More Awesome Than You!

I've had this loop happen twice now. Perhaps there's something I'm missing. It goes like this:

1. Teen pulls pranks / skips school / throws party / whatever and gets grounded.
2. Parents refuse to let teen go to school, because he's grounded, so he can't leave the house.
3a. Teen sneaks out to go to school and gets grounded for sneaking out. Reset grounded time to 48 hours. Relationship with parents goes down.
3b. Teen obeys parents and stays home, gets grounded for skipping school again. Reset grounded time to 48 hours. Relationship with parents goes down, grades go down.
4. ???
5. Teen fails at life and ends up shooting heroin under a bridge, I guess.

The only way I've found to get out of this loop is to wait until the weekend comes around, because groundings are 48 hours. But by that time your teen is either failing school or his parents want to murder him for constantly sneaking out. It seems the only way to really avoid it is to have perfectly behaved teens who never get grounded. Perhaps because I'm a moron, I haven't tried to turn on the cheats and kill the grounded moodlet, I suppose that might make the parents forget about it. Regardless, it seems like getting punished for skipping school after being forced to skip school is a problem. Perhaps there's an awesome solution?

Your adult doesn't have the option to "Let off the hook" when clicking the teen?

I never noticed that interaction, no. It's possible that I just missed it. Even if that exists, this still seems like a poor implementation of grounding. You're grounded for skipping school so you can't go to school and then I'll ground you again for skipping school again?

This doesn't seem normal. I seem to recall seeing that the "Go to School" action is explictly exempt from this.

It isn't. I just kill the moodlet, but the teen will get grounded again if he/she leaves the house, no matter where they're going.

How peculiar. Got a save for this? I've never attempted to actually punish a sim for anything, because it would not really make any sense to punish a sim for following my orders, and if they're not following my orders, I consider that a bug to be hunted down and destroyed.

I've had the same thing before Pets. Kids can't leave the house for any reason if they're grounded. I think I did just end up cancelling the moodlets.

I'm still unclear as to why you would do that, really. It's not even clear to me why you would attempt such a thing in real life. Wouldn't it make more sense to forbid them from RETURNING to the house rather than keeping them IN it, where they will annoy YOU?

I think they can get grounded as a result of setting booby traps, I did not initiate the grounding, it took me by surprise and I wasn't sure what caused it.

I once had one who had been raussed at (I'm pretty sure that was for setting booby traps) and the raussing stopped him from meeting the school bus. He was given a time out and when I cancelled out of the time out to run off to school he was grounded.

I can't speak to what happened after that as I had a CTD and lost that particular scenario.

I've gotten the same, at the time I had assumed it was a conflict of some sort but didn't consider it a big enough issue to devote the time to test. I just canceled the moodlets. Good to know it's not just me. Grounding was also a result of pranks.

I just had a popup message to say my teen sim had been caught doing something they shouldn't, while the sim was at school. Apparently "fighting with siblings, missing school and pulling pranks are just a few of the things that can get a sim in trouble with their parents." According to the 'lessons' anyway.

Oops, no, my sim skipped school.

Ok, so the scenario, in my pre-pets-patch game if as follows:
1. Teen tries to set booby trap or is out after curfew => Teen is scolded and forbidden to leave the house.
2. Teen must go to school, therefore sneaks out (at my order) to go. (S)he gets the 'sneaking out' or whatever it's called, moodlet, specifically for going outside while punished. (or so the description said.)
3. Teen returns home after going to school and is promptly grounded again for going outside the house while grounded. Timer resets to 48 hours.

The 'scold' interaction is autonomous, I have never actually told an adult to punish a teen, since I WANT them to set the blasted trap.
Obviously, I have the 1.24 patch final Awesome, since I refuse to bork my CC, and am not keen enough on Pets to jump through quite so many hoops for it. Perhaps I will install when I have the time to deal with the borkage it will trigger.

I didn't keep a save during that grounding, but if it's as ubiquitous as it seems to be, it should be pretty easy to recreate. Just get a teen grounded. I didn't explicitly attempt to have the parents punish the kid, they grounded him autonomously (I believe once was for pulling pranks at the school and once was for 'trashing the house' - having a party while parents were away on free vacation).

For the record, at the time I was using 1.26, all of the expansions up to and including Pets, no CC at all, and whatever the alpha version of awesomemod that works with Pets is.

I had this happen when my teen Sim was three minutes late for school. He was on his way to get in the car but the action was cancelled out by the mother coming over the ground the teen for being late for school. Teen then tried to go to school again but again the interaction was cancelled out by the mother putting the teen in a time out (time outs should NOT be enabled for teens, what parent actually does that?).

Teen tried sneaking out of time out to go to school and it was cancelled a third time by the mother revoking TV privileges. I'm not sure if the loop would have kept going because I got frustrated and closed the game without saving. I found the whole scenario absolutely ridiculous. This was before Pets btw, it was back in August when I first installed Generations. I figured it was just normal game behaviour (which it seems to be) but I suppose it would be nice if that shit got stomped.

At what point in the scenario would you like the save? I just double checked the issue and nothing should be in my game but Awesomemod(the one just before the update today). I can give you a save just after he was grounded, which was the night before, or just after he's home from school and is being scolded for "sneaking out".

About an hour before the bus arrives is fine.

This is at around 7am I believe, he will get on the bus fine and be scolded upon his return from school. I think they're also scolded for going to school when they miss the bus and you have to send them manually.

Your file is 0k and contains nothing. You suck.

Yeah, that part sounds realistic to me. :P

So in your game a teen doesn't get scolded upon return from school after taking the bus to and from school? Then get time added to his grounding? I checked three times in game before I sent the file. Made sure it wasn't a left over prank he was getting scolded for and everything.

Edit: To clarify, I don't think there is anything "wrong" with my game, it functions fine. I had originally thought it may be a conflict, after taking out all but AM and it persisting, I'm going to assume it's some sort of EA nonsense.

I've never actually encountered this "grounding" in the first place, perhaps because it's a thoroughly ridiculous concept and I have no idea who thought of it. Why would you even invent something so absurd as a punishment? Who exactly are you trying to punish?

The punishment was inflicted upon the teen autonomously once he pissed off his parent enough after multiple pranks. It's one of those story telling bits, so I assume that is the reason you've never seen it.

As a concept in real life, I believe it's the same as the "time out" corner\mat\chair that is used on smaller spawn. That actually has a high rate of effectiveness when used with consistency.

I hear walloping the little bastards when they misbehave works too.

I don't really see the logic there. They're pissing you off so you...keep them in the house with you? Wouldn't it make more sense to kick them out into the yard instead? It is traditional that a distasteful or disruptive individual is punished by banishment or exile, rather than being kept INSIDE.

Possibly it is supposed to be a taste of "this is what house arrest or jail time is like only without the prison yard beat downs, so shape the fuck up"? Hell if I know, I can't tolerate children for extended periods of time, though I do understand the importance of training them up to not engage in certain behaviors.

You couldn't confine them to a shed out in the back for that purpose instead?

I thought confining to their room pretty much did that, at least with confinement to the house you can force needed household upkeep on them.

I wish someone would confine me to my room. I never get enough computer playtime.

Back to report it's most certainly a EA issue. Using the same family, no AM, only CC is Twallans No-cd, my teen autonomously attempts to walk out the house to get on the bus and he's autonomously denied by his parent due to the grounding. I assume he wasn't denied on his way to school the first few times because he was not in the same room as the parent when he headed for the bus, this time he is. Pressing the "go to school" button and re triggering the "get on bus" action brings it back up in the queue only for it to immediately be dropped. It should probably be mentioned that the grounding is not a confinement to the house, but one to the lot, he can go out and swing on the swings in the yard just fine so far.

(http://i41.tinypic.com/30k4nc5.jpg)

I notice that you are using KEWIAN-BASED SUBSTITUTES. ACCEPT NO KEWIAN-BASED SUBSTITUTES.

That house is all EA made, I just dropped in a dress up chest and a tree house to fulfill some wants while I was waiting for the scenario to play itself out. Not one of my houses. :P

I can't quite imagine how confinement to a "house" would work, anyway, since sims are not guaranteed to live in houses, as the most common startup build is "furniture on a lawn".

The grounding is confinement to the lot. The adult only has a shit fit when the teen tries to go to a location off lot, like the school bus sitting on the road. He can go out and swing on the swings in the yard, get the mail, sit on the lawn without issue, at least so far. So, you could confine the teen to a underground bunker, garage, tool shed, or even a tree house on lot for story telling purposes if the mood so took you.

That was my point, yes. You're still not sending me a save to analyze this in, though.

One solution I've found to somewhat fix this is modify the Punishment XML file by adding this in the code:


The only drawback is Sims won't be able to go to school by bus, you will have to direct them to go to school either by clicking on the rabbithole (they will go by cab) or a vehicle that they can use. At least the Sim in question won't be scolded for going to school.

The first save had it I swear. It's the same save I used to take the picture up thread.

Not having actually looked at the file you attached, I think 0k and has nothing means the save you included was empty for some reason, not that it was OK and had nothing wrong with it.

Jesus Christ was that it? My eye sight is shit. Well, I haven't been near m gaming computer for days so I wouldn't have been able to reup anyway. It rared up fine. Perhaps goombas ate it.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9TU81VDI

Newest AwesomeMod now fixes this problem. Issue closed.