More Awesome Than You!

Is there a hack that makes cars break? If not, I want one! I'm speaking from complete, utter ignorance here, but perhaps it could use similar code to that which controls other breakable items, and give mechanical points for fixing them? However, there should be a high chance that even someone with maxed mechanical can't effect a repair (maybe 20%).

 Of course, in a perfect game instead of calling the repairman for cars, the sim would call a tow truck ($50 fee). The car would be gone for at least 24 hrs, the cost of the repair would be random--I'm thinking a d10, with the range from $100 to $1000--and once the depreciation on the car equaled the repair cost, the car is totaled and the sim gets an unhappy memory instead of his car back.

what a great idear! WHY didnt maxis include this in the 1st place?

DJS Sims has a hack which adds a charge to driving a car: http://www.djssims.com/index.php?category=10

Probably because there's no animation for actually popping the hood and fixing the car. Because I'll be damned if I'm paying some bloodsucking thieves money to do something I could do myself for less than a tenth the cost in parts.

Cars have limited animations anyway. The burglar steals a car by putting it in his sack.. not by driving away with it.

he puts it in his ....... ??? You ARE joking, right? Cos that is just bloody silly!!!

I've got an actual car that lets you do things like mend it for mechanical points and go on courses and stuff, but it only applies to that one car.  Trouble is, it's doctored so that the points are gained at about 4 times the normal rate so I never use it.  Skill points are easy enough to gain as it is, without making them ludicrously easy.  The only reason I keep it is because it's ridiculously cheap, but gives very high comfort and fun levels, so it's handy for Sims who can't afford a more expensive car. 

Well, can't you use an animation of a sim laying on their back? Like for passing out and crawling on the obstacle course.

I was going to torture your sim for making such a suggestion, but I noticed there isn't a sim-Jelenedra. Why not?

Because I have no internets.

I actually made one for upload, but my computer blorfed. Remember? Pointing and Laughing at me? Or has the early on-set alzheimers taken hold?

Ancient , Where did you get that car from ? It sounds prefect for my new Boy sim

I'm using this but I'm trying to figure out how to adjust it so that is doesn't charge 30simol. every time your sim gets in the car, maybe just 5simol. It charges when you leave the lot to go to a comm lot and when you leave the comm lot to go back home. So if your sim does alot of traveling that can add up per day.

Why use the hack at all then? The point was to make the experience of driving more realistic. In a sim economy, $30 seems fair, given they don't have repair, use or maintenance costs.

More realistic would be to offer another pie menu option that uses the same routine as "Install Alarm"--"Go Buy Gas" (no animation required, but a buttload of hacking, I fear). It would  work like the refrigerator, lowering the level for each trip (1 tick for community, 2 for work, 3 for a trip downtown and to the home community from uni lots) so that the greater distances are recognized.

Because to me $30 seems a little steep every time they get in the car and leave a lot for anything.

Uh..I repeat: why use it? That's the glorious thing about soi disant "hacks"...unlike core game elements, if you decide you don't care for the effect, you can remove it, or ask the creator how to tweak it.

Hrm... I stuck it in my game, but I haven't played yet. Maybe someone should suggest to Josh that it Not charge if you want to go home. Especially since, if you purchase stuff while you are on a comm lot, it seems like you could potentially have your sim stranded. I mean, I wonder what happens if you can't afford to go home. Hee. That could bring up some interesting scenarios, where your sim would have to busk or freestyle to make enough loot just to go home. :D

And you could edit the value with SimPE. I think line 10 of BHAV 0x2094 'Sub - Trans To Drive' has the value hardcoded. The hex value for 30 is 1E. Just change that value to whatever you want.

You should also probably change the test value in BHAV 0x20D7 'Sub - Can I Drive Anywhere?' which determines if the driving options show up depending on whether or not your sim has at least 30$ on line 5:

Alter Budget (test if Literal 0x001E multiplied by 1 may be subtracted as misc expense)

Again, just change the 1E value to whatever you want. Make sure to use the hex value.

Ste

Now THAT would be funny! Pity the panhandle option is only available in psychotic mode and not selectable.

I pointed out that $30 seems outlandish. My *TANK* doesn't even consume that much fuel!

My tank takes close to 30 bucks to fill it up, but that is once every two weeks, not everytime I get in the car. =p

LOL! I have never bought a $300 t-shirt in my life either...and never will. OTOH, I *WISH* I earned enough in a day to cover all my bills for three, or could buy a reliable car for less than $1000! Sim-nesian Economics are not exactly driven by market forces.

I filled my tank this morning. (first time in two weeks, because I car-pool and rarely let it get near "E", but still...) Grand total for the fill: $50.07.

I live in Oklahoma, we have our own drills so our gas as of right now is $2.58 a gallon.

Gas is about $2.90 here, and has been for quite a while. The tank in my little Honda Civic takes nearly $30 to fill up from empty. Good thing I'll be getting a Hybrid soon.

Here it's $2.74 and I was feeling lucky because this time last week gas was $3.04!

We haven't broken $3 a gallon, YET, but we came close a few weeks ago.

I thought when we got cars (for the sims) adults would have a option of teaching teens how to drive.  Then the car could come back all mangled at random and the sim would have to pay to fix it. 

* Theo pays up to 1.5 €/liter = 7.39 $/gallon *
Luckily, my commute distances are short  ;D


That would be an insteresting merge between The Sims and Grand Theft Auto :D
What could be more fun than having a deranged sim driving over Mrs. Crumplebottom?

Getting to do it over and over and over again?

 :D...didn't think of that, I may test that case with some sim I don't like.

I've been told several times that §30 was too much, but hey, to me it seems fair, and if you want to change it, just follow the instructions syberspunk posted. :)

That is an interesting point, I didn't think at the time of what would happen if you were stuck downtown because you spent too much on the meal or whatever. I'll add to the test so that if you are on a non-residential lot you have the ability to leave anyhow, and post an update probably this weekend when I try to play catchup with all the other days of the advent calendar I've missed so far because of various reasons, heh. :)

Hey Josh :) Cool beans. Lookin forward to the update.

As unrealistic as the amount may be, as Josh points out, most sims who can afford to own cars in the first place have like a bajillion simoleons anyway. So it's not like they are really hurtin for loot.

Plus, as the OP points out, since cars don't require any kind of maintenance and never get damaged or what not, it seems to be a decent balance. It may not be totally realistic, but then again, there are many aspects of the game that aren't realistic.

I think there should be a hack to charge for taxis. A flat fee would make sense, and maybe something like 30 simoleons per sim riding in the car. It would be neat to charge for going to a comm lot from home or from another comm lot. But maybe no charge for going back home, to prevent the similar situation of sims potentially being stranded. Something like a taxisactuallycostmoneyfix. Any takers? *hint*hint* Hee. ;D

Ste

Actually, I was toying with the idea of that too, and really it probably makes more sense than charging for the regular cars (though I still will charge for the regular cars in my own game. :P ) I'll take a look at it and see if I can do it without making things explode. :)

IIRC, the charge for going downtown in TS1 was 50 simoleons.  And if you went from there to another community lot you were charged another 50.  But I don't think you were charged for returning home.  At least with the Hot Date EP.  I didn't really play with Unleashed much, so I don't know if there was a charge for the community bus (I had an old computer at the time, and all previous EPs plus Unleashed was just one EP too many for TS1 to run at a decent speed).

IIRC, the transportation cost in Vacation was $500. They were round trip tickets, though.

Yes, but that sounds like a REASONABLE price for a vacation to bumfuck nowhere. $30 for a 3 block drive is outright ludicrous. My *TANK* doesn't cost that much to operate!

Yes, but you live in gas-guzzling America.
You yanks pay less per gallon than the civilized world does per liter :/

Thanks jfade for looking into it. I do like having the cars *not* be maintenance free.

Charging $50 PER SIM is a bit much. Real taxis don't even do that.

Yeah, I was thinking about that. Per sim probably isn't realistic, since Taxis don't really charge per person, typically just by length of travel. I was just thinking that, since the game doesn't really measure distance travelled between lots, I thought it would be one way to make up for that. I didn't remember if TS1 charged for taxis and how much it was. Regardless, I don't think it should be free. I'm surprised Pescado didn't already do this, considering his various bills are more realistic and things are more expensive type hacks.

Ste

Yeah, I probably won't do a per person type of thing for the taxi, or if I did it would be reasonable, like 10 or 15 simoleans per person. I haven't had the chance to look into it yet, but I will probably either this weekend or sometime after I get this advent calendar done and over with. :)

I'm pretty sure it's not $30 even by your prices. What are your gas prices per liter now?

In Canada, well Nova Scotia, where I'm from, gas prices went up to 1.22/litre and just went down to 1.08/litre!  :o

Thats falls somewhat short of the order-of-magnitude needed to jack up prices for a 3-block drive to $30 even in a tank.

In the UK it is currently about £4.50/ gallon.. so that's about $8.60. I run my cars on biodiesel, however, which is a lot cheaper. Luckily for me I have no real interest in cars as anything other than a tool for getting me from A to C*. Since I don't care what they look like or sound like I am able to use only cars that are free. As well as the advantages this confers with regard to insurance costs and theft prevention ("Who's gonna steal that piece of crap?", as my friend says) it also imbues me with automatic right of way over anyone with a new or expensive vehicle (other than sociopaths in tanks, that is).

Speaking of tanks, by the way, is yours a lot more Awesome than this one JMP?

http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2006/t90s-russian-tank-p1.php


*Went to B once but didn't like it. The people looked odd and there was a funny smell.

FYI: The new/updated antiwatchout hack conflicts with djssims ownable cars cost money hack.

Yes, I know necromancy is bad m'kay, but I didn't feel like starting a new thread. :P


Ste

This isn't necromancy, it's less than 3 weeks old!

wow, i feel lucky. here in texas (ft. worth at least) gas is back down to $2.26 a gallon.

Yeah, gas prices in OK dropped to $2.15. I so happy.

Blue is right, and other than that, it is a resurrection. That's some valuable information, I was going to look into that mod and most likely download it. I would like it if driving a car would at least cost something (not 30 simoleons, that's too steep), but I don't think I can live without the antiwatchout mod. That particular sim behavior was driving me to distraction, pardon the pun.

Thanks Steven.

Since we're reviving this thread anyway, I'll put in a plug for the OP's idea. I think it would be great if cars occasionally needed repair, like various other household items. Especially if there were an element of danger involved in fixing it oneself...to the car, to the sim, or both.

"Do I fix it myself? Pay someone to fix it? Junk it? Just take a cab?" This might just qualify for the Sid Meier Seal of Approval as an "interesting decision" (something which is too often lacking in this game in the ordinary flow of gameplay, despite its other virtues).

I'm not at all interested in being charged to go anywhere, though. Visiting community lots can be painful enough...the last thing I need is a further disincentive.

Besides, anytime you think your sims ought to have to pay for something that the game doesn't charge for, you can always take the cash from them via familyfunds. Isn't as slick as having it done automatically, of course; but using anything that conflicts with Awesome hacks is even less slick.

Hmmm, I'll have to take a look and see if I can make it compatible with the new anti-watchout hack. I'll let you know either way once I get to look at it. :)

I think it's actually quite easy. What I did for my game was, I exported Pescado's changes, and then I added the one line that you added  (I'm pretty sure it was only one line - the actual budget transation line). I think everything else was pretty much the same. :)

Ste

I think I've mentioned this before, but I'd love to see an option that would work like "install alarm" (along with the economics of buying groceries). After every twelve community trips (including driving the kids to school) six trips to work, four downtown or equally distant trips (Uni or a downtown lot sim going to a home neighborhood, for example) or any combination thereof  it would be necessary to go "fill 'er up!" No animations necessary. And just like an empty refrigerator, the car doesn't work without gas. To prevent the option of simply swapping out cars, each new car could have just enough fuel to go to the pump, and nowhere else.

I people plan on semi-cheating, such as simply swapping, all they have to do is not download any kind of mod that would make this necesarry. But that's not a bad idea. Adding the "drive to Pump" feature, I mean. It shouldn't be too expensive though. Many of mine have the lower level cars, simply because that's all they can afford. If they are hit with high gas-prices, they'd be in trouble :D

Thanks Ste, I'd not checked the HCU recently. I'll have to do the same fix.

LOL! You mean just like real life?!?!

If you swap out cars, though, you *ALREADY* end up paying, probably more, for the fuel.