More Awesome Than You!

Okay, so, I'm having quite a few problems with my Sims 2 game. I'm doing an Extreme Legacy, and everything was going really great, with it.

When, last night, I noticed, that all I can make using the fridge is 'Instant meal'. Low cooking skill points? Nope. Hubby's got three, and she's got four.

I've got a stove, counter tops, and all the fridges won't let me cook food ,'cept for the mini one that comes with Uni. All I can do is have them eat snacks, or drink instant meals.

I have quite a few hacks, such as JM's lot debugger, a few more of his (noplaugirism, noplayintoilets, etc, etc). I have several TJ's one (Formal wedding, etc, etc), and a ton of custom content. Oh, and a good chunk of Inge's hacks.

This is driving me nuts, considering my sim is pregnant, and quite frankly, I'm not sure what to do about it! I tried moving them in and out, that didn't work. The fridge is an orignal color, no custom content.

Grrrrrrrr.

Suggestions?

You have a sink?
I remember having this same problem... And I'm trying to remember why.  It was something really stupid.  Like needing a floor, or a sink.  I just cannot remember at the moment what it was...

-Blink- Seriously?

I don't have a sink, but I could... add one?

That's really strange, and I can always try that. The option to order grocieres over the phone, isn't even showing up. x.x;

Are there any diagonal walls between the sim and the fridge?  I love diagonal walls and would always have to get them into the kitchen before having them do any meals.

No diagonal walls, instant meal is the only option that pops up when I click on the fridge... x.x;

I've taken out a few hacks I don't need... I've got the debugger running, too.

Strange, but then again, it seemed really strange when it was figured out that the instant meal only option was caused by the diagonal walls.  Or maybe doorways on diagonal walls... whichever it was weird.  I hope someone can help out with this one for you.

I get that sometimes.  The only hack I have in my game is Merola's multi-purpose painting, and I used it to make all my sims' cooking scores at 10.

Anyway, when I get the "instant meal" only option, if I try again in a few minutes, it reverts back to giving all the choices. Most strange.

Have the sim "check the fridge" - or whatever it is called where you see how much food is left. I had that problem in a house for a particular sim, it would always reset if I checked the level and them immediately after made the food. Never figured out what caused it - eventually moved and bulldozed the lot.

Another thing - silly question - but I am assuming that you have a counter top and stove/microwave? Even foods that don't get cooked need to have a counter to prepare them on. (But I'm pretty sure that you still get the option at the fridge for the foods 0 just grasping at staws here.)

What hacks do you have related to fridge/food: no autonomy fridge? smartserve?
Have you tried selling and rebuying  a fridge? If you have NL, you can add the exact amount of depreciation for the fridge to the family's funds as I think you are able to use cheats to correct problems?

Well, if you're allowed hacks, what about the buffet table at Simlogical?  Always full, never goes bad!

Actually, I wonder if the problem is due to stuck fridge tiles which was an option on the old version of the debugger.

Wait...just had a thought related to countertops.  What was it now.

Oh yes.  I believe there wasn't enough space on the countertop for a cutting board or mixing bowl or whatever it is that sims use to prepare their food.  I made space and tried again, and got the full menu of possible meals.  Aha, just as simmiecal suspected.

And I do have lots of other hacks in my game, like the critical fixes.  I forgot about them, too. 

No wonder I'm home and online on New Year's Eve. :'(

Well if you have my stay-things shrub and used it on a house after buying the fridge you either need a new fridge or that patch I made to fix fridges.

Alternatively this sort of thing is known to happen when you have diagonal doors on a lot.

Is your sim in the same room as the fridge when you're clicking on the fridge? I've found that if a sim is in the bathroom while you click on the fridge, only Instant Meal is available. Apparently it's "dirty" to be considering food in the bathroom, or something!

Another blinding obvious thing that no one's mentioned - do you actually have food in the fridge? :D

Assuming that the problem isn't that you're in the bathroom, have a diagonal wall or have run out of food, either of the "Check Food Levels" and "Juggle Bottles" interactions can be used to "reset" the fridge.

I imagine Feed Bottle to.... would do the same thing!  In fact, virtually any action involving the fridge would probably reset it.

I have found that it is not the fridge as I have this problem with some lots I move the family out and bulldoze that lot. Or sometimes it move a family and buy everything from scratch.

Could it be something to do with moving the lot into the game with a fridge already in situ?  I know they're supposed to go wrong immediately, but I've been doing it recently with no apparent problems (forgot to remove the fridge!), and maybe the problem is showing up later. 

http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=345.0 (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=345.0)

And check out this link, where the same problem was discussed a while ago, and maybe there'll be something there which will ring a bell!

I too had that problem! I bulldozed the lot! ;D
I would send my sims to cook and they would only get the instant meal option. So I would let them play with the bottles first and then tell them to cook again and I would have all the options for a while. then th instant meal thing happens again.

I tried buying new fridges etc. Nothing helped...:( so I bulldozed the lot. Never had that problem anymore in my game. I did have the diagonal doors on the lot tho... why would that affect the fridge??? Seems weird. I wouldn't know about the fridge being used, cause it was a housei downloaded anyways I will check the link the Zephy...if i may call you that.. ;)

Feel free! Now, have you considered this?  At one time Maxis made houses in the lot bin never had fridges in them, because it could cause problems.  So, if the downloaded house was made in the base game, then it would have the same problem with fridges.  So I would say that with such a house, it would be worth loading it in the game, and removing the original fridge, then moving it back to the lot bin, then back into the game and then moving a family in and replacing the fridge.

I think the problem with diagonal walls and doors is only when the Sim is not on the same side of the door as the kitchen when you click on the fridge.  So if that diagonal door is on a bathroom and the sim is in the bathroom - instant meal.  If the sim isn't in the bathroom you should get all the options. 

Incidentally there is no point in having a food processor if you have an expensive counter.  The processor ups the food value to the level of a medium counter, so putting a food processor on an expensive counter is rather counter-productive!  I read this on the official BBS and it's probably out of the Prima guide.

Buh? The counters have an effect on the food value of food prepared on them?! Could you explain this more? I thought the food processor just made food that ahd to be chopped faster to prepare!

A more expensive counter will allow a Sim to be more efficient when preparing food.

I still get a food processor to "complete" the kitchen though.

Also stops teens learning to cook from chopping their fingers!

Wow.  I had thought the more expensive counters were just there to be expensive and look nice, and any accidental finger-cutting was due to their cooking ability. Now I have an excuse to give in to those fortune sim wants to buy a bunch of counters! Learn something new every day.

I've just bought a load of cheap Wickes units to fit in my new RL kitchen.   I hope we won't begin to suffer malnutrition....   lol

Well, I certainly haven't noticed any difference between cooking ability from one kind of counter to another!

Thing that's annoying me at present though, is since NL (and I don't know if this is due to Dizzy's smart-serve or just NL (I suspect the latter) my sims have to go through the whole process of cooking a meal for one before cooking for the family or risk the kitchen being engulfed in flames!  Everything they learned to cook before NL and have the skill-points to prove it, they now have to learn to cook all over again!  Extremely frustrating!  And any autonomous cooking almost certainly ends up as a burnt offering!

ZZ, my sims haven't had any trouble cooking, even the ones with only 4 cooking skill points...


and it bugs me abit cause I took out Carrigons "safe cooking" hack and added sprinkers and fire alarms to most of my Lots!


Haven't seen a fire in ages  :'(

Well, the better at cooking my sims are, the more likely they are to have a fire!  So wierd!

I think you could be in trouble if you have the sprinkler put out the fire before the fireman arrives!  Probably get fined!

ZZ, I don't see more fire than usual either both with low and high cooking skills. Actually in my MATY hood I am still waiting for a Sim to start a fire, did not happened yet though they did burn food a few times.

Sleepycat, I would also say it is better to have either sprinklers or fire alarm in one room, not both.  But you can put fire alarm next to the fire place and sprinklers in the kitchen if they are in seperate rooms.  I place the sprinklers right in front of the stove and make it point the stove.  I don't know if it would really change the odds for fire but I would put a more expensive stove to see if it would start a fire espacially if the Sim have low cooking skills.

Missdoh, obviously things are happening differently in your game.  Maybe you get more burglaries?

Well I did get a few burglaries mostly with lots on which my Sims have a car but it does not happen that often, but it does happen.

What is so different in my game compared to others?

Haven't a clue, but since both cooking fires and burglaries are (I think) random, maybe when you get less burglaries you'll get more fires, and the opposite will happen in my game!

It can be a valid explanation though I also have no idea of the ratios of fire vs burglary and if they are related in any way.

I did notice though that sometimes when I save a lot and something is scheduled to brake whatever my Sim will touch it will break, so it can one time be the sink, the next time the shower or the stereo.  No matter what I make that Sim do before, the moment it touches an item that can brake for sure it will brake!

Any of you notice that too?

You can tell if a loo or a wash-basin etc is about to break as you get an annoying noise like water dripping!  You'd only notice, though, if there's no other sounds on the lot.

I always thought the food processor added points to the food on top of the points from the counter, if you use both. Is it not so?

That's what I thought? :)

I often get dripping sinks, but they rarely actually break. The sound really grates on my nerves sometimes.

Check the current price of your stove before you send a Sim to cook on it.  For the expensive stove, once it gets down to $360 (original cost $900, I think) it's much more likely to cause a fire, even if your Sim has high cooking skill.

The same goes for dishwashers and trash compactors.  I've gotten in the habit of replacing them once their value goes below about $180, since they are potential fire hazards once they get to that state.

On the subject of burglars:  I haven't seen one in my game in *ages*.  I don't make any special effort to include burglar alarms in my houses, and most of my Sims are pretty rich so they have plenty of things to steal.  But I haven't seen a burglar since well before Nightlife.

Karen

The only time I see a burglar is when I move a family into a new house.  They always show up within the first week or two.  Then I don't usually see them in that house again.  And I moved most of my families into new houses with bigger lots after I got NL so I could build garages for their new cars, and every one of them had a burglar show up!

I just wish the police officer was more efficient at fighting them.  Almost all of the burglars got away.  I think out of maybe 12 houses only 1 was caught!

And my sims have stove fires no matter what cooking skill or how expensive the stove is, although they seem to be happening less when the cooking skill is higher.  But they do still have them.

Did the original poster ever solve their problem?

I used to get loads of burglaries, then I found that aging the burglars down to babies solved the problem.  Now, though, I haven't needed to bother, this hood hasn't (yet) had a single burglary)!

And it really used to bug me when a top-price painting was stolen, the insurance only paid out a fraction of the value!  If that was the case in RL, who'd bother to insure?

I haven't had any burglaries since NL either.

That's interesting -the idea of a higher chance of fire or need for repair the longer you have the appliance and replacing it when the return price gets low. Like it's getting old and 'faulty'. Hmmm....  never thought of that.

The odds of causing a fire or breaking are not related at all to the value of the item, they're fixed by type in constants. Trash compactors are notorious unreliable and prone to electrocuting people, though. Thus why I tend to favor non-powered trashcans, which are indestructible.

JM, I totally agree!  I have had sims move into a new house with a brand new expensive stove, and they still get fires!  But as I said, I've noticed that I now have to make my sims prepare a meal for themselves (even though they used to have no problems with it) before they can cook it for the family!  If I don't do this, they either burn it or set fire to it!

Trashcompactors are very bad news!  So also are exercise machines - I've seen a repairman electrocuted by one of those too!  But at least they don't go wrong so frequently!  If you use trashcompactors, they should be emptied frequently, then if they go wrong there seems to be less chance of electrocution!

ahhh... that makes sense (don't think my sims would want to get fined)  it's odd I always forget about fireplaces! I must add some to some of my houses!


edit - I have hardly ever had burglaries

They were pretty frequent in the base game, but the same thing applied with Sims1.  The more EPs were added, the less the stuff from the base game happened.  I presume that the more variables are added to the game the less the game accesses the earlier ones.

The weirdest thing happened! I moved out of a lot, thought I had the problem still. Added counters... more options became available.

Added a sink?

They are all available! That is seriously the weirdest thing I've ever heard of!

I'm glad it's fixed, though, and thanks for the suggestions. =)

I wouldn't be too surprised if you were missing options when you didn't have counters - the sims had nothing to prepare the food on. They can't prepare food on tables. The sink is stranger - I've had sims be able to throw away their plates before when a sink wasn't immediately available, but perhaps some items have to be washed up. I'm not sure what to think if they didn't have a sink but had a dishwasher, though!

No sink, or sink in use = visit to the trashcan with the plate!  Sometimes wonder if they'll run out of plates!

They never run out of anything they can pull out of their a**! lol

Amazing what they can store in thos neat little posteriors!

I sometimes think those mops HAVE to hurt! Ouch!

I should have thought they would!!!!

Same for me - I've had a grand total of one burglary since the game came out, and it was well before Uni - none since. I've taken to leaving burglar alarms off since the description of the alarms says they help prevent burglaries; they're so rare that I'd rather the Sims experience something different every once in a while, heh. There are somewhere between 15-20 houses I play now... maybe one of these days I'll have a burglar again, sigh. I don't want it to be predictable, but something higher than the tiny percentage it seems to be now would be nice.

At one time every house in Pleasantview had burglars at least once (in my game), and I think sometimes putting the expensive paintings will lure them in!  Sometimes you'll actually see one of them passing the lot to case the joint.  However, I think if you deleteallcharacters at the beginning of the game and therefore there are no townie burglars, the odds are somehow reduced!  I know I used to notice this - Amin Sims or Joe Carr walks by the lot, the next night or soon after, the lot is burgled!  Coincidence perhaps......

Dizzy2 has the Daily & Weekly Burglar hack if you're interested.  I have never tried it myself, but maybe it will spice up your gameplay. ;)
http://www5.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=72344

He also has a Daily & Weekly Burglar/Arsonist that not only burglarizes your sims, but randomly sets fires too.   :o

re - counters and foodprocessors - I can't read the game code, but here's what I got from the official BBS.  I expect it's regurgitated Prima guide. 

"High-price counters provide quicker food preparation and higher food value than low-price counters. The food processor is equivalent to a midprice counter, for both speed and food value, regardless of which counter it's placed on. High-price is anything from §500 on up, low-price is anything under §200, and midprice is anything in between. Most meals require food preparation which must be done at either a counter or a food processor. Any food can be prepared at an empty counter but only chopped foods can be prepared at a food processor."

I interpreted that as - the food processor is a waste of time (at best) if you have an expensive counter. 
I build my starter homes with 1 expensive counter for preparation and cheap ones to put everything else on/in.

I have a whole long txt file about food preparation - not particularly organised.  If anyone wants, I can post the whole thing in a new thread for you all to shoot at and maybe someone can make something out of it for the peasantry or the war room.  It's cut and pastes from around the boards and most of it probably came out of the prima guide.

Yes, please, I would be interested in seeing your text file :)

Thanks - I may try the weekly one, as the daily one seems way too predictable (not to mention unrealistic!), heheh.

I guess it would make sense that the counter that the food processor is on would not affect the food quality since it's not actually being prepared on the counter.  But you'd still need some type of counter to prepare food that doesn't need to be chopped.

I too would be interested in seeing your text file, cwykes.

Really a good reason to give Dina Caliente cheap counters!  She wouldn't be so likely to overeat if the food didn't do more than satisfy her hunger!

My fridges are driving me crazy.  Whenever food is put into them, the Sims no longer recognise their existence and all they can do is get snacks until I direct them to cook a meal, then they start functioning again. 

As an example, tonight while Dina Goth was on her way home from a downtown outing I went upstairs and got waylaid watching the kids playing some game on the Dreamcast or Play Station or whatever it was.  Anyway, I thought I'd paused the game on the downtown lot, I forgot she was actually on her way home.  When I finally got back into the game, about 30 hours had gone by on the lot.  Dina was in bed with her energy meter almost in the red and her hunger meter almost at zero.  Mortimer & Alexander were fine.   It would appear that Dina hadn't gone to work as she started an hour before Mortimer, otherwise the Social Worker would have been and the fact that Mortimer had clearly eaten suggested he'd been to work.  If Dina had already been at work, I don't think he'd have gone.

The twins were in a terrible state - it appeared they'd eaten at some point as they were about 25% full on hunger, but their social, fun & hygiene meters were bottomed-out and they had obviously been stuck in their cribs for some considerable time.  Unfortunately, I'd forgotten to adjust the Eye in the Sky to manage toddlers after they transitioned (which was just before Dina went out).

Dina did nothing but whinge about being starving for the next 12 hours (I didn't help her, because I can't stand her) and finally keeled-over on one of her endless trips to the bedroom that were constantly interrupted by her need for food.  I teleported Nina in and she managed to save Dina, but the whole thing started again later.  Mortimer wasn't working that day and when he got up he was pretty hungry, but all he could get was a snack.  Dina for some reason didn't even attempt to get a snack (probably too lazy to open the fridge).  Quite how she lasted as long as she did I have no idea, but then I could never kill her off before either.  I tried to electrocute her three times and all she did was gain mechanical points.  The only reason I saved her this time was because I knew Mortimer was dying the following day and Alexander was going off to Uni and it would have meant sending the twins to live with Cassandra or moving in a townie or something.  (I suppose I could have moved-in JMP).

I had to get a nanny in to help with the twins and after some considerable effort, got them back in the green.  The boy wasn't too bad, but the girl was in aspiration failure and by 6pm that day they both were, because Mortimer died.  Luckily I was able to get them both potty-trained the next day which got them into platinum.  Dina was in bed when Mortimer expired and although she woke-up when her energy was only half-full, she had no reaction whatsoever to Mortimer's death, she preferred to have a pillow-fight with Nina instead.  I really do not like that woman, although she's slightly more preferable to Mary-Sue, who I would gladly throttle with my bare hands.

Anyway, to return to the point, I have no idea why my fridges are like this, but it happens all the time and on all lots.  The only way I can avoid it is to restock the fridge with boolprop.  Buying a new one doesn't help, neither does forcing an error.  I don't think this is the same problem as in this thread, but one thing's for sure, the fridges are unbelievably glitchy.

Have you tried using custom-mesh fridges?

that makes no sense at all Ancient sim!  It doesn't happen to most of us.  You know way more about this stuff than me, but I'd be looking for hack conflicts, deleting group.cache, bugged lots and all the usual stuff if it was my game or I was posting for a newbie.  Diagnostic questions - is it only one lot etc etc etc  good luck!!!