Going off lot can be useful

[Lion]

The ability to order some sim to go off lot for a while can be useful for running a medieval or jungle hood, where sims don't take carpool to go to work; or if you want to have a complete control over your hood's economic system where not a single penny goes unaccounted for, and use Jordan's employee no double dip, and it bothers you that they have way too much time at home; or even if you let them go to work (and deduct their wages like I do, because those money comes from nowhere), and most of your playables are employees, and therefore a couple always go to work at the same time, which makes it very hard to cheat (even though ACR contains the woohoo effect within rooms, they can still inappropriately show affection in common areas).

Currently "go hiking" in FT gets a sim to go off lot, but only for an hour (as far as I can see), that's not long enough. Smonaff at MTS2 has a jogging mod up to 4 hours. But it is not long enough for an 8-hour work day, and you don't always want your sims to be super fit.

I saw somewhere a mod that makes a sim go off lot shopping. [EDIT]  I found it, it is Dizzy's stuff face mod, and it is NOT autonomous. But I still don't want unaccounted food source.

I can also just delete them and then summon them back after a while. But they come back all green. It takes quite a while to modify each of their motives every time. And you also need to keep track of their motives before they leave the lot, and then do some addition and subtraction. That's just too much work.

So what I'm asking here is if somebody awesome can make it possible to make a family member or more go off lot while you keep playing the family for a flexible number of hours. Somewhat like uni students go off lot to visit campus, but definitely not that compulsive as Maxis implemented, and not bringing home pizza, or anything for that matter. If it can be made to choose autonomous or non-autonomous, that will be more realistic, but probably not necessary. Non-autonomous is more important than autonomous in the scenarios I can think of. My hunch is to base on the "go hiking" and include time choices, minus the random "meet so-and-so", and plus proper motive decay.

When it comes to the motive decay, I'm thinking it maybe makes sense to differentiate between go to work (comes home very tired, less fun and comfort, not completely starving because they have lunch at work, like Maxis jobs, and no money), go to town (comes home with more fun and not as tired), and go longer hiking (comes home very tired, but with more fun). Although I will be very happy just to have them disappear for up to 8 hours and come home not completely green.

[pixiejuice]

Sorry, I'm not awesome.  But I like these ideas.

[dusty]

Squinge used to have something that let the 'take a spin' in a car action be extended.  It would pop up a box asking if you wanted the sims to come back yet or something. I am reasonably sure that their motives decayed while off-lot, but it's a long time since I had it installed. It was called something like 'cruise till you're done' if you wanted to look on the graveyard, but with the car thing it may not suit your theme. 

[Pyromaniac]

There's always crammyboy's community time project hack (here). My business families can't live without it.

[J. M. Pescado]

Psychic perception only extends to the moment of woohoo anyway. 1 hour should be all you need, since you can hit engage the moment they leave.

[Lion]

Squinge used to have something that let the 'take a spin' in a car action be extended.  It would pop up a box asking if you wanted the sims to come back yet or something. I am reasonably sure that their motives decayed while off-lot, but it's a long time since I had it installed. It was called something like 'cruise till you're done' if you wanted to look on the graveyard, but with the car thing it may not suit your theme. 

Yeah, now I remember. I used to have it even. I'll dig it out. I hope it works on custom vehicles, I can have a horse or something. Thank you very much dusty!

Psychic perception only extends to the moment of woohoo anyway. 1 hour should be all you need, since you can hit engage the moment they leave.

That actually sounds good, more challenging and exciting, except woohoo is not the problem (ACR limits its effect within a room). The problem is the love birds will inevitably greet each other romantically, and kiss, flirt, and more under the influence of ACR. I don't think one hour is enough to call the sim over, greet, jump in bed, get done, and say goodbye, is it?

There's always crammyboy's community time project hack (here). My business families can't live without it.

I never thought of using it, because of its highly experimental status. Now after a second look, the "Home lot progresses normally but the sims are shown as away at a community lot" feature does sound very enticing. But I'm a little not sure. Do I bring the "away" sim to the actually work site and work for eight hours (and the business will run smoothly with the owner and other employees present)? How do you use it, Pyromaniac? Any caveat or advise before I embark on it?

[seelindarun]

An hour might be enough for the evil deed, but even with the whole Awesome suite of romance hacks, quite a few married sims will freak about flirting, and kissing.  I wouldn't have it any other way, since no jealousy at all would be boring.

If I torture my romance sims with marriage, I let them get it on at comm lots as consolation.  Sure the hubby could show up as a walk-by, but if you stompinate all the risk, where's the fun? 

[Sleepycat]

 (ACR limits its effect within a room)

no it dosen't 

[zoebme]

There's always crammyboy's community time project hack (here). My business families can't live without it.

I never thought of using it, because of its highly experimental status. Now after a second look, the "Home lot progresses normally but the sims are shown as away at a community lot" feature does sound very enticing. But I'm a little not sure. Do I bring the "away" sim to the actually work site and work for eight hours (and the business will run smoothly with the owner and other employees present)? How do you use it, Pyromaniac? Any caveat or advise before I embark on it?

I love that mod and have had no problems with it. You take your "away" sim normally to a community lot or owned business lot and play him for as long as you want him to be away. The community lot or business will work as usual. When you make your sim go home, the home lot will load, but the "away" sim will not reappear immediately. Instead, he will be off world until the time he spent on the community lot has also passed on the home lot. The motives of the "away" sim will be like they were when he left the community lot.

Just bear in mind that sims are very slow in everything they do, so a lot of time seems to pass on a community lot or in the business very quickly, without your sim having done much. I can live with that, though. Just try out if it works for you.

[pixiejuice]

Just bear in mind that sims are very slow in everything they do, so a lot of time seems to pass on a community lot or in the business very quickly, without your sim having done much. I can live with that, though. Just try out if it works for you.

Don't forget about the sethour cheat.  I use it all the time with the community time project.  I send my sim to the business at 9 a.m., and home at 5 p.m., but very often I end up setting back the hour while I'm there to get more done. 

[zoebme]

Now there's an idea! I hadn't thought of that. I'll try that next time they take 2 hours for a pee again...

[doren]

Just bear in mind that sims are very slow in everything they do, so a lot of time seems to pass on a community lot or in the business very quickly, without your sim having done much. I can live with that, though. Just try out if it works for you.

Don't forget about the sethour cheat.  I use it all the time with the community time project.  I send my sim to the business at 9 a.m., and home at 5 p.m., but very often I end up setting back the hour while I'm there to get more done. 

I thought this cheat only worked with the original game or am I getting this mixed up with Sims 1?

[Lion]

 (ACR limits its effect within a room)

no it dosen't 

  No, it doesn't. Just found out. It used to, before the ACR era, didn't it?

Just bear in mind that sims are very slow in everything they do, so a lot of time seems to pass on a community lot or in the business very quickly, without your sim having done much.

That might be very good, lol! Thanks for the tips.

The rtfm says "Community lots can not be saved unless they are owned business lots for that sim family." Say I have an employee, as the "away" sim, visit the work site,  will the owner and other employees show up and the business run as usual and everybody earn money as usual? If it is a manufacturing site, will the newly produced items added to the owner's inventory (or newly sold items deducted from the owner's inventory if it is a retail site)?

[maxon]

Don't forget about the sethour cheat.  I use it all the time with the community time project.  I send my sim to the business at 9 a.m., and home at 5 p.m., but very often I end up setting back the hour while I'm there to get more done. 

I thought this cheat only worked with the original game or am I getting this mixed up with Sims 1?

Nope - works up to BV at least (don't have FT yet).  I use it all the time.

[Lion]

Sethour works for FT.

Squinge's 'cruise till you're done' is still working, very well.