More Awesome Than You!

(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/terror/green.gif)
(http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/zip.gif)customerselector.zip (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/ofb/obsolete/customerselector.zip)

Recommended:
Business Runs You! (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=3884.0)
No Playable Shoppers (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=3419.0)

Customer Selector for TS2OFBp1-p2
Made by: Flying Fish Systems (J. M. Pescado & Doctor Boris)

Special Thanks To:
BlueSoup Fat Head
Hobbsee the Scrawny Pencil Neck

Congratulations to: Draklixa!

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

FEATURES:
For ages, OFB businesses have been hampered by one thing: The inability to
target your business at a specific clientele without random idiots showing up
who don't fit the profile you want. With this shiny gray box, there are now
dozens of configurations to choose from!

For optimal results, it works best with the new version of noplayableshoppers,
and the new Business Controller. It will function alone, but noplayableshoppers
causes the normal spawner to yield to the Customer Selecter rather than having
to fight. Although if you don't have it, the Customer Selector is prepared to
do battle against it.

SHIFT-Click while in debug mode gives an option to reset all options to
default.

How to use it:
Buy the controller block (small gray box in Misc/Misc for §1) and place on lot. 

There are three choices for each option - accept, reject and override.
Depending on the option, they're either set at accept or reject by default. You
can override the option, but this will override it for other selections, too.
For example, if you have it set to reject playable Sims, and accept male Sims,
it will override the playable Sims option if you override the male Sims
selection.

You can make blocks that configure customer interest settings as well,
targetting Sims who are looking for something specific like Entertainment or a
restaurant. Timepiece - Another gray box in the Misc/Misc catalog for §30, which
turns into an alarm clock when placed.

You can attach it to one of the gray blocks and cause it to load a different
policy at a specific hour. For optimal results, you should place two clocks per
box, one to change it at a specific hour and one to change it back.  This is
helpful if you have a club that you want to be frequented by vampires at night,
but regular Sims during daylight hours.  The blocks are conveniently numbered
with ID numbers so you can attach the clock to a specific block.

There are import and export settings on the clock - import copies your current
settings of that particular block onto the clock, saving them so you can order
the clock to apply it at a specific hour.  Export applies those settings back
to the block right now so you can edit them and reimport them, or just because.

Multiple controller block to create 'OR' groupings. If, for example, you want
gay vampires or male robots, you can create one block with permissions for gay
vampires, and another block for male robots.  That way these two specific
groups show up and you don't have to override one or the other.
Simply place more than one controller.

And remember: BlueSoup has a fat head and Hobbsee has a scrawny pencil neck.

COMPATIBILITY:
Compatible with all FFS hacks. Tested for TS2OFBp1 - TS2OFBp2.

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

WARNING:
Do not open, crush, dispose of in fire, put in backwards, short-circuit, or mix
with non-awesome hacks - may explode, leak, or catch fire, resulting in injury
and/or death.

You suck; Pes

I'm not knocking your work, but the title!!!????

Have you done a search for "scrawny pencil neck" on Google lately? I told Hobbsee I would. And I've almost pushed it to #1...

No, I haven't...I'm still trying to figure out why this is such a joke to you :-\ 

Aaaah...it's officially released! Nice!
*grabs and gets ready for extensive test-drive tonight.

Are you saying that if I put noplayableshoppers into my game (which I don't have because I want playable shoppers), with this mod I can configure it so I can still have playable shoppers? 

Oh, and no.3 on Google is good going.  Did you pay them?

You can still have playable shoppers with noplayableshoppers installed -- you just get to control who they are. You need the money order object (it's in the directors cut, and most likely the hack directory) -- just place it in the inventory of the sims you want to let still show up in businesses on their own, and they'll shop normally.  That way, your sims who have money can still shop for stupid stuff, while the ones that are barely scraping by aren't out there trying to spend all their money on lawn chairs or stereos. :)

It's #2 on google.uk

And you were right, this really is shiny!

Right. If you put it in your game, you can not only configure it so playables will show up, but configure it so they ONLY show up on specific businesses AND only show up in businesses that make sense for them to be at. You can do without it, but then you might occasionally get the random idiot who fails to be properly interdicted. Especially if you don't also have Business Runs You on the lot, which serves as a stabilization timepiece.

Nope. It's just that "scrawny pencil neck" is not that common of a result, so if I say it often enough, it'll make it in. Same way I've all but taken over all results for "Fat Obstreperous Jerk". Haven't you ever heard the saying that anything repeated often enough becomes truth? Nowhere is it more true than Internet search engines.

Hmm, now I'm a mite confused -- are you saying that this overrides the money order object?  So that if I set this to allow playables, any playables will show up regardless of if they have the MO in the inventory or not?  Or will that still controll which playables this one allows?

The installation of this new shiny supercedes all the previous rules of the standard way: Those rules still apply if this object is not present, but once this object is installed, all that goes out the window. What happens if you have No Playables in with this on the lot is that if the presence of this controller is detected, No Playables will shut off ALL of the normal Community Lot Populator's choices entirely, preventing those sims from being spawned. Without it, the two will fight, the Customer Selector attempting to swat any attempts by the Maxis populator to generate customers and substitute its own. It can handle doing this, but depending on your system, the outcome of the titanic battle being waged in the background may slow down your game slightly.

Ah, gotcha.  So it's best to keep both this and noplayables in, and just use this on lots like a restaurant or bar where I want everyone to mix and mingle.

Yes, and you can even design bars for specific crowds of people. Although thus far there are no ways of classifying sims as bikers or not-bikers, so you can't make a bar frequented by bikers, you CAN designate gay bars, singles bars, etc.

Very cool - thank you! 

Well, even with all the recommended hacks installed, there's still a notable lag whenever a new customer shows up. Nothing that cripples gameplay, but it gets a bit annoying at a level 10 business. Methinks 1GB of RAM and an o/c-ed Northwood @ 2.6GHz is not enough for the game anymore...

The slight hiccup when a new customer appears is due to loading his skinfiles and whatnot. This is pretty much unavoidable, and always happens anytime someone new arrives. Without the recommended hacks, though, this would happen more often than not when the regular stupid Lot Populator summons some random idiot, who then is banished, generally before you even see him appear, but all the chugging will still occur.

This is truly Awesome.  I can now have my Romance sims set up a brothel in their home for all the neighborhood Romance sims, playable and nonplayable, without having to put a money order in all the Romance sims' inventories, and thus have them shopping at the stores as well.  I'm not quite clear though on what the difference between configuring the controller to accept or reject a certain type of sim and choosing override?

The rules, in order priority:
1. A sim who matches any group set for Override will appear.
2. A sim which matches any group set for Deny will not appear.
3. Anyone not covered by the above will appear.

Simple? Now if you have MULTIPLE control blocks, then any sim that would appear if any one of the control blocks was used alone will appear.

What does it consider as being attached?

Currently, my controller on this one lot is set to accept Romance and Pleasure sims but reject all others.  It is set to accept playables and nonplayables.  If I were to set Override on Romance and deny on playables, then the Override would take precedence, right?  Even if deny was set for playables, any Romance sim, playable or not would be allowed.  Is this correct?

Right. Any romance sim, regardless of anything else, would appear. You may, in fact, not wish to use this setting. In practical implementation, I've found that this setting is really not-so-good as of the OR-block system, and may be removed in the future. You'd be better off setting two blocks.

Actually, it was a hypothetical question.  I am actually using the settings to accept all families and all Romance and Pleasure sims.  I don't have any overrides.  It seems to be working quite well.  I was just trying to think of a situation where I would use an override, but it doesn't seem very often. 

How does this work with TwoJeffs' visitor controller?

I can't think of any really good one, either, ever since we devised the multi-block idea. That's why it's being classified as a deprecated feature and will probably be discontinued in the next version, since it uses up a massive amount of bit and string space to map a trinary optionset onto a binary storage system.

I have to say that I am totally and utterly confused.  I think the only way I am going to understand this is to try it out.  From what I can understand from noplayableshoppers, if I put a money order on the business lot, any playable can visit, but if I don't put one on the business lot, only playables with them in their inventory can visit?  And if there is no money order on the lot and no playables have them in their inventories, they can still visit if you designate them to do so?

Presumably it will only work on a residential lot if it's designated as a home business?  I was just thinking it would come in handy for Romance Sims if their partner was at work and they wanted to ensure that all passers-by were of similiar persuasion ...  I don't like creating home businesses anymore because of the problem with guests just disappearing as soon as they're greeted.  It makes it impossible to play the lot normally when the business is closed and it's VERY annoying.  The only ones who stay are those brought back from work and even they start complaining after a while. 

OK, I've used it now and I have to say that it's very awesome.  Works a treat.  Has got me all excited about going to my businesses again (well, sort of - well, not really, it's still boring, but it makes it easier to bear).

I think I have a problem with this hack : my sims cannot go to owned business using the customer selector.
The owner can go to his own business and everything works fine (the right customers show up etc...)
But when playing another family my sims can only go to non-owned community lot or owned business without the customer selector on it. If I try to go to an owned community lot with a customer selector on it, either by car or by taxi, the loading screen for the lot goes on for ever : no error (even with debugging mode turn on) but the hourglass turns and turns and turns. I can hear noises from the lot (door, money sound, voices from sims) the computer does not freeze but the loading never stops.
I have not tested different settings for the customer selector yet, as i have to manually terminate the game each time, but I will eventually.
I have all expansions except christmas, everything patched...
Pioupiou

I'm certain this is unrelated, because I have no problems visiting. You're probably just impatient.

I am in awe at the awesomeness of this hack, but I have a slight concern. Can we use this on residential non-business lots to control walkbys, and if so, will it work properly with the Local Walkby hack?

All FFS hacks work together, but no, localwalkby and non-business residentials are unrelated. This item does not do anything interesting on a not-business.

what would the difference be between using this with the business controller, and without it?

The business controller acts as a stabilizing timepiece. Having Noplayableshoppers installed will make this feature unnecessary.

okay, thank you.

Does this hack allow selecting customers based on age group?

Yes.

Thanks for the info :)

You're welcome.  :)

Thanks for this one, JMP. :) Should be most useful in my 'Hood. :)

Sorry for the verbosity in your Local Walkbys thread though.  :-[

I have a request: I'd like a new setting to block customers that already have all 5 customer loyalty stars.

Yes, that is counter-intuitive.  I need new blood to advance to Business Level 10, and my already-loyal customers are chewing up all my customer slots at the spa even when I set the price on the ticket machine to ludicrous.  They are very dedicated.  It must be the snapdragons.

Ban them individually with TJ's visitor controller whenever they pop up, after each one is banned they won't reappear on that lot until you unban them.

The customer time controller is a neat way to ensure there are certain times when no new customers will appear (when you want to wind the business down for the day and send your tired shop owner home, for example) and it makes it easier to plan the business around what labour you have available.  Good stuff.

This version discontinued in favor of v2.0.