or two ago, and skillinate/cleaning is no longer working for me.  The sim just stands in front of the bookcase.  Tried with 2 different sims and 2 different bookcases.  They can skillinate/cooking from the same bookcase.

Noted. I revised the bookcase-study logic, probably missed a spot when porting to the new system.

The same also applies to charisma.

I was just coming back to say that Mesha.  Or to wonder if it was my game that was borked.

Different sim on different lot to before.  Only charisma lot on object was cheapest mirror.  As with the previous sims, he'd already called friends and his moods were all green.  Present on the lot were correctly configured bathroom (with BUY), kick the cheat, functional kitchen, correctly configured bed.  Even though his asp was high enough to use a thinking cap there wasn't one on the lot - I'm a bit wary about putting thinking caps on my lots right now, given the FT glitch with asp rewards that I've heard about.

The Gain Body skill isn't working any longer in Skillinator.  I'm still using Bon Voyage.  I'll post again, I think Pescado may have missed my original post because the Macrotastics/Skillinator support board went to TwoJeff's ACR.

Edit:  I may have fixed it.  At node 19 in the BHAV "Interaction Gain Body" the false should be set to 1A but instead loops back to node 3.  Still testing but seems to be working.


Thank you,

Pcgeekri

i have the latest update and am too having an issue with Charisma. There were 3 mirrors, and the business career reward on the lot, and the sim just jumped out of the action.

Another thing is I cued Macro/Hobbinate/Film & Lit for a sim. She watched movies for a while, then went to the computer and blogged about arts & crafts while still macro/hob/f&l. I wasn't sure if that's what was suppose to happen because her father in law was Macro/Hob/Tinkering, and ended up blogging about another hobby too.

According to a message from Pescado a few up, the Hobbinate functions aren't all working yet (only arts & crafts is working so far, if memory serves).  Patience, grasshopper.

Ahh ok, looked a couple of posts up and didn't see that. Went back a page and I did, I somehow missed it when I read through the thread. I have 3 kids under 5, so I know ALL about patience.  ;) :)

But the latest version is MUCH smoother than previous versions.  I'm not getting errors anymore.  From what I've seen so far, I think Hobbinate is going to make this EP trivially easy to play.

Karen

Why? It just stops you manually directing your sim to hobbinate-it isn't like it adds enthusiasm or anything. Your sim would be doing it anyway. Like macro>garden>talk for example, instead of clicking on each individual plant/tree, it makes your sim go to each one just stopping for motive replenishing. You'd be doing it anyway, but with a lot more clicks of your mouse. ;)

I see this as a fun vs. tedium issue.  As there is no way to "win" the sims, it is all about how well your story is running, what lulzy things your sims are doing, building the generations, fulfilling goals, or whatever.  If you have lots of fun giving constant directions to your sims for each and every task (I used to like this method), then by all means refrain from using macros.

What I found was that micro-managing a household of 6 or more sims got so tedious that it was no longer fun.  Macros are indispensible for this, and hobbinate is a logical addition to the macrotastics package.

And I'm not disagreeing with any of that.  I have been using macrotastics, skillinator, BUY, etc. since they were first released, and couldn't play without them.  All I was trying to say was that if the point of this EP is to acquire enthusiasm points, visit hobby lots, etc, then setting your Sims to Macro...Hobbinate will make that process more or less effortless.  (Nothing wrong with that, of course.)

I should know better than to make general statements like that about an EP that's been out less than two weeks.  I haven't played it enough myself yet to really decide whether I like it or not.  Of course I realize that everybody's playing style and reasons for playing are different.  That's one of the strengths of the game, that you can play just about any way you want.  I don't usually play with specific goals in mind (although I admit that the BV "uncover all the vacation secrets" thing was way more appealing to me than I expected it to be).

I imagine that as time goes on, I'll fold the "hobbinating" into my normal gameplay and it will become just another thing my Sims do as part of their everyday routine.  Right now I'm still getting used to it, just like everybody else.

Karen

I am pretty sure they just don't show up. The only things that you should have missing is 'macro>be farmer/fisherman' (seasons) 'macro>dig' and 'macro>seashell hunt (not sure of the actual term used?)' (bv)
I don't know about macro>garden, not sure if it was there for regular gardening pre-seasons.

You could always try it, debug on, in a test 'hood and if anything throws up errors, come back and post an error log.

I'm not sure if Hobbinate is doing what it's supposed to be doing for me. If I ask a Sim to hobbinate, they immediately start doing mundane things like cleaning the cat food bowl, calling their friends (not to chat about their hobbies), and cleaning. O_O

Have you tried selecting 'concentrate' straight after the 'hobbinate'? What hobby were you trying to get your sim to do?

I tried the Arts & Crafts hobbinate -- had an empty easel on the lot. Sim puttered about washing dishes, calling a friend (her social was already maxed out) and took the garbage out before going to the easel.

I had similar results with Nature and Culinary, but everything after those tests seemed to be fine. (Sims went straight for the kitchen for Culinary to eat, and went to the basketball court for Sports -- didn't test the rest). I'm not sure whether those first three hobbies are buggy, or if it was the hack just taking a bit to "kick in", if that's at all possible.

Hobbinate > Auto works perfectly; Sims basically just parked their asses at the computer and blogged about everything under the sun.

This is normal. Sims take care of local business before going about their hobby tasks.

So far, the only hobbies that I've had to direct sims to objects are sports, games, music, and fitness. The others seem to find relevant objects. (I'm using the macros from March 7th, btw)

Tho I wish the arts people would use something other than the easel... I'm thinking of taking that away from them and seeing if they go to the pottery wheel or sewing machine. It was fine when they were kids and it was all they could use, but come on! :P

I only recently added sports actions, probably in the most recent version. Games, the current version should be able to locate any of: Pinball Machine, Arcade Machine, Computar, Game Console. It will preferentially choose the Browse/Blog options on the computer if available, as they are quiet, inoffensive, and not shameless plugs for EAxis crap. Music requires a Standard Instrument of some kind or the test-directory Dance Positioner. Fitness recognizes Tai-Chi (req dance positioner) and any of the exercise benches (T+).

The Arts people use the Easel because I don't know of any other arts actions at the moment, other than the pottery and sewing machine, which drain energy. Energy-drain actions are bad mojo.

What about viewing art repeatedly?  I had a sim with maxed out art hobby go and view his toddler's first scribble (which I'd put on the wall), and he got the zone glow while viewing it.

For games, will you be adding non-electronic games such as chess or playing pool, or are they already included?

SO the sports people will use the f'n soccer and basketball objects now?
No board games?
The house I'm playing now [with moar breeding] doesn't have a TV and I'd like to keep it that way. The film/lit kid can f'n read books. I've also taken out the computer because they all want to blog all day long, and eff that.
Is violin a "standard instrument"?

Pottery and sewing drain energy? Even when in the zone? Most of my T+ are nearly in the zone if not already there... so would that still be a problem? I guess I could always have them macro skillinate/badginate pottery and sewing. But meh. :)

I'll hafta download the new hax when I get home. whee!

Yeah, the game recognizes the chess set as a games hobby item. Very quiet.

Yes, but I think they may also drain energy. They are thus chosen at lower priority.

Haven't explored those, and most board games are nonfunctional without an oponent.

Yes.

Wouldn't be much of a point if they already have the hobby maxed out. Hobbination attempts to max out the hobby and maintain it. Since the zone only exists when they are already maxed in the hobby, there would be little point in continuing it. Also, the zone has little or no effect on drains, they still happen.

The other kicker is that those actions CONSTANTLY POPUP DIALOGS. This is just an annoyance you have to accept when grinding badges, there is no other way, but the combination of disruptiveness to gameplay flow and disruption of energy balance tends to remove it from consideration as something to casually hammer.

Wasn't the ZONE supposed to SLOW the drains?  :P

the llama game works fine with one player.

Maybe, but slow isn't really something I recognize. I tend to consider such matters in binary terms.

So the pottery thing. Either I'm going crazy or there's some borkage. Sim A had some pots in her inventory. She was skillinating away, making more pots, and now they're gone. All but 2.

Skillinating automagically sells the practice stuff.

Low-quality practice junk gets automatically sold with full EIC under Skillinating, to keep you from running out of funds and clogging your inventory with garbage.

In AUTO>Hobbinate, could our sims feed cats and dogs has they do in Power Idle ? Thanks. My cats always finished starving while bowls are empty.

I thought they already did. The pet-handler routines are in there already.

I get errors when having employees as farmers, as well when clicking on specific sims. This only happens on a specific lot and could have to do with the fact that it is a real big 6x5 farm.
Is there a chance that you might fix this, J.M.?

I had to take the macrotastics file out of my game because I wasn't getting the Natural Talent pop up. Is this a known issue. It only started when I put the latest version in my game

My sims take care of the bird, but they still forget to fill the cat bowl. I've bought new cat bowls in case, and I've checked I have the last version of macrostatic and skillinator, but still I have to manually direct my sims to fill them.
Is there any condition for the pet-handler routine to start (except having a sims waiting for his next hobby action) ?

Easy solution -- get this auto pet feeder (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/samples/ffs/psconv/ps_autopetfood.zip) that Pes converted from Pet Stories to TS2.  Fill once and forget.

That thing is great. My four-cat household only has to refill once a day, as opposed to having say three bowls refilled twice a day. Luckily, sim cats don't know how to trip the hopper like my real one.

I'm still having issues with my sims STARVING TO DEATH when left on their own in fishbowl mode. I tend to not have them be power idle, so they can be sadorandom and do quirky things. I've had 4 sims drop dead of starvation with a FULL fridge on the lot, and even some made foods in their inventories. This didn't happen before FT, so.... yeah...

Minor issue with hobbinating in university...  If a sim is blogging on the computer, "go to class" will pop into the queue between blogging and the hobbinate icon, this seems to disrupt the cancellation check, so they just keep blogging when the hobby is maxed, and since they're in the zone sims keep blogging forever and ever, missing exams.

Kids don't go to school and adults don't go to work either.

I have noticed that sims don't stop reading when skilling cooking, even if sleepclock calls them. Only cooking it seems. Haven't had any problems with cleaning or mechanical.

Yea, I noticed that cooking thing today.  And it only seems when they're reading -- if they're watching the yummy channel, the sleepclock stops them.

Under Hobbinate/Auto, the letterbox icon is displayed when WatchMovie is current.

Would it be possible to add macro>bug hunt?

That's something EA should have done before they released the game.   ;D

There are lots of things EAxis should have done before they released the game, but here we are...  ;)

Mind you-the sims seem to keep bug-hunting even if they are chased by bees, find stuff etc until the action is cancelled. Might not be needed. I just hate clicking on the ground rather than my sim if he/she is indoors. Same with birdwatching.

I discovered that 'write novel' doesn't gain your sim creativity anymore. I used macro>skill and as the computer was the only thing on lot to allow this, that is what my sim automatically chose. I chose the plot/storyline thing and off he went. He wrote for about 7 hours and no skill gain. He was only level 4, (which was part-filled from comm-skilling on the karaoke machine) so it isn't as if he had to do loads to get to the next level.

Noted. Next update will remove this option from skilling creativity if you have FT+.

Huh. I could have sworn I had a Sim gaining creativity from novel-writing the other day. I clicked on the computer and queued it, if that makes any difference.

Manually directing them to write novels still gains creativity in my game. It's the only thing one of my families have for creativity.

I don't know if this is related (like "write novel manually" = creativity gain, "skillinate creativity via novel writing" = no skill gain) but when I Macro-Caffeinate and the available caffeine provider in the lot is the new FT coffee-machine, the sim keeps drinking and disposing of the cups but doesn't gain energy at all. (I think the same happened with the LS Stories super coffee machine too) They do gain energy normally though through the CoffeeBeanShrub from CS  Stories.

Mine uses Riley's Coffemaker and usually, if a sim is sat chatting while chugging then 2 cups will do it.


Thnaks Jel, I'll manually direct to novel-write and see if it helps gain creativity in my game. If not, it might be a hack conflict. I don't have any that relate to 'novel writing' or 'creativity' though, apart from skillinator.

I want to check this again, because simZazazu (who had no bed at the time and really needed the caffeine) was macro-caffeinating on a pre-FT modified comm lot, and it took bloody near forever for her to get out of the red.

Naturally, the "really have to pee now" function worked perfectly.  :P

I just downloaded this last night and played with it quite a bit today. I have only FFS Hacks in my game and I have most of them. It worked PERFECTLY.  I have every expansion pack and have been playing the sims since the first sims 1. All I can say is "genius" once again! This one I think is my favorite. On another note...I noticed that with free time you can't use the conference call  (silver popular) with the phone hack. Thanks again for this hack!   ::)

OK, I'm having the same issue.  Sims can seemingly caffeinate on comm lots when at a coffee bar, but none of the coffee makers on residential lots contribute to energy anymore, not even the espresso.  The sim makes coffee, sips once or twice, and disposes of the cup, rinse, repeat.  Ultimately, he collapses on the floor in sheer exhaustion.

It's funny the first couple of times, but y'know...

Don't caffeinate when the sim is nearly exhausted. The thought balloon for "DAMN, I'M EXHAUSTED!" will stomp the coffee drinking, which causes exactly the behavior you describe.

If a sim is about 1/8th to 1/6th energy, caffeinate should work fine. Test that before you test anything else. Make sure no other needs are at desperation levels, though.

Yeah, the kick-out point for most macro>skillinate actions is dangerously low when the sim is in platinum mood. You have to keep an eye on the energy level and cancel the action for sims to caffeinate properly. It is gets too low and they sip then dump the cup, get them to bed for a sim-hour, get them up and then caffeinate. That works too.

Oh cool, I figured it might be it cause every time it happened the sim was close to falling asleep anyway.

The Tree of Nom does not have this failure mode, and MacroCaffeinate prefers the Tree of Nom to anything else, so if you find this is a problem with your sims, try getting the CS Tree of Nom instead.

That explains everything! I've never really gotten caffeinate to work, but if it's just that they're too tired to drink coffee it all makes sense.

Well it doesn't make sense to me.  I have never been too tired to drink coffee.  I have downloaded the CS tree and will try to get my sims moar sleep.

Yes, but if you are truly nodding off to sleep (like the sims doing that little stagger backward when they are exhausted) then even the strongest coffee would have a job to keep you awake. The only way the sims can chug and the energy bar rise is when there is another sim sitting and they chat.

Okay, different thing now:

This artist-sim needs 2 mechanical points for his next promotion (and it's the first 2 actually so he can just read from the bookcase for those) but after selecting Macro/Skillinate/Mechanical he gets fixated on using the surgical-dummy that his geeky son keeps locked in his bedroom at the basement so he just stands in front of the locked door doing nothing. I had to pause the game to cancel the Macro interaction cause it kept blinking so fast while unpaused that it was impossible to do. :P

So anyway, could it be made so that they can be directed to the next best thing to skillinate on if the best choices are for whatever reason unavailable to them?

You just aren't using strong enough coffee, then. I suggest more habanero.

You could...just a thought...unlock the door.

Ha, of course I could, but there might be other reasons that the son keeps it locked. :P

Everyone has their sekrits...

I have better things to do than cater to willfully stupid user behavior. If you insist on locking away the skilling objects, you pay the price for it. Given that there is no reliable, non-hideously-expensive method of testing for accessibility as opposed to merely temporary route failure caused by traffic, use of anything assumes you have not stupidly created a completely nonfunctional layout in which all the skilling objects are inaccessible. Quit being stupid and wasting my time.

Why not just put items you want inaccessible in Sim inventory?

Yeah, I could do that, but the point was that this object somehow didn't "belong" to him but his son so he shouldn't be trying to go use it. (Sounds like what the next EP will be about, right? :P ) It's no big deal, I'll just direct him to go study from a book manually, I just thought it wasn't common sense that the Skillinator only tried to use the best object even when they couldn't reach it and wanted to report that.

This is not a game distinction - it is purely a matter of your projected storyline.  If something belongs only to one sim, the only way to make that distinction in the game is to place the object in that sim's inventory.  As you have noted, the "locked door" approach merely creates sim confusion and annoyance.

I have a request for Macro>Clean. Can the bug jars be added to the list of stuff to clean up?

Too bad macrotastics doesn't alter NPC AI.  I watched a dormie repeatedly pull a book from the shelf, sit down, open the book, close the book, put it back, whine about fun, pull a book from the shelf, etc...

all while my sim was sitting on the couch sipping away at his coffee and watching it all during a rampage macro. :D

It amazes me (or not, at this point) that the EAxis AI is so borked that a simple thing like motive management is quantum physics to sims.

I discovered, however, that if you make the dormie selectable, queue up actions with Macrotastics, and make the dormie unselectable again, they will complete their actions.

Disclaimer: I didn't try this specificially with college rampage, but with another macro. Clean, I think.

Heh.  That's what I do too.  Why hire a maid when there are stupid non-playable dormies to enslave for dorm cleaning?  Can also be done with walk-by visitors in the main 'hood.  Make your guests useful.

that's sorta cheating, tho.  I just use influence to do that.

Sorry.  What's your point?

Hey, I'm a freak.  I'll waste time in downtown lots just to meet the count and befriend him and trick him into biting my sim rather than shift-clicking and choosing "Make me...vampire"

I just like doing things within the game rules, rather than breaking them.

It's not advice on how to play, it's a discussion on the functionality of Macrotastics. If you make the dormie selectable, queue the macro, and make the dormie unselectable, it *will* replace dormie AI for the duration of the macro.

I was referring to jolrei, not you.

Back on semi-point, it would be nice to see limited macro functions on NPCs...but that might chew up too much processor power since it'd have to constantly squash stupid free-will decisions.  I guess what I'd really be asking for at this point would be total AI overhaul, which is not even remotely the same as macrotastics, so I'll shut up now.

Back to the coffee issue (sorry if I'm breaking any moods here)

I haven't used caffeinate since OFB (I know, not possible in real life, but in real life, I don't have FWS alarm clock to manage my energy bars).  I remembered the reason for me going off it is that I noticed that coffee seems to have a sort of addiction factor.  It is most effective when a sim who had not drink coffee for a long time drinks it, but the energy gained per subsequent cup gets less and less and less.  until caffeinate prob wastes more energy than it takes in (since bathroom activity has to be included).

Maybe somebody could affirm, dispute this?

All in all, I think it is still good for the emergency pump up, but it cannot be sustained (yeah, it would have made visits to com lots potentially never-ending.... prob some way to sleep in com lot will be better?)

regards

my only problem with caffeinate is that my employees all inevitably need energy at the exact same time and my store goes without anyone on the floor for hours.

I suggest you stagger your employee summations or hire redundant employees to prevent this. BRY already tends to more aggressively maintain energy levels on jobs that must be constantly manned if the employee is idle.

Oh, I wasn't implying that it wasn't my fault. :P

Although it would be nice to be able to set up a schedule macro >.>

Really, I should just close up shop when that happens and then go home, it's too easy to make money otherwise. 

Limits!  Gotta have limits!

Hmmm...power idle doesn't seem to be seeking out couches and chairs on idle sims anymore.  They just stand in place until their comfort bottoms out.  Also, trying to hobbinate while already in motive failure causes a repeating cycle of attempting hobby and whining about the motives.

I noticed they don't sit either, but as I tend to make them hobbinate when all tasks are finished it isn't such a big deal.

I mispoke....it's not motive failure that's the problem with hobbinate, it's mood failure.  When they get in a bad mood, it just keeps repeating the hobby attempt.

It'd be nice if they'd just go sit in a corner until you have time to deal with them when that happens instead of spamming you with "I'm in a BAD MOOD"

also, hobbinate seems to be ignoring comfort failure as well.

You can't have all the macro-stuff you need on-lot. Either that or they can't get to a phone to auto-call friends because it is either ringing or being used by another sim. My sims take care of their needs, phone friends and clean the house before hobbinating.

Just made a house with a single sim, a phone, a couch, a cheat, an espresso machine, fridge and bathroom.  All motives except social can be addressed, but for some reason, the macros are ignoring comfort...or just not seeing the couch..and I've tried several different couches and chairs, as well as a bed.

Before I re-installed the game to get a clean install, the macros would send sims to a couch, chair or bed to cure comfort...now they're not.

This has been a documented issue with the computer. I have added a fix for that in the latest version, so it will not attempt that action.

I will look into the matter, although comfort is not typically a motive condition that is normally encountered in my game, as it tends to be passively addressed by normal activity. Consider selecting a different furniture layout to avoid this particular condition, given that Macrotastics does not pay a great deal attention to it as it is not a condition I normally encounter.

Weird.


This has only happened with my pregnant sims, unless they are platinum. (not perma-plat though)

Murphy's Law is in full effect for anything that touches me.

A problem with macro/creativity & the shiny expensive computer, to wit, I keep getting a move-out screen instead of the novel design screen when using the gain creativity macro.

I removed all computer-related hacks to test it out, then tested said computer type by clicking on it & selecting 'write novel' and the novel design screen came up as usual.

I do have the buyable humble computer/anti-humble hack combo.

I have the skillinator updated 12 April 08 & the macrotastics updated 31 March 08.

I also have limited wrist-strength for play-testing so if you need more information, please be very specific.

The novel option shouldn't even be appearing under FT, due to dialog interruptions.

I have a feature request, either for Macrotastics or the bed controller. If you have both, Macro -> Go To Bed is available, which is great... however, unlike Macro -> Use Bathroom (available with BUY) or Macro -> Clean (standard Macrotastics feature,) "Go To Bed" doesn't use ninja teleport, if it's available. Any particular reason? Seems like a logical choice for Macrotastics, since it saves a step.

Doesn't it? I'm sure mine teleport to bed when they can.

I played it only an hour or two before posting that, and they didn't seem to teleport for that macro. Sim would teleport to toilet, empty bladder quickly, then run upstairs. But I have another sim w/ ninja teleport coming up in my rotation, so I'll try it out again. I'll also check various settings. Maybe they only teleport to bed when the bed nazi sends them to bed, not Macrotastics?

Edit: Confirmed. Macro -> Go To Bed does not use ninja teleport, nor does Bed Time -> On; in the latter case, when the btime clock queues up Go To Bed, the sim runs to the bedroom, never teleports.

I suppose this may be a technical problem. I notice that Macro -> Clean has the sim teleport to dirty toilets and showers, but doesn't use teleport for everything. Presumably, there's no way to "find" the area around certain items, like dirty counters or the FFS Alarm Clock, so there's no way to teleport to the nearest location.

^ You said that the sim "runs upstairs" to the bed, maybe that's the problem? Can sims ninja-teleport to other floors or only to the level they're currently in?

I once had a tower where the highest level didn't have any stairs or other way for sims to get to (it was supposed to be a witch's hidden chamber where her books and altars were, and she could teleport there using the meditate-teleport) and I'm sure they couldn't ninja-teleport there. Or is it that they will teleport only to places normally available by walking there? Cause then they won't be able to cross a river without a bridge that way either, I haven't checked that.

I don't know if that's true, but it's not the problem. They can ninja teleport to the bedroom if I do it manually. They can ninja teleport from the bedroom to the bathroom downstairs automatically. They just can't ninja teleport automatically to the bedroom.

Pesc,

Noticed a weirdness in the skillinator tonight.  When a sim is on macro/skillinator/cooking and they have the 'Tube in Wood Paneling' that came with FT, they keep turning the TV on and off, like they develop a sudden case of ADHD. Doesn't happen with any other TVs, as far as I can tell. Seems a rather inefficient way to skill, eh?

No, more like the FFS Alarm Clock's navigational routines are based on slightly older code and does not need the teleport routine, as I already let sims run there. I figure lazy sims would at least show some enthusiasm in performing their favorite act of laziness.

Pescado, I've noticed that the Sleepclock is causing College Rampage to drop out of queue. I've noticed it overriding other stuff too in residential non-uni lots such as cooking...the sims just drop the unprepared meal and race off to bed. I have the Sleepclock bedtime set to 'max', is that what is causing it?

Max sorta means "Now", yes.

Okay, makes sense. Funny I haven't seen it override till now though.

Nemesis = too lazy to read all of this, so I apologize if this question has been asked already.

When using "Kick Stuff" on a college dorm with a pink flamingo, the pink flamingo will occasionally become stuck with a pie menu option of "Stand Up" while it is standing up.  If you direct a sim to do so, said sim will throw a fit about not being able to walk over to the flamingo, even while standing next to it.  I tried enabling boolProp testingcheatsenabled true, and forcing and error - and there were no options on the flamingo at all.

So I keep rebuying new flamingos and selling the old ones.  But.. is there any way to fix this without resorting to that?

I have inSiminator (NOT Teen).  But other than that I have only Awesome hacks.

This is a known issue apparently caused by poor robustness in the EAxis code. They didn't design flamingos to withstand repeated rapid whomping, so occasionally, they break. The cause of this has never been adequately explained or uncovered. Most of us have switched to using gnomes or The Cheats.

Gnome it is.  Stupid EAxis.  Thanks for the quick reply! :D

Has anyone noticed the 'Auto Detect' bed setting for Sleepclock is borked?

Define borked?

It doesn't detect the type of bed automagically.

I don't know if it's the same as your problem, but I had a detection problem with one bed just recently. I thought it was odd because all the other beds were detected just fine, even another bed that was exactly the same as the bed I was having problems with. But all the beds that were auto detected normally were ones I had just added. The one that wouldn't auto detect was in the house when my Sims moved in, so I figured that was the problem.

I had just matched the rating with the other bed instead of re-buying it, so I don't know for sure if re-buying would have fixed it. I should have tested it, but I magic wanded the house for them to be able to move in and they barely made it so I wouldn't have been able to buy it back after buying all the other stuff they needed.

I've tried replacing the beds with new ones and these are all EAxian beds. The only CC beds I have in-game are the life stories ones and I wasn't even using them, just EAxis ones. I try out all options before reporting borkage.

[edit] Sleepclock has just been updated so hopefully it will work again.

'Macro>Eat' still doesn't work for me. I've replaced all the kitchen items and downloaded the latest version but it just drops out of queue. No custom fridges and 'don't shoot food' is installed. When directed sims can prepare and eat meals as normal.

Also, 'Macro>Hobbinate' isn't working properly as the Autoyak is still borked for me. Phones have been replaced, latest version installed yadda, yadda.

Hobbinate frequently does not work for me, and I have long since stopped expecting it to.  Usually, they do everything except build the hobby and when they are done doing other things and ready to start, it often drops out of the queue.   Occasionally, it stays in the queue but the Sim just stands there doing nothing.  Less often, the FPS drops to 1 or 2 until I cancel it.  I am sure it is simply not the proper (approved) hobby building items or there is some perceived blockage to the item, but it is usually just easier to manually direct them to the objects and let them hobby away. 

Eat has been dropping for me lately, as well.  I rarely use it, anyway.

Detecting beds seems to be working fine for me.  I tried different ones (all Maxis beds, though) and they all worked OK.

Are these all IKEA-based issues, or what? Because I see none of these problems with currentversion on FTp1.

I do not have any stuff packs.  I do not have FTp1 installed.  I do have a lot of mods, mostly awesome, some otherwise.  They have been checked for overt conflicts with SimWardrobe's conflict detection program.

As for Hobbinate, for me the biggest issue might be the selection of items on the lot.  I suspect that Hobbinate is unwilling to use the TV as a source of hobby interest, which might be deliberate.  On some of my poor lots, the selection of available hobby items can be slim.

Hobbinate will detect the TV for use with movie-interest, but I've found a few dodgy TVs that have misbehaved. If you can indicate which TVs misbehave, I might be able to pin that down better.

Hobbinate doesn't seem to detect the TV for sports.  I don't know what its learning rate is, but watching the sports channel is easier on motives than the FT sports equipment (running FTp1).

Ikea & FTp2 here. Things were working fine until I installed Ikea. It isn't game-breaking but a minor annoyance really. I can't understand why the phones are broken. I can direct my sims to phone>targets, phone>friends and phone>family, but they don't just do it automagically. This is why hobbinate is broken. If I remove all phones they hobbinate still works-get me? And why can't my sims macro>eat? I don't know what has broken it.

College Rampage is acting funny for me since Ikea Stuff Pack, though it may have been before since I only resumed playing Uni dorms recently.

Am using only Awesome hacks at the moment.

Problems include Sims freezing as soon as I select "Rampage", Sims flocking to bookcases and then freezing, and other asshattery. In some instances "Rampage" cannot be cancelled, and I have to use "Force Errors" on the lot debugger to reset everything.

Some Hobbinate oddities that I have observed today.  FFS mods through 6/30/08, currently at FTp3, but no change since FT no patches)

All Hobbinate activities start with extended use of the phone.  This is occasionally preceded by use of the terlet and a refreshing shower.   They will use the phone until social is maxed.  They will return as often as necessary in order to keep social maxed.

Sometime around 1-2 hours after instructed to Hobbinate, they will be done with the terlet, shower, and phone and then they get down to business....

Hobbinate / Tinkering for a Level 7 hobby person generated some sort of "use interwebs" action with a picture of the standard Moneywell computer that was sitting unused in the next room.  Apparently, they have direct wireless access since all they did was stand there thinking about using the computer.  I eventually canceled, but they always came back to it if I started Hobbinate / Tinkering.  If the computer is busy, they will go to the bookcase.

Hobbinate / Nature always results in birdwatching.  No problems there.

Hobbinate / Cuisine for a Level 9 person went to the Moneywell and started blogging.    No problem there.  This was after the Tinkering person was done wirelessly accessing the computer, by the way.  I don't know if the wireless access blocked the blogging action, but the blogger was still on the phone building social when the wireless sim was accessing the interwebs.

Hobbinate / Film and Literature level 8 went to the bookcase.   No problem there that I can see.

Hobbinate / Sports (no current interest) was sitting on the sofa doing nothing for a long time, two squares away from a Trottco 27" TV, still off.  After sitting there a while, the social score dropped down a pixel or two so now they are heading to the phone to call everyone they know.  When done with that, they will return to the sofa and just sit.  Rinse and repeat until some other motive needs attention.

More:
On a different lot, I noticed that Hobbinate / Music&Dance with someone who had no prior interest in music and dance resulted in the same sitting on the couch behavior I noted with the Sports activity above.  It occurred to me to check the icon to see what they thought they were doing and the action was labeled ""Call.../Family" under the hobby icon (the only one in the queue).  Their social was maxed, being that they just got off the phone talking to everyone they knew.  I predict they will sit there all day, getting up only to tend to various needs, and behaving, for the most part, like they are on Power Idle.  They are sitting in front of a Trottco 20" TV and are ignoring a Fun-Kadelic stereo in the same room where they talked on the cell for an hour to build social before coming out to sit on the couch and dream about calling family.

More Edit:
Turns out that Hobbinate/Music&Dance is more about playing music than dance.  If there is a musical instrument on the lot, they lose interest in calling the family and go play it.  I suppose that the family will have to live with the idea that a guitar is more important than they are.  :)

lordrichter, I had the same issues a while ago and Pescado assured me that this is normal behavior -- sims will take care of their needs before hobbinating.

Hobbinate is basically Power Idle With Hobbies. Therefore, sims will perform basic motive and status maintenance in the process.

This is normal. Level 7 unlocks the "blog" action which has a higher enthusiasm rate gain. You probably were not allowing them to reach the computer, so they could not complete the action. Tinkering hobbination works fine on the computer in my game, so you must have prevented that sim from accessing the computer somehow.

Birdwatching is a nature-based action, which is why it is chosen. Hobbinate is also clever and will make use of the fact that gardening is also nature-based, preferring that as the dominant nature-based action.

Sports currently only recognizes the sports equipment. TV is too prone to ADHD and other issues like sims attempting to arbitrarily change the channel. Higher levels of sports can use the Internets actions.

Provide better dance actions. The sims will use the ballet bar, the musical instruments, or the regular dance, but only if the stereo is on. They will not turn on the stereo on their own, because that's really obnoxious. Without the stereo, they won't dance.

Is the desk accessible from the right-hand side?  I've noticed that if the right-hand side of the desk is blocked (e.g. against a wall) that sometimes the sims will think their path to the computer is blocked.

I am finding that with Ikea SP and no FT patch that my sims cannot macro > hobbinate when call targets is the designated action.  They, in fact, won't even pick up the phone, they just sit on the sofa fidgeting.  This doesn't interfere with their basic needs maintenance though.

I have the same issue Emma describes with IKEA installed and patch 3. Sims pick up the phone, dial and then put it down again.

With latest version posted, I just directed a sim to Macro...Clean. He did all cleaning except taking the trash out of the compactor and into the composter. Action was queued, but he queued Tinker for the compactor in front of it and proceeded to keep doing that whenever I canceled out and redirect to Macro...Clean.

I had that 'error*' too Zazazu, I think it is something to do with the composter. Households that didn't have one could put the trash in the curbside trashcan fine, with no errors.

*No error logs generated though-just looping queue.

EAxis must have changed the compactors at some point again, since the code has not been altered.

I think you are right, because I have a hack that allows the lunchlady in the dorm to put all untended assignments in the trash compactor which errors on a fairly frequent basis (not enough to warrant taking the hack out though)

I actually thought it was that that was causing the looping error, but even without it it still loops. ::) I am getting sick of this game.

I still love the game, I just don't get the reason why Ikea (I'm assuming it's Ikea's fault, or FT P3) would screw with compactors. There were no compactor issues needing fixing with P3, and Ikea had nothing to do with compactors. I'm sick of the dumbass programmers EA hires.

Umm...Pescado? I am still having issues with macro>eat. It doesn't work when food is not already available. If sims have to cook for themselves, all that happens is the command loops. No errors generated. Replaced all relevant kitchen equipment. No custom cooking equipment or fridges. Happens in all lots and in a clean version with just the most recent macro related hacks installed and no other awesome and non-awesome hacks. All EPs/SPs, FTp3.

I just had an error with renaming a sim. I shift-clicked and chose rename. I selected the first name and clicked on cancel when the error popped up. Then I made the first name into a last name. When I tried to choose the first name again, I got an exception error and the game terminated.

I have included both logs but I suspect the first log was only generated when the initial first name was changed. I've got the exception log but I guess it won't tell you much either.

This is normal behavior. The game does not want to allow instant usage, but will tolerate this if you do not attempt to do it twice in a row while the game is still paused. If you do it twice in a row, you will crash.

Yes, I was paused. OK. Won't do that again. Ta.

Can I make a couple of suggestions for macros that could be added in the future? I would love a macro>paint option for those sims that have full creativity that want to paint and sell masterpieces and also a macro>work out for sims with full body point who want to get fit.

Also, could either macro>clean or macro>garden include picking up and disposing of leaf piles?

Cheers.

If she can, can I? I've always thought there should be a macro>power idle for pets - their default AI is a lot less stupid than the sims' own, but there are situations in which I'd rather they were a bit more efficient. And also a macro>train type deal that would make the pet repeatedly perform the most efficient action for training any specific trait, with wait time in between for praises.

On the non-pet front, could there be skillinators for dancing, pool , and meditation, since those have hidden skill levels?

The skillinator for dancing already exists, since sims can get a scholarship out of high dancing skill. It may only be active for teens (and maybe kids) though.

Skillinator for Pool exists too.

You need a pool table on the lot for the option to appear. I think you may also need a stereo for dancing to work as intended.

I still want sim children to Macro-Clean. If they can garden and fish as underage slave labor, why can't they clean as well?

ORLY? I have a lot with both objects and I've never seen it. Huh...

Children can't clean all things, so when performing the Clean function, they barf. Not all of these items check for this condition in the Functional Tree Test, so there's no way to know what will cause this.

Well, thanks for the explanation. My high-neat sim kids will have to continue to clean manually or autonomously. At least they can Take Out Trash!

Is there anyway to beable to just Macrotastics for autoyakyak, And turn off everything else for auto que food ect. Myself all i need it for is autoyakyak.
I was playing other day and was trying to having my sim restock buisness and Macrotastics kept queing to eat food, Her bar was at 50% and i couldn't override it. So i exited game and took it Macrotastics out of mods folder. I wasn't on power idle ethier.

Thanks,

Just let it do its thing. The system is smarter than you. And it must have spotted free food! Musn't waste free food!

Months ago, I posted this, and the problem still exists. Wouldn't it be possible to fix it? I can't play the farm without macrotastics, and with it, I can't either so far.
To decribe it more precisely, most of the menu options have disappeared too,when I click on the sims.

This is a problem with the hardcoded iteration limit. I have not yet found a viable workaround for this issue yet.

I'm getting some errors during Macro-Clean and Macro-Take Out Trash in apartments. My layman's interpretation of the error logs is that it's barfing on the trash chute object. They are using the chute, but the error is popping up. Let me know if you need more info.

Right, well, gimme some time to actually *SEE* a trash chute first.

Prelim tests on new version appear to have resolved the errors. *Clicks thanks button.*

I have this exact same problem as well.  Had it with FT p1, FT p2, and now AL.  All EPs, no SPs.  It results in Macro-->Hobbinate not working at all, because they can't call Targets first.

I just discovered this today. My sim picked up the phone and then put it down again without calling. I usually get them to use their cellphones, but the cells have been disappearing every time the phone rings.  ::)

Old Phonehack quirk. Go reupdate and check for Nesses.

I am completely unable to reproduce this feature, as it has consistently worked flawlessly in my game.

My Sims are successfully able to call out, but I am experiencing the cell-phone-goes-poof-when-answering bug too.  So far as I can tell, it's probably because of the extra phone features added in AL that they never translated to the Uni cell phone, but just a guess.  Pretty annoying either way.

Known, unrelated EAxis bug. Fix has been made and will be released in next update.

You're probably already aware of this but. FYI.

Saturday morning I d/led and installed the 8/30/08 updated hacks in the FT directory, including macrotastics. When I went to play the uni lot I'd been playing for several days prior, the option "College...Do Homework" was gone. "Rampage" was available but did nothing when clicked on. "College... Write Term Paper" was also not available for any of the four students, so while it's possible one of them had written a term paper that semester and thus the option was no longer available for her, I'm certain that all of them had not written term papers (I only write term papers/do homework if they roll the want and two of them are Popularity sims).

I was playing with my normal game, nothing "new" installed aside from the updated hacks; several hacks were updated on the 8/28 round and the options to Do Homework and Write Term Papers were still there as of Friday night.

I tried adding a plain desk (because this is my thought process: the Sim now needs a desk or a place to do homework, right?) and still nothing. Also deleted and bought new computers (Maxis cheap computer).

Restored hacks from a DC I d/led at the end of June, and the "College... Do Homework" and "College... Write Term Paper" options were back.

Possible bug with the latest skillinator -- I had a sim that wanted to learn counseling, so I set her to skillinate/counseling.  However, the icon kept dropping out of her queue and she just stood there.  She could study it if directed manually, but not under macro control.  Fire and parenting (the only two others I tried last night) work fine when skillinating.

JM:

How possible would it be to implement a "Macro....browse web" function so that we could create the illusion of employees being office workers and plugging away at their desktops?

It would effectively open up a whole new type of community lot - the office lot.

Pescado generally only makes the things he actually wants in his game. Why can't you just use macro.../concentrate?

Macrotastics is for doing useful things, not useless things. I am not going to make a macro purely for cosmetic behaviors because they are useless and there is no reason they have to be done efficiently.

Downloaded last version of Macrotastics and use it in my store. The owner doesnt have the option Macro/Business/Be salesman anymore, even if has the needed badges and all. Missing feature or should I be looking for conflicts?

Are you sure you have the right hack suite?  Be salesperson is in the Business... self-menu, and you need macrotastics, BRY, and BUY for optimal efficiency.  I have the trinity and the option is there for properly badged sims.

OK, sorry for that, what I  need is better glasses or more sleep (or both) so I can see the difference between gold and bronze badges. *Hides in shame

Hello,

I am having a problem with my gardens since installing AL.

My sims harvest the produce but the plant does not disappear right away like it used to - it stays there for 3 or 4 real minutes. The sims think that there is still something to harvest & Macrotastics >> Garden goes nuts - the sims just spins back & forth until i cancel the garden icon & wait for the plants disappear. It's like the game is being notified to delete the plant, but the delete action is not happening right away. You can still click on the plant after it has been harvested & choose to harvest it, but then that just drops out of the cue - so the game "knows" it has been harvested, but the plant is still there :/

Only MATY hacks installed - all of the latest.

I've also had the same problem.

I have the same problem with the macro - harvest plants.

Skillination has an interesting little player-stupidity-training freakout when all of the Thinking Caps on a lot are in a Sims Inventory as opposed to laying about.  Gold/Plat sims will sit there spazzing over the unobtainable Thinking Cap in their own inventory rather than do any actual skilling.  On the one hand, makes the stupid player (in this case, me) drop the thing on a table.  On the other hand, sometimes I want my Sims to suffer a slow and agonizing slog through their skill gains.  Happened on a Greek lot when three Sims had caps in their inventories and managed to hit Gold during skillination and then stopped to eat a pizza.  After eating, they stood there with the rapidly flashing icon for the thinking cap going through their queue.

...the Skillinator can't even *FIND* thinking caps in a player's inventory, so what you're describing is impossible. It simply wasn't programmed to look for them inside a player's inventory, and cannot see them there as those are not "real" objects. So if it is flashing the thinking cap, you have a corrupt thinking cap somewhere on your lot.

New version should hopefully prevent "phantom plants" from being messed with.

It was happening to me even without running it as a macro. Just the standard Harvest All. Will try with new version.

Actually, I have not been able to skillinate any of the special bookcase skills since I downloaded the AL version of the skillinator - all the menu options are there, but clicking on them doesn't do anything or put anything into the sim's queue.  I thought they might just not have been implemented yet.  The only thing I can think might be causing this is my not having FT (since parenting was introduced in FT and the skillinator might be depending on that code, or something).

Cannot reproduce this issue. Am going to blame tight pants.

The only thinking caps on the lot were brought with Sims in their inventory when they moved in.  No others had been placed.  This is a Maxis Made lot, though (the Frat house in Sim State University), so it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was fubar.

Thank you for fixing the gardening problem. I am happy to report no problems with harvesting now. The plants still take a bit long to disappear but, at least the sims aren't obsessing over them!

What you're describing sounds like you do not have sufficient facilities for motive refilling.

Is fun one of the low motives?  If so, do you have a gnome or The Cheat on the lot for kicking?

TV/computers restore fun so abysmally poorly and have so many ADHD issues that it simply wasn't worth trying to resolve them. Also, they're noisy and disruptive. Kickables are 100x faster, so are the one and only accepted Sport Of Kings.

Has anyone figured out what causes the "Macro -> Eat" function to constantly cancel out?  I have all the necessary appliances and every time the macro kicks in, it immediately cancels.

I can still prepare food normally, but not with the macro.  Also happens with Food Eats You when the autonomous eating kicks FEY on.

You probably have a hack that's interfering with it.  Have you run the HCDU on your downloads directory?

I have and there are none.

I have this same issue when power idling and skillinating even with only MATY hacks in. It'll work for about the first time I play after installing and then after that I have to keep directing them to serve food otherwise they'll starve to death. Happened once today because I got up for 5 minutes. Both adult sims had 10 cooking points and most expensive kitchen appliances and counters. Nothing was on the counters because they had just moved in.

Should be fixed now.

Macrotastics>>Skillinator does not recognize the medicine cabinet with the mirror (GUID=0x94F6A20C) as a mirror for training Charisma.

The medicine cabinet is an unusual corner case. As the medicine cabinet is ALSO typically located in the BATHROOM, I am not going to update for this because I already have code in place to reject objects located in bathrooms. Thus, it would just add a pointless loop to seek out the object, only to then have to test for it being in the bathroom, and then reject it anyway because it is in the bathroom.

Skillinator -> Cooking will occaisionally lock when there's a TV but no bookcase on a lot.  I had this issue with the Newson brood that came with AL.  I placed them in a modified crappy default home with all the awesome things they need (sleep clocks, BUY controllers, flamingoes in the yard) and no other skill objects other than the TV.  Sometimes it worked like a charm and one kid would turn the TV on and they'd all plop down, but as soon as Eat would queue up for one of them and they began running around to fill their motives, they'd all eventually wind up with the macro icon in the queue but not flashing any sub-actions and the TV just sat there turned off like a lump.  The Sims themselves stood there doing nothing.  Eventually I gave up and installed a bookshelf.  I'm not convinced that this isn't just a problem with this family, as they have other issues plaguing them (one of the Toddlers cannot be trained to talk, walk, or be taught a nursery rhyme), but I figured it may be worth mentioning.

Of course, the answer of "quit being a cheap ass and buy a damn bookcase already" is perfectly acceptable.

Quit being a cheap ass and buy a damn bookcase already.

Ugh...this is happening again when trying to use the skillinator to get robotery.  It worked fine at the home lot because the sim would run to the bed, but in a workshop comm lot, it ignores the couch and just keeps looping between crafting attempt and motive bitching.

I'm sure the reason for this is the massive decay that robot crafting causes for comfort, but it's pretty annoying.

Skillinate ---> Creativity seems to be borked. The Sim just stands there and does nothing. Motives are full, aspiration platinum. Creativity items on lot: Grand Piano, Violin, Easel. All are accessible. Latest version from Director's Cut. HCDU reports no conflicts.

Is the route open?  The violin is horrible about leaving an invisible tip jar that can block off the path through a room.

I'm not having any comfort problems to speak of.  I know it ignores comfort until it damn near bottoms out, but then they go to lounge normally for me.

Yes, I can order manual playing no problem. Piano and easel are also available.

Are there any plans to provide support for the bookshelf/door/whateverthehellitis?  As it stands, the macros can't see route through them and don't even attempt to teleport so I have to keep manually teleporting or using the bookshelf.

And while it is a silly thing, I like the aesthetic of a hidden room for my witches and vampires and other such clandestine types.

Teleport is too a word, Google Chrome!

This is an unrelated problem. The Bookshelf needs a "Portal" function to behave properly, which it lacks. Solutions for this issue are being pondered.

Is Macrotastics/AutoYak/BUY/etc compatible with the base game?  I have someone who wants it but doesn't have any EPs.  For that matter, is the lot debugger compatible with the base game?

In theory, it should work, although any multilevel menus of greater than one sublevel don't function correctly, so the Skillinator is out. However, I have never actually tested it under such a configuration and recommend a minimum of one expansion or stuffpack purely for the engine upgrade. Any stuffpack added ought to be enough to upgrade you to OFB-level engine.

Finally got some time to test this out - I took all non-awesome hacks out of my game, and what do you know - the problem persists.  No tight pants here.  I have all EPs except BV and FT installed.

Check that you are not using nonstandard bookcases and have not pulled a Ness.

I used a perfectly ordinary, non-CC bookcase.  What do you mean by pulling a Ness?

Having an outdated version of the hack floating around in your downloads folder.

Ahh.  Nope.  I ran the HCDU a bit ago and it didn't find any duplicates.

What is Hobbinate AUTO looking for when it generates a "Reference to tree table entry that does not exist" error in tree 'Hobbinate - Film & Literature'

TV, most likely. TVs are poorly-behaved objects. Which TV are you using on the lot that generates the error?

You are right, it was a TV.  Some downloaded content that had not been updated to include newer TV options.  Normally I don't care about TVs missing Watch Movie, but in this case it bit me.  I swapped it out for a Maxis TV and the problem vanished.

Why do Sims 'Call Targets' when told to hobbinate? What does making new friends have to do with it? I notice they do this even when their social bar is full.

My toddler just turned child and I told him to hobbinate. He sat on the sofa doing nothing. When I checked his queue it said 'call targets' but since he hadn't met anyone outside of his family yet, he just sat there doing nothing.

It's not really doing anything. Just ignore it, it's just command line test stompage. It's still doing its thing. Hobbinate will, however, automatically fix all status issues before commencing the hobbination. This includes unmaintained relationships, un-checked-in businesses, etc.

A power idling sim threw this error (log attached).  If I may hazard a guess from the stack trace, it looks like autoyak was looking for enemies to harass and didn't find any.

[attachment deleted by admin]

Uni, NL, OFB, SNS, GLS only.  Macro-clean is borked.  Clicking Macro-clean results only in trash being taken out.  Showers, terlets and sinks are completely ignored.  I seem to remember dirty dishes possibly being ignored as well, though as a rule my sims don't get a lot of opportunities to leave dirty dishes around (I make 'em clean them up.)

I removed all BUY controllers, on the off chance.  Same Macro-clean results--trash out, no cleaning of dirty plumbing objects.  Sold the Macrotastics controller and replaced it; still no go.

Also got an error message on a sim who was power idling, resulting in him and other sims on power idle being kicked out of power idle.  Can post error log, if you want it.

Also, ('cause I'd rather not spam every thread) the phone controller isn't working properly.  The only option on any phone is Set Ringer.

Hack detector doesn't find any conflicts.

Attach log for further review.

Log attached.  I've got two more like it from the same sim in power idle, if you want more. :P

[attachment deleted by admin]

Hrmitron. That's very unusual. I've never seen an error in that before...

My game does weird shit? Lovely...

Three errors on the same sim, Darcy. All three are similar. What are the odds that he's borked?  He's not the only one, just the first.  Similar errors turning up in other lots, now.

Macro-clean and Set Ringer problems still exist.

I, too, am having macro-clean result only in taking out the trash, when there is clearly much to clean (toilets, showers, counters, etc.).  I have EPs up to FT, no BV, and no SPs.

I agree. When the cleaning routine runs, it's not getting the job done. When Sims finish their cleaning routine, the clean command still remains available, but drops out of queue if chosen again. I think they are missing newspaper cleanup as well as plumbing items. I'm not sure about plates as the family I'm currently playing tends to wash them when they finish eating.

With the latest Macrotastics, most commands don't want to work unless their stats are much higher than I have them.

I'm playing the Apocalypse Challenge so Sims will often have needs lower than the new threshold allows. For example, the family was very hungry and had a hygiene problem due to challenge limitations . Because of this, I couldn't even get Sims to macro>kick while waiting on another Sim to cook dinner. They had to eat and sponge bathe before it would work. I knew that skillinate or hobbinate wouldn't work in my current scenario (failing hunger and hygiene)  but I have always been able to get them to do kicking or a quick cleaning without a problem before.

My macro clean just drops out of queue on all sims on all lots,everything else seems to work tho. It just started doing this with the last update. I get no error logs and I play in debug mode. 

Same here.

I've also noticed macro->clean falling out of the queue, but I thought it was because the cat was sitting in the pet bed that the sim wanted to clean.  Maybe not, huh?

Also, the error log I posted is the same "too many iterations" error as Count Four's.

My macro/clean drops also out of queue. Also i got issues lately with Flamingos used with macro/kick stuff. I get only the stand up Menue but the Flamingo is not on the ground. If a sim is under Macro/kick stuff he trys to stand up the flamingo but could not, he gets in a loop of pushed to kick and trying to stand up the damn thing.  No errors. I have all EPs and SPs plus the latest AL patch.

Yeah, I had the same problem when I was mucking with AL the other day, had to hire a maid in a house with 6 (!) adults, one of whom was a stay-at-home with a high neat score because I couldn't make them Macro clean and I wanted to be sure that SOMETHING was trying to make sure I didn't miss anything. I had a handful of other mods in, but most of them were TJ's. I also had some trouble with TV menus when trying to skillinate cooking and could not reliably get the option (for either the skillinating Sim or another in the same household) to change to the Yummy channel to appear on the TV. I finally removed the TV from the house so they would skillinate with the bookshelf.

Same thing here. I have all the expansions, stuff packs and both official AL patches on top of it (with no-CD exe, if that's relevant).

Oh, I only have AL p1, all EPs, SPs. No error log. Just in case you want to know :P  Also, All Pescados Suck.

Should be fixed now. Death to EMMA.

'Bout time!

Is there a reason that body skillination doesn't use the basketball hoop (training rate 300)?  It has a greater energy drain than the treadmill or other exercise machines but less than the exercise bike.  Plus it gives more fun and less hygiene drop than the exercise machines.

Probably because A: It is new, so I haven't adequately reviewed it, and B: It is energy-draining.

Will skillinator be updated to direct sims to jump rope if there is no excercize equipment on the lot?  Or, did I somehow manage to get an old version?

By the way, loving macrotastics so far.  Just downloaded the other day.  Mostly, I wanted it for socializing and gardening, but I find I'm using skillinator the most with my test sims.   :D

My Sims that don't have exercise equipment run outside to the mailbox and do yoga in the winter until they turn blue. I stop them and send them inside at that point because I don't know if they will stop on their own before freezing solid.  Once inside I have to manually tell them to jump rope or work out to the stereo or they will just run back outside again.

Issue is noted. As for the mailbox thing, the tricky thing is that it is hard to find open space in code. I will suppress the mailbox-seeking behavior in bad weather.

Another mailbox thing. I have noticed that when a sim decides to go to the wrong bed and the Bed Nazi chases them out, they now run all the way to the mailbox instead of just out of the room. This is not good when their energy levels are very low, and I find the sim passed out on the sidewalk.

I have noticed this as well.

I thought they always did run to the mailbox? If they stay outside the room, they just keep trying to get back into the same bed they have just been booted from. Apartment Life seems to make them try to go to bed early, even when they have quite a bit of energy AND Sleepclock is installed.

THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMFG! The game sends them to bed at frickin' 8:00 pm if their energy is 1/4 full! What the heck?
Who thought that was a good idea?

Would it be possible for you to actually make an object (like a mostly-invisible -- or invisible-recolored -- rug, or maybe even one colored by some enterprising soul to look like a yoga/exercise mat) that could be used to mark a designated indoor open space for activities that need space like that, to be used preferentially if present?

Yes, but I haven't.

Macro>Clean is locking up on me - My sims want to clean the other apartments as well as their own. Now this may be a conflict but I was wondering if anyone else is seeing the?

Cass :)

Noted. Does this happen only when you have "unblacked" those apartments, or even if they are blacked out?

This happens when the other apartments are blacked out - they are tying to clean up some dumped garbage in the apartment next to them.

Cass :)

Can't say I've seen this behavior, and, in fact, there is a check specifically preventing it. Why is there garbage in a blacked out neighboring apartment, anyway?

I think I interrupted the landlord and he dumped the trash there - I will keep looking for the problem then.

Cass :)

I got this error with the latest Macrotastics.

Should be fixed now.

My sims had no body skill, so they couldn't do yoga.  The "gain body skill" just dropps out of thier cue and they stand around doing nothing.   :P

My sims had no body skill, so they couldn't do yoga.  The "gain body skill" just dropps out of thier cue and they stand around doing nothing.   :P
[/quote]

Do they have a TV with enough space around it to 'work out'?  Macrotastics will usually push that on sims with low body skills and no exercise machines around.

Nah, they didn't have a TV.  I'll have to keep that in mind.  They did have a sterio they could have "worked out" at, but it was a custom mesh, so macrotastics didn't recognize it?  Odd, though, Skillinate->Logic made my sim play chess at a chess table that used a custom mesh.  Maybe there simply wasn't room to work out by the sterio; the house is rather croweded.

It also depends on how the object in question was made -- if it was cloned from a game object, and has the same or similar identifiers, Skillinator can find it.  "Work out" does require a lot of room, though, so that may be why they didn't use the stereo (though I'm not sure they ever do use the stereo).

I apologize for necromancy, but I've been told that when having a problem with a mod, one should post within the mod's thread. So, I apologize if this is not what I should be doing.

Anyways, I have been having some trouble with using Logic skillination. I have the expensive telescope in the house, which has the highest base rate out of all Logic-builders (aside from the Biotech station, but we all know that it's crap uninstructed), yet it will drop out of their queue or sometimes simply flash up in the corner and cause horrendous lag. I will then place an indoor chess table and they'll use that just fine. Is it because the telescope is outside? I thought that freezing was a non-issue, and the chances of abduction were negligible. It also won't use it if it's on the top story, inside, next to a large window.

Also, Body has been a bit irritating because I sometimes put coffee tables in the living room and it prevents anyone from working out at the television or stereo. Is there any chance that this could be replaced by either jumping rope or an Instructor with the Impart Knowledge FT Benefit and sufficient body skill? (I've always wondered why Impart Knowledge has a base rate of 200. Borken in my opinion.)

Finally, there is also the flashing-and-lag issue with a Sim who has no cooking skill and no food in the house trying to Macro...Eat while skillinating. It seems to drop and then queue itself up again repeatedly. There were other Sims in the house with 10 cooking - I ended up having to kill the skillinator, serve a few platters, and then turning it back on while cooking some Baked Alaska. (Does anyone know the HungerRate:CookTime ratio for Baked Alaska vs. FT platters? I've found that though the cheese platter seems to be slow, chip and appetizer platters seem to fill hunger fairly quickly with zero cooking time.)

Odd. Macro-Eat should function without cooking skills now, since it dynamically calculates the food list now. As for the telescope, no idea. Will look into it. Note that the telescope can only be used at night.

Ah, that telescope thing makes sense. I guess it would cause a lot of queue stomping to get smacked every two seconds. May I request that this be overridden if the telescope is indoors, though? I usually lock the door to the telescope room during the day so that this doesn't occur. It's rather funny to see someone break into your house and run up two flights of stairs, only to sit there stomping at the door. (It could also detect for APO, if telescope buggers are in the "annoying" category.)

As for dynamically calculating the food list, does this mean that it takes into account custom foodstuffs? Ice Cream from MTS2 can be made with no cooking skill, instantly, and isn't too shabby on the hunger-filling rate, especially for something with no cook time and skill required. But, I suppose that would involve scanning each food for routines about cooking, and such.

Custom foodstuffs will probably be recognized, but there is no telling how well-made they are. They could work flawlessly, if well-made, or completely foul the works, if poorly made.

Would it be possible to make an Awesome version of EAxis Do Chores so that I can let my servos run completely autonomously and trust that they will automagically take care of all the cleaning, gardening, and repairing (with the exception of the shower) that might need to be done in a thorough and systematic macrotastics-like way?

Doesn't Macro Be Janitor already exist?

Only on business lots, it seems.  Does that cover gardening?  It probably doesn't cover produce-growing, right, since there's already Be Farmer.

ETA:  The main issue I have is that the servo gets done Macro->Cleaning and Macro->Gardening, and then goes and sits down and watches TV or goes to harrass the baby or goes to cheat on its owner with her spouse or something instead of waiting obediently for more chores to become available, as a good servile robot should.

Power Idle?

What I would really love is to be able to target a pet with "Macro->Socialize->Friendly".   :D

A: Pets don't have enough socials to form a loop.
B: Pets don't have a pluginglobal hook.

The first issue thus means any attempt to form a social-loop out of Pets is auto-fail, so pets can only be prodded in isolated sessions, the second requires overriding a major pie menu.

Ah, I see.  I will then continue to prod my pets in isolated sessions.

Two things.

I use SimWardrobe Auto Bill Payer.  No problems so far, except on one house I get the Macro Pay Bills option but every time I click that option, Sims just open the mailbox, reach in, pull nothing out.  Option doesn't go away.

Also, Mortimer just died, and whenever i tell Cassandra or Alex to Macro Kick Stuff, they sometimes kick his grave.  They did it at least twice and Cassandra's husband never had the urge to kick the grave, so I'm thinking it's a family thing?

Obviously, the auto-bill-payer is not correctly fixing all object attributes. Stop using it. :P

What'd you do to make them hate him?

I didn't do anything.  They were on good terms.  Cassandra got $7100 and Alexander got $5100 when he died, so they must have had a really good relationship with him.  But...that's supposed to happen, they can kick the grave and it raises their fun?

Tombstones are normally kickable, yes. But only if the sims in question hate each other, normally.

I have yellow pee installed.  Sims ignore the yellow pee when they're macro cleaning.
Is it on purpose, odd or should I put the blame on tight pants?

I thought that adult Sims weren't supposed to spray plants under macro control due to the possible side effect of turning into a plant Sim.

I have a single fruit tree on the property. Since I never know the right time to harvest, I use business> be farmer. If the tree can't be harvested, they just trim the bushes. But I've noticed that my adults are spraying the tree when it is infested.

Did something change or does Macrotastics figure that they aren't in danger because a single tree won't need sprayed often enough to cause a problem? Should I be using macro> garden instead of be farmer?

This is Puddle Rage Avoidance. The reason this happens is because this would cause puddle rage, and therefore, is not safe.

In junction to the post above I ask myself: Is there actually any difference between Business->Be Farmer and Macro->Garden?
And: Would it be possible (<-used quite often today) to draw a line between "taking care of the plants" and "harvesting".
I would like to have one of my sims to take care of watering, weeds, bugs etc and one Sim to only harvest the crops

I also realised in the latest version that a sim with garding badge gold is overwatering the plants before harvesting to get their need up instead of talking to the plant. Is that on purpose?

Thanks in advance

Edit: How about sim-specific (Macrostatistics Launcher/Business Runs You Sign) options: Watering On/Off, Spraying On/Off, Pull out On/Off, Talk to On/Off, Harvesting On/Off?

Yes, yes it is. Because it works faster, and the subsequent health drain over time is irrelevant when you plan to eat the plant anyway. Haven't you notice how it is smarter than you are?

I should have mentioned that I use a hack which makes talking to plants faster. I asked my sim why the heck don't you just talk to the plant and harvest it already instead of watering it all the day xD. I know I am impatient.
Now the pieces seem to fit.
And what about the options?
If I found a tutorial which explains how the code with all it's expressions works I would do it myself.
(All I did find were tutorials about how to do specific tasks. But none about how everything works together.)

Yes, well, Macrotastics is designed with the idea that you are playing the game "fair", as opposed to CHEATING with magic-plant-talk.

*delurks*

I redownloaded the macrotastics only a few hours ago from the FT directory (don't have AL), while I was updating my hacks. I loved quite a few options on it in the past (which always worked as intended), but hadn't used other options at all yet.

So I tried to tell my sim to macro > hobbinate > Arts - which I never tried before - and expected him to do something arts related. Instead he went to the phone and phoned random friends up (It showed "Interacton > Call" or something like that in the queue, followed by the hobbinate arts icon.) acting like he got the command Call > friends.

*very confused now* Is it supposed to do that, or am I doing something wrong?

Yes. All the hobbinates take care of business first, so if your sim has unfinished maintenance he needs to do, that will be done first. All the Hobbinates are just idle macros, basically Power Idle with Hobbies instead.

Does the kid/teenager need to know how to study before he/she will Do Homework?  I was playing the Ottamas family and Sharla just got an A+, but every time I tried to get her to do homework, she wouldn't do it.  I finally found her homework and had to manually have her do it.  The only reason why I could think that this wouldn't work was because she didn't know how to sutdy.  I have Seasons and am using Macrotastics last updated on 1/2/09.

They should't need to, but they will attempt to acquire this skill with greater priority if they don't.

Well, first, make sure you're using the latest version. Secondly, define "wouldn't do it". Exactly HOW is it that she is not doing it? Does the option simply not exist? Does it drop from queue? Does the sim move to the destination first? Are motives all sufficiently green, and if not, are the relevant things needed to FIX the problem installed? Do Homework will attempt to restore motives to functional levels before doing anything, so if, for instance, there are no approved Fun Objects, or soforth, the sim will not be able to green up and therefore the task will drop.

It drops from the queue (similar to if I try to have them skill up and the appropriate object isn't present).  Motives were green and and I have flamingos installed.  I've installed macrotastics last updated 1/31/09 and will try again.

Quite possibly you have a stuck flamingo. Try using the Cheat (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,6188.0.html) instead.

Hello and thanks for the wonderful hack.

A few questions here about Socialize > Friendly.  I was wondering if perhaps 'Gesture' instead of the 'Chat' interaction was more efficient at raising Sims relationship to get to the higher social interactions?  Is there a reason for using 'Chat' which is prone to failure and seems to be slower than 'Gesturing'?  My apologies if the answer turns out to be something obvious.

If it's not to much to ask, I'd also be interested in knowing how you decide which social interactions to use and at what point in the relationship bar they are triggered.

I have an interesting situation with Business->Be Witchcrafter.

When I select this on most lots, the witch will run to the pot and start cooking.  However, if I have a lot with a garden plant sign on it, the witch will run back and forth between the garden and the pot, not really doing much of either.  It seems the poor witch can't decide whether the be a farmer or a witchcrafter.

Edit: I cannot guarantee that it happens only on lots with the garden signs.  I have only one lot that has both a witch and garden plots.

I've encountered a problem that I'm not sure is directly related to Macrotastics but I suspect it is.  I had a Uni Sim in need of food and I had on Hobbinate > Auto.  When I clicked on the 'Eat' command my Sim rushed to the kitchen area but the 'Hungry Desperation' picture kept looping with my Sim performing no action. It appeared to be in a loop causing the game to seriously lag until I cancelled the Hobbinate > Auto action.  There was no food readily made and my Sim made no effort to make food either.

Speaking of food, does macrotastics check for Grilled Cheese asp. before macro>eating? I do not think it does.

It does, yes. Grilled Cheese will always make Grilled Cheese when it tries to prepare food.

Really? I must look into this deeper.  :)

Yes, it does. Definitely.

There's a reason it's called "More Awesome Than You".

Would it be possible to take novel calls into account for "Skillinate... Creativity"? I had a sim skill creativity on the computer, and when he finished the novel, he made a friends call to raise his social (cell phone). This took so long, that the normal phone stopped ringing, so he didn't get the royalties. Since the skillinator never lets a motive get so low that it becomes really critical, these short calls wouldn't do any harm, I guess?

I "sillinatored" my sim (gardening) and she will not stop watering the plant. I can click on the icon to have her stop and she just keeps watering. I did "moveobjects on" and moved her to the front of the house - just went back to watering....

Is there a way to stop this?

Thanks!

That is supposed to happen. Watering a plant gives some experience, and it can be done very quickly. Best of all, it hardly damages the plant. By the time it is ready to harvest, you'll have been able to repair it.

You can't gain skills without grinding it somehow, so some form of repeatable action needs to be performed, and in this case, that is watering. Watering is slightly harmful in the long term, but in the short term, it is actually beneficial and you can actually counter long-term overwatering by more overwatering.

Hi there, it's me again spamming around.

I recently noticed a habit of macro-driven sims that interferes with my newest business lot - a bakery.
What happens is something that I think shouldn't happen: When the macro-driven sims are hungry, they help themselves with cakes from the business owners inventory which originally were intended to be sold.

Is there a way to prevent them from taking the cakes and just go get something to eat from the fridge?

Sorry to whip up a dead-horse. I have noticed a very very minor issue with Macrostatics-eat. I was playing Don Lothario's house and the "eat" option was not on the menu. After fiddling with it a bit, I finally found out why... there is no stove, only a toaster, at Don Lothario's lot. After adding the stove, it works like a charm again.

Macrotastics - Clean is causing my sims to tinker with a garbage disposal repeatedly.  I see Zazazu had the same problem back on page 8.  Is there any way to fix this or should I just keep watching for it?  Thanks.

Macro-Eat is not showing up for children. Ever. Even when a kid is in the red for hunger. (I really miss it, too, since it's means keeping fridge leftovers available just for one kid in houses where the other residents can all grub from inventory stash.)

Check that the food in your inventory is not corrupted in some way. Sometimes food items can become corrupt and broken in subtle ways, so Macrotastics can't detect them. Alternatively, your red is not my red. I hate food.

How do I check for subtly broken foods? Uhm, I have no custom foods at all, if that makes a difference. And foodeatsyou is installed on both lots.

But I doubt that's it. Macro-eat has been consistently absent for child sims on two lots (other lots are non-spawn lots. Not many kids in the neighborhood yet.) The one lot has four adults who rotate having inventory food, yet macro-eat never turns up for the kiddilies.

Take out a plate from inventory and have the child eat it?

Pro tip: Stop making such fattening food.  If a single serving is more than what will safely fit in a child's stomach, macro-eat will prevent child abuse.

That's possible: If you're making food that's REALLY huge, sims won't eat it until they get REALLY red.

If I pull food out of inventory and drop it, kids can eat it. And it's often mac-n-cheese or grilled cheese sandwiches in inventory.

Today, though, I intended to tell an adult to Macro-Garden for an adult, but didn't realize that I still had a kid selected (there are seven sims in the house now, heh.) Macro-Eat was present for the child--despite the fact that her hunger bar was completely full and green. However, when I let her go down to about an eighth-full, Macro-Eat was not present. One adult and one teen had food in inventory; grilled cheese and chef salad, repectively.

Actually I've had the same problem as Count.  They've never been able to macro->eat unless there is prepared food available on the lot.  I think that if I time it so that an adult is already laying out food during their macro->eat, then the kid can nab it, but otherwise no inventory food for them.  I ran tests in the past to verify that the food itself was fine, but don't remember the details clearly at this point.  Well, beyond "Yep, they should be able to eat this," that is.  I'm unsure if it's a factor in context, but I don't have FEY yet.

New test with gelatin, as it's notoriously not filling.
1. Child with ~1/3 hunger bar.  Had an adult serve Gelatin. 
2. Put both the serving platter and a single plate into the child's inventory: no macro->eat.
3. Put plate on the floor: macro->eat became available.
4. Used it and the child ate the gelatin on the floor.  When done, the child's hunger bar was at ~2/3.

Conclusion: it doesn't seem to be an issue of overly filling food.

ATM, I just toss some food on the floor when I notice the kids getting hungry, and let them have at it with macro->eat.  It's a hassle, but it hadn't gotten to the point where I could focus on getting an answer rather than getting distracted by all the tutorials, fixes, and shinies.  Which, incidentally, was how I found this. ;)


Huh, weird.  Perhaps the kid was just shy of full and there was a mostly finished plate somewhere?  That or the kid has a bizzaro!stomach.  "Me not hungry!  Me very not hungry! *keels over*"

Nope, no mostly finished plates. This I know because that house is yer basic box on one level with very little furniture (this is the farmer family and they don't get to have extraneous decor and furniture), and I took a good look around, because that seemed weird.

Hm. I think I'll give this kid thing some serious investigation for a change, and report back.

This might be a dumb question, but does macros work with base game?

And it's not in the Pre-TS2U directory, so I'd say, no.

Yeah, I noticed that too. I was hoping it was just an oversight. Oh well. At least I have BUY. ;p

If you go back a few pages, you'll find:

That explains it, then. I've been wondering how nekonoai could use be used by BUY without any macro functionality. I only remembered JM saying that he recommended at least one SP for macrotastics, but I forgot why.

Skillinator directed my sim to a nearby secret door bookshelf, where he stood for quite a while doing nothing while the Study interaction was pushed, canceled, and repushed.  I canceled the skillinator interaction, and was then able to successfully queue the Study interaction, but I note that the sim moved to the left before getting the book.  Is skillinator maybe positioning the sim incorrectly relative to the secret door bookshelf?

Macro->Eat on an apartment lot seems to cause the Sim to repeatedly make group meals and store them in inventory without ever serving/taking a portion.

Not sure how this is apartment specific, but I've never seen it. The most likely cause of this is some kind of strange custom food with bad attributes on it. That, or none of the foods made can be safely eaten for some reason. I'll take a look at that.

I'm getting a jump bug with macrotastics...

I have Deluxe (base+NL) and am using the version of macrotastics in the NL director's cut.

It comes up whenever I use auto-socialize and one of the participants is a child. The action will get canceled and the sims will reset.

I removed everything but Macrotastics from the Downloads folder and still got the same bug. What I had left in the folder was macrotastics, autosoc, autoyak, skillinator, bathroomusesyou, and sleepclock.

Any ideas?

Turn on debug mode and attach the error log.

OK, attached.

This was a teen to a child, macro->socialize. I took out everything but the above list of mods again, just to be on the safe side.

Okay, I have no idea how you managed to break an EAxian BHAV, but I added a thing. I suggest ditching the buggy NL engine, though. Worst engine in the game.

Could it have something to do with my using a no-DVD modification of the game?

Which version of macrotastics is the new version?

There's only one version. We do not keep old versions.