More Awesome Than You!

Hi, I'm Geneva,

I have no idea if this is the right area of the forum for this, so I just took a random stab.

Recently I had a computer meltdown and had to do a complete system recovery.  I lost EVERYTHING.  But hey, you live, you learn, you resist the urge to hurl the computer at passing traffic, you have a cup of tea.

Anyhoo I had to start all over again with my Sims 2 downloads - a task that, with a piddly little 56k dial up, was not going to be fun.  A 3MB download can take 45 mins - that is if it doesn't give up halfway through.  Don't even get me started on the Maxis patches.  So while refinding all my favourite hacks at MTS2 I was led here.  This place is great!  I thought of posting my requests there but I figured as you guys would be most likely to do the work I might as well go straight to the source.

So, my gripes and wants...

1) The insessant need to play SSX3!  Even with the fun metre maxed out they HAVE to play that damn game!  Normally I don't mind if they want a fun diversion, but if I can't catch the Sim before they sit down it takes a good 15 Sim minutes to cancel the action - this is extremely annoying if they're already late for work or Uni.  A no autonomous SSX3 hack please.

2)  The even more insessant need to take out the trash.  I left a 4-Sim household alone with regard to the trash obsession for one day, just to see how often they'd do it.  The trash was taken out nine times over a 16 hour period.  There was no trash to take out!  And if you don't realise they're doing it and send them on another task - you know where the trash goes.  I need a hack that will stop this, but will not affect the maid.

3)  One of the main reasons I came here was to get the coffee cup hack.  I can't find it.  I have the punch cup hack, is this the same?.  If not, please direct me to the thread.

My requests may already be here (I have trawled through all lists and indexes) so please point me to the threads I have missed. 

I have a couple of other questions but I'll post them in a different thread.

Cheers,
Geneva

3>  A quick search lead me to his director's cut.  Go to that thread (in the armory) and load from there.  His other stuff there comes highly recommended also.

1>  Even if you removed the obsession with SSX3, they'd get obsessed with something else annoying when you weren't watching them.  Making them do productive things with their free time requires either proactive effort, or a hack that points them at productive things.  Your best bet is to probably use hacks that specifically point them at useful things, rather than trying to stomp every annoying behavior one at a time.

2>  Uhm, same idea as 1 I think.  I don't know exactly how the advertising is weighted for taking out the trash, as mine usually find something else to do.  Probably because I don't play with too many super-neat sims, though.

I suggest abusing purloined community-lot trashcans stuffed into your inventory and hauled home from a community lot. They never need to, and can't be, emptied.

The macrotastics have a lot of useful functions, such as skillinating, procrastinating, and power idle. They take some of the useless ideas of your simmies right out of their pixel heads. You'll find that in JM's mod section.

Squinge at the InSim site has a snootful of noAutonomous mods, the link for the InSim site is on the MTS2 homepage, at the bottom somewhere.

Monique at MTS2 also has lots of noAutonomous mods, just make a search for Monique over there.

For goodies that are not necessarily in the JMian mod forum, there's the director's cut. But don't forget to go 'shopping' in the TJ and CrammyBoy mod forums, lots of goodies there too ;)

Edited: to add another cool site. A lot of Inge's stuff is available at Nectere's site, The Laden Swallow.

http://www.nectere.net/smf/index.php

In answer to question 3: click here (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/ofb/hacks/coffeecuphack.zip).

There's definitely a no SSX3 hack, I think it's Squinge's.  I don't have it because mine hardly ever play it and most of them never do.  In fact, now I come to think of it I think Monique's computers have something that stops autonomous play.  The only time I see it is when I've forgotten to replace the normal ones, I think.  Yes, try Monique's pc's, there's oodles of good stuff on those.

Come to think of it, you're right, Ancient. I use Monique's computers too, and the only autonomous thing they do on it is chat. Which is fine with me.

I don't think I have a single sims household without one of Monique's computers :D   I use them mainly for study and clothes shopping though.

I use a hack made by Inge a while back that keeps sims from playing games on the PC autonomously.

Clothes shopping?

Monique's computer does so many different things that I've been afraid to try it. Though if it allowed sims to autonomously clothes-shop, that'd be way too cool to pass up.

And I already have a no-autonomous-SSX hack installed, so I don't need it for that.

Isn't it strange that a computer game company would create an imaginary world for us to play in where:

a) The computer comes with only one game.
b) The game it comes with isn't the one you're actually playing (me, I'd love to see my sims playing The Sims!).
c) Also the pre-installed game is only available for consoles in real life.
d) You can't buy any other games for your computer.

You can buy the Urbz for the PC....

Yea, you can -- there's a game rack that can be on community lots where you can buy two other games for the computer. May not have been part of the base game (don't know, since I never played only the base game), but it's there at least since NL.

D'oh! Shows you how much time I spend shopping on community lots. The last time I tried was when I went hunting in the University shops for those musical instruments my YA sims kept demanding. (D'oh! again.)

Now I'd have definitely stumbled across this is if the games were available on Simazon.com...

Actually, I think there's an option on Monique's computer to buy them there. I've never used her computers for that (only clothes, gadgets and groceries), but it would surprise me if that's not there. :)

If they don't obsess with that it will be something else.  Next hack you'll be wanting is to stop them obsessing on that stupid game - Myshuno.   When fortune sims want a game costing more than 700(?) it's the only choice in my game.  I guess I need a more expensive chess board!  Is there one around?
DJsims has hacks for Myshuno and pinball - on page 4  I've had the Myshuno one in my game for ever with no problems.
http://www.djssims.com/index.php?skip=30&category=10

It's a pet peeve of mine that creators make items that don't cost nearly enough for Fortune Sims to be happy with them. I've had to change a whole bunch of prices in SimPE; otherwise, my poor Sims have better-decorated houses than my rich Sims :P.

I'm starting to think the problem is that they haven't incorporated any sort of diminishing returns on fun or advertisements of objects.  If the game had the advertisement of an object to a particular sim decrease the more the sim used it, then the sims would move on to something else, or to other parts of the house/business.

It would also make the new object that you drop in the most interesting thing around - causing the whole family to want to use it (nothing annoys me more than purchasing a cool new expensive widget for the family only to have them never touch it because they can't tear themselves away from shuffling cards alone for the millionth straight hour.)

Hmmm, depreciating attraction levels in conjunction with depreciated values....

I like it, I like it a lot. Quite possibly the brightest idea I have heard in a while.

ditto!

I dunno... the glitch that made the piano only fun the first few times used annoyed me to pieces. If the things I want them to do weren't fun anymore, I think I'd have a problem with it. 'course I wouldn't mind for any of the stuff I don't want them to do or even don't mind if they do sometimes (myshuno, swings, card table), but I need them to enjoy anything they work on (pool, dancing, all the creativity stuff).

Well since monetary depreciation value doesnt go all the way down to 0, then neither should the attraction. But what I meant was not that it would no longer hold any fun value, but that the attraction values would depreciate in conjunction with the monetary value. You could still make them do it, and they would still gain the same fun vaule, but left to their own devices they would not be as drawn to it or seek to use the item as they did when it was brand new.

That logic would only make sense for fun objects, though. Consider, for instance, my comfy chair. I'm not less drawn to the comfy chair because it's an old comfy chair. In fact, I like it MORE because it's MY COMFY CHAIR. It has the imprint of my butt firmly pressed into it, which makes it ideally suited for hosting my butt, compared to a new chair which lacks this. Similarly, I am not more inclined to pee in the new terlet vs. the old one, considering them both to be roughly equivalent, or perhaps with a slight favoritism towards the familiar, butt-imprinted terlet.

True, the Monique computer can be scary, but I like the fact that it's not a global mod. Like Inge, I use it mostly for the express grocery delivery, clothes shopping, and business stuff studies. The sim also has the opportunity to write articles and get paid for them.

As soon as the skill of logic is maxed out, they can write articles, get paid for it, and also get advancement in the cash register skill. I like that.
Maxed out charisma - write article, get paid for it (around 700 to 800 simoleons), and get advancement in the sales skill.
Maxed out body - write article, get paid for it, and get advancement in the stocking skill.

There are a few more, but I can't remember which goes with what right now. For studying, I use the book-case. I'm pretty sure it's Inge's book case, but don't quote me on that.

I am more or less dependent on the express grocery delivery. I have huge problems with the delivery person; problems to the point of ruining the game play for me. The express delivery option gives me the right amount of food, and it's teleported right to the sim. And why not? You still get charged for it, right down to the delivery fee, you just circumvent the stupid delivery issues.

Another thing I like is the Career feature. You can select any job your sim wants. I mean, come on. When you look at any job related internet site, there are employment opportunities galore, pages and pages of them. Same goes for newpapers. When I open the Sun or the Post, they even have a whole section devoted to employment.

So don't be apprehensive. It's not a global mod. Get it and play around with it, it's fun :D

Yes, I think only to fun, maybe to food as well - If you eat pork chops for every meal, soon you should get tired of them and your health will suffer.  Comfort and bathroom would never depreciate - in fact comfort may appreciate - you get used to your chair and your chair form fits to you.

You're strange. I've been eating raw meat my entire life, and I've never gotten tired of it. It's just food. I don't even really like food that much.

Yes fun objects only.

Incidently I can eat the same food every single day and I never get tired of it. When my daughter was gone for the summer I saved a boatload of money by eating the same thing, day in and day out. I am a creature of habit when it comes to comfort and food - new gadgets to play with - not so much, everyone likes new toys, key word being new or new to me.

There are a few object hacks on Sims Wardrobe that you might like.  One to take care of your garbage problem is located in the Objects-Home Life Improvements-Home Incinerator.  Its kind of ugly, but I noticed that my sims aren't taking out the garbage constantly.  I hope this isn't a non-awesome hack.  I really like it.

Eating the same foods all the time can actually be good for you, if you're not missing anything you actually need, because your intestinal balance will adapt to optimize your ability to digest that food. Unless you are malnourished, therefore, it is actually GOOD to eat the same things all the time. Switching your diet invariably results in gastrointestinal disturbance ranging from flatulence to outright indigestion and worse.

Hi all,

Sorry I took so long to get back to you but my ISP went belly up this week.  Now I have to remember all the sites I'm a member of and change my details.  But hey, on the bright side I get to start over with a spam-free inbox.  I think I was a record holder at one time - 2 weeks of neglect and my inbox had 233 spam emails.  Won't miss that.

Right, I got Monique's computer but it played havoc with my game.  It took me ages to figure out what exactly was making my Sims have spack-attacks but I'm definite it was the computer.  I came up with a different solution.  I just move the chair from the desk.  Thanks to your less whiney patch I don't have to put up with a 20 minute hissy-fit when they realise they can't play.  Also I have Christian Love's computer and I really like the features of it.

Most of your solutions appear to require that I have Nightlife installed.  I own it, but have not installed it yet.  With all my 'puter crashes and recoveries I still haven't successfully got a single Sim through a complete life cycle yet.  I wan't to 'finish' Uni before moving on. The other problem is I have no idea if my custom content is compatible.  If it works for Uni - will it work for NL?  I plan to download the entire NL hacks package for when the time comes but that massive, uncatagorised downloads folder is just too damn daunting to have to pick through.

Thanks for all the advice,

Cheers,
Geneva

Usually, the only problems you will have with downloads is backwards compatability: if you uninstall Uni, there will be problems, but installing a new ep shouldn't give you problems with your average cc.  The only worry is hacks, hacks do need to be updated with each EP, so definitely update those. 
As for spam, 233 mails in two weeks is nothing, with my Yahoo account, I get between 500 and 1000 a day!  I once logged in after just a few days and had over 5200.   :o  Thank god spam doesn't count towards total storage!!

SpaceDoll,

Thanks for the tip.  I just have no idea what hacks came from where.  I miss the old Sims 1 set up with download subfolders.  At least then I'd have a place to start.

5200??!!! Holy crap!  I bow to the reigning record holder!  Listen, I'm thinking it would be worth the hassle of mass-notification to change your email address.  Do you have to go through them all and delete them manually or do you have a spam buster?  My old ISP's email service had no discernable features of any kind, so I'd have to delete each one by hand. 

If there's one thing I've learned about the world of cyberspace - everyone has erectile dysfunction.

Cheers,
Geneva

You can still use subfolders in Sims 2.  If you have NL or later, you can subfolder anything in the Downloads folder.  With TS2 and Uni, you couldn't subfolder skins and a few other things, which I've forgotten now.  :(

Yahoo mail is very popular and therefore is one of the bigger targets for spam.  They do have a spam folder that catches most things.  As for how well it works, it seemed to work pretty well the last time I used Yahoo mail, but that was quite a while back.

You couldn't put any bodyshop items in any folders before Nightlife. You could put anything else in folders though.

I've had thousands in my Spam folder too. 

*shrug* It works fairly well. Occasionally, things will sneak through and I'll have to go back in and tell Yahoo that it's Spam, and of course sometimes things don't make it to my inbox and I have to go digging in the folder for it, but for the most part, very little real Spam makes it into my inbox.  And I use my yahoo address on all the boards I belong to, on-line shops, etc. as the main place for my Spam to go when they sell my name or a bot comes by and snatches it.

Now if I could just get my MIL to stop sending me those bleeping forwards to my main email account.  >:( I'm picking up some nice porn spam there, and I know exactly how they got my address, damn her, since I never use it for anything other than mail to/from our parents, and my husband and no one else sends out forwards!!!!