More Awesome Than You!

I didn't break it but i want to fix it....

There's a vending machine at MTS2... http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=194814

I think it was a great idea... It annoys me to need a restaraunt on every community lot so your sim can stay more than a few hours. Unfortunately, even though the creator asked for testers, s/h/it doesn't want to fix the problems pointed out by the testers.

I have tried "nicely" to bring the problems to the creators attention but s/h/it doesn't care and seems to prefer to wallow in the adulation from the sheep....   :P

I just want the machine to "advertise" that it satisfies hunger... in my opinion that would encourage non-playable sims to use it.... I don't care if the other probs ever get fixed but i want non-playables and playables to use it atonomously (sp?).

I do understand how to open a package in SimPe... that's what the object workshop is for I assume. I tried to look at this object last night to see if i could fix it myself and then realized i'm not even close to being awesome enough to do something like that on my own.

I have no intention of ever posting this object anywhere. I'm not doing this to "steal" s/h/it's object... i just want it to work in my game like I think it should.

Is there a fairly easy fix for this?? if I were to open the package, what would i change to have it advertise hunger at 5 or 6.

Any help would be appreciated and ta

eta: sorry if this is in the wrong place..   ::)

It should be possible, yes.

A rather simple way (don't know how exactly works this object though) should be looking at pie menu resource, and alter autonomy settings (from e.g. 64 to 32) and motives.
A well detailed explaination you'll find in help text included with the editor itself (there's a help button in plugin view).

There's a bit of stuff to read, but it's very helpful, and it may worth a try.

Watch as it then becomes an obsessive-compulsive thing that sims mess with constantly.

Yes, you can fix it.

I've been working on fixing Paco's 1st vending machine, the soda only one.
http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=192803 (http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=192803)
Even though I'm a complete beginner at object editing, I've cleaned up this mess of an object quite a bit.

It used to set Fun to a literal value (why, I don't know), charge $50, and summon a custom item that sets Hunger to a literal value. Yeesh. That's on top of absolutely no advertising for autonomy.

Now, my version only charges $1 and summons a plain old ordinary snack juice. Also, it advertises Hunger, but at such a low level that sims only use it as a last resort to avoid starvation. Thus, no compulsiveness over it.

While I was at it, I retextured it too. I wanted a fictional soda brand on it :P

I noticed this too when players complained that his new vending machine was overwriting his old Coke machine. His answer was for them to go into SimPe and fix it themselves. I see now that he says he "fixed" it but did not test it and if it still doesn't work...too bad.

I don't understand it perfectly, but doesn't each item have to have a separate GUID? And aren't these Guids "assigned" by SimPe so that no 2 people are receiving the same one to keep different objects from overwriting each other? If so, wouldn't there be over 20,000 (number of vending machines downloaded)  new Guids assigned if each person fixed the problem themselves?

Later I posted that clean bots are unable to see the used cans and dispose of them and that my floor was littered with these cans. His answer? "Sims are pigs. We all have to learn to deal with it." I thought buying a clean bot WAS dealing with it.

I also learned that Sims will only place used cans on the floor or a coffee table and that if there is only one coffee table on the lot, they will navigate to it to place the can, no matter how far away it is. Cancelling the interaction is not useful. It is ignored and the Sim continues to seek out the coffee table. Once it is finally placed on a coffee table, THEN the Sim is able to pick it up and place it in a dishwasher, but not before. I'm assuming that the can must have been cloned from a coffee cup, but the Cup Mod available here doesn't affect this item. They will only place used cans on the floor if no coffee table is available.

Anyway, I also wanted to fix this to advertise Hunger and Energy and make the machine's use autonomous, and perhaps lower the amount of energy that an energy drink gives. I tried the suggestions here, and got pretty lost. Although I didn't break it, I definitely didn't fix it. I just reread his post and didn't find anything about not being allowed to make changes and share it. If any of you manage to get it working correctly, could you be kind enough to share it with me? I don't do uploads of any Sims stuff, and the object would stay with me. If you are unable to share it, could you post a pic or two about exactly how you fixed it in SimPe so we can make our own alterations? The post by Maharis, although helpful, was much too simplistic for me to understand. (...alter autonomy settings from 64 to 32). Must the numbers be multiples of 8? Is the larger number the most or least autonomy? Do you need to change anything other than the pie string menus?

I like this vending machine on comm lots but it doesn't allow anyone except for the controlled Sim to use it. I wanted to make it autonomous, but am a little concerned that it will turn out like a cigarette machine I once downloaded. It was autonomous for all, but whenever the machine charges for the item, the money is taken out of the playable Sim's money. That still wouldn't bother me too much if the price was a dollar, but at $250 a pop, a Sim could go broke paying for cigs for all the townies. Unfortunately, that item was also downloaded from a site whose unwritten rule is "Obsessive adulation only, no pointing out defects. Besides, we don't speak English well enough to understand anything other than how much you love our items."

Magicmoon, your understanding of GUIDs is correct. But changing this item's GUID won't solve anything, because that's not the problem. It's the meshes that are conflicting, not the whole item. I posted in that thread shortly after his 3/7 "fix" to try to talk some sense into him. Don't know if he got it.

As I posted above, I've been working on fixing his old coke machine. I'm pretty sure that, despite his good idea and his effort, he knows even less about object editing than I do, but refuses to accept the possibility that he can improve his work.

Assuming he's repeated his old mistakes in his new vending machine (likely), then the problem with clean bots not recognizing the cans is because his cans are cloned from potions, not juice or instant meals. My solution was to make the machine spawn a juice instead, rather than fuss with all the coke can's problems.

On the subject of Autonomy, the 'Autonomy' setting for the pie menu is in hexadecimal, not decimal. And no, the value doesn't need to be a multiple of 8. The value 64 forces non-autonomy, while a value 32 or below allows autonomous use. For values between 32 and 64, I don't know what would happen. Maybe autonomous only during need despiration?
Also, for a sim to use an item autonomously, it has to advertise that it satisfies one or more needs. In the current version of SimPE,  there's 2 places where Motives can be set, but I don't know which one produces advertising. In the Pie Menu Functions editor, there's a tab for Motives, where I had put a value of 4 for Hunger.  The other place is in the Object Data editor, under the Raw Data tab. There too I put a value of 4 for 'ratingHunger'.

I haven't dealt yet with the coffee table obsession. That's next on my agenda. I did see a custom BHAV for putting down the can, which is undoubtedly the culprit.

Anyway, once I've at least tried to tackle the coffee table obsession, I'm willing to share  :)

Just to clarify, the number 32 to 64 ARE the hexidecimal numbers, actually representing 50-100 decimal. Is that correct?

I'm going to dive back in and try again, although I'll never be able to do something cool like getting it to spawn a juice can. So far I've only changed the motives on one item, with specific directions from Two Jeffs. The item was already autonomous. I just tweaked the advertising. But I did it right! So just like a baby who has taken a first step, I'm ready to take a second one. But since most fall down at this point, I'm seeking a little something to hold on to.

Thanks for helping. I'm not at all interested in making objects, but I would like to learn to fix a few items that would be nice objects if their autonomy and advertising stats were tweaked. I notice most people make their objects either non-autonomous, or make it where it becomes an obsession, as JMP noted. Just looking for middle ground.

If i knew it was going to be this easy to fix some of the flaws I would have done it months ago.....  >:(

I'm not saying it's working just as i want.... but a lot closer...

This is what i've done so far...

Open the vending machine package and then go to "object Data", when you're there, go down the list of data and you'll see fun is at 4... I changed that to 0 and then changed hunger to 4. It actually does say "+Hunger" in the catalogue now.

Then go to the pie menu and check "visitors" on each of the objects and also uncheck "Demo Child". I also changed the attenuation to moderate.Go to the motives tab, for each object, and change Fun from 0028 to 0000 and hunger from 0000 to 0028, same column, and if i understand the help correctly then autonomous needs to just be at 32.

If i'm reading SimPe correctly then the chips, cookies, energy drink, and coke were cloned from "espresso cups"... can this be changed to "instant meal" so the simmies will dispose instead of wash?

Maybe some people didn't like my ignorant and obnoxious way of bringing the probs to the creators attention, but heaping on thank you's wasn't getting the little dorks attention either..

thanks for pointing me in the right direction Marhis and thanks to Cyberdodo for the support and info....

What is attenuation for? Demo child?

Is it OK to also check child while checking visitors? I know the animation may be a little off because of the child's size, but as long as it doesn't crash, I'm Ok with that.

While I'm changing fun to hunger, do you think it is OK to add Energy motive? I can't remember if the Coke gives energy, but I'd rather have them go for an Energy drink than an expresso when on a comm lot. It's much quicker.

Did you have a chance to test your new version to see if visitors actually use it and whether the visitor or the playable is footing the bill?

I'm going by the help and what i've seen so far...

Attenuation is how close a sim should be to want to use an object... i figured moderate would be about 1/2 a lot away... it's probably got more to do with squares away though.

Demo Child. The help says it shouldn't be checked.... sounds good to me...

I just checked visitor on each object... i think there are 6 or 7.. The childs are different heights, so, I think that's why the creator made separate ones for the childs..

The energy thing i think is built into the objects themselves not the vending machine... I haven't checked that out yet..

I did test mine and visitors use it and they aren't obsesive about it... but yeah the playable pays for everybody.. there's probably somewhere to change the price to 1 or 0...

I deleted the spam strings in... um... ? prim strings? ... don't remeber at the moment and i'm playing so i can't look at it...

How do i turn off the spam box that comes up??

I don't have Object Data...


I bet you are updating the older machine, while I'm updating the Energy drink machine. I have a bunch of potions listed instead of espresso cups.  But I'm updating the package from the link you gave in the 1st post. I'm confused again.  I'm editing VM 07. The older version on this page is 6.06. Are you editing one of these?


Found pie menu, still can't locate object data.


While I rarely condone rudeness, I was so exasperated by this guy's attitude that your posts made me crack up. At least you were 100% honest and expressed what I was thinking, but dared not write, less I be trampled by a herd of sheep.


Do you mean the stupid pop-up that presents itself when the Sim is finished drinking? If so, I want to get rid of that too. Someone once told me how to do it and I'm searching for the thread right now.

To get rid of the spam boxes, bypass the BHAV command lines where you found the spam text, in each of the 'Interaction - Buy ..' BHAVs. The line will look like "[prim 0x0024] Dialog (Text Notification, Message yadda yadda)". To bypass, have the line that leads to the dialog command instead poit to the line the dialog command points to.

I understood what you said up until this point:


I found the thread I was looking for. It was Boblishman's Water Cooler. Post 149 explained it, but of course the instructions were specific to that object. Maybe between what Cyberdodo said and that thread, I can figure it out.

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1267655#post1267655

EDIT: Cyberdodo, I found the line you were talking about. There is one for each item the machine sells; interaction-Buy Coke, etc.

The line is line B and it says True C, false FFFC. On the right side of the screen where changes can be made, it says True Target: 0x00C. False Target: Error.

Now what exactly should I do at this point to bypass the dialogs?

The line before that, line A, says true B, false FFFC. So should I change it so that true=C, thereby bypassing line B that has the dialog command on it?

All BHAV commands, regardless of what else they do, produce a result of True or False, for determining what to do next.

In the BHAV "Interaction - Buy Coke", you will see the lines
A: [prim 0x006A] Animate Sim ("a-belch-medium")                       TRUE: B      FALSE: FFFC
B: [prim 0x0024] Dialog (Text Notification, yadda yadda)               TRUE: C      FALSE: FFFC
C: [prim 0x0002] Expression (My motive hunger := Literal 0x0028) TRUE: FFFD  FALSE: FFFC

Line A makes the sim burp. If the sim burped, the result is TRUE. Therefore, control goes to B. If the sim failed to burp, the result is FALSE. FFFC means error.
Line B will pass control to line C after it produces the spam box.

To bypass line B, make line A's TRUE result point to line C instead of line B.

Thank you! I understood that.

Now for that Object Data that I can't find. I found Cauldron Skilled, which contains Catalog sort and Raw Data tabs. The Raw Data tab has stuff about price and motives. Is this what I am looking for or do I need to keep searching?

Yes, that's what you're looking for.

Object Data... Down left side "resource tree" find "Object Data" click on "Cauldron - Skilled", Click on "Raw Data" tab and under motives is where you change fun to hunger...

I'm just going to try and turn off the spam... if i'm understanding this right.... i choose "Behaviour Function" from the resource tree and then choose each interaction and change true target to "return true"

I opened up each accessory (Coke, chips, cookies, energy drink) and also made them usable by visitors and sorry... my mistake... I didn't change the hunger and energy on the motives tab.. I got comfuzzed.. i thought i did but changed my mind...

I just downloaded the latest version again, VM 07, and that's what i'm working on... If you open one of the acc with simpe it shows they were cloned from esspresso cups...

Ok... I'm a little slow...

I noticed that there are 2 interactions for each item sold and one pertains to children and one pertains to adults/teens/elders. But the energy drink only has one interaction, pertaining to adults.

Did you click visitors on the ones that are related to children or just on the ones that pertain to adults, teens, and elders?

I'm not going to try to enable the energy drink for the children as I originally planned. I don't think there are commands that are related to children for it. If you think I'm wrong, let me know.

In the price area, there is a hexidecimal price that is 1250 dec. Sale price 05. What is sale price?

I clicked on visitors for all... children too


From what i understand.. those columns are for the satisfaction of the sim performing the action.. on the acc the action is clean-up.. on the 3rd column it's 000B which is neat sims and 0028 is how much satisfaction or want the sim has for that action   ??? (just a guess)... but like i said.. i made a mistake when i said i changed that because i didn't, but i'd like to know how that part works...


I think the higher, the further away a sim can be to be drawn to it


When i was observing it yesterday... the drinks were 5 i think and the Bag of chips were 25... so maybe if the sale price was changed??

I found the correct help page finally, you were close about the columns. First column is min amt of advertising done to the Sim. Delta is how much more is added for certain types of Sims (neat, grouchy, etc). Type is to define which type of Sim is affected. The page lists those numbers.

"Attenuation reduces the attractiveness of an interaction over a distance.  The higher the attenuation the closer the Sim will have to be before he feels like using the object."

C:\Program Files\SimPE\Plugins\pjse.coder.plugin\PJSE_Help\PieMenus.htm



Since these numbers were on the machine itself, I'm pretty sure the $1250 was the price of the machine. But if $5 is the price of drinks, then where would the chips price be? Maybe I'll not touch price for now and test to see if this is working so far.

So, if i understand what the creator did... the action to clean-up was made more attractive for neat sims.. helpful... but...  ???

So a low attenuation would draw sims from far away? Good to know.....

I'm just starting up the game now and set up a cafeteria type thing and see what happens..... hopefully the sim i send to the lot won't go broke while he's there..

I changed the price on the individual items, Coke, chips, etc. to a buck. Haven't had a chance to try it out though.

I've finished working on the older (soda only) vending machine, insofar as fixing it goes. I'll continue to tweak it though, probably.
I haven't been able to fix the mesh conflict with the newer chip/soda/energydrink vending machine. I tried exporting the mesh and reimporting it using a different name, but the newer machine still overrides the mesh.  ???

Anyway, I've attached my fixed version.

Thanks cyberdodo... i'm going to try it out today.... after I work on the spam msg's in the vending machine. They're still popping up and annoying me....

MagicMoon... Did you figure out where the price is stored??? I thought it should be in the vending machine itself.... i'll keep poking around...

good luck

/me whacks Cyberdodo's thanks button.....  ::)

I did a bit of tinkering on the chips/cookies/soda/energydrink vending machine. As I thought, it was just more of the same garbage code.

My fixed version now spawns the generic snack chips/cookies/juice instead of Paco's custom equivalents, at a cost of $1. The energy drink is still his custom drink, which now costs $10.  I cleaned up the energy drink object too, so it now increments and decrements needs, rather than setting them to hard literals. Specifically, it raises Hunger a little, raises Energy by about 1/4, lowers Comfort by about 1/4, and lowers Bladder by half.

The machine should have mild autonomy for purchace of chips, cookies, and juice. I made the energy drink selection non-autonomous.

There's still 2 outstanding problems that I have no idea how to fix. The mesh still overrides the mesh of the other vending machine, and cleanbots won't clean up the energy drink cans.

The .zip attached contains both my fixed version of the vending machine and my fixed version of the energy drink.

I'm really learning a lot from trying to fix this.... so i'm not going to try your version quite yet..

How/where did you set the prices.... in the objects or the machine????

Cleanbots don't clean up espresso cups, so i suppose that's why they don't clean up the energy drink, etc...

Would new objects need to be made from the instant meal mesh (is there one??) so the cleanbots would clean them up, because instant meals are garbage not dishes?? Or, when an object is cloned from a game mesh, in this case the espresso, is the object actually modeled from the mesh or just linked to that mesh? Could the link just be changed?

The prices are set in the machine. In the BHAV for buying the object, look for the line
[global 0x0294] Budget - Make Transaction

The 1st literal is the price. That gets set by the second hex pair in the operand box.

Ok... found it and i understand that now... but the bag of chips cost 25 but the 1st literal says "5". Is it getting multiplied somewhere?? The energy drink literal is 19 but i think the price is 5... i don't remember at the moment

Literal 0x0019 is the hexedecimal value of 25.

Ok. So I did it wrong again. I couldn't find more than one price on the vending machine and so thought that the prices were tied to the individual products and changed those.

I too am going to try out my machine (after fixing the price again). I know mine will still have bugs but I want to learn how to do this to fix the other irritating items in Sims land.

In the end, I'll probably use the Cyberdodo version as it is almost exactly what I want. Besides, I'll never be able to replace the chips/cookies/juice like you did, at least without hurting myself.


The only tweak I'd like to do to your version is raise the energy a little. Basically, I use the machine rather than macro>caffeinate if their energy is below the halfway mark and it is earlier than 6pm, and I want the end result to be that their energy bar is over half, but no more than 3/4. Perhaps you already have it working that way. I haven't had a chance to try it out yet.

I'm impressed that you changed the cookies/chips/juice. The part that amazes me is that he felt the need to create custom objects when these items are already in game.

I also like that you removed autonomy from the energy drink. I was having a hard time deciding whether to allow them a small chance of autonomy on the drink or disabling it like you did.


I know cleanbots clean up dishes left on the floor, but every since I started using the Coffee Cup hack available here, I haven't had any cups on the floor to even know if a cleanbot will clean up a normal one.

If you could get the mod to recognize the cans as a cup, then the Sims would at least put the can in the dishwasher instead of tromping all over the lot looking for a coffee table. My neat Sims will actually put the cup in the dishwasher after they place it on the coffee table. If we could bypass the coffee table, it would work out pretty well by coding it so all Sims clean up the cups rather than just the neat ones. In the mean time, I just put a coffee table near the machine.

Too bad he didn't code in anything for a child to use the energy drink. On weekends I find that the children's energy gives out too early, making them sleepy by 7:00 or 7:30, whereas they do fine on the days that they go to school. But I can't find anything other than a nap that will give the small energy boost that I need for the kids. Is it possible to give a slight energy boost with the juice so that kids have a way to increase energy? As long as it is a small increment, adults won't get out of sync drinking it any more than if they helped themselves to a single cup of coffee.

It's been fun working on this project with you all.

Currently, I have the sims simply dropping the energy drink cans on the floor a few steps away from the machine after buying it. The can then has pie menu options of Drink and Clean Up. Also, I made Clean Up dispose of the can in the trash rather than wash it like a dish (makes more sense to me that way).

Trying to add energy to juice isn't something I'd recommend, as that would require a global mod. However, in my version I've gotten rid of the redundancy of separate functions for different age groups. The only thing preventing children from buying energy drinks now is the flag settings for it in Pie Menu Functions.

OK. I guess what is confusing is that he had 2 Coke interactions, 2 chips, etc., except for the energy drink which only had the one. I thought that setting the child flag would cause it to crash because he didn't have corresponding actions.

So why did he do 2 of each, one for child and one for the rest?

And it sounds like you did pretty good with the cans thing. I keep trying to load in the game today, but I keep getting customer support calls. I'm going to try again now.

EDIT:
I just tried out your version in game. I gave the test Sims nothing but the vending machine to eat from.  The chips and juice worked well. I don't think they chose cookies. But they threw away the empty bags just fine.

However, the energy drink has a problem. The Sim buys the drink then sets it on the floor without drinking it. Then that Sim or another one picks it up and disposes of it. Several cans were left on the floor and they could drink it only if I clicked on the can and issued the command to drink it.

It also threw an error while the Sim was trying to do something autonomous with the machine. It is attached. I tested in a clean neighborhood with the vending machine as the only custom content.

My windowed version I use for testing went into 800x600 mode again, so I couldn't see the energy bar of the Sims to verify how much of an energy boost they get when directed to drink it.

[attachment deleted by admin]

I did mention above that sims would drop the can after buying it, but I guess I wasn't clear this is what I meant :-\  Are the sims immediately cleaning up the can, before you can direct them to drink? If so, perhaps advertising on the Clean function is too high.  Anyway, seemed like a good idea at the time, but in retrospect it would be better if I tried again to find a good way to get the sim to chug it directly.

I'll take a closer look at the log tomorrow. Do you remember what the sim was trying to do? Going to the machine? Buying something? Was another sim using the machine at the time?

Anyway, thanks for testing  ;D

I guess I didn't understand you correctly. I thought the Sim would drink the energy drink like usual and then place it on the ground. So I kept repeating the buying process trying to get it to work like that. While the Sim was busy buying and placing the cans on the ground, other Sims would throw them away. There was plenty of time for me to click on the can for it to be drunk, but I didn't realize that was the way you made it work. Then when I left the Sim alone, she threw away a can on her own. At that point I was hoping she would pick it up and drink it on her own, but I guess she saw it as trash. As I said, I couldn't see the energy bar so perhaps her energy was already maxed. The environment score was probably dropping as there were about 8 cans on the ground at that point.


I was directing one Sim to buy an energy drink and another Sim threw the error. I think he must have been trying to autonomously buy something from the machine.


No, thank you for sharing your fix. Sorry I misunderstood. It still works better than my "fixed?" version.

I'm having trouble making sense of that error log. It shows that the sim errored when cleaning up a can, apparently autonomously. But, the last 2 entries in the stack are routing functions to the vending machine. That makes it look like the sim was trying to dispose of the can into the vending machine, but that makes no sense...
 ??? I'm going to need help from someone More Awesome Than Me to figure that out.

In the meantime, I'll start working on some better error handling. Something along the lines of making the sim put the can down if they fail to throw it away, instead of dumping with an error. I should look into preventing more than 1 sim from using the machine at a time too.

Another, unrelated little tidbit of info - I removed the machine and custom can from my downloads folder and entered my test lot, causing the machine to revert into an endtable and the cans sitting on the floor to revert into esspresso cups. Right away, the cleanbot cleaned up the cups. Really makes me wonder how the cleanbot determines what it can clean up.

I noticed the endtable thing too... I took out the file i'd been working on and installed your version... Started the game and went to the lot i put the machines in. I noticed the machines were there but i knew it wasn't your machines because yours have different guids.... out of curiosity i moused over the machines before i replaced them and it said something about an endtable... I always assumed the machine was cloned from something in Electronics/Misc or Electronics/small because thats where they were in the catalogue... now i know the creator actually made the decision to put them in those categories.... twit  :P

I tried out your new version and i like it, except the simmies would rather use your pepsi machine instead of your vending machine... stupid simmies.... I'm going to try it out today with just the vending machine on the lot and see what happens...

I've never seen a cleanbot clean up any dishes, so i always thought they only cleaned up trash not dishes.... but now i know

Well, to answer my own question... I couldn't fix this particular object but i got some wonderful help to make it usable... Thanks again Cyberdodo for the fixed objects and the patience to answer some questions.   ;D  I'm still getting errors though when a simmie chooses to get an energy drink... could be my fault because i changed the autonomy on it, but i'll attach an error log if it might help you.

I asked myself this question a couple of weeks ago when i spent a couple of evenings taking out objects that did nothing in the game except look pretty.... even though when i got the objects they were advertised as being fun items, or skilling objects, usable by chillluns, etc... but they just sat there being ignored. So, after working on this vending machine and starting to understand where some of the properties of it are set in SimPe i decided to work on some other objects.

I had 4 trampolines and 2 jumping castles in my game that weren't being used... so i opened them up in SimPe and changed some of the autonomy settings.... changed the advertising from comfort to fun for some of them.. made a couple of them visitor enabled... moved 1 from sofas to misc/children.... oooooohhh the powerrrrrrrr   8)

It's going to take me a few days, but at least now i can look at an object in Simpe and see if it's even usable before i put it in the game or fix what's in the game now...

I still have a couple of questions... I went to the Simpe site and MTS2 to look for the answers but couldn't find anything....
If i want to make an object more attractive to certain sim type i understand i can change values in "pie menu/motives" but i don't understand the range... it looks like they are hex values but is the range from 1 to f or 1 to ff... at what point does the value become overwhelming? If i wanted to have an object drain a motive, would i just put in a negative value in "object data/raw value"? What does the niceness multiplier do? I'd like to compare some custom objects with a maxis object... do I need to extract the maxis object from the objects.package to look at the object in simpe?

Thanks again for the help.   ;D

Whatever you did wrong, I did it too. Same error on the energy drink.

I disabled all the pop-ups and changed each item from fun to hunger. The energy drink I changed to Energy and Hunger.  I made each item autonomous, and enabled visitors.

On a comm lot, many visitors used the machine to buy different items and quite a bit was sold from the machine before I got errors.

On a side note, I noticed that visitors that were buying items had the little -$35 (or whatever amount) float from them when they bought an item. But the playable character didn't actually lose any money from his total.

I'm wondering if "undefined transition" means that we pointed to the wrong place when we were disabling the pop-ups. I'm putting mine back into Simpe to see if I can find an obvious problem. If not, I'll post my log for comparison.

I just want to mention I haven't forgotten about this, I've just been busy.

I'm still new at this too, so I don't have any real answers right now. I'll need to do some research. But don't be shy about attaching error logs. If nothing else, it helps me learn how to read the things ;)

Here's my error log. I haven't had a chance to look it over in Simpe again, but it kinda looks like whatever the problem, two of us made the same mistake. I was nervous about enabling energy drinks for kids because I saw that he had separate child and adult interactions with all the objects except for the energy drink. But the error was thrown on a lot without kids on it, so that may not be the problem.

I've been editing his latest version and a recolor clone someone made to look like a coke machine. I don't have the talent to change the food products like you did, but I also don't like them setting the energy drink down instead of drinking it so I'm not using your version. If you fix that last part, it would be a much, much better vending machine because I liked the way that they trashed chip bags rather than washing them. I bet bots even clean the trash now, although I didn't have a chance to try that yet.

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HA!!!! WE didn't make the same mistake, the creator made the mistake.... it has something to do with the energy drink because i'm using cyberdodo's fixed machine

and it looks like you're using the original machine... so the error is somewhere in the energy drink object itself...

I've been a little busy too Cyberdodo so please don't feel pressured to stay on top of this....

For now I'm going to disable autonomy on the energy drink again so i shouldn't get any errors unless i direct a sim to buy one... i haven't noticed anything about prices because like i said i'm using Cyberdodo's machine and the changed prices in it.

But then it begs the question, Why didn't the errors show up when using the original vending machine before we modified it?

How could enabling autonomy cause the error?

I didn't have any problems when I directed my Sim to buy an energy drink, the errors come when the visitors do. 

EDIT:
I went back and unchecked visitors for the energy drink. Now my Sims are autonomously buying and drinking it without problems or pop-ups.

I barely used the original machine after i installed it.... not many chances of an error... but after i installed Cyberdodo's machine i would get the error if i directed the sim or the sim would go to it autonomously..

I'll attach the error log from the directed sim... the last error log was from an autonomous sim... both sims were playables... I sent them to a community lot so i could see how visitors would use the machine....

But, i did tweak a couple of things in cyberdodo's machine.. so i thought the error might be my fault..

ok back to more experimenting... and i grabbed your version... thanks... Is it the same Mesh??

I was using the Coke Recolor clone when I first got the bugs out (you can see the person's name in the filename that cloned it).

I went back and just did the original mesh to make the settings match the one that works, but I haven't checked it in game to make sure I didn't make any mistakes.

EDIT: I changed the catalog location to Appliances/Misc on both machines. I thought it was stupid for it to show up in electronics.

Here it is:

Finally got a chance today to do my tests...

I did a little tweaking to a few things in Simpe and no errors so far.... the only time it does error now is when i cancel a purchase...

I'm using Magicmoon's machine.. original accessories... and the fixed energy drink from Cyberdodo.... The sims will autonomously buy the energy drink without error...

It works great... simmies still wash the bags...

How do i fix the bladder effect from the energy drink? I'm going to give it a shot later....

Install Bathroom Uses You.

Been there.... done that....   :P

The energy drink drains the bladder bar by 1/2 ... really annoying... but i changed pie menu/motives bladder min from 45 to 20.... can't remember the name of the field right now.... experimenting

I'd like to combine the two versions that we have done here. I like the way the bags were put in the trash, but don't know how to do that change. But I like my Sims to buy and drink their energy drink autonomously, and I don't want them buying it by themselves then walking away to let some stranger claim "ground-score".

I've been meaning to try out the altered energy drink. I think I'll pop that in tonight and see if I like it better.

As far as bladder draining, I figure it's one of those high fiber energy drinks that make them have the bathroom need. It doesn't really bother me because the energy drink itself boosts several stats and so makes up for bladder inconvenience.


But if you make a change, wouldn't it be in the other area, not the motive area? Changing the motives will just make them think that an item either satisfies or doesn't satisfy certain needs.  To paraphrase the help site of Simpe...If you make a chair with a high bladder motive, Sims will sit on it over and over, thinking it will help their bladder. They will continue to do this until they wet themselves since the chair is only advertising that it helps, but doesn't actually help.

I'm going to try to raise the hunger amount slightly on the snack foods. The boost that it gives now is so barely noticeable that it is almost not worth the time and effort it takes a Sim to buy and consume it.

......................

Oh, and since we learned how to do these modifications, I fixed FeeEssen's toddler only tub. It was advertised as a bathtub that could only be used by toddlers.  BYU doesn't like toddlers much and as soon as a parent finishes a kid's bath they put the tot on the floor for BYU to kick them out. Then the parent has to wait to leave the bathroom because the babe is slowly crawling out the door. So I thought that this tub would be nice to have in the nursery.

But in reality, the tub actually allows the toddler to bathe himself! Weird, but kinda time saving. But then I noticed that everyone from parents to visitors were shooing Sims from the nursery to take a bath. I reread the threads on it, and it was mentioned, but ignored. Most posts were the "you are so wonderful type".

So I fixed it. I left it autonomous for cleaning and giving tots a bath. The toddler can still bathe himself, and anyone can clean it or play in it. This way, those adults who are predisposed to playing pirate in the tub can do so without BUY kicking them out for hogging the facilities. But the only ones allowed to actually take a bath in it is toddlers, so no more shooing tots from their skilling to take a bath. That was so annoying.

I don't know what her policy is on her objects. I'll have to check before I upload it, that is, if anyone wants it.

It blows my mind that some people can make such interesting and complicated objects, yet get sloppy on the things that are the easiest to fix.

Most of the time my playables will drink it now, before putting it down....


I should really write this stuff down...  I found the expression in Behaviour Functions/Interaction Drink Line 9... Bladder -= Literal 64 That's where the bladder gets drained i think.. i changed it to 32 and then the bladder didn't seem to change at all so now i'm trying 48... i want it to drain the bladder by 25%

Line 7 is where the hunger is satisfied... but i don't know how the numbers work... Hunger+= Literal 3C  what's the range with these numbers? 1 to FF??

I'm on a mission now to fix things.... The trampolines I had were made from couches so they were never changed from advertising comfort and energy... the simmies would still sit on a couple of them... they would lounge on all of them... i fix all these things... and made them more attractive to active simmies and they advertise fun now but at a low level... same with a couple of bouncing castles...

It really is sloppiness

OK. We finally got this working pretty much how we want it, but I still have a small problem with it. It seems that every time a Sim cancels the interaction with the machine, it throws an error. Do either of you know what is causing it?

I've attached two errors. It happened with a machine on a comm lot. Bartholomew is the active, playable character. He started to buy an energy drink autonomously, but he only had less than $100 on him so I canceled it from the queue. It then threw the error.

The 2nd error, Mr. Roboto, was a visitor at the comm lot who autonomously decided to buy an item from the machine (everything except energy drinks can be bought autonomously by visitors). He got caught up in a crowd and was unable to reach the machine. It must have dropped from his queue at that point because it threw an error. He never did buy anything from the machine.

So what action is the Sim supposed to take if the interaction is canceled or drops out of queue? Either the creator didn't allow for this to happen, or the command is pointing to the wrong line, but I can't quite follow the logic tree.



Me too. I changed the runs with scissors to autonomous. I even enabled it for children, but I don't know if that part works yet. I made it more appealing to playful Sims, but I would have rather made it more appealing to stupid Sims. But I didn't know how to do that.

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In all of the Interaction - Buy bhavs, change the first line (Go to relative position) so the false target is to return true. All animate sim lines should also have both true and false targets set to same thing.

There are also issues with the way the motive are being handled. Assigning them to a literal value is a VBT, unless you want to max them. What if a sim with full hunger or fun uses the machine? Their motive would actually drop. You should += a literal value to the motive to increase it (op code 3 instead of 5).

I get the same error too.. If I understand what TJ is saying the creator didn't anticipate the actions being cancelled, because when it was created it wasn't made to be used autonomously.

I've made the energy drink autonomous for visitors too... and i've tried making it fun for neat sims to clean up the bags and cans... but i haven't tested that part yet... I think with dizzy's process autonomy hack and tweaking the objects, things might get cleaned up... going to test that today...


I guess it's how do you define a stupid sim to an object... I looked at the types for motives and there are only a few types (lazy, active, neat, sloppy, etc)... I wish there was more types to choose from... or maybe some of the types aren't in the help file... It could really depend on the object... So for your scissors a stupid sim could be one that's playful, active, and grouchy (? MY SCISSORS!!)

I've been having great fun redefining type motives for objects... on my other thread about the bookcase i made it more appealing for lazy sims to study body and shy sims to study charisma, but it's still a work in progress....

I think i understand what you mean TJ... so i'll fix that right away


So, is that like a relative value versus an absolute value? This part confuzzles me. If, lets say, the hunger bar goes from 0 - 100, 0 being empty and 100 being full, then did the creator just make it an absolute value no matter how hungry the sim is? I would like it to be a relative value, so if the sim would eat a bag of doritoes his hunger bar would gain 25 points, not be set at 75 points no matter what the starting value is. When I see a sim eat something from the machine I see the hunger bar just jump up instead of progress up like when they eat a meal.

Just curious TJ, are you looking at the latest machine posted by the creator... because i think magicmoon and i are using the machine magicmoon posted earlier with the fun taken out

I'm going to try and edit like you say TJ but i'm not quite sure if i understand that part correctly... but thanks for the help.   ;D

edit: ok, my bad, I see what you mean by "fun" in the bhav's (i think), but it shows the opcode as 02 on line 2 in the interaction- buy chips.  ??? Should that be changed to 03? Or am i looking at the wrong thing?

In the interaction bhavs as they stand, both fun and hunger are being assigned to the literal value of 28 (hex) regardless of where they started. If you just want to add 25 points for a bag of chips (or whatever), change the that to 'My motive hunger += Literal 19 (or whatever value you want to raise it by)'. I would nuke the add to fun completely or at least lower it drastically. I'm sorry, but buying a coke from a vending machine is not fun, especially a flat 40 point gain. You can advertise fun, but you don't have to actually give the sim any from the interaction.

Thanks TJ... I changed the false target like you said and it worked perfectly... no errors when cancelling..  ;D


I think i see what you mean by that now... will give that a try


I mentioned this to the creator and he came up with BS about lonely vampires and shut in sims...   ::)

I'm going to have it skip that line for now until i feel confident enough to delete a line... so := (or whatever s/h/it did) actually sets an absolute amount and += or -= raises/lowers a relative amount.. i get that...

Magicmoon... i experimented with pie type motives and set environment and fun min=30 delta=28 type=00B and simmies were taking the objects from other simmies hands before they even had a chance to eat the stuff... but they were cleaning the stuff up.... so i lowered that to min=20 delta=18. I'll let you know how much diff that makes...

good luck

When this was created, the chips, cookies, etc were made from the espresso cup... So the simmies treat the objects like the espresso cup and look for somewhere to put it down and nothing will clean them up... bots ignore them and even the janitor i hired for a business ignores them....

Can i change the mesh used through Simpe or will i need to remake the objects with a graphics program? I don't think it should be neccesary to "wash" a bag of chips to get rid of them...

Cyberdodo figured out that part, but I don't think the other kinks were worked out yet so I just stayed with modifying my version. I'd like that too.

I haven't had a chance to make the latest changes that TwoJeffs taught us. We're working on the same version, right? If you have yours working so far, could you upload it? It will be at least a week before I can do anything involving much thought and I'm afraid that I will forget where I was in the process by then.

No problem.... I did 2J's fixes with this and other things... Energy drink is autonomous

cookies=$1
doritoes=$2
coke=$3
energy drink=$4

so i could see who bought what... and i'm tweaking the settings on the acc's to encourage sims to clean up... and i'm experimenting with the hunger satisfaction on the acc's

and acc's

Thanks.

Now that I understand what the symbol difference is between literal and incremental, I'm going to play a little with the hunger satisfaction. I'd like a slightly larger boost with the snacks as it barely moves the bar right now. The hunger increase seems about right on the energy drink but I'll have to play with it for awhile before I know whether the energy boost is right or not since that was changed to incremental. I want a boost that is about equal to 2-3 cups of espresso.

I also want to advertise in such a way that Sims with >50% of their energy bar full will not autonomously want to buy the energy drink, but yet I want it more attractive than the espresso bar at a comm lot for satisfying energy. I'd rather them grab a quick pick-me-up rather than spend 2 hours drinking latte, especially now that I am playing with the mod that makes time actually pass correctly on comm lots.

I like the price changes by the way. I've been meaning to change mine but keep forgetting.

Take a look at the difference between hunger satisfaction with the chips and the cookies.... i edited the chips so there is a 25 point(?) gain in hunger.. the cookies are left at a straight set point... that's what 2J meant by a sim could decrease in hunger if they ate when full.... I wish i knew more about the values for gains or drains of motives in BHAV's.

I was thinking about editing the type motive for the energy drink... an active, shy sim would use it rather than a lazy, social sim at the expresso couter.. that's a work in progress.

good luck...

Sounds like we are heading in the correct direction there. Very good.


My most important use is for playable Sims on comm lots. I want them to choose an energy drink instead of espresso so that they can do what they came for, instead of spending so much time drinking coffee. But as far as comm lot visitors, your idea really would make sense so that every Sim isn't using the vending machine and ignoring the espresso bar. That would spread the Sims around the premises better.

You have some pretty good ideas.

I have a few ideas for this thing.... I'm waiting for the Seasons Simpe is released, then i'll install seasons.... I'm not going through what i went through with pets and no Simpe...

An ice cream vending machine that sims can use to lower thier temperature... not sure how that works yet cuz i don't have Seasons installed...

Or a coffee/Hot chocolate machine for raising temperatures... with cups that can be trashed not washed...

A toy vending machine for toddlers and chilluns.... but only the adults can buy the things...

but i'm still looking for an answer to the mesh question... (hint, hint oh awesome ones)... Cyberdodo did fix that part, but only by substituting ingame objects for the acc's... i'd like to learn how to create or fix the acc objects so those objects can be tweaked....

edit:ok,  thought about what i've been staring at and i think i need to change the animations if i want to change the mesh for the acc's