Is there a way to change the sex of a baby in Sim PE?

[minonda]

If who initiated the woohoo had any bearing on the gender of the baby, then saving just before birth and reloading would never result in a different gender.  But JM has studied this, and I have observed in my own game that it doesn't matter who intiates the woohoo, the gender is chosen randomly at birth.   In case there is some kind of sadorandomness going on, try using the Rerandomize Sim Generator on the Lot Debugger.

I figured that idea of the sex being determined by the sex of the initiator was probably not true (no, that would make playing the game too easy), but I was just desperate enough to give it a try.

[minonda]

Just save right before the birth, then exit without saving again if it's the wrong sex. It's really that simple. You simply had a bad run.

I did try that, but after three tries got tired of it and let nature takes its course.

[Theo]

If the sims have an object that can perform instant facial surgery, why couldn't they have an instant sex-changing machine?

Having that in mind, I can't resist posting a transcript of the Rapidite commercial on San Andreas radio 

Man:
Sexual re-alignment used to require years of therapy, months of hormone treatments, and you still ended up looking like a drag queen.
Now you can let the woman inside come out in the comfort and privacy of your own home.
And it's as fast as this:

Man 2:
slice...

Man 2 (now with woman's voice):
See?  Now I'm a woman, thanks to Rapidite! 
This do-it-yourself sexual re-alignment kit includes everything you need to go from Brad to Brenda in a jif.
It's just snip, chop, stuff and swallow and away you go.
Do it in the bathroom and surprise your family with a new you!
Comes with an instructional video, rusty knife and tourniquet, two aspirins, and forty-seven pounds of estrogen.
It's all you need!  When it's time for a change, you want it fast.
Rapidite: the do-it-yourself sexual re-alignment kit.
Be exactly who you want to be.

[ElviraGoth]

Just save right before the birth, then exit without saving again if it's the wrong sex. It's really that simple. You simply had a bad run.

I did try that, but after three tries got tired of it and let nature takes its course.

I finally quit trying for a boy when Circe Beaker kept having a girl after 7 tries.  And, in those tries, I used the rerandomizer 3 times.  Just could not get a boy.

Sometimes you just have to accept what you get.

[jsalemi]

I finally quit trying for a boy when Circe Beaker kept having a girl after 7 tries.  And, in those tries, I used the rerandomizer 3 times.  Just could not get a boy.

Her first was a girl in my game, too.  But her second (and probably last) was a boy who's a toddler now.

[Orikes]

Seriously... before the next baby is born, like moments before, save the game. Let the mom have the baby. If it's a girl, exit without saving. Come back. Try again. The gender of the baby is not determined until the moment of birth.

I recently learned the truth of this trying to get twin girls. I got two boys, boy girl, girl boy, two boys, boy girl, two boys, and then FINALLY two girls. And this was all because I decided to do some sim surgery and get the right genetics on my alien girls (I thought I had one alien set up to be the Pollination Technician, but the default was still in there, making the babies uglier than I really wanted to deal with).

[RainbowTigress]

The exception to this rule is in the case of self-pollination, as in the case of Brandi Broke's third child which she is pregnant with when the game originally shipped.  This has been discussed and dissected ad nauseam, but basically, because the Skip who is the baby's father is unlinked and does not have character data, the baby gets its DNA from Brandi, and is always a boy.  (There are ways around this by changing stuff in SimPE, but that's been described elsewhere.)  Self-pollinations always result in the opposite gender from the "mother."  So if you self-pollinated a male, you'd always get a girl.  Otherwise, the baby's gender is determined randomly at birth.

[ElviraGoth]

That one WAS her second, which was why I kept trying for a boy!

I can usually get the opposite sex after two or three tries, but I've never had it go 7 times without change.  I just got tired of seeing poor Circe go through that so many times.

I did have one time when I was trying for a particular sex, and after 4 or 5 tries, I finally decided to quit the game and restart, just to see if it would make a difference.  Got what I wanted on her first "shooflee".  I just didn't think about that with Circe, or I probably would have done the same with her.

And I can't imagine replaying any more than a couple of sim hours over and over just to get the gender I wanted, unless they're sleeping.  I usually save at about 3 to 4 hours before the birth is due, because most of my sim mommys-to-be are tired and are going to be asleep anyway.  For some reason, I have more luck getting the right sex if I have a couple of sim-hours between save-time and birth-time.

I've had similar results with twins as well.  For my genetics hood, it was important that if a couple had twins that they be one of each. (I'm limiting each couple to two children - a boy and a girl, in no particular order.)  Kept getting both the same sex, and it took several tries to get one of each.  I don't get a lot of twins that are the same sex, so it surprised me that it took as many tries as it did.

[minonda]

This probably doesn't have any significance, but since I mentioned it earlier, I wanted to report that my female Sim who initiated woo hoo and became pregnant just gave  birth to a boy. Since I'd already had four girls, it was probably time for randomness to produce a boy, but it's tempting to believe that the BBS myth is really true. I know it's not, but I want to believe.

[jsalemi]

I don't know if there's any truth to it, but in my game it seems like it's ultimately trying to keep the hood someone balanced in the male/female ratio.  If I get a run of one sex (I usually don't care which) or add a couple of CAS sims of the same sex, it usually seems to me at not long after the game will go on a run of the  other sex to keep the total population near balance.  Others have reported a similar phenomena here in the past, but it's certainly not test verified.

In any case, it may not hurt to grab JMP's census tool, and take a look at the sex balance of the hood, both playables and non-playables. If there is a noticeably higher number of males, the sadorandom generator may have just been insisting on restoring the balance.

I don't think you've mentioned it -- have you tried using the re-randomize function in the Lot Debugger before the baby is born?  I run it before every birth in my game, and haven't had the 'First Born' effect since I started using it.  Maybe re-randomizing might get your game off being stuck on giving Circe a girl.

[minonda]

In any case, it may not hurt to grab JMP's census tool, and take a look at the sex balance of the hood, both playables and non-playables. If there is a noticeably higher number of males, the sadorandom generator may have just been insisting on restoring the balance.

I don't think you've mentioned it -- have you tried using the re-randomize function in the Lot Debugger before the baby is born?  I run it before every birth in my game, and haven't had the 'First Born' effect since I started using it.  Maybe re-randomizing might get your game off being stuck on giving Circe a girl.

Maybe there is a balance inherent in the game. I haven't had a chance to get beyond generation 2 because every time I play a neighborhood something horrific happens and I have to start over again (or at least, I thought I had to start over again because of my lack of knowledge) so I haven't had a chance to observe the balancing over time. Most likely that much-hoped-for baby boy would have arrived even if the initiating Sim was male. With any luck at all I will be able to see what happens as I move on to generation 3 and beyond.

I am ashamed to admit that in the throes of my last catastrophic problem, I uninstalled every hack I had, so I don't have the lot debugger. I did have it but hadn't used it. At the moment I'm afraid to use anything extra since I had some weird, game-spoiling problems when I had hacks installed. The first big problem came when I downloaded InSIMenator. At the time I had JM's Macrostatics, Auto-Yak and one other Auto-Something. After the catastrophe (which is how it was described by someone on the InSIMenator board) I removed InSIM and Macrostatics.

Then about a week later I installed a few hacks (no more than 3) from this site and one from ModtheSims2. Everything went fine. Then I downloaded a bunch of hacks, and had the catastrophic problem again (in which the lot acts like it's a community lot and I can't quit or save, and there seems to be some issue with the car) so I uninstalled everything.

If I ever get the nerve to use a hack again, I will try your suggestion. In the meantime, I will trust that Maxis has built in some long-term neighborhood-balancing thing so my Sims can propagate without me creating mates just for them.

[J. M. Pescado]

Then about a week later I installed a few hacks (no more than 3) from this site and one from ModtheSims2. Everything went fine. Then I downloaded a bunch of hacks, and had the catastrophic problem again (in which the lot acts like it's a community lot and I can't quit or save, and there seems to be some issue with the car) so I uninstalled everything.

If a Residential lot develops this problem and you retain control over selectable sims, simply use "Restore UI" on the lot debugger, which will unblock save/exit/buy/build. This is a harmless nuisance that occasionally happens, particularly in connection with lot transportation or burglars. Naturally, the lot debugger needs to be there in advance! APO will also contains an option for this under SHIFT-CLICK.

Macrotastics is Awesome and you should never be without it! It is clearly more awesome than you.

If I ever get the nerve to use a hack again, I will try your suggestion. In the meantime, I will trust that Maxis has built in some long-term neighborhood-balancing thing so my Sims can propagate without me creating mates just for them.

I wouldn't count on it. If the "balancer" theoretically exists, and there is some degree of statistical evidence for it, it is flawed. Firstly, it is believed that there is a bias towards male NPCs, as there are supposedly more NPCs which are always male than those which are always female. If not, then the bias is likely in the other direction.

Secondly, my playable neighborhood currently skews about 60/70 M/F. However, the "full census" is somewhat more balanced, suggesting the bulk of the male population is concentrated in the nonplayables. Of course, most of us do not marry non-playables, for a certain good reason! Marrying NPCs is liable to create more of them, and if thus marry the surplus "male" NPCs, more males, as they may be required to be male, will spawn to replace them, thus skewing the ratio even MORE. Also, most non-playables simply cannot be considered breedable material, being either of inappropriate personality, too hideous to behold, possess NPC codes that wig out when moved in, or simply are NPCs and thus undesirable because they self-respawn, skewing the ratio again.

Thirdly, the count is often off due to elders, whose partners may have died already. If old lady's husband kicks it, you PROBABLY aren't looking to remarry her off, as this won't produce another generation, and will disrupt your marriage lines. Plus she may kick it in a few days as well. However, the game will count the orphaned elder in its "balance", and thus spawn more of the other. This produces a vicious cycle: For instance, a surplus of females is created. Due to insufficient playable males, they thus marry later in life, older than their mates: They die first, and their dying skews the ratio again towards males, so the game tries to compensate by creating MORE females, which simply perpetuates the same problem ad infinitum.

Fourthly, the game has no way of measuring your intent to breed: Some sims you may not have any intention of ever breeding (vampires), or may not be physically capable of it (robots, zombies). These are counted in the ratio anyway, and skew things. You *DO* tend to have more control over this, and can use it to stack the deck back the way YOU want it: If you have a running surplus of females, and you turn them into vampires and don't breed them, they'll serve as a "drag weight" on the surplus nonplayable males and bring the spawn ratio back into balance.

All in all, however, the balancing system, if it exists, is BROKEN and will generally worsen, rather than alleviate, existing population dynamics issues. Homosexual pairings will further exacerbate existing problems.

[minonda]

Macrotastics is Awesome and you should never be without it! It is clearly more awesome than you.

[I wouldn't count on it. If the "balancer" theoretically exists, and there is some degree of statistical evidence for it, it is flawed. Firstly, it is believed that there is a bias towards male NPCs, as there are supposedly more NPCs which are always male than those which are always female. If not, then the bias is likely in the other direction.

All in all, however, the balancing system, if it exists, is BROKEN and will generally worsen, rather than alleviate, existing population dynamics issues.

Wow, JM! I really and truly AM in awe of you. Thank you for this mini-treatise, most of which I admit I have trouble following, but which is fascinating information nonetheless. I wish you would write a book about the Sims 2 -- there's obviously so much going on in there that a player like me has no conception of.

And of course, Macrostatics is more awesome than I.  Awesomeness is one quality I never claimed to have, at least when it comes to .... whatever all this is called. Ok, I will download the lot debugger and Macrostatics again. Thank you again. It took two days, but I got a real answer out of you!

[J. M. Pescado]

I'm not much of a book writer. If I had to write something the size of a Prima Guide, without someone to remind me of what I was talking about, I'd forget what I was talking about and go off on some side tangent in an extended rant.

[Avalikia]

But it would be a facinating read anyway, I'm sure.

[ElviraGoth]

I don't think you've mentioned it -- have you tried using the re-randomize function in the Lot Debugger before the baby is born?  I run it before every birth in my game, and haven't had the 'First Born' effect since I started using it.  Maybe re-randomizing might get your game off being stuck on giving Circe a girl.

If you're referring to me, read reply #28.  I use the rerandomize function of the debugger every time I enter a lot where a birth is going to occur during the time I'll be playing the lot.  And if I exit without saving more than twice to get the other sex, I use it again.  I don't usually have to reload the lot more than 3 or 4 times.

It seems like all my hoods want to spit out more girls than boys, which could give some credence to what JM said about the NPCs being mostly male and trying to balance the ratio.  At least, that could be true in my game!