More Awesome Than You!

I just noticed something very strange - and I have the vague hope that someone can perhaps suggest what happened.

Currently I'm putting a bunch of sims through uni - the tedium was broken by watching the antics of one of the NPCs in the dorm with my sims.  She was a compulsive gnome thief!

The cycle would go along the lines of dormie would decide to steal gnome - dormie would walk out - dormie would get zapped by sentry bot - dormie would run off lot - dormie would walk back to their room (I don't think I ever saw her enter it!) - dormie would decide to steal gnome...  rince and repeat.

At one stage when I went back to my sims window (I also tend to read forums a lot while playing), I noticed the pop up asking me what gender I would like my new dormie to be (thanks to twojeffs gender controller).  My first assumption was that this particular dormie was dead...  search lot and locate no grave/urn.  I got a sim to go to the secret society and attempt to resurrect her - I got the message about not knowing any dead sims...  check again with a sim who had definitely met her - same message.

On returning to the dorm, I finally checked the phone lists - the dormie is still alive - she just decided to move out, it seems - what gives?  Anyone seen this before?

The reason this happens is that when a Sentry Bot zaps a sim, the sim flees the lot as part of "being zapped", and is deinstantiated entirely. This causes the dormie to no longer live there since it has been deleted. The dorm controller then attempts to find a dormie to re-fill the vacancy. Since there's really nothing wrong with that dormie, it will be chosen again, move back in.....rinse, repeat. This process would occur transparently to you if not for you having the Jeffistani controller, which causes it to ask you.

most of the time she would just walk back in to her dorm room - it was only the once that I was asked.  there is another dormie on the lot who seems to have taken up compulsive gnome theft...  perhaps I should switch my view angle to see their doors to get a better idea of what's going on

EDIT:  After careful observation - the sentrybot zaps cause the dormie to run away - they are not causing the door to be unclaimed...   perhaps she'd just had enough zaps and gave up?

Actually I had that happen just the other day. I was playing a dorm with 1 playable sims & 7 dormies. About halfway through Junior year one of the dormies waved goodbye to everyone & left. The i got the message that she was moving out.

I have never had that happen before OFB. I don't have any bots or anything like that. She just decided to move out.

Very weird!

Jane

Yea, that is weird!  I've never gotten a move-out message about a dormie, even in the cases where he/she has moved out to the main neighborhood to move in with or marry a playable Sim.  There's just an empty dorm room the next time I go to the dorm, which is soon filled by another dormie.

I have had sims just sort of disappear from a dorm, though, even without any robots on the lot.  And they're not dead -- I'll see the dormie on a walk-by, or the dormie will move into a previously unoccupied dorm when a new playable moves in. Guess they just have enough of their current dorm and decide to move on. :)

did this ever happen pre-OFB, Jsalemi?

I have my suspicions over the cause, especially since it only happened after OFB was installed.

I don't recall if it happened pre-OFB, but I don't think it did.  So it may be OFB-related.

I had a dorm where it happened every single hour, around the clock. One dormie would move out, and another would move in. They all complained that they were in fun failiure, so I thought that was why they did that. After moving to another dorm, the problem went away.

Eh, who cares if they move in and out?

Really -- unless there's the usually very remote chance that one of the dormies is spouse material for a playable, the rotating cast of dormies doesn't make a difference one way or the other.  They're all just fodder for whatever 'life' (and 'nouniprotect' :)) throw at them.  And even if a potential mate moves out, there's always the phone to keep the relationship building and going until the playable graduates.

seems to me that potential mates being dormies is not a good thing!

It's easier to maintain relationships (and their life) if they are not in the dorm - and seeings if you want them to actually graduate you need to play them through, and the only way to get them to move in and be playable is to be in a private residence...  or you can cheat...

I cheat -- I use TJ's college adjuster to fix ex-dormies after they move in with my playable.  Doesn't happen often in my game, since my criteria is that the dormie must have 3 lightning bolts with the playable to be considered at all.  So far, there's only been three dormie spouses in my game, out of the 30-40 or so marriages spread out over 3 generations. I generally prefer to keep the coupling between playables, but sometimes those 3 bolts just strike in the oddest places.

I wouldn't say "oddest" places given that depending on astrological sign (some signs have greater compatibility than others), 3 bolt matches often fall from the sky. Pisces is particularly prone to 3 bolt matches, given that they have mutual-level compatibility with 2 other signs: Scorpio and Gemini, which are also signs of similar basic personality, not to mention generally desirable signs (high active!). Aquarius/Capricorn and Aries/Taurus also tend to have high bolt matches, but they not quite the same level of personality similarity. Also, when it comes to dormies, the basic (dormies and townies never vary from the archetype) Aquarius, Capricorn, and Taurus, are lazy, which means they are bad to have (and cannot be encouraged since they have no family). All in all, the astrology with aspiration is the strongest determinant of initial bolt compatibility (not necessarily the same as ACTUAL compatibility!). Matching astrology + identical aspiration = nearly automatic 3 bolts. The turn-on/turn-off system is actually a weak factor and has little or no effect.

AHA!  That explains why the son of a CAS/townie couple has 3 bolts with at least 4 different women -- he's a Pisces. He's married to Angela Pleasant, a 3-bolter from the day he met her at Uni. He's a Knowledge sim and he and Angela have 2 kids with a third on the way, yet he keeps getting wants to play with or dance with the other three women, even though two of them are married. He's the only one in my game with more than one 3-bolt (and most of the playables don't even get one), and it's possible he may also be the only Pisces adult. For some reason I don't choose Pisces the rare times I use CAS (don't really know why, I just tend not to use it), so it would have to happen as a result of a birth.  I'll have to check the kids and toddlers coming up to see if any of them ended up Pisces.

Ah, Pisces is one of my favorite signs!  They're nice, sort of neat and pretty active.  I don't really care much if they're super playful or super outgoing (unless they're a popularity sim then outgoing is a must!).  It's a good thing I don't make a lot of sims because I want to turn them all into Pisces. LOL

Pisces are most excellent matches with Sagittarians in addition to their supposedly most compatible signs.

Nice. Ugh. That is probably one of their primary drawbacks. Nice sims engage in all manner of simpering, wussy behaviors.

Sagittarii are attracted to Pisces, but the effect is not mutual, so it's not quite an auto 3-bolt match. Both are active signs as well, so may share many similar personality attributes. Sagittarii also make excellent Romance sims, since nobody hates them.

If you want to see a match made in Hell, see Scorpio/Libra: They hate each other, and the feeling is very much mutual. This almost seems realistic, if you've ever witnessed me and Queen arguing back in the rentech.com days.

Aquarius/Scorpio is also very much a no-go.