If an auto-finals-schedule *were* available, I think I'd still prefer to use the college clock to control things myself.
Checking the time of finals would need to be done several times, as sending your sim to a community lot or the SS changes uses up some time, and then your return home at the same time you left.  No matter how clever you tried to make the auto-hack, I'm sure there will be times that you curse it coz you were not ready.

Ah it's a bug then.  The lower levels are still getting the EAxis grace period of 6.
Level 4 and above get level * 6.  24hrs to 60 hrs.

Was finding that after studying the cooking skill and reaching level 4, the grace period of 24 was stopping it from dropping just from eating.
This is the level where they start to get that want to win the cooking comp.  A wantslot that trash hobbies should not occupy for very long.


Yeah agree about that level 10 decay of 20 hrs being far too short.
I Think the decay should be based on sims though.  An interested sim's enthusiasm bar should falll slower.

Hmmm... that same sim is supposed to have studied physiology too.
Think he must have missed out on the 25% bonus when he did that.

More info for the file...

--------------------------------------------------------------------
ENTHUSIASM DECAY

Each hour, while your sim is at home or on the hobby lot, all enthusiasm values decrease.
If you sim is engaged in a hobby activity at this time then that one hobby will be skipped.

The decay rates vary depending on the enthusiasm level

Enthusiasm   Decay   Hours to depleat
Bars Shown   /hour   a full bar
 0 - 4        1%       100 hours
 5 - 9        2%        50 hours
 10           5%        20 hours

If the decay would cause your sim to lose an enthusiasm point, no decay occurs if your sim has
some of the 'grace period' left.  Any activity that changes the enthusiasm value resets the
grace period to 6 hours.  Meaning that your sim would never lose a point so long as some hobby
activity was done each 6 hours.

When enthusiasm does decay, the enthusiasm loss dialog is displayed if your sim has lost one
whole point worth since their last activity.  This is displayed only once and does not necessarily
correspond to the time when your sim drops down a level.  ie. if you had 4.5 bars of enthusiasm
and then never touched that hobby again, you would get one warning at 3.5 bars.

Might knock one up for people to try.


Not bothersome at all.  An S-shaped tuning file need only contain some constants I've already edited.
Arbritrary values?
This mod mainly tweaks the values that were already being used, and fixes the bugs and annoyances.
The hobbylot bonus is new, is that what you meant?

Play testing this so far seems to be holding up to my original ideas of what I wanted to achieve.
My sims have been able to concentrate on their OTH and hobbies of high interest while avoiding the trashy wants
of hobbies they apparently detest.
Was puzzled to why enthusiasm loss no longer happened on cue, but tracked that down to nohobbyspam
and the increases to the 'grace period' in that.  Even without bonus's, just maximizing some skills was driving the enthusiasm
bar high enough that they hit the point of no return that nohobbyspam implements.

The EA decay values are *very* slow for lower levels.  Mulling some ideas over for a saner decay as this is probably a good place to
get rid of the trash hobbies without making it harder to gain the hobby skills your sim is interested in.

I didn't expect the values I chose to be perfect first time, but even if this implementation sucked.
It's gotta suck less than the EAxis one

A lot of things are S-curve shaped.
A steep-shallow-steep.
If you consider that sims will have hardly any bonus's at the start, it's steeper than the table suggests.

It's not really real-life enthusiasm anyhow.  Being enthusiastic about something does not mean you are good at it.
If you consider the rewards that you get as you gain this 'enthusaism', they have more to do with hobby knowledge, or hobby skill.
Looking at it like this, then sim-interests are a more realistic property that resemble reallife enthusiasm.

As it's a clean game, I'd suspect a faulty install.
I'd try replacing the ObjectScripts.package file first.
Have you installed patch(es)?

The message says it created a log file.
People will be able to help more if they could see that.

Glad you like it Nameless Horror:
Yes, seelindram explains it perfectly.  Nothing to worry about.

If you look at the output from HCDU you'll see that the optional files only override 'Constants' in file 1.
This saves me updating all files with any changes I make to the code.
Less work for me, and reduces the chance of me introducing errors.

Another idea in the pipeline...
- Adding another threshold for the primary interest, below which *no* enthusiasm would be gained.
  The value that makes sense to me is 4 points.
  After all, if another sim dares to talk to them about a topic when they have interest below 4 they will get a relationship loss.
  At this stage, I'm thinking of a value of 2 for the main file, and override to 4 in zHarder.
  This will be bypassed for the OTH.

Sound good?

I'll correct that, thanks.  Makes the values much more significant then.

I have a sim that's close to reaching 100.  Has 49 accumulated on 4 motives from LTA's. 37 on the others.  In the zone he reaches 89 adj of Fun.
This sim hardly ever sleeps! He's an active YA with 2 NRG bonus's.  The ffslotdebugger is telling me it's -164/d with an adjustment of 49.
Almost makes me want a sleeping pill hack.

They dress alike?
Hadn't noticed that.  Was wondering how to recognise them.  Had been using a hack to display family number.
Dunno about pointless.
They do have jobs, and can offer you an entry higher up the career, or give you higher salery through their connections.
Get cheaper furniture / cheaper rent / instant date - are some of the things I've seen from these people.

Want to make an enemy of one to see if they screw you over too

It was the messing with interests that first made me want to change the way it worked, then it grew from there as I found more annoying things.
Have you seen my enthusiasm mod in Peasantry? (plug plug).  Very much interest driven

The whole enthusiasm code looks like it was copied from skilling.  Still some stuff in there that does nothing.
It was designed for skilling though, and not enthusiasm.  As a result you lose the rate bonus's the higher you go up the levels in part of the code.
(In integer math, adding 50% to 1 is 1.  This never happened in skilling as the IQ is always multiples of 100.)

Yeah, the enthusiasm absorption part was different.  As you say, lots of thought in there.  After seeing what the ppl had in mind for enthusiasm gain, it was
disapointing to see little variation in the Base Rates.  Some sections seem to have more thought in than others.  Whoever plugged the values in for Games, at least made 'doing' more value than just 'watching'.  Then you see something like the trainset which costs heaps (money and space) and doesn't provide any other skilling benefit and still has crappy rates.  Perhaps when more are uncovered, we'll see some things with a higher rate than the hobby mag or blogging.

Anyhow... I missed a section.  Here for the person that asked me on IRC.
I've not updated the file with this yet.  So no need to download it again.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT HAPPPENS IN THE ZONE

As soon as a sim reaches level 10 in a hobby, they go into 'the zone' when they
pursue it.

You hear the zone fanfare, and see the white glow.
Some long running activities also have custom sound and visual effects.
eg. A FilmLit sim in the zone and reading a novel - music appropriate to the type of novel.


Those are the obvious things, now the hidden...

MOTIVE DECAY
For long running activities only, the sim also experiences a slower decay rate
of motives.  These add to the adjustments they may have already from LTA superpowers.
The amounts are...

NRG, Hyg        15
Hun, Bla, Soc   30
Com, Fun        40

These are flat adjustments, not percentage adjustments.  So how much these effect your
sim depends on their life stage and superpowers.
If you use Pes's ffslotdebugger, you can see the currents motive levels (-100 to 100),
the amount they decay per day, and the adjustment figures .

These adjustments are small in comparison to the faster rates that different game objects
have.  eg.  The restorable car decreases hygiene. A sim in the zone will still end up dirtier.

The 2 enthusiam 'boost' methods don't bother with the decay adjustments.  They don't last long
enough to have any real effect anyway.

TODO: Mystery value 50.  in LUA.

LEVEL 11
Enthusiasm still increases.
Although there is no 11th bar, the enthusiasm value increases up to 10.99 ~ Near enough 11 bars.
This is so that you do not lose that 10th point as soon as you finish the activity.
The rate of enthusiam gain once you reach level 10 is the same as for level 0.
ie. Using a BR 100 object with no bonus's would fill up to level 11 in 160 mins.

ah ok, thanks for explaining that

At the SS lot, 'the stand' that the bot goes back to when not in use was gone too.
I'll try shift-clicking the crafting station to see if I can cheat one back.

Didn't take me long to rule out the hack.  It's just a constants tweak from Crammyboy (CBOY_RobotsBreakLess).

Emma, you got me thinking it could be something added in the ALpatch concerning all robots,
but no changes to the robotglobals there.
Trivial changes in there from EP7->EP8.  I guess that I would have seen more hits on google if AL broke robots this way though.

I'm playing all EP's including the AL patch.
These are the first 2 robots I've ever used!  I'll try a third on a normal residential lot.

Playing La Tour Uni. I bought some crafting stations with the SS money.
The first cleanbot was put to use clearing up after the messy members.  Doesn't get all the crap but saves you some time when your sim has no influence left to make another member useful.

Saved from the SS lot and exited.  Next time back and there is no sign of the cleanbot.
Built another, tried again, but this time went home to the dorm.
No difference, the second bot has gone AWOL too.

Looked on google for this problem, but only found tips about using them at the SS lot.
Anybody else here seen this?

Have some hacks related to lessbreakage of robots.  I'm going to look into those to see if they are the culprit.

More than you ever wanted to know about Enthusiasm.

I compiled lots of info about how enthusiasm works while working on a hack.
Not the stuff you can normally find out by playing, but the stuff you find by searching through the code.
Searching websites often find the same incorrect data.

A few surprises, some horrid bugs, lots of EA laziness exposed.

In the attached file...

What the OTH means?
THE HOBBY LOT
TIME TO GAIN A POINT
OTHER SIDE EFFECTS OF ENTHUSIASM GAIN/LOSS
RELEVANT SKILLS AND INTERESTS
HOW DOES THE GAME CHOOSE THE OTH
SIM INTERESTS
GLOBAL ENTHUSIASM CALLS
And Finally, "THE DATA".  What hobby objects/activities are related to, and how fast they work.

Ooh... farmers and a limited supply of fresh food?
Not had chance to play with growing crops or selling them yet.
Is this all orig game stuff or is there a hack that you need?

There's no fresh food bonus, it's just that qualifies the meal for enthusiasm.
if it's not fresh then the group_meal_price must be greater than cheap food.

Then the rate is set at...
group_meal_price + offset (offset is currently 10)
and then adjusted up or down if it exceeds the limits of min and max. 31% and 50% of normal rate.

The values in bold are that ones that can be edited in the constants file.
min can go lower, but any value lower than 31 gets filtered out further up the chain.

um, so I dunno
Depends how much the game thinks the various fresh foods are worth.
If you set min=0, max = 0x1f, and offset = 0. That will probably rule out all most of the fresh food, and any food that does pass will get the minimum rate poss.

If I know more about the prices of fresh food then I could take that into account too instead of just the 'is_fresh' flag.

Alternatively, leave this be and install 'Enthusiasm gain mod' too.
Then your sims with less than 5 points of food interest will lose the obssessions of food that they have running the EAxis code.
Of course you may have to drag that interest down in the first place being as the orig EAxis code fscked up interests in the first place.

You might want some new spells for the good witch too

The picture is pretty useless.
Tried to attach it anyway but the forum wouldn't allow it.
Do you want me to make an ascii-art one?

Looks like I followed this menu.
Autonomy.../Add.../Family.../Exemption.../$NameLocal:1.../By Category
'Family exemption' showed the wrong menu whereas 'personal exemption' was fine.

The TV menu problem didn't come back after I re-installed this hack 
So yes, strange coincidence.

Thanks, I installed antipeeobsession.  Looks useful but don't think it's the anti-motives-reset.
ah.. hang on.  The room No > 0
My sim had just returned from a uni class when I saved.
So as he was outside on the pavement he got the reset as per normal.  Won't do that again now I know

v2 just posted.
snippet from the txt file...

FILE 1: tunaisafish_enthusiasmrate.package
This is the main file.  Install this to get...

 ANNOYANCES FIXED:
 1/ a) Interests are not increased by hobbie activity.  Except for the Sims' One-True-Hobbie.
    b) Only one relevant interest will still gain an increase when a sim in engaged in the OTH,
       instead of all relevant interests. (See table below)
    c) The interest is increased in a non-destructive way and will not decrease random other
       interests as the original EA code always did.
 2/ Illiminated interest-enthusiasm bleed.  To achieve the maximum gain rate, the primary
    interest is the one that matters.  Each hobby now has a unique primary interest.
    eg. With EA code, a sim with the Games hobby would also get maximum enthusiasm gain in
    Film&Lit and Music&Dance.
 3/ Sims no longer lose their bonus effects at higher enthusiasm levels.
    (Due to the way integer maths works, adding 50% to 1 still equals 1.)
 4/ Steadier gain rate of enthusiasm during long interactions.
 5/ Pets no longer given useless enthusiasm.

 FEATURES:
 1/ Modified conditions by which sims will recieve an increase in enthusiasm gain.
    'Interest' is now the dominant factor over the gain rate.
    Sims with a high interest (5+) will get a faster gain, (8+ interest faster still).
    If they are interested, then relevant high skill (5+ & 8+) will increase the rate too.
    The OTH still gets a 50% boost.
 2/ Relevant interests to hobbies changed. (See table below)
 3/ Enthusiasm gains on a hobby lot recieve a super bonus.
    An extra 2/3 added to the final rate after all other bonuses
    Yes, now there is a reason to go there.

DESCRIPTION:
 Sims no longer get enthusiasm for cuisine for *everything* they eat.

BUGS/ANNOYANCES FIXED:
 - Gain is no longer a uniform rate for all food.
 - Sims no longer get a bonus for eating spoiled food.

FEATURES:
 - Cuisine enthusiasm LOSS for eating burnt or spoiled food.
 - Cuisine enthusiasm gain for eating fresh food.
 - No gain for any food of equivalent price or less than a hotdog.
 - Gain varies dependant on food price.

NOTES:
 - Unfortunately, food doesn't have any value that represents 'yumminess'.
   The price was the only thing that I could use that got rid of the enthusiasm
   for Chips, cereal etc.  Hotdogs was an average value.
   So some yummy desserts are excluded.
 - The gain will never exceed 50% of normal base rate, with minimum of 31%.
   Orig game gave 32% to all food.
 - Thought about using the sims favourite foods to increase enthusiasm too, but CBA.
 - Sims cooking/preparing food is a different area to the one addressed here.

COMPATIBILITY:
Tested by me in TS2-ALp1, requires FreeTime.
Should work fine with FT and no AL, since nothing I edited has changed since then.

HACK CONFLICTS:
 None known.

THANKS:
 Dopp, Sagana, Inge

Yes - hobby instruction is broken for level 10.

I've done a lot of work for v2 of my enthusiasmrate hack which should go up later today in peasantry.
This is just one of the fixes that I'll include there... but in case you don't want the rest for whatever reason.

Love the idea of this hack

couple of problems.
Pie menu typo - the exemption came up with 'by category' twice.  I assume one of those is meant to say GUID.
TV's lost most of their menu.  Could not change channel/watch movie.  The only options still there were work-out and turn off.

Removing this hack gave me my tv menu's back.
No conflicts reported and no errors while playing in debug mode.


Not sure yet if it was this hack or the one I'm writing that caused a lot reset in my game when installed.  But autonomycontrol caused a lot reset when removed.

I like the sound of that hack too.   What do I need to do to qualify as a Fat Gwilly?

ah yes, so they are

Looks like the enthusiasm tracker was cloned from a skill tracker.
Some crap left behind, and the attribs used slightly differently.

Rewrite?  Hell that's no bug it's a feature.
How else are we supposed to build our pets enthusiasm to do this?

Video from the legend that is shadow's game

Inge, while you're here
I found a few wrongly guessed atrrib labels while looking through this code, how do you want corrections and new info?

     0004 : 001F : 01 : 0005 : FFFD : 00000000A80A00000000000000000000
[prim 0x001F] Set to Next (Stack Object ID 0x0000, Sim (pets, humans), disabled objects included: False)

That's what PJSE tells me.