More Awesome Than You!

Baby care manager. New improved more-compact mesh by Crammyboy.

(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/terror/green.gif)
(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/zip.gif) babycontrol.zip (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/nl/hacks/babycontrol.zip)

ALSO RECOMMENDED:
No Baby Harassment (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=2384.0)
LoboNanny Support Package: NL- (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/uni/hacks/lobonanny.zip) OFB (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/ofb/hacks/lobonanny.zip)

Baby Controller (v0.88b) for TS2 v1.0p2 - TS2NL v1.0p1
Made by: Flying Fish Systems (J. M. Pescado & Doctor Boris)
Mesh by: Crammyboy

Special Thanks To:
Quaxi, for writing SimPE

Congratulations to: Draklixa!

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

FEATURES:
Are you tired of your sim's inept baby-care skills? Here is something new and
more awesome: It tells your sims how to do it instead. When combined with the
anti-harassment package, it is truly awesome. More awesome than YOU, anyway.
Family members of the baby, or nannies, will be directed to take care of the
babies as needed. Whether you're just inept, or merely lazy, the eye in the
sky has got you covered.

I. PROCESS BABIES/TODDLERS IGNORE/MANAGE
    Enables or disables the management of babies or toddlers.

II. PROCESS BOTTLES IGNORE/DISPOSE/DISINTEGRATE
    Decides what you want to do with used bottles: Ignore them and let you deal
    with them yourself, instruct a sim to dispose of it, or vaporize them as if
    you went to buy mode and deleted them.

III. OPTION: LOBOTOMIZE NANNY ON/OFF
    Enables or disables a lobotomy-equipped nanny's standard baby care loops.
    If the nanny is lobotomized it will spend its paid time wandering around
    your lot doing autonomous visitor crap until the baby controller directs it
    to perform child care. If not-lobotomized, it will harass your children as
    normal. See description of Lobotomy Package for details.

IV. OPTION: MANUAL OVERRIDE ON/OFF
    If the override is enabled, the baby or toddler will not be directed to do
    anything while it is selected, or a valid selected caregiver is present in
    the room with it, allowing you to perform a manual interaction without
    being interrupted.

V. ALWAYS SMART MILK ON/OFF
    If this option is enabled, toddlers will preferentially always be fed smart
    milk, in hopes of triggering the smart milk emitter bug which sometimes
    causes them to retain the skill bonus into childhood, or maybe because you
    just like doing it.

VI. WARNING BOX ON/OFF
    If this option is enabled, a warning dialog will appear once per half-hour
    if a baby requires attention but its relatives are all busy.

VII. EMERGENCY STOP/RESUME
    If the emergency stop is chosen, all baby controller options are suspended
    until resumed. Useful if the controller has gone berserk or you have
    other big plan in mind.

COMPATIBILITY:
Compatible with all FFS hacks. Tested for TS2 v1.0p2 - TSNL v1.0p1. Recommended
supporting packages include "Lobotomized Nanny" and "No Baby Harassment".

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

So, you made up with Rentech?

Funny, Inge. I bet if JM could mesh, he would replace the 'eye in the sky' with his own creations. At least, that's what I'm guessing that's what it is about.

Anyway, thank you JM. I've been playing with the older version anyway, wouldn't play without it. I tried, and it drove me batty.

Why not just modify a Maxis obj? Like the hanging fern? It's much lower poly, and on top of that, much more pleasing to the eye than this gigantic eyeball.

Unless you have the eyes of J.M Pescado, I'd imagine.

Thanks for the update, JM!

Wow. Thank you!!!

Supershiny. Installing NOW!!!

Somehow, I doubt this very much.

Very shiny (and very needed). Have been using the old version. Babies are obnoxious without this. Thanks! (I like this one so much I would use it no matter what it looked like)

I am simPE illiterate, so when you use install the lobonanny package and 'kill off' all your existing(I presume?) nannies, how do you go about this?

I hear the Cow Plant does the job nicely.  Also, buyable fire is good, as long as you use it wisely and don't burn up your own sims in the process.

If you have existing nannies, the easiest, non SimPE thing to do is simply install this mod as normal (in your Downloads folder) along with the lobonanny, and just kill off your existing nannies. You should do this for all nannies that are "active" i.e. have been hired and put to work anywhere in your 'hood. Keep track of their names just to be sure.

The game should then be forced to respawn new nannies, and if you have this mod in your game, along with the lobonanny one, these nannies should be sufficiently and properly lobotomized. I guess the best way to be sure is, when you hire a new nanny, check if they still do stupid nanny things when you have the baby controller set properly.

If your nanny(ies) still exhibit non-lobotomized behaviour, then something went wrong and you may have to kill/force error/reset those nannies.

The SimPE method requires a bit more work. You'd have to go through your list of sims, take note of the User#### id. Then dig through your list of character files and find all of your nannies. Open those individual files, and for each one, replace the BHAV. I think the RTFM files should outline this procedure with greater detail.

Ste

Thanks Rainbow and Ste....one more question...would I presume corrrectly that the voodoo bottle would be as effective at killing off the nannies too?

I'm pretty sure you can use any of your favorite methods to kill off nannies. If the voodoo bottle does that, then go for it. :) In my previous game, I teleported the nannies onto my lot, penned them up in a fenced in area, and burninated them with buyable fire. The nanny fire dance was pretty amusing. ;D You can even just use the boolprop cheats, shift click, and Kill by your favorite method. ;)

Ste

You are free to use your favorite method of nannycide.  ;D

Edit:  I see Syberspunk beat me to the "punch."  LOL

Ooohhh...me likie the penned and flamed nanny idea.....think I'll go with that!!  Mwahahaha  ;D

 ??? Just to make sure I'm understanding this...After installing this, to avoid the long SimPE process, i just need to go in and bring all nannies to a lot containing this object configured correctly and what not and kill them off...then the game will automatically regenerate new nannies to replace all of the ones that i just killed?  ???

Installing and starting game and will preceed in the fashion i listed above will report back if i have any problems.

Just to be on the "safe" side, I would make sure that any active nannies (meaning nannies that you have hired on Any lot in your neighborhood) are not currently "on duty" (meaning they are not currently on any of your lots). So you should probably go check all your lots and make sure none of the nannies are present.

Then, you can go to any single lot, and with the lobonanny hack installed in your game, kill off any and all nannies that have been activated. You can use any method of bringing all those nannies over and any method to kill them off.

The baby controller is the object that helps you take care of your babies and toddlers, but it does not reprogram the nannies for you. It is actually the lobonanny package that lobotomizes the nannies (as the name implies) and thus makes them NOT do stupid things. :P The baby controller alone will not fix the nannies for you.

Ste

The lobonanny bug where all Nanny character files are duplicated still exists. Not sure if this burninates the 'hood or not, but it looks ugly.

Assuming that one has not hired any nannies yet, you don't need to go into SimPe and do whatever you just advised, right?

Thank you  for this mod.  I've just resumed playing again and have allowed my sims to breed way too much.

I'll go and do that right now...i hope anyways, i actually rarely hire a nanny.  But i'll go in each lot that has children and make sure there are no nannies on duty.  Then i'll kill them off, now...once i let the lobonanny hack do it's stuff, does the game automatically regenerate nannies to replace them, nannies that will be lobotomized? or whatever the lobonanny hack does?

I will need to get one for my Smithson family.  That really crazy couple wanted 10 kids and had 10 kids and they are all still at home between the ages of teen & infant.  Poor Diane hasn't been to work in quiet a few sim days.

How many nannies do i need to "deal with"?

Three.  The game usually starts out with three of each NPC (nanny, maid, gardner, etc.)  When your game generates new ones, they will have the lobonanny code instead of the Maxis code.  The default nannies come with the standard Maxis code, so they have to either be lobotomized or "eliminated."

ok well, I just "dealt with" 24 nannies.  So i think that i have them covered.

This would appear to conflict with Inge's mod for allowing toddlers to climb out of their cribs.  I installed that for the first time yesterday and it sent the Baby Controller haywire.  Normally, it never asks any of the Sims to put the toddler to bed (I would assume it is meant to, but it never does in my game so I often don't realise they need to sleep until I hear them screaming), but since installing Inge's mod it tried to get every adult in the house to do it and caused total chaos (I rather suspect it was simply reverting back to the normal Maxis way, as that's how it normally works).  It also tried to get a Sim to potty train the toddler when another Sim was already doing it.  Pity, because I've never seen a toddler climb out of a crib.

I have Inge's toddlers get out of bed and the baby controller. As far as I have noticed the only thing is that the adults run there to get out the toddlers when they wake up, but when they arrive the toddlers are already skilling... They stand by the crib for a while and go away again.

Same here...I have the baby controller and Inge's mod, and no conflicts seen here.  I put mine in subfolders, if that makes a difference.

Hm.

/me decides to kill all of his nannies later.

Mucho Gusto!  Gracias.

For some reason, my sims refuse to put the baby in the crib now. I have to quere them to do so, and a lot of time they'll go take the baby from the crib, so they can put it back on the floor.

Do you have the lastest NL patch?  I've had more incidents of the parents/siblings dropping the baby on the floor since I installed it, but they usually turn around right away and pick the baby up and put it in the crib.  Haven't seen any of them actually leave the baby on the floor unless I've explicitly told them to do so.

Are you using a custom crib or cradle?  The Eye does not like custom cribs because they have a different GUID than it is looking for.

I've noticed something with this that puzzles me a little bit.  I have quite a few lots where there are multiple families sharing a house.  Sometimes it's siblings, their partners & children, others are unrelated adults, some of whom have kids.  One instance is my hippy commune, where I had 7 adults, a teen and 2 babies, one of whom was JMP's (he and his family have since moved out); the other baby was Kaylynn Langerak's to Daniel Pleasant (now deceased).

Although the Controller had no problem instructing Kaylynn to see to her own child, both as a baby and as a toddler, it never asked her to see to JMP's if he and his fiancee were at work.  If I manually told her to, the controller would take over, but otherwise it wouldn't designate anyone unless one of the parents was on the lot.  Even when their is a grandparent, the Controller will still choose a parent over the grandparent, even when the grandparent is idling and the parents are occupied, and since I installed the latest version, the Controller is cancelling out my instructions and forcing its own, resulting in chaos (several people trying to potty-train at once and several bottles being pushed into the poor toddler's face).

I can cope with the second problem (although it was a bit chaotic today with twins being involved), but it's a bit awkward with the non-family problem.  Doesn't help that the Controller never seems to realise when a toddler needs to be put to bed and sometimes I totally forget to check.  I don't know why, but it seems to totally ignore tired toddlers - it always has in my game.  The odd thing is that as soon as I instruct the parent to put the child to bed, the Controller then repeats the instruction, but it can't seem to do it on its own.

I usually have to do this, too.  If the child is playing with the rabbit and is dead tired, I cancel the Play action, and then the controller will send someone to come put the child to bed.  But the problem occurs when the bladder is low also because for toddlers using the potty uses a lot of energy, and they have to have at least 1/4 to 1/3 of a bar of energy in order to use the potty successfully.  Otherwise the action will abort when their energy drops too low, and you can't get them to stay on long enough to empty their bladder.  So I still have to keep an eye on them and cancel the play action when the bladder starts getting low, then it will send them to the potty.  after that, if they are tired, it'll send for a parent; otherwise, it will send the baby back to playing.  This is how I've been coping with it.  It's not ideal, perhaps, but it beats having to constantly watch the toddler and cancel all the actions you don't and issue and reissue the ones I do want!  I have Dizzy's sitter mod, which I love, but I don't know if it will be updated for OFB.  :(  At first I thought it wasn't working with the sitter, but last time when I invited over the grandma, it was working great.  I'll miss that mod. :(

Hi JM, I had a problem with the baby controller tonight. I had a baby explosion in the brothel - odds set for 6% then the next four woohoos in a row resulted in pregnancies. :/ What are the odds on that?

Anyway I have 3 controllers, I turned on 'manage toddlers' on one controller then turned it off. I turned on 'manage babies' on all three controllers. I'm also trialling Christianlov's nannies - 2 of them - girls gotta go back to work you know. It may be just a conflict. Anyway here's the setup.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v730/nz_witch/controllers.jpg)

This is the error message.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v730/nz_witch/error.jpg)

inc. is the error log.

ETA: I turned on manage babies because the nannies seem to be good at the toddlers but not so good at the babies.

I don't think you need more than one controller per household.  I've had more than one baby, and one controller works for all of them.  I tried having separate nurseries once with two controllers, and it didn't work well.  I didn't get error messages, but the parents would carry the baby upstairs and put it in the toddler's crib when she was out playing instead of putting it in the crib downstairs I had set up for them.  Then they'd put the toddler in the baby's bed because the baby was occupying the toddler's crib.   >:(  I'm thinking maybe having more than one controller is causing them to conflict, or at best, are simply unnecessary.  In other houses where I had one large nursery area, one controller does fine with two or three babies/toddlers.  Just make sure you have a crib and a skill toy for each one.  A potty chair for each helps but isn't really necessary.  Having things close together cuts down on travel time for the toddlers. 

yes, one controller only - otherwise they duel for control.

OK will try that thanks, I guess I thought it was like the toilet paper, one in each room. I'll let you know how it goes.

I do not think that is even an error in the baby controller. I think that's an error in some other thing you're using. That error does not correspond to ANYTHING of here, and is clearly the work of the non-awesome!

As long as everything you need (crib, fridge, changing table, toddler toys, potty chair) can be reached within about 10 squares (in any direction) from where you place the baby controller, you shouldn't need another one. 

Karen

Yes, I humbly apologise, it must be the work of the non-awesome.  :-X

I'm sorry to post in a topic that hasn't been replied in for so long but I downloaded this hack and I can't find it anywhere in my game. I've searched every single category but no sign of it. I'm sure I'm just missing it but can someone possibly point me in the right direction?

It's in the kid (baby) stuff section under misc., looks like a grey orb.

Also, make sure that you have Custom Content enabled. A lot of people seem to miss that.

Grrr. For some reason, whenever my babies grow to toddlers, their parents are sent into a loop where they keep making smart milk until the kid starts puking, and then they go on until the dispenser is empty anyway. Meanwhile, diaper changes and whatever else required is ignored. I also seem to have lost the options to teach walking, talking, and whatnot.

I stress -- only toddlers. Babies are managed just fine.

Any suggestions of what I may be doing wrong?

where can i find that baby o matic thing for the Lobonanny support packages?

At the top of the thread, just below the "feature" image.

Im assuming that Lobonanny is compatible with Pets? And that we dont have to kill them again/sort the stuff out in Simpe?

The extra killing step appears to be no longer necessary due to engine changes that snuck in around NL, yes.

I'm having issues with the Baby Controller in my game, some similar to the one Birgitte described above. For one, Ariel and Caliban Marlowe seem to be stuck in the "Make Smart Milk for Sabrina" loop. Sabrina just turned into a Toddler & can't do anything without her & her parents' queue getting stomped by the "Make Smart Milk" command. Her Hunger bar is almost constantly maxed out, so it isn't according to her needs. Neither Ariel or Caliban is in gold Aspiration or higher at the moment, so they end up dumping bottles of regular milk on the nursery floor, one after the other. I've had to turn off the Controller's Toddler processing to get out of the loop. Also, even with all the recommended additional hacks for Baby Controller installed, I find my doting parents constantly running to the nursery to do one thing or another with their baby/toddler, usually more based on their own needs than that of the child (i.e. Tired parents want to Hold Baby & then immediately Stow, Hungry parents want to Feed, and the Controller tends to send every adult in the vicinity to attend to the baby/toddler's needs, causing huge annoyance & bottlenecks in doorways). Isn't this exactly the behavior the Controller is supposed to eliminate? I've always been a fan of the controller's skill-building & Housebreak features, but at the moment its causing more havoc than its helping. Any advice?

I believe the loop of Smart Milk is an attempt to nuke the baby into a stuck IQ of 300.

You can go beyond that in Pets. (Maybe also earlier, never tried it). I've had toddlers get IQs over 450.

Ok, reporting back with another example of Baby Controller madness in my game. Now that Sabrina Marlowe is a child, I'm playing the Somerset home so Pixie could give birth & I could get their kid to catch up to Sabrina agewise. Immediately after Pixie gives birth to baby boy Kalen, I purchase a set of nursery stuff, including a Baby Controller (naturally). Pixie & hubby Dexter decide to Try for Baby with ACR right after Kalen is settled in his crib, and as luck would have it, Pixie conceives & both parents fall asleep. I set the controller to manage babies, and Pixie is awakened soon after to tend to her son's diaper, but she's nearing starvation what with the new pregnancy and all, so I send her to have a snack & wake Dexter up (who's needs are almost all maxed out anyway) so he can deal with Kalen. Dexter goes into the nursery, picks up Kalen, then the Get Bottle icon comes up and disappears, and Dexter puts Kalen back in the crib. This happens about 4 times. Meanwhile, Pixie, who is in the kitchen downstairs, still almost starving & now in Hygiene failure because I couldn't get her to pee fast enough after drinking her juice, gets called to the nursery, stands like an idiot while Dexter moves out of the way of the crib, picks up Kalen & takes him downstairs for a bottle! All this time, Dexter just stands in the nursery like a lump with all his needs nicely in the green. Wouldn't it make more sense for the parent who is starving to take care of themself and let the need-free person tend to the infant? I'm always having starving or exhausted or smelly sims rush over to the nursery to bug the baby/toddler when there is a perfectly able teen or adult or elder around (usually lurking next to the crib & caught in that Hold Baby/Stow Baby loop). In this regard, the Controller seems to cause more issues for me than it solves.

Well, I have up to OFB, and I had one toddler at 360. Perhaps it starts earlier than Pets.

I've never seen that. Make sure you're not allowing sims to try to autonomously take decisions involving babies! The default behaviors love to pointlessly pester, poke, and prod babies, and if you don't smack them down for trying, they'll end up duelling with the baby controller when they think the baby should be out when the baby controller (which is right), disagrees and thus tells them to immediately put the damn thing back.

Hmm....

I thought the nobabyharrassment hack would keep sims from autonomously prodding their infants/toddlers? I guess the only foolproof way to avoid the issues I'm having is to turn free will off, which I know you fully endorse JM, but its just not a fun way for me to play, sigh. I wish I could tell which actions were Controller-spurred as opposed to autonomous, as I often find my sims dueling to take care of the baby, whether they need it or not, and as soon as I cancel one action, another identical one pops up in the queue!

Sometimes I have to stop the BC because I want the parent to cuddle or play with the baby to satisfy a want.  If I don't, they never get to cuddle, they just put the baby back in the crib.  Sometimes I can get them to teach toddlers to walk or talk without turning off the BC, but other times I have to fight with it because it keeps wanting to send the baby to skill.

There's a reason the controller comes with an easily accessible "emergency stop" button, you know.

Yes, and I use it.  I wish the BUY had such a feature at times.  :P

I just queue stuff up and the baby controller doesn't stomp it. I also delete the toy if I want the toddler's attention.

I let the toddler procrastinate (macrotastics) to stop it from skilling before the sim sent to it to play with/talk to/whatever can get there. Very helpful especially when the sim in question drops a command because something is blocking its way.

Yeah, sometimes I can queue stuff up, but sometimes things will get in the way and cause stuff to fall out of queue.  Pausing the game helps, using macro>procrastinate helps, and using Emergency stop helps.  Depends on my mood at the time.  I try not to use Emergency stop if I can because I sometimes forget to turn it back on and then wonder why no one is tending to the kid.  :-\

I've never been successful queuing tasks up for toddlers with the Baby Controller active. I usually find them skilling on their toddler toys & while I can queue up activities and cancel their skilling, but unless the queued action occurs immediately, it'll usually get squashed by another Controller-given command for the tot to go skill again.

I have been having baby madness lately also. My way of playing hasn't changed, but all of a sudden the sims are picking up the baby every chance they get and standing around not taking care of anything else except bugging the baby. I thought it had to do with the "Feed Baby" hack from (too lazy to look it up right this second), but when I removed that it was still a problem. I have been working around it, though. I haven't had an excess of smashed queues. I have had a few that caused cursing & pausing to correct, but mostly I have gotten through the two baby days without too much aggravation.

The Feed Baby hack is supposed to be non-autonomous, but they go running to that baby to feed it every few minutes whether the baby is hungry or not.

It is annoying. I was thinking about mentioning it myself.

 I don't have the "feed baby" hack, so that's not an issue for me but I'm still having the same problem as V.

The controller used to work perfectly, but now I have a sim picking up a baby and not doing anything but standing there with the baby in it's arms for hours at a time or constantly feeding the baby. I have to tell the sim to put the baby back into the crib and go and do something else!?

I have noticed this also.  ???

If you have twins, do you need two baby controllers or will that make the chaos worse?

I did notice that twins make the get baby from crib/put baby in crib loop more frequent.  I even had Sims get an exhausted baby out of the crib and put him on the floor to play. 

Um, that one needs to be in the crib, please leave him there.  And leave his brother on the floor playing with the logic toy, thank you very much!

One BC per house will handle all tots and babies in the house.  Two might cause problems.

regarding hungery sims feeding baby:

doesn't the game's own autonomy system involve the baby advertising that it'll fill the parents' needs so they'll tend to it?  therefore the sim who is more needy at the moment will be the one autonomously trying to harass the baby, without any mods in place. Did your CC get turned off when you installed OMGPets? The behaviors described sound to me like normal, pre-awesome game behavior.

Nope. My CC button is in the on position.

All my other hacks and CC are present in the game and have been for months.  But the nobabyharrassment hack does not seem to be working as it should.

Pescado, are you looking into this problem or are Rainbow, V and myself the only ones having these issues?

The baby controller is in the Seasons directory but lobonanny isn't... just an oversight or is it broken?

Fixed.

My baby controller is unclickable, to the point where it's almost hard to pick it up in buy mode and get rid of it.

Please tell me what I broke.  :P

I don't think you broke anything Assmitten.

I have the same problem sometimes. It's just a matter of zooming out enough and rotating around a bit to be able to click on the bloody thing to do whatever.

It's cloned from a ceiling light, and they fade out as you get closer, so like  aussieone says, try zooming out a bit.

I know it fades out, which is great because that eye is pretty fearsome. I go way up to birds'-eye view and and still, nothing. I will trying doing a little more fiddling with placement and positioning. When I went back into buy mode, the lil hand wanted to pick up anything that was near or under or behind the eyeball first.

Yes, I agree the eye is scary.  Have you tried my recolors in Peasantry?  They are very plain, but much easier on the "eye".

I would like a nice lavender pupil with curly eyelashes.  :D

I'll bet yours are something different all together. I'll pop over.

That sounds neat!  I don't know if I could do that though.  Maybe I'll try it someday.

I have had it get stuck a couple of time, so I used the stuck object remover to get rid of it. I have also forced error and deleted, then I replace it with a new one, no problem. I think that happed during one of the updates, or it was installing Pets, only I didn't find out until much later because I have MANY lots to keep up with.

This was posted in another thread a couple of weeks ago:  The scenario is that when there is smartmilk available but no adult or teen in the house is at gold aspiration level or higher, all adults/teens in the house will attempt to feed toddler *regular* milk, in an apparently endless loop.  Even if the toddler's hunger level is at 90% or greater, they don't stop trying to force-feed bottles of regular milk to him.  I just had this happen (again) in my game.  Even if you attempt to break the cycle by ordering the adults to do something else with the toddler (play, diaper change, whatever), the action just drops out of the adult's queue and they go get yet another bottle from the fridge.  Meanwhile the poor toddler is crying and miserable because no one can tend to him.  The only way to break out of the cycle is to get one of the adults in gold aspiration level or higher, at which point all you have to deal with is an exhausted, cranky toddler with social, fun, and probably also hygiene all the way in the red.   :(


I'm absolutely sure I'm using the latest versions of macrotastics and the baby controller, and nobabyharassment.  I always leave the baby controller set to "always smart milk" and "dispose bottles".

Let me know if you need more details.  I've been seeing this for weeks, long before Seasons came out.

Have you tried putting the smart milk dispenser in someone's inventory?  When I was having this problem, putting the smart milk dispenser in an inventory (or deleting it) stopped the endless bottles of fridge milk.

I don't have "always smart milk" on.  When the baby transitions to toddler, as soon as there's an adult/teen in gold or higher then I spend the asp points to get a smart milk dispenser and feed the toddler all 5 bottles straight away.  It gives them an IQ of around 440 or thereabouts.  Pescado refers to this as "supernuking" the toddler.  After that they only get regular milk for the rest of their toddlerhood.

I haven't tried that.  But I agree that the presence of the smartmilk dispenser seems to be what causes this behavior (along with the absence of any adults who can actually make the smartmilk).

I understand about the super-nuking of toddlers, and I do take advantage of it, but again, that only works if one or more Sims in the household can actually make the smartmilk.

EDIT:  I duplicated the scenario very easily with only the following hacks installed:

ACR
autosoc
autoyak
babycontrol
bathroomusesyou
ffsdebugger
lesswhiny
macrotastics
nobabyharassment
phonehack
phonehack-talkmodule
skillinator
synctimer

In this particular example, the toddler's hunger is at about 80-85% and social is rapidly dropping.  All the adults continue to try to feed bottles, and everything else you direct the toddler to do (or direct the adults to do with the toddler) drops right out of the queue.  No adults in the house have aspiration level at gold or higher.  The smartmilk dispenser in the kitchen is full.  In the screenshot, the icons displayed are "wait for food" and "be fed".

(http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/karenh3/toddler.jpg)

I forced error on the toddler in the hope that the error log might be able to tell you something.

And one more thing I forgot to add:  When I entered the lot, the family servo had "make smartmilk" in his queue, but as he was in red asp level, he went to the fridge for a regular bottle instead.  That seems normal, but the behavior I described above definitely is not.

Try now.

The new version seems to work a little better.  The adults still bring bottle after bottle of regular milk to the toddler, but at least they are now able to break out of the loop sometimes, for things like a diaper change or to put the toddler to bed. 

After a few more days playing with this version, I have to say I don't think it solves the problem.  Every house I've played with toddlers seems to be affected by this problem.  Even if I get one adult or elder in gold asp level, if there are other adults around who are not in gold asp level, they will continue to deluge the toddler with regular bottles, completely ignoring the toddler's other needs. 

Much as I love the baby controller (I've used it since the very first version), I'm about at the point of pulling it out of my game and trying Twojeffs' baby/toddler hacks instead.  This is really getting annoying. 

I have noticed that often things don't work correctly running on triple speed - which you are doing, according to your screenshot. I have no problems with the smartmilk. I have had the same smartmilk dispensers in some families for 3 generations. They smartmilk them until I stop recharging, then they will feed them a bottle when they get hungry, but I generally tell them to get a bottle if a toddler's hunger is down, and they are just finishing using the potty, got a bath, or some other convenient time. I did experience this once, but it was quite a few months ago, and I haven't seen it since. Perhaps it is because the toddler is in aspiration failure. I try and fulfill at least one want immediately after they age so they aren't in the red. Then I Get them a big one after they have had the smartmilk, and they stay happy for the rest of toddlerhood, as long as I keep their aspiration up.  Maybe fulfilling one of her big wants will help. :-\

I almost always run at triple speed.  It's never been a problem before.

The issue here is that the adults won't stop force-feeding regular milk long enough for me to fulfill any of the toddler's wants.  Believe me, I understand how to keep toddlers happy, and ordinarily it's not difficult.  It just seems that with this particular scenario, almost any action drops out of the queue.  They won't skill because their fun and social is low.  Surrounded by toys, they won't play with them (autonomously or otherwise) even if their fun is all the way in the red.  They won't autonomously do *anything* except grab a bottle.  The latest version makes it slightly more likely that an adult can intervene to change a diaper or put them to bed, but the underlying problem is still there.

I still think that this is related to the super-nuking of toddlers in the baby controller.  When it is not possible to make smartmilk (because there are no adults who are in gold asp level or higher), the baby controller is apparently trying to super-nuke with regular milk.

Try new version. Some logic was completely rewritten and revised.

This version works MUCH better!  The toddler shown in the screenshot above grew up in platinum, no problems at all, after a day playing with the latest version.  Finally my toddlers can be toddlers again.  Thank you!

I seem to be having a problem with this lately...I haven't used it in awhile since I've deprived my sims of multiplying due to overpoplulation...
But, I've recently had twins (go figure when I was trying to keep the number of babies to a minimum) and for some reason the moment I set the babycontroller to manage babies, I get an object error and end up having to delete it.
I have no hacks in my game other than FFS all of which I have recently updated...

In terms of situation specifics, there isn't much to tell except what I've already said about the fact that once I configure it to manage, the error pops up and I'm forced to delete it.
I have two sims, a set of twins and two dogs on the lot. 

I am posting an error log that will hopefully shed some light on this.  I skimmed through it but, since I can only count to 8, all of the numbers had me confused.

If it's something that's easy to identify, that will be loverly, but otherwise I'm going to have to start stripping my downloads of anything baby related to get to the bottom of this.

Thanks!

I believe that issue is an oldversion. Get the new version.

Oddly, I did have in the newest version..But I remembered awhile back how I ran into a problem with the thinking cap hat-stands. Even though I had updated it, I still had the same problems.
Then someone advised that rather than installing over and replacing the older one, I might try deleting the old one from my folder, and then placing the new one in. That worked for me with the hat-stands, so I tried it out with this one and it actually worked for me.

I know with the hatstands, a lot of people had no problem replacing the file, but I guess there were a few that had to use the method I used...'Tis a mystery to me, for sure.  :-\

Is it possible for me to add the GUID of a custom cradle so that it will be recognized by the Eye?

Or add a scanner similar to the one in BUY so it can find the clones of the Maxis objects?

The baby controller is clearly the weak point in my game ATM.

I set it to dispose of bottles- it keeps pulling my salesperson and my cashier away from a store full of customers all the way across the large lot to the farmhouse to throw away one bottle the sim I have on baby care hasn't gotten to yet. All the business hacks let me assign one person to do things; I think the baby controller needs a similar function so it won't keep bothering my workers with trivial tasks. I've got a large field of plants, a store selling produce, 4 adult sims, and 3 babies (stupid trips and quads); I want Daddy to take care of the kids while Mommy and her two friends alternate working the fields and running the store (they only open the store every few days or so). With free will off (and me forgetting to put Daddy in power idle half the time) this works well right up until I assign them to be salesperson and be cashier instead of be farmer; then they keep abandoning their posts (despite 8 or so customers browsing and a long line of 4 or so waiting to be rung up, with no badge for cashier yet).

Set it for Disintegration, then. And what exactly are they leaving to do?

I like the hint of realism from dispose; I finally told it not to process bottles and every day or so had someone macro->clean instead. But the really annoying one was the cashier: I noticed him traipsing towards the house, so I clicked on him, and he had a bottle to dispose of in his que. I cancelled it out, and he immediatly replaced it with the same bottle. I cancelled it and instructed him to "ring up these customers" (most of whom ended up pissed off and leaving), only to find him move a few steps towards the cash register, then cancel my command in favor of the bottle. I had to manually delete the bottle to get him to tend the cash register. Ditto for my salesperson, despite her having plenty of customers to attend to. If she's not attending to customers it should be because her needs are low IMO, not because her idiot friend dropped a bottle all the way across the lot.

(similarly, why does her hunger have to be 100% green before she'll work? It being about 80% full should be fine for a workday since energy is the main imperative anyway... but that's a BRY question, not a baby controller issue)

When I have a fight with the baby controller I just click the emergency stop.

I would also love to see that feature added. I want froofy cribs and cute toddler beds AND Sims minding their spawn sensibly.

I was worried by the time I had it all sorted out my triplets'd be screaming bloody murder. But, on general principle, good idea.

For some reason, ever since my reinstall, this does not work. All of my other hacks work and I'm not using anything non Awesome.  They'll still push the smart milk, but that's it.

Yea, yea, scary guy, whatever. :)

I'm having a slight annoyance with this in FT. At random times while the toddler is playing with the new toddler table, the 'A baby needs attention' dialog pops up.  There's no reason for it, as the kids motives are all high, and no parent gets the command to do anything pushed into their queue.  It's just a random, weird thing.

I checked with HCDU, and nothing is flagged as conflicting.  I have most of the latest FT DC in, and no other hacks/mods that affect toddlers that I'm aware of.

At jsalemi: I had, and I think still have, that happen with the table too. I haven't had a toddler recently and I always have a hard time trying to find a place for the table anyway, but it seemed like it always popped up when the table wasn't completely clear of junk. But that wasn't what I was initially going to post about.

Is the controller supposed to be ignoring Servos or is there a conflict in my game? I often have a Servo in my larger families, but it kinda sucks that even if I leave the kid alone with a Servo the controller doesn't call him or her to take care of the baby/toddler. I can still manage manually thanks to that nifty warning pop-up, but I'd like to have the controller do my job for me if possible. xD I do have Paladin's chore controller dealy, so I was thinking maybe it's stopping the BC from calling the Servo if the BC isn't designed to ignore Servos. If is a conflict, then I'll probably ditch Paladin's controller. It's sort of a remnant from before I knew about Macrotastics anyway.

I would say it's most definitely Paladin's servo controller causing the problem -- I don't have that, and my servos take care of infants and toddlers just fine with the baby controller.

Okay, cool. Thanks for letting me know. Definitely taking the Paladin controller out now.

Hmm, I don't have the Paladin Servo controller and I find that the Baby Controller doesn't call upon them to tend to the little ones in the family. I'm also finding (post recent Pets, BV & FT install) that commands issued by the Baby Controller fall out of my sims queue with annoying regularity. My newest toddler alternates between regularly passing out on the floor (while also nearly starving) or being stuck in his crib for hours because the commands to "stow" and "release" don't stick in any sim's queue, nor do they even show up for my resident Servo.  I have the most recent version of the Baby Controller for FT, but its not nearly as effective as it used to be for childcare in my game. I don't have any other hacks that affect babies or toddlers, and the only other servo hack I have is noservochores, so not sure what might be causing this problem in my game.

EDIT: I also forgot to mention that the babycontroller doesn't seem to cap skilling at 8 points for one skill before moving on to the next one toddlers can get, even with items available for multiple skills. It used to be that toddlers would go for charisma first, then mechanical, then logic. Now my toddlers have to max out mechanical (on the FT toddler/child table), before the controller makes them skill anything else.

I'm wondering why they are skilling mechanical first.  I'd much prefer they skilled charisma first, because unless there is a charisma-training career reward on the lot they can't skill charisma as a child (I'm ignoring the caged things from Pets, because I never give those to my sims).  The baby controller used to check for available career rewards, and choose charisma first if there was no law, politics, business, or education reward on the lot, and I wish it would continue to do so.  Yes, I realise training mechanical as a toddler is faster than training it as a child, but a smartmilked kid is going to max out on all available skills before they turn teen anyway.  It's irritating to have them maxed out on mechanical as a toddler if they can't train charisma as a child on that particular lot.

I guess the answer for me at the moment is to stick the toddler table in their inventory until they have trained charisma.

I will review the priorities a bit again in the next version. And stuff.

After a little more experimentation in my new Pleasantview hood, it seems that much of the trouble I'm having with ABC commands dropping out of queue is due to using cribs from EPs rather than the base game crib. The first 2 190 Sim Lane makeover houses I moved my "ready to pop" sims into came furnished with Maxis cribs, but not the base game one. The 3rd house had the base game crib in the nursery, and when that family got its new addition, the controller kicked in like I'm used to. Mind you, this has only been observed with early baby care so far, not toddler care, and I haven't yet had the chance to test it out in my household with a Servo to see if she'll be issued commands like she's supposed to. Just thought I'd mention this development.

EDIT: Apparently if a sim is in the middle of a macro routine, or has a macro queued, the ABC doesn't issue a command at all until all current & pending actions are cancelled. It's not even a matter of the babycare command dropping out of queue, because it isn't even issued to "busy" sims. Just now, my single mother Artemis Nixie was called to sleep by the sleep clock with queued commands to skillinate Charisma & Body. While asleep, the BUY controller kicked in and queued up so she'd use the facilities in the morning. Then at 6am, Monique's (yes, I know, non-awesome) auto serve meal hack queued up the command to make breakfast. Artemis woke up, and headed to the kitchen. At this point, her infant Fergus started screaming his head off cause he needed a diaper change. No command to take care of him appeared in her queue, and there are no other sims in the household. I cancelled the command to cook, and Artemis started for the bathroom, still no babycontroller command. I cancelled the BUY icon, as well as the skillinate Charisma & Body icons. Only then did the "change diaper" icon pop up, and that's when I realized I'd seen similar behavior on my other lots, where a "busy" sim doesn't get called on to care for the baby/toddler until they are idle.

Last time I used the baby controller, I set it to "always use smart milk", which resulted in the parent sim constantly making and offering smart milk to the toddler, who was already full of smart milk and skilling away happily.  This only ended when the smart milk dispenser was completely empty.  Is this a known issue, or is it a conflict? 

I have just downloaded the latest update (a bit late there I know).  If this persists, I will assume "tight pants" and do some checking in my hacks directory.

Not tight pants.  That's the controller attempting to uber-smart the sprog.  Multiple doses of smartmilk can jack their IQ into the 400s, and will stick with them all the way to teenhood if you don't ever smartmilk them again.  If I want this, I do it right after they age up, 'cause why bother skillinating until they're hungry, when you can get quad- to quin-tuple learning rates after stuffing them with smartmilk?

Also, ABC has never interrupted a sim with a command-level task.  Except for sleepclock on maximum force bed calls, none of the MATY hacks stomp user-issued commands.  Most of the time, I have a PowerIdle zombie sitting around somewhere for baby care, or if no one is available for dedicated duty, I turn the warning box on.

Cool.  Will try this.

I use a full container of smartmilk (5 bottles per Toddler) once-the first time they are hungry after aging up. Then it is deleted when empty and they are fed from the fridge, otherwise the toddler is completley stuffed with smartmilk and I never select 'always use Smartmilk'. I check periodically to make sure the stupid hasn't crept back, but it never does. 

Well, I know that prior to my new EP installations, I could often have the only adult in the house doing a Macro...Garden routine, and they would be called by the babycontroller to tend to an infant/toddler's needs, then return to gardening when the kid was ok to be left alone again. The babycontroller command wouldn't kill the Macro...Garden command, it would just usurp it momentarily. I know I noticed this behavior specifically, because I was worried about having my designated babysitter running on macros and not being able to tend to the little ones, but it was never an issue until now.

That hasn't specifically changed. All the "placeholder" actions like macro Be Farmer are considered stationkeeping, so the babycontroller will grab them.

I think you're mistaken.  You were probably using Business... Be Farmer, as Pes says.  It has the same icon as Macro... Garden, but BeFarmer (also BeFisherman) is like PowerIdle.  The latter two allow user-issued commands into the queue.  They did before your new EPs, and they still do! :D  Besides the Baby Controller, you can also manually issue any command you want and after the current task completes, the sim will go do what you ask, even if it isn't one of the macro options.  Macro... Garden, Clean, Skill, all of those options aren't interruptable.  They assume that your highest priority for that sim is to garden, clean or skill.

I've never ever used Business...Be Farmer. I've only ever used the Macro...Garden command to force sims to tend to their crops. In fact, until you mentioned it, I didn't even know there was a Business...Be Farmer option at all.

Hack conflict, or old-versioned?  :-\  I dunno what to tell you except that you could use BeFarmer now, instead of MacroGarden.  I only have BV right now and the baby controller doesn't interrupt MacroGarden now, or previously with Seasons.

Okay, I did that, but I'm not sure about the stupid.  Perhaps it's because she was an older toddler, but the Emmaspawn (Joanne) did not keep her smartmilk glow, in spite of Emma forcefeeding her 5 bottles of smartmilk.  Will try again with the next toddler.

They don't keep the glow, but if you 'test IQ' on the babycontroller with the toddler selected, it will show you the IQ of the toddler. Mine are typically between 300-400. They don't permanently glow with the smartmilk effect. ;)

k, apologies for resurrecting this. I got the baby controller from the directors cut last night.

I am having a problem with it though - I have quads, and I'm using the maxis base game cribs. The adults won't take the babies out of their cribs to change the dirty diapers. They go to the crib, but just stand there. Using the emergency stop function and doing it manually solves the problem, but obviously I can't do this with the nanny.

Any ideas?

Have you tried running HCDU to see if you've got a conflict?

But I've also noticed that sometimes with multiple spawn, the adults get a little ADD about which spawn to care for first. Let's say three babies need a diaper change. Both parents will go for the same baby, one parent gets there first, but he just stands there. I cancel that parent's queued action, so the other parent handles the first baby, and after a moment the first parent goes to the second or third baby.

I think it's a case of too many competing priorities. Given enough time they will sort things out, but if it goes on for too long I click Emergency Stop and intervene manually, like you. Most of the time now with more than two babies in a household, I just use the warning box and process things manually.

What I really wish for would be a way to mark caregivers in the household. If I already have a stay-at-home parent, I want that parent to be prioritized for processing babies and toddlers. Some kind of inventory token would be cool. But, Pescado will tell me that it is inefficient, and therefore I suck. Ah, well, I can always dream...

No Roux, that would be cool.

So therefore at least two of us suck  ;D

Make that 3 of us. After playing all day a family that has two females with the 10 baby want and T&Q in place and both women having the twin benefit, there have been alot of babies on my lot. Throw into the mix teens and two sets of parents and you have the makings of a nice frustration fest on your hands.

Since AL parents have been able to butt into the queue to play peak-a-boo, preventing the toddler from doing what they should be doing.  Especially during the very important smart milk craze.
Very, very annoying.  Any way to fix?

Noted for addition to anti-harassment.

I have a question about ABC.  I notice that if the toddler's energy is in the deep red while he is skilling, I can direct the caregiver to put it in the crib and the toddler will cease skilling to allow it to be put to bed.  However, if it's just in the deep yellow, the toddler will ignore the caregiver and the caregiver's action will be dropped.  Can it be tweaked so that any caregiver action will force toddlers to stop whatever they're doing?  I find it irritating to have to switch to toddler, X out the action, switch to caregiver, and then do the action.

Also, I had an APO conflict as well.  I configured an APO inside the nursery to deny "exit" to "everyone" and had overrides for the two caregivers.  I put a rabbit toy at the corner of the room adjacent to the door to the kitchen.  One time, when I directed the caregiver to get a bottle from the fridge, she found the toddler blocking the way and dropped it in the kitchen instead, out of reach of the toddler.  I had to go into buy mode and move the bottle into the room.  is the solution to the problem not to put toys so close to the exit, or is there a way to make sure that the caregiver follows the APO rules?

See this picture (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v32/hbdragon88/danish_first2.jpg) for a layout of the nursery and kitchen areas.

No, this is a direct artifact of how the action priority system works. Because the baby controller operates at standard priority, it is able to override crap autonomous actions and prevent their interference.

The caregiver DID follow the rules. You denied "exit", disallowing anyone from leaving the room, but then gave an exception for the caregivers, so they were able to exit the room. It is not entirely clear why you have configured the room this way.

I'm fine with stomping autonomous actions.  What I want all user-directed actions to be able to force the toddler to drop whatever activity he/she is doing.  Is that possible?

The actions pushed by the Baby Controller are treated as user directed actions and are indistinguishable from them, so can't be queuestomped by other user-directed actions.