More Awesome Than You!

I dread sending sims to college because of the dormies. The dormies are actually quite hilarious to watch most of the time, but they have one single habit that drives me up the wall and causes me to take away every table in the dorm and make them hold their plate while sitting down and eating.

The damn dormie assignments.

The assignments themselves aren't what piss me off. the fact that they almost ALWAYS make the chair they're sitting at unusable and then come later and whine for hours that they can't sit down and do a assignment is the part that makes me want to scream. They will do this to every single chair in the dorm that has a accessible table next to it, then no one can sit down to eat.

I don't want a mod that prevents them from doing it as much; I want a mod that prevents them from doing assignments COMPLETELY if there is no way to stop them from breaking all my damn chairs in the dorm every single sim day.



But there is something odd the dormies are doing that may be causing these chairs to become unaccessible. I've noticed that since OFB, dormies appear to have a weird jump bug while sitting down for assignments. They go to sit down, then they abruptly jump beside the chair, the homework is gone, and the chair is now unusable. This happens almost every time they try to sit down and do a assignment. This never happens to controllable sims that are asked to do a assignment. Only dormies.

Here is a error log from when I forced a error on the homework while they were doing the homework. If this doesn't help, tell me when I should force a error and on what object.

Ohmygod. Agree.

I don't have the jump bug you describe, but my dormies are eager to stick assignments all over the dorm, do about 3%, then wander off, only to complain about the lack of tables for their new assignment.

My current solution is to lock my playable sims' doors to protect their desks, and delete the dang things the instant I see the hated blue notebook laying around anywhere. If they actually wanted credit for that 3% of an assignment, they shouldn't have left it on the kitchen table. Or the floor. Or that end table in the study room. (Though that only happened once, that table is usually occupied by one of the forty gazillion books abandoned by the group-research-obsessed nitwits.)

Preventing all dormies from doing assignments ever would be nice. It's not like they ever graduate. Or if not that, make it so they can't do assignments anywhere but a desk, and then one could put all desks not occupied by a computer in the dorm room behind a Myne door. But that wouldn't help people who design dorms differently than I do, I suppose...

Why on earth do you two not have noassignment littler installed? I  run a tidy little dorm.

ETA: there's no homework in bathrooms also.  I noticed the chair thing too. It was happening with such frequency since Seasons ( yep...I'm going to blame the EP) that I installed the hack to try and stop this.

The chair thing's happened since forever. That's one of the annoyances that finally turned me off Uni altogether. I used to just shift click reset every 24 sim hours or so.

I'll probably be accused of smokin' crack, but it seems like this is happening more often. I play Uni a lot and have recently noticed this happening with greater frequency and not just in old dorm lots. It is happening the first day on a new dorm. *shrugs*  Probably anecdotal.

I've used that and all the other mods twojeffs, JM, and Squinge. JM's only makes sure the assignment dissapears when the dormie walks away from it (By no means, do I say this is a bad mod. Not having this mod would be madness). Twojeffs is effective only if you have comfy couches and arcades in the dorm but still doesn't prevent because wanting to sit on the couch/play arcade stand right beside Do assignment, because they advertise the exact same thing. Squinges mod conflicts with JM's, so that's out of the question.

Syberspunk has one but it where it should be at MTS2. All there is is a mod that stops assignments at parties, even though I know that mod was available in the same space at one time. I've heard good things about it.

I may be mean, but when I make a dorm the only desk is for computers. I place the cute candle lamps on tables so it's eat only. Or of course a small flower crafted from the OFB works on tables too. That way they HAVE to use the floor.  :D They wanna act stupid? Well they'll have to do it in the floor.

You mean this one (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,2419.0.html)? It makes it less autonomous (and kills autonomy in certain situations, such as parties), but resident dormies will still do them. As far as I know, this is all the hack has ever done, it's just named nopartyassignment for some reason.

The most stupid and annoying thing is when dormies with zero hygiene trying do assignments again and again instead to take shower.
I have stinky dormie fix By twojeffs mod,but seems it not work effectively with Seasons. :(

I didn't realize those tables were eat only!

That will help immensely.


I hope someone makes one that stops them altogether eventually. They can always go do research and amuse me with their moronic tactics.


Alexx: Twojeffs mod nostinkydormie fixes that. Just make sure you have something very fun, and very comforting around otherwise they'll spend day and night doing assignments because of comfort failure.

I don't seem to have the problems with assignments that everyone else does.  I have seen a cafeteria table unusable apparently because it was used for assignments, but it only happened in one dorm, which had other problems and has since been bulldozed.  Stupid Maxis dorm designs.

I remember getting a boatload of assignments in another dorm.  When I saw one laying around I'd move it out on the patio. I had quite an array of assignments out there.  Since dormies can only spawn 3 assignments (or so I've read) eventually they wouldn't put any more on the tables.  They had to go do assignments on the patio.

My knowledge Sims have always had full grade meters, so doing an assignment was a waste of time.  For them, I'd collect assignments that were over 90% completed by dormies and hide them so the dormies couldn't get to them, and my Sim would finish them for aspiration points.  I figure this is only fair, since Knowledge Sims don't roll up the usual skill want trees in Uni for some reason.

I like the idea of putting the little candles on the tables to keep assignments off.  I think we should have some additional tables where assignments are allowed, as it seems reasonable for a dormie to do assignments in the cafeteria.

Hook

If you want to be more, um... dormish ... you can use the napkin dispensers instead of candles.  I think they came with OFB.

Hook, I love your idea of having knowledge Sims complete dormie assignments for points! Must try that!

I used the little candles last night in a dorm, and they worked great. I just wanted to thank you. I rehabbed a Maxis dorm and tweaked the tables, desks etc.  I created a study area far away from the cafeteria with really comfy chairs to attract the studiers. It seemed to work. I didn't have any stuck chairs after 3 hrs of playing the lot. I think that the candles on the dining tables and the noassignmentlitter may have cleaned up my problems regarding kattywampus seating.

Because I didn't know it existed, and even though you've told me about it now I still can't find it. Used the search tool but it isn't pulling up this fix, that I can tell... can someone link me to the no assignments hack?

noassignmentlitter appears to be part of the Director's Cut, in the 'moreawesomethanyou.zip' files under the
Seasons dir (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/index.php?dir=seasons%2F), the Pets dir (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/index.php?dir=pets%2F), etc.

I've had MASSIVE problems with this.
I get the dormie jump, although it doesn't seem to produce an error log.  Chairs get stuck, and won't unstick unless I sell them and re-buy, which is a huge strain on the ecconomy.  I use noassignmentlitter, but once the assignment is zapped, the damage to the chair is already done.
Right now I have a dorm where all desks have computers and I use counters and barstools in stead of tables and chairs, because if I had tables my sims would stand around complaining when trying to rampage.  College is way too dull for me, so I just let tell my sims to do their stuff at the start of the term and set the game to fast forward while I go do something else, so it's very important to me that I don't get stickyness that causes my sims to stand around for days complaining.
After I started building around the problem I've only ever had one problem with dormie assignments when a dormie decided to sit down right outside my sim's room, blocking the door and keeping him from going to class.

I'm going to give the table decorations a shot if I ever feel the need for tables again.

Gwill, you're experiencing exactly the same problem as me. Until I learned about candles and napkin holders; having a cafeteria was madness. Now it's not as bad as before, I have the most comfortable sofa sitting next to the door, and most of the time they choose to sit down and watch TV, other than going and doing assignment.


Watch out for Ghost with your napkin and candle tables. they tend to eradicate them like all other lamps.

GRAH!  I just played a new dorm and it's happening again...even worse than before. I placed a dining table with 2 chairs upstairs in my new dorm. The dormies lay their assignments down...complain about the chair 'in use' and then the assignment disappears. Wash, rinse, repeat.  I've deleted the chairs using moveobjects on and repurchased them numerous times. It just keeps happening. I'm still blaming this on Seasons. It's so much worse now.

I'm going to go back to the dorm I was playing last night, in which the chairs did not get stuck, to see what is different about the two scenarios. Both lots are using HolySimoly tables and chairs. But, I noticed this happening with plain vanilla Maxis chairs in other dorms. Hmmmm

Goodness, seems like someone made an effort to hide it.  ::) Or I suck and didn't look there, that's a possibility too. Either way, thank you!


I take it the hack zaps abandoned assignments, so dormies will still start them and leave them around but they'll automatically be deleted after they wander off? That plus some napkin holders on my tables (why didn't I think of that?) will solve my problem for me! Thankfully I've never once had a chair or table get stuck after a dormie uses them...

I don't have this problem, because I don't allow dormies in my game. Any rooms not occupied by playables get regular doors instead of Myne doors. Works like a charm. :P

Ehh, sometimes their stupidity is entertaining. I like having autonomous sims around to see what kind of trouble they're going to get up to, but I hate doing something like designating some playable sim as autonomous... then they drive me crazy and have to micromanage them. But if I can't? They're hilarious. :)

So I usually just put one sim through Uni at a time. I have more fun with fewer sims and with the no dormie protection hack in, there's all kinds of hijinks to watch while doing College Rampage.

You're welcome!  ;D

Dizzy has this (http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=190099) posted at MTS2 which allows the cafeteria chef to clean up unguarded assignments.

Practice safe eating:  use condiments!

I put the napkin holder (and condiments, ketchup/mustard/salt/pepper) on 2/3 of the tables in the cafeteria and things went much nicer.  I hadn't played this dorm since the last time an update reset it, so all the dormies were hungry at the same time.  Most of them had a place to eat in the cafeteria, with only one plate being carried upstairs to a table there.  The maid picked that one up the next day.

Hook

Update: played another Maxis dorm with all Maxis content. I had the same problem with a table and chairs. The chairs were fine, but the table was 'in use'. I replaced it and so far, so good.  I only played the lot for about an hour, but it seems to be working. I'm sure with more play those damned chairs (and table) will get stuffed again.
The candles/napkin holder are working great for the cafeteria, but my 'assignment' tables and chairs are still acting up.

I don't know wether to laugh or groan. I think groan.
Say, on a related note, anyone know of some custom table deco for when you're bored with the little lamps and condiments?

There's condiments in the game?  Damn, I missed them.  I assume under sculptures like the napkin holder?

The napkin holder comes with ketchup, mustard, salt, and pepper.

You're not using the Mission table and chairs by chance, are you?  I've had problems with them in homes, so I quit using them.

Nope, they aren't the Mission things. When I play later today, I am going to take notes on what is working and not working. I have a feeling that it has nothing to do with the object and everything to do with the action of putting the damnable assignment on the table.

There's some placemats on TSR that you can use. However, I'm not sure if they block assignments. It's worth a try. Of course, it's freaking pay crap. Pay here (http://sims2.thesimsresource.com/downloads/sims2/meshes/268578/), freeload here (http://paysites.mustbedestroyed.org/booty/tsr/simaddict/) (useable_place_settings_set.rar).

Ah, ok -- I mistakenly thought you were referring to a separate item.

Smaller plants work as well. (daffodil, etc...) Also the OFB flowers you craft can be used as well as date rewards.  :-* Don't know of any CC, sorry.

Sandy at aroundthesims2.com has all kinds of decorative condiments for her kitchen sets, which can be downloaded separately if you don't want the whole set.

I found a very simple solution to this problem:  I used the deleteallcharacters cheat when I first started my neighborhood.  No dormies.  Peaceful dorm.  :)

Will we tell her DAC is broken now, or later?

I looked at this post earlier and thought, no I can't bring myself to be the one to tell her. When do we break the dangling SWAF news?

And the failed cleanup of SDSCs, yes.

I think you just did.

Kristalrose: three little words: clean templates, notownieregen

Honestly, though, dorms without dormies are no fun. I normally fill an extra floor with 1x2 rooms until I have just below the number my computer can handle (28 generally). Now, with ACR on brothel settings, it should be absolutely fantastic.

From memory, one of my very first posts on a  sims site was about my buggy hood. I carefully explained how I'd packaged each and every family and imported them into my new hood and that I was hoping this would sort out their bugginess, give the sims a fresh start, so to speak.  ::)

when I was playing a couple of sims in Uni last night (2 different dorms) I noticed the same problem with dormies and assignments (going missing and chair becomes unusable), thankfully placing the condiments on the tables stopped that problem.

I remember having this problem before (with Pets or OFB) and I forget what I did (or what hack I removed) to fix it - at that time it only happened in 1 maxis dorm and usually I used a custom one that I built, so it may not have actually gotten fixed - I did think it was a hack causing it at that time.

Oddly enough I also had a couple invisible dormies in one of the dorms. I used InSIM to delete them and they returned to the lot a short time later fixed, hopefully they stay fixed *laughs*

Oh, no, I haven't tried to delete all characters lately. . . this was about a year ago.  I still play with all the no___ regen hacks though, to keep them away.  (And, yes, didn't know it was broken, either. Thanks for letting me know LOL)

Witch:  I did that, too, when TS2 1st came out.  I packaged all my favorite families and moved them to a neighborhood I had terrained with SC4.  I bragged about it, and JMP said it was bad.  I didn't take him seriously.  A few months later, I was crying and telling him, "You are right, you are more awesome than me."   :'(  If it can be broken with TS2, leave it to me to do it.  I'm worse than Maxis.  hahaha

/me points and laughs.

Yeah, he pointed and laughed at me too. He also explained why it was bad, so I'll give him credit for that!

Yeah, that's what makes him tollerable, I guess.   ;)  He at least explains why we've done something stupid as he points and laughs.

I have played Uni more or less regularly since I got it (I just use College Adjuster to speed it up), and, yeah, I have noassignmentlitter installed too. I've noticed exactly this same thing and only since Seasons. It has happened with the cheap desk, the Oriental-style desk, and the desk that looks like a leather-type tabletop (don't know the name of it), and various tables in the cafeteria. It's driving me up the wall to the point that I am not even going to have dormies in my playable dorms from now on, just my own Sims. GRRRR.

(But thank you - I thought I was going crazy. Now I know that we're both crazy.)

interesting, the only person to not have this 'dormie/chair in use/assignment' problem (in this thread) wasn't using noassignmentlitter (from what I could tell re-reading the posts quick)

so... could this be a bug in noassignmentlitter?

I dunno. But it has been happening a lot very recently. I can't place the blame on the hack neccessarily, I'm not sure why this is cropping up so frequently. I have 'most' of the directors cut installed and a lot of Twojeffs mods.  The only other mods are Jordi's hiders, JFades juicer tweaks, Inge's Elders Sleep through the Night, and Ctfg's faster gardening hacks.  Last night I played a dorm that I hadn't played for months. And gee..guess what happened?  Two borked tables and 2 chairs. Those tables and chairs were original to the Maxis lot. I never had a problem before, that I can recall, on that lot. I only noticed it because my sim was sitting and eating while holding his plate. Again, they were 'in use'. I had to replace them twice. Each time a dormie put the assignment down they would wave their hands about the chair not being accessable. The homework would disappear and another sim would lay down the paper...wash, rinse, repeat.This was with a brand new table and chair. No Sim had used it.

I mean, c'mon, this used to happen once in great while. It was very rare. Now it's infecting all the dorms that I have checked in on. This has been occuring since installing Seasons. I have no idea why Seasons could possibly affect this. I still have at least 6 more dorms to check up on. In fact, I just remembered, I went to remodel an uninhabited dorm that had previously held students, and I also had the 'in use' problem on a table and chair. How can it be 'in use' when there are no Sims on the lot? Bizarre.

I have used the table candles with great success to force the homework onto another table, but in one instance, the second table I placed for homework got borked also. I replaced it, and so far there's no problems. But, I didn't play the lot for a long time after the replacement. 

ETA: when MY Sim uses the newly placed tables for homework, they don't become corrupt. It's only when a dormie uses/attempts to use it.

well I removed noassignmentlitter before playing last night since I knew I was going to be playing Uni.

I played both of the dorms that I had had the 'dormie/chair in use/assignment' problem (I removed the condiments from the tables upon entering) plus another dorm and not once did I end up with a unusable chair.

so IMO it does seem to be a bug in noassignmentlitter

I made an update aimed at reducing the potential for a possible stuck chair situation, even though I highly doubt they're related, since the assignment wouldn't combust if someone were actually using it.

This is very odd, I've never experienced that bug, and I've played about 40+ uni students, so far, all in dorms, with an average ratio of 50% dormies/50% playables. I don't use noassignmentlitter, but I use no stinky dormies fix. I don't know if this helps.

I also believed that noaasignmentlitter was the culprit, and played without it for a long time, but I'm pretty sure I still had problems (although not as many).

I use the no stinky dormies fix also.


noassignmentlitter was the only hack I was using that affected dormies assignments.

It will be awhile before I play Uni again, it's a new hood and dosen't have many playables yet and none of the few kids are teens.

I don't have any of the uni assignment hacks in (I've been playing uni only with a legacy family that moves into the family frathouse ASAP, so I don't deal with dormies long enough to care), but with just TS2 and Uni, and just assignments from the NPC cheerleader and llama, I had the entire dining set at the frathouse rendered useless.

So it's not entirely new or hack based.  It's even possible that something involved with the assignments my playables would do had something to do with it.  I didn't notice the dining room issue until I moved in a new generation, served a meal, and NO ONE ate it at the table.

Quinctia, was the dining set rendered useless by assignment clutter on it or by unusable chairs?

I'd just like to echo that I only have TS2 and Uni installed and just started seeing the "assignment jump" yesterday in my university sub-hood, newly built (clean/custom - no maxis dormies).  Only seems to happen with one CAS created dormie so far, but it's a brand new university (Academie Le Tour).  Currently I only have one playable YA in one dorm, and 16 custom made dormies running about the place (7 in the dorm).  I will have to test the chairs in the dining hall to see if they are borked, now that I see this post.

I have "noassignmentlitter" installed, but it seems that others who don't have it are also experiencing the same problem.

Logic would suggest however that it is not Seasons or OFB that is doing this - may be a residual bit of wayward Maxis code conflicting with something else.

Since there are only 40 Sims in my entire neighbourhood (including the uni), including townies/dormies, but not counting NPCs, I have a hard time thinking it has something to do with overpopulation.

I'm wondering if the best "band aid" solution for now is to replace chairs in build mode every so often until someone obviously more awesome figures out what is going on anyway.

Dumb point and laugh question 76 - isn't there more recent code that's supposed to allow/make dormies go back and finish assignments that they drop all over the place? I sorta thought my dormies were doing this at one point, but at the moment I have very few playables and very few dormies so I dunno really. But if it does work the way I thought it was supposed to, it could be the chair is 'in use' so they'll go back there and finish up their homework and when no assignment litter takes away the homework they need to do that, it borks it?

I thought I took out no assignment so they could go finish their work, but maybe it was some other hack I was trying instead and I've forgotten or didn't put it back in after an EP or something (as none of the dormie homework hacks are in my game atm.)

the best "band aid" solution for now is to put something small on the tables (as mentioned earlier in this thread), that prevents dormies/playables from using the tables to do assignments (but they can still use it for eating) so you don't get the unusable chair problem.

It was the chairs becoming unusable, but I've not had the same problem with any other chairs (used just for eating), just the ones used at that table.  Which is why I figured it was the assignments.  Now whether it was from my playables doing assignments or NPC/dormie visitors, that I wouldn't  know.