Database IS ready

[Pegasys]

And sometimes there are issues with adding partners - I have to add both partners to the database before creating the partnership, otherwise it only appears on one sim's record.  You know how creating the partnership can create the second sim?  Well when it does that, their relationships panel is blank.  Adding the partnership to their record then leads to a duplicate record on the original sim - and working out which one is the 'duplicate' record just does not work!

Vecsta or anyone else who has had this issue -

I have tried reproducing this problem several times and can't. The only way I get a similar result is if there is another Sim with the exact same name. I suspect you may have had duplicate names in the database. I should have mentioned this earlier, but as Zythe recognized, the database goes a little funky with duplicate names. At least one character in the first or last name needs to be different. I think I'm going to add a warning message when somebody tries to enter a duplicate name.

If this is NOT the problem, please let me know, and please provide any extra detail as to how this problem occurs.

[SaraMK]

I was going to post this in a new thread, but I think it is relevant to this one.

I just realized that I already have all the info on the Maxis families, and it would be selfish not to share it. It might be useful to some of you. I slapped it all into HTML, and the formatting is absolutely hideous (sorry). All the info is there except DNA (only expressed traits are included) and LTW and Turn on/offs. LTW and Turns on/offs can't be compiled because they seem to be randomly generated when you load the game, so they are different in each person's game.

Anyway, I only uploaded Veronaville so far, and the file is under 20kb so you might as well download it and see if it is at all helpful to you.

http://www.geocities.com/saramkirk/maxis_sims/index.html

[Pegasys]

So when can we expect this wonderful new update?  Not that I'm pressuring you or anything.    I assume we will be able to update the one we are using without loss of data?

Umm... soon ??  In Sim days or realtime? 
I was originally hoping by Nov. 1 but I'm not quite so sure of that date anymore. But yes, barring unforseen circumstances, you will be able to transfer the data you've already entered into the new update. 

One thing I am excited about is that it appears I've got the relationship indicators working. In other words, you'll be able to see how Sims are related by: father, mother, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, etc.

[witch]

For something this cool Microsoft Time TM will be fine. 

[Bangelnuts]

For something this cool Microsoft Time TM will be fine. 

Ditto I love it already and it will be even better in the newest version when it comes out

[vecki]

And sometimes there are issues with adding partners - I have to add both partners to the database before creating the partnership, otherwise it only appears on one sim's record.  You know how creating the partnership can create the second sim?  Well when it does that, their relationships panel is blank.  Adding the partnership to their record then leads to a duplicate record on the original sim - and working out which one is the 'duplicate' record just does not work!

Vecsta or anyone else who has had this issue -

I have tried reproducing this problem several times and can't. The only way I get a similar result is if there is another Sim with the exact same name. I suspect you may have had duplicate names in the database. I should have mentioned this earlier, but as Zythe recognized, the database goes a little funky with duplicate names. At least one character in the first or last name needs to be different. I think I'm going to add a warning message when somebody tries to enter a duplicate name.

If this is NOT the problem, please let me know, and please provide any extra detail as to how this problem occurs.

Do you mean as in the sim you are trying to create a relationship for or just having a duplicate floating around the system?  I did have 2 Bella Goths (I had been including parents of active sims with their own personal records until I noticed the system didn't like duplicates) and changed the elder one to Bella Bachelor-Goth, but the problem was still there.  I've since deleted the premade dead sims I'd included.

I don't have any new sims to add at the moment to test this out but I'll give it a shot with some random names at the next opportunity.

[Bangelnuts]

And sometimes there are issues with adding partners - I have to add both partners to the database before creating the partnership, otherwise it only appears on one sim's record.  You know how creating the partnership can create the second sim?  Well when it does that, their relationships panel is blank.  Adding the partnership to their record then leads to a duplicate record on the original sim - and working out which one is the 'duplicate' record just does not work!

Vecsta or anyone else who has had this issue -

I have tried reproducing this problem several times and can't. The only way I get a similar result is if there is another Sim with the exact same name. I suspect you may have had duplicate names in the database. I should have mentioned this earlier, but as Zythe recognized, the database goes a little funky with duplicate names. At least one character in the first or last name needs to be different. I think I'm going to add a warning message when somebody tries to enter a duplicate name.

If this is NOT the problem, please let me know, and please provide any extra detail as to how this problem occurs.

Do you mean as in the sim you are trying to create a relationship for or just having a duplicate floating around the system?  I did have 2 Bella Goths (I had been including parents of active sims with their own personal records until I noticed the system didn't like duplicates) and changed the elder one to Bella Bachelor-Goth, but the problem was still there.  I've since deleted the premade dead sims I'd included.

I don't have any new sims to add at the moment to test this out but I'll give it a shot with some random names at the next opportunity.

hmm I have to Bella Goths  in my game one is the original and the other is a clone and lives in a different neighborhood

[katemonster]

 I could just pick a random year in the recent past (1980 maybe) and use real-life dates for sim days.

This is what I'm going to do. I've got myself and my boyfriend in my neighborhood (in game, we are married with four ugly, ugly kids...too bad, neither of us is that bad-looking in the game or even in real life) and I'm going to give each of us our real birth date, then assign birthdates to all other sims based on differences in ages between siblings and differences between parents and children. I'm also going to try to link most birth dates to their star signs, just for fun, though it won't work with twins (most have different signs) or with those modeled on real people (cause I want to give us our real birthdays.) I'm actually excited about this part of it, and I have 95 sims. Probably will be less excited by the time I'm done...

Anyway--I played with this for several hours last night. At first there were some things I didn't like and found non-intuitive (the way you can't double-click a sim from the list to get to that sim's record--I had a hard time navigating around this until I realized you can click the "back" arrow and get the sim you want, but this took me a long time to figure out) but by the end I was having a good time.

One thing I would like changed is the "rank" for children. It seems that each child is only allowed to have one rank, but this doesn't work when sims have children with multiple different partners--I'd like for the rank to be assigned to the parent and not the child, if that makes sense. So if Andrea is Ellie's fourth child and her first three were by other men, I can have Carl's file say that Andrea is his first child, and not his fourth. Because that looks weird, when he only has one child.

Another thing is perhaps it could be possible to change the names of the "mother" and "father" field? I have a gay couple with three adopted kids and it kind of weirded me out to have to decide which of them was the mother. Although I'm not actually sure what I'd prefer to call them.

I would also love to have MORE REPORTS! And statistics, if at all possible! And graphs!

I would also probably die of sheer joy if you could make it actually diagram family trees. This is probably unrealistic, but I'm *thrilled* that you've got the relationship thing working, anyway. I've been keeping track of this by hand, and it's kind of annoying, what with all my sims with children by multiple partners--there are some complicated relationships in this generation.

Lastly, I'd like to add my voice to the worshipful clamor: this was a fantastic idea and thank you so much for making it public. I am having way, way too much fun with this.

[SaraMK]

Another thing is perhaps it could be possible to change the names of the "mother" and "father" field? I have a gay couple with three adopted kids and it kind of weirded me out to have to decide which of them was the mother. Although I'm not actually sure what I'd prefer to call them.

I also find this a bit of an annoyance.

My suggestion is to make the labels into drop-down menus. So instead of it just being a label it would be a drop-down menu and you could select "mother" or "father." Then you could have all the combinations. But I don't know if it could then still handle the automated creation of the second parent's file.

[greeneyedsims]

I have been waiting for a program like this!!  I just accidentally ran into this thread, and can't believe my eyes!  I can't wait to try this out.  Thaaank you so much! 

I will report back after I've put it to some use.  I just had to start my game completely over.   So, I'll put the two new families in.  *doin' a happy dance!*

I like to enter data!  I'm weird like that. 

[Pegasys]

Katemonster,

Thanks for your feedback! You pointed out something that was an oversight on my part - that the rank will be different depending upon parent. Hmmm. There's no easy way to correct this - everything in the add-a-child part is tied to the *child*, not the parent and making it otherwise would be a major reworking. Thus, I should probably remove the rank field, which would force people to use the Birth Date field to rank the children, but I know people find the Birth date field and date fields in general awkward.

This brings me to the whole conundrum (and it is a conundrum for me) about Sim dates/Sim days, because real-life dates don't seem to express what's happening in the game, but when one uses Sim days to mark certain points in time, it's too relative... to say, for example, a Sim is born on Sim Day 15 - day 15 relative to what? The mom's age? The father's age? The household age? And later on to have in a birthday field "Born on Day 15"  out of context seems strange.

Benes (ha ha  ) to anyone and everyone who has some good suggestions in this area.

Having the Mother and Father field titles a drop down is a good idea, however it's a bit tricky so I don't know that this will be implemented right away. For properly assigning *blood* relationships, it is important that the Mother be in the Mother field and Father be in the Father field (and not vice versa).  However, you have reminded me that for gay relationships and adoptions I need to look into this further (otherwise the database might say that a gay man is a grandmother, which of course doesn't make any sense).

More reports, statistics, all doable. Graphing, not really doable, unfortunately. If I could do family trees they would be very very static not dynamically generated like true family tree software, or even the in-game family trees generated by the Sims 2.

It appears I've got relationship thing working - except in the case of adoption and gay partners (which I will try to resolve). Also just to let you know up front - at least right now, it will only be blood relationships, not "step" or "in-law" or "wife of," etc. Right now what seems to be working is determining:
mother, father, brother, sister, half-brother, half-sister, uncle, aunt, half-uncle, half-aunt, nephew, niece, half-nephew, half-niece, cousin, grandmother, grandfather, granddaughter, grandson, great grandmother, great grandfather, great granddaughter, great grandson. Cousin will only be first cousin. It will flag other relatives but other than these will be noted as "Distant Relative." (So a 1st cousin 3ce removed would simply be a "Distant Relative").

[Lynda]

This brings me to the whole conundrum (and it is a conundrum for me) about Sim dates/Sim days, because real-life dates don't seem to express what's happening in the game, but when one uses Sim days to mark certain points in time, it's too relative... to say, for example, a Sim is born on Sim Day 15 - day 15 relative to what? The mom's age? The father's age? The household age? And later on to have in a birthday field "Born on Day 15"  out of context seems strange.

I have no idea if it will help, but I'll explain how I use Sim Days.  Sim Day 1 is the first day I play the neighborhood.  Therefore, the adults I started with in CAS were born on negative Sim Day twenty-something (I can't recall off the top of my head how many "days" sims live before reaching adult.  Somewhere between 26-28 I believe). [other side note, I call a negative Sim Day "BS" for "Before Sims".  ].  Everything in the neighborhood is run based on that.  So if someone is born on Sim Day 15, it's the 15th Sim Day I've been playing the neighborhood.

I can imagine Sim Days would be pretty tricky since people use different frames of reference for "Sim Day 1"

[Bangelnuts]

This brings me to the whole conundrum (and it is a conundrum for me) about Sim dates/Sim days, because real-life dates don't seem to express what's happening in the game, but when one uses Sim days to mark certain points in time, it's too relative... to say, for example, a Sim is born on Sim Day 15 - day 15 relative to what? The mom's age? The father's age? The household age? And later on to have in a birthday field "Born on Day 15"  out of context seems strange.

I have no idea if it will help, but I'll explain how I use Sim Days.  Sim Day 1 is the first day I play the neighborhood.  Therefore, the adults I started with in CAS were born on negative Sim Day twenty-something (I can't recall off the top of my head how many "days" sims live before reaching adult.  Somewhere between 26-28 I believe). [other side note, I call a negative Sim Day "BS" for "Before Sims".  ].  Everything in the neighborhood is run based on that.  So if someone is born on Sim Day 15, it's the 15th Sim Day I've been playing the neighborhood.

I can imagine Sim Days would be pretty tricky since people use different frames of reference for "Sim Day 1"

according to simpe and enhancer  the life span of a sim from birth to adulthood is 26 sim days. 3 as babies, 4 as toddlers ,8 as children,and 14 as teenagers if you  dont send them to Uni. Uni adds 12 days to their life span as young adults

[Pegasys]

I have no idea if it will help, but I'll explain how I use Sim Days.  Sim Day 1 is the first day I play the neighborhood.  Therefore, the adults I started with in CAS were born on negative Sim Day twenty-something (I can't recall off the top of my head how many "days" sims live before reaching adult.  Somewhere between 26-28 I believe). [other side note, I call a negative Sim Day "BS" for "Before Sims".  ].  Everything in the neighborhood is run based on that.  So if someone is born on Sim Day 15, it's the 15th Sim Day I've been playing the neighborhood.

I can imagine Sim Days would be pretty tricky since people use different frames of reference for "Sim Day 1"

So if you started a new neighborhood, moved in your first family, they'd start on Sim Day 1. Let's say you play them for 5 Sim Days. Then you start another family. Do you start them on Sim Day 1, or Sim Day 5? I guess you get to choose when that family enters the neighborhood, some would be in on the beginning, others would arrive later. Hmmm. It's interesting. But I'm pondering how one could try to calculate Sim Days for a neighborhood that's been up and running awhile.

Edited to add: Also what do you do with "aging off" if you play that way? Do the Sim Days advance?

Thanks for your input, Lynda.  Gives me food for thought. 

[Pegasys]

Do you mean as in the sim you are trying to create a relationship for or just having a duplicate floating around the system?

Sims you are trying to create a relationship for. Having a duplicate floating around in the database won't harm the database but it will always try to link up the *first* person who has a given name and won't connect subsequent Sims with the exact same names. So you can have them in the database but not do much with them.

[Lynda]

So if you started a new neighborhood, moved in your first family, they'd start on Sim Day 1. Let's say you play them for 5 Sim Days. Then you start another family. Do you start them on Sim Day 1, or Sim Day 5?

Sim Day 5.  Sim Days are regardless of individual families the way I play.

But I'm pondering how one could try to calculate Sim Days for a neighborhood that's been up and running awhile.

While I think it could probably be technically POSSIBLE to do this, I think it would prove to be far too much hassle for those who don't keep track of their sim days like I do.

Edited to add: Also what do you do with "aging off" if you play that way? Do the Sim Days advance?

I don't play with aging off, ever.

I think another use of "Sim Days" could be the number of days playing a specific HOUSEHOLD, regardless of the rest of the neighborhood.  In this case, "Sim Days" could progress while aging is off.  It wouldn't really be tied to any other household in the neighborhood though.

[Andygal]

I have no idea if it will help, but I'll explain how I use Sim Days.  Sim Day 1 is the first day I play the neighborhood.  Therefore, the adults I started with in CAS were born on negative Sim Day twenty-something (I can't recall off the top of my head how many "days" sims live before reaching adult.  Somewhere between 26-28 I believe). [other side note, I call a negative Sim Day "BS" for "Before Sims".  Wink].  Everything in the neighborhood is run based on that.  So if someone is born on Sim Day 15, it's the 15th Sim Day I've been playing the neighborhood.

the maximum time it can take if you let them autotransition to their next life stage each time instead of growing them up a day early is 30 days. 3 as a baby 4 as a toddler, 8 as a child and 15 as a teen. This is without Uni of course.

[katemonster]

I'd really like the "date" fields to just be made flexible--so that you can put in days if you choose or real-date formats like I'm doing. I'd also like to be able to put in just a year instead of a full date (ie for graduations).

I'm finding it really hard to do this real-date thing, although it's not as bad as I expected--I think I only have one sim who's a "child" and sixteen years older than a "teen"  I need to do some catching up with some houses tonight.

[Pegasys]

Well I've pretty much decided, based on feedback here (plus my own while playing the game) the dates will no longer be restricted to a real date format, but will be more flexible so that you can enter text (such as "Sim Day 211"), plain numbers, or dates if you choose. This does mean that the sorting will not necessarily work with dates in the standard format (mm/dd/yyyy) unless you put the year first 2005-11-12, etc. but I think everyone conceives of dates in different ways and the database is not meant to impose a certain way of thinking.

[Bangelnuts]

Well I've pretty much decided, based on feedback here (plus my own while playing the game) the dates will no longer be restricted to a real date format, but will be more flexible so that you can enter text (such as "Sim Day 211"), plain numbers, or dates if you choose. This does mean that the sorting will not necessarily work with dates in the standard format (mm/dd/yyyy) unless you put the year first 2005-11-12, etc. but I think everyone conceives of dates in different ways and the database is not meant to impose a certain way of thinking.

thanks for the info

[Zythe]

Could you rename mother and father "parent a" and "parent b" and possibly make it so that when you create a new sim the db generates a unique id for them so that if I have two sims with the same name they don't get strangely merged in places?

[Pegasys]

Could you rename mother and father "parent a" and "parent b" and possibly make it so that when you create a new sim the db generates a unique id for them so that if I have two sims with the same name they don't get strangely merged in places?

Will consider about ways to rename the parents but if there is a mother it *has* to go in the first field, father in the second in order for the relatives calculations (upcoming) to work. I might consider putting in "Mother/parent A" but there's little space for that label in the main "Family" tab right now, so I'd prefer some alternative like a drop down, which I will look into.

And the DB does generate a unique ID for the Sims behind the scenes. This is why you can rename the Sims and things still work. However,  I prefer that the ID  not be needed or seen in data entry, which is why it relies on unique names in selecting Sims for parents, children, and spouses. You can simply place any one additional letter or number anywhere in the first or last name to make it unique. For example, "Ivy Copur", "Ivy A. Copur" or "Ivy Copur 2", etc.  If I get a lot of feedback that people really want to have duplicate names I'll consider it but it's not a trivial change.

[NaelisSim]

I adore this!  Thank you so much.  I'd love if there was some way to track familiar relationships and for the married/joined partner to be called "spouse" instead of husband or wife, both of which have been mentioned.  I've been using this for a few days already and very, very nice.


NaelisSim

[Pegasys]

I adore this!  Thank you so much.  I'd love if there was some way to track familiar relationships and for the married/joined partner to be called "spouse" instead of husband or wife, both of which have been mentioned.  I've been using this for a few days already and very, very nice.


NaelisSim

You're welcome! Yes there will be a way to track familiar relationships;  definitely in the upcoming release. Soon! (I am alternately having a blast and getting really tired of this database at the same time...)

Actually the terms "husband" and "wife" are not used in the DB but "mother" and "father" are, which is what you're probably wondering about?

[NaelisSim]

Mother and father is probably it.  Sorry.  Oh, now of course I finally remembered the thing that hit me as maybe could be different: I have a 'hood full of siblings so I have three Walsh households.  I also have a woman's father living with her, her husband and their kids, and her father's last name is different from theirs, but they are still the same household.  All the Walsh households show up as one household and Ralph Albertini shows up in his own household.  Since I set up my hood with addresses, including a field for that as a way of sorting (I've seen where the address is on the tabs) could help with the multiple last names being seperate households.  I think I can fix Ralph's category, but I'll have to test that out later.  Again, I'm still loving this.  So much easier than the way I have been doing it.  Yes, I am anal and I do know it.


NaelisSim