More Awesome Than You!

This isn't particularly important but it's an issue with one my sims. She'd been pregnant for some time prior to my installation of OFB. I went to birth that baby (making sure to randomize before the birth) but no matter what I do, the baby is a clone of the sister before it. No matter how I manipulate the pregnancy (forcing it as twins, different father, birth on a different lot) it remains a clone.

I've used the InSIMenator and the Lot Debugger, but have so far have had no luck. Even after having that baby born, the very next pregnancy results in the same baby (while still randomizing.) Anybody have an idea as to what would bring this about? I don't expect this to change, and I'm going to abandon the pregnancy, but I'm interested to see if anyone knows why this would occur.

Define "clone". Are the personalities ALWAYS the same, or is it merely the appearance? It's easy to get siblings that appear very similar due to sim-genetics, but the personality should USUALLY vary slightly IF you randomize sufficiently in advance, and make sure you are not getting the same "sequence number", or "objects fixed" in your dialog when randomizing.

My apologies. The personalities do vary, but the physical features are always the same. Actually, aside from personality, the only other variation are the eyebrows.

That's just unavoidable, then, and is caused by the lack of variety in your sims' genetics. If your sims have a pattern of dominant/recessive facial features that mesh, your babies tend to inherit the dominant features of both parents if none of them clash, and the result is a sim that tends to look the same.

Also, all babies look about the same.

My suggestion is when making black or brown hair sims in the CAS, actually make a dummy black or brown hair 'parent' and another dummy red or blonde hair 'parent', use the baby making tool in the CAS, age the kid to adult and delete the parents before you save the family. This will start off black and brown hair sims from the CAS with recessive red or blonde hair genes and make for the chance of more variety in hair colors at least.

The other suggestion I have is have your sims sleep around lol.

If you really want fun, generate a sim with black hair and a recessive blond gene + dkblue/grey eye genes, then cross it with a sim with brown hair and a recessive red gene. For extra fun, muddle the eye genes similarly and observe as you could wind up with practically anything!

I see. Well, thank you. And yes, all babies do look the same. Of course, I meant from toddler to elder, each kid from this pregnancy had the same features, even when attempting to randomize. This seemed a bit bizarre to me, considering I tried for 4 hours yesterday, when it usually only takes one or to tries for a new mix of features. All the children prior to this have had a nice mix features, although with the same hair and eye color. I can easily tell them apart from one another, while still recognizing them as siblings. That's not the case with this pregnancy, no matter what I do.

It seems to me that this mother's features now completely overwhelm those of the father. I've tried about 7 more times today with different fathers; the only difference being in facial structure (jaw and the area around the eyes.) The mother donated the same features each time. Even with Pollination Technician as the father, the usually dominant facial structure has warped to accommodate the mother's. And those big, black alien eyes shrank to accommodate the mother's eye shape in the offspring.

Her husband mixes genetics normally with other Sims in the neighborhood. This one sim, however, seems to be giving all her offspring the face of her last kid (who resembles her the most), even with different fathers. Her eyes, her lips, her nose, they refuse to yield to the father's, regardless of the situation, so I'm done with it. No more kids for her; I don't need that.

But thanks for your suggestions. I'll try and change it up a bit next time I use CAS. Get some real variety in my families. ^^

Someone else complained about this in another thread. I know it's always sort of been an issue, but as you said usually with a few tries at least you can get some kind of different mix. Maybe they changed something with OFB?

I would hope not. My other families seem ok so far...

Honestly, I'd thought the reason was having her pregnant through an expansion installation. Perhaps it had messed something up. Not that I'd really understand why nor do I know how likely that would be.

Well, whatever the case, I think I'm always gonna be a little nervous from here on out, whenever a black-haired, brown-eyed baby is born in this neighborhood.