More Awesome Than You!

VERSION 3!  EVEN MORE SHININESS!

Lots of people use dice to make decisions for their Sims.  For example, in the Legacy Challenge, you'd roll a die to determine if your Sim was Knowledge, Romance or whatever.  Then you'd have to cross reference a table to match the number with an aspiration.  Other people like to have random zodiac signs... got any 12 sided dice around? :)  Some people flip coins to make yes/no decisions.

I watched some people in chat using the chat bot to generate random numbers for them, and figured there might be an easier way.  I finally got around to writing a program to do it.

What's special about the program is, you make a config file with the various values you want.  For example, if you want the program to "flip a coin" the config file would include the following lines:

*Decision
Yes
No

If you want to pick a random aspiration, the config file also has:

*Aspiration
Knowledge
Pleasure
Fortune
Family
Romance

Running the program produces the output (with random values):

Decision
* Yes *

Aspiration
* Fortune *

You can put any decision you like in the config file, using simple formatting rules, and the program will generate a random value from the selections given.

The program is a small 20K DOS-type program.  Just double click on it and it opens a window, selects from the available options, and displays them.  No more referencing a table to figure out what aspiration you rolled!

Config file includes options for Decision(Yes/No), Zodiac, Aspiration, Random letter, and I think you can figure out the format to add whatever other random thingies you want.  The config file must be in the same folder as the program exe.

Edit: Version 2 includes:

Weighted selections.  Described in later posts.  Example:

*Orientation
Gay [2]
Bi [4]
Straight [6]

... will give half straight Sims, 1/3 bi Sims, 1/6 gay Sims

Random numbers up to 9 digits.  Example:

$$999999999

... will give a random number from 0 to 999,999,999

Random numbers in a range.  For example:

*Cooking
$5-9

... will give a random number 5 to 9 inclusive for cooking skill.

Putting the string *csv in the file will cause a .csv file to be generated from that point on.

Lots of new examples in the enclosed config file.  Feel free to remove the excess and modify as you wish.

Edit: Version 3

Includes support for drag and drop.  Have multiple config files, just drag the one you want to use on top of the program icon and it will generate the data from that config file.  Double clicking on the program icon will use the default config file.

Multiple selections for a category can be generated without duplicates.  Useful for turnons/turnoffs.  Coded as follows:

*Turnon/off [3]
Stinkiness
Cologne
Fitness
Brown hair
... etc...

See the RandomStuff.txt file for additional examples.

I've included a file of first and last names, set up to generate three male first names, three female first names and three last names.  These names are taken from the US census data, so they shouldn't look too odd. At least if you're from the US. :D

The CSV file is now appended to, rather than overwritten each time, so it will preserve existing data.  The CSV file will have the same filename as the config file you use to generate it.

When you get the option to "Press a key to continue" if you press R it will regenerate the list.  You can scroll up in the DOS window to get the older lists if you wish. 

There are a couple of minor bug fixes, including one that didn't handle the display of random numbers correctly if they weren't the first thing in the file.  It should work correctly now.

Hopefully this will be the last version, but if anyone finds a bug or someone comes up with a really cool idea, I'm more than happy to get back into the code.

Enjoy.

Hook

Just wanted to mention this in case it's not obvious.  The config file can be used as-is, or you can add anything else you like.  For example, the original Legacy Challenge rules allowed you to choose your own aspiration on a die roll of 6.  To do this, simply add a line to the aspirations that says, "Choose any" and that will come up 1/6 of the time.

If you'd rather see more Knowledge Sims than anything else, you can do that too.  Here's an example:

*Aspiration weighted for Knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge
Fortune
Family
Romance
Pleasure

This will give you a Knowledge Sim half the time.  You can also remove any aspirations from the list that you don't like.

Any comments or questions would be appreciated.

Hook

As a matter of fact, I do have a 12-sided die lying around... *slinks away in geeky shame*

I use a deck of cards and redefine them in whatever way fancies me at the moment. For example:

Ace to Queen = 1 to 12 (Aries to Pisces, respectively)
King = Whatever personality I feel like
Spade = Knowledge or Family
Heart = Romance or Pleasure
Club = Popularity
Diamond = Fortune
Joker = Grilled Cheese (next card for personality)

I spent about an hour the other week looking for a legacy style sims generating chart, I'm more than willing to give this a bash. I get sick of trying to be random when making a clutch of townies, for instance, I bet I'm not really random at all.

I've just got all keen on the MATY sims again because it's the current trend dontcha know, I might add to my townie population this weekend.

Part of my non-randomness means I tend to give certain starsigns to certain aspirations, generally what I think would be a good personality for that type of sim. Which means I don't get hard ones to play like popularity sims who are shy or whatever.

Questions will no doubt be forthcoming.  ;D Cheers for sharing this.

Here's how you'd set up the config file for that.  Add the following two new sections:

*Dizzy Zodiac
Aries
Taurus
...etc... Fill in the correct signs
Aquarius
Pisces
Your choice

*Dizzy Aspiration
Knowledge or Family
Romance or Pleasure
Popularity
Fortune

There's no really easy way to set up for the joker, but you can generate a random number:

*Dizzy Cheese
1
2
... etc ... fill in the numbers
24
25
Grilled Cheese

The above is for a two joker deck.  If you want one joker, the numbers end up 50, 51, Cheese.

Instead of the numbers, fill in all the lines with "Normal Aspiration" except the last one which would be "Cheese"

I probably should add a way to generate a random number within a range.

Hook

Set up a section as follows. I've used random things here; fill in your own preferences.

*Witch Combinations
Knowledge, Aries
Knowledge, Gemini
Knowledge, Cancer
Popularity, Taurus
Popularity, Leo
Fortune, Aquarius
Fortune, Pisces
Fortune, Aries
... etc ...  Fill in the rest of your preferences here

I've intentionally used Aries for both Knowledge and Fortune, just to show what can be done.

I've played shy Popularity Sims.  The only problems are that they sometimes complain when you ask them to do some action, and if you don't have the phone hack, it's harder to keep a relationship up by phone as they won't talk very long if their Social is maxed and their Social decays slowly.

Hook

Woohoo - first test sim and I get one I would NEVER have chosen. :D

*****  RandomStuff *****
BodyType
*  Fat  *
Gender
*  Male  *
Orientation
*  Straight  *
Astrological Sign
*  Virgo  *
Aspiration
*  Popularity  *
Age
*  Adult  *
Press a key to continue:

I thought about trying to do interests - generate an interest, then a random number between 0 and 11, but there's no way to exclude an interest that's already been chosen, is there?

PS

I don't quite get what you mean here. Do you mean set up odd combos? If so, I think I'd rather just random both asp. and sign individually.

You've made X3 redundant?!

Can it do the roll a 26-sided die to pick the first letter of a name thing?  I'm guessing it can, but I haven't read all the details closely just yet.

Yep. I saw that in there.

In the example above, you would generate Knowledge Sims who would be Aries, Gemini or Cancer.  Popularity Sims would be Taurus or Leo.  If you have a preference for certain aspirations having certain zodiac signs, this would do it.

As for interests, do it this way:

*Food
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

*Animals
5
6
7
8
9

*Politics
8
9
10
11

This way you can generate numbers for all the interests, and limit them to certain numbers if you wish.  There's a problem if you end up with more interest points than the game allows you to distribute, but you can adjust these manually if necessary when you actually fill in the numbers.

Good thing the DOS window has a scroll bar. :D

Hook

I'll say! I've also got it making choices about skintone, eye colour and hair as well. (Including all my geneticised skintones in the list).

I was trying the interests the wrong way round, making the list out of the interests instead of the numbers. D'oh! This means I can do skills too.

Then there's badges... turn ons...

CoolToy!

If I go something like this:
*Orientation
Gay
Gay
Bi
Bi
Bi
Straight
Straight
Straight
Straight
Straight
Straight
will that make any difference to percentage chances? Like there should be more chance a sim is straight? Or does that not matter in random choice?
ETA: Doesn't matter, I'm sure it has to work, there has to be more chance your exe will pick something that appears multiple times.

Yup, that was the whole idea.  If you wanted something to appear more often, you'd put it in the list more times.

I probably need to figure out a way to weight the choices, hopefully without making the config file too complicated.

Hook

Don't s'pose there's any chance of exporting to a csv file or anything? Mate?

I've got three D12s within reach of my computer, three D20s on the table as well as one in a necklace around my neck.  Aside from that I have two D10s one D4 and exactly one D6.
I recent the implication that threre are no 12 sided dice.
Nerd discrimination!

Lessee... fourteen 20 sided dice in various colors, thirty 6 sided dice, three 4 sided dice, four 8 sided dice... damn, no 12 sided dice here.  I guess my son misplaced it last time he and his friends played D&D.

Not everyone is a nerd, y'know. :D

Witch:  Next version will have additional features, like generating a random number (up to 9 digits if you want), weighted selections (for your gender preference thingy) and I can add a command to output a csv file as well.

*Orientation
Gay [2]
Bi [3]
Straight [6]

Weighted selections will also allow things like "If it's a joker, they're Grilled Cheese aspiration."

*Grilled Cheese
No [25]
Yes

Weighted selections doesn't work yet. :)

Edit:  Well, I already have it working, but it's not in the current version.

Hook

Gwill - you have a d20 necklace? /worships.

I have my favourite pointy dice in the bag on the desk beside me - they are two sets of uniques that came with the pound-o-dice bags we got ages ago.

Anyway, onto the topic. I usually roll 1d12 for the personality & 1d4 to see if I fiddle with it a bit (so not every aries is a neat freak sociopath).

I then roll 1d6 to determine aspiration (if it's family I roll again & if it's still family I stick with it. Well, most of the time.)

I then 1d4 to see if the fourth page of turnons & turn offs turns up (if it's a four, they like old wrinklies, lucky them), then 2d6 to determine the page ( 1-2 = page 1, 3-4 = page 2, 5-6 = page 3) to determine turn ons & turn offs.

Normally I'd be all for a random number generator, but that would mean my pointy dice would only get used when on a dungeon crawl. And that simply cannot be!

I have a barrel of them. A literal barrel. It cost me $5.

New version up, enhancements described in first post, but it's all the stuff that's been asked for so far.

Anyone else have any other ideas, let me know, while I still understand my own code. :D

Hook

D20 necklace from here:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/apparel/jewelry/7ae3/
Currently out of stock.

I don't trust any form of electronic randomness generator, so I'll stick with my dice and scowl.

I don't blame you for not trusting it, but I massaged the standard random number function severely a few years back for use in a wargame battle generator.  I did all sorts of stuff to make sure the results were actually random, and didn't follow patterns.  For example, I have a fix in the program for a rounding error that occurred 2 times out of a billion.  You think it got tested sufficiently? :D

Hook

I realize this is telling about my life, but this is the most excited I've been all week!

I added to my txt file

*Sim Type
Normal [46]
Vampire
Zombie
Werewolf
Plantsim

*Affair
Yes [15]
No [85]

*Kids
1 [20]
2 [20]
3 [6]
4 [3]
5 if family-go for 10 kid want

*Career
Normal [35]
Home Business [5]
Community Lot Business [5]
Artist or Farmer only [5]
That way occasionally I'll have to play less than normal sims. Occasionally I'll have to break the heart of my sims couples. Etc. etc.

Hm, I use these: aspiration die (http://www.geocities.com/kariminger/dice.jpg). Revised ganked-over die that I don't recall who made originally, so I don't take complete credit. I like having something physical to toss around. However, this will help when Mikko decides to chew up my current one. Plus, I don't like my current set-up for astrological sign choice.

Thought: You could actually add a random name generator on to this. It would require a lot of text addition to the coding, therefore bloating the file, but could almost be better than using a die + the random name generator from babynames.com.

For things like turn ons/offs is there a way to make a list of items randomize then the output would only list three: turn on 1, 2, and turn off. That way you wouldn't get repeats?

disclaimer: i am not a programmer, no idea if that's realistic

Generating names:  MikeInside has a great random name generator.  Here's the link:

http://mikeinside.modthesims2.com/family/index.html

It shouldn't be too much trouble to generate multiple things from one list, for use in turnon/off.  I can think of a couple of ways to do it right off the top of my head.  I just want to make sure that you can give red hair, for example, a high weight and still have the program work. :)  In the mean time, you can run the program multiple times until you get three different things.

Hook

I used to use MikeInside's, but I really don't like firing up a new program while the Sims is up. Not that Addison can't handle it, it's just an old preference from my laptop days. Plus, having an all-in-one customizable one is lovely, right? Theoretically, we could just set it up to randomize every little thing about a sim...would help immensely with custom townie creation. What I'm saying is....this is fantastically customizable and thanks a million. Great framework.

Edit: Got a chance to really play around with it and configured something to give an output as below. .txt file included in case anyone wants to build off it, since there's 1500 last names and approximately 1200 first names used. Last names are from public US Census data, first names are from Keep&Share (http://www.keepandshare.com/htm/lists/free_baby_names_list.php), and ad-riddled free list site.


Gender
*Male*
Life stage
*Adult*
Astrological Sign
*Scorpio*
Aspiration
*Grilled Cheese*
Turn-on 1
*Vampires*
Turn-on 2
*Swim wear*
Turn-off
*Facial Hair*
Alternate in case of duplicates
*Brown hair*
First Name: Male
*John*
First Name: Female
*Beth*
Number of sims in family
*5*
Last Name
*Aaron*

I love it. I'm thinking along the lines of Sims MadLibs. I can set up a whole bunch of bizarre random stuff and then make my sim lead that life. Mwa ha ha. My sims with cushy lives should be afraid, very afraid.

Zazazu:  thanks for including that file.  Makes a good way to generate names.

I haven't posted it yet, but I've got a new version with two changes.  One, when it asks you to "Press a key to continue" if you press R it will regenerate the list.  You can scroll up the DOS box to see older lists if you wish. Does not handle the CSV file elegantly yet.

Two, I've added a way to generate multiple things from one list without duplicates.  Useful for turnon/off and I tried it with your names and it works nicely.

I still have in mind to make it where you can drag and drop a config file onto the program icon to have the program use that config file rather than the default one so you can have multiple config files.

I'd like to make the next version the last one (but this isn't set in stone), so if anyone else has any requests, make 'em now.

Hook

This is kind of random, but the 2 and the 6 should be swapped. The opposite sides of a D6 always add up to 7. (All of my D6s follow this rule, at least...)

It would be cooler and more realistic if the program actually modelled the physical impact of a d6 or whatever upon a surface.

Just mentioning that your example .txt file is missing the Popularity aspiration, in case anyone is just copy/pasting, etc.

Also, love the idea of drag and drop for ease of using multiple files! I'm planning on running it at teen bday, adult bday, and marriage to determine various options.

Edit: Also, I was getting some weirdness when I moved options involving $ down further in the text file. For reasons I couldn't figure out, it was then causing output to be in a wrong order. Since I wasn't actually using your example number generators, I just deleted them. BUt in case anyone else sees it...

Oops.  Thanks.  I forgot we had a new aspiration, and was counting 5 and figuring I had 'em all.  It's corrected in version 3 of the program.

Copy and paste the offending part of the config file so I can see what's going on.  If there's a problem in the code, I'd like to fix it before I put up version 3.  Version 3 is ready to upload, btw, but I'll wait a bit for your info.

Edit:  never mind.  I see the problem.  Working on it now.

Version 3 has drag and drop, but only one file at a time.  CSV files are now appended to rather than overwritten, and mulitple runs are separated with ***** fields to delimit them, hopefully making it easy to read.  The CSV file will have the same file name as the config file.  If you just double click on the program, it will use the default config file.

Multiple exclusive selections from one list is working nicely.

Hook

Version 3 is up.  It includes all the changes discussed, the fix for the random number display, and a new file of names for generating Sim names.  This data is from the US Census, and includes about 500 male first names, 500 female first names and 500 last names.

It might be cool for people to post interesting and useful config files, like ones to generate interests, career fields, etc.  People can pick and chose what they want to use, and either use them separately or combine them into specialty config files for various uses.  Now that we can have multiple config files, this should be very useful.

Additional comments and suggestions are appreciated.  Especially bug reports. :D 

Hook

TGIF! Thank God It's Friday!!!111!!! I can play with this tomorrow!
I was wondering about the naming of the config files, I guess we can name them differently now the drag and drop is available?

As I recall, InSim has some sort of 'automated' notification system going on when they alter someone's post. I used the word 'fuck' where i shouldn't have, and I got a PM from. . . uh, something saying that my post had been altered. I went back, checked, and changed the wording accordingly. I wonder if that would work here.

I will do so for careers if you'd like. I'll enclose three attachments: the one labelled All Careers has all careers right up to Seasons included; the Base Game one only has the original 10 jobs; the Uni career included the original 10 as well as the four than came from Uni (if anyone is interested).

Also, if anyone's interested, I'm going to post one for hair and eye color, where the hair colors are also given either a long, medium or short length designation. Here's what mine looks like:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v387/denimjo/Random.jpg)

I was considering adding a section for which face template to use for my new townies when I create them, but thought that might be pushing it a touch. :p  I'm going to experiment a bit to see if I can figure out how to decide whether a Sim should be a townie, downtownie or NPC. *rubs hands gleefully*

No.

I have created my own RandomStuff.txt for it.  Here comes extra small text so it doesn't make my post extra long.  I have kidnapped some of Denimjo's config files, so you'll see those in there.

Li'l Brudder, I noticed you've weighted black and brown hair so that they'll be twice as likely as red or blonde hair.  I chose to do the opposite, I gave red and blonde hair a much higher weighting than black or brown hair.  The reason for this is that I've played a few Legacies where my sims married townies/NPCs and within a few generations every sim born in the family had black or brown hair for both dominant and recessive genes.  I figured if I start with a higher proportion of redheaded & blonde townies, this is less likely to happen.

I do like the weighting for skills and badges you've used.

I made some dormies yesterday, and gave them randomised majors.  Undeclared was in my list of majors, so some of them are still undeclared.  I will be adding "did townie graduate" to my version of the randomiser when I next make townies, and if so, they will get an appropriate degree.

I also gave the dormies randomised LTWs.  I use Squinge's any LTW for any aspiration, however I don't like pet LTWs, or the family/romance/pleasure sim specific LTWs.  I added the LTWs I don't mind using to the randomiser - all the careers, max 7 skills, 20 best friends, earn $100k, 5 top-level businesses.  Then I rerolled using the lot debugger until the LTW came up.  Does anyone know if there's a mod that allows me to select the specific LTW I want (as rerolling/cycling the LTW on the lot debugger for 30 dormies takes a while)?

I've noticed that townies I've made since installing Seasons never get the Seasons specific careers.  I've added the Seasons careers to the randomiser, as well as career level 1-8, so that I can get a more random spread of careers for my townies.  I was always disappointed that NL didn't take the opportunity to give downtownies degrees and uni careers if you have Uni installed, so I have also included those careers.  I'll be adding your idea of weighting the job level.

Fair point about the hairs.  It'd probably equal out in the end, seeing as brown and black are dominant.

But I designed it like that because it'd make sense that the neighborhood started out with more, appearing as though that the neighborhood always existed and that genetics was already in play.

I use SimPE

ETA: No I don't. It's been so long since I was in SimPE for tweaking I got confused with the jobs. I use SimPE to set jobs. I don't know a quicker way to do LTW, sorry.

Hook, I love the fact that I can drop the config file onto the program icon and have it run just that file.  I have the program in a folder on my desktop called "Hook's Handy Sim Randomiser", and I simply alt-tab to it and drop the appropriate config file onto the icon when I want.  Definitely handy - hence the name.  BAAAAAAAA!

For chance cards I have been using the info in the thread in the War Room to pick the best option, where there is one.  But sometimes the best option comes up wrong anyway, and sometimes I might want to shake things up by being random.  So I added some lines for chance cards, depending on that particular card's chances of the best option (as per the thread in the War Room).

The Seasons careers no longer follow the 85/15 for best/worst option, so I added lines for their percentages also.  I have also included a 10% chance of passing on the card.

NB By best option I mean "most likely to be the right answer", not necessarily the option with the best outcome.

*For 85/15 cards
Best option [765]
Worse option [135]
Pass [100]

*For 80/20 cards
Best option [36]
Worse option [9]
Pass [5]

*For 75/25 cards
Best option [675]
Worse option [225]
Pass [100]

*For 65/35 cards
Best option [585]
Worse option [315]
Pass [100]

*For 55/45 cards
Best option [495]
Worse option [405]
Pass [100]

*For 50/50 cards
Option A [9]
Option B [9]
Pass [2]

I do believe that's a fallacy: In the absence of selective pressure, allele frequencies in a population remain constant. So unless hair color influences a sim's chances of spawning more, providing selective pressure, the allele frequencies will remain constant, except for randomized genetic drift due to the small population of a sim neighborhood. Whatever you put in at the beginning is going to basically be whatever you get out. The same applies for eye colors. This misunderstanding is what led to the prediction that blondes were going to become extinct, an event which has shown to not be occurring.

Skintones, however, work differently: The skintone of your neighborhood will gravitate towards whatever is most common, especially if S2 or S3 are the most frequent, as skin tone information is permanently lost anytime two sims of different tones breed. If your initial population consists of S1 and S4 sims, and they breed producing S2, S3, and S4 sims, S1 is permanently lost forever and unless you introduce fresh blood, those tones will never reappear, as normal ranged skintones are not transmitted as recessive traits.

I suppose if one really wanted to get complicated, they could open up the SimDNA of their townies and manually add a recessive gene for red and blonde hair (or whatever). They'd simply have to add the following code into the 'recessive hair' line:

Red hair:
00000004-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
Blonde hair:
00000003-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

If you wanted it, the numbers for brown and black:
Brown hair:
00000002-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
Black Hair:
00000001-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

I made a couple of config files for pet names for use with this, attached in case anyone is interested :) I'm probably going to do some for Sim names to, categorized.

Jen

Would you mind sharing your text file with all the chance card info, including Seasons, please Kyna?

ETA:

Hook's Handy Haxor

If you mean the info on the chance cards themselves, I don't have that in a text file. 

I printed out the info available in this thread (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,5.0.html), including Pescado's table in the first post and Striker's info in this post (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,5.msg35891.html#msg35891) (some of which needed to be corrected by cross-referencing with Pescado's table as the chance cards occurred in my game, as some of them are the wrong way around).  When Pescado updated the table for Seasons, I just added a basic handwritten page to my printouts, listing job level, job title, and the percentage of option A being right.

As for my RandomChanceCard.txt file that I use with the randomiser, I already gave the contents of the file in my earlier post.  But here it is as an attachment.

Thanks Kyna, I had trouble getting onto MATY a few nights ago and probably missed some posts.

Picking chance cards at RANDOM seems rather stupid, since it would simply significantly reduce your odds of being right. If you choose the "right" answer which works 85% of the time, 85% of the time, you will instead only be right 74.5% of the time (0.85*0.85 + 0.15*0.15). This is clearly worse than choosing the "correct" answer without exception (0.85* 1.0 + 0.15*0), which yields an 85% chance of positive yield. The only question is whether or not to play at all, not what to play.

I found that knowing the "right" answers to the chance cards led me to ALWAYS choose the 85% option. 

I wanted to throw in a little randomness into it, to shake things up a bit.  I'll still be right the majority of the time, but I'll get it wrong often enough to upset the smooth running of my sims' lives.  For those chance cards where the odds are 55/45, I would hesitate to call 55% the "right" answer, but I'll still be picking it more often than the 45% option.

Of course sometimes choosing the wrong answer gets it right, particularly with the less extreme Seasons career odds.  The first chance card I had come up using this was the one at the top of the Gamer career - the Bella question.  I went with the randomiser's answer (choose the 45% option) and it paid off.

Well, sure, it's the logical thing to do, for the most part. I don't actually always do this, but whether or not I do really depends on the cost/benefit analysis. If in a given situation, I'm looking at 85% of high yield/low penalty vs. 15% of low yield/no penalty, I might go with the 15% anyway, despite the reduced odds, simply because there is no penalty.

Chance cards that close, I tend to pass on anyway. I'm not a gambler by nature, and only play the cards when the expected yield of success outweighs the expected cost failure by at least a factor of 10 anyway, unless it's purely money.

That's the gamer in you.  While I'm a bit of a gamer at heart, when I choose to play the Sims I want a little more unpredictableness, and follow the storyline that develops from accidental job loss or sudden promotion.  I don't want to plan it, real life sometimes throws plans into a heap, and I want the same for my sims' lives.  The money, meh.  Money is in no way a limiting factor in this game.

All I've really done is lowered the odds of being right.  And gained a bit more exposure to the outcomes of the lower probability answers.

BTW, not relevant to this thread, but related to chance cards.  I've noticed that there's a glitch with the Seasons careers. 

When a sim loses their job from a chance card, they go to level 1 in the career, they don't actually lose their job.  I had a playground monitor lose his job last week on a chance card (went with the 75% option and lost), he came home immediately and instead of losing his job he was demoted to playground monitor.  Not much of a demotion, or a job loss.

I've seen something similar happen before in another Seasons career, but the sim wasn't level 1 in the career.  Instead of losing his job as I expected from the text in the result, he got demoted to level 1.  That was just after I got the EP, and I don't recall which career it was.

Okay, I've added my coding as a txt file because Pes cannot stand having something be convenient.

I'm going to stick with straight logical probability analysis, where the best choice is the one with the greatest expected value. If you just are hellbent on being wrong for variety for some strange reason, why not just do so arbitrarily?

I want it to be random, rather than a decision by me. 

If it wasn't random then my decisions would be skewed by how much I liked that particular sim or family.  Bad things would happen more often to sims I'm not fond of, and I'd still find myself mostly in my "happy families" rut with the sims I like more, as it's harder for me to deliberately screw up their pixellated lives.

If I leave it to the roll of the dice (or Hook's randomizer program) then it's less of a deliberate decision by me and more a matter of chance.

For much the same reason, I'm also adding random death to my text file.  I'm currently fiddling with numbers and testing to get the percentages right, using an idea I stole ... uh borrowed ... from this post (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,7877.msg218145.html#msg218145) in the accidental death poll topic.

I looked at the career list that was posted earlier, but I think there's definitely some careers missing. Does anyone know where I can find a complete list of careers? or a list of careers by expansion pack they were introduced?

Original game careers:
Athletic
Business
Criminal
Culinary
Law Enforcement
Medical
Military
Politics
Science
Slacker

Uni careers:
Artist
Natural Science
Paranormal
Show Business

OFB Job:
Employee*

Seasons Careers:
Adventurer
Education
Gamer
Journalism
Lawyer
Music

*Not a career track in the sense that a sim can't advance via skills + friends, but it shows on the job/skills screen in the UI as their job if they are an employee.

Somewhat related question: does anyone happen to have a list of JadeElliot's Random Occurrences that she had up on her site (before it went under)? That was really awesome terrific.  :-X I thought I'd use this neat little program to shake up my families a bit when they get a little boring.

Someone needs to find that girl, drag her back kicking & screaming, make her give up the goods, and throw her back. She had too much good stuff to disappear.

I meant to go through and divvy up the names into different types, but in the meantime I'll share my name files in case anyone wants to use them with Hook's groovy tool. Lots of different nationalities, normal names, unusual names, a few fantasy type names.

Hehe, got my full name in there.

If you can leave this up here for a day or so, I'm rolling it into my live.package :-)

Heh yeah I swiped names from various creators and Simming peeps :) When I first compiled all these names I was going to make my own live.package, but I'm too lazy and I never finished it :P Help yourself :)

Hey, Denimjo, I've got it copied over in a .doc.

For all the trouble I went through to get this (exploding posts, RARing a mutant file, converting the original file type, etc.) I expect a bah.

Thank you, Li'l Brudder!
/me double checks to make sure she put the apostrophe in the correct place.

ETA: Would it be considered poor taste to post a config file to incorporate JadeElliot's Random Occurence Scenarios here (with proper credit issued, of course)? I'm going to try contacting her through PM, but I'm not sure if she'll get the message.

Demimjo:  If Jade doesn't mind, I think it would be great.

Edit:  Note, lines are limited to 256 characters.  If it's longer, it will be cut off.  And the remainder discarded (I think). :D

Hook

Yeah, I've hit the character limit. I'm trying to think of a way I can summarize a few of them. Also, I notice that if you hit the limit, the remaining characters get shunted to a new entry. XD I've tried to make sure I've chopped them all down a bit.

Okay, I've got a test version of this handy if anyone would care to try it. If Jade has any objections, she can PM me and ask me to take it down if she likes (although I can't see why she would). Bear in mind that for convenience sake, I've made a separate heading for each category. If you want a truly random event popping up, just remove all the headings and you should get one from any of them.

I've also included a couple number generators at the end: 1 for d100, d4, d6, d20 and d12. Feel free to alter as you wish. If anyone has any ideas as to how this could be improved upon (bearing in mind the character limit), please let me know.

ETA: I've also added one that chooses one event from all categories (along with the number generators).

Darn, I was afraid of that.  It's easy enough to make the limit longer, but it would be a new version of the program.  While I *have* a new version (one minor bug fix and a bunch of extra stuff, including ability to generate a random number on the same line as an entry), I'm not ready to release it yet.

Some of those entries are funny.  But one, Project Due, I don't think it's possible to write a novel in 24 hours.  Last time I looked it took 30. Give 'em 36 hours and hope they have Platinum Punch and an energizer handy. :D

Hook

I use Monique's computer, so I was thinking of changing "project due" in my game to writing several articles, with higher career levels needing to write more articles than lower career levels (for the sake of "realism").

I am considering something like: career level 1-3 write two articles; career level 4-7 write three articles; and career level 8-10 write four articles.  I need to experiment and play with the numbers a bit, work out how long an article takes to write, etc.  I'd like the career level 8-10 requirement to be something that my sims have to push themselves hard to do, but is possible if they caffeinate and stay up all night.

A lot of these options require cheats or hacks, but there just isn't room to add those. Perhaps if I added some notes into the config file at the end. *ponders*

Pardon the double post, but does anyone know if this works on a Mac?

Hey Denimjo, Li'l Brudder, et al:
How exactly are you using these random occurences? Do you have a system to it?

Mine has "Subtitles" using *(subtitle) and then providing no options beneath.

I create their personality, interests, career type, career level, hair color, hair length, eye color, gender, skills, business pwnage, type of business, name, skin color, fitness level, sim type, aspiration, whether or not they achieve their lifetime want, their orientation, marital status, children (yes or no), number of children, turn ons, turn off, and badges.

Good for townies.

It's a PC executable, so unless you have a Windows emulator, then probably not. :)

Well, the system that I use probably isn't the most efficient there ever was. I keep a copy of the .rtf file that Li'l Brudder so kindly provided earlier and use that to reference if I get something coming up where I'm not entirely sure how to enforce it. Example: The Psychotic Murderer option. I had to really trim it down to fit within the allotted space, so I just read off what's in the text file for elaboration. But I do have each section of randomness separately as well in case I want to have a random event geared towards something specific (like finances or family, etc.).

I do use the singular heading for the most part, though (the one with all of the options in one big list). So far I haven't had any deaths, but I fear my time will be up soon.  :-X I also use it every three Sim days since my 'Legacy' family is getting really boring now that they've got the Education career reward. Maxing skills a day after becoming a child? Piece of cake. I haven't been brave enough to install Inge's awesome prison set yet, though, but I'm sure that'll be a lot of fun when a Sim has to be arrested when they're a single parent.  :-\

I did one round in one of my neighbourhoods (3 days per lot) and used it on every lot.  Since some of the options take several days to fulfill, such as the herbalism course, I was thinking of doing it once a week.  I think I'll choose Sunday for their weekly date with fate for tongue-in-cheek reasons (what better day for these "acts of god"?).

I also wrote a "is today a good sim-day to die" random file, which I run every day at 6pm for every sim.  The odds get progressively higher as they go from teen/YA to early adulthood to later adulthood to elder.  That one also includes a "will loved one plead - yes or no" question.  I'm still testing this one to see if I get enough or too many deaths from it.  It has already made for some interesting storylines.

Don't forget -- if you added the Life Stories converted careers from here, you've also got Entertainment and Game Developer as career options.

I made up a thingy for making prosperity hoods. Just a few items that should help minimize some of the re-rolling, heh.

I found a sim randomizer utility kicking around on my laptop that comes from the prosperity challenge site. I haven't got round to playing that particular challenge yet but have used the tool in the past to add some variety to my hoods.