More Awesome Than You!

One of JM's hacks that I really rely on is the scanner gun hack.  Hate having to look for that thing every time.

But since the patch, it seems like the sim using the gun will suddenly jump out of the action - I think it's happening when they're scanning something and another sim goes to use it, or maybe it's just when a sim walks by the object being scanned.  Anyway, I tried removing the hack from my downloads folder and I haven't had it happen since.

I have the newest version (NL compatible) and have Uni and NL.  Anyone else have this happen?

Hmm, I was using the gun last night (via macro > skillinator > cleaning) and didn't run into any problems. I just checked and I do have the scannergun hack in my downloads folder. I have Uni + NL and have applied the NL patch if that makes a difference.

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the patch fixes the problem with the scanner gun.  If so, it would probably cause problems to have the fix in as well.

In most cases where a patch or addon fixed a problem that a hack already fixed (ie jump bug etc) keeping the hack in is redundant but doesn't cause any problems. At any rate with the patch and the hack it seems to work fine for me so I don't think that's what's causing Elvira's problem although she could try taking the hack out. But does the patch really make them put it back down where they got it from? I didn't see that on the list of fixes but the uni list was huge so I may well have missed it.

I just started having problems since I installed the NL patch.  But not all the time.  And I don't have it happen everytime someone uses it on a particular lot.  Like sim 1 might use it for quite some time w/o problem, but sim 2 might only scan for a few sim minutes and jump out of it.  It only seems to happen when another sim walks by.

Maybe it has to do with the sim's personality? (neatness?) Or skill level at the time?  It does seem to be the ones who have low cleaning skills and low neatness (who I'm trying to add skill level to) who do this more.

I just want them to put it back on the table when they're done with it.  If they're using it, and I cancel the action, they do return it to the table or desk like they should (with the hack in).  But if they jumped out of the action on their own, it's on the ground where they're standing at the time.

JM - can you modify this hack for just "put it back where you got it from"?

It probably does have to do with neatness.  My neat Sims will always put the thinking cap back where they got it from, but the non-neat will put it on the nearest surface, often the kitchen worktop.  Then if I don't move it quickly enough they complain that there is nowhere to prepare their meals.

Well, it just happened again.  And the sim had 7 points in neatness and level 8 cleaning skill.  Scanner gun hack was out.  And no sim was standing or walking in front of the sim using the gun.  But it was 6 am and the other sims in the next room were getting up at the time the gun dropped to the floor.  It must be something else.

Would still like to have a hack that allows the gun to be placed back on the table allotted for it.

If you're having the problem with or without Pescado's hack then you might as well use it. *shrug* I think it's going to be a while until he gets his NL package from Uzbekistan and starts mass updating a lot of his hacks.

I'll have to try the gun now with a sloppy sim because the one I did it with last night was very neat.

Maybe it's something to do with the object being scanned?

Are you running debug mode when this happens?  If not, turn it on and see what happens.  I was getting this a lot with certain lots when another sim was skilling on the Chocolate factory.  The sim kept wanting to scan the invisible candies.  He woudl have them in his thought bubble but then I'd get an error and if I paused it quickly enough between hitting cancel and the next error coming up, I could see what was in his thought bubble.  Other things that are no longer valid by the time your sim reaches them include the carpool, school bus, etc.  By the time your sim walks from the back lot to the road, they can be gone.  JMP included some tweaks to fix this in his last version of the scanner gun hack, but there are still some issues, and then you throw NL and the patch into the mix.

I must admit I've had no issues at all with the scanner gun since JM's fix, but I don't yet have the patch installed, and NL still hasn't arrived.  However, I've found the chocolate factory useless until they reach about 4 skill points for cooking - it helps them get those points, but they stop doing it and don't earn any money, but I imagine this is normal, as I've only ever used it before for sims who've actually earned it!

It's useful to teach children how to cook when their parents are maxed out.  All they have to do is stand there and watch.  It's kind of cute, but not as cute as them learning on the surgical dummy.  They keep retching and holding their nose!  Then they will clap and cheer.  Both of them drain fun fast though. 

Oh, I use the surgery thing a lot!  My favourites though are the punchbag and the assault course - you can get a little kid up to 8 before they're ready to transition, so once they're a teen they can get the scholarship straight away!  and they can do both of them on their own just as well!

The candy machine is not that useful alone, since with a base rate of 200, it provides no real advantage over simply studying from a book, or watching Yummy. It also tends to malfunction if used with skill < 600. It does earn some money, but with more and more ways to abuse the system for money without even having to cheat, money is hardly a concern. Because even dating some homeless unemployed bum can spit out a $9000 fountain, apparently.

It's useful for making puddles and then watching the toddlers get all wired and caffeinated and having their energy go up. Of course prior to this latest patch the puddles for the most part were invisible and the toddlers have to do that eating chocolate action autonomously, you can't queue up. Might make a nice option for macrotastics if there weren't so many variables involved heh.

I was having the same problem with the scanner gun before the patch.  I haven't used the scanner since the patch.

If your Sim intends to scan something and another Sim starts using it, the scanning will reset, putting the scanner gun and thinking cap on the ground next to the Sim.  This is most obvious when they want to scan the maid's van about the time she decides to leave, but can happen with other items as well.

I also had a Sim scan the ReNuYu aspiration reward, one that had been moved to a new lot in a Sim's inventory.  I couldn't place the object against a wall.  When the object was scanned, the Sim got the corrupted thought bubble.  I've since deleted the Senso Orb, and I hope there are no other problems.

I had an odder problem where a Sim would scan one item, then quit, putting the scanner gun back where he got it.  I doubt this is the hack doing this however.

I'll try it without the hack, and if I don't like the results, I'll put the hack back in.  I'd rather have a Sim reset once in a while than put up with the other crap that happens with the scanner gun.

Hook

Before I had the hack my sims were constantly losing it, and at that time I didn't have the replacement rewards so it was extremely frustrating - you have your sim at neatness 7 or so, on his way to being Captain hero, and he loses the gun!  I know he can study from a boom but there's no fun that way!

What I have noticed, though, is that if a sim's fun level is full, they will stop scanning and put the gun back where they got it.  So how about telling them to scan when fun is low?

That's when the Skillinator sends them out to kick stuff.

(Er, how do you study from a boom?  Or was that book?  :D)

Sorry, when only one hand works properly it's easy to make typos!

Have you tried the scanner gun without the skillinator?

Not lately.  I do know that children won't use it by themselves.  They pick it up and then put it back down.  They need an adult with them to help them focus, LOL.

What is wrong with your hand?

I had a trapped nerve in my elbow and left it too long before I had an op, so the little finger is a bit paralysed - add that to arthritis, and I tend to fumble over the keys when I'm tired.

I never had a problem with kids using the scanner gun, although I think they learn faster if an adult teaches them.  Can't check it at present, though - no kids in my hood, although I suppose I could load another one with kids.

Yeah they do learn faster with someone teaching them.  The Skillinator will ignore the scanner when they are kids and have them study from a book unless someone is acting as an instructor.

Well, I never tried the skillinator, it takes over what I like to do for myself!  And I don't really like most of my sims to be maxed out on neatness, as it is I hate the way 4 sims will get up from a meal and each one will grab a plate and rush off to find an unoccupied sink!  I think I prefer sloppy sims who don't bother and then you can queue one sim to clean up!  And Virgos are a pain - always cleaning, and cheering if you tell them to clean!  They get up in the morning and cheer before autonomously making their bed!  What do they think they have the maid for anyway?

My sims aren't maxed on neatness, but they max out cleaning skill.  That doesn't make them want to clean any more, it makes them clean faster when they do (after moaning and complaining about it). 

Speaking of virgos, my ex was a virgo, but he never cleaned his dirty dishes or anything else.  Always leaving his dirty underwear on the floor next to the laundry hamper!  And he never made his bed or, or I could go on and on. :P  He liked to complain when other people didn't keep things as clean as he wanted them to be though.  >:(

The thing that drives me batty about sloppy sims is that they will walk across a room to put a book on the floor or a surface even if the bookcase is right next to them. Personally I would think a slob would only do that if the bookcase was too far from where they had been reading (but maybe that has more to do with laziness than being a slob). I like a neatness of about 4 so at least they're not total neatfreaks but they're not pointlessly wasting time with the book nonsense. Can't stand the autonomous making the bed annoyance either. If I cancel the interaction they still finish it anyway, even if I've queued up something I thought was more important (like using the toilet before they have a bladder failure).

Do you have JM's abortable bedmaking hack?

I'm getting fed up with the way this board loses your replies to posts, it's just done it again!!!!!!

I've found what i was going to say, and I've posted it below.

Actually, I made Don Lothario get really high cleaning skills (he needed them anyway to be a celebrity chef) and if you leave him alone, he'll clean up his own mess in the bathroom, and he'll autonomously clean sinks and stuff too!  He mostly only complains if I put these things in his queue, not if he thinks of it for himself!

The Skillinator ignores the scanner for children because kids are actually specifically programmed to be completely ADD when using the scanner. Kids, and only kids, explicitly stop on fun. Attempting to add an ADD compenator to the Skillinator resulted in wiggy behaviors, and so kids simply ignore the object unless an instructor is present (the presence of the instructor suppresses the ADD).

That's kinda what I though. :)

This last sim that dropped it was just scanning the wall.  If the patch doesn't  have anything in it that interferes with anything else, I'm putting it back in.  Tired of hunting everywhere for that stupid gun.

The only sims that I have use it alone are adults, YAs and teens.  I always use adult or elders to train children on the career rewards.

And the chocolate factory needs a teacher for any age if the learner's cooking skill level is too low.  But I usually put a teen or older on it alone anyway, because while they're trying to get the thing started, they're still learning.  The little skill level thingy comes up above their head, anyway.  I have had problems with teaching on that occasionally.  The teacher and the student will sometimes drop out of that, too.  I just chalked it up to some Maxis bug.

If your Sim has absolutely no cooking skills and you want them to learn on the candy machine, there's a little trick that might help.  Have 'em run to the far corner of the lot, put on the thinking cap, then click on the candy machine and "Make Candy".  They get the skill indicator as soon as they start walking toward the machine, and with any luck they'll gain enough skill just trudging across the lot to the machine that they won't make a mess.  Repeat as necessary.

Pescado says they need 6 cooking points to be successful, but in practice I've found that my Sims quit making messes after gaining 4 points.  And they are often successful with fewer than 4 points, often enough to make it worthwhile to keep trying.

Hook

Useful if your sim can't afford a TV or a bookcase!

Actually, I don't even care if there's a failure.  They're still learning while they're standing there fretting about the chocolate puddle they're creating. :)  And studying with a trainer is still faster than using the TV or bookcase.

Hook

And the TV's a damn nuisance anyway, they're forever either switching channels or "having a little rest" on the sofa and they stop watching!

Yeah, I usually put the candy machine in the basement or on the roof of a dorm, and they have to walk a ways to get there.  Even without the thinking cap, they still are learning.  And I usually get them to start actually making candy about the time they get into the 4th level of cooking skill, too.  Usually my children are at level three (or higher, if there's a candy machine in the house) by the time they're a teen, and by the time they've gone to uni they're usually level 4 or higher.  (I only allow my sims one career reward per adult sim.  No buyables at home unless the one they earned goes screwy.  Part of the challenge I've given myself.)  I use the (buyable) career rewards at college because the uni students' fun level goes down so fast, and since they have to learn these things for classes anyway, they might as well have fun while they're at it.  Sometimes with a teacher, sometimes without.  It depends on if the sim with the highest skill level has something else they need to learn or someone else they need to attend to.

I noticed something with the CM last night that I thought was kind of odd.  From a distance, when the sim using it was picking up the candy, the candy that disappeared was the pair next in line, behind the candy that was being picked up.  So the candy that was supposed to be picked up, dropped off into the wastebasket.  This happened several times in a row.  But when I zoomed in and watched, the candy was being picked up like normal. (Or dropped off, or eaten Lucy Ricardo style.)  Never noticed this before.

Always amazes me how much chocolate they can eat without getting fat!

I only use the buyables to replace lost earned rewards at home too.  I mainly use them at Uni when I have poor students in a house who need to earn money fast and learn skills at the same time, so I do put the hydroponic garden and the chocolate machine in for them, and usually they get the golf course as they get quite high fun from that.

And why doesn't eating the chocolate satisfy their hunger?  It does mine!  ;)

Yeah, I wondered how they could be starving to death while gobbling all that chocolate off the machine.  How do they have enough to sell, adn why don't they get fat?  It makes me hungry watching them.

Also, since chocolate is a mood-booster, why don't they get happy?

And since the toddlers get a huge jolt of energy from eating the puddles, why don't older sims get energy while making/eating the chocolate?

It's all a mystery!